Prism- bad or good?

[[FnG] N!MRoD]

That no one has started something about it!
Prism, the surveilance program by NSA, brought into the open by Edward Snowden.
Wiki says the following about it for those that should not know about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28s ... program%29

[[FnG] RampantBunny]

It's diffiicult to correctly say what i feel about it. In general it's not good though. Though I think the information gathered could be valuable to stop threats, I feel that it is getting way to much "1984" .

PRISM is basically one big dragnet, which then gets analysed using all kinds of search algorythms, the statement it cannot be used to target specific (individual) americans is therefore nonsense.

Since anno 2013 internet traffic is global, the data collection is also global and that concerns me most of all. One country is collecting all kinds of data of all global internet users. At no point in time is there any garuantee that data will not be exploited for for instance commercial gain (sell it to my health Insurance to see what kind of hobbies i have and if those hobbies maybe dangerous my Insurance premium goes up) or god forbid! data somehow falls into the wrong hands giving terrorists very valuable intel indeed!.

This breach of my personal privacy honestly is a bridge to far..I'm a world citizin, I realise there are risks to living, prism increases those risks in stead of decreasing them.

[[FnG] Lambik]

What worries me more is the ignorance of the mass people, when a government collects all kind of 'personal' data it is bad,
but when Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc is harvesting way more and even more detailed information we seem to be okay with it.
Those companies will sell this intel at anyone any time. With our cell-phones they know just about everything we do, where we go, what we read/type, pictures and video's we take.
Every internet provider has DPI(DeepPacketInspection) which means they can see(read) basicly everything internet related (including secure data streams!).

I think it doesn't change anything compared to any century before, if someone is to much a pain, they will manipulate or interpret info just to make it fit for their goals.
Witch hunts ala 21 century...or a bit like weather-fore-casting, if you use the right model, you're conclusions might be right.

The masses are not the target, just collateral damage, so if we somehow are able to benefit from this data-collecting, we might as well take profit from it.
(Not entirely true, the Government is able to learn how far they can drain the masses' pockets before things go sour)

On the other hand, as info travels with the speed of light, situations escalate in no time, so having information right away at hand will be required to take (right) measures.
also like a saying 'There is organised crime, now we need the police to get organised'
Gathering info to reduce crime, to see connections, etc, the main idea is nice, but it can also backfire.(Criminals hacking police intel and abuse that )

I think it is inevitable to be part of the data-mining stream, it's only a question of when and what info you share with whom!

-L-