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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

#81

Post by nemof »

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.

That make a huge assumption, that you can work within the constraints of the Institution and not become institutionalised in the process.

The reason that governments (I'm in the UK) keep on doing this is that by its nature institutions will naturally gravitate towards this kind of behaviour, so it becomes self reinforcing.

Is it enough to just vote? Possibly not. Those peers of yours, the people you grew up with, one day they might be in Government, but don't expect them to be different from the last lot.

We need more radical action to re-establish a new relationship between a government and its people; What we have now works in many ways, but clearly it has its limits that need to be addressed.

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

#82

Post by Mordor »

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #49
pilif wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The scary thing is this: these people were already voted away. People voted for Obama when he promised the end of warrantless wiretapping, the closing down of Guantanamo, etc. Why should voters believe the next guy who promises these things? It feels hopeless.

All the more reason to push for Obama's resignation.

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

#83

Post by cabalamat »

jamestc wrote: post #39
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.

You aren't alone. People are organizing protests and preparing letterheads, as they should be, but it all feels just as ineffective as the last time. The ugly truth, as many people know, is that these complaints/protests are built-in to the infrastructure, they're expected and they disrupt absolutely nothing. We need a new conduit for effecting change.

> We need a new conduit for effecting change.

In Europe this conduit is called the Pirate Party. If we are to win this fight, it's one of our best vehicles to do so.

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

#84

Post by wisty »

Spearchucker wrote: post #73
raverbashing wrote: post #57

"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…

Assuming for a minute, hypothetically, that the NSA can crack AES and RSA, then the way to combat that is for more people to use it more often, and to create meaningless encrypted spam. Cracking requires huge computing resources. If there's an overwhelming amount of data to crack, with little guarantee of any useful yield, then we can reasonably expect it that negates the ability to crack it.

4Chan is https. So there is a fair amount of meaningless encrypted spam out there already.

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

#85

Post by ak39 »

bigiain wrote: post #80
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.

We (here in .au) had a 4 term Prime Minister defend reneging on election promises by claiming they were "non-core promises" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Government ) The scary thing? That was his _first_ term, and "we" voted him in three more times... "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." - Sir Winston Churchill

False dichotomy. The problem is not Democracy vs every other non-democratic system, it's in the implementation details of the current versions. We just need to refactor Democracy Version 1.0. Far from a rewrite.

And where do we begin? Upholding campaign promises, that's where. They must be watertight like contracts where the voters can sue.

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

#86

Post by einhverfr »

noerps wrote: post #66
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…

Putting a better UX or UI has been considered for PGP/GPG a very long time, and if you really reflect on that topic, you'll learn that a fancy interface or UX won't solve anything. Foolproof software is operated by fools. Facebook has only proven that to an extent that you simply can't deny it anymore. If fools use PGP/GPG, they will compromise you by putting the message in the subject and encrypting their disclaimer…

I agree with this, but would also point out that the problems I am addressing though can't be solved by a better user interface. In addition to the issues you describe you also have the question of key infrastructure. Key servers are not adequate as they are, and so IMO you need to have ways of verifying the key is legit, which are not included in the PGP model.

That key infrastructure is something which needs to be thought out and made resistant to a single party tampering with things.

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

#87

Post by ak39 »

saraid216 wrote: post #70
bayesianhorse wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I still object in this instance because promises were broken, The fact that we ever even anticipate that a promises involving specific things ought to be made is a mistake in our civic education. It is a goddamned stupid expectation to have of elected officials. They give an oath. That oath defines their job. Campaign promises should never be made, but no one significant can be elected without them. We ask them to…

Initial trust is always free. Candidates all compete for this initial implicitly transacted form of confidence. Then the electing public play the wait & see game. If the incumbent reneges on the promise, trust is understood to be broken, they vote someone else or soon enough become cynical of the entire system.

This system is bullshit. Promises made without accountability is the problem.

I think campaign promises should be made, but they should be made clearly with details of outcomes, timelines and plan Bs. Candidates can then compete on those detailed manifestos.

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

#88

Post by icebraining »

cabalamat wrote: post #83
jamestc wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't alone. People are organizing protests and preparing letterheads, as they should be, but it all feels just as ineffective as the last time. The ugly truth, as many people know, is that these complaints/protests are built-in to the infrastructure, they're expected and they disrupt absolutely nothing. We need a new conduit for effecting change.

> We need a new conduit for effecting change. In Europe this conduit is called the Pirate Party. If we are to win this fight, it's one of our best vehicles to do so.

Unfortunately, there's no one PP. I wish I could vote for the Swedish PP on the EP elections.

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

#89

Post by inthewind »

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #49
pilif wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The scary thing is this: these people were already voted away. People voted for Obama when he promised the end of warrantless wiretapping, the closing down of Guantanamo, etc. Why should voters believe the next guy who promises these things? It feels hopeless.

Welcome to democracy (or rather the facade)! Does the US president actually have that much individual power anyway? I wish it was more like the film Dave, inasmuch as that the president on his first day questions all the wrongs, and suggests to put them all right!

People love a figurehead to moan and blame, but it's not ever as simple as that. I'm not making excuses for Obama, but he's also up against the establishment.

The weird thing is, I'd read about Prism a few weeks back, and like others have just been under the assumption that my electronic data isn't secure. That's not to say I'm happy about it. If the NSA wasn't doing it, then someone else would be. I know that's a pretty crappy line, but it's the normal diatribe for the advocation of defence policies.

I'm totally disillusioned with British politics, so have the same sinking feeling, along with others to the point of apathy - which is really quite sad. I think the expression is 'don't let the bastards grind you down', I feel ground down. Our current government is a sad mishmash of nearly theres, and we haven't even got a viable opposition at the moment. Good times. That along with media lies, and the average Joe paying the price for corporate crimes - is all pretty shitty.

The worst thing about all of this, is that you end up questioning whether this is legitimate or not, is the US just bigging up their capabilities - is this all just disinfo?

Either way, the hot pot of data that a silo like Facebook has, is just gagging to get into the hands of the wrong doers, and that's probably a tough force to be reckoned with.

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

#90

Post by paganel »

microb wrote: post #10
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…

What I'm about to say is absolutely nuts, but it could be that this is something the NSA leaked intentionally and the media is running with it for reasons we are not aware of. Despite twitter and the like, the mainstream media is still largely in control of what occupies the "news" and therefore what the otherwise apathetic public is concerned about.

> What I'm about to say is absolutely nuts, but it could be that this is something the NSA leaked intentionally

I had a similar thought this morning, not necessarily about the NSA leaking this on purpose, but about how they could turn this into their own advantage. You can already see that Obama has gone on record saying that "we cannot fight against terror without giving away some of our freedoms" (or something very similar to this, I'm too lazy to search for the exact quote), a statement which he couldn't have made before this scandal.

What's really more disconcerting are all those comments (reasonably highly voted) coming from what seem to be genuine American citizens saying something very similar to what Obama is saying: "We can't fight terrorism if we don't let the Government go through our stuff".

A little bit OT, I'm surprised nobody has yet made a parallel between present-days United States and the end times of the Roman Republic. You just have to replace today's "terrorists" with the "Barbarians/Germans" of that time and Julius Caesar with today's over-reaching Government. The bad news is that for all of Brutus's and Cicero's efforts Caesar was followed by future emperor Augustus and the end of the Roman Republic.

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