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Lawrence Lessig Interviews Edward Snowden [video]
- johanzebin 12y agono comment?
- johanzebin 12y agoIt's weird that Mr. Lessig refers to cryptography as "physics" instead of mathematics around 28:15 :-).
- venantius 12y agoHe does it a couple times, I think. I noticed that as well.
- jMyles 12y agoI've been wrestling in my head about which parts are physics and which parts are mathematics. Especially from an epistemological perspective: Can we know, for example, that encryption becomes easier / cheaper more quickly than brute-force decryption because, in some sense, the physics of the universe have it that way?
- presumeaway 12y agoWhich is philosophy.
- recondite 12y agoIt's all the same ;) http://xkcd.com/435/ http://xkcd.com/435/
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- metaphorm 12y agothat line struck me as well. its kind of a philosophical statement, actually. mathematics is a formal logical system but nothing in computing is pure mathematics, even if the theory of computing and the theorems of cryptography are expressed in mathematics. ultimately a machine is actually DOING the cryptographic operations and that solidly brings it into the realm of physics.
- kbart 12y agoWhen you add hardware to cryptography, it becomes physics. Just think about various side-channel attacks.
- ngcazz 12y agoMathematical laws underpinning any system make its "physics".
- PythonicAlpha 12y agoWhen (repeated) lying is tolerated in official positions and to official organs of the state, the whole nation itself is in grave danger. In this case, the whole world is in grave danger.
- socceroos 12y agoTrying to stop these people feels like an exercise in futility. Having voiced my opinion to my own representatives over and over again it becomes very disheartening not seeing any change for the better. If only people didn't discard morals at the first sight of power and money. Having said all that, I would encourage more people to talk to their representatives regarding these issues. It goes without saying that unless the people have a voice then their desires won't be heard.
- PythonicAlpha 12y ago> Having said all that, I would encourage more people to talk to their representatives regarding these issues. It goes without saying that unless the people have a voice then their desires won't be heard. I can't emphasis this enough. The trouble is, that far to many people stand by and are silent.
- LunaSea 12y agoI think that the first part of socceroos's comment is more or less the answer to why people stand by silently.
- ctchocula 12y agoThis sounds like a coordination problem [1]. If only one person writes a letter to their representative, it doesn't do anything and that person is the only one who comes out at a loss of x hours of their time. No policies are changed and everyone is stuck in a bad situation. If a significant portion of the representative's constituency sends letters and the net political effect overcomes the amount of donations the representative gets from intelligence companies, maybe they will actually begin an initiative for policy change. Everyone is better off, but it's hard to convince a critical mass of people that think it will succeed. [1] http://raikoth.net/libertarian.html#coordination_problems http://raikoth.net/libertarian.html#coordination_problems
- venantius 12y ago"Let us speak no more of faith in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of cryptography." Really awesome interview, with some ideas discussed within (e.g. Binney's notion that transmissions be encrypted with a key that only a court has the power to decrypt) that I hadn't encountered yet. In truth it's less of an interview and more of a platform for Snowden to talk about his thinking around certain things, but he's so well informed that it's a fascinating watch in spite of that.
- Beltiras 12y agoIt's interesting to witness the flat world at work. You can't silence smart whistleblowers anymore. They have resources to draw upon away from home base that will allow them to continue pushing for reforms of what they blew the whistle on. The 21st century will be interesting times to witness.
- LunaSea 12y agoI don't think you'd need to silence a whistle-blower. With Snowden we learned that most citizens and medias don't care.
- recondite 12y agoReally? Greenwald, Gellman, and Poitras were awarded the Pulitzer for their coverage, and my elderly parents now know who Edward Snowden is and what the NSA was up to (even though they vehemently label him a traitor). The lack of an immediate change in government policy != people not caring.
- cdash 12y agoHow does winning a Pulitzer mean that the people give a shit. My parents know who he is also but they also don't give a shit.
