9 ms·

We're staring at the gradual but deliberate end of privacy and its scary. The large majority of the world's population either doesn't know or care how significa

by r0h1n 12y ago

We're staring at the gradual but deliberate end of privacy and its scary. The large majority of the world's population either doesn't know or care how significant or dangerous this trend is, and those few who do will find their way into surveillance databases because they act "suspiciously" by encrypting their communications and guarding their privacy. I don't see a powerful enough counterforce against this insidious trend anywhere around the world. "Inspired" by the US, other countries are joining a competitive surveillance race stoked by private corporations selling everything from GSM monitoring to big data. </rant>

opendais 12y ago
More or less, yes. However, the danger is really only to people outside the safe herd majority who might draw the wrong sort of attention. So I don't see it being a huge danger. However, I don't think it'll ever devolve to the point where mass arrests or anything truly draconian takes place. There isn't any need in Democracy. You need to only control 51% of the engaged voters [e.g. the people who actually vote] and at least in the US the two party system controls that quite effectively. I'm worried about this because it will lead to people getting stepped on and crushed between the massive gears of the "State Security" apparatus.
- rolux 12y ago
  > However, the danger is really only to people outside the safe herd majority who might draw the wrong sort of attention. So I don't see it being a huge danger. Unfortunately, you're wrong here. The first trivial counterexample that comes to mind: You cannot have a democratic society if a government agency secretly records the phone calls of all (current and prospective) political representatives.
  - opendais 12y ago
    Your trivial counterexample requires blackmail on a large scale. The problem with blackmail is it might work 75% of the time, but the other 25% end up in jail. In the case of a politician, from time to time, one of them would say "fuck it" and use their platform to say it to the world. The subtler approach would be to take dirt on Candidate A and give it to Candidate B so B could win the election. However, in the real world, slinging real mud is just as effective as slinging fake mud in an election. [e.g. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had no actual evidence of their allegations and the majority of Kerry's unit said they were lying...but it still had a major effect on the election anyway] Tbh, the fake mud may be even more effective since you can create the best political narrative you can without being constrained by verifiable facts. So I'm really not that convinced that the costs of such political meddling [clearly exposed villainy that may force politicians to take action against the Security Apparatus or get voted out of office] is not cost effective. It is far, far more likely that the Security Services would simply behave themselves and make it clear that they wanted a large budget and virtually unlimited powers. They pretty much are at that point already.
    - rolux 12y ago
      > Your trivial counterexample requires blackmail on a large scale. Definitely not. See https://www.google.com/search?q=poland+recording+scandal https://www.google.com/search?q=poland+recording+scandal for another trivial counterexample. (Other than that, the argument that the NSA collecting data is less dangerous because in the U.S. political debate, facts don't matter anyway, doesn't sound too convincing to me.)
      - opendais 12y ago
        You are talking about people attempting to break the law... "The first batch, published a week ago, included a conversation between Marek Belka, the chief of Poland's central bank, and Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, in which they discussed how the central bank might use its power to help the government win reelection in 2015. Mr. Belka said that his condition for help would be "the dismissal of the finance minister" in favor of a “technical and apolitical” one. They also discussed the creation of a law that would allow the central bank to buy government debt on secondary markets, a practice known as quantitative easing. Under Polish law, the central bank