Illegal Wiretapping

It is in the news these days... again. Why, I remember back in the day, there was no such thing as illegal wiretapping. All of the cool kids were doing it. Tapping their wires every chance they got. Sometimes even tapping the wires of friends - from what I hear; not something that interested me, but to each his/her own.

I remember when I first heard of the NSA. Most people didn't believe that such an organization existed. There were rumours, but nothing concrete for many years... many years of denial of its existence. Now it is common knowledge. Or, I guess by the latest news stories, it probably still isn't common knowledge, but at least it is not in denial.

The NSA had the authority to tap the wires of American Citizens. Was there hue and outcry over this? Not that I remember. Yet now a days, days when everyone puts every piece of person information about themselves on public forums like blogger, myspace, youtube, facebook, etc, people are up in arms that someone might find out something about them! Horrors! Like this is all new to them.

First off, if you have no net presence, then you probably aren't reading this blog, so we can dispense with that. But, if someone you know has no net presence, then they might be able to justify saying that they live a private life rather than a public one. Everyone else, it has always been there, and it will always be there. And stop posting everything about yourself if you do not want people to know anything about you! "Really, someone other than my closest friends is reading my sex blog? Wow... I feel so violated!"

Back in the day, when there was the NSA tapping wires, what happened? Did people lose anything? Were secrets revealed? Did people find out about your affairs because of these taps? Well, it is true that back then, they had the ability to tap the phone lines of only 10% of the population. Still, that is a lot of tapping. It is/was all done at the central phone company offices, no need to put a bug in your phone like in the movies. So, there is a chance that someone has been listening to your phone calls for all of your life... and here is why.

10%. If you were in charge and could listen in on 10% of all of the phone calls, who would you pick? Would you pick people who do nothing but watch TV? How many times would you want to have on record that the latest episode of Friends or Mork and Mindy was killer? Probably none. So, whose wires would you tap?

Probably suspected terrorists. Known criminals. World leaders. Congressmen. That isn't really that large of a percentage, so you still have 5% left. I would guess that one would tap the top 5% of the country. Top business men. Top scientist. High IQ people. These are the people who, if gotten involved in the wrong things could lead to rather large disasters. Give secrets to foreign governments, etc.

Are you in the top 5% of the IQ range? I'd guess you are. I'd also guess that your wires have been tapped your whole life.

The Edward

PS There was an old joke from years ago. If you ever discovered a way to factor large numbers (the basis for all computer security), there was no need to call anyone. Just pick up the phone, get a dial tone, and talk. Someone will visit you shortly.