Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 122 posts

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#81

Post by coldpie »

etangent wrote: post #67

IMO, there exist good arguments against surveillance. But why are supposedly rational geeks so irrationally prone to putting forward very bad arguments against it? See almost every reply in this thread to prove my point, but I will list a few: 1) If one took basic statistics, one would deem the proposition that "X is useless because [a target of X] has just slipped through" as outrageously wrong and a prime example o…

At least to point 2, with regards to outlawing encryption, it really is all-or-nothing. You either allow strong encryption, or you disallow all encryption and destroy e-commerce. There is no in-between when it comes to encryption.

No, split key escrow is not an option. See OPM.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#82

Post by etangent »

coldpie wrote: post #81
etangent wrote: post #67

IMO, there exist good arguments against surveillance. But why are supposedly rational geeks so irrationally prone to putting forward very bad arguments against it? See almost every reply in this thread to prove my point, but I will list a few: 1) If one took basic statistics, one would deem the proposition that "X is useless because [a target of X] has just slipped through" as outrageously wrong and a prime example o…

At least to point 2, with regards to outlawing encryption, it really is all-or-nothing. You either allow strong encryption, or you disallow all encryption and destroy e-commerce. There is no in-between when it comes to encryption. No, split key escrow is not an option. See OPM.

I am probably the only person in the observable universe who thinks both that (a) a full ban on encryption is stupid and unenforceable, and that (b) leaking details on how surveillance is done in 2013 by certain Mr. S. was an incredibly stupid/egomaniacal thing to do.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#83

Post by mindcrime »

etangent wrote: post #75
ve55 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) This is a good point, but there's very little evidence in favor that /any/ legitimate terror attacks are stopped by most mass survellience. In other words, we have no data points in favor of it, and every time an event like this happens, it's an additional data point against it. 2) >if one seems beneficial but dangerous, propose laws to regulate it Because there's no reason at this point for us to believe that the…

1) If you were good at detecting terror attacks, wouldn't you want to keep it secret from terrorists about how you actually do it? This is such an obvious point (a direct counterpart to Dr. Strangelove's "the whole point of a doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret"), yet so many of those who argue against surveillance don't even consider it, thereby revealing that their primary concern is not even remotely…

Now, someone who completely doesn't care about whether terrorist attacks happen or not -- is that a rational party to have discussion with?

I doubt there is anybody who truly "doesn't care if terrorist attacks happen". But there are people (like myself) who can look at the numbers, realize that you are MANY times more likely to die by slipping and falling in your own bathroom, being in a car crash, drowning in your own pool, or being beaten to death by a cop, than you are to die in a terrorist attack. And after looking at that, I can say that I don't accept a trade-off that involves any loss of freedom, or increase in government scope/power, in order to reduce what is already a minuscule risk.

Don't democracies have well-established principles on how to deal with entities in power that try to place themselves outside of law -- without actually preventing those entities from wielding any power whatsoever? Wasn't that the entire point of having a president with a fixed term rather than a king?

Yes, and I will argue that it was the point, or at least part of the point, of the Second Amendment. (Yeah, I know this point isn't without controversy).

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#84

Post by etangent »

mindcrime wrote: post #83
etangent wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) If you were good at detecting terror attacks, wouldn't you want to keep it secret from terrorists about how you actually do it? This is such an obvious point (a direct counterpart to Dr. Strangelove's "the whole point of a doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret"), yet so many of those who argue against surveillance don't even consider it, thereby revealing that their primary concern is not even remotely…

Now, someone who completely doesn't care about whether terrorist attacks happen or not -- is that a rational party to have discussion with? I doubt there is anybody who truly "doesn't care if terrorist attacks happen". But there are people (like myself) who can look at the numbers, realize that you are MANY times more likely to die by slipping and falling in your own bathroom, being in a car crash, drowning in your o…

> But there are people (like myself) who can look at the numbers, realize that you are MANY times more likely to die by slipping and falling in your own bathroom

