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

The window to deploy surveillance-resistant systems is running out

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 330 posts

Re: The window to deploy surveillance-resistant systems is running out

#281

Post by toss1 »

summm wrote: post #239
rvense wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why in the world would I trust people who were in intelligence agencies?

Even worse: Why would I trust professional liars whose wrongdoings were uncovered by Snowden? "Do your own research". He cannot even name specific sources for his vague insinuations.

>>cannot even name nope, just didn't bother to go track it down for a comment.

but here you go, this [0][1]should have enough details and links to start you off.

You might also note that while the progressive Barack Obama had no problem pardoning Manning, he did no such thing for Snowdon. This was after the US House Intelligence Committee — not intelligence agency people, and both parties — UNANIMOUSLY voted to approve a report on Edward Snowden finding that he "did tremendous damage" to U.S. national security [2].

Perhaps you can explain how the whole airport fiasco and taking on Snowdon could have happened without Putin's direct approval - and why he'd do such a thing if it is "only" US civil rights issues at stake from Snowdon's theft.

Perhaps you can also explain how among the million+ documents Snowdon stole, only a few actually have anything to do with the headlines touting the civil liberty cause - e.g., exposing details of Israel’s killing of senior WMD proliferators in Syria [3]. Seriously, how does that improve anything in the US?

If you actually bother to look, without the hero-worshipping glasses and Qanon-level suspicion of anything related to government, you find that his massive story is a fraud.

[0] https://observer.com/2016/09/the-real-ed-snowden-is-a-patsy-...

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200606111426/https://20committ...

[2] https://www.lawfareblog.com/house-intelligence-committee-rel...

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20200226232346/https://www.jpost...

Re: The window to deploy surveillance-resistant systems is running out

#283

Post by mdp2021 »

Terretta wrote: post #211
marvin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think 99% of Hacker News is in favor of requiring covid vaccination in order to perform everyday activities. It probably a double-digit percentage, but there's plenty of debate. I for one am generally speaking against both that and coercive forms of vaccination against any current diseases, even though I mostly consider it an irrational bet to skip vaccination. It's definitely a reference to smartphones, but…

> I for one am generally speaking against both that and coercive forms of vaccination against any current diseases, even though I mostly consider it an irrational bet to skip vaccination. Hopefully you're also speaking out against seatbelt laws, helmet laws, laws requiring women to wear tops places men aren't required, and second hand smoke laws? Generally any laws where one person's freedom of choices for safety, ap…

> rights ... not cover your health expenses

An issue in fact is being revealed in these times with organized mutual assistance, "covering each other's health expenses", as a burden. Because it can go off the limits of good sense. As in: if one were mandated to eating salad and exercising, and to only use the car under emergency to minimize the risk of crashes, then mutual assistance would be a "shoved service" instead of a welcome feature.

> people's rights to not be annoyed by you and not cover your health expenses

The principle of "not damaging others" ("do not smoke in my face") cannot be simply mixed with "not being a burden to society" in matters that show less trivial tradeoffs.

Re: The window to deploy surveillance-resistant systems is running out

#284

Post by throwawaygh »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #262
throwawaygh wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so we delete existing repositories and stop collecting that data for now. I'm in full agreement. I just don't see how developing new systems is any sort of solution. > It's possible that authoritarian regimes are very efficient and will somehow force companies to build insecure systems that can be abused The genie is out of the bottle. Issuing an edict to "do things like you did them in 2022" doesn't exactly re…

> It's also a bit presumptuous to assume that a future authoritarian regime wouldn't have expert technologists at their disposal... I think your thinking here is too binary. Clearly there exist possible futures where authoritarian governments are hyper-efficient and have brilliant technologists advising them. In those futures we're clearly doomed and thus we might as well give up now. The thing is, those futures are…

I think you massively under-estimate the banality of authoritarianism.

If an authoritarian movement takes over the US government, at least a majority of the Johns Hopkins CS faculty will continue taking grants from the NSF/DoD. Many of those grants will be more-or-less aligned with the objectives of that authoritarian movement. Non-authoritarian students will grind away on those projects.

Something similar would happen at FAANGM. No iCloud backups? NBD; lean on those companies to collect whatever data the state wants. You don't need super competent loyal technologists, because FAANGM and their employees will most of the time just do what you tell them. You don't need existing troves of data, because you can start collecting at any point and still get a huge amount of utility.

