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NSA is unambiguously doing worse things than any FAANG or adtech company could do in their wildest wet dreams. "NSA staff used spy tools on spouses, ex-lovers"

by kick 7y ago

NSA is unambiguously doing worse things than any FAANG or adtech company could do in their wildest wet dreams. "NSA staff used spy tools on spouses, ex-lovers" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog... Optic Nerve ("GCHQ" in title is misleading because the NSA played a very enthusiastic helping role in it): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optic_Nerve_(GCHQ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optic_Nerve_(GCHQ) ECHELON: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON There's so much they're responsible for that it seems like it'd be excessive to post all of them, and HN has a character limit, anyway. Even the most well-known ones would fill a couple of comments.

justinclift 7y ago
Agreed, corrupt(ed) NSA people can do very bad stuff to targeted individuals. However, adtech companies damage everyone, and fairly significantly. eg concentration problems, addictive behaviours, etc. That's literally "human race" level damage. Doesn't seem like a lesser thing to me. :/
- kick 7y ago
  Targeted individuals? They, for years until it was leaked, "targeted" every phone call in the United States: https://gizmodo.com/this-government-phone-tapping-thing-just-got-as-bad-as-511762830 https://gizmodo.com/this-government-phone-tapping-thing-just... And 125,000,000,000 globally, along with almost a hundred billion internet requests per month in a time when the Internet was much smaller, years ago, under a program that hasn't stopped: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundless_Informant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundless_Informant This definitely damages everyone, and I think more fundamentally than adtech companies. You can escape adtech companies: use different websites, install an adblocker, block trackers, whatever. There's no obvious way outside of strong encryption and hermitry to avoid NSA getting its paws on every single public or private communication you ever make, given their record. When privacy doesn't and cannot exist, human behavior changes deeply. I think it's the greater of two evils. Adtech companies definitely aren't good, by any stretch, but I think it's the difference between Ghengis Khan and a common killer: sure, they both want to kill you, but the scale and the level of cruelty is much different.

by kick 7y ago

justinclift 7y ago

Agreed, corrupt(ed) NSA people can do very bad stuff to targeted individuals. However, adtech companies damage everyone, and fairly significantly. eg concentration problems, addictive behaviours, etc. That's literally "human race" level damage. Doesn't seem like a lesser thing to me. :/

kick 7y ago
Targeted individuals? They, for years until it was leaked, "targeted" every phone call in the United States: https://gizmodo.com/this-government-phone-tapping-thing-just-got-as-bad-as-511762830 https://gizmodo.com/this-government-phone-tapping-thing-just... And 125,000,000,000 globally, along with almost a hundred billion internet requests per month in a time when the Internet was much smaller, years ago, under a program that hasn't stopped: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundless_Informant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundless_Informant This definitely damages everyone, and I think more fundamentally than adtech companies. You can escape adtech companies: use different websites, install an adblocker, block trackers, whatever. There's no obvious way outside of strong encryption and hermitry to avoid NSA getting its paws on every single public or private communication you ever make, given their record. When privacy doesn't and cannot exist, human behavior changes deeply. I think it's the greater of two evils. Adtech companies definitely aren't good, by any stretch, but I think it's the difference between Ghengis Khan and a common killer: sure, they both want to kill you, but the scale and the level of cruelty is much different.