4 ms·

Where are you going to go, though... all of the western countries seem to have this exact same problem. My home, Australia, is just as secretive if not worse, t

by girvo 12y ago

Where are you going to go, though... all of the western countries seem to have this exact same problem. My home, Australia, is just as secretive if not worse, the UK is bust, and more and more info is coming out showing that no government is immune. It's really disheartening. The worst part is, the Australian government really did foil a possible terrorist attack. Guess where the info on the perp came from? Mass surveillance? Their new metadata retention laws (okay, that's a cheap shot as it hasn't been implemented yet)? Nope. It was a tip-off to the national security hotline.

ChrisAntaki 12y ago
> Nope. It was a tip-off to the national security hotline. In America, for whatever reason, that tip might have been ignored. :( http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/boston-bombing-anniversary/russia-warned-u-s-about-tsarnaev-spelling-issue-let-him-n60836 http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/boston-bombing-anniversary/... http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bombers-phone-call-father/story?id=9457361 http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bombers-phone-call-father/story?id=...
PythonicAlpha 12y ago
Same here in Germany: Police also did foil an attack lately. The information just came from a shop assistant in a hardware store. And what: Again they want get into more surveillance.
andrewstuart 12y ago
>> the Australian government really did foil a possible terrorist attack If you buy that.
- girvo 12y ago
  I dunno, I'm as skeptical as anyone else I know but this time I don't see why it'd be worth lying about -- considering it was the tip-off not the other surveillance programs that led them to him, and it's public knowledge.
kordless 12y ago
Of course! A tip off is real information, spoken as a truth by someone who cares, and who is being present. That truth translates directly into a trusted communications channel when instantiated. We've used this 'neighborhood watch' thing for years in the U.S., and it simply works without anyone being in charge. Regardless of how much knowledge it represents, mass surveillance by central agencies is just them pretending to know the truth. The reason why is because the information used to 'know' is based on simulations of bad actors doing bad things, usually in the past, applied to the present moment. This 'simulated truth' translates into multiple communications channels of unknown quality when instantiated (because there are multiple futures) and fails to represent the present state of bad actor's actions. In short, it's a low trust channel which is always ripe for a misuse of power! As John Steinbeck put it best, “Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes it'll on'y be one.”
crdb 12y ago
It's not a new phenomenon - successive managements go through a cycle where they think ELINT and COMINT can make HUMINT obsolete, and then some bad thing happens and they realize they were wrong (but never admit it). The theory is that - much as the decentralised panopticon of Van Vogt's "Anarchistic Colossus" - we'll eventually be able to parse everything everybody ever says and preemptively stop bad things. The practice is that humans are pretty good at it and computers aren't yet (that we publicly know of). Reading about Eagle Claw [1], I was surprised at how few human assets the US had in Iran, due to both post-Vietnam cuts and an increased belief in computer magic. It's been a while but I remember they had something like a couple of cooks in the embassy, and nobody outside... contrast this with General Kalugin's assertion in his biography that almost 2/3 of Soviet staff in the US was KGB! More recently, Charlie Hebdo was followed by a few leaks from the DGSE complaining of budget cuts targeting human assets and "street" operations, and a reorg that definitely did not prioritize the man on the street (no link - I read it in French papers). Pete Blaber, at the time commander of Delta Force, recently complained [2] that Operation Anaconda was plagued by generals who managed it from the comfort of their AC rooms in Washington, basing their decision on drone and satellite feeds, unwilling to trust the men on the ground (and even cutting the Delta Force team out of comms when they objected). The sad thing is that HUMINT takes a long time to develop, and requires a lot of experience (which is partly why the Allied won the intelligence war over the freshly purged German apparatus). Firing those with that experience can lead to years of underperformance as the expertise is slowly rebuilt. This is one of the reasons the CIA was happy to use former Nazis to hunt Soviet spies in Germany [3] - justified both by these men's extensive experience operating in the territory and the fact that the Stasi was doing the same. I think not enough has been said about how the recent (returning) obsession with electronic surveillance is potentially damaging that side of (genuine, needed) counter-terrorist capability. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw [2] http://www.amazon.com/The-Mission-Men-Me-Commander/dp/0425236579 http://www.amazon.com/The-Mission-Men-Me-Commander/dp/042523... - what is most interesting was Delta Force's insistance on reading everything they could from previous defenders of the Shahi-Kot, thereby anticipating the exact way in which the enemy took down the helicopters later sent in by Washington, which was the way the locals used to shoot down Soviet helicopters. [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization

