Computers are listening to your telephone calls

It is not reassuring when the president says “nobody is listening to your telephone calls” because he is not answering the deeper question.  People may have in their minds a 1960s wiretap where someone may indeed be listening.  However we live in a day when we can speak to our cellphone and it understands us.  It is not a person listening, but a computer.  So the president can speak the truth in letter, with the full knowledge that the spirit of what is said is bogus.

Nobody is sitting in a chair listening to your calls.  However, your calls go through communications centers like the infamous room 641A and are captured by NarusInsight systems.  It is a rational assumption that much of the audio is recorded and the percentage will grow as the Utah Data Center goes live in the summer of 2013.   As with your cellphone, computers translate your voice into text.  Your words can then be cataloged in a database and algorithms used to determine if your conversation need further investigation.

The “I have nothing to hide” attitude seems justifiable to someone who is not planning on hijacking a plane.  But are you really that pure in the eyes of the state?  With the recent revelations about IRS targeting groups for political reasons, it is not hard to envision automated systems that increase your likelihood of a tax audit due to your church affiliation, or the websites you view.  Do you think it will stop there?

What this means is that the state monitoring of your life is not limited knowing if you are preparing to take box cutters on board an aircraft.  Your comments about a political figure, where you get your news, the kinds of things you might research, even your view on eschatology are being recorded and cataloged.

The infrastructure is being put in place that, given an excuse such as another 9/11, the government could use its growing fleet of drones to simultaneously take out numerous US citizens who have scored high on their threat criteria.  Collateral damage, like the children we kill in Pakistan via drones, can be lamented as the price we must pay to protect our nation.  This should not be a notion of comfort.

Using political muscle to thwart this government intrusion into the private lives of its citizens is a worthy effort, but vastly insufficient.  Just as debates are raging about the Second Amendment and its purpose to allow an armed citizenry to contend with tyranny, citizens need the tools to contend with their private communications.  There are many offering for encrypted email and services like the TOR Project that offer worthy solutions.  But just like there is a difference between a .22 pistol and a .50 Cal rifle there is a difference between secure communications technologies.

Encrypted email protects the content of your email, but the metadata, who is sending the email to whom, when it is sent, and where it starts and ends, remains visible.   The recent revelations about the US government acquiring metadata from phone and internet corporations should show us clearly that they know how to make use of this data.

The Matryoshka Communications Model from ShofarPortfolio hides all communications to the point that observers at any point can’t even determine that any communications transpires.  This level of protection is unprecedented in the industry, and the need for it to hold back the encroaching tyranny is clear.  This is a modern day Manhattan Project and the enemy is far more real.

ShofarPortfolio also uses a distributed business model.  There is no central corporation or point of control or corruption.  Anyone can put a Matryoshka Node into the system and generate revenue.  There is no qualification process required.  If a listening party, such as the NSA or GCHQ, were to host Matryoshka Nodes, they get nothing from the data except the same revenue as others.  Perhaps it could help reduce the national debt.

ShofarPortfolio and Matryoshka Communications are very real, but not ready.  We can wait until it is real, or we can help make it real.  How important is it to you to contend against tyranny?

For more information visit ShofarPortfolio.com

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