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It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

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Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#91

Post by adventured »

nashequilibrium wrote: post #77
angersock wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extensive surveillance didn't do a thing to save that man, and future surveillance won't bring his legs back. More people have suffered in Gitmo than were injured in the Boston attack, and more people died from drone strikes than when the towers fell.

Did you see the guys youtube videos? Russia contacted the U.S. about one of the brothers, also the FBI did track that he was going to Russia and also interviewd him. They failed in not being able to act on the intelligence they had. The question is what are you willing to give up to go to that LA Laker game without worrying about terrorism or whether your parents will get home safely from the game. I am not trying to…

It's not necessary to give up anything to go to that Laker game without worrying about terrorism. Just like it wasn't 20 years ago, when the threat was as great as it is today.

The only thing that has changed, is the bureaucracy acquired a massive amount of new money and power after 9/11 and they're unwilling to give any of it up. This despite the fact that the threat isn't even remotely as great as they've claimed for the past decade. The security theater production - eg most of what the TSA does at airports, in which they just pretend to work security - is meant to keep Americans living in constant fear.

The US Government's fear business has been booming, worth a couple hundred billion a year these days.

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#92

Post by jumby »

angersock wrote: post #81
jumby wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must live in a utopia where there are no evil-doers.

I don't need to live in a utopia to see that doing the right thing despite being afraid and aware of existential threats is something worth doing.

Would your opinion change if a nuclear bomb was detonated in Houston, TX?

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#93

Post by Cookingboy »

angersock wrote: post #63
Cookingboy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm about to say may be too unpopular on HackerNews. Have you considered the possibility that not everyone shares the same moral standard and ideology? People came from different backgrounds and have different experiences, and most things are not black and white, but different shades of gray in this world. I'm sure there are people who consider the Fourth Amendment to be obsolete just like there are people who c…

Well, let's just admit the moral highground here, and take a stand: These people are Wrong. We are Right, because we stand for personal privacy and liberty--ideals incompatible with their ideals. There's the line in the sand.

No there isn't a line in the sand. It's a gray issue. Ideologies and society values change throughout the history, and there is not right or wrong answer in many of those cases.

Like a poster above mentioned, what IF thousands of lives are saved by sacrificing the privacy of a few million people? Is that worth it? If you say no, then what if I ask you the lives could be that of your loved ones?

Just want to stress from a different perspective, my family grew up poor in a 3rd world country, and they laugh at American's obsession with human rights and they just say "that's what people do if they never needed to worry about putting food on their table".

It's all a matter of perspective actually, and you will NEVER have a productive conversation without being able to understand what the other side is coming from.

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#94

Post by johnpowell »

mingmecca wrote: post #76

To answer the question in the title: I'd rather be dead than live my life in a fishbowl and watched most of the time. I'd rather live with the reality of a dangerous world instead of suspecting that some CPU or agent is analyzing my calls & emails. To the defenders of the NSA, this sentiment is abhorrent, I'm sure.

Do you still use Google? Or any of the companies mentioned in the PRISM leaks?

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#95

Post by duairc »

tptacek wrote: post #70
duairc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a Deleuze quote about this that I really like: “It is not the slumber of reason that engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality”. What I understand this to mean is that the nature of “rationality” is such that a rational person can rationalize anything . Nobody is saying “EXTERMINATE ALL RATIONAL THOUGHT”, obviously this is just you trolling, but to the extent that anything intelligent can be…

"There's no possible reason for people to support these programs", the preceding comment says, "and so it is pointless and even harmful for us to talk about possible reasons".

> There's no possible reason for people to support these programs and so it is pointless and even harmful for us to talk about possible reasons.

I almost agree with this, were it not equivocating two different senses of the phrase “possible reason”.

There's no legitimate reason for people to support these programs and so it is pointless and even harmful for us to talk about possible reasons.

There are possible reasons to support these programs, but they're not legitimate or sensible or reasonable or good. And that's precisely why it is harmful to talk about possible reasons to support these programs. You make it harder for people to be sure in their own minds that they are as fucked up as they seem, which makes it harder to build resistance to them, which is an urgent necessity. It might sound like what I'm talking about is immaterial, but it's not. To build resistance you need morale, to have morale you need at the very least to have the surety that you're right. To participate in the endless repetition of half-baked, rational-sounding defences of the indefensible is to make it harder for those who want to attack the indefensible to believe that they're not crazy. But we need them to believe that they're not crazy.