Could the authoritarian world be marginally better if big tech makes an about-face and stops collecting data? Sure. Is that difference enough to make any sort of significant difference in the lived experience of people or the trajectory of the authoritarian regime? Probably not.

I don't think you're wrong, per se, about the risks. But I don't think you have a compelling solution. And, anyways, there are much stronger arguments for reigning in data collection at big tech than the risk of impending authoritarianism.

Re: The window to deploy surveillance-resistant systems is running out

#285

Post by mdp2021 »

adolph wrote: post #259
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this pattern was originally popularized by "i18n" for "internationalization", partly for convenience and partly to have an identifier that would fit in legacy systems.

Numeronym: According to Tex Texin, the first numeronym of this kind was "S12n", the electronic mail account name given to Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) employee Jan Scherpenhuizen by a system administrator because his surname was too long to be an account name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeronym Agree that i18n cemented it in the letter count form (homonym form is older, like K9 for canine).

('K9' is homophone for 'canine'. To be homonyms, two terms should have different meaning - if two terms share the same name and meaning, they are the same...)

Re: The window to deploy surveillance-resistant systems is running out

#286

Post by commandlinefan »

throwawaygh wrote: post #164

Surveillance-resistant systems are not an answer to authoritarianism. Private companies do not have freedom of operation in authoritarian regimes. It's a special sort of odd neoliberal fantasy where capitalists or technologists can route around an authoritarian social movement that seizes the power of the state. Do you want to know what happens to people who think they can route around an authoritarian regime with cl…

> There's a relevant XKCD

So... what? Don't try? Don't bother? That's like saying don't bother cooking your food because even cooked food can get you sick some of the time. Or do you believe that a hypothetical future authoritarian government can hire an army of thugs to kneecap everybody who they believe shared an anti-regime meme? Censorship-resistant tools are being used by dissidents today to organize against repressive regimes such as in Hong Kong. Laying the framework for anonymous communication today while it's easier just to be on the safe side is worthwhile.

Re: The window to deploy surveillance-resistant systems is running out

#287

Post by throwawaygh »

commandlinefan wrote: post #286
throwawaygh wrote: post #164

Surveillance-resistant systems are not an answer to authoritarianism. Private companies do not have freedom of operation in authoritarian regimes. It's a special sort of odd neoliberal fantasy where capitalists or technologists can route around an authoritarian social movement that seizes the power of the state. Do you want to know what happens to people who think they can route around an authoritarian regime with cl…

> There's a relevant XKCD So... what? Don't try? Don't bother? That's like saying don't bother cooking your food because even cooked food can get you sick some of the time. Or do you believe that a hypothetical future authoritarian government can hire an army of thugs to kneecap everybody who they believe shared an anti-regime meme? Censorship-resistant tools are being used by dissidents today to organize against rep…

> Censorship-resistant tools are being used by dissidents today to organize against repressive regimes such as in Hong Kong.

Right, so my whole point here is...

...and how's that going?

Re: The window to deploy surveillance-resistant systems is running out

#288

Post by mdp2021 »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #275
mdp2021 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the banks in the country where a friend of mine lives offer the services he demands: he is planning to live the country. Many in this branch of discussion seem to be measuring their possibilities against a current situation in their area - while in some other regions the situation is worse to desperate - and they are not seeing a trend.

Definitely agree with the trend risks. The question is how to reverse it?

Normally, you would not support the trend. When a whole society but only a few support it - by buying, adopting etc. - there is probably little to be done but hanging to the escape routes you have.

You can (and in a way should) also wake up the sleepers, but it will be hard or less feasible to properly reach the masses.

Re: The window to deploy surveillance-resistant systems is running out

#289

Post by rgrieselhuber »

mdp2021 wrote: post #288
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely agree with the trend risks. The question is how to reverse it?

Normally, you would not support the trend. When a whole society but only a few support it - by buying, adopting etc. - there is probably little to be done but hanging to the escape routes you have. You can (and in a way should) also wake up the sleepers, but it will be hard or less feasible to properly reach the masses.

Yup. This is one of the problems of this age.

Re: The window to deploy surveillance-resistant systems is running out

#290

Post by Stevvo »

weljlkjlkerg wrote: post #73
Stevvo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about a global issue; political/cultural divisions that are for the most part confined to the US are not "the problem". Even within the US mass-surveillance predates the current political climate.

Vax passports most definitely are not confined to the US.

In Europe, and many other countries they are not a privacy issue; it's technically impossible to use them for surveillance as the QR codes do not contain any identifiable information.
Post reply on HN