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>But these tools aren't going anywhere until all the embarrassingly smart technologists around here stop wasting their time pretending to be lawyers (the law an

>But these tools aren't going anywhere until all the embarrassingly smart technologists around here stop wasting their time pretending to be lawyers (the law and lawmakers aren't going to get us out of this hole) and design better tech to stop the next Boston bombing, Charlie Hedbo style attack or ISIS recruitment drives. You're wrong on two counts. 1.) It's American foreign policy that created anti-american Islamic extremism. It's American foreign policy that must fix it. You cannot expect tech to fix the problems of that. Technologies are tools, nothing more. Terrorists and tax payers are technology users alike, and that will always be the case. (Sidenote: anyone who is intelligent should hate the word 'terrorism', it is blatantly doublespeak.) 2.) These spy tools are going to die, because we can make technology that makes them infeasible. Indeed, we already have. Tor is reportedly unstoppable by the NSA. GPG exists and falls under the same category. The way things are headed, the only thing that will change with time is that tech companies will embrace encryption and help the general population of innocents to stop being tracked. Those that care enough (eg: terrorists, libertarians, anarchists, and nerds) have already taken back their freedom... And will continue to do so. And there's nothing those 3 letter agencies can do to prevent it, because they've shown their hand. Anyone who has taken a cryptography class / a theory class knows that it's an unwinnable battle to try to fight RSA... It's just a matter of time before someone persuasive enough gets the message through to policy makers.

lawnchair_larry 12y ago
You seemingly don't quite understand the technology and the assertions in your second point and last paragraph are not correct.
- nickysielicki 12y ago
  I'm totally willing to accept being wrong and own up to that. Can you let me know me where I've misspoken, though? To continue on what I said above, * One can always increase the size of the key. There's no stopping that. The fact that they can intercept and understand the bulk of communication currently is only due to the fact that we're largely not using encryption. (The idea being, they can collect huge amounts of encrypted information and years down the line decrypt it with supercomputers... But we can always generate larger keys and increase the difficulty by an order of magnitude. It is much easier to generate keys than it is to guess them.) Not that it's necessary. We have sufficiently large keys already. We just have to start encrypting. [1] * The NSA has difficulty with GPG and Tor. [2] [1]: http://security.stackexchange.com/posts/25392/revisions http://security.stackexchange.com/posts/25392/revisions [2]: http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/28/7458159/encryption-standards-the-nsa-cant-crack-pgp-tor-otr-snowden http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/28/7458159/encryption-standa...
GabrielF00 12y ago
> It's American foreign policy that created anti-american Islamic extremism. That's a very reductionist analysis. The Muslim Brotherhood has existed since the 1920s. However, it was a secular, Marxist, anti-colonialist ideology that was most successful in the Arab world for the next few generations. Then these secular Arab states lost the Six Day War, and failed to provide either good governance or economic opportunities for their populations. The reason that Islamists have become so powerful is that the governments of many Arab countries have proven themselves to be completely bankrupt. If you're young (and the population pyramids in places like Egypt are very fat on the bottom), and you have very few economic opportunities, and your society is incredibly corrupt, then a radical change becomes very appealing, particularly if the people advocating that change are seen as pure and uncorrupt. The fact that Islamist groups oppose the US is one aspect of their appeal, but it's really only one factor. The fact that Hezbollah and Hamas are actively opposing Israel, while Egypt made peace with Israel in 79 is also a factor.
- nickysielicki 12y ago
  I'll be the first to admit I'm a dumb 20 year old that largely doesn't understand the world. You seem to know a great deal about the intricacies of the history in the middle east. I know nothing. I'm genuinely curious, though, do you think there is no argument for what I said? >If you're young [...], and you have very few economic opportunities, and your society is incredibly corrupt, then a radical change becomes very appealing, I recall looking at the revolts in Iran in 2009 [1] and what I saw was fundamentally different than what you see with ISIL. I saw people disenfranchised with the middle east governance and culture, but they were not angry or vindictive. They were productive and wanting to change things. I think that exists in the middle east, and I think that they're separate from Islamic extremists. Meanwhile there's the anti-American camp... Is their hatred because of our actions? * We funded Osama Bin Laden. [2] * We trained people fighting for ISIL. [3] * We killed 130k+ innocent civilians in the region in the past decade and a half. [4] I think it's plausible. Sure, they might dislike us even if we hadn't done those things... That being said, I think reasonable people in the middle east have reason to dislike America. (I think any reasonable person has reason to dislike America's actions.) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Iranian_presidential_election_protests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Iranian_presidential_elect... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA%E2%80%93al-Qaeda_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA%E2%80%93al-Qaeda_controvers... [3]: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/08/west-training-syrian-rebels-jordan http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/08/west-training-s... [4]: https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ https://www.iraqbodycount.org/

