Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products • Hacker News Board

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#221

Post by mulmen » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 1:55 AM UTC

RhodoYolo wrote: post #186

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The disabled aside, no, I do not believe people who are withdrawing more from their society than they are depositing should be given a say in the governance of that society.

you say 'disabled aside' but what about the myriad of other reasons? Mental health, unemployment, pregnancy that year, international travel but still a citizen, w/e. As soon as you start pointing to reasons that a government can/ can't take away your power to vote you are screwed as a populace. Not that i have much faith in the voting system anyways cause' who knows how they count the votes anyways. It seems the incr…

> Not that i have much faith in the voting system anyways cause' who knows how they count the votes anyways.

Your state’s Secretary of State should be able to describe the vote counting process and how it is monitored by third parties. Confidence in the voting system is crucial in a democracy. Having questions is good but the answers do exist.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#222

Post by bigiain » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 2:02 AM UTC

worker767424 wrote: post #90

boomboomsubban wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but I promise you nearly every American adult knows who Edward Snowden is and probably has at least a vague idea of what he was trying to communicate. I highly doubt this. In 2015, only 60% of Americans had some idea of who Snowden was, and only half of those had a positive opinion of him. I doubt this has improved over the past five years either. https://www.aclu.org/snowden-poll-results

> only 60% of Americans had some idea of who Snowden was It's things like this and people who believe the moon landing was faked that convinced me universal suffrage isn't a good thing, and we need some sort of poll test to make sure people are educated on issues before voting. I realize the US has a bad history with "literacy" tests, but it's clear that most people have no business voting.

Australia's citizenship test used to (perhaps still does) ask "What was Donald Bradman's batting average?"

A not-so-subtly hidden and totally racist/anglophile question, designed to weed out people/cultures who don't historically follow England vs Australia cricket and know it's "legends". Upper middle class middle aged Englishman? Welcome in sir! Your skin isn't pure white except for the 4 days of summer it turns lobster colour? Well you're not "a good cultural fit" here, sorry.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#223

Post by bigiain » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 2:06 AM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #220

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I personally think that if we aren’t going to let someone vote then we shouldn’t ask them to pay tax either. Agreed. Conversely I believe that people who haven't paid tax in a reasonable amount of years, through either not generating it in the first place, avoision or being a net beneficiary of state aid shouldn't be offered a vote.

Governmental legitimacy comes from much more than just property and taxation. The government is entrusted with the monopoly on violence, and thus anyone on whom this violence is expected to be applied deserves a vote. There are other reasons too, but this is an important one.

> and thus anyone on whom this violence is expected to be applied deserves a vote.

Or people who might be expected to get sent away to inflict violence and suffer the consequent dangers of doing so.

Heinlein was all sorts of fucked up, but his repeated idea of ex serving military being more equipped to vote for the people who get to choose to deploy the military certainly has some merit.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#224

Post by anonymousiam » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

h2odragon wrote: post #218

inopinatus wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this phenomenon isn't already a PKD short then it could be a SCP entry.

There's only about 5,000 "real" people on the planet. The rest are unconscious echoes. Thus the weird pressure and "Truman show" feeling those people face.

None of us are "real". We are all living in a simulation.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#225

Post by aaron695 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 2:36 AM UTC

secfirstmd wrote: post #209

aaron695 wrote: post #207

> The starkest example of the risks inherent in the NSA’s approach involved an encryption-system component known as Dual Elliptic Curve Only example perhaps. What other back doors have they done? Literal secret rooms where they tap data, these are not conventionally called backdoors. Nor are unpatched zero days the supplier originally didn't know about. I don't think any country can install literal backdoors on produ…

Crypto AG and paying RSA come to mind.

