4 ms·

> But it is impossible to tell, from the materials currently available, what these local agents for the KGB actually did, if anything. We know of a similar str

by lixtra 6y ago

> But it is impossible to tell, from the materials currently available, what these local agents for the KGB actually did, if anything. We know of a similar structure - the stasi [1]. So just because there was more time in Latvia to destroy the actual evidence does not mean similar stuff was going on. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

082349872349872 6y ago
> "By 1995, some 174,000 inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (IMs) Stasi informants had been identified, almost 2.5% of East Germany's population between the ages of 18 and 60." For contrast, 45% of the world's population owns a smartphone.
- orbital-decay 6y ago
  I don't know why you're being downvoted, the comparison seems completely appropriate. Today's governments (and other entities with a lot of power) have orders of magnitude more private data than Stasi or KGB ever dreamed of. An non-targeted informant network of that scale would be simply redundant and hard to maintain for their lookalikes these days.
  - aktenlage 6y ago
    It is a quantitative comparison of alternatives with a very different quality. Apples and oranges, if you will. The fact that both spy on private information does not mean that the information is roughly equivalent, nor the level of betrayal. Apart from the first sentence, I agree with your statement though.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      I did say 'contrast', not 'compare'. I agree the information is not roughly equivalent (the smartphone gathers much more data) and agree the level of betrayal is not there (as with the line about the advantages of making the landlord and the tenant the same person, there are also advantages to making the informer and the informee the same person). For the aunt/uncle comment: No, I don't believe "the government"/"the corporations"/"the illuminati" are actively listening to every[1] conversation. However, is there any technical reason why they couldn't?[2] Ad networks[3] already know many web pages I visit; why would my own devices (or devices between me and my ISP's gateway) not know them all? As I doubt there are any technical solutions to this problem, I hope we[4] eventually come up with some social ones. [1] In the early 1960's, watch lists were only a few thousand words: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7950_Harvest#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7950_Harvest#Usage [2] Having had friends whose research became unpublishable due to having been classified midstream, I have a bad habit of looking for dual-use. A friend of mine was excited to work on https://eos.com https://eos.com due to the (for the time) cutting edge transfer, storage, and retrieval issues. I couldn't help but think that there were no doubt other agencies besides his funder, who had similar problems, albeit slightly different data sets. Dual-use technology is an existence proof that many systems can be used for good or for ill, depending solely upon intent (or the signs of certain parameters). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23768824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23768824 [3] cf p.88 "5.A.1.j. does not apply to systems or equipment, specially designed for any of the following: a. Marketing purpose; ..." https://www.wassenaar.org/app/uploads/2019/12/WA-DOC-19-PUB-002-Public-Docs-Vol-II-2019-List-of-DU-Goods-and-Technologies-and-Munitions-List-Dec-19.pdf https://www.wassenaar.org/app/uploads/2019/12/WA-DOC-19-PUB-... [4] "What you mean we, kemo sabe?"
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Today's governments (and other entities with a lot of power) have orders of magnitude more private data than Stasi or KGB ever dreamed of. Unless you believe in a conspiracy where "the government" has turned all smart phones into bugs and is constantly listening to everbody's conversations: no, they don't. They have much more data in general though, but at the same time, you're producing much more data as well. Back then, they'd know every book you've ever read in school or lent from the library, today they don't even know that, much less every webpage you've visited. If you were of interest to the Stasi, they'd recruit neighbors, "friends" and family to report on you. There's nothing even close in most governments today. Privacy issues are bad enough, there's really no need to make silly arguments like these. It's not just not the same, it's not even similar.
    - shadowprofile77 6y ago
      Yes, they actually do. Have you not read about even a fraction of the data storage and mining tools that Snowden revealed? Have you not heard about the massive data storage being done from known and very likely secret sources at the Data Center in Utah? This is not to mention what we probably don't know about. Governments indeed have more data or at least the ability to access more data about us than they ever have before and can do so remotely in many cases, unlike the reams of paper and slogging they'd have had to go through several decades ago. That the vast majority of this data about any random civilian is never looked at by human eyes is secondary. The bottom line is that so much of it is being stored somewhere on corporate, or government, or corporate but accessible to government servers, and if you ever came to the attention of the government of the country you live in, it would be extremely naive to think that these vast troves of accumulated information about your entire digital life up to that point could not be accessed with little effort. It is no longer necessary to recruit their friends, family or neighbors for watching so much of most people do. These people themselves post the details of their daily lives, or if not, their own intimate circle does, or chats about them through digital mediums that are only dubiously secure from prying eyes. (To name just one example, can you concretely say that the content of your entire Gmail inbox is rigorously impervious to government intrusion?)
      - 6y ago

by lixtra 6y ago

082349872349872 6y ago

> "By 1995, some 174,000 inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (IMs) Stasi informants had been identified, almost 2.5% of East Germany's population between the ages of 18 and 60." For contrast, 45% of the world's population owns a smartphone.

