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Which European state do you live in? Because, UK, France and Germany are knee deep in this as participants. Hell, France has the most invasive internal surveill

by rdxm 9y ago

Which European state do you live in? Because, UK, France and Germany are knee deep in this as participants. Hell, France has the most invasive internal surveillance of any country at last check. I continue to find it odd that folks in the EU have some reality distortion mechanism when it comes to what's going on in thier home countires..and yes it's not all that are wired into the 5-Eye's thing, but its most.

socmag 9y ago
According to Sir Googalot.... Europe includes 51 independent states. Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are the transcontinental countries, partially located in both Europe and Asia. Armenia and Cyprus politically are considered European countries, though geographically they are located in the West Asia territory. Also, there are 28 member states in the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden ... Granted, five eyes is more like fifteen these days, but still, doesn't make it right or just because everyone is doing it we should just tow the line, doff our caps and cry for more. Some of us have been fans of Dickens and Kafka far too long to know that. [Edit] - Going to try and update this post here because I'm not allowed by HN to post very often currently... --- snip --- First of all I don't see any comments here that say that the US are the only country that spies. I mention this since it seems to be a straw man that is stuck on repeat. Secondly, surveillance done right takes a heck of a lot of resources and infrastructure; and even though all countries and humans partake, some have rather more resources and connections to accomplish these goals than others. It's kind of like the 1% - there's nothing wrong "technically" with 1% having half the cash (given that it is ultimately reinvested), the problem is abuse of power that comes with it and lack of oversight. Ultimately, we have seen stories repeatedly regarding US and Western technologies for surveillance, not Palestinian, Iranian or Luxembourgian... and this is another one. How many is that this week/month/year/decade? My family has been in and around SIGINT/COMINT for decades so I'm hardly surprised, although it is a bit surprising how comedic it is seeing people comparing the capabilities of the NSA to that of nations with less GDP than Luxembourg. I think it is good to "Have the conversation", whether it be right or wrong to infiltrate SWIFT et al.
bigbugbag 9y ago
Somehow I fail to see how internal surveillance is related to hacking the banking system of a different continent. It can't be just me that understand the difference between internal and external. Then again cyberspying and cyberwarfare is not the same as traditional spying. In this domain France is a newcomer and has only recently entered the game and is struggling to catch up. In matter of more traditional spying to me that historically the UK was on top though it is true that France has quite a history of internal political spying and intrusion in other countries but it's mostly in Africa and colonies. Usually France lags behinds the US, for example it's only a few years after the CIA through in-Q-tel took control and brought back the chip card technology to the US that France played catch-up and created the french equivalent to in-Q-tel (1999), the "Fonds stratégique d'investissement"(2008) and by the time it got created and bought back gemplus in-q-tel had long finished its mission and was selling its shares. Moreover there's a notion of scale at play, the US is a few steps further if not a couple order of magnitude more into it. And this may have something to do with Eisenhower 1961's warning: we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military– industrial complex. At the times France was still in the process of rebuilding itself from WW2 and dealing with the 1958 coup d'etat, which may or may not explain why France has been lagging behind the US.
- phil21 9y ago
  > It can't be just me that understand the difference between internal and external. It's not just you. But it's a very select few apparently that understand this. If the NSA exists, the entire point of it existing is to spy on foreign countries - allied or not. The only legitimate argument if you're against this is if you feel the NSA and CIA should not exist at all. I will say you are incredibly naive if you say no, but will allow for reasonable people to differ in opinion. Anything else is simply someone not spending 5 seconds thinking geopolitics and logic through. The point of a spy agency is to spy. Don't pretend to be outraged when they do their damn jobs.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    I may have badly expressed myself, my point was you can't counter argue about US external spying by saying "but other countries are much into internal spying". This make no sense on a logical basis. To me as a living being on this planet I strongly think no intelligence agency should exist at all for the simple reason that borders and countries should be abolished so we could all be earthlings sharing a planet. Buuuuut it seems the ones in position of domination such as US and old colonial Europe tend to disagree with this view. But this personal view does not prevent me from using my brains and senses to observe and having a certain understanding of how a minority of humans in position of power defend their own interest and push their own agenda and try to get every edge they can by whatever mean is available. The point of a spy agency is not to spy, it is to spy and not get caught, because when caught now it's a whole different game. So given the accumulation of recent leaks I would say that NSA and CIA do not so such a good job. And given the nature of the revelations and what is exposed it seems they go too far past what is acceptable. Compared to how China or Russia hack into the US without getting caught or exposed with a fraction of the US budget this paints a picture of an overspending of budget for arguably poor results for those agencies that not only get exposed but also fail at their mission of protection.

