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U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

theprivacyissue.com

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Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#91

Post by JohnFen »

colordrops wrote: post #58
54thr wrote: post #43

The threat of terror gives power to the State. Power seeks more power. The State does not erode freedoms in support of safety. The State erodes freedoms to achieve more power. Terror is the excuse. It is the State's greatest tool.

The state is made up of individuals. Who are these individuals that are seeking power?

The state, much like corporations, are operated by individuals but are not really "made up of" individuals in the way that your statement implies. They are machines that have their own goals, interests, and methods that are distinct from those of any of the individuals who help operate them.

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#93

Post by JohnFen »

commandlinefan wrote: post #88
aquadrop wrote: post #65

The only measure that needed to be done after 9/11, and it's surprising why this very effective measure wasn't implemented before - securing access to the pilot's cabin. Everything else is overreaction cause by power grabbing by "security agencies" and politicians trying to score. The whole security system of today's world (especially in flying) is one pointless thing after another, holding on the a fear of "what if"…

> securing access to the pilot's cabin Well, no, actually it was impossible to get into the cabin from outside long before 9/11 (in fact, I think since the 70’s). The hijackers smuggled box-cutters on board and used the box cutters to kill stewardesses until the pilot agreed to open the door - after which they had full access to the plane.

> until the pilot agreed to open the door

That's the problem -- that there was a door that could be opened. It seems to me that there shouldn't be. The pilots should have their own separate entrance from the exterior of the aircraft.

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#94

Post by jacobolus »

godelski wrote: post #86
emptysea wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an interesting NPR interview on the origin of that quote: https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou... tl;dr; Franklin was defending government spending on defense

Interesting read, thanks for that. I'll update the tldr with two quotes > It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it's almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means. > And maybe it doesn't matter so much what Franklin was actually t…

The sentiment is fine, but after someone knows the original context attributing this sentiment to Franklin out of context seems dishonest.

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#95

Post by JohnFen »

falcolas wrote: post #41
anarchodev wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the mis-selling exactly? Doesn't seem to me that they're saying using their VPN will make you impenetrable to dedicated actors with nation-state resources. VPNs do help maintain one small level of privacy (namely from your ISP), and if you're using one it's a good bet you'll be interested in other privacy concerns too. There are a lot of VPNs with really bogus claims on their websites but I didn't notice anyt…

Between TLS and DNS over HTTPS, the number of things an ISP can reliably discern from your traffic is becoming vanishingly small. Once the TLS SNI plaintext hole is closed, it becomes smaller still. One can argue that IPs and ports matter, but if all the IPs you visit are in AWS (and their ilk) over 443 (including real time communication protocols), it becomes meaningless.

> but if all the IPs you visit are in AWS (and their ilk) over 443 (including real time communication protocols), it becomes meaningless.

Perhaps, but what about all the traffic that doesn't go to AWS or use port 443? The vast majority of my traffic doesn't do those things, and very probably won't within my lifetime.

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#96

Post by tenebrisalietum »

papito wrote: post #33
president wrote: post #14

I'm not sure what the alternative is. Without some form of surveillance, you're never going to catch terrorists or other bad actors. You do, however, need to make sure there are strong checks and balances in place to ensure that people don't use it for nefarious purposes or for personal gain.

NSA is combing through voice phone data, and that's totally useless. As depicted in Jack Ryan (communication via an online game), the bad actors will find rather elegant ways to bypass at. I can embed standard EXIF metadata into an image and send it to someone's facebook wall. You think NSA is looking at that? It's not that hard.

Since it has GPS coordinates, is in a standardized format, and generated by default on most phones, they probably are.

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#98

Post by AWildC182 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #88
aquadrop wrote: post #65

The only measure that needed to be done after 9/11, and it's surprising why this very effective measure wasn't implemented before - securing access to the pilot's cabin. Everything else is overreaction cause by power grabbing by "security agencies" and politicians trying to score. The whole security system of today's world (especially in flying) is one pointless thing after another, holding on the a fear of "what if"…

> securing access to the pilot's cabin Well, no, actually it was impossible to get into the cabin from outside long before 9/11 (in fact, I think since the 70’s). The hijackers smuggled box-cutters on board and used the box cutters to kill stewardesses until the pilot agreed to open the door - after which they had full access to the plane.

Which you can still totally do with zero effort? Razor blades/utility blades don't really show up well on the xray machines. If you know how the machines work you can get one through 100% of the time.

Also, they don't forbid you from bringing an abrasive stone through with which you can make a shiv out of LITERALLY ANYTHING.

What's changed is twofold. Physical access to the cabin, and the knowledge that no pilot will ever let another soul onto the flight deck no matter how many people they can shiv to death.

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#99

Post by mrmuagi »

vokep wrote: post #85
buzzy_hacker wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well your VPN has a commercial interest in keeping your browsing private.

That hasn't proved to be the case. Nor does it appear so anyways, they have a commercial interest to appear as though they are interested in keeping your browsing private.

So run your own VPN, at least you can minimize the trust to yourself?

Re: U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism

#100

Post by AWildC182 »

JohnFen wrote: post #93
commandlinefan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> securing access to the pilot's cabin Well, no, actually it was impossible to get into the cabin from outside long before 9/11 (in fact, I think since the 70’s). The hijackers smuggled box-cutters on board and used the box cutters to kill stewardesses until the pilot agreed to open the door - after which they had full access to the plane.

> until the pilot agreed to open the door That's the problem -- that there was a door that could be opened. It seems to me that there shouldn't be. The pilots should have their own separate entrance from the exterior of the aircraft.

Let's not add more unnecessary holes to pressurized aircraft...

Also, the pilots occasionally need to be able to get back to the cabin for troubleshooting in emergencies and to use the toilet/crew rest.

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