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My Priorities for the Next Four Years

251 points by r721 10y ago

dwe3000 10y ago
> Under a Clinton administration, my list would have looked much the same. And the political polarization and bantering continue. But at least there is some truth in there.
- new299 10y ago
  The context of the next line is somewhat important: > Trump's election just means the threats will be much greater, and the battles a lot harder to win.
  - tomp 10y ago
    I'm not sure I agree with this. Certainly most of these problems (surveilance, assaults on various liberties, etc.) were started/ramped up under W. Bush, but most of them were greately enhanced during Obama, so I have no reason to assume that Hillary might be any better (except better at PR/propaganda, of course).
    - viraptor 10y ago
      So far the surveillance and related laws suck, but to some extent they're controlled and somewhat public. Even before the Snowden revelations, some monitoring was expected, and some was talked about. Of course the scale and depth were a new revelation (tapping private links, etc.), but it existed in some kind of framework that was supposed to be controlled. (Regardless of how well that worked) Since the new potential president is a lot less organised and generally random in his actions, the old framework will be harder to rely on. Who gets the access now? Who's tracked? Who's trusted if he doesn't believe the current agencies? That's still unknown and we may get more secret deals now without clearly defined rules (even if they're not public) Basically we got a chaotic neutral/evil leader now. Anything can happen and I don't expect he'll care about the subtle effects of new decisions.
    - AimHere 10y ago
      One reason for thinking that Trump would be worse is precisely because Hillary and Obama's propaganda machine is good at painting them in a better light. Trump doesn't have to pretend to care about human rights, or war crimes or civil liberties - he outright came out in favour of torture, the killing of innocent people, racial profiling, and said a whole bunch of other heinous things during the campaign. At least with the previous politicians, bad publicity can act as some sort of brake on the violence and the repression and the surveillance, because you have some leverage against a politician's public image. When the next Abu Ghraib-type scandal comes out, Trump can legitimately say 'So what? I said I as going to torture suspects during the campaign, didn't I?'; if it came out under Hillary, she'd be under immediate pressure to shut down whatever happened. Having an openly lawless politician is a shitton worse than having a closet lawbreaker with a good PR machine.
      - tomp 10y ago
        Does this theory work if you apply it to the past? Have Snowden's leaks about surveillance or relevations about Obama's drone programme (killing people, even US citizens, without trial and with a lot of collateral damage) resulted in any change in government behaviour (except more secrecy and extensive supression of leaks/information)? My take on these questions is "no", but I haven't been following the events in detail, so I might be missing some positive consequences.
        acqq 10y ago
        > Does this theory work if you apply it to the past? Have Snowden's leaks about surveillance or relevations about Obama's drone programme resulted in any change in government behaviour? There were certainly Obama's voters that were disappointed by what Obama did, after he previously spoke differently. They have thought along these lines of the article: "business as usual" ... "problems won't go away on their own" ... and didn't vote for her. The problem is only having a binary choice when the both options don't look good.
        ethbro 10y ago
        We wouldn't be having these conversations if the leaks hadn't happened. It was suspected before, now it's known. That's a fairly big difference. Or in other words, speaking about nation state backhaul taps, etc as a threat model before made you a paranoid OpenBSD cyberpunk: now it makes you an average HN commenter.
    - clifanatic 10y ago
      > were started/ramped up under W. Bush Assault on privacy and massive surveillance started as soon as the internet became a household word - which actually happened under Bill Clinton.
  - caminante 10y ago
    Except the author never gets around to adding substance to his claims about how EITHER Clinton or Trump would be incrementally worse than Obama regarding "government/corporate surveillance." I think it's off-topic[0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
      I think it's assumed, because Bush was worse than Clinton, and Obama was worse than Bush. There's no reason to think that either Hillary or Trump would not continue the trend.
  - vanderZwan 10y ago
    That, and the earlier part where he states (emphasis mine): > That alternative narrative would stress business as usual, and continue to obscure the deep social problems in our society. Those problems won't go away on their own, and in this alternative future they would continue to fester under the surface, getting steadily worse. This election exposed those problems for everyone to see.
  - dexterdog 10y ago
    What makes him think privacy was not going to be as much or more in the cross-hair under Clinton? I was really put off by his first paragraph. As much as I have distaste for Trump, I don't see that level of power in the presidency.
- caminante 10y ago
  I homed in on the same quote. Not an informative essay.
- bottled_poe 10y ago
  Huh? Isn't that statement trying to defuse the political polarization?
  - caminante 10y ago
    You're assuming political preferences of the reader. The author's attacking both Clinton and Trump without offering substantive reasons.
    - ooqr 10y ago
      Do you enjoy seeing dead horses beaten?
      - caminante 10y ago
        I don't understand. Can you explain?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- geofft 10y ago
  The election is over. Can we stop thinking about this as Trump good = Clinton bad or Clinton good = Trump bad, and worry about the policies of the actual president-elect instead of the possible policies of a past secretary of state? I have my (extremely positive) opinions of Clinton, but they're irrelevant now. If there's something we disagree with Trump on, that's not a pro-Clinton statement because there's no chance of Clinton becoming president in the next four years. Ideally, he shouldn't have to acknowledge Clinton at all to make the point he's making. The fact that he feels obligated to, and that that's seen as a good and moderate statement, is a sign of how uphill the fight to effectively oppose our president's bad policies is going to be. (Although we might also have inferred that from how poorly we're effectively opposing our current president's bad policies.)
- idlewords 10y ago
  That's literally the opposite point from what you're citing.
apatters 10y ago
