4 ms·

Brad Smith warns that U.S. is repeating a key Sept. 11 mistake in digital era

17 points by duck 5y ago

newbamboo 5y ago
“the National Security Agency, which has the authority to scan foreign but not domestic online activity.” Does anybody really believe that? I’m so convinced it’s not true, I’d welcome them just being straightforward and telling us, “everything you do is monitored.” At least then I wouldn’t feel paranoid about it.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Does anybody really believe that? As far as nonpublic online activity and legal authority, barring warrants, yes. As far as capacity, obviously not: technical capacity doesn't care much about borders. As far as actual practice, well, we know NSA has been caught doing illegal domestic surveillance multiple times in the past few decades, so yeah, it's not something any rational person would bet much that they aren't doing.
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    It's been policy to scan both intl and domestic for decades now. This is well-documented.
- hindsightbias 5y ago
  Why does the NSA have to do it when you willingly let google, your ISP and FB do it? The NSA doesn’t care about you.
lsy 5y ago
This is the second article I've seen lately that credulously quotes an observation Brad Smith made, on the grounds that he is Brad Smith, without telling us why we should take Brad Smith seriously on this or any other topic. The last article quoted Smith and Eric Schmidt about how the US needs to accelerate AI development to beat China and prevent "1984", also a less-than-expert set of sources on that topic. Reporters should be embarrassed to quote people in "news" articles about policy directions whose only qualification for commenting is being the executive of a big company.
mikewarot 5y ago
I was thinking of the prior to 9/11 mistake of thinking that our own resources wouldn't be used against us... yet we persist in using software infrastructure not suitable for anything more dangerous than an academic environment of the 1970s at all levels. We didn't have cabin doors on airplanes that could protect the pilots from rogue passengers. We don't have operating systems on computers that can protect themselves from rogue processes. It's effectively the same mistake.
- wmf 5y ago
  Actually secure software might cost trillions yet would look the same as what we have now. It's just too hard to swallow.
  - mikewarot 5y ago
    They used to same the same thing about cabin doors in airplanes.. I guess we'll just have to wait then.
  - mikewarot 5y ago
    It doesn't have to be that expensive, unless you get military contractors involved, of course. Most applications you'd just have to change the calls to dialog boxes to request a session with a powerbox instead... everything else would pretty much port as-is.
cyanydeez 5y ago
are we invading afghanistan 2?

17 points by duck 5y ago

“the National Security Agency, which has the authority to scan foreign but not domestic online activity.” Does anybody really believe that? I’m so convinced it’s not true, I’d welcome them just being straightforward and telling us, “everything you do is monitored.” At least then I wouldn’t feel paranoid about it.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Does anybody really believe that? As far as nonpublic online activity and legal authority, barring warrants, yes. As far as capacity, obviously not: technical capacity doesn't care much about borders. As far as actual practice, well, we know NSA has been caught doing illegal domestic surveillance multiple times in the past few decades, so yeah, it's not something any rational person would bet much that they aren't doing.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  It's been policy to scan both intl and domestic for decades now. This is well-documented.
hindsightbias 5y ago
Why does the NSA have to do it when you willingly let google, your ISP and FB do it? The NSA doesn’t care about you.

lsy 5y ago

This is the second article I've seen lately that credulously quotes an observation Brad Smith made, on the grounds that he is Brad Smith, without telling us why we should take Brad Smith seriously on this or any other topic. The last article quoted Smith and Eric Schmidt about how the US needs to accelerate AI development to beat China and prevent "1984", also a less-than-expert set of sources on that topic. Reporters should be embarrassed to quote people in "news" articles about policy directions whose only qualification for commenting is being the executive of a big company.

mikewarot 5y ago

I was thinking of the prior to 9/11 mistake of thinking that our own resources wouldn't be used against us... yet we persist in using software infrastructure not suitable for anything more dangerous than an academic environment of the 1970s at all levels. We didn't have cabin doors on airplanes that could protect the pilots from rogue passengers. We don't have operating systems on computers that can protect themselves from rogue processes. It's effectively the same mistake.

wmf 5y ago
Actually secure software might cost trillions yet would look the same as what we have now. It's just too hard to swallow.
- mikewarot 5y ago
  They used to same the same thing about cabin doors in airplanes.. I guess we'll just have to wait then.
- mikewarot 5y ago
  It doesn't have to be that expensive, unless you get military contractors involved, of course. Most applications you'd just have to change the calls to dialog boxes to request a session with a powerbox instead... everything else would pretty much port as-is.

cyanydeez 5y ago

are we invading afghanistan 2?