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It's important to note that part of the reason they "need" technology to track terrorism is that technology enables terrorism. To say that we got along fine bef

It's important to note that part of the reason they "need" technology to track terrorism is that technology enables terrorism. To say that we got along fine before technology and mass surveillance means we don't need mass surveillance is a flawed argument; it misses the fact that technology brings with it a big bag troubles and benefits. But personally, I still think window of abuse for back doors is too large to be rationally allowed.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
I wonder how we'll deal with this as technology progresses even further. In 10-20 years, it probably won't take much for a random nutjob to make an extremely deadly virus. And that are only baby steps in nanotechnology. Do we really want total privacy and anonymity in a world where a single person can easily wield such destructive powers?
- ionised 11y ago
  Yes. Always.
- click170 11y ago
  Are you saying that because someone might do something evil, we should all lose our right to privacy and anonymity to protect everyone from what the mad scientist might do? Can you even show that taking my privacy away makes me markedly safer, because unless you can establish that first I'm not even listening. That's not a world I want to live in thanks.
  - 15155 11y ago
    I would wager that a substantial number (probably majority) of individuals on this site (SF/NYC dwellers, especially) would trade their right (Ok: not really, but everyone elses) to keep and bear arms for a bit of (false) security. A bit of malfeasance: nobody gets any rights.
- animatedb 11y ago
  How much money do you have in the bank, and what is your bank account number? If anything can be hidden in the internet, then who decides which things can be hidden?
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I can show you my balance and even give you the number in case you're so nice as to transfer me something. And I'll live happy knowing that if you try doing something funny, you can be tracked down and held responsible.
    - tracker1 11y ago
      Sure.. tell that to some of the unscrupulous people in Nigeria and Russia that run a lot of the scams that don't seem to be held responsible at all.
- crpatino 11y ago
  Yes, because giving up privacy and anonymity will only marginally slow down (if at all) the would be evildoers, at least those smart enough to not brag about their evil doings in Facebook. In my home country, we have one of the more strict gun owning laws in the world. That does not prevent the criminals from getting guns at all - pretty much every random fucker can get his hand on a pistol, and organized gangs have gear that is often comparable with that of the army. But, on the other hand, it is pretty difficult for the average law abiding citizen to arm themselves for self protection. The funny thing is, this strict control got really started in the late 60's and 70's, when student riots made for a moment seem like a coupe / civil war against the regime were at least thinkable. So, what are the real winners when the government outlaws technologies than short the gap between state power vs individual powers? It is not the criminal elements in society. They already are breaking the law and profiting from it. They will work around whatever restrictions get imposed and illegally import the gear they need from wherever it is available. It is you and me who get the shaft!
  - icebraining 11y ago
    The point of gun control isn't to keep the guns from the hands of real criminals (much less gangs), it's to keep guns from the average not-really-law-abiding citizen, who gets drunk and shoots his ex-wife, or leaves his gun accessible to his kids (hello school shootings) or just gets mad at his boss (just happened around here, the guy had a hunting rifle). Whether that justifies preventing people from arming themselves for self-defense is arguable, of course.
    - AdeptusAquinas 11y ago
      Not sure why you are being down-voted. This is spot on.
    - angersock 11y ago
      The point of gun control is to score points with some parts of the population while disarming the rest--anything else is just grandstanding used to justify the act.
- yellowapple 11y ago
  A.k.a. "All people should be considered guilty until proven innocent." Your advocacy of such a practice under such dubious rationale indicates - to me at least - that you don't really understand American principles.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    > A.k.a. "All people should be considered guilty until proven innocent." Not really. Please re-read the comment I replied to. The point is, progress of technology brings new dangers and appropriate means of protection need to be created.
