Conspiracy Theories

[talahtnut]

I'm conspiring to get my son to do some work this morning,

he is conspiring not to do it.

It seems conspiracy has been the human condition since time began.

We are all guilty, aren't we?

[Kwasaki]

2 minutes ago, talahtnut said:

I'm conspiring to get my son to do some work this morning,

he is conspiring not to do it.

It seems conspiracy has been the human condition since time began.

We are all guilty, aren't we?

No dinner or more money for phone, no petrol for motorbike or scooter works. ????

[seedy]

1 hour ago, tgw said:

lol, yeah, sure.

I'm afraid you got no say, even if you root your phone.

you will need to reinstall device drivers, an operating system, etc. they all have undocumented security vulnerabilities. ???? the fixes stay "on hold" until the vulnerabilities get discovered by third parties.

there are teams tasked with collecting and grandfathering zero days, and managing their lifecycle.

 

that's why the "no Huawei" ruling was made.

hardware can come loaded with special chips containing backdoors (US equipment delivered to sensitive countries routinely got re-chipped at an NSA facility before shipping, this is not done anymore I believe because customers of interest wisened up), and all platforms will download drivers, updates, etc. from servers designated by their access provider's DNS, and authenticated by official OEM certificates, both of which can be corrupted.
by the way, that's how Stuxnet worked.

 

to be safe, a country has to control production of both software and hardware. it's only a part of what needs to be done, but it is a prerequisite.

 

 

as a related information, here are some crispy details about a (former) vendor of secured communication systems and "hardened security" phone devices:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG

 

just make up your own mind and think about what lengths you would be willing to go to "catch the bad guys" or "protect your country" if you were personally in charge of running your contry's signal intelligence with a huge budget.

 

would you for example setup or acquire a major VPN and encryption service ?

or several?

technically brilliant, huge coverage, aggressively priced?

????

 

some people are in need of secure phones - that would be your core capability right? why not sell that service and make a few bucks for your budget too?

 

there are no limits!

 

and the few bits that came to light in the media are just tiny scratches on the surface of the whole thing.

I quoted and replied to your statement that apps can not be deleted.

 

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by seedy

[zzaa09]

1 hour ago, tgw said:

lol, yeah, sure.

I'm afraid you got no say, even if you root your phone.

you will need to reinstall device drivers, an operating system, etc. they all have undocumented security vulnerabilities. ???? the fixes stay "on hold" until the vulnerabilities get discovered by third parties.

there are teams tasked with collecting and grandfathering zero days, and managing their lifecycle.

 

that's why the "no Huawei" ruling was made.

hardware can come loaded with special chips containing backdoors (US equipment delivered to sensitive countries routinely got re-chipped at an NSA facility before shipping, this is not done anymore I believe because customers of interest wisened up), and all platforms will download drivers, updates, etc. from servers designated by their access provider's DNS, and authenticated by official OEM certificates, both of which can be corrupted.
by the way, that's how Stuxnet worked.

 

to be safe, a country has to control production of both software and hardware. it's only a part of what needs to be done, but it is a prerequisite.

 

 

as a related information, here are some crispy details about a (former) vendor of secured communication systems and "hardened security" phone devices:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG

 

just make up your own mind and think about what lengths you would be willing to go to "catch the bad guys" or "protect your country" if you were personally in charge of running your contry's signal intelligence with a huge budget.

 

would you for example setup or acquire a major VPN and encryption service ?

or several?

technically brilliant, huge coverage, aggressively priced?

????

 

some people are in need of secure phones - that would be your core capability right? why not sell that service and make a few bucks for your budget too?

 

there are no limits!

 

and the few bits that came to light in the media are just tiny scratches on the surface of the whole thing.

 

 

 

Better yet, and much more practical - throw all your devices in the khlong.

 

Issues resolved. No pomphem.

You're welcome.

[tgw]

3 hours ago, zzaa09 said:

Better yet, and much more practical - throw all your devices in the khlong.

 

Issues resolved. No pomphem.

You're welcome.

My current job is programming websites (has been for over 10 years). I'm not a technological hermit, and have no intentions of becoming one.

I just have a pretty good idea of what's going on.

 

I think it's very important for democracy to spread the information, so that this kind of activities can be controlled.