- programmarchy 12y agoIt doesn't matter what our parents think. Most of our parents, despite their big careers and degrees, are zombies brainwashed by television, and think they are informed by watching the news and reading the new york times. They are, for the most part, lost. Not to mention, they will be dead soon. What matters is our generation, and the generations after us. Edward Snowden, Bill Binney, Thomas Drake, and others have made the information available so we can know the truth, and act accordingly. People are now able able to choose, rationally, based on factual evidence, what side of history to be on. The true revolution begins in people's minds, after all. We are in a position to choose between an enlightenment and a dark age.
- recondite 12y agoLess of an interview and more of a platform for Snowden to reiterate his views, but still good to hear directly from the horse's mouth. He says he's no good at public speaking, but it's clear that he is very articulate, very thoughtful, and had the courage to act on his convictions despite the extraordinary threat to his personal safety. If I were to define what makes a strong public figure, it would be those three characteristics. His commentary during the 2016 presidential election will be interesting to hear, at the least (assuming he hasn't struck a deal with the US to come back before then).
- hueving 12y agoWhat is the "extraordinary threat" to his personal safety at this point? Any assassination attempt at this point would create such a political backlash in the US that he is essentially untouchable.
- recondite 12y ago"had" - I was referring to when he first blew the whistle, not conducting this interview.
- rational-future 12y agoHah, I personally don't really believe this. There are so many things in US politics that are obviously corrupt (e.g. NSA and RSI deleting files before congress hearings). None of them generated a backlash significant enough to change anything.
- r12s 12y agoThe threat doesn't need to be as extreme (or binary) as assassination, presumably you mean by a government? Incarceration in a Federal prison and/or torture under questioning are imho personal threats to safety. And cynically I believe any "backlash" would last about as long as the media cycle at the time.
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- gluczywo 12y ago"the fundamental reality of encryption (...) is that the person who is using encryption (...) cannot read it either unless the key is put in some point. (...) Even when your phone is encrypted locally, when you are looking at the secret picture, if the picture is visible to you it's because that picture is decrypted. (...) What this means is that even heavily encrypted communication is vulnerable to traditional means of investigation." I'm a strong believer in crypto as the liberating technology, but this quote is a wonderful Devil's Advocate argument that dispels hackers crypto dreams.
- oska 12y ago> a wonderful Devil's Advocate argument that dispels hackers crypto dreams I think most hackers understand this. Turned around, it's the basic argument against DRM - that for the 'consumer' to access the content it must be unlocked.
- bobbles 12y agoYeah the most restrictive form of DRM in the world means nothing if I can just record a video of it / transcribe it
- Tloewald 12y agoWell it involves a generation loss
- jacquesm 12y agoUntil recently that was the norm and usually the information survives such copying for several generations before it becomes unusable.
- vidarh 12y agoAnd furthermore, most content businesses is facing a reality where they are having a hard time getting users to pay more for higher quality versions, yet the higher quality versions exists. If users have to settle for "only" DVD quality rips of content ripped from Bluray, for example, most wouldn't care. That problem is going to make DRM increasingly pointless with pushes for 4K and beyond.
- percept 12y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Sr96TFQQE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Sr96TFQQE
- relate 12y agoAt 48:55 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Sr96TFQQE#t=2933 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Sr96TFQQE#t=2933 ) Snowden says you cannot control who uses the backdoors. I assume he is referring to malicious bugs and simple/sloppy backdoors? For example, if I append my public ssh key to someones .ssh/authorized_keys, it's not a backdoor anyone else could use.
- thesteamboat 12y agoI think he's speaking more broadly about (government) backdoors baked into devices at the factory level, on a widespread scale.
- masklinn 12y ago> I assume he is referring to malicious bugs and simple/sloppy backdoors? No, he's referring to corporate or governmental backdoors, the wilful introduction of a way to bypass security for e.g. legal purposes. Once such a backdoor has been introduced, it's completely out of any control and while the entity for whom it was built will have access to it, third parties may (and most likely will if it's valuable enough) also gain access to it.
