Remember when we used to talk about those crazy government conspiracy theories of a total planetary surveillance system, like the Information Awareness Office? We were such dorks back then. But if you pride yourself on not being one of ‘those’ conspiracy theorists, you may not want to watch the video below (transcript here) from the recent 30th Chaos Communication Congress (30C3). In it, security researcher Jacob Appelbaum works through the various spying technologies and techniques currently being utilized by the NSA (as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, and a number of canny security researchers). If you’re not a technology head, you may not understand everything that is said, but there are more than enough jaw-dropping revelations accompanying the talk to make it worth your while. I could pull out various items and focus on them, from iPhone pwnage through to suggestions that world leaders might be able to be assassinated through radiowaves (hello Hugo!), but that would do a disservice to the overall revelation: In short, the NSA wants, and pretty much now has, the capability to snoop on *everyone*.
I hope all of you, as citizens of the various nations of the world, take the time to watch it and see how your own tax dollars are being used to violate you and control you, and may even ultimately result in putting you at risk from other malicious agencies.
You can view videos from the entire conference here, or simply by searching YouTube for ’30C3′.
