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Hope so. This post might make you squirm just a little bit.
Ever wondered how much information your PC is sending out to the world about you? It may be a little more than you're prepared to acknowledge. Because theroetically it's possible to imagine a scenario whereby everything you've ever done on your computer could be logged somewhere, by someone.
Every site you've ever visited. Every word you've ever typed on the keyboard. Every password you've ever used. Every image ever taken with your Webcam. Everything you've ever said in a chatroom. Every file you've ever downloaded. Got the picture? That chances are that when you got that picture it was logged, and someone else has got it too. But what leads me to think this?
Well, remember how the internet started? At the height of the Cold War, the Americans devised a neat system of transferring information between one military installation and the next, this system was designed to survive a nuclear attack so that information could continue to flow during a possible Third World War. They then allowed colleges and universities to connect to this system, because it was beneficial for both parties.
Now cast your mind back to the U.S. Government mentality in the 60s. McCarthy had died a few years previously, but paranoia about Communists was still left as a hangover from his passing. Spies were 'everywhere'. It was the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall, the Space Race... it's fair to say that world's intelligence agencies were pulling out the stops to glean information from as many sources as possible about as many people as possible.
Eventually businesses could connect to this newly created 'internet' too, then private PC hobbyists, and from there the Internet has grown. Now nearly every home in the world has an internet connection in one form or another, and thousands more are connecting by the day. All thanks to those nice people in the U.S. Military.
'Connected' is the word that's important. My PC that I'm sitting at now is 'connected' to yours, and we're both connected to everyone else's whenever we're online. Who else is connected to us? Well, remember where the internet started? Yep, the U.S. Military. So we're also connected to the U.S. Government. Also the NSA, CIA, FBI, and various Secret Intelligence Services throughout the world like the MI-6, MI-5, Mossad; you name it, we're connected to it.
Now hold my hand as we take a little leap of faith here. Imagine that the people who created the internet made a little program. A little program designed to be undetectable by any operating system. Perhaps they packaged it 'with' an operating system, in cooperation with an OS developer in the interests of 'National Security'. Perhaps it was hardcoded into every microchip and motherboard ever produced. Perhaps it just goes out to your PC each time you go online. And this little program monitors your PC to see what you're doing, what sites you visit, what you type in a chatroom, what you buy, what your credit card number is, what you download, who you speak to, what games you play, and sends all that information back over the internet to be stored 'somewhere'.
Unbelievable? Not really. Kids today with just a little knowledge can create key-logging programs that can sit quietly on your PC and work away undetected, unless of course you actively seek them out. They normally appear in your Task Manager, but even then they may not stand out as obvious, unless they have a name like 'Hack.exe'. That's today. Intelligence agencies have had over 40 years to create something a little more sophisticated.
So what if a little program appeared in your Task Manager as 'services.exe'. This is a normal program, but what if it was doing something more sinister without you knowing, how would you tell? Well, you could, with a bit of extra programming knowledge, decompile services.exe and have a look at exactly what the code is doing.
But what if there was a program running on your PC that didn't show up at all? Didn't use up your memory resources? Didn't appear in any file or folder on your directory?
Remember the micro-dot spy technology in the 60s? Whereby classified information like a blueprint or document could be coded into a full-stop character on a regular typed page of a letter? What's to say that they didn't do the same sort of thing in a virtual sense? A 'micro-dot' program, sitting there at the heart of your PC? Undetectable. Working away. Sending all that information about you to a huge underground collection of servers. To be analysed by someone, or 'something'.
Having read this, and looking at your PC, does it still look 'innocent' to you? More importantly, are you STILL sitting comfortably?
Ever wondered how much information your PC is sending out to the world about you? It may be a little more than you're prepared to acknowledge. Because theroetically it's possible to imagine a scenario whereby everything you've ever done on your computer could be logged somewhere, by someone.
Every site you've ever visited. Every word you've ever typed on the keyboard. Every password you've ever used. Every image ever taken with your Webcam. Everything you've ever said in a chatroom. Every file you've ever downloaded. Got the picture? That chances are that when you got that picture it was logged, and someone else has got it too. But what leads me to think this?
Well, remember how the internet started? At the height of the Cold War, the Americans devised a neat system of transferring information between one military installation and the next, this system was designed to survive a nuclear attack so that information could continue to flow during a possible Third World War. They then allowed colleges and universities to connect to this system, because it was beneficial for both parties.
Now cast your mind back to the U.S. Government mentality in the 60s. McCarthy had died a few years previously, but paranoia about Communists was still left as a hangover from his passing. Spies were 'everywhere'. It was the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall, the Space Race... it's fair to say that world's intelligence agencies were pulling out the stops to glean information from as many sources as possible about as many people as possible.
Eventually businesses could connect to this newly created 'internet' too, then private PC hobbyists, and from there the Internet has grown. Now nearly every home in the world has an internet connection in one form or another, and thousands more are connecting by the day. All thanks to those nice people in the U.S. Military.
'Connected' is the word that's important. My PC that I'm sitting at now is 'connected' to yours, and we're both connected to everyone else's whenever we're online. Who else is connected to us? Well, remember where the internet started? Yep, the U.S. Military. So we're also connected to the U.S. Government. Also the NSA, CIA, FBI, and various Secret Intelligence Services throughout the world like the MI-6, MI-5, Mossad; you name it, we're connected to it.
