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Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

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Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#151

Post by knowaveragejoe »

jacquesm wrote: post #118
nikcub wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks that this is how it works, but that is what the survey is for. They already know all the answers, they just want to see how you respond. For eg. they already know the date, your flight number, your passport number, your history - it is all about getting you in a situation where you answer questions and can be analyzed. The Isrealis are really good at it. They realized that security through innspecting every…

> There was sometime in how your brother answered that steered them towards not allowing him in. Are you a mind reader? If not how do you know that? All I see is an overzealous border guard refusing a family to enter a country to spend their money on a holiday. Lose-Lose. And dumb to boot.

On the other hand, you don't want to be the guy who let in a person who then goes on to commit an act of terrorism(or any crime, really). With that in mind, I can understand the guard airing on the side of caution, even if it is a bit ridiculous in this case.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#152

Post by jacquesm »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #151
jacquesm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was sometime in how your brother answered that steered them towards not allowing him in. Are you a mind reader? If not how do you know that? All I see is an overzealous border guard refusing a family to enter a country to spend their money on a holiday. Lose-Lose. And dumb to boot.

On the other hand, you don't want to be the guy who let in a person who then goes on to commit an act of terrorism(or any crime, really). With that in mind, I can understand the guard airing on the side of caution, even if it is a bit ridiculous in this case.

There's a simple cure for that: Isolationism. Simply close your borders and call it a day.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#153

Post by jacquesm »

d0ne wrote: post #145

My company will sponsor $5,000 for the best idea submission for mitigation techniques against these types of systems. Any suggestion on the best service to use host this / receive submissions? We will: 1) Open source all submitted ideas. 2) Let the community choose the top 5 and we will hold an internal review process for the top spot. 3) Fly the winner(s) to our office in Atlanta, GA to discuss the winning submissio…

> Fly the winner(s) to our office in Atlanta, GA to discuss the winning submission in details with some of the top information security experts in the world.

That may be a bit prohibitive, given that they will still have to use air travel, possibly to and at least within the USA. I figure the people that come up with a mitigation against a system like this would be very smart to stay the hell away from claiming credit for it.

And the top information security experts in the world are working for what we'll loosely designate 'the other side' here, I don't think they'll be on your discussion panel.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#154

Post by shmerl »

cheeseprocedure wrote: post #140
aswanson wrote: post #114

They're probably using Palantir. I wonder how Thiel resolves his libertarian/freedom philosophy with supplying the government with such a powerful oppressive tool.

I had a chance to speak to one of the lead developers at Palantir a couple years back, and asked him about this apparent conflict of political ideals. His answer: by enabling agencies to properly apply the data they already have, Palantir's products reduce the pressure to further erode civil liberties in the pursuit of more data.

Didn't IBM help we know whom to sort their victims' data during the WWII? This kind of argument doesn't work.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#155

Post by mindcrime »

jacquesm wrote: post #153
d0ne wrote: post #145

My company will sponsor $5,000 for the best idea submission for mitigation techniques against these types of systems. Any suggestion on the best service to use host this / receive submissions? We will: 1) Open source all submitted ideas. 2) Let the community choose the top 5 and we will hold an internal review process for the top spot. 3) Fly the winner(s) to our office in Atlanta, GA to discuss the winning submissio…

> Fly the winner(s) to our office in Atlanta, GA to discuss the winning submission in details with some of the top information security experts in the world. That may be a bit prohibitive, given that they will still have to use air travel, possibly to and at least within the USA. I figure the people that come up with a mitigation against a system like this would be very smart to stay the hell away from claiming credi…

And the top information security experts in the world are working for what we'll loosely designate 'the other side' here

I think that would be accurate if it read:

And some of the top information security experts in the world are working for what we'll loosely designate 'the other side' here

There are some pretty goddamned smart people in the cypherpunk / hacker community, who would (and do) find this kind of surveillance crap abhorrent and who will work to resist it. I certainly would not say that all of the best people are on "the other side". Maybe time will prove me wrong, but I doubt it.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#156

Post by joonix »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #116

Why I'm worried about a surveillance state? Because the people in charge will have their records protected while everyone else gets the surveillance. Our president committed crimes his justice department jails people for (illegal drugs). Drug testing is a perfect example of the surveillance state. The people who don't get tested? The testers. The legislators. The people in charge. I know there are technical problems…

Good time to recall that up until 2012, it was legal for Congressmen to trade stocks based on inside information they received carrying out their duties.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#157

Post by angersock »

jacquesm wrote: post #124
alan_cx wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the worry should be that people just shorten all that to "USA", and give up. I know I would never travel there, and I don't really care which acronym is out to wreck my life.

