Summary: Keith Alexander offered some less than helpful advice recently to advise citizens how they could avoid having their data observed and stored by government surveillance agencies.
Techdirt.com reports that Keith Alexander, the former head of the National Security Agency and a renowned cybersecurity consultant, is touring the country and speaking to different venues about security issues, including government surveillance.
At MIRcon in Washington, he explained it’s actually quite simple for consumers to avoid the government surveillance that has been such a hot topic since Edward Snowden revealed the true reach of the NSA into the communications of American citizens.
The solution? Simple. According to Alexander: “Our data is in there (NSA databases), my data’s in there. If I talk to an Al Qaeda operative, the chance of my data being looked at is really good, so I try not to do that. If you don’t want to you shouldn’t either.”
This may be difficult since so many Americans knowingly talk to Al Qaeda members on Google Chat and double-tap their photos on Instagram. As Tech Dirt puts it, this advice is pretty useless. Alexander may have an idea of who Al Qaeda members are, but for regular American citizens, they may never know if they stumble across Al Qaeda members in cyberspace, so it’s not exactly clear how to stay out of the NSA’s focus.
Mind you, Alexander charges a cool $1 million per month for his “cyber consulting.”
Citizens who seek to communicate with terrorists likely know how to keep it under wraps. Innocent citizens who have no desire to cross paths with terrorists are likely having their data and communications intercepted and stored by the United States government.
The news has recently been buzzing of terrorist threats from groups such as ISIS. There are hints of domestic terrorist threats as well, but it appears that the government dismisses these groups as nuisances instead of actual threats.
There you have it, folks: don’t communicate with Al Qaeda, and your communications will stay confidential.
Photo credit: dailytech.com