Now hold my hand as we take a little leap of faith here. Imagine that the people who created the internet made a little program. A little program designed to be undetectable by any operating system. Perhaps they packaged it 'with' an operating system, in cooperation with an OS developer in the interests of 'National Security'. Perhaps it was hardcoded into every microchip and motherboard ever produced. Perhaps it just goes out to your PC each time you go online. And this little program monitors your PC to see what you're doing, what sites you visit, what you type in a chatroom, what you buy, what your credit card number is, what you download, who you speak to, what games you play, and sends all that information back over the internet to be stored 'somewhere'.
Unbelievable? Not really. Kids today with just a little knowledge can create key-logging programs that can sit quietly on your PC and work away undetected, unless of course you actively seek them out. They normally appear in your Task Manager, but even then they may not stand out as obvious, unless they have a name like 'Hack.exe'. That's today. Intelligence agencies have had over 40 years to create something a little more sophisticated.
So what if a little program appeared in your Task Manager as 'services.exe'. This is a normal program, but what if it was doing something more sinister without you knowing, how would you tell? Well, you could, with a bit of extra programming knowledge, decompile services.exe and have a look at exactly what the code is doing.
But what if there was a program running on your PC that didn't show up at all? Didn't use up your memory resources? Didn't appear in any file or folder on your directory?
Remember the micro-dot spy technology in the 60s? Whereby classified information like a blueprint or document could be coded into a full-stop character on a regular typed page of a letter? What's to say that they didn't do the same sort of thing in a virtual sense? A 'micro-dot' program, sitting there at the heart of your PC? Undetectable. Working away. Sending all that information about you to a huge underground collection of servers. To be analysed by someone, or 'something'.
Having read this, and looking at your PC, does it still look 'innocent' to you? More importantly, are you STILL sitting comfortably?
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I'm doing Computing at A-level and I'll tell you this for free:
Nothing happens.
It's just a load of binary numbers flying around inside a beige box that turn your screen blue when they feel like it.
Nothing happens.
It's just a load of binary numbers flying around inside a beige box that turn your screen blue when they feel like it.
I doubt even half the homes in the world are connected to the internet. And I presume that a very large proportion of the people in the world have never seen a computer.
Well, that's why I'm spreading dis-information. Many people will follow suit and the US military will be as puzzled as it ever was, or my name's not Humphrey Yougart.
Meh. Unless you're looking at dog porn/kiddie pictures, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. People can see what I've bought on the internet by looking through my bedroom window. I've never visited a website I didn't want anyone else to know about.
BEARDS. wrote:
> He was in Switzerland wasn't he?
>
> TCP/IP was invented by the US military though.
down at the Cern particle accelerator laboratorys
a bunch of physacists responsable for this.....
I think they've got a group of people at my uni researching new addressing systems to create more space for the increasing number of sites that keep popping up....
Or was it Al Gore that single handedly invented the internet
*sniggers*
> He was in Switzerland wasn't he?
>
> TCP/IP was invented by the US military though.
down at the Cern particle accelerator laboratorys
a bunch of physacists responsable for this.....
I think they've got a group of people at my uni researching new addressing systems to create more space for the increasing number of sites that keep popping up....
Or was it Al Gore that single handedly invented the internet
*sniggers*
Blank wrote:
> Err....it was a British man who invented the internet.
Are you thinking of Tim Berners-Lee who invented the concept of embedding links in documents? He coined the phrase 'World Wide Web' for the first time. I got that from here:
http://instruct.tri-c.cc.oh.us/nwoznia/SC/docs/articles /who_invented_the_internet.htm
(Space after /articles )
> Err....it was a British man who invented the internet.
Are you thinking of Tim Berners-Lee who invented the concept of embedding links in documents? He coined the phrase 'World Wide Web' for the first time. I got that from here:
http://instruct.tri-c.cc.oh.us/nwoznia/SC/docs/articles /who_invented_the_internet.htm
(Space after /articles )
Blank wrote:
> Err....it was a British man who invented the internet.
---------
Indeed. A Brit and a Swiss, um, bloke.
> Err....it was a British man who invented the internet.
---------
Indeed. A Brit and a Swiss, um, bloke.
OK, but so what? So there's a big dossier somewhere that people could look at and see that I've looked at websites featuring ladies of questionable morality, and that I've bought a ludicrous amount of bizarre music.
I've got nothing to hide, and what are going to do with this knowledge?
I've got nothing to hide, and what are going to do with this knowledge?
FantasyMeister wrote:
> I've got 35 processes running in my Task Manager. I've got an inkling
> what 5 of them are doing, but not a clue about the other 30 :)
Welcome to Windows.
> I've got 35 processes running in my Task Manager. I've got an inkling
> what 5 of them are doing, but not a clue about the other 30 :)
Welcome to Windows.
BEARDS. wrote:
> He was in Switzerland wasn't he?
>
> TCP/IP was invented by the US military though.
I don't know where he was, it doesn't really matter, but he was British. And he came about 98th in the top 100 Britons whereas Diana was near the top. No justice....
> He was in Switzerland wasn't he?
>
> TCP/IP was invented by the US military though.
I don't know where he was, it doesn't really matter, but he was British. And he came about 98th in the top 100 Britons whereas Diana was near the top. No justice....
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