> Perhaps the worry should be that people just shorten all that to "USA", and give up. I've done exactly that. Too bad, there are a lot of really nice people there that I consider close friends.

You seem to have been around (here at least) for a while... is there a story here, or are you just cutting off your nose to spite your face?

EDIT: Removed leading "Honestly?". Am serious if an experience led to this.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#158

Post by peterhost »

chmike wrote: post #70
peterhost wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, you're my target cause this comment is so obviously being uttered by someone who hasn't studied history in his/her whole life... Jeez ! (whom i don't believe in btw) Hacker new indeed.... Has anyone's been following dunno, wikileaks or Appelbaum or... Hacker news that are not on hackernews (which usurpates its name because what it really is is startup news) ? Eagle, the Athen Affair ( http://spectrum.ieee.org/tel…

I fear people are confusing things. Take the analogy of police patrols in streets. They may see all what you do and even control your identity and ask you questions. You may consider this as a frontal aggression to your privacy and right to move around without beeing spied. You may claim it's the same as the gestapo, or your preferred historical reference. It wouldn't be fully wrong. But see that it has also been und…

Yup. There has to be some sort of control in any system (even a few anarchists agree on that).

To further your/my/our point(s), you can read Bruce Schneier's latest "Crypto-Gram Newsletter" (https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-1212.html). He rephrases the problem with a feudal/serf paradygm, which is quite appropriate imo.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#159

Post by barking »

jlgreco wrote: post #148
barking wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but you have gone off on a tangent there. We weren't arguing about the effectiveness of the policy just the rationale behind it, I believe. I don't have any stats on that, do you?

A rationale that includes P(B|A) but not P(A|B) is not a rational one. I have been asking you to evaluate the legitimacy of the rationale by considering P(A|B).

Given that terrorists are very rare then the P(A|B) using your terminology (where A = terrorist and B= bad record) will be very low. But for for a fixed P(A) and P(B) then the higher the value there is for P(B|A) the higher the value of P(A|B) will be. If you have an enornmous haystack to search it's more efficient to look first where you're most likely to find needles.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#160

Post by jacquesm »

mindcrime wrote: post #155
jacquesm wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fly the winner(s) to our office in Atlanta, GA to discuss the winning submission in details with some of the top information security experts in the world. That may be a bit prohibitive, given that they will still have to use air travel, possibly to and at least within the USA. I figure the people that come up with a mitigation against a system like this would be very smart to stay the hell away from claiming credi…

And the top information security experts in the world are working for what we'll loosely designate 'the other side' here I think that would be accurate if it read: And some of the top information security experts in the world are working for what we'll loosely designate 'the other side' here There are some pretty goddamned smart people in the cypherpunk / hacker community, who would (and do) find this kind of surveil…

I'm with you on the 'some', I should have been more careful with the wording there.

Yes, there are indeed lots of smart people who find this crap abhorrent and who will work to resist it. But I don't think they're the majority. Not even close. Individuals such as Phil Zimmerman are making a real difference.

But money is a powerful motivator. Lots of people will do very stupid things when offered enough money. Governments print money. Nationalism is another such powerful motivator. Press the combined buttons of nationalism and piles of cash and a lot of people will start seeing things your way.

The NSA is currently the largest employer of mathematicians in the United States, and that probably makes them the largest employer of mathematicians planet wide.

There are lots of counterparts of the NSA in other countries. And those mathematicians are not too upset about not being able to publish their results, so I'm thinking there is something to counterbalance that, such as abundant financial compensation.

For now this is an unbalanced situation.

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