RE: I am not a fan of absolutes... They can make me a little nuts... some of you may think I'm always nuts. ;) [NSA Captures Every Phone Call]
It gets really tedious when you have to change the sentences you would normally use because someone wants "every" to mean 100% and not 97%.
And, your disproofs are flawed. Outlook server, used in most corporate offices has back doors built into it. Thus, even if it is an internal email, it still may be sucked up. Same with the phone PBX.
Now, I know of people who send email not using a standard carrier or standard encryption and these may not be recorded. Its hard to record something that you don't know is there.
I can verify that there are black boxes sitting on the nodes of the internet. And yes, they are black.
So, to get down to changing this into useful information, we can just assume that our phone calls are being recorded, and that at any time, we may have eyes looking into what we are talking about. But, there is 300 million of us, and so, any particular person is not being watched. But, there are some people who are being watched.
We are not innocent with nothing to hide. We are all guilty just waiting for the po-po to turn their flash lights upon us.
I don't put any weight in the difference between most phone calls being recorded and all phone calls being recorded.
It is tedious to break any habit. That doesn't mean sometimes it isn't worth doing.
You mean when people want you to mean what you said, as opposed to reading your mind to see what you really meant?
We don't use Outlook. And as to the phone PBXes bullshit. We built them. ;) We didn't buy them from a manufacturer. Furthermore I gave you an example where people could make intraoffice phone calls without it even being connected to the rest of the world. Even if there was a back door it wouldn't do anything for you if the system isn't connected to the rest of the world for the back door to be accessed.
So my examples stand. There are a lot more email servers than outlook. In fact the SMTP protocol is pretty simple. I've written some of them before from scratch. No NSA code there.
My entire argument was based around the absolutes. It only takes one case for an absolute to be false. Thus what I said stands.
Email does not have to go onto the internet. LEt's say I am sending from the IT Department to the Accounting Department in the same company. That email will never even touch the internet.
There is no sucking thing that is constantly dragging all packets off of everyone's internet circuits. It doesn't happen. You can use wireshark (tshark) or anything like that an monitor the traffic.
One is possible. The other is not.
Also, I appreciate your response. You should know me by now though. If I disagree I'll respond, but at least I'll try to explain why. I may also phrase things to illicit other thoughts. That doesn't always work out well, but it's something I do.
On the backdoors. Those typically exist so if the NSA or someone wants access to your server they can get in. They typically do that if they are looking for something. The statement was they capture all emails. They don't. It isn't possible.
If the backdoor were that type then every time you sent an email internally (assuming your email server is onsite) then it would also need to use the internet connection to go out to the NSA. That would register as using some of your bandwidth for the internet. If you have a packet sniffer in place you can actually monitor this traffic .
It doesn't happen.
However, there are things that do cause odd traffic lately. Windows 10 reaches out to the internet with its default settings a lot more than it probably should. Malware (whether from the NSA or other) can and does tend to use the internet some. It typically won't result in all calls or email being tracked, but it can compromise the machine in question and offer a backdoor into that network. It isn't always recording everything though that'd give it away in an unusual spike in internet activity. That is actually something that can give away both hackers and malware... unusual traffic spikes.
Yes, unusual traffic spikes and things being accessed that are rarely accessed.
That we don't have smart packet sniffers is beyond me. It should be fairly easy to learn the normal traffic. (You know, Sue is at her desk accessing the db from 9-5. Anything else should be less than one record from a known cell phone/laptop.) But, we are really lacking in this area. (but, but, it may have all changed.)
The thing that really urks me is things like "Men are stronger than women". And the typical feminist response is "Not all men" or "Not all women". You get into a conversation that becomes tediously time consuming, without any actual conversation about the topic.
Further, english doesn't really have any words for 97%. Statistically speaking, that is considered all. We have words that mean 60-90%ish, but nothing that really says 97%. And really, there is never a case where it is all, except in identities.
Oh and for the record. I've used absolutes before too. People have called me out on it and I thank them. I didn't say it was easy to break the habit. I believe I likely used absolutes just like most people at some point. I don't remember how long ago that was or what it was like.
I still use them from time to time, but I am okay when people call me out on them.
I'll catch myself typing one from time to time and I correct it. I don't personally consider getting better at conveying more precisely what I mean as tedious. I do consider it challenging, but I usually am rewarded from trying challenging things.
It is now. That doesn't mean it is correct. There is a word for 97%. MOST, or even ALMOST ALL.
Yet there is something about ABSOLUTES. They do not have exceptions.
So I get people use ALL, EVERY, NEVER, NO ONE, etc... and really it is just a societal bad habit. It is an exaggeration.
MOST, FEW, etc work just as well but are more accurate.
There are absolutes, but they are pretty rare. They are things without exception.
So yeah, the fact most people do it doesn't mean it is right.