orbital-decay 6y ago
I don't know why you're being downvoted, the comparison seems completely appropriate. Today's governments (and other entities with a lot of power) have orders of magnitude more private data than Stasi or KGB ever dreamed of. An non-targeted informant network of that scale would be simply redundant and hard to maintain for their lookalikes these days.
- aktenlage 6y ago
  It is a quantitative comparison of alternatives with a very different quality. Apples and oranges, if you will. The fact that both spy on private information does not mean that the information is roughly equivalent, nor the level of betrayal. Apart from the first sentence, I agree with your statement though.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    I did say 'contrast', not 'compare'. I agree the information is not roughly equivalent (the smartphone gathers much more data) and agree the level of betrayal is not there (as with the line about the advantages of making the landlord and the tenant the same person, there are also advantages to making the informer and the informee the same person). For the aunt/uncle comment: No, I don't believe "the government"/"the corporations"/"the illuminati" are actively listening to every[1] conversation. However, is there any technical reason why they couldn't?[2] Ad networks[3] already know many web pages I visit; why would my own devices (or devices between me and my ISP's gateway) not know them all? As I doubt there are any technical solutions to this problem, I hope we[4] eventually come up with some social ones. [1] In the early 1960's, watch lists were only a few thousand words: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7950_Harvest#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7950_Harvest#Usage [2] Having had friends whose research became unpublishable due to having been classified midstream, I have a bad habit of looking for dual-use. A friend of mine was excited to work on https://eos.com https://eos.com due to the (for the time) cutting edge transfer, storage, and retrieval issues. I couldn't help but think that there were no doubt other agencies besides his funder, who had similar problems, albeit slightly different data sets. Dual-use technology is an existence proof that many systems can be used for good or for ill, depending solely upon intent (or the signs of certain parameters). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23768824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23768824 [3] cf p.88 "5.A.1.j. does not apply to systems or equipment, specially designed for any of the following: a. Marketing purpose; ..." https://www.wassenaar.org/app/uploads/2019/12/WA-DOC-19-PUB-002-Public-Docs-Vol-II-2019-List-of-DU-Goods-and-Technologies-and-Munitions-List-Dec-19.pdf https://www.wassenaar.org/app/uploads/2019/12/WA-DOC-19-PUB-... [4] "What you mean we, kemo sabe?"
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Today's governments (and other entities with a lot of power) have orders of magnitude more private data than Stasi or KGB ever dreamed of. Unless you believe in a conspiracy where "the government" has turned all smart phones into bugs and is constantly listening to everbody's conversations: no, they don't. They have much more data in general though, but at the same time, you're producing much more data as well. Back then, they'd know every book you've ever read in school or lent from the library, today they don't even know that, much less every webpage you've visited. If you were of interest to the Stasi, they'd recruit neighbors, "friends" and family to report on you. There's nothing even close in most governments today. Privacy issues are bad enough, there's really no need to make silly arguments like these. It's not just not the same, it's not even similar.
  - shadowprofile77 6y ago
    Yes, they actually do. Have you not read about even a fraction of the data storage and mining tools that Snowden revealed? Have you not heard about the massive data storage being done from known and very likely secret sources at the Data Center in Utah? This is not to mention what we probably don't know about. Governments indeed have more data or at least the ability to access more data about us than they ever have before and can do so remotely in many cases, unlike the reams of paper and slogging they'd have had to go through several decades ago. That the vast majority of this data about any random civilian is never looked at by human eyes is secondary. The bottom line is that so much of it is being stored somewhere on corporate, or government, or corporate but accessible to government servers, and if you ever came to the attention of the government of the country you live in, it would be extremely naive to think that these vast troves of accumulated information about your entire digital life up to that point could not be accessed with little effort. It is no longer necessary to recruit their friends, family or neighbors for watching so much of most people do. These people themselves post the details of their daily lives, or if not, their own intimate circle does, or chats about them through digital mediums that are only dubiously secure from prying eyes. (To name just one example, can you concretely say that the content of your entire Gmail inbox is rigorously impervious to government intrusion?)
    - 6y ago