Interesting read, but I can't imagine how anyone could convince Google and Facebook to change their business models at this stage unless the market truly revolted and started moving away from their products due to privacy issues. I think change is much more likely to happen through disruption (which perhaps is the other side of his ideas, coming up with business models that are more privacy-friendly). I think security and privacy are a lot more important to people than Facebook and Google's market share are thought to indicate. In 2017 they will be real selling points for a product if it can match the UX and features of the incumbents. That is the hard part -- particularly given that good UX for secure products has a long way to go. I don't believe it's impossible, but it requires a mindset shift in the industry. "Give an extra key to your friend/family member in case you lock yourself out" is an idea that's been with us a lot longer than "contact customer support." It just isn't how the tech industry has ever worked.
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  Matching the UX and features is only a part of it. Overcoming network effects are possibly an even bigger one.
  - apatters 10y ago
    And even if you do beat their network effects, they will throw as much cash at you as it takes to buy you out... sigh.
- idlewords 10y ago
  I think employee revolt is a much more promising avenue of attack than market revolt. Many of the people working at Google and Facebook are deeply uneasy about what the data they've collected can be used for. Watching their CEO (or COO) march meekly into Trump tower does not alleviate those anxieties.
  - suls 10y ago
    I suppose however it is hard to revolt against the hand that feeds you more than 2x market rate. "Everyone has their price" sort of thing ..
Randgalt 10y ago
This comment from Keith Glass is the perfect response to Schneier: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/12/my_priorities_f.html#c6740580 https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/12/my_priorities...
- brainfire 10y ago
  Meh. It quibbles over points that have no impact on the actual message of the blog post regarding security.
aaron-lebo 10y ago
I don't say this in a rude way, I just say it because I don't understand: it baffles me that the election of Donald Trump caused people to notice certain things. If you are worried about government surveillance now, why were you not worried about that same power under a different administration? If you are worried about corporate overreach now, why were you not worried about that power under a different administration? Why is this fear more valid now then when people were worried four years ago? Did you not notice it? Is it because those people weren't on your side? Do we assume benevolent dictators? I genuinely don't understand the mindset. If you know that in the future power may be abused by someone...why would you ever give someone that power? What caused this vast attention shift? It's genuinely smart people that seem to be noticing this stuff for the first time. How?
- sylvinus 10y ago
  To be fair, Bruce has been worried (and very publicly so) about those things for a long time. I think what the post transpires is just a new sense of urgency.
  - privong 10y ago
    He even says as much: Those are my four areas. Under a Clinton administration, my list would have looked much the same. Trump's election just means the threats will be much greater, and the battles a lot harder to win.
    - aaron-lebo 10y ago
      See, I might even be tempted to believe that but he presents it like it's a known thing. Why should we fear a Trump administration more? Why should we fear it so much that it's worth changing our personal focus for the next four years? Doesn't that seem reactionary? If we look at the facts, we know that the Bushes and Clintons are friendly and even share a lot of similar views and the same goes for the Obamas and Clintons...and the Trumps and Clintons. Hell, one of Trump's first statements after that infamous tape was: "Bill Clinton has said worse things to me on the golf course". I'm inclined to believe him [0]. So we've got the previous four administrations going back to the 1980s that are chummy and/or have similar views. Under those administrations all this government surveillance has taken place. Under those administrations all this corporate overreach has been happening. Under these administrations we had social networks tracking their users without consent. More recently, Obama has been fairly friendly towards Zuckerberg and other tech stars. Tech and politics are intertwined now. So know all of this...what steps is Trump going to take that are going to be worse than those that a Clinton administration would have engaged in? Without something supporting it, it's just fearmongering. http://imgur.com/gallery/uO2cqtr http://imgur.com/gallery/uO2cqtr
jstewartmobile 10y ago
Brother Bruce has been fighting the righteous fight for a long time now, and he has been doing it with minimal ego and loads of class. And here is he is trying to lift the spirits of the anti-Trump privacy folks. What's wrong with that? Where's the love y'all?
- karim 10y ago
  I wouldn't read too much into this. People on Hacker News have this pavlovian need to contradict any article they're commenting on. If Schneier was saying the task was too big, you'd have people saying he's giving up too easily.
  - idlewords 10y ago
    > People on Hacker News have this pavlovian need to contradict any article they're commenting on. No they don't.
    - yekim 10y ago
      Haha - I get it!
      - viscountchocula 10y ago
        No you don't.
        superfluid 10y ago
        You're both way off base.
      - DonHopkins 10y ago
        In Soviet America, it gets you.
    - schoen 10y ago
      "Look here, this isn't an argument, it's just a contradiction!"
drieddust 10y ago
I think he should plan for 8 years :) Trump might get another term. Trump probably will win the next election because he knows how to attract populace. At least this has worked beautifully in other places. To be fair a lot of thing he talk about are sensible. But he doesn't have a clue on how to fix them so he won't bring any meaningful change. He did the talking and won. He will talk again and win again.
- naasking 10y ago
  > Trump probably will win the next election because he knows how to attract populace. Trump only won because fewer Liberals voted. I don't think that will happen 4 years from now.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    Realistically the incumbent has a huge advantage in an election. I won't rule out that Trump does something bad enough to invalidate it, or even get impeached early, but if he makes it four years there's a good chance he'll be doing eight.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    Fewer liberals voted because a lot of people couldn't stomach Hillary, and a lot of people were apathetic toward her. She didn't excite many people. If the Democrats run someone less entitled, less establishment, less robotic (for want of a better word), then that should help. On the other hand, Trump needs to deliver, or have a mighty good reason why not. Talking big won't be enough next time. If he hasn't actually done anything for job creation, saying "I'll create jobs" won't cut it. Yes, he'll have the incumbent's advantage. But people turned to Trump because they were desperate, because the status quo was failing them. That won't be enough to get Trump another four years if he doesn't deliver during the first four. It will just make people desperate for something different.
