Anonymizer: Why do this internet privacy protection company have a GCHQ logo?

[starwarp2000]

You guys might be interested in some leaked ION Company Documents from WikiLeaks:

Such gems as:

Gathering Open Source Intelligence Anonymously
Anatomy of a Social Network: Finding Hidden Connections and True Influencers in Target Data
   
https://wikileaks.silk.co/page/ION-Internet-Operations-Network

https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/docs/NTREPID_2011_IONInteOper_en.html

[Pimander]

Having read some of that information I am tempted to hire them.

Of course, being involved with providing services for spooks hardly inspires confidence that they don't have back doors in their proprietary technologies or that they won't record what you do.  I'd even suggest that even if the company do not sell data to the NSA and GCHQ then some of their employees will work for said organisations.

I am so tempted to set up a company myself to protect online identities and so forth.  I'd also like to make it easier for people to leak information to us securely but I don't trust the companies who sell these services.  It is a shame as they do have promise for activists overseas, privacy protection, human rights campaigning, politics and more.

It is so difficult to work out who to trust.  Is it surprising we get paranoid.  (No I'm not a terrorist.)

[Sinny]

Just because your paranoid, does not mean they're not out to get you..

As a side note, it might be an idea to start compiling a list of 'their' public and private security forces.

I know I've accidentily stumbled across a few obscure one's this year, with some rather interesting pojects going on.

Things have 'stepped up' a few notches in the UK, like they were behind schedual, and had some catching up to do - sharpish.

Tories trying to push through things everywhere, in a manner so that it's hard to keep up.

I have a feeling Labour might come around next, but they will continue with the Tory model. If this happens, I think this is the ultimate time we need to go to war with our political parties (or the system as a whole, from a tin hat point of view).

We'll all be out of work and on food ration cards in 3 years -_-

Hell to the muvaf#### no!

[Wrabbit2000]

  If you are dealing with leaked government material or want to protect your sources then you can't be too careful. 

You do raise a good point I need to start thinking about on the Sources side of it. It's something I hadn't really thought of that much, since I haven't dealt with anyone in pursuing journalism to this point who shared anything beyond what could be devastating to a private individual. The 'worst' of that sort of thing wasn't even shared in the context of my story writing anyway, so it hadn't really crossed my mind. Hmm... Yeah, Uncle Sam is working hard on violating privacy to such things these days, eh?

As far as me personally? My first business contact with the FBI was on the wrong side of an interrogation table when I was 21. You may have heard of the case.... A little twit in Oklahoma decided to park a truck downtown and let it explode in a very rude way. I happened to be a few hundred miles away in a trucking classroom on that morning (which saved my bacon..since I was basically a 'drifter' by choice for the year or more before that...err...that would have been more than awkward). So, I figure that started my Federal file and there it's been since. Of course, half a dozen work related background checks for federal regulations and what I go through to maintain a CCW permit tends to say 'they' don't see anything too objectionable, but I honestly don't give the issue that much time to care.

They are literally drowning in an ocean of data while losing trust from within toward those who handle it and make sense of it. Instead of pausing to get better at handling what they have? They're not even slowing down in adding ways to collect even more info. More and more....atop what they cannot properly use for the occasional useful task now. (Real attacks they miss.... Bogus attack intel they publicly wet their pants and close Embassies over....and pretty much nothing having worked domestically but to piss off the public).

The watchers are their own worst enemy and it reminds me of the man who would give everything to be King, only to find himself King of a poisoned realm. It's having everything, to the point of having nothing. I do give the whole system time for personal amusement tho. There is plenty of that these days.

[Pimander]

I have a feeling Labour might come around next, but they will continue with the Tory model. If this happens, I think this is the ultimate time we need to go to war with our political parties (or the system as a whole, from a tin hat point of view).

I think there is scope for a new mass movement to challenge the big parties.  Labour are no longer likely to represent the many.

We all want liberty, privacy, fairness and protection of our culture from alien cultures.  Doesn't sound that confusing really does it?  That is the potential power of such a movement.

Because building such a movement will be a threat, the undemocratic forces that would move against it would require the core membership to be very well protected when operating online.

Hell to the muvaf#### no!

Here here.

[Pimander]

As far as me personally? My first business contact with the FBI was on the wrong side of an interrogation table when I was 21.

There is a file on me too (in the UK).  I was a bit of a campaigner and involved with radical politics when younger.  I am told just being arrested at an anti-capitalist demo can get you listed as a category 3 terrorist!  That is without being convicted of any crime.  Supposedly in a democracy.  Interestingly the file has never stopped me working under the official secrets act so make of that what you will.

I agree with your sentiment about the king of a poisoned kingdom.  The idea they have worked on is that the end justifies the means.  I think that often the means determines the end.