I didn't know much about Crypto AG. Thanks, that's interesting. Also through encryption weaknesses. It's an interesting way to backdoor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#226

Post by cmdshiftf4 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 2:42 AM UTC

nl wrote: post #219

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I personally think that if we aren’t going to let someone vote then we shouldn’t ask them to pay tax either. Agreed. Conversely I believe that people who haven't paid tax in a reasonable amount of years, through either not generating it in the first place, avoision or being a net beneficiary of state aid shouldn't be offered a vote.

So the poor shouldn't be able to vote? Let's come out and say it: this is a policy designed to consolidate power in the hands of the rich. Universal suffrage is important.

If it were so important you’d think people would treat it as such, and yet a look at any election or referendum shows the majority simply do not. Indeed the USA, that great “exporter of democracy” has turned their right to vote into something akin to duelling religions, or sports teams.

Low information voting isn’t new either.

If it helps, I’d also stop the elderly from getting a vote once they’re within x years of the average life expectancy for their gender. If you’re not going to have to live with the consequences, you really shouldn’t be getting a say in things.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#227

Post by dodobirdlord » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:05 AM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #137

542354234235 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of ridiculous. These are high level conflicts between equally valid government entities about how they should operate as well as nebulous questions on how constitutional law applies. I would assume there are legal memos, signed authorizations, etc. for what is going on. We could argue that secret authorizations for these kinds of things shouldn’t exist, but the fact is they do. If the president authorize…

The straightforward way to eliminate the ambiguity is to submit the programs to democratic oversight, including by The People. But instead they've worked hard to do the exact opposite, going so far as to blatantly lie to congress. This points to a criminal conspiracy, regardless of how many employees are working to craft dubious legal justifications. Usually criminals don't get to just say "my bad" and walk away afte…

These are intelligence agencies. Being secretive about what they do is largely the point. Some degree of oversight is of course required to ensure that the organizations haven’t been subverted and are still on-mission, but the responsibilities of an intelligence agency are too fragile and too essential to be subjected to political meddling.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#228

Post by nl » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:25 AM UTC

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #226

nl wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the poor shouldn't be able to vote? Let's come out and say it: this is a policy designed to consolidate power in the hands of the rich. Universal suffrage is important.

If it were so important you’d think people would treat it as such, and yet a look at any election or referendum shows the majority simply do not. Indeed the USA, that great “exporter of democracy” has turned their right to vote into something akin to duelling religions, or sports teams. Low information voting isn’t new either. If it helps, I’d also stop the elderly from getting a vote once they’re within x years of t…

I agree that low information voting is problematic.

But don't use that as an excuse to disenfranchise the poor. Poor people are often better informed the richer people.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#229

Post by inquirerofsorts » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:27 AM UTC

aaron695 wrote: post #207

> The starkest example of the risks inherent in the NSA’s approach involved an encryption-system component known as Dual Elliptic Curve Only example perhaps. What other back doors have they done? Literal secret rooms where they tap data, these are not conventionally called backdoors. Nor are unpatched zero days the supplier originally didn't know about. I don't think any country can install literal backdoors on produ…

Some of the numerous Cisco vulnerabilities have all the hallmarks of government persuasion.

Not to mention the wholesale hacking of their products bound for export:

https://www.infoworld.com/article/2608141/snowden--the-nsa-p...

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#230

Post by darkerside » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:37 AM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #213

Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this "the internet is like outside, don't expect privacy" argument a lot from americans, who i think are taught some 18th century definition of privacy by their media, as in "in your private rooms" and not a 21st century definition as in "about your private data". If you go to the city there are no agents of third party marketing agencies keeping notes of your movement and what items you look at in the stores…

A couple decades back when internet was a bit younger, there was a quite popular metaphor of the Global Village, shrinking the world and connecting people. However, that focused only on the positive aspects, but as time has gone on, I think that this has materialized in quite a literal way. Currently most of us are used to the pseudo-anonymity of big cities, where people technically can know a lot stuff about us (bec…

Very well put. It's the automation of the nosy village neighbor. People can decide whether this is good or bad, but it's less novel than they act like it is.