Quote Originally Posted by Basil77 View Post
Of course it's spying, everyone knows about it here but no one gives a flying f##k.
Wouldn't you care if it was done, and used against you, or somebody you know? If you were denied a job for security reasons without any further details given.. Or if you got pulled out of your bed in the middle of the night because you had made some dramatic statement on a radical website? Or just because someone else under suspicion sent you a few emails or was your friend on a social network.

Anyway; it requires an absolutely spectacular commitment in terms of cost. America has been doing this for years. I think it was 2006 that the first limited evidence was revealed, when the NSA had an interception point at the backbone internet cables somewhere in California.
Whereupon everybody in IT realised that there was something big going on... until NSA started building the biggest computer hall on the universe essentially, for data storage quickly followed by Snowden's revelations.

In the UK, everyone in IT knew about the Menwith Hill spying central only the exact purpose was a bit shady. Now we know that the worst suspicions are true.

Sweden has a programme like this, going back many years, but was open about it from day one and there was plenty of debate and demonstrations. Nevertheless think it's revolting, but at least they didn't lie about it.

I think that if Russia was doing something on a scale near what the UK or USA are doing, then somebody would have felt obliged to publish it.
Online, or in foreign press or whatever, but it would have come out.




Wired's awesome and extremely interesting article that everybody in the USA / EU / NATO absolutely should read

Apparently they figured out how to decrypt 128 bit encryption on the fly (?!!) so VPN will do you no good if you want privacy. Only TOR.