    - drieddust 10y ago
      > That won't be enough to get Trump another four years if he doesn't deliver during the first four. Not to be confronting but Obama got elected twice. Did he delivered the first time?
aaron-lebo 10y ago
Edit: I apologize for clearly being ignorant about who Bruce Schneier is. May God have mercy on my soul. I don't know who Bruce Schneier is any more than he knows who I am. I'm under no obligation to read his past statements and works before I comment on a blog post of his. What has changed under Trump is that the power is now concentrated in tiny hands that seem particularly like it to abuse it, unconstrained by social norms or political checks. And what's the evidence for that? Surveillance culture started under Bush and thrived under Obama. Would Clinton roll it back? Both your comment and Schneier's post have that same underlying assumption that Trump will be worse. Why is Trump worse? Why is he scarier?
- majewsky 10y ago
  > I'm under no obligation to read his past statements and works before I comment on a blog post of his. Good morning, Mr. Trump. Didn't see you coming in this early.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Instead of counter-trolling, it would be better if you just downvoted, flagged the comment, or mailed hn@ycombinator.com.
    - zeveb 10y ago
      Or, y'know, replied substantively to substantive comments.
- idlewords 10y ago
  If you're going to say "why only now..." and say you don't understand the author's mindset for conditioning his concerns on who is in power, then yes, you do have an obilgation to back that up.
  - aaron-lebo 10y ago
    Like many, I was surprised and shocked by the election of Donald Trump as president. I believe his ideas, temperament, and inexperience represent a grave threat to our country and world. Suddenly, all the things I had planned to work on seemed trivial in comparison. Although Internet security and privacy are not the most important policy areas at risk, I believe he -- and, more importantly, his cabinet, administration, and Congress -- will have devastating effects in that area, both in the US and around the world. Trump's election just means the threats will be much greater, and the battles a lot harder to win. It's true that some of Trump's institutional changes might take decades to undo. It's his job to justify sentiments like that. Without it, it's an out of context blog post. If you expect the reader to go back and read an author's past history to understand those assumptions in the text, then you are expecting a lot of the reader and not much of the writer. But again, my question is: what practically signals that Internet freedoms under Trump will be worse than they would be under Clinton? I see nothing to suggest that Clinton wouldn't be similar to Obama. Why is Trump worse?
falcolas 10y ago
> we have a defeated majority I take this to mean HRC supporters. It's also important to realize and recognize the pains being endured by the "minority" (I hate that word when it comes to binary politics and the "minority" is only 1-2% smaller than the "majority") that caused them to support Trump in the first place. Failing to do so, or treating them as idiots, is only going to exacerbate the problem. Bruce Schneier addresses that a bit, but I think it's even more important, since his message also needs to reach so many of them.
- schoen 10y ago
  It might also be more accurate to say "a defeated plurality" (Trump's 46% and Clinton's 48% are both minorities of the electorate). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_(voting) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_(voting)
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  First, I don't think that Schneier is ignoring the pains/problems of the minority. He said, "That alternative narrative [a Clinton win] would stress business as usual, and continue to obscure the deep social problems in our society. Those problems won't go away on their own, and in this alternative future they would continue to fester under the surface, getting steadily worse." I don't think he was referring only to racism, sexism, and/or anti-liberal sentiment. I think (but cannot prove) that he was referring to real problems (many of them economic in origin) that have devastated large swathes of the country. Second: Complaining about Hillary winning the popular vote is like complaining that a football team lost even though they had the most yards of offense. The rules say that's not how the game is scored. Saying that the rules should have given victory to the other team is after-the-fact sour grapes.
idm 10y ago
Good post and worth the read. His four priorities are: 1. fight the fights. There will be more government surveillance and more corporate surveillance. 2. prepare for those fights. Much of the next four years will be reactive, but we can prepare somewhat. 3. lay the groundwork for a better future. 4. continue to solve the actual problems. The serious security issues around cybercrime, cyber-espionage, cyberwar, the Internet of Things... This isn't exactly presented like a political platform or policy agenda, but in fact that is what it is - and I am happy to see it. Schneier has been writing for so long - becoming such the guru - that I'm glad to see him courting audiences beyond the security community.
- koheripbal 10y ago
  I have a hard time imagining these exact same four points not being equally urgent if we were ushering in a Clinton administration. From an IT perspective, I think it's more important to recognize the increasing complexity and chaos of our security environment, and recognize that governments are not homogeneous objects, but themselves composed of good actors and bad actors. Engage the good, protect yourself from the bad.
ipunchghosts 10y ago
> Like many, I was surprised and shocked by the election of Donald Trump as president. To me, this is a fundamental flaw with those in charge of our security. Your job in security is essentially to predict the future. The best security should be surprised by nothing. I can't see how BS was surprised by Trump being elected. he had literally millions of datapoints to sample. The election is not some hidden process that spits an answer out. You simply hold a vote, count the votes, and the elect. I like BS and have been reading him for about 10 years but this has really changed my view about him. I'm starting to think he really doesnt get it.
- scblock 10y ago
  This comment makes zero sense.
  - burke 10y ago
    There is a logic to it in a way, but I think it goes too far. The security industry should strive to not have to broadly re-evaluate practices based on surprises. Shock and surprise are fine, but they shouldn't cause a scramble of reactionary work, since that work should have been done in anticipation of the potential threat.
  - ipunchghosts 10y ago
