Age of surveillance: the fish is rotting from its head

A long-held conspiracy theory of mine: While 99%+ of those watching broadcast or cable television never have the opportunity to buy Cisco equipment for their business, and much better suited advertising channels exist (IT magazines, even TechCrunch), Cisco spends a LOT of time & money advertising on TV. (Until recently, Cisco used other brands for consumer products, e.g. Linksys!) But if it’s not to reach the consumers, why do it? Simply to “purchase” journalists and networks. If they start criticizing Cisco for its role in oppressive regimes’ censorship and e-terror campaigns, they lose a significant percent of their ad revenue.

The genius of it is, the financial ramifications are so obvious to these networks & publishers that not a single explicit word needs said; it’s not a bribe, it’s just making it lucrative to keep one’s figurative mouth shut.

I think one of the most well known and egregious example of large scale surveillance outfit is the Stasi. It's reported that there was one informer per every 6 and a half people. Possibly the highest ratio of all known examples.

Stasiland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasiland is a fascinating read. And of course "The Lives of Others" is a must watch. If for no other reason than to experience an eloquent demonstration of powerful yet understated acting.

That's the most crazy-ass, tinfoil hat thing I've heard in ages.

And I completely, 100% believe it. Damn. What possible alternative explanation could exist for that absurd consumer ad spend in the service of network infrastructure products? I hope someone can provide one, otherwise this will keep me awake tonight, pondering.

Oh come on. My completely non-technical boss looked at me a while ago and said "We should get a barracuda spam filter."

Why? Why does he even know what this is? Why does he even know that spam filters exist?

Because barracuda has their ads all over every airport I've ever been in.

The same goes for cisco. If I put in a request for funding for some network gear, my boss wants to feel like he knows a bit about what I'm spending money on. Cisco helps him feel that way. When he signs off on it, he gets a warm fuzzy because the television told him that cisco gear is the best gear and cisco gear is what he needs.

He might even object if I told him that we're going to get juniper stuff instead of cisco because juniper doesn't have ads on the TV and he's never heard of them. What are they, some generic brand? No! WE need cisco!

Sadly, money motivates, and I can understand that. I still think that way about people who go to work on guided missiles and so forth. Perhaps it's a stretched simile, but I think it's like selling crack to kids to feed your family.

I don't think it's that civil to omit the company's name, it's more like letting them win. I find it interesting and useful to learn which companies are behind shady activities, as done in the article:

> The equipment, produced by Alcatel, Siemens, Cisco and others is then sold to Iran, Myanmar, Belarus and other repressive regimes, as part of normal network operator procurements.