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It's part of the shadowy arms race that's been taking place for the last few decades in cyber space. The public has been kept mostly in the dark about it; eithe

It's part of the shadowy arms race that's been taking place for the last few decades in cyber space. The public has been kept mostly in the dark about it; either because the details are too technical and/or the stakes are ambiguous. Unfortunately it's lead to a world where every country says "if they're doing it then we have to, because if we don't they will have capabilities we don't." Legal barriers, liberties, and rights are damned when the security of our technological society is at risk. It's really concerning.

evenkeel024 8y ago
Every new technology for communication ultimately gets coopted by the powerful. Either we work out a democratic way to self-govern these technologies, or oligarchs and plutocrats end up controlling them.
- simias 8y ago
  What does that even mean? Your comment is effectively devoid of meaning. What are you proposing exactly? What "technology" has been co-opted by the oligarchs and plutocrats?
  - justtopost 8y ago
    Big data?
- xj9 8y ago
  if you want to see what these powerful people use to protect their coms check the FIPS and NIST standards documents. the public has access to the ~same crypto algorithms that government agencies use. outside of NSA and a handful of other organizations who have the technical ability to safely DIY, its the only reasonable way to pick crypto tech. crypto is widely used and easy to get access to. at this point, there is very little that can be done to put this genie back in the bottle. there are open chat networks that can provide e2ee with forward secrecy even if some compromised devices are present (XMPP/OMEMO). many clients support routing your chats over tor so nobody can tell which server you are using. not only can you go completely dark with off-the-shelf android apps and a non-google ROM, you can do it for free.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Maintaining the capability to infiltrate systems by exploiting software flaws and running a dragnet surveillance state two very different things and it's perfectly possible to have either one without the other. It just so happens that in the US the NSA runs both so they tend to get conflated.

evenkeel024 8y ago

Every new technology for communication ultimately gets coopted by the powerful. Either we work out a democratic way to self-govern these technologies, or oligarchs and plutocrats end up controlling them.

simias 8y ago
What does that even mean? Your comment is effectively devoid of meaning. What are you proposing exactly? What "technology" has been co-opted by the oligarchs and plutocrats?
- justtopost 8y ago
  Big data?
xj9 8y ago
if you want to see what these powerful people use to protect their coms check the FIPS and NIST standards documents. the public has access to the ~same crypto algorithms that government agencies use. outside of NSA and a handful of other organizations who have the technical ability to safely DIY, its the only reasonable way to pick crypto tech. crypto is widely used and easy to get access to. at this point, there is very little that can be done to put this genie back in the bottle. there are open chat networks that can provide e2ee with forward secrecy even if some compromised devices are present (XMPP/OMEMO). many clients support routing your chats over tor so nobody can tell which server you are using. not only can you go completely dark with off-the-shelf android apps and a non-google ROM, you can do it for free.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

Maintaining the capability to infiltrate systems by exploiting software flaws and running a dragnet surveillance state two very different things and it's perfectly possible to have either one without the other. It just so happens that in the US the NSA runs both so they tend to get conflated.