    I will restate my point another way and hopefully it will make sense. The fact that BS was surprised that Trump got elected means in some sense he is not tuned to the issues right in front of him. Scott Adams would say he is living in another reality than half of america (half of america voted for trump). Security is all about prediction. You are most secure when you can predict everyone's movements. Regarding the US vote of trump, there were lots of signs that showed Trump had a real chance of winning. It wasnt like the polls showed trump down by many points and then all of a sudden several million american's changed their mind and decided to vote for him. If you read about poll science, you will see Trump had the large gain in polls ever seen since they started polling.
    - 10y ago
clarkmoody 10y ago
> And if there's a major terrorist attack under Trump's watch, it'll be open season on our liberties. I'm starting to believe that there is not a single world leader who is more than one crisis away from "reluctantly" assuming dictatorial powers. And the populations of advanced economies have no conception of the value of their liberty, since they so willingly give it away.
- pg314 10y ago
  I think in Europe the reactions are usually a little more measured. After the attacks in Paris and Brussels, there was a reaction and a rise in populism, but I wouldn't call it assuming dictatorial powers. I don't think it could be compared to Trump's reaction in the hypothetical case where there was a similar terrorist attack in e.g. New York.
  - CPAhem 10y ago
    It's interesting that countries like Germany where the population experienced the Nazis and the Stasi are the leaders in resisting this populism. In the US, we probably don't understand how bad it can get yet.
    - pg314 10y ago
      Europe also has had more experience with organised terrorism in the 20th century: Rote Armee Fraktion in Germany, CCC in Belgium, ETA in Basque country, IRA in Ireland, to name just a few. That might also partly explain why the reactions to terror attacks are more measured.
    - weaksauce 10y ago
      And, over time, they too will start to forget just how bad it was. It's just how humans are wired.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  There have been bombings, gun battles and other mass murders in the streets of Paris, Marseille and elsewhere in Europe, and no sign of dictatorships.
MrZongle2 10y ago
Key sentence: "Under a Clinton administration, my list would have looked much the same." I have a lot of respect for Mr. Schneier. But he is fooling himself if he thinks a Clinton administration would be one iota less threatening.
- treebeard901 10y ago
  That's exactly the point of the quote... The list would have looked much the same. Or am I missing something?
  - rconti 10y ago
    Same in content, but less extreme. Which seems like a completely fair assessment, given the cabinet choices so far.
  - MrZongle2 10y ago
    The following sentence is "Trump's election just means the threats will be much greater, and the battles a lot harder to win." And I think that's a bunch of poppycock. The threats would be no less under a Clinton administration. The battles would be no easier. Have we all forgotten the Clipper Chip debacle under the last Clinton administration?
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      The last Clinton Administration increased FOIA capability & compromised on the crypto wars. Wheeler at FCC fought the schemes of ISP's. In each of these areas, Trump would do worse due to his politics or style of not compromising. I'm a left-leaning moderate who expected Trump to win. I'm not saying any of this in a bubble. Republicans have almost always fought against civil rights (2nd Amendment is exception), privacy, far enforcement of copyright, and net neutrality. That's in the laws they pushed or passed rather than campaign promises. Trump, if he's consistent with Republican politics, will likewise do worse for people concerned about these areas. Better for those who liked the status quo & want noose tightened around individuals necks for big business & government. I'm still holding out for the 3rd option of him knocking out a lot of this bad stuff after just saying what he needed to get elected. He could feed his ego quite well as a hero against bad laws created by special interests. On top of whatever else he does. Hope he does it but no evidence so far.
Balgair 10y ago
I was watching the 'Dunkirk' trailer the other day and a line stuck out to me: An older fishing boat captain is talking to a younger and soggy rescued solider and says: "There's no hiding from this, boy", referring to the coming of WW2 in general and the captain having to turn to boat back into the melee to search for more survivors. I think that line is also what Bruce is trying to say to a lot of the EFF supporters out there. There's no hiding from the next 4 years. The implication is then that you have to fight.
- scaryspooky 10y ago
  I know EFF and Schneier have been fighting the expansion of the US spy machine, but it seems like a lot of more liberal leaning groups didn't push back when Obama expanded policies started under Bush and that's pretty disappointing. Civil liberties and rights are to be protected even if your candidate/party is in power. Not just when the other party takes over.
  - pavlovasdog 10y ago
    This seems irrelevant and possibly untrue. What liberal leaning groups are you referring to?
    - scaryspooky 10y ago
      The ACLU has, maybe for fund raising reasons, taken out a full page ad in the NYTimes promising to challenge Trump. They never took out a full page ad when Obama escalated the drone war or killed a US citizen without trial via drone strike. A lot of pro-marijuana groups (let's face it they are liberal groups) weren't aggressively going after the DEA under Obama because his administration had a hands-off approach. Suddenly this is a huge issue with the nomination of Sessions, even though the law is still the same under both administrations. None of the groups have gone after the flagrant violation of 1st amendment rights that the 'hate speech' laws bring about. You might not like a neonazi defaming Jewish people but hate speech laws are counter to the US Constitution. The ACLU hasn't defended aggressions against the 2nd amendment. The PATRIOT act was renewed under Obama. The NDAA was also renewed with increased powers under Obama. NSA spying has increased, the FBI has taken more liberties in 'national security letters' and the CIA has still had free reign to do as they please. Yet all of the liberal watchdog groups gave Obama a free pass, even though he was basically the same as Bush whom they hated. You can go read his record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveilla... and yet the ACLU never took out a full page ad about his spying. Maybe you will also read this editorial: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/29/opinion/la-oe-turley-civil-liberties-20110929 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/29/opinion/la-oe-turley... Where were the 'civil liberty' or 'civil rights' groups these past 8 years?

