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How much longer can this continue? We have American agencies attacking American companies "because terrorism". It's been 13 years since our trauma, maybe now's

by p01926 12y ago

How much longer can this continue? We have American agencies attacking American companies "because terrorism". It's been 13 years since our trauma, maybe now's the time to remove the razor blade from our wrists, look ourselves in the mirror and just carry on. Bad stuff is always going to be in our future — stuff that will increasingly appear preventable between the Internet and a lot of hindsight — but our current solution is only making things worse. The war on terror, like all the metaphorical wars, is really a civil war. It needs to stop now.

belorn 12y ago
Unofficially, politicians has surrendered the "because terrorism" excuse for a while now, as they simply want access to everyones private information in order to see where the problem are going to be. Having the data helps plan and run successful elections, makes it easier to plan ahead, and gives them power over any department which doesn't has similar access. Imagine being in a political party while private intelligence contractor give you access to all the emails from the other side. You can know where all the activists are at any moment, and what the internal conflicts are, and what areas is focused. What would be your reaction if phones suddenly started to get encrypted?
- prawn 12y ago
  I don't think they want that. They take this course because "this was preventable!" is very politically disruptive. None of them want to be the guy who voted against mandatory data retention only to play host to an attack on home soil months later. It's sad, but that's the reality.
  - gohrt 12y ago
    The history of government spying, at least as far back as J Edgar Hoover, as been about spying on members of the opposition, not about ass-covering. ass-covering is just the current halfway-excuse.
- cmdkeen 12y ago
  You effectively had that during the latter Hoover years with the FBI. That the headquarters is still named after him is an indictment of the US approach to political corruption.
exelius 12y ago
I'm actually somewhat torn on this. While I'm against mass surveillance, I think that targeted surveillance can be a good thing. By nature of it being targeted, it is expensive to use on more people than necessary. The kind of spying the CIA would enable through compromising Apple secrets would be restricted to high-value targets if for no other reason than to ensure none of their targets knew they had that capability. There are bad people out there, and we expect our government to stop them.
- smokeyj 12y ago
  A universe neatly compartmentalized into good guys and bad guys. How wonderfully simplistic. Let's just hope the good guys always wear capes so the government knows who to hire.
- svachalek 12y ago
  There are lots of targeted surveillance techniques that don't involve massive federal agencies working to eliminate all possible privacy protections just in case they need to make it easy to spy on anyone, anytime.
- ethbro 12y ago
  > The kind of spying the CIA would enable through compromising Apple secrets would be restricted to high-value targets if for no other reason than to ensure none of their targets knew they had that capability. Just like the intelligence gleaned from breaking German WWII encryption was limited? If information can be non-invasively extracted, then there is only an operational limit on use. And isn't knowing mass information just as wrong as acting on mass information? Unless it's a computationally-expensive attack (which are getting more infeasible now that key sizes aren't technically as limited), you run into the encryption problem: either everything being encrypted is okay, or nothing being encrypted is okay. That's the nature of secrecy.
- iak8god 12y ago
  I'm strongly opposed to sweeping surveillance, but not even a little bit torn on this story. I'm glad it's now public knowledge, but this is exactly the sort of thing our intelligence agencies should be doing. Edit to expand on "should be doing": at the very least, they ought to explore such vulnerabilities as a defensive measure since their counterparts in every other State are clearly doing the same thing whenever they have the capability.
angersock 12y ago
I never thought I'd say this, but... Enough with the hand-wringing. Enough with the "somebody needs to do sooooomething!". Just stop. Staaaaahp. How long has our industry been spying on users? How much money have we made aggressively mining their data? And now, now, "These People Have Gone Too Far!"? Please. Everyone's got the tools. Everyone's got the knowhow, either themselves or online. Write code or quit bitching. EDIT: To the slightly different point given by poster: we have the power to broadcast this message of fearlessness to the populace at large, because we own their media. How hard a social media campaign would it be to overcome the fear and paranoia the .gov and mainstream media use? Also, note that that same fearless attitude is directly contradicted by very popular social movements right now in certain consumer gaming industries. You're liable to end up with very strange bedfellows and enemies.
ripb 12y ago
>The war on terror, like all the metaphorical wars, is really a civil war. It needs to stop now. There's too much money at stake for those at the top for this to be stopped. Lucrative contracts for all their buddies whether it's in consultancy or providing military hardware and software. I mean the fact that congress keep ordering tanks the military themselves have proclaimed loudly that they neither want nor need should be setting off alarm bells everywhere, and yet it seems to just get brushed over.
- throwaway344 12y ago
  I think you're missing the real motive for Congress ordering hardware that the military doesn't want. It's what their constituents want. They are (by and large) not doing that sort of thing out of some scheming to enrich themselves. They want to be reelected to their next term, and delivering some federal cash and contracts to your district is the perfect way to do that.
mindslight 12y ago
> It's been 13 years since our trauma 13 years since the latest trauma. The federal government and its propaganda broadcasters have been dwelling on the specter of "terrorism" a lot longer than that. Watch media from before 11SEP2001 and you'll remember the same disproportionate focus and overreaction for many other events. This machine is much more than a decade old. We're just starting to notice the bubbles at the bottom of the pot.
DavideNL 12y ago
> We have American agencies attacking American companies "because terrorism" Wrong, and selfish. We have American agencies attacking innocent people everywhere in the world "because terrorism".

