Don’t Tell The N::S::A…

Revealed: How US and UK spy agencies defeat internet privacy and security

• NSA and GCHQ unlock encryption used to protect emails, banking and medical records
• $250m-a-year US program works covertly with tech companies to insert weaknesses into products
• Security experts say programs ‘undermine the fabric of the internet’

TOP SECRET

From our visits to see the work that was done at Bletchley park, such headlines should come as no surprise whatsoever. However, can our society survive the intrusion of “Big Brother” continuous complete surveillance and zero privacy? After all, regardless of how virtuous you may consider yourself, we can always be seen to be ‘guilty’ of something by someone’s reckoning…

We have the dystopian examples of George Orwell’s 1984 and Philip K. Dick’s The Minority Report. Are we blithely drifting into a parallel example for our on-line and real-world lives?

From a very different angle, we have the phenomenal success of Google and various “social media” websites where people freely give themselves up to total surveillance of their every online move and thought and their connections to all their friends and acquaintances. In a more shady part of the business world, we have the intrusions of Marketing surveillance and the secret lists of credit rating agencies…

And you thought random spam was bad?… Or, can there be some good from all of this?

Don’t tell ANYONE! It’s all a secret never to be told…

Amongst such intrusions and coercion, what true freedom can FLOSS and Linux offer to help you?

(This is a general overview of what there is and what we can do for ourselves. The “technical stuff” can come with the discussions later 😉 )

THURSDAY at our old haunt at Fellows, Morton and Clayton.

• 7:30pm meet and food;
• 8:00pm-ish talk and discussions and anything and everything Linux.

All at:

Good beer. Food served up until 8pm.

All welcome. (Just ask the friendly bar staff if lost 😉 )

Cheers,
Martin