Today Is the Day We Got Rid of the Surveillance State GDR • Hacker News Board

Re: Today Is the Day We Got Rid of the Surveillance State GDR

#11

Post by blumkvist » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #9

bmmayer1 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume freedom of speech exists on college campuses?

It may exist to a greater extent on some college campuses than some corporate campuses. At college you can choose to work on whichever topic you'd like and discuss it with whomever you would like. At a corporation, many people are simply told what to do and if they deviate from doing what they were told, are fired and/or treated poorly.

Do you really believe this is the same as soviet repression of freedom of speech?

Re: Today Is the Day We Got Rid of the Surveillance State GDR

#12

Post by StephenFalken » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

  One must acknowledge with cryptography no amount of (state) violence will
  ever solve a (hard) math problem.

  -- Jacob Appelbaum

Re: Today Is the Day We Got Rid of the Surveillance State GDR

#13

Post by PythonicAlpha » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 5:19 PM UTC

pvg wrote: post #8

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #4

The (once) "free world" that boasted to have the Stasi put to an end, are making things much worse now. The Stasi had paper files and maybe kilobytes of data, that had to be processed by hand of some people -- our today's surveillance systems collect megabytes or gigabytes of data of everybody and can process it in milliseconds. We Germans should know, what surveillance is all about and how an oppressive system start…

The Stasi had a lot more than kilobytes of data. It also managed to be far more effective at oppressing people than institutions we know of with petabytes of data.

I said kilobytes per Person (it is clear, when you read in context). One page in a paper file normally has 2-4 kB.

Everything starts out small. Some institutions in the "free west" are already quite good in oppressing people.

Today, you already must be very carefully which books you read in the public library or buy at Amazon.

Because you, yourself don't feel it, does not mean, that it does not exist.

Re: Today Is the Day We Got Rid of the Surveillance State GDR

#14

Post by mjklin » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #2

Voltaire never made his famous non-statement. It was a paraphrasing of his general philosophy written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall in The Friends of Voltaire (1906). I generally do not side with this article's overblown credit towards democracy, and particularly representative democracy. A common crippling meme among democratic societies is to absolve representatives of responsibility and instead keep insisting everything…

"But the people have solved some pretty important problems,” I said.

“Have they, in fact? The actual practice in a democracy is to vote, not for a given state of affairs, but for a man who claims to be able to achieve that state. I’m not a historian”—Frazier laughed explosively—“quite the contrary—but I suspect that that’s always what is meant by the rule of the people—rule by a man chosen by the people.”

“Isn’t that a possible way out, though?” said Castle. “Suppose we need experts. Why not elect them?”

“For a very simple reason. The people are in no position to evaluate experts. And elected experts are never able to act as they think best. They can’t experiment. The amateur doesn’t appreciate the need for experimentation. He wants his expert to know. And he’s utterly incapable of sustaining the period of doubt during which an experiment works itself out. The experts must either disguise their experiments and pretend to know the outcome in advance or stop experimenting altogether and struggle to maintain the status quo.”

-- B.F. Skinner, "Walden Two"

Re: Today Is the Day We Got Rid of the Surveillance State GDR

#15

Post by pvg » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #13

pvg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Stasi had a lot more than kilobytes of data. It also managed to be far more effective at oppressing people than institutions we know of with petabytes of data.

I said kilobytes per Person (it is clear, when you read in context). One page in a paper file normally has 2-4 kB. Everything starts out small. Some institutions in the "free west" are already quite good in oppressing people. Today, you already must be very carefully which books you read in the public library or buy at Amazon. Because you, yourself don't feel it, does not mean, that it does not exist.

It's very difficult to argue about something that exists but only in the eyes of its proponents. Carl Sagan wrote this up nicely once:

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm

Re: Today Is the Day We Got Rid of the Surveillance State GDR

#16

Post by chx » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

I find comparing the current state of affairs compared to the Stasi simply revolting. I have yet to see (surely I am ignorant) anyone actually living through that state the current situation is worse or even equal.

I didn't live under the Stasi but I was born and raised behind the Iron Curtain and I had a taste of what's going on. It's the fear and suspicion of the next person. You can easily get used to your phone being bugged (ours were and we knew, that's a story for another time) but say you are in a band. Perhaps the drummer writes a report every time over a beer you make a critique of the system. You have no way of knowing. It's hard to describe the feeling and the result on the whole society.

At least the current mass surveillance is only technology and not humans.

Re: Today Is the Day We Got Rid of the Surveillance State GDR

#17

Post by joesmo » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

chx wrote: post #16

I find comparing the current state of affairs compared to the Stasi simply revolting. I have yet to see (surely I am ignorant) anyone actually living through that state the current situation is worse or even equal. I didn't live under the Stasi but I was born and raised behind the Iron Curtain and I had a taste of what's going on. It's the fear and suspicion of the next person. You can easily get used to your phone b…

No one's claiming the current situation is equal or worse, just that it's heading in the same direction. And that, is hard to deny. I have heard many people who lived under communism say that, including myself.

Re: Today Is the Day We Got Rid of the Surveillance State GDR

#18

Post by jsnathan » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 5:47 PM UTC

chx wrote: post #16

I find comparing the current state of affairs compared to the Stasi simply revolting. I have yet to see (surely I am ignorant) anyone actually living through that state the current situation is worse or even equal. I didn't live under the Stasi but I was born and raised behind the Iron Curtain and I had a taste of what's going on. It's the fear and suspicion of the next person. You can easily get used to your phone b…

The article does not compare it to today, but to a possible upcoming state of affairs.

> only technology and not humans

I think this is very short-sighted. Technology has much greater potential for censorship and oppression; sentiment analysis and similar techniques are only going to improve over time.

And remember that it is not about making people feel bad, it is about being effective. It always has been. That is what is scary.

Re: Today Is the Day We Got Rid of the Surveillance State GDR

#19

Post by PythonicAlpha » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

pvg wrote: post #15

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said kilobytes per Person (it is clear, when you read in context). One page in a paper file normally has 2-4 kB. Everything starts out small. Some institutions in the "free west" are already quite good in oppressing people. Today, you already must be very carefully which books you read in the public library or buy at Amazon. Because you, yourself don't feel it, does not mean, that it does not exist.

It's very difficult to argue about something that exists but only in the eyes of its proponents. Carl Sagan wrote this up nicely once: http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm

Nice stories will not bring freedom back! (do you also have arguments, instead of ignoring them?)

Do you want to say, that Snowden, Manning and other Whistle blowers are not oppressed? Have you no eyes?? I guess not!!

(and this is only one small example of oppression, that everybody knows but most just ignore -- to live without disturbance -- very much like the people in former Nazi Germany).

To be clear about it: What happened to Manning alone, is a shame to any civilized society -- if he is guilty or not.

When the so called "Aluhuttraeger" where saying, that the US where spying on us, 10 or 20 years ago, everybody was laughing.

Some of those laughs have already stopped.

Re: Today Is the Day We Got Rid of the Surveillance State GDR

#20

Post by jsprogrammer » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 5:56 PM UTC

blumkvist wrote: post #11

jsprogrammer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may exist to a greater extent on some college campuses than some corporate campuses. At college you can choose to work on whichever topic you'd like and discuss it with whomever you would like. At a corporation, many people are simply told what to do and if they deviate from doing what they were told, are fired and/or treated poorly.

Do you really believe this is the same as soviet repression of freedom of speech?

Sorry, but did I or anyone else here claim to believe that?

I was only trying to explain what the original poster might have meant with their parenthetical.