5 ms·

> The danger here is that if we do nothing, that will be seen as tacit acceptance of the world's largest spying apparatus. Your acceptance is not required for

by ihsw 13y ago

> The danger here is that if we do nothing, that will be seen as tacit acceptance of the world's largest spying apparatus. Your acceptance is not required for the spying programs to continue operating. The sooner you realize that is the sooner you'll realize that your choices are currently very limited.

einhverfr 13y ago
There are two issues that I think that are important to keep in mind though. The first big story here is the extent to which the US government has been (and continues to) compel big internet businesses and telco's to do their spying for them. This is an important thing to keep in mind, and I think that it is important when we look at what products we as founders develop. One of the huge threats that Google poses is the degree to which disparate sources of tracking information are tied together. With Android, for example, your cell phone is connected to an email address. The second is the degree to which companies are being forced to make things intelligence-friendly. Here I think another point here is to build products which are intelligence-unfriendly as a way of pushing back. I have some ideas for start-ups I would be interested in participating in, in this area. My time availability is less than I would like but.... The first would be a verifiable secure telephony platform, resistant to in the middle eavesdropping, ideally incorporated in a country with strong protections for such things (Switzerland sounds nice). The second would be decentralized cryptography services of some sort. All projects I think would have to be open source because this would help put pressure on governments not to interfere.
famousactress 13y ago
I disagree, they work for us. The sooner you realize that is the sooner we get this fixed.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - sillysaurus 13y ago
    They do work for us. Look at SOPA. Once it became clear that it had the potential to be a national issue (i.e. might cost them votes), various senators and representatives began to publicly voice concerns about passing it. Change isn't easy, but it can be effected.
- danielweber 13y ago
  They don't work for us. But we can vote them out of office. Voting isn't meant to grant them power; it's meant to be a check on their power.
davidw 13y ago
One of the biggest problems with the political situation here in Italy is the level of cynicism and "oh poor us, we can't do anything". That attitude is a very sure way of not being able to do anything, and it's absolutely poisonous.
- ihsw 13y ago
  That's not my attitude at all, in fact I'm arguing that our options are limited to sitting back and accepting this new way of life or grabbing pitchforks and taking to the streets. The separation of powers -- separated into judicial, legislative, and executive branches -- no longer applies. We're seeing unprecedented cooperation between all three branches and, put simply, American democracy is dead. Our congressional representatives are in on it and they're fine with it, the judiciary approved it all, and the executive branch uses it for their own selfish benefit. When we heard Obama say "no more illegal wiretapping" then we thought he was going to discontinue it all, but he actually looked the other way while congress made it perfectly legal and accepted instead. Very insidious.
  - davidw 13y ago
    > American democracy is dead. Hyperbolic bullshit like this is reason #122783278 why I hate to see politics on this site.
    - xradionut 13y ago
      From a fact based analysis, it's not bullshit. Read your history, look at current situation as data to be sifted through and it's obvious that the reality is different from the popular image portrayed.
      - davidw 13y ago
        Democracies are big, messy, and very much imperfect things. They have good sides, and bad sides, and don't always behave how we think they ought to. Like the quote says, democracy is a terrible way to run a country; it's just better than all the others. Labeling the whole thing as "dead" is pure hyperbole, and probably a lame excuse not to get involved and do the hard work that is necessary to change broken stuff. If it were dead and nonexistent, then people would not have been able to liberalize marijuana use in Colorado and Washington, nor approved measures allowing gay people to marry the people they love in several states.
belorn 13y ago
Actually, it is. If we use services that do not keep logs or has real name policies, or if we favor companies that takes an active stance against surveillance rather than just buying from what ever is cheapest, we pushes society into a place where the spying is not socially accepted practices for for-profit organizations. This event is already having that effect in EU. Governments is already creating policy/laws that favors national services over Google. If they go a step further and make a law that forbids moving privileged information to a US data cloud to be picked and prodded by spies and advertisers, that will have a real effect on Google, Microsoft, amazon and Apple. Suddenly, doctors can not use iphones connected with icloud for their practice. Lawyers can't use Microsoft 360 with mails going through Microsoft servers or store their mail in the cloud. Government can't purchase amazon cloud for developing. Even schools can't use Google docs when working with student records. I have no doubt in me that the us government would listen to Google, Microsoft, amazon and Apple if such law was ever created.
- MisterWebz 13y ago
  If the EU had their own Facebook and Google, it'll have their own intelligence agencies tapping data from those servers. Sure we can perhaps get them to change their minds by boycotting, but try asking a regular American citizen to fully disconnect from the internet.
  - iuguy 13y ago
    The EU does not have it's own singular intelligence agency. It's not a country. EU states may have their own but there's a big difference between the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden in terms of approach.
    - MisterWebz 13y ago
      The US and other parts of the world aren't one single country either, but that doesn't stop the US intelligence agencies from collecting data from all over the world.
  - bad_user 13y ago
kiba 13y ago
We always have a choice to elect the people we want. The problem is that all the people who we want to elects are all lizards. If we elect a politician who actually have integrity and wisdom, he would be very unpopular and voted out of office. The politicians that the people want in office is not the same person that you want to work under or believe in.