That's another example of a wrong argument often used. All animals (and yes, humans are animals) pay more attention to predators than to random accidents, and there is an evolutionary reason for that.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#85

Post by gohrt »

Qwertious wrote: post #45
cryoshon wrote: post #6

Why should we listen? France already massively ramped up their surveillance state after the Hebdo attacks (the perps were known to them beforehand anyway), and that did absolutely nothing to stop a much larger and more complex attack, also with known perps. A panopticon can't stop terrorists from lashing out violently, but it can certainly chill speech and promote totalitarian government. That's their angle: use the…

"I can't understand how people can still give governments the benefit of the doubt when they've been exposed as liars repeatedly for years." The government is not the borg. They don't trust "the government", they trust various good people in the government.

Which "good people" do they trust?

They trust the idea of a paternalistic authority. They trust the government they want, not the government they have. It's wishful thinking.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#86

Post by mason240 »

staunch wrote: post #63
hokkos wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrorist violences is also against free society.

Criminals do much more actual harm to society, and yet no is calling for local police to have access to everyone's email and phone records. Imagine how many crimes local police could prevent if they did have access? Unlike finding small terrorist cells among tens of millions of people, busting local criminals is very easy if you can spy on their communication. They could probably save thousands of children from serio…

>Criminals do much more actual harm to society, and yet no is calling for local police to have access to everyone's email and phone records.

They are calling for mass video surveillance of everyone's encounters with police.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#87

Post by tpeo »

logn wrote: post #47

Notice we don't see calls for more surveillance after domestic shootings/terrorism. Well, body cams for police is maybe an exception. But schools, churches, and movie theaters get shot up weekly. I think the illusion that somehow the surveillance apparatus filters out white people and only focuses on terrorism lets Americans feel okay with it. Also I don't think most people realize how almost every action and thought…

Humanity and morality aside, maybe politicians are also respoding rationally when encouraging punitive millitary interventions. Looking "tough" does more for re-election than trying to brew long term solutions. It's an unfortunate coincidence of inventives.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#88

Post by tptacek »

Zigurd wrote: post #78
tptacek wrote: post #12

Does this EFF post say anything new, or is it voted to the top of the site because (a) anti-surveillance and (b) EFF? I find EFF to be a deeply cynical organization, even though I for the most part share their policy objectives.

Let's calibrate cynical: More or less cynical than justifying surveillance or working with the FBI?

Less cynical than those things (you're taking about CMU here, right?)

They're not, like, supervillains.

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#89

Post by Zigurd »

tptacek wrote: post #88
Zigurd wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's calibrate cynical: More or less cynical than justifying surveillance or working with the FBI?

Less cynical than those things (you're taking about CMU here, right?) They're not, like, supervillains.

Did I call the EFF superheros? And my question about the FBI was more-general. In light of their use of informants against political dissidence, among other problems with their methods, is it even ethical, never mind cynical, to work with the FBI?

Re: Baseless Calls to Expand Surveillance Fit Familiar, Cynical Pattern

#90

Post by firstprimate »

ve55 wrote: post #76
firstprimate wrote: post #74

So this may be considered hijacking, but here goes. What the EFF, and many others, get wrong is that this is terrorism aimed at the West because of 'our freedoms', or these are religious nutters who want to kill Westerners because jihad, porn, alcohol, the prophet told them to, it's in the Quran, etc. The larger picture reveals that it's chickens coming home to roost (and I am not going to go into the long list of fo…

>What the EFF, and many others, get wrong is that this is terrorism aimed at the West because of 'our freedoms', I'm not sure why that's relevant, I don't see anything like that in this article. I don't see any usage of words like 'freedom', 'islam', 'extremist', etc., either. As far as I can tell this article is neutral or just nonpresenting with regards to what you've mentioned.

FTA: "But terrorism is aimed, in part, at pushing us to jump to conclusions and take panicky steps that inflict more pain and misdirect our resources toward failed and dangerous ideas."
Post reply on HN