leot

34 ms·

301.
by leot 13y ago
What is unclear is what qualifies as a "national security" issue, and what doesn't. It would be nice to see its scope clearly defined. 9/11 without question hurt America as a nation. But in the case of the Boston maratho
302.
by leot 13y ago
One question I've been wondering about: did the NSA/gov't ever ask the operators of large webmail providers to not deploy PGP/PKI?
303.
by leot 13y ago
Yeah. One reason why it's much safer if surveillance is restricted to foreign sources, is that, unlike foreign surveillance, domestic surveillance is combined with the legal power to fine, imprison, and execute. Citizens of foreign cou
304.
by leot 13y ago
The concept of "terrorism" has horrible semantics and needs to be excised from all laws. Its legal existence leads to absurd abuses and behaviors, and utterly confused policy.
305.
by leot 13y ago
It is wrong to treat WL as an intelligence agency, because WL lacks the power of a sovereign state.
306.
by leot 13y ago
Those with a clearance can just glance at the top of the document and see that they shouldn't read it, right? The only reason to worry is if you believe that your accessing of this document is being tracked by the authorities ...
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by leot 13y ago
Indeed. If any American find him/herself self-censoring for fear of America's security establishment, then they should conclude that America does not have freedom of speech.
308.
by leot 13y ago
I didn't mean to suggest that this was the norm. It is, however, the system that you seem to want to defend. And it's a system that is an artifact of how technology used to work. Making music is fun, social, and status enhancing.
309.
by leot 13y ago
Really? How so?
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by leot 13y ago
You realize that it was technology itself, in the first place, that allowed musicians to work hard for some months, and then get paid for a lifetime from the results. You also realize that not-yet-established musicians would pay exorbitant
311.
by leot 13y ago
Why have you chosen as your comparator China or Russia? How about choosing to contrast US policy and ethos with the current policies and civil practices of, say, other fully developed wealthy countries? (e.g., Scandinavia, Canada, the Neth
312.
by leot 13y ago
In school, Germans are taken on field trips to the concentration and death camps that their countrymen set up. As a consequence, Germans are acutely aware of the horribleness of their heritage. Do you believe Americans, as a group, are simi
313.
by leot 13y ago
Interesting. I asked because it seems to me that the only way to know how reliable particular assassination means are is to have tried them out, with the full resources of a wealthy country's intelligence organization at one's dis
314.
by leot 13y ago
I actually don't know who this commenter is.
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by leot 13y ago
How do you know how reliable (or not) this plan is?
316.
by leot 13y ago
I've been wanting Freakonomics (or anyone, really) to systematically contrast death rates of more-powerful v.s. less-powerful parties* after it has become known that the more-powerful party has become significantly aggrieved by the les
317.
by leot 13y ago
Though perhaps the perfect counter-example, here, is career politician Jerry Brown's successes in turning around California's fiscal situation: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21579483-jerry-b
318.
by leot 13y ago
Two key problems with the current system: 1) The financial sector of the economy attracts away many of America's smartest and most charismatic, while simultaneously making a career in public service, especially by comparison, very unat
319.
by leot 13y ago
(fyi: approval voting is simpler, comparably effective, and probably easier to accomplish)
320.
by leot 13y ago
Another advantage is that celebrities, by definition, aren't in politics to acquire fame and fortune. This has the potential advantage that they might be less able to be bought off.
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by leot 13y ago
Yes, like a box making company. Or a johnny-on-the-spot one.
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by leot 13y ago
A crucial problem is that we're not, or we shouldn't be, particularly afraid of "terrorism" -- a slippery word that tends to be applied arbitrarily and politically. What we should, and can justifiably, be afraid of is &q
323.
by leot 13y ago
Only one webmail provider would need to deploy PGP-by-default to start the ball rolling. The system is currently in a dynamically stable (extremely) insecure state. Starting widescale adoption of PGP would disrupt the state of the market an
324.
by leot 13y ago
There's really an amazing lack of imagination here, both from a threat avoidance perspective and a potential awesomeness one. The deployment model is this: one large webmail provider starts doing PGP by default via its webclient. Maybe
325.
by leot 13y ago
The point isn't to hide data from the NSA. The point is that widely-used PGP would be really useful for all kinds of reasons, but that we don't have it because it would be inconvenient for the NSA if we did (they wouldn't be
326.
by leot 13y ago
These aren't threat scenarios. They're advantages to having PGP Eliminate most spam. Talk with your bank/do trades over email. Talk with your physician. Sign documents. With webmail-based PGP, people are strongly incentivized
327.
by leot 13y ago
Well, they are trusted 3rd parties, regardless of whether or not you happen to trust them. Anyone who has a private Gmail account necessarily trusts Gmail. In any case, the argument isn't that webmail is perfect for implementing PGP. T
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by leot 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_computing
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by leot 13y ago
First, you know full well that security is a matter of degree, and not binary thing. It's tradeoff against convenience that can be made more easily when there's a trusted third party. We're already willing to trust webmail pr
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by leot 13y ago
Democracy Now! is often too lefty for my tastes, but they do a terrific job on stories where the MSM is likely to be biased. They're particularly good and independent gov't leak stories.

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