    - yellowapple 11y ago
      And by "protection", you seem to mean "watch everyone because everyone's a potential criminal". My point stands.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        If anything, "watch everyone to have enough data available to be able to spot a criminal before he strikes". But my point actually is, some amount of watching will always be necessary, and advancements of technology seem to increase the need for that surveillance as the time goes.
        yellowapple 11y ago
        > If anything, "watch everyone to have enough data available to be able to spot a criminal before he strikes". A.k.a. "assume everyone is a criminal". > But my point actually is, some amount of watching will always be necessary Sure, if there's reasonable suspicion that the person being watched is a criminal, and there's a real warrant (not some rubber-stamp from FISA) authorizing said watching. Watching everyone because "well we don't know if this person's a criminal or not" is not only ineffective (as proven by the dearth of terrorist attacks actually prevented due to NSA surveillance) but unethical and - per the United States Constitution - illegal. Of course, none of this would be an issue if law-abiding citizens were encouraged and given the resources to protect themselves against crime, be it physical (by practicing self-defense, armed or otherwise) or virtual (by encouraging the use of free/open software, and strong encryption).
- Zigurd 11y ago
  That's a pretty extreme speculation. There has been only one non-state-actor use of WMDs, ever: The Aum cult sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. They could have done more damage with a simple bomb.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Actually two; the guys did a sarin attack twice. But I'm not worried about chemical weapons; they're not that dangerous. What worries me is biological attacks, which differ by having a self-replicating component that can amplify even the tiniest exposure to an international emergency.
- emiliobumachar 11y ago
  Governments going completely insane on their people are relatively common. Everyone thinks it will not happen to them, until it does. That's a much greater risk than rogue individuals. To double the big risk to half the small one is bad risk management.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I agree if you express it not in terms of probability of event (rouge individuals pop up every day somewhere) but expected damage. There is only so much one man can do today, so it's right to focus on big risks and not small ones. But technology tends to change things, and I fear that upcoming biotech (and possibly pure nanotech in more distant future) will drastically change the equation, giving unprecedented power to rouge individuals with ill intent. The question is, how can we defend from that; how can we minimize the amount of damage one person can do?
- jp555 11y ago
  How about traditional police investigation tactics? They have been and continue to be extremely effective, much more so than blanket comms survalience. If you compare today to a few hundred years ago, we've already expeeienced the kind of change in destructive access you fear, and yet it almost never happens.
- saranagati 11y ago
  if someone makes an extremely deadly virus, id much rather we have spent the money investing in a cure than trying to track down who made it.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    The point is, you may want that money to be spent stopping that someone before he makes / releases it, and that seems to be at odds with privacy concerns.
    - saranagati 11y ago
      the point still stands. if we were to invest in cures then someone making a weapon would be a moot point because their weapon wouldnt do anything.
- sdrothrock 11y ago
  Swinging to the other side, would you really want to allow an alphabet soup agency to make a virus or nanotech (a literal "bug") to infiltrate your body and monitor everything going on with you on the off chance that some nutjob does the same thing?
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Honestly? Yes. Already some way to artificially boost the immune system would be a good thing, and in a world with advanced nano/biotech available this seems like a no-brainer. We need some sort of blanket protection not only from potential attackers, but from much more likely accidents.
mirimir 11y ago
What about American "terrorists" who organized in secret to fight for independence from the British?

