Posted on 08/22/2013 5:09:23 AM PDT by Errant
Many of us rely on the internet for many things. We find information, solve problems, pursue our interests, read news, make purchase, and socially connect with like minded people around the world. Granting access to American spy agencies to this level of information on American citizens is the most egregious assault on our constitutional rights regarding illegal search and seizure in the history of our country. As one of the original authors of the Patriot Act recently put it, they never intended the law to be used to snarf up mass amounts of data on unsuspecting American citizens. I think most of us already knew this was going on to some extent, but clearly this has far exceeded the original boundaries set forth by Congress.
I don’t think companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook or Yahoo are inherently bad. They collect this data to provide a higher level of targeted advertising and services for their users. Unfortunately, because of minimal oversight, the government is bending the rules to secretly obtain their data. Not surprisingly, we now have additional whistleblowers coming forward and making the allegation that this data is being used to blackmail members of congress, judges, supreme court justices and officials. Whether this will bear out and continue to be true given the test of time we don’t know, but it is very troubling after the recent revelations about the IRS admitting to targeting specific groups because of their political affiliations. These are scandals that touch us all, democrats, republicans and libertarians alike.
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
Ping!
What I find creepy is that targeted ads are so specific to me. If I get really sick of ads, I’ll research cruises or a vacation spot or something like that so the ads that pop up are pictures of tropical destinations. <^..^>
I hate that too. I don’t use google or yahoo anymore and still they find ways to target me. I suspect it’s the websites themselves I visit doing it.
What if people just started sending strings of random characters?
Never mind, the strings would just be “decoded” into whatever they wanted to be said.
# 1 Don’t handout your personal information on social networks. I’ve een telling family members and friends that these sites just aren’t set up for your pleasure and amusement for years. They watch you online and are collecting data for profiles. Imagine if a government worker or census worker walked up to you and said, where do you live, where have you lived, what colleges did you attend, work, who are your friends / family members, what are your hobbies, where did you spend your money last, what bad habits do you have, what are your favorite foods, what type of books fo you like to read, where do you go shopping?, etc you’d tell him to go packng but idiot FB’ers do it everyday and wonder why they get so many telemarketing calls and spam plus viruses on their computers all the time...
> They collect this data to provide a higher level of targeted advertising and services for their users. Unfortunately, because of minimal oversight, the government is bending the rules to secretly obtain their data.
Oh I don’t think they’re getting it secretly. I bet the’re using tax $$$’s yo pay for it. Ever wonder why Zuckerberg is so rich?
lol
Don’t all of the search engines sell your information to advertisers? Besides that, it’s pretty obvious the sites you go to get back to you with future ads, even if you didn’t purchase anything. Could they be selling that information too?
No FB’er me... If someone wants me to know something about them and what’s going on in their life, they have to email me and attached pictures.
fl
What good does it do to use a secure search engine if the path to the search engine is like Swiss cheese.
VPN? IP Tunnel?
I am sick of my local ISP service since they partnered with Google for IP and email.
Would love to have a secure email service and search engine via secure connection to servers. Have had thoughts of running my own email server, but if the local ISP is already tapped, what point would it be?
I have no content or traffic that is important, but that is not the point. It is clear that Obozo is using this information to target his political opposition. This must be a clear violation of a dozen federal laws. But remember, Obozo declares he is above the law.
> No FB’er me... If someone wants me to know something about them and what’s going on in their life, they have to email me and attached pictures.
And even then they may not be that pretty lonely female they claim to be but rather a sick, twisted, and demented tranny with a wig on its head...: ^ )
All of the search engines above have secure (read that encrypted) SSL connections. Unless the provider turns the SSL key over to NSA, you can have a high degree of trust your search results are private. That is unless your PC itself is compromise somehow (e.g., keylogger, malware).
lol!
I currently have been using duckduckgo, and have used the other 2 you mentioned.
The last time I looked Ixquick was based in DC. That made me suspicious.
My local ISP has partnered with Google and I think they manage the local DNS server. If google owns the data I am not sure that the search engine I use makes any difference.
Look into Tor as well. I use it when I'm doing weird searches for say pressure cooking pots and etc. lol Don't men in black knocking on my door! ;)
Btw, startpage.com is based in one of the northern European countries, IIRC. What makes me curious about them, is both ixquicksearch and startpage have the exact same page layouts, and when one is down, so is the other. What does that tell you?
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