The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#41

Post by ImprovedSilence » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:10 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #15

pdonis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the NSA does not have control. How do you know? The Internet backbone was developed using US government funding. How do you know that the US government did not put backdoors there? It did in the case of the long-distance telephone network. We can have our cake (terrorist monitoring) and eat it too (maintain individual privacy) I agree that this could be done in theory; I'm not sure it can be done in practice.

I don't know in the epistemological sense, but there's just no reason to believe such a thing to be true.

There is also no reason to believe it's not true, no?

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#42

Post by w_t_payne » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:12 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #3

Commandeering implies control, and the NSA does not have control. No one has "control" over the Internet. I also don't like this, "us vs. them" rhetoric that this story has turned some people towards, where the NSA are the unequivocal bad guys and we, the "little people", are the unequivocal good guys. That's a great way to get absolutely nothing done. The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (B…

True.

The "Us-vs-Them" rhetoric directly feeds our pack-animal drive for tribalism, from which nothing good ever emerged.

However, it does make for some amusing rabble-rousing.

Now that the rabble has been roused, so to speak, we need to move the debate onto a more mature phase:

1. We need to work out how to live our lives in a state of total surveillance - when our lives are transparent not only to the NSA but also to innumerable other state & non-state security services.

2. We need to work out how to maintain the balance of power between the individual and the state.

3. We need to work out how to maintain business & personal relationships in an era of total transparency.

4. We need to work out how to maintain our freedom and independence of thought when the objects of our attention, our knowledge and our feelings can be observed and (potentially) controlled in detail.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#43

Post by eliasmacpherson » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:12 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #28

apalmer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'There's a lot of speculation about what could happen, but if we look only at what has happened, people aren't being snatched up off the streets because of the NSA's monitoring programs.' How can you possibly know this? In fact I would argue as much as we 'know' anything at all related to the NSA program we know that it has lead to interventions. The NSA claims this surveillance has been instrumental to stopping 'doz…

I know it for the same reason I know unicorns and leprechauns don't exist - there is no credible evidence supporting it. Ignore and refuse to participate in wild speculation until evidence appears. That's how we have to operate, lest we succumb to every conspiratorial fantasy the Internet can come up with.

It's hardly wild speculation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

Use of NSA info in the manner described above is scope creep because they aren't terrorists, or foreign.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#44

Post by jmcmichael » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:12 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #3

Commandeering implies control, and the NSA does not have control. No one has "control" over the Internet. I also don't like this, "us vs. them" rhetoric that this story has turned some people towards, where the NSA are the unequivocal bad guys and we, the "little people", are the unequivocal good guys. That's a great way to get absolutely nothing done. The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (B…

There are many lines that one could draw to divide this whole mess into two sides. Who's the 'us' and who's the 'them'?

I can think of quite a few lines to divide up the power-centers and sociological groups, and the intelligence community/military-industrial complex is almost always on the wrong side.

How about Congress vs. the Executive? The people in congress, our elected representatives, have been asking serious questions about these programs behind closed doors, and they have been lied to. They have been lied to by the representatives of the intelligence community (IC) in open court. Representatives of the IC continue to lie and dissemble on national TV, getting softball questions from sycophantic 'journalists'.

How about the IC vs. the Internet community as represented by open standards bodies and the rest of the international internet? The IC has been involved in numerous plots to undermine the basic security of the Internet both by engineering military-class viruses and trojans (Stuxnet), and inserting their hardwired and software backdoors in critical infrastructure - all unilateral decisions done w/o consultation of any of the open governing bodies of the Internet.

I could go on. These are critically important actions and concepts being debated here. The IC has given absolutely no indication that they are willing to compromise or work with the rest of the world, and almost every positive step towards openness has required civil disobedience.

How is this not an 'us vs. them' battle on almost every front one could draw?

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#45

Post by Sauer_Kraut » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:12 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #28

apalmer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'There's a lot of speculation about what could happen, but if we look only at what has happened, people aren't being snatched up off the streets because of the NSA's monitoring programs.' How can you possibly know this? In fact I would argue as much as we 'know' anything at all related to the NSA program we know that it has lead to interventions. The NSA claims this surveillance has been instrumental to stopping 'doz…

I know it for the same reason I know unicorns and leprechauns don't exist - there is no credible evidence supporting it. Ignore and refuse to participate in wild speculation until evidence appears. That's how we have to operate, lest we succumb to every conspiratorial fantasy the Internet can come up with.

"I know it for the same reason I know unicorns and leprechauns don't exist - there is no credible evidence supporting it."

Of course there is no credible evidence when evidence is known to be actively suppressed. See: 'Intel Laundering.'