by ihsw 13y ago

einhverfr 13y ago

There are two issues that I think that are important to keep in mind though. The first big story here is the extent to which the US government has been (and continues to) compel big internet businesses and telco's to do their spying for them. This is an important thing to keep in mind, and I think that it is important when we look at what products we as founders develop. One of the huge threats that Google poses is the degree to which disparate sources of tracking information are tied together. With Android, for example, your cell phone is connected to an email address. The second is the degree to which companies are being forced to make things intelligence-friendly. Here I think another point here is to build products which are intelligence-unfriendly as a way of pushing back. I have some ideas for start-ups I would be interested in participating in, in this area. My time availability is less than I would like but.... The first would be a verifiable secure telephony platform, resistant to in the middle eavesdropping, ideally incorporated in a country with strong protections for such things (Switzerland sounds nice). The second would be decentralized cryptography services of some sort. All projects I think would have to be open source because this would help put pressure on governments not to interfere.

famousactress 13y ago

I disagree, they work for us. The sooner you realize that is the sooner we get this fixed.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- sillysaurus 13y ago
  They do work for us. Look at SOPA. Once it became clear that it had the potential to be a national issue (i.e. might cost them votes), various senators and representatives began to publicly voice concerns about passing it. Change isn't easy, but it can be effected.
danielweber 13y ago
They don't work for us. But we can vote them out of office. Voting isn't meant to grant them power; it's meant to be a check on their power.

davidw 13y ago

One of the biggest problems with the political situation here in Italy is the level of cynicism and "oh poor us, we can't do anything". That attitude is a very sure way of not being able to do anything, and it's absolutely poisonous.

ihsw 13y ago
That's not my attitude at all, in fact I'm arguing that our options are limited to sitting back and accepting this new way of life or grabbing pitchforks and taking to the streets. The separation of powers -- separated into judicial, legislative, and executive branches -- no longer applies. We're seeing unprecedented cooperation between all three branches and, put simply, American democracy is dead. Our congressional representatives are in on it and they're fine with it, the judiciary approved it all, and the executive branch uses it for their own selfish benefit. When we heard Obama say "no more illegal wiretapping" then we thought he was going to discontinue it all, but he actually looked the other way while congress made it perfectly legal and accepted instead. Very insidious.
- davidw 13y ago
  > American democracy is dead. Hyperbolic bullshit like this is reason #122783278 why I hate to see politics on this site.
  - xradionut 13y ago
    From a fact based analysis, it's not bullshit. Read your history, look at current situation as data to be sifted through and it's obvious that the reality is different from the popular image portrayed.
    - davidw 13y ago
      Democracies are big, messy, and very much imperfect things. They have good sides, and bad sides, and don't always behave how we think they ought to. Like the quote says, democracy is a terrible way to run a country; it's just better than all the others. Labeling the whole thing as "dead" is pure hyperbole, and probably a lame excuse not to get involved and do the hard work that is necessary to change broken stuff. If it were dead and nonexistent, then people would not have been able to liberalize marijuana use in Colorado and Washington, nor approved measures allowing gay people to marry the people they love in several states.

belorn 13y ago

Actually, it is. If we use services that do not keep logs or has real name policies, or if we favor companies that takes an active stance against surveillance rather than just buying from what ever is cheapest, we pushes society into a place where the spying is not socially accepted practices for for-profit organizations. This event is already having that effect in EU. Governments is already creating policy/laws that favors national services over Google. If they go a step further and make a law that forbids moving privileged information to a US data cloud to be picked and prodded by spies and advertisers, that will have a real effect on Google, Microsoft, amazon and Apple. Suddenly, doctors can not use iphones connected with icloud for their practice. Lawyers can't use Microsoft 360 with mails going through Microsoft servers or store their mail in the cloud. Government can't purchase amazon cloud for developing. Even schools can't use Google docs when working with student records. I have no doubt in me that the us government would listen to Google, Microsoft, amazon and Apple if such law was ever created.

MisterWebz 13y ago
If the EU had their own Facebook and Google, it'll have their own intelligence agencies tapping data from those servers. Sure we can perhaps get them to change their minds by boycotting, but try asking a regular American citizen to fully disconnect from the internet.
- iuguy 13y ago
  The EU does not have it's own singular intelligence agency. It's not a country. EU states may have their own but there's a big difference between the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden in terms of approach.
  - MisterWebz 13y ago
    The US and other parts of the world aren't one single country either, but that doesn't stop the US intelligence agencies from collecting data from all over the world.
- bad_user 13y ago

kiba 13y ago

We always have a choice to elect the people we want. The problem is that all the people who we want to elects are all lizards. If we elect a politician who actually have integrity and wisdom, he would be very unpopular and voted out of office. The politicians that the people want in office is not the same person that you want to work under or believe in.