251 points by r721 10y ago

> Under a Clinton administration, my list would have looked much the same. And the political polarization and bantering continue. But at least there is some truth in there.

new299 10y ago
The context of the next line is somewhat important: > Trump's election just means the threats will be much greater, and the battles a lot harder to win.
- tomp 10y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with this. Certainly most of these problems (surveilance, assaults on various liberties, etc.) were started/ramped up under W. Bush, but most of them were greately enhanced during Obama, so I have no reason to assume that Hillary might be any better (except better at PR/propaganda, of course).
  - viraptor 10y ago
    So far the surveillance and related laws suck, but to some extent they're controlled and somewhat public. Even before the Snowden revelations, some monitoring was expected, and some was talked about. Of course the scale and depth were a new revelation (tapping private links, etc.), but it existed in some kind of framework that was supposed to be controlled. (Regardless of how well that worked) Since the new potential president is a lot less organised and generally random in his actions, the old framework will be harder to rely on. Who gets the access now? Who's tracked? Who's trusted if he doesn't believe the current agencies? That's still unknown and we may get more secret deals now without clearly defined rules (even if they're not public) Basically we got a chaotic neutral/evil leader now. Anything can happen and I don't expect he'll care about the subtle effects of new decisions.
  - AimHere 10y ago
    One reason for thinking that Trump would be worse is precisely because Hillary and Obama's propaganda machine is good at painting them in a better light. Trump doesn't have to pretend to care about human rights, or war crimes or civil liberties - he outright came out in favour of torture, the killing of innocent people, racial profiling, and said a whole bunch of other heinous things during the campaign. At least with the previous politicians, bad publicity can act as some sort of brake on the violence and the repression and the surveillance, because you have some leverage against a politician's public image. When the next Abu Ghraib-type scandal comes out, Trump can legitimately say 'So what? I said I as going to torture suspects during the campaign, didn't I?'; if it came out under Hillary, she'd be under immediate pressure to shut down whatever happened. Having an openly lawless politician is a shitton worse than having a closet lawbreaker with a good PR machine.
    - tomp 10y ago
      Does this theory work if you apply it to the past? Have Snowden's leaks about surveillance or relevations about Obama's drone programme (killing people, even US citizens, without trial and with a lot of collateral damage) resulted in any change in government behaviour (except more secrecy and extensive supression of leaks/information)? My take on these questions is "no", but I haven't been following the events in detail, so I might be missing some positive consequences.
      - acqq 10y ago
        > Does this theory work if you apply it to the past? Have Snowden's leaks about surveillance or relevations about Obama's drone programme resulted in any change in government behaviour? There were certainly Obama's voters that were disappointed by what Obama did, after he previously spoke differently. They have thought along these lines of the article: "business as usual" ... "problems won't go away on their own" ... and didn't vote for her. The problem is only having a binary choice when the both options don't look good.
      - ethbro 10y ago
        We wouldn't be having these conversations if the leaks hadn't happened. It was suspected before, now it's known. That's a fairly big difference. Or in other words, speaking about nation state backhaul taps, etc as a threat model before made you a paranoid OpenBSD cyberpunk: now it makes you an average HN commenter.
  - clifanatic 10y ago
    > were started/ramped up under W. Bush Assault on privacy and massive surveillance started as soon as the internet became a household word - which actually happened under Bill Clinton.
- caminante 10y ago
  Except the author never gets around to adding substance to his claims about how EITHER Clinton or Trump would be incrementally worse than Obama regarding "government/corporate surveillance." I think it's off-topic[0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    I think it's assumed, because Bush was worse than Clinton, and Obama was worse than Bush. There's no reason to think that either Hillary or Trump would not continue the trend.
- vanderZwan 10y ago
  That, and the earlier part where he states (emphasis mine): > That alternative narrative would stress business as usual, and continue to obscure the deep social problems in our society. Those problems won't go away on their own, and in this alternative future they would continue to fester under the surface, getting steadily worse. This election exposed those problems for everyone to see.
- dexterdog 10y ago
  What makes him think privacy was not going to be as much or more in the cross-hair under Clinton? I was really put off by his first paragraph. As much as I have distaste for Trump, I don't see that level of power in the presidency.
caminante 10y ago
I homed in on the same quote. Not an informative essay.
bottled_poe 10y ago
Huh? Isn't that statement trying to defuse the political polarization?
- caminante 10y ago
  You're assuming political preferences of the reader. The author's attacking both Clinton and Trump without offering substantive reasons.
  - ooqr 10y ago
    Do you enjoy seeing dead horses beaten?
    - caminante 10y ago
      I don't understand. Can you explain?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
geofft 10y ago
The election is over. Can we stop thinking about this as Trump good = Clinton bad or Clinton good = Trump bad, and worry about the policies of the actual president-elect instead of the possible policies of a past secretary of state? I have my (extremely positive) opinions of Clinton, but they're irrelevant now. If there's something we disagree with Trump on, that's not a pro-Clinton statement because there's no chance of Clinton becoming president in the next four years. Ideally, he shouldn't have to acknowledge Clinton at all to make the point he's making. The fact that he feels obligated to, and that that's seen as a good and moderate statement, is a sign of how uphill the fight to effectively oppose our president's bad policies is going to be. (Although we might also have inferred that from how poorly we're effectively opposing our current president's bad policies.)
idlewords 10y ago
That's literally the opposite point from what you're citing.

apatters 10y ago

Interesting read, but I can't imagine how anyone could convince Google and Facebook to change their business models at this stage unless the market truly revolted and started moving away from their products due to privacy issues. I think change is much more likely to happen through disruption (which perhaps is the other side of his ideas, coming up with business models that are more privacy-friendly). I think security and privacy are a lot more important to people than Facebook and Google's market share are thought to indicate. In 2017 they will be real selling points for a product if it can match the UX and features of the incumbents. That is the hard part -- particularly given that good UX for secure products has a long way to go. I don't believe it's impossible, but it requires a mindset shift in the industry. "Give an extra key to your friend/family member in case you lock yourself out" is an idea that's been with us a lot longer than "contact customer support." It just isn't how the tech industry has ever worked.