Also the US boasts that spying resulted in thwarted attempts. Where are those court cases? More importantly, where are the bodies of those involved? Sure is easy to not have credible evidence when all evidence aside from one sided snippets and meaningless statistics is never published.

edit: diminoten sure shifts goal posts around a lot. Changing persons to US persons, etc.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#46

Post by alan_cx » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:15 PM UTC

apalmer wrote: post #35

swombat wrote: post #25

If Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook simultaneously came out and published all statistics that the government is not allowing them to publish, and declared that they will continue to publish those as they come in and be entirely transparent about the tracking that the NSA asked of them, would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? I don't think so. I think the NSA would fold…

Well I hope this is not the case. I am against the NSA monitoring program. I think powerful commercial interests colluding to purposefully break the rule of law is a huge negative. Lets disconnect this behavior from the specific instance's moral outrage: If Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell simultaneously came out and ignored all EPA restrictions would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? Thi…

Are you seriously comparing protecting the environment to embarrassing a government in to open disclosure?

Really?

Two completely different things.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#47

Post by Sauer_Kraut » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:15 PM UTC

apalmer wrote: post #6

This line of argument is kinda weak. Personally I agree with the end goals, but the argument isn't compelling. Realistically these companies don't have much choice, and these businesses end users for the most part (the 99.99% that aren't technophiles) don't really care that the NSA is snooping. I think we need to step back from hoping that business will protect the people. The people will protect the people, and if t…

"Realistically these companies don't have much choice"

Of course they do. They can comply or not. If they do not comply they may face court. Of course it is impossible to say how that court would go since none of them are making a choice to stop being co-conspirators.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#48

Post by dwiel » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:15 PM UTC

apalmer wrote: post #35

swombat wrote: post #25

If Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook simultaneously came out and published all statistics that the government is not allowing them to publish, and declared that they will continue to publish those as they come in and be entirely transparent about the tracking that the NSA asked of them, would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? I don't think so. I think the NSA would fold…

Well I hope this is not the case. I am against the NSA monitoring program. I think powerful commercial interests colluding to purposefully break the rule of law is a huge negative. Lets disconnect this behavior from the specific instance's moral outrage: If Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell simultaneously came out and ignored all EPA restrictions would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? Thi…

The point of civil disobedience is that those doing don't believe that the official methods for determine what a good thing is are working. Comparing this suggested action to oil companies and the EPA is like comparing Ghandi to the KKK.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#49

Post by diminoten » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:16 PM UTC

apalmer wrote: post #40

diminoten wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it for the same reason I know unicorns and leprechauns don't exist - there is no credible evidence supporting it. Ignore and refuse to participate in wild speculation until evidence appears. That's how we have to operate, lest we succumb to every conspiratorial fantasy the Internet can come up with.

What on earth are you talking about? The whole purpose of the NSA monitoring program is to provide actionable leads to enable intervention by law enforcement. You can think this is 'bad', you can think this is 'good', you can think it is highly effective, you can think it is ineffective... but arguing that the NSA program has never lead to anyone being 'snatched up off the streets', is WILDLY disconnected from realit…

> but arguing that the NSA program has never lead to anyone being 'snatched up off the streets', is WILDLY disconnected from reality.

Do you have evidence that indicates US citizens are being 'snatched' from the streets of the US without being arrested, tried, or convicted as per the US criminal justice system?

You say it's wildly disconnected from reality and that the NSA's entire purpose is to do precisely this, and if that's the case you should be able to easily show me examples which demonstrate the 'snatchings' are a) occurring and b) the norm.

If it's not conspiratorial fantasy, then the evidence should be in abundance, right?

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#50

Post by diminoten » Mon, Aug 12, 2013, 5:17 PM UTC

Sauer_Kraut wrote: post #45

diminoten wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it for the same reason I know unicorns and leprechauns don't exist - there is no credible evidence supporting it. Ignore and refuse to participate in wild speculation until evidence appears. That's how we have to operate, lest we succumb to every conspiratorial fantasy the Internet can come up with.

"I know it for the same reason I know unicorns and leprechauns don't exist - there is no credible evidence supporting it." Of course there is no credible evidence when evidence is known to be actively suppressed. See: 'Intel Laundering.' Also the US boasts that spying resulted in thwarted attempts. Where are those court cases? More importantly, where are the bodies of those involved? Sure is easy to not have credible…

So you're arguing that there is no evidence because the NSA is so good at what they do, they've successfully hidden all operational evidence from the public for their entire time of existence?

Is Snowden the first mistake the NSA has ever made, in your eyes, then?