[Ibon]

One only has themselves to blame if they expose themselves on the internet with controversial postings. Read your history on McCarthyism. They investigated up to 20 years in the past of authors, academics and actors proving their affiliation with communism. And that was in the days when everything wasn't archived in a digital media.

I am feeling so much better since I have removed the internet as a source of social interaction.

Analog revolution anyone?

[dorlomin]

If you do have a facebook account with your real name and a well known email address keep it for your family and all those nice happy "happy birthday mum" type status updates.

If you do want to discuss falling out a pub on the lash with your mates dont have your real name and have a email address without your name on it (like peakdoomer@yahoo.com than billsmith@yagoo.com).

That said automated photographic identification may make that less anonomous but hey ho, thems the modern life.

In terms of the state, well they can watch your movement by your mobile, if they have the right warrent they can keep an eye on which base stations pick you up. They can check where you shop using plastic and with the increase in RFIDs you are becoming even more watched.

Ill not be suprised if encrypted peer to peer darknets dont become more mainstream in the coming years though.

And one piece of advice always be logged out of Google when searching. They retain a certain amount of info on you to add some personal parameters to the Google searches, this means the information is being tailored and can be lead to a narrowing of your results. Ill take it as a given everyone knows the results are shaped anyway (like how wikipedia is almost always the top result).

[careinke]

If the FBI buys the spy program, it would be fun to encourage EVERY ONE to use their key words as much as possible, thereby nullifying the usefulness of the program. Could be fun.

[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shaved Monkey', 'T')he words deemed as being sensitive by the DHS include:
Illegal immigrant
Outbreak
Drill
Strain
Virus
Recovery
Deaths
Collapse
Human to animal
Trojan

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'I') am feeling so much better since I have removed the internet as a source of social interaction. Analog revolution anyone?

[SeaGypsy]

That's the stupid thing about electronic surveillance. Really these words are so common it's ridiculous to think someone is going to physically analyse anything based on keyword popups alone. There has to be layered filtering with degree of likelihood of threat weighed. It seems the system works in terms of restraining planning and orchestration, by morons. It seems doubtfull all the effort in this area would actually have any chance of preventing serious attack by intelligent adversaries.

[Loki]

I used to be far more careful about my Web activities, but have gotten lazy the last couple years. At the very least I'll be logging out of Google and switching my search engine to Startpage (thanks Novus). I'll continue using Gmail, but my email activity is minimal anyways.

I'm a private person. And I have a powerful distrust of large corporations. I really dislike the notion of a monster transnational corporation like Google making a permanent digital record of everything I do on the Web.

[misterno]

If you don't like google how come you like startpage.com? It says on the front page that startpage.com is enhanced by google

[Ibon]

So you think the internet is a forum where freedom to express revolutionary ideas is possible? Think again

http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/cisp ... ?source=fb

I have an honest question for you all. About 9 months ago I stated that I would no longer post on sensitive topics. I was called somewhat paranoid by a few here on this site.

So coming to my question......if we all know brother is watching then this certainly affects the quality of the discourse since any position that could be remotely construed as provocative to the status quo can be scrutinized as destabilizing and therefore put you on a list.

So the question..... Why do we use the internet if the only information available is that which we ourselves are censoring?

I am not the only one who has stopped posting on topics that could be considered provocative......

This medium is compromised.

[SeaGypsy]

Whether one stops posting anything 'radical' doesn't delete the online past. These systems have existed for over 10 years now, if you have ever mouthed something extreme it can be dug up and used. I would have thought it more suspicious to go quiet, were one disposed to positions antagonistic to the mainstream? It is an act of faith in government to speak openly against it, paradoxically. As a person not predisposed to violence I don't feel I have much self censoring to do. As a person who wants the government to continue self introspection, writing critically of it is something I see as a duty.

Another issue I share with you Ibon, is where you often move through other countries. The way we self reflect in our home cultures compared to how we are perceived by others can be vastly different. The experience of being an expat is almost like having to be another person. We then have three personas in effect, the one at home, the expat and the online personalities. The first and second can be restrained, kept somewhat separate, the online not necessarily so.

I doubt the full master key to the internet is about to be given to the Panama or Philippines governments any time soon. Compared to how much self censorship I have to do as a person in the Philippines, I speak very freely on the net. Journalism is a seriously deadly profession.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', 'Q')uit your job and stop feeding the machine is the only way to win. Big Brother will fall under his own rot if we let it.

[Outcast_Searcher]

I'll admit to doing Google searches. (The older I get the better such searches help with memory lapses when wanting to cite a book or article, for example).

However, unless it becomes IMPOSSIBLE to live in society and buy things like food and heat my house, I will be DAMNED if I will join (and thus help) ANY of the crap like Facebook or anything of that ilk.

Discussions on forums like here, Seeking Alpha, etc. is as far as I'll go.

[AgentR11]

Far as I'm concerned, Big Bro is cool. He keeps the grain and t-bones flowing.

I'm sure climate, wars, poverty, etc are just temporary oversights...

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '.') As a person who wants the government to continue self introspection, writing critically of it is something I see as a duty.

[Ibon]

And here is some descriptive prose I couldn't help bringing into this thread. Off topic but relevant perhaps as it raises an interesting question regarding the real integrity of what we do here on this information highway.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')onnections have grown broader but shallower, as has happened for many of us. We are living in an isolation that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors, and yet we have never been more accessible. Over the past three decades, technology has delivered to us a world in which we need not be out of contact for a fraction of a moment. Yet within this world of instant and absolute communication, unbounded by limits of time or space, we suffer from unprecedented alienation. We have never been more detached from one another, or lonelier. In a world consumed by ever more novel modes of socializing, we have less and less actual society. We live in an accelerating contradiction: the more connected we become, the lonelier we are. We were promised a global village; instead we inhabit the drab cul-de-sacs and endless freeways of a vast suburb of information.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')I have an honest question for you all. About 9 months ago I stated that I would no longer post on sensitive topics. I was called somewhat paranoid by a few here on this site.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'H')ow many of us except AgentR11 truly have nothing to hide?

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', 'Q')uit your job and stop feeding the machine is the only way to win. Big Brother will fall under his own rot if we let it.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'H')ow many of us except AgentR11 truly have nothing to hide?

[davep]

Ibon, you could use Tor browsing and create a new account for when you want to express yourself more fully.

Or i2p http://www.i2p2.de/