NoGravitas 10y ago
Matching the UX and features is only a part of it. Overcoming network effects are possibly an even bigger one.
- apatters 10y ago
  And even if you do beat their network effects, they will throw as much cash at you as it takes to buy you out... sigh.
idlewords 10y ago
I think employee revolt is a much more promising avenue of attack than market revolt. Many of the people working at Google and Facebook are deeply uneasy about what the data they've collected can be used for. Watching their CEO (or COO) march meekly into Trump tower does not alleviate those anxieties.
- suls 10y ago
  I suppose however it is hard to revolt against the hand that feeds you more than 2x market rate. "Everyone has their price" sort of thing ..

Randgalt 10y ago

This comment from Keith Glass is the perfect response to Schneier: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/12/my_priorities_f.html#c6740580 https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/12/my_priorities...

brainfire 10y ago
Meh. It quibbles over points that have no impact on the actual message of the blog post regarding security.

aaron-lebo 10y ago

I don't say this in a rude way, I just say it because I don't understand: it baffles me that the election of Donald Trump caused people to notice certain things. If you are worried about government surveillance now, why were you not worried about that same power under a different administration? If you are worried about corporate overreach now, why were you not worried about that power under a different administration? Why is this fear more valid now then when people were worried four years ago? Did you not notice it? Is it because those people weren't on your side? Do we assume benevolent dictators? I genuinely don't understand the mindset. If you know that in the future power may be abused by someone...why would you ever give someone that power? What caused this vast attention shift? It's genuinely smart people that seem to be noticing this stuff for the first time. How?

sylvinus 10y ago
To be fair, Bruce has been worried (and very publicly so) about those things for a long time. I think what the post transpires is just a new sense of urgency.
- privong 10y ago
  He even says as much: Those are my four areas. Under a Clinton administration, my list would have looked much the same. Trump's election just means the threats will be much greater, and the battles a lot harder to win.
  - aaron-lebo 10y ago
    See, I might even be tempted to believe that but he presents it like it's a known thing. Why should we fear a Trump administration more? Why should we fear it so much that it's worth changing our personal focus for the next four years? Doesn't that seem reactionary? If we look at the facts, we know that the Bushes and Clintons are friendly and even share a lot of similar views and the same goes for the Obamas and Clintons...and the Trumps and Clintons. Hell, one of Trump's first statements after that infamous tape was: "Bill Clinton has said worse things to me on the golf course". I'm inclined to believe him [0]. So we've got the previous four administrations going back to the 1980s that are chummy and/or have similar views. Under those administrations all this government surveillance has taken place. Under those administrations all this corporate overreach has been happening. Under these administrations we had social networks tracking their users without consent. More recently, Obama has been fairly friendly towards Zuckerberg and other tech stars. Tech and politics are intertwined now. So know all of this...what steps is Trump going to take that are going to be worse than those that a Clinton administration would have engaged in? Without something supporting it, it's just fearmongering. http://imgur.com/gallery/uO2cqtr http://imgur.com/gallery/uO2cqtr

jstewartmobile 10y ago

Brother Bruce has been fighting the righteous fight for a long time now, and he has been doing it with minimal ego and loads of class. And here is he is trying to lift the spirits of the anti-Trump privacy folks. What's wrong with that? Where's the love y'all?

karim 10y ago
I wouldn't read too much into this. People on Hacker News have this pavlovian need to contradict any article they're commenting on. If Schneier was saying the task was too big, you'd have people saying he's giving up too easily.
- idlewords 10y ago
  > People on Hacker News have this pavlovian need to contradict any article they're commenting on. No they don't.
  - yekim 10y ago
    Haha - I get it!
    - viscountchocula 10y ago
      No you don't.
      - superfluid 10y ago
        You're both way off base.
    - DonHopkins 10y ago
      In Soviet America, it gets you.
  - schoen 10y ago
    "Look here, this isn't an argument, it's just a contradiction!"

drieddust 10y ago

I think he should plan for 8 years :) Trump might get another term. Trump probably will win the next election because he knows how to attract populace. At least this has worked beautifully in other places. To be fair a lot of thing he talk about are sensible. But he doesn't have a clue on how to fix them so he won't bring any meaningful change. He did the talking and won. He will talk again and win again.

naasking 10y ago
> Trump probably will win the next election because he knows how to attract populace. Trump only won because fewer Liberals voted. I don't think that will happen 4 years from now.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  Realistically the incumbent has a huge advantage in an election. I won't rule out that Trump does something bad enough to invalidate it, or even get impeached early, but if he makes it four years there's a good chance he'll be doing eight.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  Fewer liberals voted because a lot of people couldn't stomach Hillary, and a lot of people were apathetic toward her. She didn't excite many people. If the Democrats run someone less entitled, less establishment, less robotic (for want of a better word), then that should help. On the other hand, Trump needs to deliver, or have a mighty good reason why not. Talking big won't be enough next time. If he hasn't actually done anything for job creation, saying "I'll create jobs" won't cut it. Yes, he'll have the incumbent's advantage. But people turned to Trump because they were desperate, because the status quo was failing them. That won't be enough to get Trump another four years if he doesn't deliver during the first four. It will just make people desperate for something different.
  - drieddust 10y ago
    > That won't be enough to get Trump another four years if he doesn't deliver during the first four. Not to be confronting but Obama got elected twice. Did he delivered the first time?

