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> Or it doesn't even have to go that far; some government spokesperson lets your name slip in an interview as a "suspect" and the media attention you'll get wil
by mpyne 14y ago
> Or it doesn't even have to go that far; some government spokesperson lets your name slip in an interview as a "suspect" and the media attention you'll get will forever ruin your life even if the government does nothing.
Unless the government gets out of the business of handling birth certificates, driver's licenses, etc. they're simply going to have your name.
Secure communications channels is certainly an important topic though, but given what happened to Sunil Tripathi in the aftermath of the Reddit swarm to find the Boston Marathom bomber(s), perhaps it's possible that your biggest "online threat" in the future won't be part of the government at all.
You get the wrong Google, Facebook, or random datacenter sysadmin upset and you could find yourself in hot water with even less of a legal recourse. It's just as easy to imagine roving bands of vigilantes in that dystopian future as it is to imagine Big Brother, is it not?
I get why this (COMSEC) is an important problem; what I don't get is why so many otherwise very intelligent persons focus on the government as the sole problem area. The government is mostly staffed by either those who are actually idealistic, or those who are too incompetent to hack it in the private sector. Certainly Google and Facebook have better IT infrastructure than 99% of the government.
P.S. The U.S. Constitution forbids "ex post facto" laws that make previously legal behavior illegal after-the-fact. If you believe that the Constitution actually means anything you shouldn't worry about currently legal things being held against you in 20 years. If you believe the Constitution won't hold up in 20 years then it's kind of pointless to worry about any of the other laws, they'd be just as shredded.
- monkeyspaw 14y agoIt wasn't too long ago that the US had the HUAC committee, and ruined many people's reputations by digging up what they'd said in the past.
- eupharis 14y agoUsing something said in the past to embarrass in the present is one thing. It is often justified, like with "mission accomplished" or the "the fundamentals of the economy are strong." Prosecuting for something that was legally done in the past is a whole different issue.
- monkeyspaw 14y agoGovernment sponsored embarrassment isn't the same as putting someone in jail, you are right. However, taking away someone's ability to make a living (see the Hollywood blacklist, etc.) is leverage that can be used to control behavior. The HUAC hearings were a big bad thing that was done. It wasn't as bad as slavery, for example, but it is something that happened very recently and I think we want to avoid.
- eupharis 14y ago/nod
- mpyne 14y agoI'm not saying you should not watch what the government knows about you. It is that you should also watch what everyone else knows about you. I always get confused in these threads because I cannot separate those who are worried about the privacy of their data from those who simply hate the government (or even the idea of government). If you're trying to deploy a cryptosystem that relies on popularity to be really useful, then you'll need to get "average Joe" to buy into it, and I suspect the best way to do that is to point out all of the possible Big Brothers out there, not just rabble-rabble about the gubbmint alone.