has to be independent from political interference. But Jacek Rostowski, the finance minister, did indeed lose his job in November last year and was replaced by Mateusz Szczurek, an economist with no political experience. And new laws that include a provision allowing quantitative easing are also now in the works." Why yes, if you conspire to break the law and get recorded, this is a bad thing for you. I'm not sure why you cited one of the few cases such a recording would be perfectly acceptable. That is actually the valid and good purpose of the media and the security apparatus. Exposing political corruption and bringing it to justice wherever possible.
        rolux 12y ago
        > I'm not sure why you cited... Because such leaks will be used selectively, against anyone the data collecting agencies see as a worthwhile target. And no, blanket recording of all phone calls is not the "valid and good purpose" of the security apparatus, even if it occasionally exposes political corruption.
- mandalar12 12y ago
  Problem is the next governments will inherit the surveillance system. Who says they won't be fascists and/or turn the country into dictatorship ? When this happens, we might see these mass arrests. A lot can change in only a few decades.
  - opendais 12y ago
    I've seen that argument before but honestly... What would stop them from building it themselves if they were elected? Nothing, really.
    - mandalar12 12y ago
      Yes but, for instance, if you lived under a fascist anti-gay regime and were gay you would hide it very actively. On the opposite gays today, through their correspondances, might be quiet easily spotted by the NSA or anyone with access to their phone calls / mails / texts. Once the regime becomes anti-gay, they will come for you and it is too late to do anything.
      - opendais 12y ago
        So what your saying is you'd be able to destroy all crawlable evidence on the internet and wipe the memories of all your friends and strip out every reference to a "gay bar" or the like from your finances? I think you greatly overestimate how effective people could be in wiping their fingerprints from the internet. There is a reason people talk about once you post something on the internet its out there forever. You aren't magically going to be able to wipe out decades of fingerprints because of a regime change, regardless of whether the NSA was collecting them or not. You can use this argument when you can wipe out all copies of a nude woman whose ex posted her to imgur or something. Until then, you are just 100% wrong because you know you can't do what you claim.
        nitrogen 12y ago
        The parent comment is saying that those things wouldn't be created in the first place if the environment were already hostile to them. You can hide your present to some extent, but not erase the past.
- TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
  > However, I don't think it'll ever devolve to the point where mass arrests or anything truly draconian takes place. Sorry, what was that? "Nearly half of black males and almost 40 percent of white males in the U.S. are arrested by age 23..." [1] I do understand what you meant by "mass arrests", am I'm taking you out of context... but still I find the above statistics alarming. 1. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-01/uosc-sho010314.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-01/uosc-sho01031...
Lendal 12y ago
Fox News has done its job well. No one questions anymore.
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  I'm liberal as all get out (and voted for Obama), but this isn't limited to the right-wing. Greenwald's getting attacked by Democratic partisans a lot over the NSA revelations. Those same folks would've been outraged during the Bush years.
disputin 12y ago
Is there a list of counterforces? https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying https://prism-break.org/en/all/ https://prism-break.org/en/all/ ... And EFF is NSA centric - is there a UK equivalent? Why are GCHQ getting insignificant heat?
- schoen 12y ago
  The UK has the Open Rights Group and Privacy International. (ORG is focused on the UK, while PI is based in the UK but not solely focused on it.) http://openrightsgroup.org/ http://openrightsgroup.org/ https://privacyinternational.org/ https://privacyinternational.org/

