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Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

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Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#321

Post by cscurmudgeon »

O__________O wrote: post #246
systemvoltage wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I think we had a solid bipartisan support for classical-liberism up until 2015. It's worth going back to it with the lessons learned. It was the bedrock that allowed limited centralization and most importantly, accountability . We need new journalism that keeps powers in check and hold them accountable, not pander to their readers in an ever resonating echo chambers.

Assuming by “we” you are referring to Americans, which to me not a democracy, but a plutocracy; that is, a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth, either as a individual or organization. As for American media, issues related to pandering to readers is likely related to it deregulating media industry in the 80s; for more information see: https://apnews.com/article/business-immigration-deregulati…

Which then is a true democracy according to you?

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#322

Post by omgomgomgomg »

brookst wrote: post #62
mach1ne wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though something has a benevolent rationalization, it doesn’t mean the true motives are benevolent. It doesn’t need any New World Order conspiracy either. People in ruling positions often enjoy power, and they may be clueless as to how this desire is affecting their decisionmaking.

I’m always skeptical of phrases like “true motives”. Sometimes people can do the wrong thing for the right reasons, or totally amorally. There doesn’t have to be a secret agenda. Framing things in terms of shadowy cabals that hide their secret motivations weakens the argument and reduces odds of successful resistance to these programs by misunderstanding the opposition.

The intent does not even matter long term.

The danger is an oportunist individual or group taking advantage of the thing.

Let us play fantasyland and we assume there is one day a pill that feeds you for a day, tastes better than any food, makes you full and beats obesity.

Do you think the ownership of that would not be fiercly fought about and the development should be kept secret?

If it is not secret, anyone could just steal that revolutionary idea.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#323

Post by walterbell »

alexbiet wrote: post #221
walterbell wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would mortal humans waste time/money on mass experiments with predictably useless outcomes?

Entirely the point I am making, albeit indirectly. The majority of rules and regulations nowadays are aimed at more and more control over the people at little to no benefit to them. People get angry and protest such measures. Rinse and repeat, for at least the last decade or two. It’s repetitive and pointless. When does it become clear the once great system which brought us growth and prosperity is no longer fit for…

> At what point people realise we need to shed the old system and its top crème de la crème in favour of a new one?

Excluding migration to new land, what is a good historical precedent?

Sounds a bit like "Rewrite It In Rust!"

Reboot is good for those who have extracted and sequestered value out of the old system.

Less good for those whose assets were extracted and still have legal claims within the old system.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#324

Post by [deleted] »

mjburgess wrote: post #316
O__________O wrote: post #179

Strangest thing to me about the topic is that it’s obvious vast percentage of citizens within democracies wish they lived in an authoritarian country, yet choose to live in a democracy and use the liberties they’re provided to actively destabilize and destroy it. To me this is the largest issue, not a given topic that results from it. Yes, I am aware current authoritarian countries wage propaganda campaigns, but in m…

Nationalism is such an ubiquitous and powerful ideology, we don't realise that pretty much everyone today is an extreme nationalist. Before "nations" people didnt regard borders, states, etc. as they do today. "citizenship" of a "nation" is a relatively recent phenomenon. Most today think it's a good-and-fitting thing to defend "one's country". And this impulse is vastly more powerful than defending "democracy". Who…

[deleted]

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#326

Post by kragen »

stagas wrote: post #95
can16358p wrote: post #10

We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity. Privacy is a human right. We probably all know that they will show reasons like "fighting terrorism", "preventing national threats" or "hunting down child pornography" etc, whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it. Anyone who is really…

I've always wondered behind the rationale on privacy being a human right. What if it wasn't? What if instead we were enforcing transparency? Force everything to be public, starting from the government down to the local coffee shop. All transactions, all communications, everything. Make privacy a crime for everybody, including the government and the military. Just as a thought exercise, it would be a remarkably differ…

people need privacy not because their acts are unworthy

people need privacy because others' intentions and judgment are unworthy

if you've ever known anyone who was gay, who got divorced, who secretly had a deprecated ethnic background, who left their faith, who didn't want their ex-boyfriend to know where they lived, who revealed government corruption, who struggled for political change, or who could be raped or robbed by a stranger, you've known someone who needed privacy

even though they had nothing to be ashamed of

you might argue that if nobody had privacy, nobody would be able to get away with rape, or with lynching people they discovered had a drop of black blood, or with lynching apostates, or with gay-bashing, so these things wouldn't happen in a world without privacy

that would be a stupid argument because people did those things openly all the time, and they usually got away with it, and some of them still do; humans have a social pecking order, and it is defined by aggression with impunity

also people murder their ex-partners all the time even when they won't get away with it

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#327

Post by oauea »

ethbr0 wrote: post #313
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way of phrasing this might be "people will not have to pay as much tax if technological tools are used to assess crimes rather than traditional high-touch policing (ie high man-hours)". Generally people want all the [other] criminals catching, but do not want all resources of the state used solely for policing. Optimisations then are preferred even if there is collateral harm.

In goriest form, I think of this as the drone argument. Is it better to put boots on the ground, some of whom may die and who may cause collateral casualties in executing their mission, or a (hypothetically idealized) drone that kills only the target? Still haven't decided if I have, or there even exists, a good answer to that.

The answer is yes. Murdering other humans who have no way to see it coming and no way to defend themselves is deeply evil. Especially when you factor in the murder of innocents (also referred to as collateral damage), and the facts that mistakes happen.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#329

Post by loup-vaillant »

alphazard wrote: post #76

For all of the software engineers here, you would have a much larger impact by tackling this problem at a technical level, or contributing financially to groups that lobby against this sort of thing. Going out and protesting, or even helping to circulate a petition is going to be less impactful, and an inefficient use of your time and skillset. Your vote is worth 1, maybe your influence is worth a dozen or so. You co…

That piece of software still needs to be legal. If it's illegal much fewer people will actually use it, and those who use it anyway can arbitrarily be punished for it.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#330

Post by danuker »

kragen wrote: post #52
raxxorraxor wrote: post #2

The best way to deal with this is non-compliance and there need to be technical solutions to deny such attempts. One major factor that works against users is central authentication. Schemes like oauth2 might bring convenience and security in many cases, but will endanger net freedom overall. Google just added age restriction on blogger. Result is that you need to provide Google with ID information to access some cont…

> One major factor that works against users is central authentication. Schemes like oauth2 also dns and the tls ca system, even including let's encrypt

Or Cloudflare which is a MitMaaS
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