A jaw-dropping moment: Belgian MSM exposes big brother

[BelgianMadCow]

Last edited Sat Jan 4, 2014, 08:56 PM - Edit history (1)

Last week, belgian media totally exposed and warned us for the extraordinary power the US holds over us via GPS.

You can see the clip (in dutch with some english & french parts) here. On edit: but only if you have a belgian IP. Both investigative news programs have that feature, the others do not.

The press has been covering the NSA scandal and the surveillance scandal quite spottily so far. Now all of a sudden they pour the cold hard truth on us. They even use OWS video (at 21:15 in) to make the point it could be used against activists, and advise everyone to not take smartphones to demonstrations. They use wikileaks-type footage to explain the use of GPS in drones.

I was really surprised, and I'm very glad because (given that this was on the state TV news analysis show, state news being the prime news source) it likely means the EU will try to un-marry the surveillance state. Belgium IS the heart of Europe.

It's weird, however that this piece is hiding under the title "the long road of the EU GPS system". It's like an instruction manual that starts with WARNING! all over two pages.

[malaise]

1. Thanks

This is important -Rec

[BelgianMadCow]

3. Thank you malaise. I've been thinking of posting since I saw it

but it's been family times.

"What a nice gift by the US to the world! ... So many gifts to get, but gifts to think about" is their end line.

[elleng]

2. Thanks.

[RainDog]

4. k&r n/t

[Demeter]

5. NSA screwed the pooch, and they are now dead men walking and talking

I will live to see it torn down, burnt, and enshrined in the constitution as FOBIDDEN.

Assuming we aren't invaded and conquered by all the nations they have pissed off.

[1monster]

6. "Deze video is nog niet beschikbaar. Probeer het later opnieuw."

Translation: This video is not yet available. Please try again later.

[BelgianMadCow]

8. f***, it's "In Belgium only"

I had never seen that icon before, but I didn't pay attention to it. God dammit. Sorry

[hootinholler]

11. So you need an IP in Belgium?

How odd for a news report to carry that restriction.

Makes me want to reach for the roll of tinfoil.

[BelgianMadCow]

13. We're about to find out who owns the internet

me thinks. I find it very weird as well.

[jtuck004]

7. Video now gives message

This video is not yet available. Please try again later

Thank you google translate <G>

But thank you for posting, I'll find something...

[BelgianMadCow]

9. you could always use an add-on like Anonymox

and set your IP adress to a belgian one, but that's not a very handy workaround, I know.

I'm going to ask them why. The other videos of the program to also have the "only in belgium" icon.

[jtuck004]

10. I may try that later, though. Thank you.

I'll have to figure out how to find a Belgian IP. But google

[bvar22]

12. DURec.

[font size=3]
Rampant Government Secrecy and Democracy can not co-exist.

Persecution of Whistle Blowers and Democracy can not co-exist.

Government surveillance of the citizenry and Democracy can not co-exist.

Secret Laws/Secret Courts and Democracy can not co-exist.

Our Democracy depends on an informed electorate.
It IS that simple.

You either believe in Democracy,
or you don't.

[/font]

[hueymahl]

14. I don't understand the outrage

I wish I could see the video. I don't understand what they could possibly be warning about re GPS. The satellites don't communicate with the GPS units. Each GPS unit merely reads the signal from the satellites and processes location based on the signals. In other words, it is one-way, like radio.

Now I have heard that we can crank up and crank down the accuracy or even cause it to display false locations. This was a capability put in place so that enemies could not use it against us on the battlefield. But I don't see how that would be useful to the government in OWS or other protest scenario.

If there is something else going on, I definitely want to know about it.

[BelgianMadCow]

15. It's very clearly two-way

unless the video is factually incorrect at several points. GPS makes sure those operating it know where you are at all times, period.

[paleotn]

20. GPS is currently one way.....

...it's the smart phone, the service provider and, more importantly, software on the phone that's the culprit. The most accurate technology receives GPS signals, and then transmits the phone's location to the service provider, and thus to whomever would be interested in that information. GPS signal, received by the phone and processed by software, tells the user where the phone is and that's it. There's absolutely no movement of data up to the satellite.

[BelgianMadCow]

21. indeed, it's the smartphone link that does the trick

which is what I was gonna reply to jeff as well.

[jeff47]

23. Ok, then why are you hyping a story that is wrong?

Can't see the video since I'm not in Belgium, but "the power the US holds over GPS" can not lead to the danger your post lists.

In fact, GPS is irrelevant - there's non-GPS-based ways to locate the phone.

[BelgianMadCow]

24. The story evidently is broader than just GPS, and you missed my OP's point

which is the explicitness and candour of the MSM coverage. But I agree it's hard to judge without the video, unfortunately.

One of the things the video highlights is how about 80% of military activity is GPS-based. So getting an "access denied" means quite a bit.

[hueymahl]

33. That is what I thought

The collection of our location data and meta-data in general is completely unacceptable, regardless of how it is done. But GPS alone is not the culprit.

[BelgianMadCow]

38. Well, the VP of Ford seems to disagree

granted, he is talking about smart cars, so that's not all. Like, those without GPS

[link:http://rt.com/usa/ford-vp-auto-surveillance-382/|Ford VP: 'We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing'

Modern automobiles are logging tremendous amounts of information every single second they’re being put to use, and a senior executive at the Ford Motor Company says car manufacturers have access to every last piece of it.

