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Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM

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Re: Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM

#51

Post by nhaehnle »

whatevenisthis wrote: post #5

This whole thing is so bizarre to me. The NSA has been doing this sort of thing since at least the early 90s. Who knows, probably earlier. What exactly did people think the NSA was doing? The only difference is that, before digital cell service, it was more difficult to monitor phones conversations because the infrastructure simply didn't support it. Everyone's all riled up over a few PowerPoint slides (which may ver…

Did you even read the article/mail? The author makes a lucid argument which you totally fail to address:

> And so—before the capability was made public, it _likely_ wouldn't

> have been used against mere political nuisances, at least not without

> the additional cost of creating a solid pretext for the resulting

> intelligence. But now this deterrent is gone: the burden of utter secrecy

> is reduced. And if these programs are not eliminated, greatly curtailed,

> or made moot, we can expect them to be employed much more freely.

Re: Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM

#52

Post by andyhmltn »

pilif wrote: post #42
b6 wrote: post #17

I'm a peaceful person, but this issue has been simmering in my head for years, and I find myself actually looking forward to some kind of meaningful conflict. I'm sick, sick, sick to death of the president issuing denials while they keep building more and more infrastructure against humanity. I think the article is right, that it'll get worse from here, and in a way, I'm glad.

Last time people were looking forward to a meaningful conflict, it plunged the whole world into 4 years of war, followed by another 7. Be careful what you wish for. We need a peaceful solution for this. Vote these people away. Replace them by better people. Educate those who think they have nothing to hide.

Sadly those votes don't mean a thing when there's lobbyists involved.

Re: Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM

#53

Post by saraid216 »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #23

For me, this incident is an example where the U.S. democracy failed, pure and simple. Obama made campaign promises to not do surveillance. He was elected and then did it anyway. It's frankly impossible now to change this issue in a democratic fashion. From the outside it often looks as if American politicians are overly busy with a very expensive "game", rather than using the game for the greater good.

> He was elected and then did it anyway. It's frankly impossible now to change this issue in a democratic fashion.

And this is an intentional feature of the system. It's in the Constitution. That's what term lengths are for. The American people never understood how to hold enough power to keep the governmental branches in check. They're too busy feeling self-righteously indignant to actually keep ahold of any power.

Re: Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM

#54

Post by bayesianhorse »

taktix wrote: post #48
bayesianhorse wrote: post #23

For me, this incident is an example where the U.S. democracy failed, pure and simple. Obama made campaign promises to not do surveillance. He was elected and then did it anyway. It's frankly impossible now to change this issue in a democratic fashion. From the outside it often looks as if American politicians are overly busy with a very expensive "game", rather than using the game for the greater good.

It's because the American people voted for looks over substance. Obama has no morals and no spine, but he looks and sounds like a Hollywood star. Obama is just the US population's reflection in the mirror.

I don't believe his opponents where a lot better. As long as they didn't get president, it's easy to say they have more morals and spine, but they were sure squawking opinions I didn't like.

Re: Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM

#55

Post by ianstormtaylor »

eightyone wrote: post #32
XorNot wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put a better interface on GPG to make managing web-of-trust not a nightmare. The infrastructure has existed for a long time, but using it is amazingly unfriendly. It gets more interesting when you consider a model like off-the-record encryption, where the goal isn't encryption and verification but deniability. OTR has the great property of ensuring that any time you manage to decrypt or intercept a message, you've al…

I wish there was a site to connect open-source projects who need better UIs with the designers over at Dribbble. On Dribbble you see a lot of UI concepts that never come to fruition. What if we could convince some of them to help build a better PGP UI? After all, real world applications look much better on a resume than concepts.

As a designer, throughout this entire scandal I've been wishing for the same thing. I assume there are projects out there that I can contribute design thinking to, but I honestly don't know which ones need it or would welcome it.

Re: Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM

#56

Post by ericHosick »

stock_toaster wrote: post #50
ericHosick wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. We'll check these out. We're creating a development environment based on a visual object language using a fully composable framework. The output of the development environment is blobs of "hooked up" objects. The user's programs are stored on host servers and, in real time, propagated to all people working on the project. Meta-data and data are also part of a program the user is creating. We would like to enc…

Also check out http://nacl.cr.yp.to there is a more library friendly version called sodium[1]. I don't know how much review has been done of that so far yet though.... [1]: http://labs.umbrella.com/2013/03/06/announcing-sodium-a-new-...

Sodium looks really interesting. Thank you.

Re: Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM

#57

Post by raverbashing »

"Why would you use AES/RSA/etc. when the NSA employs more mathematicians than anyone else and may well have cracked them?"

Well, because of everybody else seems to be a good reason.

And one thing a bunch of good mathematicians is not better than is math. And as far as we know, they may still be good systems.

The construct of encryption systems today is so complex I think the last part they would address would be the algorithms themselves (but they certainly can factor the product of two primes in record time)

Re: Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM

#58

Post by Lewton »

taktix wrote: post #48
bayesianhorse wrote: post #23

For me, this incident is an example where the U.S. democracy failed, pure and simple. Obama made campaign promises to not do surveillance. He was elected and then did it anyway. It's frankly impossible now to change this issue in a democratic fashion. From the outside it often looks as if American politicians are overly busy with a very expensive "game", rather than using the game for the greater good.

It's because the American people voted for looks over substance. Obama has no morals and no spine, but he looks and sounds like a Hollywood star. Obama is just the US population's reflection in the mirror.

It's logic like yours that's keeping the broken political system you have in america in place.

Somehow pretending that voting for some other guy would have prevented this

Re: Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM

#59

Post by bayesianhorse »

saraid216 wrote: post #53
bayesianhorse wrote: post #23

For me, this incident is an example where the U.S. democracy failed, pure and simple. Obama made campaign promises to not do surveillance. He was elected and then did it anyway. It's frankly impossible now to change this issue in a democratic fashion. From the outside it often looks as if American politicians are overly busy with a very expensive "game", rather than using the game for the greater good.

> He was elected and then did it anyway. It's frankly impossible now to change this issue in a democratic fashion. And this is an intentional feature of the system. It's in the Constitution . That's what term lengths are for . The American people never understood how to hold enough power to keep the governmental branches in check. They're too busy feeling self-righteously indignant to actually keep ahold of any power…

While I have my quibbles with the American Constitution, I do understand that politicians in a representative democracy are not bound to the will of their voters.

I still object in this instance because promises were broken, and in a significant, yet to be determined, portion of the population the spirit of the constitution was broken as well.

Re: Why we can't go back to business as usual post-PRISM

#60

Post by georgemcbay »

obstacle1 wrote: post #33
bayesianhorse wrote: post #23

For me, this incident is an example where the U.S. democracy failed, pure and simple. Obama made campaign promises to not do surveillance. He was elected and then did it anyway. It's frankly impossible now to change this issue in a democratic fashion. From the outside it often looks as if American politicians are overly busy with a very expensive "game", rather than using the game for the greater good.

This problem is systemic. It has little to do with Obama or Clinton or X, Y, Z individual. Individuals are irrelevant here. What you have is a runaway state.

For better or for worse, Obama is a good symbol for the problem though in that his entire campaign was based on hope and change, only to prove that such change isn't actually possible in a couple of election cycles, if at all.
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