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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

#151

Post by Torgo »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #47
eightyone wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We've tried to write a streamlined UI for GPG keysigning parties in university. The CLI of gpg was absolutely hostile. Fatal errors would still have 0 as the exit code etc... :(

You're supposed to link against GPG-ME. It's specifically for that purpose.

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

#152

Post by tokenizer »

robomartin wrote: post #129

I know a couple of people that, for as long as I've known them, have been consumed by this idea of having to be able to defend yourself from an intrusive government. They, as one would expect, have gun safes full of guns of all types, piles of ammunition and other survivalist tools and equipment. When the Newtown school massacre happened I actually called a friend in the Sheriff's department to ask if I should "drop…

You can't, because a rebellion/revolution is a potentiality. Sure, it seemed unlikely, but now not so much.

Would I criticize someone for not locking their front door? No. Locks only keep honest people honest, and the chances of your property being broken into are fairly slim.

Would I criticize someone for preparing themselves for a collapse/rebellion/revolution of some kind? Absolutely not. The cost of not doing so is much higher than lost possessions. Rights, Your life, etc...

The main thing to take away from this, is that you can't know for sure, and everybody reacts to those percentages differently. It's better to be safe than sorry, or you can live fast and die young without worries.

I should note that the duality above can be taken in both contexts.

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

#153

Post by anaptdemise »

stonemetal wrote: post #141
danenania wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm not making excuses for Obama, but he's also up against the establishment." Obama's not 'up against' the establishment. He is the establishment. After everything he's done, how on earth are people still ascribing good intentions to this guy?

No, he is one small part of the establishment that will be gone in < 4 years. There are senators who have been there decades, there are senior management at government agencies who have been there decades. The president isn't powerless but he is very temporary and fighting against large entrenched organizations. Consider how hard it would be to be the CEO of Microsoft or IBM if everyone under you knew you were going…

Focusing on the president (small p, for the actual person) is the wrong conversation. The debate should focus on the President and the role and scope of the Executive. That requires more than educating the average voting citizen. It requires a public discussion of the moral and ethical pitfalls of a powerful Executive in context of world history. Even then, it misses the bulk of the issue. The masses elect and re-elect a legislature with If you look at the 2012 presidential debate topics, it is mostly devoid of any real substantive insights into the candidates world view or ethics. This leaves the citizens to deduce disparate idealized versions of the candidate based on mostly trivial or momentary current event topics. Combined with the two party system, you get a citizenry with black and white goggles. The average person never has to think philosophically about how elected officials might steer the moral and ethical direction of the country.

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

#154

Post by gurkendoktor »

Torgo wrote: post #151
gurkendoktor wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've tried to write a streamlined UI for GPG keysigning parties in university. The CLI of gpg was absolutely hostile. Fatal errors would still have 0 as the exit code etc... :(

You're supposed to link against GPG-ME. It's specifically for that purpose.

Thanks! We apparently all failed at Google at the time. We were using Java but it seems there are wrappers.

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

#155

Post by sshconnection »

Shivetya wrote: post #103
TelmoMenezes wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

what was the excuse for voting for him again in 2012? really I fail to understand people here, One day they bitch about invasion of privacy the next day they want the same people to have every bit of control over their health care. Well guess what, you cannot have it both ways. Granted he had help from a major government agency interfering with groups opposed to his reelection from gathering funds. So perhaps you did…

I believe the excuses names were Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan...

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

#156

Post by mullingitover »

betterunix wrote: post #146
icebraining wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they should have voted for substance, for McCain, instead, who just yesterday called this process "appropriate". And of course, the two parties chose to approve and re-approve the PATRIOT act.

Who says it is a choice between two people? You may not have noticed, but there are more than two parties in this country. How about all the Democrat and Republican voters who talk about choosing the lesser of two evils get over it and vote for third parties whose views they agree with ? Stop being cowards and worrying about the "other side." If anything, we will at least force the major parties to work harder to kee…

Winner-take-all voting systems naturally tend to produce a two-party system. There's an aversion to vote third party due to the problem of throwing your vote away. So, before you can have viable third parties in this country, you have to revamp the voting system to something like instant runoff.

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

#157

Post by Amadou »

Loughla wrote: post #122
inthewind wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I was getting at. I was suggesting that pointing the finger of blame at one person, and placing the onus on them - and asking them to resign is a little shortsighted. Expecting the problem to just vanish is merely wishful thinking. Is he or is he not the establishment, that's probably another debate in itself. I'm over the pond here, so I can't quite grok the American reaction to the recent news over…

what's the general feeling over there? Mostly people fall into two categories: ignorant or apathetic. Either people watch too much national news, and don't really hear this story, or if they do know about it they don't believe it's that big of a deal. Here in the midwest, "I have nothing to hide" is a popular comment.

There are all kinds of intellectual arguments against the "I have nothing to hide" excuse, but the argument itself is emotional - "I am a good person, bad things do not happen to good people."

We need examples, emotional heart-string tugging examples of good people who had something to hide and suffered because it was exposed. I don't have any off the top of my head, but perhaps someone has already realized this and started collecting them somewhere on the web?

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

#158

Post by XorNot »

einhverfr wrote: post #34
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…

The problem is two-fold. 1. Ensuring that the key belongs to the person you think it does. 2. Graceful changing of keys. In theory you could do something like what I am proposing with GPG too. You could sign a public key with the previous private key or two. In practice, getting the keys to where you want them is a bit more complex. As a point I made clear in my blog entry, I am not a fan of X509, because the impedan…

I think the problem is the one you're inadvertently recreating here: you're trying to imagine a system which is perfect amongst people who are always in isolation with each other and tries to make keys as perpetual as possible.

Consider the alternative: social keying. A system where the expectation is that you'll change keys frequently, taking advantage of day-to-day social interactions and the like to do so. I see a friend, our phones are in proximity - software takes advantage of this and generates and signs a new key.

Of course, this is where the whole "metadata" issue really crops up: those awesome secure keys, to work, still timestamp and identify you perfectly.

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

#159

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

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.

Substance? You think Mitt Romney had substance?

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

#160

Post by nitrogen »

temp453463343 wrote: post #134
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.

It's the American obsession with the apocalypse. Conflict is "fun" and "cool" and gives people a way to amplify their voice disproportionately. Blow up a government building and you'll get more attention than someone who works peacefully a whole lifetime.

It's not a modern or uniquely American concept. Consider the story of the prodigal son, for example. The wayward son received all the attention, even if the faithful son had a bigger inheritance left in the end.
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