- harry8 12y agoCan you keep a backdoor 100% secret? Never brag, always be 100% secure in your use of it so that using it is untraceable. Never get sloppy, never make a mistake and be totally sure your private key can never ever be stolen? Even if you're sure you can do all that, do you think a government employee can? wants to? Is allowed to keep such things secret from colleagues? Will keep such secrets? Won't ever be hacked by a foreign power? It won't spill to his colleague with the gambling problem being compromised by <insert bogeyman here>? It won't be used in the future in ways that would still be considered non-kosher by the current NSA? The NSA can't keep their stuff safe from contractors who happen to be good guys with a conscience let alone bad guys being blackmailed. But I think he's talking more about appending a public ssh key to a something like router firmware authorized_keys file to be distributed to many devices.
- w-m 12y agoThe first couple of times Lessig replies, and tries to summarize something Snowden said or give some citations, I can't follow him very well. Also I can't make out any question in his remarks. Strange interviewing style. > But even in that context though, you made a pretty strong distinction between people who would leak in the context of CIA activities and people who'd leak in the context of what you had done. So this is again a narrower conception of what you think the appropriate role for a whistleblower is, because you had a much more visceral sense of the risks that would come out by releasing information about the CIA. Sorry, what?
- kethinov 12y agoLessig: The Marshall McLuhan of the internet age. Elliptical to the point of sometimes being cryptic. I took that to mean he wanted Snowden to elaborate on why he feels that there are different ethical considerations for leaking information about CIA activities vs. NSA surveillance programs.
- noobface 12y agoThat's an implied distinction between leaking NSA programs as they relate to the American public vs releasing international CIA related material. Very convoluted though. Lessig is just really, really deep into the context. He's clearly been thinking of these questions for so long he lost perspective.
- jaekwon 12y agoI read some earlier books of his that espouse a global internet content monitoring scheme for the sake of enforcing copyright. Draw your own conclusions.
- michaelbuddy 12y agofeel free to quote that earlier book you read. Otherwise we can't really properly draw a conclusion can we? Lessig's campaigns and initiatives have been positive from my experience, especially the current one he's working on, to you know, fix government corruption.
- accounthere 12y agoWhy is he using Google Hangouts? That sounds like trouble.
- tomp 12y agoIt's not like he has anything (more) to hide.
- correcthorse 12y agoHis location?
- somethingnew 12y agoRunning Google Hangouts through Tor would work well as it uses https by default. As long as he's using a throwaway Google account, it seems good to me.
- tomp 12y agoI'm pretty sure he has dozens of agents (both Russian and American) following him 24-7. That's the only way for him to stay alive and not be kidnapped by an "adversary" (e.g. China).
- curiousgeorgio 12y agoOff topic, but Snowden's face seems to look "fake" in an interesting way... maybe it's makeup, the lighting, video compression, or a combination of those things... and his out-of-sync audio seems to enhance the synthetic feeling - for me anyway. Of course his physical appearance isn't important to the topic of the interview, but maybe a part of me wishes that Edward Snowden was really a CG persona/face created to represent an anonymous group of whistleblowers.
- foobarlicious 12y agoThere are filters on Hangout now and the default one that gets selected even if you don't want is "Enhanced" and it clears blemishes and gives you this CG-like look.
- curiousgeorgio 12y agoGood to know - thanks for pointing that out!
- walrus 12y agoThat's really weird. I wonder what drove the decision to make that default.
- tatterdemalion 12y agoAB testing.
- MichaelMoser123 12y agoSnowden mentioned that a report for the UN General assembly found mass surveillance in conflict with international law (the 'International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights') Here is some more information: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/15/internet-surveillance-report-edward-snowden-leaks http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/15/internet-survei... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil...