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to assume that everything you write or say to or near an internet connected device is being recorded and linked to your real life identity. to assume that ever

to assume that everything you write or say to or near an internet connected device is being recorded and linked to your real life identity. to assume that everything companies tell you about security and encryption is an intentional (legally bound) or unintentional lie. to realise that there are shadow laws that we are not aware of that govern these things.

maerF0x0 3y ago
To realize that the real state acts "deep state" like without requiring nefarious or shadowy behavior. Simply make unelected people have lifelong careers within governmental organizations. Snowden talks about this in his book. Yeah a new ~puppet~ figure head gets elected every 4 years. But what about all the layers of folks who actually perform the "Government" actions? They are the same people for decades, they say yes or no to actions you can/cannot take, they influence in their every choice they true meaning of policies...
- roywiggins 3y ago
  The modern civil service is still better than the old "spoils system." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system It was reformed for a reason! Putting politicians in charge of all hiring and firing turned out to be bad for everyone.
  - sl0tr4cer 3y ago
    and having public sector unions is likewise bad for everyone
    - Dah00n 3y ago
      How's unions bad? Outside US-style Mafia unions of course. Nordic country unions are not at all the same and I see those as 100% win.
      - HDThoreaun 3y ago
        The leader of my citys police union is a convicted domestic abuser, was in a relationship with a student at the high school he was paid to protect, is a proud qanoner, and was fired by the city 3 times. Every time he was fired the union appealed and he kept his job. He has won multiple elections since the allegations came to light. The problem with public sector unions is that our last mayoral election was cop union sponsored candidate versus teacher union sponsored candidate. Literally both the candidates were lawyers for the unions directly before they started the campaign. If you think either group has a sweetheart contract you are shit out of luck, because the unions completely control politics here. Unions work when the group they are bargaining with has competing interests. When the union negotiates against itself everyone else suffers.
        digging 3y ago
        None of those serious issues are intrinsic problems with public sector unions, though. Most of them would exist even without the union playing a role, and a well structured union could also be preventing them.
        HDThoreaun 3y ago
        Cops not being able to be fired is 100% because of the union. Every time they negotiate a new contract and the city tries to put in the ability to fire people the police refuse to arrest anyone.
        digging 3y ago
        Well, we don't need to get into details, but most pro-union folks I know don't consider police unions to be workers' unions. Either way, as I said, it's not an intrinsic property of unions. It's that way because police unions exist to hold the public hostage, not because unions are bad.
        HDThoreaun 3y ago
- lilsoso 3y ago
  This is a satirical point of the British TV show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister. The high ranking civil servants, with nearly permanent positions, are in charge. The elected officials think they are in charge.
  - B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
    > The elected officials think they are in charge Nah, the smart ones know they're not. They're just keeping up appearances. Somewhat like those stories about being chased by wolves through the snow. Once in a while one who got ideas is tossed out as a distraction (Liz Truss, anyone?).
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  This is working as intended. At least in the United States. Early in the history of the country, we experimented with evicting the entire government when party changed hands, all the way to individual post offices. It turned out to be ridiculously inefficient. It turns out institutional knowledge is extremely important, and institutions are generally terrible at writing everything down that the next person will need. Imagine trying to conduct a business with 95% turnover every 2 years. As a result, we intentionally established standards for employment and safeguards against arbitrary firing of unelected bureaucratic officials. The elected officials have control over setting policy and, in the long-term, deciding the criteria