How to protect the people from their own judicial institutions, but also how to protect our democracies from manipulation.

Redefining roles and responsibilities of organizations like FBI/Homeland Security and respectively MI5/MI6 for the UK in the protection of democratic process.

I like the name of the German domestic intelligence service: "Verfassungsschutz" - it literally means "protection of the constitution"

Edited September 26, 2021 by tgw

[robblok]

13 hours ago, tgw said:

My current job is programming websites (has been for over 10 years). I'm not a technological hermit, and have no intentions of becoming one.

I just have a pretty good idea of what's going on.

 

I think it's very important for democracy to spread the information, so that this kind of activities can be controlled.

How to protect the people from their own judicial institutions, but also how to protect our democracies from manipulation.

Redefining roles and responsibilities of organizations like FBI/Homeland Security and respectively MI5/MI6 for the UK in the protection of democratic process.

I like the name of the German domestic intelligence service: "Verfassungsschutz" - it literally means "protection of the constitution"

I think your a bit naïve, skills like this are needed. I don't think its smart to ban our government from doing this as China, Russia and others have no such problems. Our countries would then not be in the loop to counter those other countries. I don't know if you know the saying it takes a thief to catch a thief ?

 

So we need people with those skills, they can protect elections and so on. To do so they must also try to get on people their phones and devices to know the weak spots and plug them.  

 

Also as i said before the amount of people who can do this and the resources needed (usually good computes sometimes with huge processing power) are not available to everyone. They wont go after opposition politicians, that is still far to big a group for the limited amount of resources. If you read how much trouble they have to get on phones of really bad criminals and how much work that takes then i doubt they would spend all that effort on a politician unless really really important. 

 

Also the more people know about certain weaknesses the faster patches will become available. So the amount of people with that golden knowledge will always be low otherwise its common knowledge and software operators will patch the weaknesses. So it will always be a limited amount of people with a lot of skill who can do it. The more common the knowledge comes the more chance it will be patched.

 

I believe we should keep our cyber protection up as its a whole new battlefield, best not to cripple our own defenses by limiting what our guys can do too much especially as its a small group that makes up the top anyway. Big chance we will never be targetted anyway.

 

As you are not a hermit technology wise you know about the encryption software that is available. It keeps most people out (especially the really good 4096 or more protections) For a while PGP was uncrackable. Its all about putting up a barrier that keeps most people out. You can't keep everyone out. Just like countries cant prepare for every disaster but go for a once in 20 year flood protection instead of going for the once in 100 year protection because of cost and so on.

 

If you really are targeted by the top then you are an important person and you would know that and take extra precautions.

[thaibeachlovers]

20 hours ago, seedy said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooting_(Android)

Thank you, but clear as mud to me, a computer illiterate. Seems very complicated and to be honest I have a life that doesn't revolve around a machine that is a mystery to me, so I'll have to pass on doing any computer rooting ( hmmmm, that does sound naughty ). For all I know, computers are Harry Potter, as I cant get my head around how I can transfer hundreds of photos from one device to another in a matter of seconds, given that I do understand that every pixel is made up of data and to make a photo show on a screen it must involve ? hundreds/ thousands of pixels.

However, so long as it works, I don't have to understand how it works.

????

 

[thaibeachlovers]

18 hours ago, zzaa09 said:

Better yet, and much more practical - throw all your devices in the khlong.

 

Issues resolved. No pomphem.

You're welcome.

I wish I could, but they are addictive. I could probably have read a thousand books had I not started on internet forums. My loss.

[robblok]

24 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I wish I could, but they are addictive. I could probably have read a thousand books had I not started on internet forums. My loss.

Not sure if you ever had a kindle paperwhite ? great for reading books and makes a lot of books available. Better then normal books less to carry and more to read. 1 Charge last ages.

 

 

[KannikaP]

On 9/25/2021 at 9:30 PM, chessman said:

Is this even classed as a conspiracy theory? Is is clear that these companies are gathering data about their users.

 

My favourite conspiracy theory is that the CIA wrote the song ‘wings of change’ and gave it to the German rock band Scorpion in order to provide an anthem to encourage a move away from communism in Russia.

