3 ms·

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 i

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.
  - soundwave106 10y ago
    Two thoughts I had on why this indeed might apply: A) The tech industry so far generally has leaned Democrat overall when it comes to lobbying / political gaming. Their power on influencing an all-GOP government thus might be quite diminished as a result of this election cycle. B) Donald Trump's a wildcard to me. I don't see Trump as a certainty to be worse than Clinton. But he might be. It's possible that Donald Trump performs simply as GOP figurehead, in which case we know what to expect (roughly the same as Clinton, to be honest, minus the diminished influence). It's also possible that Donald Trump is blatantly okay with using state-sponsored hacking / surveillance / etc. for personal political reasons or even just grudge-settling. Under this circumstance, I do believe that probably would be worse than a speculative Clinton administration. It's not like Clinton was great on computer security issues at all; I think Bruce's post made that perfectly clear.
CurtMonash 10y ago
No, he is correct. A typical Administration tries for the power to utterly trample liberties, but then is fairly modest about how it actually uses the power. This is, in itself, concerning but not necessarily catastrophic. After all, the government also has the guns and other weapons to kill us all, but probably isn't going to do that either. The catastrophes occur when the government is less restrained in using the massive power it always has.

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.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  Two thoughts I had on why this indeed might apply: A) The tech industry so far generally has leaned Democrat overall when it comes to lobbying / political gaming. Their power on influencing an all-GOP government thus might be quite diminished as a result of this election cycle. B) Donald Trump's a wildcard to me. I don't see Trump as a certainty to be worse than Clinton. But he might be. It's possible that Donald Trump performs simply as GOP figurehead, in which case we know what to expect (roughly the same as Clinton, to be honest, minus the diminished influence). It's also possible that Donald Trump is blatantly okay with using state-sponsored hacking / surveillance / etc. for personal political reasons or even just grudge-settling. Under this circumstance, I do believe that probably would be worse than a speculative Clinton administration. It's not like Clinton was great on computer security issues at all; I think Bruce's post made that perfectly clear.

CurtMonash 10y ago

No, he is correct. A typical Administration tries for the power to utterly trample liberties, but then is fairly modest about how it actually uses the power. This is, in itself, concerning but not necessarily catastrophic. After all, the government also has the guns and other weapons to kill us all, but probably isn't going to do that either. The catastrophes occur when the government is less restrained in using the massive power it always has.