by which the unelected officials retain their jobs. None of this implies that the unelected officials are unaccountable. They are held accountable by our elected officials. But that process does require the elected officials to do their homework and, to some extent, understand the Chesterton's fences that exist in the system. A failure mode I observe is that we seem to keep trying to solve the problem by electing conspiracy nuts who are then basically ignored because they try to approach the problem of reining in unelected bureaucracy from the "Why don't you show us the secret UFO tapes?" direction instead of the "The president needs a full accounting of how many terabytes of data have been stored for terrorism fighting purposes" direction.
  - nunobrito 3y ago
    UFOs are not conspiracy: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/whistleblower-ufo-alien-tech-spacecraft https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/whistleblower-... It was quite a hard path over decades to finally admit a reality that was obvious since decades. That realization has far more impact to mankind than petty politics.
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      Noise like this is why the NSA doesn't get held accountable for spying on Americans. Who has time to worry about privacy breaches and mass surveillance when aliens are real? It would be harder to imagine an easier psyop to pull off. The only thing that strains credibility is that apparently it works.
actionfromafar 3y ago
That first one has really gone from tinfoil to norm. The Swedish government recently recommended officials not talk about anything secret while travelling in a Volvo.
- digisign 3y ago
  Have a link? Couldn't find anything easily.
  - ade2 3y ago
    The Swedish government didn't say that, some researcher did, and it was talked about in the public service news, afaik. The part of the government they asked on the topic said it was unsafe to have sensitive conversations in any brand of car. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/professorn-myndigheter-bor-inte-prata-hemligheter-i-en-volvo https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/professorn-myndigheter-bo...
- nunobrito 3y ago
  That goes for any modern car after 2021. Most of them have built-in mics and are connected 24/7 even when the owner doesn't install a SIM card. The rational is that you always get road assistance when needed. Never trust that conversations inside a modern car are private.
  - digisign 3y ago
    And not only conversations. Employes have been caught sharing revealing videos.
    - nunobrito 3y ago
      Ouch...
asveikau 3y ago
> to assume that everything you write or say to or near an internet connected device is being recorded and linked to your real life identity. I feel like if that were exploited at scale, we could see a huge number of criminal indictments etc., of the sort of behavior that's technically illegal but nobody enforces, but would suddenly be exposed through such an effort. Of course if they took it to court they'd have to discuss how they got the evidence. But the fact that we're not seeing this makes me think it's not as bad as we think, that some amount of discretion is used, or that there is just so much data that nobody is acting on most of it. I frankly think the more scary abuses of the post 9/11 era are things like Guantanamo. The idea that they can round up people and hold them indefinitely, with no or little due process. If someone does warrantless surveillance and brings a case against you based on that information, the expectation is you can challenge it. If they falsely claim you did 9/11, then... Less so.
- Dah00n 3y ago
  >I feel like if that were exploited at scale, we could see a huge number of criminal indictments etc., This might or might not be true, but let's say it is. But what then in 10 years when something you do or are becomes the next Red Scare?
  - asveikau 3y ago
    Yeah. I would say the post 9/11 attitude towards Muslims was the next red scare. And that was the trigger for a lot of this bullshit. So we as a society must remain vigilant of efforts to reduce civil rights. I personally think the resurgence in the last few years of "tough on crime" political rhetoric is another similar wave. The people who want to lock up the homeless or whatever. People demanding more incarceration of petty criminals. Judges are frequently described as weak if they let someone go due to insufficient evidence. If we start thinking due process is for chumps and that we need to lock everybody up no questions asked, I think mass surveillance can be a terrible input to that system.
buro9 3y ago
That's just the advertising industry