by girvo 12y ago

ChrisAntaki 12y ago

> Nope. It was a tip-off to the national security hotline. In America, for whatever reason, that tip might have been ignored. :( http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/boston-bombing-anniversary/russia-warned-u-s-about-tsarnaev-spelling-issue-let-him-n60836 http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/boston-bombing-anniversary/... http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bombers-phone-call-father/story?id=9457361 http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bombers-phone-call-father/story?id=...

PythonicAlpha 12y ago

Same here in Germany: Police also did foil an attack lately. The information just came from a shop assistant in a hardware store. And what: Again they want get into more surveillance.

andrewstuart 12y ago

>> the Australian government really did foil a possible terrorist attack If you buy that.

girvo 12y ago
I dunno, I'm as skeptical as anyone else I know but this time I don't see why it'd be worth lying about -- considering it was the tip-off not the other surveillance programs that led them to him, and it's public knowledge.

kordless 12y ago

Of course! A tip off is real information, spoken as a truth by someone who cares, and who is being present. That truth translates directly into a trusted communications channel when instantiated. We've used this 'neighborhood watch' thing for years in the U.S., and it simply works without anyone being in charge. Regardless of how much knowledge it represents, mass surveillance by central agencies is just them pretending to know the truth. The reason why is because the information used to 'know' is based on simulations of bad actors doing bad things, usually in the past, applied to the present moment. This 'simulated truth' translates into multiple communications channels of unknown quality when instantiated (because there are multiple futures) and fails to represent the present state of bad actor's actions. In short, it's a low trust channel which is always ripe for a misuse of power! As John Steinbeck put it best, “Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes it'll on'y be one.”

crdb 12y ago

It's not a new phenomenon - successive managements go through a cycle where they think ELINT and COMINT can make HUMINT obsolete, and then some bad thing happens and they realize they were wrong (but never admit it). The theory is that - much as the decentralised panopticon of Van Vogt's "Anarchistic Colossus" - we'll eventually be able to parse everything everybody ever says and preemptively stop bad things. The practice is that humans are pretty good at it and computers aren't yet (that we publicly know of). Reading about Eagle Claw [1], I was surprised at how few human assets the US had in Iran, due to both post-Vietnam cuts and an increased belief in computer magic. It's been a while but I remember they had something like a couple of cooks in the embassy, and nobody outside... contrast this with General Kalugin's assertion in his biography that almost 2/3 of Soviet staff in the US was KGB! More recently, Charlie Hebdo was followed by a few leaks from the DGSE complaining of budget cuts targeting human assets and "street" operations, and a reorg that definitely did not prioritize the man on the street (no link - I read it in French papers). Pete Blaber, at the time commander of Delta Force, recently complained [2] that Operation Anaconda was plagued by generals who managed it from the comfort of their AC rooms in Washington, basing their decision on drone and satellite feeds, unwilling to trust the men on the ground (and even cutting the Delta Force team out of comms when they objected). The sad thing is that HUMINT takes a long time to develop, and requires a lot of experience (which is partly why the Allied won the intelligence war over the freshly purged German apparatus). Firing those with that experience can lead to years of underperformance as the expertise is slowly rebuilt. This is one of the reasons the CIA was happy to use former Nazis to hunt Soviet spies in Germany [3] - justified both by these men's extensive experience operating in the territory and the fact that the Stasi was doing the same. I think not enough has been said about how the recent (returning) obsession with electronic surveillance is potentially damaging that side of (genuine, needed) counter-terrorist capability. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw [2] http://www.amazon.com/The-Mission-Men-Me-Commander/dp/0425236579 http://www.amazon.com/The-Mission-Men-Me-Commander/dp/042523... - what is most interesting was Delta Force's insistance on reading everything they could from previous defenders of the Shahi-Kot, thereby anticipating the exact way in which the enemy took down the helicopters later sent in by Washington, which was the way the locals used to shoot down Soviet helicopters. [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization