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Situations like these probably rarely produce a real "winner". It is going to be an arms race between those favoring personal privacy and those favoring governm
by 1337biz 13y ago
Situations like these probably rarely produce a real "winner". It is going to be an arms race between those favoring personal privacy and those favoring government snooping.
Just keep in mind that government operates basically on an unlimited budget and has access to a wide range of harassment opportunities for non compliance in matters like these. This fact alone will keep them at least at a dead level with potential counter measures.
- rdl 13y agoNo, it's a win because the government is not the only, and in most cases not the worst, threat. Insiders (like Snowden and Manning, ironically) are one of the biggest threats. Being attacked by non-USG outsiders is a major threat ("hackers", state sponsored or not). Your business partners being hacked, or having lax security, is another threat. USG is probably near the bottom of the list of actual threats for most people, in terms of frequency; they just have the most amazing resources. If the "evil NSA boogeyman" is enough to get people to finally care about security, that's great. It's like people preparing for zombies by buying water, freeze dried food, radios, shotguns, etc., when in fact they're at the same time preparing for the far more likely earthquake or civil insurrection.
- ferdo 13y ago> Insiders (like Snowden and Manning, ironically) are one of the biggest threats. They're a threat to those who like running a Surveillance State, not to the average citizen.
- nathan_long 13y agoWhistleblowers are a help to the average citizen, yes, but perhaps the parent poster meant "insiders with their own motives", which might not be benevolent.
- scarecrowbob 13y ago"They" specifically are... generally, the point is that 'insiders' are probably not motivated the same way but have the same access to data which they could leverage against a target.
- rdl 13y agoInsiders are the biggest threat to any organization. Doesn't matter if it is USG and Manning or that Icelandic kid and wiki leaks or whatever. Independent of whether the org is good or evil.
- tlrobinson 13y agoI always assumed "zombie apocalypse" was code for "civil uprising" anyway.
- rdl 13y agoEven in Oakland, I am way more worried about things like an earthquake, blackout, etc than a civil war, though.
- chmodd 13y agoI can think of at least one counterexample, namely the failure of the NSA-promoted key escrow system in 1990s (aka Clipper chip)
- rdl 13y agoAnd removing publicly available software crypto from the most serious export restrictions, at roughly the same time.