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Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

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Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#371

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

still_grokking wrote: post #234
dudul wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy via elected representatives is a lie. "Extreme outliers" may even be too much. Is there even a handful of examples?

It's not even a lie. It's just not democracy. The whole point of democracy as it got invented was that the people can directly vote on any government issues. No direct voting on every day do day policy, no democracy. Simple as that. "It would not be possible in practice" is the actual lie. We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody. I'm not saying that everything would be…

Direct democracy scares me more than a corrupt government. I can imagine a group of americans voting for $2,000 a month basic income, not realizing that the total is greater than our GDP. I can see racism creap in, denying entry to the US to foreign natioals.

Watching the UK vote on "Brexit", without an understanding of what that actually 'means' or if it's possible, shows the failure of democracy.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#372

Post by raincom »

TrapLord_Rhodo wrote: post #371
still_grokking wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even a lie. It's just not democracy. The whole point of democracy as it got invented was that the people can directly vote on any government issues. No direct voting on every day do day policy, no democracy. Simple as that. "It would not be possible in practice" is the actual lie. We have since many years the tech to make it possible to vote on everything by everybody. I'm not saying that everything would be…

Direct democracy scares me more than a corrupt government. I can imagine a group of americans voting for $2,000 a month basic income, not realizing that the total is greater than our GDP. I can see racism creap in, denying entry to the US to foreign natioals. Watching the UK vote on "Brexit", without an understanding of what that actually 'means' or if it's possible, shows the failure of democracy.

Whose corruption is better? Whose corruption is worse? The collusion of bureaucrats, politicians, media, corporate elite is WORSE than any corruption whatsoever resulting from direct democracy: in the case of brexit, people who voted for it face the consequences themselves. In the case of collusive elite, normal public (except bureaucrats, politicians, lobbyists, corporate elite) bear the brunt. Definitely, people don't mind taking their own medicine, than the ones prescribed by the collusive elite.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#373

Post by pstuart »

splendor_spoon wrote: post #157
pstuart wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! Makes sense. I abhor partisan politics but there are things associated with (e.g., Trump) that call for scrutiny. Trump is a fascinating character and has broken so many norms that it's been mind bending. It saddens me that HN has many of his rabid acolytes that make any such discussion a shit show.

The GP comment is not telling the whole story. Yes the first thing _congress_ did was pass additional sanctions on Russia but Trump delayed [1] them from going into affect for over a year allowing more than enough time for Russia to mitigate the impact significantly. [1] https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/timeline-trumps-delays-r...

There's so much more to explore, but not here.

It blows my mind that there are so many rabid supporters here on HN. There's no point in dialog there because there's no interest in that.

That said, we should be exploring how to hack society to "improve efficiency at scale", and that requires discussing policy and that is what politics is ostensibly all about. C'est la guerre.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#374

Post by lobocinza »

Matl wrote: post #307
genman wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you completely misinterpret the situation with Russia and China. Russia and China have the objectives of their own. For Russia it is to expand their empire that in their own mind rightfully belongs to them. They didn't attack Ukraine because of US actions but because they seriously believe that they have some kind of right over Ukrainians lands, or even more seriously, that Ukrainians don't exists. If US woul…

There are many, many explanations for i.e. why didn't China attack Taiwan (yet) and while the U.S. finger in the region helps in some ways, supporting Taiwan proclaiming independence for example may actually not be helping to prevent war there. It seems to me like China is much more reluctant than Russia is to go to such a war, probably because apart from facing domestic nationalistic pressure to do so, there's littl…

Chinese are extremely risk averse. They will eventually invade Taiwan but only when the odds are extremely in their favor. The Russian invasion of Ukraine showed them that they need to prepare better. I wouldn't be surprised if their economy collapses/stagnates before this day even comes.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#375

Post by scrum-treats »

c420 wrote: post #96
theaussiestew wrote: post #88

I have a vaguely related question about Signal. People say it’s secure and encrypted but it was widely publicised that Sam Bankman Fried’s Signal messages were inspected by authorities. How did this happen?

Interception occurs prior to encryption

How? Is it exploitation of hardware vulnerabilities (e.g., processor vulnerabilities), software vulnerabilities (e.g., apple's webkit vulnerabilities, google chrome + search JS vulnerabilities), or Wifi/Bluetooth vulnerabilities?

The only way I can think to intercept prior to encryption would be Key logger, so this would require an already compromised device. Alternatively the government could force a vulnerability state (e.g., the Perseus text message of doom). Is this also your understanding?

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#376

Post by scrum-treats »

win32k wrote: post #295
funbil wrote: post #134

Funny how all the comments critical of Snowden and his actions are being flagged. No dissent allowed?

Groupthink amongst techies. It's amazing how everyone takes Snowden at his word. Literal traitor and they can't see that he has an agenda.

The pendulum swings in both directions...

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#377

Post by scrum-treats »

win32k wrote: post #298

Basically, few people are able to escape the "Snowden good, US Gov bad" groupthink and really see what happened with Snowden. The guy was a massive traitor that made the US much, much less safe for probably a very long time. Remember US Gov actually DOES care about your rights. The CCP and Putin do NOT. He made the latter much stronger. The revelations didn't even show anything malicious. He basically won the court o…

By your comments on this thread I am assuming reading comprehension and complex critical thinking are not your strong suits. And that's okay. Do realize that there are people who excel in these areas in which you are so clearly lacking.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#378

Post by scrum-treats »

mbg721 wrote: post #192

We got a campaign of "Let's tear down the unelected and unaccountable government agencies," and millions of Americans voted for it. It largely didn't work.

Looks like what we got was more unaccountable government agencies, and a pissing match between FBI and CIA (FBI lost, btw).

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#379

Post by scrum-treats »

drumhead wrote: post #48

Realistically intelligence agencies have access to whatever information they want. If they can crack encryption they're not going to tell us and they will probably act like they can't. You're compromised and you have no secrets and can't hide anything from them. The best thing we can do is stay safe from criminals.

> The best thing we can do is stay safe from criminals.

And if the criminals are government entities or government-sponsored entities?

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#380

Post by genman »

Matl wrote: post #357
genman wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not from "what" but from "where" is the question. If there was no Western opposition to the attack, there wouldn't be no isolation. The fact that Russia has received some sympathy shows how important is to express the situation correctly - Russia was not provoked by anything. They would have attacked either way because they consider these lands theirs and the people who live there at best as nothing. The thinking goe…

Why is there 'anti-US sentiment' in the Global South?

Why is there for example anti-US sentiment in Russia? Because it's beneficial for its leader(s) to cultivate and magnify it.
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