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#96

Post by rodgerd »

einehexe wrote: post #27

The elephant it the room that everyone is wants to ignore is that Google's data was intercepted by the British. It is quite interesting how that is conveniently overlooked to push a certain narrative.

If you aren't aware of the Five Eyes and Echelon arrangements, you don't have an opinion worth airing.

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#97

Post by tn13 »

sharkweek wrote: post #19

I have an honest and serious question -- who are the developers and designers who put these systems into place for the NSA? Are they aware of what they're doing or is it all classified and contracted out? Are they proud of their work? Is it just a paycheck? Surely someone with such a high aptitude could easily get a job elsewhere -- I guess I'm just unable to make the connection on who willingly builds this kind of s…

Even though I am very vocal about my opposition to NSA spying a fat paycheck can always make me change my mind.

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#98

Post by MisterWebz »

derefr wrote: post #86
Phlarp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a terrible reason. These men were the definition of the type of thing a system like this should catch. intelligence agencies had been warned about one of them multiple times and they were both using the internet to self radicalize. The fact that the Boston bombings still happened should be proof enough that these systems either A) Do not work or B) are not being used against this type of threat. If it isn't i…

Or... the system catches things like this all the time, this is just one that slipped through, and if the system wasn't in place, there would be many, many more incidents of this type. Maybe. (This is normally "bear-repellent amulet" type thinking, but I think there's a specific exemption in this case, in that there are good reasons why you'd see no evidence of the system's effectiveness: the government doesn't like…

So if the system catches things like this all the time, how come they only stopped 54 (no wait, that's the old figure, the new figure is 1 or 2) terror plots?

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#99

Post by tomphoolery »

mikeyouse wrote: post #30
sharkweek wrote: post #19

I have an honest and serious question -- who are the developers and designers who put these systems into place for the NSA? Are they aware of what they're doing or is it all classified and contracted out? Are they proud of their work? Is it just a paycheck? Surely someone with such a high aptitude could easily get a job elsewhere -- I guess I'm just unable to make the connection on who willingly builds this kind of s…

Everyone on HN acts like there's no possible reason for people to support these types of activities, but there could be very legitimate reasons these engineers choose to do what they do. It could just be a challenge for them. Where else can you not only get away with, but be rewarded with a good salary and a pension for hacking into the most secure systems on earth? It must be thrilling to be 'Competing' against the…

My only real fear is that some of these less-legitimate surveillance practices will discourage US companies from forming and people using US-hosted services, which would be a major blow to the United States' already volatile economy. The tech industry is the only industry that is/was actually doing well during the recession, and now our government is behaving dangerously with the trust that many international firms have given us. With that in mind, it's very alarming to hear that the NSA surveillance extends beyond admitted and known data collection in supposedly secure networks.

Seems like a bad idea to undermine the trust of most of the people (e.g. the tech industry) keeping your country afloat, if you ask me. And I really hope my fear here is unfounded...

Re: It’s time for Silicon Valley to ask: Is it worth it?

#100

Post by freshhawk »

I find it strange that the assumption is made that "Silicon Valley" is clearly going to be on the side of the general public in this. Why?

Isn't the smart money going to side with the real power? If those well connected enough to attempt to predict things see the odds of the US rolling back the surveillance state to be low and the odds of the levels of surveillance growing then certainly brokering user data and developing better surveillance tech and more popular services that produce personal data is a growth industry?

I personally think it would be insane to bet on a significant overhaul of the american defense and security industry. Everyone understands why the giants didn't pull a Lavabit and just helped cover things up, and carefully prepared inaccurate statements when it came out. The exact same reasons are why it's a much better business decision to go along with this, to step on your competitors to help further the surveillance state rather than fight it.

I only see two arguments for this: That they will lose customers because people demand privacy and will stop using their services if they cooperate. This hasn't happened yet and, if history repeats itself, would just take a big marketing spend to stop anyway. The user experience of any company taking a stand would probably be worse than a cooperating company, so people would have to make a sacrifice to secure their privacy. Also something that is clearly not what people do right now. This is clearly going to be the free market ideologue's argument. Fair warning: I'm going to ignore "people will boycott Google because they are self interested rational actors and it would be irrational to sacrifice privacy for convenience" like I would ignore other naive religious arguments.

The other argument seems to boil down to just: "But that's my team/tribe and they're the good guys" or that it's felt that rich and powerful people in the tech industry are fundamentally different kinds of people and will readily risk their money and power for reasons that obviously don't motivate most other rich and powerful people.

Neither is particularly convincing.

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