10 ms·

This kind of thing makes me think the Snowden disclosures actually emboldened the NSA in some ways. Their nightmare scenario occurred, and nothing happened. N

This kind of thing makes me think the Snowden disclosures actually emboldened the NSA in some ways. Their nightmare scenario occurred, and nothing happened. Nobody even got fired or "resigned". The public's tepid reaction has brought our nightmare scenario to life - we taught secretive government agencies that they can now do anything they want without fear of public backlash. These kinds of requests can now dramatically increase, with neither judges, politicians, or the NSA itself living in fear of anyone.

quantumpotato_ 13y ago
Do you think it was planned by the NSA?
- downandout 13y ago
  I don't, but then anything is possible. They could have invented Snowden in response to a credible threat from someone else that was planning to leak this or other even more sensitive materials. Anybody making similar disclosures today would have a tough time getting any attention because the Snowden story drew so little public outrage.
  - untog 13y ago
    The Snowden story got huge traction. It will be the biggest story of 2013.
    - fargolime 13y ago
      Zimmerman story was bigger, I'd say. Maybe Paula Deen too.
      - untog 13y ago
        Zimmerman perhaps. We're still not out of that story yet so it may grow bigger with protests, etc., but it's still a US centric story. Deen even more so, Snowden has gotten a lot more international coverage.
        takluyver 13y ago
        To back that up from across the pond: the PRISM/Snowden story has been major news in the UK. Zimmerman was headline news, but only for a day or two, and I don't know who Paula Deen is.
jwoah12 13y ago
I disagree with your usage of the past tense here. This is far from over, and I don't think the public's reaction was tepid.
- northernmonkey 13y ago
  Tepid? The response has been cooler than that.
  - chongli 13y ago
    If you're talking about the media, what did you expect? The mainstream media is just a mouthpiece for the government at this point.
    - Jgrubb 13y ago
      Or is it the other way around? I honestly don't know anymore.
    - untog 13y ago
      I know that's a popular thing to say, but the mainstream media broke the story. In what way are they a government mouthpiece?
      - chongli 13y ago
        You're right, it is a sweeping generalization. It'd be better to say that most of the mainstream media serves as the government mouthpiece. A few key outlets continue to serve the vital role of breaking important stories such as this one.
      - jessaustin 13y ago
        In what way... When they regurgitate the content of a government press release or briefing without challenging both its basic premises and noteworthy claims, which they all do every single day, many times a day, the popular news media perfectly inhabits the role of "government mouthpiece". This includes the many instances of on-the-one-hand-on-the-other press-release ping-pong between the two allegedly opposed narratives provided by our two allegedly opposed political parties.
fab13n 13y ago
What you say is true, but misses an important consideration: yesterday, only tinfoil hats believed they couldn't trust third-party companies with their privacy. Today, everyone knows that the only way to have privacy is to handle it personally, from their local computer. The whole PRISM scheme worked because people supposed the government respected their privacy. Now that it's been proven false, I expect people to use local encryption schemes, were third parties can't give a key they don't have. I expect people to become careful about which certification authority signed their SSL key, and to use self-signed certificates whenever practical. Targeted spying will remain possible, but indiscriminate surveillance PRISM-style would become impractical. Unless they know how to crack TLS, but we have no reason to believe this as of today.
- downandout 13y ago
  > Today, everyone knows that the only way to have privacy is to handle it personally, from their local computer. I agree with you, but I think you have far too much faith in ordinary Americans. I invented some widely used anti-phishing technology, and I can tell you that spending a few months analyzing actual incidents where otherwise intelligent people did ridiculously unsafe things on the Internet will give you a new perspective on the tech savvy of the general population. Unless we (the tech community) make strong security both transparent to the user and enabled by default, the feds will be seeing everything they do. Sadly, most of them seem OK with that.
  - Amadou 13y ago
    That's the great thing about software, especially Free software - all it takes is a handful of us to make systems where strong security is transparent and enabled by default and it will proliferate to all the regular people.
  - fab13n 13y ago
    OK, I should have written "everyone that matters"; the point is to have a critical mass of expensive-to-eavesdrop communications, so that the NSA cannot routinely exploit much more than teenager gossips traded through Facebook. Moreover, even if only the 10% best informed people use PRISM-proof communications, it's a safe bet that NSA's alleged targets (whatever the current definition of "terrorist" might be) are among them, so the argument that they're doing that to catch "terrorists" doesn't hold water anymore. I believe the tech community is concerned about this, because it threatens the robustness of Internet. Today, nobody in the business can pretend with a straight face that top-level certification authorities are trustworthy; so I expect the next generation of security protocols, the successors of the (transparent and enabled by default) SSL, to treat governments as opponents. I also believe that companies will change their security patterns, e.g. stop trusting American third parties such as Microsoft if they have competitors with political connections in Washington.
rubiquity 13y ago
It's unfortunate but not surprising how little coverage this whole thing has had. I think as tech savvy individuals we need to do a better job of informing people of these events. The media won't care unless people care.
joering2 13y ago
Like with everything else than maybe virus outbreak, most changes takes time to affect entire community, economy or a country. Rome wasn't built in a day, so the Rome Empire didn't collapse in a day neither. Take me as an example. I am 8 years in US, married to US citizen. Green Card holder now and couple years ago our plan was for me to become a US Citizen and us to raise our kids on US soil. Not anymore. With all the outcoming gov scandals, with government forcing you to vaccine your kids, with you or your children going to jail for drawing a gun, for swat team breaking into your house because you are selling raw milk, for all this growing nonsense and my personal disgust with president that calls death of 4 us officials in Bengazi a "phony scandal", I am genuinely sick and disgusted of this to my deeper core. And here comes important part: so you say to me in response: if you don't like it, move out! And you are damn right! We made this decision recently and right now my wife is learning my native language while I am shifting more towards doing more remote programming gigs. Surprisingly after I moved here from the country of communism, now it seems safer and more sane back in Europe than here! Europe has its problems of course, but honestly I believe Europe will deteriorate much slower than US. Here everything is on fast forward and yes examples like Manning or Snowden revelations and lack of echo makes it hard to believe anything will change for better in the future. I believe I am not the only one who draw this conclusion lately. I also think that many smart people coming to this country to live "american dream" are also smart enough to realize the economical situation become so unstable that its better to "wait and see" back home.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  Thanks for your perspective. I wonder which hot-button you pushed that caused the downvotes? My suspicion would be vaccination, but I'm not ruling out the gun-illustration (the word "drawing" is ambiguous in this case) or Bengazi...
  - kyzyl 13y ago
    Indeed, the downvotes seem bizarre to me. This response just looks like somebody sharing their experience in the matter in a coherent way. It could also be someone who doesn't want attention drawn away from their post. Anyhow, I'm in Canada right now, and am in the next few years probably looking to change careers. I have good contacts with several top-tier tech companies in the US, and also with the auto industry and big oil. I've never really had much of a desire to live in the US, but now more than ever I'm finding myself looking to other potentially less lucrative positions just because of my distaste, much like the post above. It really doesn't feel like a good time to be living in the US as a foreigner with an engineering degree, a very foreign sounding name and very liberal views. :-/
rhizome 13y ago
You can call it boldness, but at this point I'm not sure how you'd distinguish it from an extinction burst[1], or "getting while the getting's still good." 1. http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/07/07/extinction-burst/ http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/07/07/extinction-burst/