lawnchair_larry 12y ago

You seemingly don't quite understand the technology and the assertions in your second point and last paragraph are not correct.

nickysielicki 12y ago
I'm totally willing to accept being wrong and own up to that. Can you let me know me where I've misspoken, though? To continue on what I said above, * One can always increase the size of the key. There's no stopping that. The fact that they can intercept and understand the bulk of communication currently is only due to the fact that we're largely not using encryption. (The idea being, they can collect huge amounts of encrypted information and years down the line decrypt it with supercomputers... But we can always generate larger keys and increase the difficulty by an order of magnitude. It is much easier to generate keys than it is to guess them.) Not that it's necessary. We have sufficiently large keys already. We just have to start encrypting. [1] * The NSA has difficulty with GPG and Tor. [2] [1]: http://security.stackexchange.com/posts/25392/revisions http://security.stackexchange.com/posts/25392/revisions [2]: http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/28/7458159/encryption-standards-the-nsa-cant-crack-pgp-tor-otr-snowden http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/28/7458159/encryption-standa...

GabrielF00 12y ago

> It's American foreign policy that created anti-american Islamic extremism. That's a very reductionist analysis. The Muslim Brotherhood has existed since the 1920s. However, it was a secular, Marxist, anti-colonialist ideology that was most successful in the Arab world for the next few generations. Then these secular Arab states lost the Six Day War, and failed to provide either good governance or economic opportunities for their populations. The reason that Islamists have become so powerful is that the governments of many Arab countries have proven themselves to be completely bankrupt. If you're young (and the population pyramids in places like Egypt are very fat on the bottom), and you have very few economic opportunities, and your society is incredibly corrupt, then a radical change becomes very appealing, particularly if the people advocating that change are seen as pure and uncorrupt. The fact that Islamist groups oppose the US is one aspect of their appeal, but it's really only one factor. The fact that Hezbollah and Hamas are actively opposing Israel, while Egypt made peace with Israel in 79 is also a factor.

nickysielicki 12y ago
I'll be the first to admit I'm a dumb 20 year old that largely doesn't understand the world. You seem to know a great deal about the intricacies of the history in the middle east. I know nothing. I'm genuinely curious, though, do you think there is no argument for what I said? >If you're young [...], and you have very few economic opportunities, and your society is incredibly corrupt, then a radical change becomes very appealing, I recall looking at the revolts in Iran in 2009 [1] and what I saw was fundamentally different than what you see with ISIL. I saw people disenfranchised with the middle east governance and culture, but they were not angry or vindictive. They were productive and wanting to change things. I think that exists in the middle east, and I think that they're separate from Islamic extremists. Meanwhile there's the anti-American camp... Is their hatred because of our actions? * We funded Osama Bin Laden. [2] * We trained people fighting for ISIL. [3] * We killed 130k+ innocent civilians in the region in the past decade and a half. [4] I think it's plausible. Sure, they might dislike us even if we hadn't done those things... That being said, I think reasonable people in the middle east have reason to dislike America. (I think any reasonable person has reason to dislike America's actions.) [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Iranian_presidential_election_protests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Iranian_presidential_elect... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA%E2%80%93al-Qaeda_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA%E2%80%93al-Qaeda_controvers... [3]: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/08/west-training-syrian-rebels-jordan http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/08/west-training-s... [4]: https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ https://www.iraqbodycount.org/