 

 

I am conspiring to think it was WIND of Change, by The ScorpionS.    555

[thaibeachlovers]

1 minute ago, robblok said:

Not sure if you ever had a kindle paperwhite ? great for reading books and makes a lot of books available. Better then normal books less to carry and more to read. 1 Charge last ages.

 

 

Thanks, but I'm trying to limit how much I spend on things I don't understand, can't fix and always break, usually at the worst possible time.

I don't even need to buy another book in my life as I already have too many I never got around to reading, and never seem to have any spare time to read them. However, the solution is simple- I just need to dump the computer and not go on another forum rest of my life. It's just doing that that's the hard part. The dark side of the force is strong.

 

[robblok]

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Thanks, but I'm trying to limit how much I spend on things I don't understand, can't fix and always break, usually at the worst possible time.

I don't even need to buy another book in my life as I already have too many I never got around to reading, and never seem to have any spare time to read them. However, the solution is simple- I just need to dump the computer and not go on another forum rest of my life. It's just doing that that's the hard part. The dark side of the force is strong.

 

Kindles are easy, even my mom could operate them. 

 

Not sure what your problem is your older and retired. You got all the time in the world. Anyway you just fill your time with what you think is best. I would not worry too much about what is good or bad just about what you enjoy.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 minute ago, robblok said:

your older and retired. You got all the time in the world.

If only! I'm busier now that I've retired than I was when I was paid to work. Just different "work".

[robblok]

6 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

If only! I'm busier now that I've retired than I was when I was paid to work. Just different "work".

If its paid for then its just work, and if its not paid for its a choice. I mean then its just part of things you like to do. I never consider doing things i like being busy. I mean to say its just dividing available time between things you like to do. No real obligations. 

[seedy]

2 hours ago, robblok said:

So we need people with those skills,

Agreed - we need more whistle blowers to make public what Gov't especially is doing. Edward Snowden et al.

It is a bit naive to believe in any Gov't to be altruistic.

Those in Power have only one goal - well, two goals - to keep Power and to increase said Power.

I long long ago gave up on believing "I am from the Gov't and am here to help you" 

[robblok]

10 minutes ago, seedy said:

Agreed - we need more whistle blowers to make public what Gov't especially is doing. Edward Snowden et al.

It is a bit naive to believe in any Gov't to be altruistic.

Those in Power have only one goal - well, two goals - to keep Power and to increase said Power.

I long long ago gave up on believing "I am from the Gov't and am here to help you" 

Governments are not there for the people alone they want to look good like power too. But governments often do help people but they do so so they stay popular. 

 

 

[patman30]

why do you think data collection is a theory?
data is the new gold

FYI, facebook owns instagram and whatsapp, its not like 3 diff companies conspired

regards to the 10 year thing
it was not a tool to make you look older (although those do exist, many apps have such features)
not sure who started it but Zuckerberg got on it and it was a fad craze on FB
posting a photo of himself now and 10 years ago
many others done the same
and YES, without a doubt, facebook then own said data and CAN sell it to any AI company they choose
knowing specifics of facebook and who they sell data too is another matter though
but data is gold in tech world right now, i know many devs stated how valueble those photos taken 10 years apart would be to AI companies
there is also a similar craze happening right now, same thing, just with family photos
 

[BritManToo]

On 9/25/2021 at 9:32 PM, StreetCowboy said:

This post is useless without pictures

There you go ........... lunch on the patio (I have to share with my 10 year old).

 

 

Additional data provided for the 'marketing agencies'

Pepsi from BigC @32bht/2l

Steak from the local pork shop 25bht/steak

Chips from Makro 99bht/2Kg

HP sauce from from Food Variety 109bht.

The Air fryer it was cooked in from Lazada.

Edited September 27, 2021 by BritManToo

[zzaa09]

2 hours ago, seedy said:

Agreed - we need more whistle blowers to make public what Gov't especially is doing. Edward Snowden et al.

It is a bit naive to believe in any Gov't to be altruistic.

Those in Power have only one goal - well, two goals - to keep Power and to increase said Power.

I long long ago gave up on believing "I am from the Gov't and am here to help you" 

The comfort and security of being dumbed down is far more enriching and accepted.

Hypnotic state.