aaron-lebo 10y ago

Edit: I apologize for clearly being ignorant about who Bruce Schneier is. May God have mercy on my soul. I don't know who Bruce Schneier is any more than he knows who I am. I'm under no obligation to read his past statements and works before I comment on a blog post of his. What has changed under Trump is that the power is now concentrated in tiny hands that seem particularly like it to abuse it, unconstrained by social norms or political checks. And what's the evidence for that? Surveillance culture started under Bush and thrived under Obama. Would Clinton roll it back? Both your comment and Schneier's post have that same underlying assumption that Trump will be worse. Why is Trump worse? Why is he scarier?

majewsky 10y ago
> I'm under no obligation to read his past statements and works before I comment on a blog post of his. Good morning, Mr. Trump. Didn't see you coming in this early.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Instead of counter-trolling, it would be better if you just downvoted, flagged the comment, or mailed hn@ycombinator.com.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    Or, y'know, replied substantively to substantive comments.
idlewords 10y ago
If you're going to say "why only now..." and say you don't understand the author's mindset for conditioning his concerns on who is in power, then yes, you do have an obilgation to back that up.
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  Like many, I was surprised and shocked by the election of Donald Trump as president. I believe his ideas, temperament, and inexperience represent a grave threat to our country and world. Suddenly, all the things I had planned to work on seemed trivial in comparison. Although Internet security and privacy are not the most important policy areas at risk, I believe he -- and, more importantly, his cabinet, administration, and Congress -- will have devastating effects in that area, both in the US and around the world. Trump's election just means the threats will be much greater, and the battles a lot harder to win. It's true that some of Trump's institutional changes might take decades to undo. It's his job to justify sentiments like that. Without it, it's an out of context blog post. If you expect the reader to go back and read an author's past history to understand those assumptions in the text, then you are expecting a lot of the reader and not much of the writer. But again, my question is: what practically signals that Internet freedoms under Trump will be worse than they would be under Clinton? I see nothing to suggest that Clinton wouldn't be similar to Obama. Why is Trump worse?

falcolas 10y ago

> we have a defeated majority I take this to mean HRC supporters. It's also important to realize and recognize the pains being endured by the "minority" (I hate that word when it comes to binary politics and the "minority" is only 1-2% smaller than the "majority") that caused them to support Trump in the first place. Failing to do so, or treating them as idiots, is only going to exacerbate the problem. Bruce Schneier addresses that a bit, but I think it's even more important, since his message also needs to reach so many of them.

schoen 10y ago
It might also be more accurate to say "a defeated plurality" (Trump's 46% and Clinton's 48% are both minorities of the electorate). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_(voting) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_(voting)
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
First, I don't think that Schneier is ignoring the pains/problems of the minority. He said, "That alternative narrative [a Clinton win] would stress business as usual, and continue to obscure the deep social problems in our society. Those problems won't go away on their own, and in this alternative future they would continue to fester under the surface, getting steadily worse." I don't think he was referring only to racism, sexism, and/or anti-liberal sentiment. I think (but cannot prove) that he was referring to real problems (many of them economic in origin) that have devastated large swathes of the country. Second: Complaining about Hillary winning the popular vote is like complaining that a football team lost even though they had the most yards of offense. The rules say that's not how the game is scored. Saying that the rules should have given victory to the other team is after-the-fact sour grapes.

idm 10y ago

Good post and worth the read. His four priorities are: 1. fight the fights. There will be more government surveillance and more corporate surveillance. 2. prepare for those fights. Much of the next four years will be reactive, but we can prepare somewhat. 3. lay the groundwork for a better future. 4. continue to solve the actual problems. The serious security issues around cybercrime, cyber-espionage, cyberwar, the Internet of Things... This isn't exactly presented like a political platform or policy agenda, but in fact that is what it is - and I am happy to see it. Schneier has been writing for so long - becoming such the guru - that I'm glad to see him courting audiences beyond the security community.

koheripbal 10y ago
I have a hard time imagining these exact same four points not being equally urgent if we were ushering in a Clinton administration. From an IT perspective, I think it's more important to recognize the increasing complexity and chaos of our security environment, and recognize that governments are not homogeneous objects, but themselves composed of good actors and bad actors. Engage the good, protect yourself from the bad.

ipunchghosts 10y ago

> Like many, I was surprised and shocked by the election of Donald Trump as president. To me, this is a fundamental flaw with those in charge of our security. Your job in security is essentially to predict the future. The best security should be surprised by nothing. I can't see how BS was surprised by Trump being elected. he had literally millions of datapoints to sample. The election is not some hidden process that spits an answer out. You simply hold a vote, count the votes, and the elect. I like BS and have been reading him for about 10 years but this has really changed my view about him. I'm starting to think he really doesnt get it.

