British spy agency GCHQ collected millions of screenshots from Yahoo webcam chats

Shawn Knight

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A new report from the Guardian claims Britain’s surveillance agency, the GCHQ, has been collecting millions of pictures of Yahoo users through their webcams. During a six-month period, the agency reportedly collected images from more than 1.8 million Yahoo accounts around the world.

Documents supplied by whistleblower Edward Snowden, dated between 2008 and 2010, show the agency used a piece of software known as Optic Nerve to gather the data. The program started as an experiment in 2008 and was still in service as of 2012.

In what should be a surprise to nobody at this point, Optic Nerve was supported by the National Security Agency although it’s unclear if the program is still in use today.

The agency collected still images from Yahoo webcam chats and stored them in a database. Instead of recording the entire webcam chat, the program would snap an image every five minutes in an effort to comply with human rights legislation and also to avoid overloading their servers.

Images were seemingly collected at random regardless of whether or not an individual was considered to be a “target.” It wasn’t uncommon for screenshots to contain sexually explicit content, the publication noted, as anywhere between three to 11 percent of imagery harvested by the GCHQ contained undesirable nudity.

Captured images where then fed into an automated facial recognition program that would match users with known targets.

A spokesperson for the agency said it is a longstanding policy not to comment on intelligence matters.

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I love it when it is shown that the US is not alone in spying, don't get me wrong I hate the fact they spy but those people who think the US is alone in this just annoy me to no end.
 
I'm the first to talk out against our government, but it is obvious other governments are doing the same. That doesn't make it right. Governments don't care about their people, they are controlled by monetary and corporate interests. Unfortunately when there is a leader that wants to help their country, we corrupt them or overthrow their government from the inside. If they doesn't work, they die in a freak accident. Greedy and powerful people are the ones in control, and they always want more.

They even have a stronghold on us socially. You can't even talk about it without being labelled a "conspiracy theorist." That's even when a lot of these "theories" are proven factually, but never appear in the media. Anyways, this is probably the wrong site for such a discussion. :/
 
^^^ It's known as social programming. The government aren't the ones with true power. It's not the president, nor is it the congressman or senators.... it's the ones with the most amount of money whom control the government. Guess who controls the flow of money?

Bankers.
 
"..between three to 11 percent of imagery harvested by the GCHQ contained undesirable nudity"

..aaand about 30%-60% imagery are taken by the staff to spy on their spouse or their children/family.. the rest captured images are used to search wanted person/targets
 
I am just surprised that we even need a whistle blower to know that the government is engaged in all sorts of spying activity. Plus why is the article states that nudity is undesired. It is probably desired by the review staff. Think about it. You work for the government and look at 1000s of images all day. Like you are going to go dam it. When you see that lady nude. That is probably going to be the high light of your day. I don't care how self righteous you think your job is or how ethical you cary your self in your job. With all that said who gave them the right to look at your nude sexy daughter and point the fingers at others doing the same.
 
Plus why is the article states that nudity is undesired. It is probably desired by the review staff. Think about it. You work for the government and look at 1000s of images all day. Like you are going to go dam it. When you see that lady nude. That is probably going to be the high light of your day.

It's a sad state of affairs when seeing some chick naked in a still shot is even worthy of note, let alone a highlight of one's day. I would also venture to say that not all of that nudity is desirable. I surmise not all of the unwitting stars of this gov't sponsored peep show are fit or of appropriate age (teenagers). In such cases, said nudity would certainly be undesirable.

I'm the first to talk out against our government, but it is obvious other governments are doing the same. That doesn't make it right. Governments don't care about their people, they are controlled by monetary and corporate interests. Unfortunately when there is a leader that wants to help their country, we corrupt them or overthrow their government from the inside. If they doesn't work, they die in a freak accident. Greedy and powerful people are the ones in control, and they always want more.

They even have a stronghold on us socially. You can't even talk about it without being labelled a "conspiracy theorist." That's even when a lot of these "theories" are proven factually, but never appear in the media. Anyways, this is probably the wrong site for such a discussion. :/

As much as this rings true, it is also the default status of civilization since its foundations. And, for that matter, the nomadic system that existed prior. The only time gov't shenanigans stop is when the larger population becomes cognizant of the fact that they significantly outnumber the powers that be...Or become sufficiently perturbed by those powers to do something about it.

All this spying nonsense just proves that the tools have changed but the people haven't. Actual stories are just as useless as the conspiracy theories (though demonstrably less creative). They might inform us of the how, but that knowledge is powerless to change the fundamental behaviors of the system.
 
>> As much as this rings true, it is also the default status of civilization since its foundations.

That might be true, but what happens today in unprecedented, because there never were so many people on the planet, and they never were connected into what is called "global economy". Together these two aspects cause a terrible danger for the planet, because means of destruction of our habitat is in hands of people who are not intellectually capable of comprehending the consequences of their financial machinations. Global economy is global only one way - there is global power, but no global responsibility.

A person living on his own tropical island owns factories in 10 countries far away, and believes that affairs of those countries do not concern him. Being a citizen of the world for the rich means that they don't care about countries where they have power (businesses, financial influence); altogether they do not care about ALL countries, and it makes this global government of the richest people totally irresponsible for what's going on in the world in general.

By saying that this is totally unprecedented, I mean that there never was a similar situation that lead to anything but a disaster. We might find similarities in history of died out nations, wiped out civilisations and disappeared populations, but not in a history of those that survived without a radical change.

It might be a funny subject of people being naked on Yahoo web cams, but it's all tips of the same iceberg, symptoms of the same disease. And this is as good a place to discuss it as anywhere, because of those few who'll read it, a few will understand it, fewer will agree, and even less will act.
 
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