[talahtnut]

1 hour ago, BritManToo said:

There you go ........... lunch on the patio (I have to share with my 10 year old).

 

 

Additional data provided for the 'marketing agencies'

Pepsi from BigC @32bht/2l

Steak from the local pork shop 25bht/steak

Chips from Makro 99bht/2Kg

HP sauce from from Food Variety 109bht.

The Air fryer it was cooked in from Lazada.

This has been fact checked for mis-information by-

British Army 77th Brigade and Ripleys Believe or Not.

[CharlieH]

3 hours ago, BritManToo said:

There you go ........... lunch on the patio (I have to share with my 10 year old).

 

 

Additional data provided for the 'marketing agencies'

Pepsi from BigC @32bht/2l

Steak from the local pork shop 25bht/steak

Chips from Makro 99bht/2Kg

HP sauce from from Food Variety 109bht.

The Air fryer it was cooked in from Lazada.

 

Very close to mine ! Except mine is all Makro. ????

[tgw]

9 hours ago, robblok said:

I think your a bit naïve, skills like this are needed. I don't think its smart to ban our government from doing this as China, Russia and others have no such problems. Our countries would then not be in the loop to counter those other countries. I don't know if you know the saying it takes a thief to catch a thief ?

you misinterpret the meaning of what I'm saying.

I'm not against our governments using these techniques.

I am for a good democratic governance of intelligence services, meaning I want a public sensitivity to the topic and I want that elected officials manage the government apparatus in a way that is beneficial to the people.

 

In China and Russia, intelligence resources are used for political reasons and for judicial purposes, which is a thing that must never happen in democracies.

 

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

15 hours ago, BritManToo said:

There you go ........... lunch on the patio (I have to share with my 10 year old).

 

 

Additional data provided for the 'marketing agencies'

Pepsi from BigC @32bht/2l

Steak from the local pork shop 25bht/steak

Chips from Makro 99bht/2Kg

HP sauce from from Food Variety 109bht.

The Air fryer it was cooked in from Lazada.

In my opinion, Fountain brand BBQ sauce is better than HP. Unfortunately can't get it in NZ.

You missed the unfortunate looking blob of yellow something. Mustard of some sort perhaps?

[zzaa09]

9 hours ago, tgw said:

you misinterpret the meaning of what I'm saying.

I'm not against our governments using these techniques.

I am for a good democratic governance of intelligence services, meaning I want a public sensitivity to the topic and I want that elected officials manage the government apparatus in a way that is beneficial to the people.

 

In China and Russia, intelligence resources are used for political reasons and for judicial purposes, which is a thing that must never happen in democracies.

 

 

 

Even if it does on a regular basis in Western democracies. 

Not a bed of roses, by any means. 

The English-speaking have yet to realize the the true boogiemen might be. 

[BritManToo]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Mustard of some sort perhaps?

Heinz yellow mustard from Makro, don't like French's too sweet, don't buy Coleman's too expensive.

I've always bought HP sauce, although Daddy's and OK (never seen either in Thailand) are acceptable if on sale for less than HP.

[thaibeachlovers]

13 hours ago, tgw said:

In China and Russia, intelligence resources are used for political reasons and for judicial purposes, which is a thing that must never happen in democracies.

Do you think it hasn't happened/ doesn't happen in western countries, and I'm not even going to get into whether we actually live in democracies?

I'm trying to steer clear of saying anything political, given that we are banned from doing so on this forum, so treat that with caution if you choose to reply.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, BritManToo said:

Heinz yellow mustard from Makro, don't like French's too sweet, don't buy Coleman's too expensive.

I've always bought HP sauce, although Daddy's and OK (never seen either in Thailand) are acceptable if on sale for less than HP.

I was looking for French's the other day, but can't find it in the big supermarket- only something called mild American, which IMO isn't as nice as French's. Never eat Coleman's as too mustardy if you know what I mean.

[zzaa09]

7 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I was looking for French's the other day, but can't find it in the big supermarket- only something called mild American, which IMO isn't as nice as French's. Never eat Coleman's as too mustardy if you know what I mean.

Americans, in particular, have never developed a taste for decent types of mustards......or any quality of food, for that matter.

It's ingrained [pun intended]????