by r0h1n 12y ago

opendais 12y ago

More or less, yes. However, the danger is really only to people outside the safe herd majority who might draw the wrong sort of attention. So I don't see it being a huge danger. However, I don't think it'll ever devolve to the point where mass arrests or anything truly draconian takes place. There isn't any need in Democracy. You need to only control 51% of the engaged voters [e.g. the people who actually vote] and at least in the US the two party system controls that quite effectively. I'm worried about this because it will lead to people getting stepped on and crushed between the massive gears of the "State Security" apparatus.

rolux 12y ago
> However, the danger is really only to people outside the safe herd majority who might draw the wrong sort of attention. So I don't see it being a huge danger. Unfortunately, you're wrong here. The first trivial counterexample that comes to mind: You cannot have a democratic society if a government agency secretly records the phone calls of all (current and prospective) political representatives.
- opendais 12y ago
  Your trivial counterexample requires blackmail on a large scale. The problem with blackmail is it might work 75% of the time, but the other 25% end up in jail. In the case of a politician, from time to time, one of them would say "fuck it" and use their platform to say it to the world. The subtler approach would be to take dirt on Candidate A and give it to Candidate B so B could win the election. However, in the real world, slinging real mud is just as effective as slinging fake mud in an election. [e.g. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had no actual evidence of their allegations and the majority of Kerry's unit said they were lying...but it still had a major effect on the election anyway] Tbh, the fake mud may be even more effective since you can create the best political narrative you can without being constrained by verifiable facts. So I'm really not that convinced that the costs of such political meddling [clearly exposed villainy that may force politicians to take action against the Security Apparatus or get voted out of office] is not cost effective. It is far, far more likely that the Security Services would simply behave themselves and make it clear that they wanted a large budget and virtually unlimited powers. They pretty much are at that point already.
  - rolux 12y ago
    > Your trivial counterexample requires blackmail on a large scale. Definitely not. See https://www.google.com/search?q=poland+recording+scandal https://www.google.com/search?q=poland+recording+scandal for another trivial counterexample. (Other than that, the argument that the NSA collecting data is less dangerous because in the U.S. political debate, facts don't matter anyway, doesn't sound too convincing to me.)
    - opendais 12y ago
      You are talking about people attempting to break the law... "The first batch, published a week ago, included a conversation between Marek Belka, the chief of Poland's central bank, and Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, in which they discussed how the central bank might use its power to help the government win reelection in 2015. Mr. Belka said that his condition for help would be "the dismissal of the finance minister" in favor of a “technical and apolitical” one. They also discussed the creation of a law that would allow the central bank to buy government debt on secondary markets, a practice known as quantitative easing. Under Polish law, the central bank has to be independent from political interference. But Jacek Rostowski, the finance minister, did indeed lose his job in November last year and was replaced by Mateusz Szczurek, an economist with no political experience. And new laws that include a provision allowing quantitative easing are also now in the works." Why yes, if you conspire to break the law and get recorded, this is a bad thing for you. I'm not sure why you cited one of the few cases such a recording would be perfectly acceptable. That is actually the valid and good purpose of the media and the security apparatus. Exposing political corruption and bringing it to justice wherever possible.
      - rolux 12y ago
        > I'm not sure why you cited... Because such leaks will be used selectively, against anyone the data collecting agencies see as a worthwhile target. And no, blanket recording of all phone calls is not the "valid and good purpose" of the security apparatus, even if it occasionally exposes political corruption.
mandalar12 12y ago
Problem is the next governments will inherit the surveillance system. Who says they won't be fascists and/or turn the country into dictatorship ? When this happens, we might see these mass arrests. A lot can change in only a few decades.
- opendais 12y ago
  I've seen that argument before but honestly... What would stop them from building it themselves if they were elected? Nothing, really.
  - mandalar12 12y ago
    Yes but, for instance, if you lived under a fascist anti-gay regime and were gay you would hide it very actively. On the opposite gays today, through their correspondances, might be quiet easily spotted by the NSA or anyone with access to their phone calls / mails / texts. Once the regime becomes anti-gay, they will come for you and it is too late to do anything.
    - opendais 12y ago
      So what your saying is you'd be able to destroy all crawlable evidence on the internet and wipe the memories of all your friends and strip out every reference to a "gay bar" or the like from your finances? I think you greatly overestimate how effective people could be in wiping their fingerprints from the internet. There is a reason people talk about once you post something on the internet its out there forever. You aren't magically going to be able to wipe out decades of fingerprints because of a regime change, regardless of whether the NSA was collecting them or not. You can use this argument when you can wipe out all copies of a nude woman whose ex posted her to imgur or something. Until then, you are just 100% wrong because you know you can't do what you claim.
      - nitrogen 12y ago
        The parent comment is saying that those things wouldn't be created in the first place if the environment were already hostile to them. You can hide your present to some extent, but not erase the past.
TheSpiceIsLife 12y ago
> However, I don't think it'll ever devolve to the point where mass arrests or anything truly draconian takes place. Sorry, what was that? "Nearly half of black males and almost 40 percent of white males in the U.S. are arrested by age 23..." [1] I do understand what you meant by "mass arrests", am I'm taking you out of context... but still I find the above statistics alarming. 1. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-01/uosc-sho010314.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-01/uosc-sho01031...

Lendal 12y ago

Fox News has done its job well. No one questions anymore.

ceejayoz 12y ago
I'm liberal as all get out (and voted for Obama), but this isn't limited to the right-wing. Greenwald's getting attacked by Democratic partisans a lot over the NSA revelations. Those same folks would've been outraged during the Bush years.

disputin 12y ago

Is there a list of counterforces? https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying https://prism-break.org/en/all/ https://prism-break.org/en/all/ ... And EFF is NSA centric - is there a UK equivalent? Why are GCHQ getting insignificant heat?

schoen 12y ago
The UK has the Open Rights Group and Privacy International. (ORG is focused on the UK, while PI is based in the UK but not solely focused on it.) http://openrightsgroup.org/ http://openrightsgroup.org/ https://privacyinternational.org/ https://privacyinternational.org/