by p01926 12y ago

belorn 12y ago

Unofficially, politicians has surrendered the "because terrorism" excuse for a while now, as they simply want access to everyones private information in order to see where the problem are going to be. Having the data helps plan and run successful elections, makes it easier to plan ahead, and gives them power over any department which doesn't has similar access. Imagine being in a political party while private intelligence contractor give you access to all the emails from the other side. You can know where all the activists are at any moment, and what the internal conflicts are, and what areas is focused. What would be your reaction if phones suddenly started to get encrypted?

prawn 12y ago
I don't think they want that. They take this course because "this was preventable!" is very politically disruptive. None of them want to be the guy who voted against mandatory data retention only to play host to an attack on home soil months later. It's sad, but that's the reality.
- gohrt 12y ago
  The history of government spying, at least as far back as J Edgar Hoover, as been about spying on members of the opposition, not about ass-covering. ass-covering is just the current halfway-excuse.
cmdkeen 12y ago
You effectively had that during the latter Hoover years with the FBI. That the headquarters is still named after him is an indictment of the US approach to political corruption.

exelius 12y ago

I'm actually somewhat torn on this. While I'm against mass surveillance, I think that targeted surveillance can be a good thing. By nature of it being targeted, it is expensive to use on more people than necessary. The kind of spying the CIA would enable through compromising Apple secrets would be restricted to high-value targets if for no other reason than to ensure none of their targets knew they had that capability. There are bad people out there, and we expect our government to stop them.

smokeyj 12y ago
A universe neatly compartmentalized into good guys and bad guys. How wonderfully simplistic. Let's just hope the good guys always wear capes so the government knows who to hire.
svachalek 12y ago
There are lots of targeted surveillance techniques that don't involve massive federal agencies working to eliminate all possible privacy protections just in case they need to make it easy to spy on anyone, anytime.
ethbro 12y ago
> The kind of spying the CIA would enable through compromising Apple secrets would be restricted to high-value targets if for no other reason than to ensure none of their targets knew they had that capability. Just like the intelligence gleaned from breaking German WWII encryption was limited? If information can be non-invasively extracted, then there is only an operational limit on use. And isn't knowing mass information just as wrong as acting on mass information? Unless it's a computationally-expensive attack (which are getting more infeasible now that key sizes aren't technically as limited), you run into the encryption problem: either everything being encrypted is okay, or nothing being encrypted is okay. That's the nature of secrecy.
iak8god 12y ago
I'm strongly opposed to sweeping surveillance, but not even a little bit torn on this story. I'm glad it's now public knowledge, but this is exactly the sort of thing our intelligence agencies should be doing. Edit to expand on "should be doing": at the very least, they ought to explore such vulnerabilities as a defensive measure since their counterparts in every other State are clearly doing the same thing whenever they have the capability.

angersock 12y ago

I never thought I'd say this, but... Enough with the hand-wringing. Enough with the "somebody needs to do sooooomething!". Just stop. Staaaaahp. How long has our industry been spying on users? How much money have we made aggressively mining their data? And now, now, "These People Have Gone Too Far!"? Please. Everyone's got the tools. Everyone's got the knowhow, either themselves or online. Write code or quit bitching. EDIT: To the slightly different point given by poster: we have the power to broadcast this message of fearlessness to the populace at large, because we own their media. How hard a social media campaign would it be to overcome the fear and paranoia the .gov and mainstream media use? Also, note that that same fearless attitude is directly contradicted by very popular social movements right now in certain consumer gaming industries. You're liable to end up with very strange bedfellows and enemies.

ripb 12y ago

>The war on terror, like all the metaphorical wars, is really a civil war. It needs to stop now. There's too much money at stake for those at the top for this to be stopped. Lucrative contracts for all their buddies whether it's in consultancy or providing military hardware and software. I mean the fact that congress keep ordering tanks the military themselves have proclaimed loudly that they neither want nor need should be setting off alarm bells everywhere, and yet it seems to just get brushed over.

throwaway344 12y ago
I think you're missing the real motive for Congress ordering hardware that the military doesn't want. It's what their constituents want. They are (by and large) not doing that sort of thing out of some scheming to enrich themselves. They want to be reelected to their next term, and delivering some federal cash and contracts to your district is the perfect way to do that.

mindslight 12y ago

> It's been 13 years since our trauma 13 years since the latest trauma. The federal government and its propaganda broadcasters have been dwelling on the specter of "terrorism" a lot longer than that. Watch media from before 11SEP2001 and you'll remember the same disproportionate focus and overreaction for many other events. This machine is much more than a decade old. We're just starting to notice the bubbles at the bottom of the pot.

DavideNL 12y ago

> We have American agencies attacking American companies "because terrorism" Wrong, and selfish. We have American agencies attacking innocent people everywhere in the world "because terrorism".