scblock 10y ago
This comment makes zero sense.
- burke 10y ago
  There is a logic to it in a way, but I think it goes too far. The security industry should strive to not have to broadly re-evaluate practices based on surprises. Shock and surprise are fine, but they shouldn't cause a scramble of reactionary work, since that work should have been done in anticipation of the potential threat.
- ipunchghosts 10y ago
  I will restate my point another way and hopefully it will make sense. The fact that BS was surprised that Trump got elected means in some sense he is not tuned to the issues right in front of him. Scott Adams would say he is living in another reality than half of america (half of america voted for trump). Security is all about prediction. You are most secure when you can predict everyone's movements. Regarding the US vote of trump, there were lots of signs that showed Trump had a real chance of winning. It wasnt like the polls showed trump down by many points and then all of a sudden several million american's changed their mind and decided to vote for him. If you read about poll science, you will see Trump had the large gain in polls ever seen since they started polling.
  - 10y ago

clarkmoody 10y ago

> And if there's a major terrorist attack under Trump's watch, it'll be open season on our liberties. I'm starting to believe that there is not a single world leader who is more than one crisis away from "reluctantly" assuming dictatorial powers. And the populations of advanced economies have no conception of the value of their liberty, since they so willingly give it away.

pg314 10y ago
I think in Europe the reactions are usually a little more measured. After the attacks in Paris and Brussels, there was a reaction and a rise in populism, but I wouldn't call it assuming dictatorial powers. I don't think it could be compared to Trump's reaction in the hypothetical case where there was a similar terrorist attack in e.g. New York.
- CPAhem 10y ago
  It's interesting that countries like Germany where the population experienced the Nazis and the Stasi are the leaders in resisting this populism. In the US, we probably don't understand how bad it can get yet.
  - pg314 10y ago
    Europe also has had more experience with organised terrorism in the 20th century: Rote Armee Fraktion in Germany, CCC in Belgium, ETA in Basque country, IRA in Ireland, to name just a few. That might also partly explain why the reactions to terror attacks are more measured.
  - weaksauce 10y ago
    And, over time, they too will start to forget just how bad it was. It's just how humans are wired.
robotresearcher 10y ago
There have been bombings, gun battles and other mass murders in the streets of Paris, Marseille and elsewhere in Europe, and no sign of dictatorships.

MrZongle2 10y ago

Key sentence: "Under a Clinton administration, my list would have looked much the same." I have a lot of respect for Mr. Schneier. But he is fooling himself if he thinks a Clinton administration would be one iota less threatening.

treebeard901 10y ago
That's exactly the point of the quote... The list would have looked much the same. Or am I missing something?
- rconti 10y ago
  Same in content, but less extreme. Which seems like a completely fair assessment, given the cabinet choices so far.
- MrZongle2 10y ago
  The following sentence is "Trump's election just means the threats will be much greater, and the battles a lot harder to win." And I think that's a bunch of poppycock. The threats would be no less under a Clinton administration. The battles would be no easier. Have we all forgotten the Clipper Chip debacle under the last Clinton administration?
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    The last Clinton Administration increased FOIA capability & compromised on the crypto wars. Wheeler at FCC fought the schemes of ISP's. In each of these areas, Trump would do worse due to his politics or style of not compromising. I'm a left-leaning moderate who expected Trump to win. I'm not saying any of this in a bubble. Republicans have almost always fought against civil rights (2nd Amendment is exception), privacy, far enforcement of copyright, and net neutrality. That's in the laws they pushed or passed rather than campaign promises. Trump, if he's consistent with Republican politics, will likewise do worse for people concerned about these areas. Better for those who liked the status quo & want noose tightened around individuals necks for big business & government. I'm still holding out for the 3rd option of him knocking out a lot of this bad stuff after just saying what he needed to get elected. He could feed his ego quite well as a hero against bad laws created by special interests. On top of whatever else he does. Hope he does it but no evidence so far.

Balgair 10y ago

I was watching the 'Dunkirk' trailer the other day and a line stuck out to me: An older fishing boat captain is talking to a younger and soggy rescued solider and says: "There's no hiding from this, boy", referring to the coming of WW2 in general and the captain having to turn to boat back into the melee to search for more survivors. I think that line is also what Bruce is trying to say to a lot of the EFF supporters out there. There's no hiding from the next 4 years. The implication is then that you have to fight.

scaryspooky 10y ago
I know EFF and Schneier have been fighting the expansion of the US spy machine, but it seems like a lot of more liberal leaning groups didn't push back when Obama expanded policies started under Bush and that's pretty disappointing. Civil liberties and rights are to be protected even if your candidate/party is in power. Not just when the other party takes over.
- pavlovasdog 10y ago
  This seems irrelevant and possibly untrue. What liberal leaning groups are you referring to?
  - scaryspooky 10y ago
    The ACLU has, maybe for fund raising reasons, taken out a full page ad in the NYTimes promising to challenge Trump. They never took out a full page ad when Obama escalated the drone war or killed a US citizen without trial via drone strike. A lot of pro-marijuana groups (let's face it they are liberal groups) weren't aggressively going after the DEA under Obama because his administration had a hands-off approach. Suddenly this is a huge issue with the nomination of Sessions, even though the law is still the same under both administrations. None of the groups have gone after the flagrant violation of 1st amendment rights that the 'hate speech' laws bring about. You might not like a neonazi defaming Jewish people but hate speech laws are counter to the US Constitution. The ACLU hasn't defended aggressions against the 2nd amendment. The PATRIOT act was renewed under Obama. The NDAA was also renewed with increased powers under Obama. NSA spying has increased, the FBI has taken more liberties in 'national security letters' and the CIA has still had free reign to do as they please. Yet all of the liberal watchdog groups gave Obama a free pass, even though he was basically the same as Bush whom they hated. You can go read his record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveilla... and yet the ACLU never took out a full page ad about his spying. Maybe you will also read this editorial: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/29/opinion/la-oe-turley-civil-liberties-20110929 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/29/opinion/la-oe-turley... Where were the 'civil liberty' or 'civil rights' groups these past 8 years?