quantumpotato_ 13y ago

Do you think it was planned by the NSA?

downandout 13y ago
I don't, but then anything is possible. They could have invented Snowden in response to a credible threat from someone else that was planning to leak this or other even more sensitive materials. Anybody making similar disclosures today would have a tough time getting any attention because the Snowden story drew so little public outrage.
- untog 13y ago
  The Snowden story got huge traction. It will be the biggest story of 2013.
  - fargolime 13y ago
    Zimmerman story was bigger, I'd say. Maybe Paula Deen too.
    - untog 13y ago
      Zimmerman perhaps. We're still not out of that story yet so it may grow bigger with protests, etc., but it's still a US centric story. Deen even more so, Snowden has gotten a lot more international coverage.
      - takluyver 13y ago
        To back that up from across the pond: the PRISM/Snowden story has been major news in the UK. Zimmerman was headline news, but only for a day or two, and I don't know who Paula Deen is.

jwoah12 13y ago

I disagree with your usage of the past tense here. This is far from over, and I don't think the public's reaction was tepid.

northernmonkey 13y ago
Tepid? The response has been cooler than that.
- chongli 13y ago
  If you're talking about the media, what did you expect? The mainstream media is just a mouthpiece for the government at this point.
  - Jgrubb 13y ago
    Or is it the other way around? I honestly don't know anymore.
  - untog 13y ago
    I know that's a popular thing to say, but the mainstream media broke the story. In what way are they a government mouthpiece?
    - chongli 13y ago
      You're right, it is a sweeping generalization. It'd be better to say that most of the mainstream media serves as the government mouthpiece. A few key outlets continue to serve the vital role of breaking important stories such as this one.
    - jessaustin 13y ago
      In what way... When they regurgitate the content of a government press release or briefing without challenging both its basic premises and noteworthy claims, which they all do every single day, many times a day, the popular news media perfectly inhabits the role of "government mouthpiece". This includes the many instances of on-the-one-hand-on-the-other press-release ping-pong between the two allegedly opposed narratives provided by our two allegedly opposed political parties.