by rdxm 9y ago

socmag 9y ago

According to Sir Googalot.... Europe includes 51 independent states. Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are the transcontinental countries, partially located in both Europe and Asia. Armenia and Cyprus politically are considered European countries, though geographically they are located in the West Asia territory. Also, there are 28 member states in the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden ... Granted, five eyes is more like fifteen these days, but still, doesn't make it right or just because everyone is doing it we should just tow the line, doff our caps and cry for more. Some of us have been fans of Dickens and Kafka far too long to know that. [Edit] - Going to try and update this post here because I'm not allowed by HN to post very often currently... --- snip --- First of all I don't see any comments here that say that the US are the only country that spies. I mention this since it seems to be a straw man that is stuck on repeat. Secondly, surveillance done right takes a heck of a lot of resources and infrastructure; and even though all countries and humans partake, some have rather more resources and connections to accomplish these goals than others. It's kind of like the 1% - there's nothing wrong "technically" with 1% having half the cash (given that it is ultimately reinvested), the problem is abuse of power that comes with it and lack of oversight. Ultimately, we have seen stories repeatedly regarding US and Western technologies for surveillance, not Palestinian, Iranian or Luxembourgian... and this is another one. How many is that this week/month/year/decade? My family has been in and around SIGINT/COMINT for decades so I'm hardly surprised, although it is a bit surprising how comedic it is seeing people comparing the capabilities of the NSA to that of nations with less GDP than Luxembourg. I think it is good to "Have the conversation", whether it be right or wrong to infiltrate SWIFT et al.

bigbugbag 9y ago

Somehow I fail to see how internal surveillance is related to hacking the banking system of a different continent. It can't be just me that understand the difference between internal and external. Then again cyberspying and cyberwarfare is not the same as traditional spying. In this domain France is a newcomer and has only recently entered the game and is struggling to catch up. In matter of more traditional spying to me that historically the UK was on top though it is true that France has quite a history of internal political spying and intrusion in other countries but it's mostly in Africa and colonies. Usually France lags behinds the US, for example it's only a few years after the CIA through in-Q-tel took control and brought back the chip card technology to the US that France played catch-up and created the french equivalent to in-Q-tel (1999), the "Fonds stratégique d'investissement"(2008) and by the time it got created and bought back gemplus in-q-tel had long finished its mission and was selling its shares. Moreover there's a notion of scale at play, the US is a few steps further if not a couple order of magnitude more into it. And this may have something to do with Eisenhower 1961's warning: we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military– industrial complex. At the times France was still in the process of rebuilding itself from WW2 and dealing with the 1958 coup d'etat, which may or may not explain why France has been lagging behind the US.

phil21 9y ago
> It can't be just me that understand the difference between internal and external. It's not just you. But it's a very select few apparently that understand this. If the NSA exists, the entire point of it existing is to spy on foreign countries - allied or not. The only legitimate argument if you're against this is if you feel the NSA and CIA should not exist at all. I will say you are incredibly naive if you say no, but will allow for reasonable people to differ in opinion. Anything else is simply someone not spending 5 seconds thinking geopolitics and logic through. The point of a spy agency is to spy. Don't pretend to be outraged when they do their damn jobs.
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  I may have badly expressed myself, my point was you can't counter argue about US external spying by saying "but other countries are much into internal spying". This make no sense on a logical basis. To me as a living being on this planet I strongly think no intelligence agency should exist at all for the simple reason that borders and countries should be abolished so we could all be earthlings sharing a planet. Buuuuut it seems the ones in position of domination such as US and old colonial Europe tend to disagree with this view. But this personal view does not prevent me from using my brains and senses to observe and having a certain understanding of how a minority of humans in position of power defend their own interest and push their own agenda and try to get every edge they can by whatever mean is available. The point of a spy agency is not to spy, it is to spy and not get caught, because when caught now it's a whole different game. So given the accumulation of recent leaks I would say that NSA and CIA do not so such a good job. And given the nature of the revelations and what is exposed it seems they go too far past what is acceptable. Compared to how China or Russia hack into the US without getting caught or exposed with a fraction of the US budget this paints a picture of an overspending of budget for arguably poor results for those agencies that not only get exposed but also fail at their mission of protection.