maerF0x0 3y ago

To realize that the real state acts "deep state" like without requiring nefarious or shadowy behavior. Simply make unelected people have lifelong careers within governmental organizations. Snowden talks about this in his book. Yeah a new ~puppet~ figure head gets elected every 4 years. But what about all the layers of folks who actually perform the "Government" actions? They are the same people for decades, they say yes or no to actions you can/cannot take, they influence in their every choice they true meaning of policies...

roywiggins 3y ago
The modern civil service is still better than the old "spoils system." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system It was reformed for a reason! Putting politicians in charge of all hiring and firing turned out to be bad for everyone.
- sl0tr4cer 3y ago
  and having public sector unions is likewise bad for everyone
  - Dah00n 3y ago
    How's unions bad? Outside US-style Mafia unions of course. Nordic country unions are not at all the same and I see those as 100% win.
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      The leader of my citys police union is a convicted domestic abuser, was in a relationship with a student at the high school he was paid to protect, is a proud qanoner, and was fired by the city 3 times. Every time he was fired the union appealed and he kept his job. He has won multiple elections since the allegations came to light. The problem with public sector unions is that our last mayoral election was cop union sponsored candidate versus teacher union sponsored candidate. Literally both the candidates were lawyers for the unions directly before they started the campaign. If you think either group has a sweetheart contract you are shit out of luck, because the unions completely control politics here. Unions work when the group they are bargaining with has competing interests. When the union negotiates against itself everyone else suffers.
      - digging 3y ago
        None of those serious issues are intrinsic problems with public sector unions, though. Most of them would exist even without the union playing a role, and a well structured union could also be preventing them.
        HDThoreaun 3y ago
        Cops not being able to be fired is 100% because of the union. Every time they negotiate a new contract and the city tries to put in the ability to fire people the police refuse to arrest anyone.
        digging 3y ago
        Well, we don't need to get into details, but most pro-union folks I know don't consider police unions to be workers' unions. Either way, as I said, it's not an intrinsic property of unions. It's that way because police unions exist to hold the public hostage, not because unions are bad.
        HDThoreaun 3y ago
lilsoso 3y ago
This is a satirical point of the British TV show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister. The high ranking civil servants, with nearly permanent positions, are in charge. The elected officials think they are in charge.
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
  > The elected officials think they are in charge Nah, the smart ones know they're not. They're just keeping up appearances. Somewhat like those stories about being chased by wolves through the snow. Once in a while one who got ideas is tossed out as a distraction (Liz Truss, anyone?).
shadowgovt 3y ago
This is working as intended. At least in the United States. Early in the history of the country, we experimented with evicting the entire government when party changed hands, all the way to individual post offices. It turned out to be ridiculously inefficient. It turns out institutional knowledge is extremely important, and institutions are generally terrible at writing everything down that the next person will need. Imagine trying to conduct a business with 95% turnover every 2 years. As a result, we intentionally established standards for employment and safeguards against arbitrary firing of unelected bureaucratic officials. The elected officials have control over setting policy and, in the long-term, deciding the criteria by which the unelected officials retain their jobs. None of this implies that the unelected officials are unaccountable. They are held accountable by our elected officials. But that process does require the elected officials to do their homework and, to some extent, understand the Chesterton's fences that exist in the system. A failure mode I observe is that we seem to keep trying to solve the problem by electing conspiracy nuts who are then basically ignored because they try to approach the problem of reining in unelected bureaucracy from the "Why don't you show us the secret UFO tapes?" direction instead of the "The president needs a full accounting of how many terabytes of data have been stored for terrorism fighting purposes" direction.
- nunobrito 3y ago
  UFOs are not conspiracy: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/whistleblower-ufo-alien-tech-spacecraft https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/whistleblower-... It was quite a hard path over decades to finally admit a reality that was obvious since decades. That realization has far more impact to mankind than petty politics.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    Noise like this is why the NSA doesn't get held accountable for spying on Americans. Who has time to worry about privacy breaches and mass surveillance when aliens are real? It would be harder to imagine an easier psyop to pull off. The only thing that strains credibility is that apparently it works.

actionfromafar 3y ago

That first one has really gone from tinfoil to norm. The Swedish government recently recommended officials not talk about anything secret while travelling in a Volvo.

digisign 3y ago
Have a link? Couldn't find anything easily.
- ade2 3y ago
  The Swedish government didn't say that, some researcher did, and it was talked about in the public service news, afaik. The part of the government they asked on the topic said it was unsafe to have sensitive conversations in any brand of car. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/professorn-myndigheter-bor-inte-prata-hemligheter-i-en-volvo https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/professorn-myndigheter-bo...
nunobrito 3y ago
That goes for any modern car after 2021. Most of them have built-in mics and are connected 24/7 even when the owner doesn't install a SIM card. The rational is that you always get road assistance when needed. Never trust that conversations inside a modern car are private.
- digisign 3y ago
  And not only conversations. Employes have been caught sharing revealing videos.
  - nunobrito 3y ago
    Ouch...

asveikau 3y ago

> to assume that everything you write or say to or near an internet connected device is being recorded and linked to your real life identity. I feel like if that were exploited at scale, we could see a huge number of criminal indictments etc., of the sort of behavior that's technically illegal but nobody enforces, but would suddenly be exposed through such an effort. Of course if they took it to court they'd have to discuss how they got the evidence. But the fact that we're not seeing this makes me think it's not as bad as we think, that some amount of discretion is used, or that there is just so much data that nobody is acting on most of it. I frankly think the more scary abuses of the post 9/11 era are things like Guantanamo. The idea that they can round up people and hold them indefinitely, with no or little due process. If someone does warrantless surveillance and brings a case against you based on that information, the expectation is you can challenge it. If they falsely claim you did 9/11, then... Less so.

Dah00n 3y ago
>I feel like if that were exploited at scale, we could see a huge number of criminal indictments etc., This might or might not be true, but let's say it is. But what then in 10 years when something you do or are becomes the next Red Scare?
- asveikau 3y ago
  Yeah. I would say the post 9/11 attitude towards Muslims was the next red scare. And that was the trigger for a lot of this bullshit. So we as a society must remain vigilant of efforts to reduce civil rights. I personally think the resurgence in the last few years of "tough on crime" political rhetoric is another similar wave. The people who want to lock up the homeless or whatever. People demanding more incarceration of petty criminals. Judges are frequently described as weak if they let someone go due to insufficient evidence. If we start thinking due process is for chumps and that we need to lock everybody up no questions asked, I think mass surveillance can be a terrible input to that system.

buro9 3y ago

That's just the advertising industry