At the CES electronic trade show in Las Vegas this week, the global vice president for Ford’s marketing and sales division opened up about just exactly how much data is being collected by his company’s latest line of smart cars.

“We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing,” Ford’s Jim Farley told a Vegas crowd on Wednesday, according to Business Insider reporter Jim Edwards.

“By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone," Farley assured attendees.

[Maedhros]

16. The government can use the GPS feature to correlate a phone's location

(i.e. at a demonstration) and it's subscriber information (i.e. the identity of the person at the demonstration).

Very, very useful for compiling lists of "politically dangerous" individuals, or maybe even "eco-terrorists" or "politco-terrorists."

[jeff47]

19. Don't need GPS for that.

The cell phones at the demonstration will be able to "see" multiple cell towers, and will report back the signal strength for each tower. That signal strength can be used to locate the phone. Not quite as accurate as GPS, but plenty accurate for the task you describe.

[BelgianMadCow]

17. Here's the link: "NSA gathering 5bn cell phone records daily (including location tracking)"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024135335

From The Guardian (WaPo LBN link here):

The National Security Agency is reportedly collecting almost 5 billion cell phone records a day under a program that monitors and analyses highly personal data about the precise whereabouts of individuals, wherever they travel in the world.

Details of the giant database of location-tracking information, and the sophisticated ways in which the NSA uses the data to establish relationships between people, have been revealed by the Washington Post, which cited documents supplied by whistleblower Edward Snowden and intelligence officials.

The spy agency is said to be tracking the movements of “at least hundreds of millions of devices” in what amounts to a staggeringly powerful surveillance tool. It means the NSA can, through mobile phones, track individuals anywhere they travel – including into private homes – or retrace previously traveled journeys.

The data can also be used to study patterns of behaviour to reveal personal information and relationships between different users.

[jeff47]

18. It doesn't work the way you think it does.

As the GP poster said, GPS is one-way. The satellites broadcast, and the devices receive. It's not possible to read anything from the devices via GPS.

What this article is talking about is the cell phone network using GPS data to locate a phone. The data going to that giant database comes from the cell phone towers, not the GPS system. In fact, most inexpensive cell phones don't have the computing power to do their own GPS fix. They use "Assisted GPS" (aGPS) - the phone sends the GPS data to the tower, the tower does the math and sends the result to the phone.

In other words, this is another angle on the cell phone data collection story. Not a new GPS-based story.

Why's that important? They don't need GPS to locate the phone.

Cell phones report signal strength data to the towers. In the vast majority of places, your phone actually "sees" multiple towers. The signal strength from those towers can be used to locate the phone. It's a touch less accurate than GPS, but it's plenty accurate for what you describe.

[paleotn]

22. Exactly. (nt)

[druidity33]

25. ever look at one of those cellphone coverage maps?

Zoom in next time... all the way. Pick a state like Missouri or Georgia, hell even Massachusetts. Near 50% of America gets no Cell service, has no cable TV, and no high speed internet. If i think they're coming for me, i'll strip my phone of its battery and head for the Hills!

[Eleanors38]

29. Where I deer hunt in Texas: The big void.

[jeff47]

34. And if you overlaid a population map, it would show a similar low density.

If the protests the OP is worried about are happening in the middle-of-nowhere, the organizers need to rethink their strategy.

[idwiyo]

26. k&r

[DeSwiss]

27. K&R

- Why? Toward what end? Everyone seems to want to try and make sense of all this, when it has been explained to us quite cogently before:

“The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?” ~George Orwell, 1984

[BelgianMadCow]

28. The report didn't make sense of it - just outlined the power

of GPS and surveillance, from providing services to marketing to war to spying and back, seamlessly. Scary.

I recently re-read 1984 and Brave New World. Art can save us.

[DeSwiss]

30. ''Only art can save us.''

- /fixed

[Enthusiast]

31. Recommended X 1000!

Great post! Way to go! It would wonderful to have a free press. I can only imagine.

[snot]

32. K&R'd

Sure, we can always just abandon civilization, let alone any hope of reform; so who cares?

I do.

[Demo_Chris]

35. It's like war, it's OKAY when our party does it. Obama is President, not Bush. nt

[BelgianMadCow]

36. State media's "america watcher" had an opinion piece on the same topic at the same time

http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/opinieblog/analyse/131231_analyse_bjornsoenens_snowden_standard

Here's a small bit that I put through google translate:

Everything is done in the name of national security, which governments can hide or refuse to give account. Everything takes place in the dark: secret laws, secret explanation of secret laws by secret courts and parliaments who barely control. At the same time as whistleblowers Snowden prosecuted and persecuted and accused of crimes because they are us - citizens - just let them know what's going on.

It is sometimes a bit ironic to see that whistleblowers like Bradley Manning (WikiLeak Source) are in prison because they reveal abuses, while the executioners and their clients roam. Sometimes you think about it there too? Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning got 35 years in prison, while people in 2003, an illegal and disastrous war with Iraq and schemed unleashed, still be treated like VIPs.

[Demo_Chris]

37. Yep. We STILL rage that Bush lied to launch a war, but drone murders are totally cool. nt