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I wonder how we'll deal with this as technology progresses even further. In 10-20 years, it probably won't take much for a random nutjob to make an extremely deadly virus. And that are only baby steps in nanotechnology. Do we really want total privacy and anonymity in a world where a single person can easily wield such destructive powers?

ionised 11y ago
Yes. Always.
click170 11y ago
Are you saying that because someone might do something evil, we should all lose our right to privacy and anonymity to protect everyone from what the mad scientist might do? Can you even show that taking my privacy away makes me markedly safer, because unless you can establish that first I'm not even listening. That's not a world I want to live in thanks.
- 15155 11y ago
  I would wager that a substantial number (probably majority) of individuals on this site (SF/NYC dwellers, especially) would trade their right (Ok: not really, but everyone elses) to keep and bear arms for a bit of (false) security. A bit of malfeasance: nobody gets any rights.
animatedb 11y ago
How much money do you have in the bank, and what is your bank account number? If anything can be hidden in the internet, then who decides which things can be hidden?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I can show you my balance and even give you the number in case you're so nice as to transfer me something. And I'll live happy knowing that if you try doing something funny, you can be tracked down and held responsible.
  - tracker1 11y ago
    Sure.. tell that to some of the unscrupulous people in Nigeria and Russia that run a lot of the scams that don't seem to be held responsible at all.
crpatino 11y ago
Yes, because giving up privacy and anonymity will only marginally slow down (if at all) the would be evildoers, at least those smart enough to not brag about their evil doings in Facebook. In my home country, we have one of the more strict gun owning laws in the world. That does not prevent the criminals from getting guns at all - pretty much every random fucker can get his hand on a pistol, and organized gangs have gear that is often comparable with that of the army. But, on the other hand, it is pretty difficult for the average law abiding citizen to arm themselves for self protection. The funny thing is, this strict control got really started in the late 60's and 70's, when student riots made for a moment seem like a coupe / civil war against the regime were at least thinkable. So, what are the real winners when the government outlaws technologies than short the gap between state power vs individual powers? It is not the criminal elements in society. They already are breaking the law and profiting from it. They will work around whatever restrictions get imposed and illegally import the gear they need from wherever it is available. It is you and me who get the shaft!
- icebraining 11y ago
  The point of gun control isn't to keep the guns from the hands of real criminals (much less gangs), it's to keep guns from the average not-really-law-abiding citizen, who gets drunk and shoots his ex-wife, or leaves his gun accessible to his kids (hello school shootings) or just gets mad at his boss (just happened around here, the guy had a hunting rifle). Whether that justifies preventing people from arming themselves for self-defense is arguable, of course.
  - AdeptusAquinas 11y ago
    Not sure why you are being down-voted. This is spot on.
  - angersock 11y ago
    The point of gun control is to score points with some parts of the population while disarming the rest--anything else is just grandstanding used to justify the act.
yellowapple 11y ago
A.k.a. "All people should be considered guilty until proven innocent." Your advocacy of such a practice under such dubious rationale indicates - to me at least - that you don't really understand American principles.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > A.k.a. "All people should be considered guilty until proven innocent." Not really. Please re-read the comment I replied to. The point is, progress of technology brings new dangers and appropriate means of protection need to be created.
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    And by "protection", you seem to mean "watch everyone because everyone's a potential criminal". My point stands.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      If anything, "watch everyone to have enough data available to be able to spot a criminal before he strikes". But my point actually is, some amount of watching will always be necessary, and advancements of technology seem to increase the need for that surveillance as the time goes.
      - yellowapple 11y ago
        > If anything, "watch everyone to have enough data available to be able to spot a criminal before he strikes". A.k.a. "assume everyone is a criminal". > But my point actually is, some amount of watching will always be necessary Sure, if there's reasonable suspicion that the person being watched is a criminal, and there's a real warrant (not some rubber-stamp from FISA) authorizing said watching. Watching everyone because "well we don't know if this person's a criminal or not" is not only ineffective (as proven by the dearth of terrorist attacks actually prevented due to NSA surveillance) but unethical and - per the United States Constitution - illegal. Of course, none of this would be an issue if law-abiding citizens were encouraged and given the resources to protect themselves against crime, be it physical (by practicing self-defense, armed or otherwise) or virtual (by encouraging the use of free/open software, and strong encryption).
Zigurd 11y ago
That's a pretty extreme speculation. There has been only one non-state-actor use of WMDs, ever: The Aum cult sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. They could have done more damage with a simple bomb.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Actually two; the guys did a sarin attack twice. But I'm not worried about chemical weapons; they're not that dangerous. What worries me is biological attacks, which differ by having a self-replicating component that can amplify even the tiniest exposure to an international emergency.
emiliobumachar 11y ago
Governments going completely insane on their people are relatively common. Everyone thinks it will not happen to them, until it does. That's a much greater risk than rogue individuals. To double the big risk to half the small one is bad risk management.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I agree if you express it not in terms of probability of event (rouge individuals pop up every day somewhere) but expected damage. There is only so much one man can do today, so it's right to focus on big risks and not small ones. But technology tends to change things, and I fear that upcoming biotech (and possibly pure nanotech in more distant future) will drastically change the equation, giving unprecedented power to rouge individuals with ill intent. The question is, how can we defend from that; how can we minimize the amount of damage one person can do?
jp555 11y ago
How about traditional police investigation tactics? They have been and continue to be extremely effective, much more so than blanket comms survalience. If you compare today to a few hundred years ago, we've already expeeienced the kind of change in destructive access you fear, and yet it almost never happens.
saranagati 11y ago
if someone makes an extremely deadly virus, id much rather we have spent the money investing in a cure than trying to track down who made it.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  The point is, you may want that money to be spent stopping that someone before he makes / releases it, and that seems to be at odds with privacy concerns.
  - saranagati 11y ago
    the point still stands. if we were to invest in cures then someone making a weapon would be a moot point because their weapon wouldnt do anything.
sdrothrock 11y ago
Swinging to the other side, would you really want to allow an alphabet soup agency to make a virus or nanotech (a literal "bug") to infiltrate your body and monitor everything going on with you on the off chance that some nutjob does the same thing?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Honestly? Yes. Already some way to artificially boost the immune system would be a good thing, and in a world with advanced nano/biotech available this seems like a no-brainer. We need some sort of blanket protection not only from potential attackers, but from much more likely accidents.

mirimir 11y ago

What about American "terrorists" who organized in secret to fight for independence from the British?