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Did China's Great Internet Firewall and eager to control how their population access the web somehow pass you? I am not racist, I am not placing this blame on

by jug 9y ago

Did China's Great Internet Firewall and eager to control how their population access the web somehow pass you? I am not racist, I am not placing this blame on a Chinese person's race, persona, or anything. This isn't about the governed Chinese people in the first place.

coldtea 9y ago
>Did China's Great Internet Firewall and eager to control how their population access the web somehow pass you? No, neither the US's Great Internet Surveillance, and long track record of working with, arming, helping, and installing in power dictators and friendly lackeys all around the world, from Latin America to Europe.
- neotek 9y ago
  How is that relevant in any way to the topic at hand? It's just pure whataboutism.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >How is that relevant in any way to the topic at hand? The topic at hand is "why trust your data to X". If everybody trusts their data to Y, which has the same or even worse track record than X, then "how's Y worse than X which you already trust with your data" is a very relevant question to ask. It can make people consider both X and Y in perspective, and even consider moving their data to a safer Z alternative. >whataboutism I don't particularly care for knee-jerk accusations of thought crimes like "whataboutism". "What about" is a very useful question. Only idiots speak of something without placing it on a larger context, and without considering the alternatives. Invocation of whataboutism basically makes it a thought crime to put things in perspective. It's a tool used to constrain discussion, whereas "what about x" expands the scope of the discussion.
- toyg 9y ago
  That's a bit of a false equivalence. Letting me do something while you watch is not the same as you stopping (and punishing) me from doing it right away. You can argue which one is worse from a moral perspective, but they are not the same. As for the shitty foreign policy - if I had to buy only stuff produced in "ethical" countries, I'd be living naked and eating only dried fish.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >That's a bit of a false equivalence. Letting me do something while you watch is not the same as you stopping (and punishing) me from doing it right away. No, but as a citizen of a third country, you worry about countries with a history of messing with third countries (especially yours), not about countries that mess with their own citizenry. Someone in Chile for example, would probably worry more about their data falling in the hands of Google, than about falling in the hands of China (since the latter never was in bed with Pinochet, even if it censors the internet from its own citizens).
  - cryptarch 9y ago
    You've never been to a farmer's market? There's a thing called "chilling effects". People stop talking about "risky" subjects because they know they can get prosecuted arbitrarily for it. The gameplan is simple: * Someone says something the government doesn't like. * A plan is devised to get this person in jail and/or to discredit them and/or to ruin their careers. * In the case of jail, evidence for a crime is collected (from SIGINT) extralegally, and is used to innocuously find, or let someone else find, admissible evidence for the crime. This is called parallel construction and it is very real. * Maybe they're only sued with the purpose of discrediting them via the press, while making them unable to keep their jobs. Maybe they're actually put in a cage. It's not out in the open, but it has similar effects to totalitarianism, especially on the part of the population that is more observant and able to affect policy change. It's not the same, but lets not pretend the US is a lighting beacon of freedom and democracy. Maybe compared to China, but definitely not when compared to e.g. the Netherlands. (I'm biased though.)
    - toyg 9y ago
      > It's not out in the open, but it has similar effects to totalitarianism It's a very different thing, simply because it cannot be deployed on a large scale. It's equivalent to old-school spycraft of honey-trapping and blackmailing. You can apply this process to a few individuals, but not to everyone without massive effort - the framing and follow-up takes too much manpower - and without risking reputation damage from repeated abuses. On the other hand, detecting you really broke an openly-accepted law, triggering police intervention and letting the system work as it should, is trivial in the extreme. Sorry, I'm not a fan of the US system but China is still a step below IMHO.

by jug 9y ago

coldtea 9y ago

>Did China's Great Internet Firewall and eager to control how their population access the web somehow pass you? No, neither the US's Great Internet Surveillance, and long track record of working with, arming, helping, and installing in power dictators and friendly lackeys all around the world, from Latin America to Europe.

neotek 9y ago
How is that relevant in any way to the topic at hand? It's just pure whataboutism.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >How is that relevant in any way to the topic at hand? The topic at hand is "why trust your data to X". If everybody trusts their data to Y, which has the same or even worse track record than X, then "how's Y worse than X which you already trust with your data" is a very relevant question to ask. It can make people consider both X and Y in perspective, and even consider moving their data to a safer Z alternative. >whataboutism I don't particularly care for knee-jerk accusations of thought crimes like "whataboutism". "What about" is a very useful question. Only idiots speak of something without placing it on a larger context, and without considering the alternatives. Invocation of whataboutism basically makes it a thought crime to put things in perspective. It's a tool used to constrain discussion, whereas "what about x" expands the scope of the discussion.
toyg 9y ago
That's a bit of a false equivalence. Letting me do something while you watch is not the same as you stopping (and punishing) me from doing it right away. You can argue which one is worse from a moral perspective, but they are not the same. As for the shitty foreign policy - if I had to buy only stuff produced in "ethical" countries, I'd be living naked and eating only dried fish.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >That's a bit of a false equivalence. Letting me do something while you watch is not the same as you stopping (and punishing) me from doing it right away. No, but as a citizen of a third country, you worry about countries with a history of messing with third countries (especially yours), not about countries that mess with their own citizenry. Someone in Chile for example, would probably worry more about their data falling in the hands of Google, than about falling in the hands of China (since the latter never was in bed with Pinochet, even if it censors the internet from its own citizens).
- cryptarch 9y ago
  You've never been to a farmer's market? There's a thing called "chilling effects". People stop talking about "risky" subjects because they know they can get prosecuted arbitrarily for it. The gameplan is simple: * Someone says something the government doesn't like. * A plan is devised to get this person in jail and/or to discredit them and/or to ruin their careers. * In the case of jail, evidence for a crime is collected (from SIGINT) extralegally, and is used to innocuously find, or let someone else find, admissible evidence for the crime. This is called parallel construction and it is very real. * Maybe they're only sued with the purpose of discrediting them via the press, while making them unable to keep their jobs. Maybe they're actually put in a cage. It's not out in the open, but it has similar effects to totalitarianism, especially on the part of the population that is more observant and able to affect policy change. It's not the same, but lets not pretend the US is a lighting beacon of freedom and democracy. Maybe compared to China, but definitely not when compared to e.g. the Netherlands. (I'm biased though.)
  - toyg 9y ago
    > It's not out in the open, but it has similar effects to totalitarianism It's a very different thing, simply because it cannot be deployed on a large scale. It's equivalent to old-school spycraft of honey-trapping and blackmailing. You can apply this process to a few individuals, but not to everyone without massive effort - the framing and follow-up takes too much manpower - and without risking reputation damage from repeated abuses. On the other hand, detecting you really broke an openly-accepted law, triggering police intervention and letting the system work as it should, is trivial in the extreme. Sorry, I'm not a fan of the US system but China is still a step below IMHO.