In addition to the transparency, oversight, and accountability that Schneier proposes, there also needs to be some ability for the population to reasonably assess risk. A lot this stuff is driven by fear. And the government does use that to its advantage to push things through that might otherwise be objectionable. If the population of our country is scared to death of possible terrorist attacks (as it seems to be), then I don't see how that same population will vote/protest to restrict the government as long as it claims to be protecting them from imminent disaster.
Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet
21–30 of 122 posts
Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet
#22The common pattern in the responses of most organizations is "word play". Skype - Skype wasn't changing its protocols to make it possible for the government to eavesdrop on users, because the government was already able to eavesdrop on users. Google and Facebook- Google and Facebook insist that the NSA has no "direct access" to their servers. Of course not; the smart way for the NSA to get all the data is through sni…
Unfortunately they probably can get away with technicalities. As long as it sounds reassuring to the vast majority of people who were only engaged enough with this issue to read a couple of headlines.
Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think its as simple as "ending it with a phone call". Billion dollar programs don't ever get killed that easy.
It is literally that simple. If Bush ordered this surveillance started, Obama can order it stopped. The NSA works for him. If they don't do as he asks he can start firing people until they do. Obviously Schneier understood this when he wrote his 2005 column.
I think it has gone beyond that - if Obama stood up and said "I've made that phone call, Gen. Alexander is turning off PRISM as we speak" would anyone believe it?
Its verifiability that counts.
Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet
#24We should be able to trust the government to do things like run courts, build roads, and deliver clean water. We should never trust the government when it comes to standing armies, criminal prosecutions, intelligence gathering, and expansion of its own power.
> We should be able to trust the government to do things like run courts
> We should never trust the government when it comes to criminal prosecutions
And now I'm confused again. Do all cases simply become civil cases? Murder is now OK again?
Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think its as simple as "ending it with a phone call". Billion dollar programs don't ever get killed that easy.
It is literally that simple. If Bush ordered this surveillance started, Obama can order it stopped. The NSA works for him. If they don't do as he asks he can start firing people until they do. Obviously Schneier understood this when he wrote his 2005 column.
If Congress had chartered, ordered, or knowingly funded the NSA's domestic spying, it would be a lot harder. But as things are, I'm inclined to agree with you.
Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet
#26Why on earth would you want people to trust the government? That's what got us into this mess.
You are blaming the victim a bit here. There are bad actors that have done bad things. They are who got us into this mess.
It's not that every member of the government is bad, it's that trusting all of them is a bad idea.
Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet
#27We should be able to trust the government to do things like run courts, build roads, and deliver clean water. We should never trust the government when it comes to standing armies, criminal prosecutions, intelligence gathering, and expansion of its own power.
> We should be able to trust the government to do things like run courts > We should never trust the government when it comes to criminal prosecutions And now I'm confused again. Do all cases simply become civil cases? Murder is now OK again?
I said the government shouldn't be trusted. That's the point of the adversarial system.
Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet
#28It's interesting to compare the framing of this column with Schneier's commentary on the revelations of NSA surveillance in 2005: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/12/nsa_and_bushs_... It's full of "Bush did X", "Bush wanted Y". Now he says the NSA has "gone rogue". Huh. If Schneier is as unhappy with today's programs as he was with 2005's, then perhaps he should communicate a bit more clearly that today's o…
Absolutely - but I see this a lot happening with other news outlets as well.
They heavily try to de-personalize issues like NSA or the IRS and attribute it to systemic failures and attribute the blame towards bureaucratic functions or something like "the current administration".
At the same time they seem to fully recognizing that attacks need to be personal in order to stick - as they demonstrated back at the time with the criticism of the Bush administration.
Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's solvable, too. If they are interested in having credibility, Internet services can implement secure communications and storage. They may have to charge for it because they will forego some ad revenue. So what to make of the fact that nobody who has loudly declared they are all for customers' privacy has actually done anything about it?
Don't forget mesh networking. Seems like mesh with a combination of trusted anonymous P2P would be very difficult to tap into. There's lots of nerd fun here for those interested. And there's a big need. A shame more folks aren't stepping up to the plate. Just to whet the appetite, how much of the internet do you actually participate in, versus just consume? Most server stats show a 40-1 or even 200-1 ratio of readers…
Bittorrent is so last decade! We need a replacement that is truly anonymous. An not just file sharing, but also browsing, email and search.
Problem is, suppose TOR is fixed and we are anonymous on its network, we still need to NEVER log in with an account we used over clear net. We have to give up our "friend" lists on FB and followers on Twitter, our karma on reddit, all that could tie us back to a known identity. We can never email a friend on his clear net email account. We are reduced to an anonymous identity talking with anonymous others. It's like 4chan in a way.
So, there, we can have anonymity if we give up our old identities and everyone we connected with in the past. And that's assuming we can trust TOR. Sad/
A deeper problem is that we need to treat our computers and phones as hostile. They can push updates with backdoors any time they want, to everyone or to selected few. Apple, MS and Google hold the update keys of most devices in the world. We need a secure OS. Maybe it's Linux, if we can be sure it does not carry hidden backdoors implanted by the state(s).
And even then, we need to trust the hardware. The disk, the networking card, all components could spy on us. Maybe they too have backdoors.
Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet
#30We should be able to trust the government to do things like run courts, build roads, and deliver clean water. We should never trust the government when it comes to standing armies, criminal prosecutions, intelligence gathering, and expansion of its own power.
very true, government suppose to service us just like an excellent butler. when butler starts snoop around and do more harm than good , then it is the time to get rid of said butler and find a new one. for example I would think it would be dispeakable if my security guard and/or butler would be reading emails just to "service" me better. Governments do benefit from some visceral punishments from time to time. But not…
Most assistants actually do this, because it's critical to their job.