fab13n 13y ago

What you say is true, but misses an important consideration: yesterday, only tinfoil hats believed they couldn't trust third-party companies with their privacy. Today, everyone knows that the only way to have privacy is to handle it personally, from their local computer. The whole PRISM scheme worked because people supposed the government respected their privacy. Now that it's been proven false, I expect people to use local encryption schemes, were third parties can't give a key they don't have. I expect people to become careful about which certification authority signed their SSL key, and to use self-signed certificates whenever practical. Targeted spying will remain possible, but indiscriminate surveillance PRISM-style would become impractical. Unless they know how to crack TLS, but we have no reason to believe this as of today.

downandout 13y ago
> Today, everyone knows that the only way to have privacy is to handle it personally, from their local computer. I agree with you, but I think you have far too much faith in ordinary Americans. I invented some widely used anti-phishing technology, and I can tell you that spending a few months analyzing actual incidents where otherwise intelligent people did ridiculously unsafe things on the Internet will give you a new perspective on the tech savvy of the general population. Unless we (the tech community) make strong security both transparent to the user and enabled by default, the feds will be seeing everything they do. Sadly, most of them seem OK with that.
- Amadou 13y ago
  That's the great thing about software, especially Free software - all it takes is a handful of us to make systems where strong security is transparent and enabled by default and it will proliferate to all the regular people.
- fab13n 13y ago
  OK, I should have written "everyone that matters"; the point is to have a critical mass of expensive-to-eavesdrop communications, so that the NSA cannot routinely exploit much more than teenager gossips traded through Facebook. Moreover, even if only the 10% best informed people use PRISM-proof communications, it's a safe bet that NSA's alleged targets (whatever the current definition of "terrorist" might be) are among them, so the argument that they're doing that to catch "terrorists" doesn't hold water anymore. I believe the tech community is concerned about this, because it threatens the robustness of Internet. Today, nobody in the business can pretend with a straight face that top-level certification authorities are trustworthy; so I expect the next generation of security protocols, the successors of the (transparent and enabled by default) SSL, to treat governments as opponents. I also believe that companies will change their security patterns, e.g. stop trusting American third parties such as Microsoft if they have competitors with political connections in Washington.

rubiquity 13y ago

It's unfortunate but not surprising how little coverage this whole thing has had. I think as tech savvy individuals we need to do a better job of informing people of these events. The media won't care unless people care.

joering2 13y ago

Like with everything else than maybe virus outbreak, most changes takes time to affect entire community, economy or a country. Rome wasn't built in a day, so the Rome Empire didn't collapse in a day neither. Take me as an example. I am 8 years in US, married to US citizen. Green Card holder now and couple years ago our plan was for me to become a US Citizen and us to raise our kids on US soil. Not anymore. With all the outcoming gov scandals, with government forcing you to vaccine your kids, with you or your children going to jail for drawing a gun, for swat team breaking into your house because you are selling raw milk, for all this growing nonsense and my personal disgust with president that calls death of 4 us officials in Bengazi a "phony scandal", I am genuinely sick and disgusted of this to my deeper core. And here comes important part: so you say to me in response: if you don't like it, move out! And you are damn right! We made this decision recently and right now my wife is learning my native language while I am shifting more towards doing more remote programming gigs. Surprisingly after I moved here from the country of communism, now it seems safer and more sane back in Europe than here! Europe has its problems of course, but honestly I believe Europe will deteriorate much slower than US. Here everything is on fast forward and yes examples like Manning or Snowden revelations and lack of echo makes it hard to believe anything will change for better in the future. I believe I am not the only one who draw this conclusion lately. I also think that many smart people coming to this country to live "american dream" are also smart enough to realize the economical situation become so unstable that its better to "wait and see" back home.

jessaustin 13y ago
Thanks for your perspective. I wonder which hot-button you pushed that caused the downvotes? My suspicion would be vaccination, but I'm not ruling out the gun-illustration (the word "drawing" is ambiguous in this case) or Bengazi...
- kyzyl 13y ago
  Indeed, the downvotes seem bizarre to me. This response just looks like somebody sharing their experience in the matter in a coherent way. It could also be someone who doesn't want attention drawn away from their post. Anyhow, I'm in Canada right now, and am in the next few years probably looking to change careers. I have good contacts with several top-tier tech companies in the US, and also with the auto industry and big oil. I've never really had much of a desire to live in the US, but now more than ever I'm finding myself looking to other potentially less lucrative positions just because of my distaste, much like the post above. It really doesn't feel like a good time to be living in the US as a foreigner with an engineering degree, a very foreign sounding name and very liberal views. :-/

rhizome 13y ago

You can call it boldness, but at this point I'm not sure how you'd distinguish it from an extinction burst[1], or "getting while the getting's still good." 1. http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/07/07/extinction-burst/ http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/07/07/extinction-burst/