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The Transparent Chinese

cn.nytimes.com

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Re: The Transparent Chinese

#51

Post by mcguire »

comex wrote: post #33
pessimizer wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between people who fight for expensive and inconvenient procedures in the name of a particular existential threat, but when pressed admit that the methods are not at all effective for that purpose - an enormous difference between those people and people who have a different motive than they claim to have? A minuscule difference. If you support A to do B, but admit that A doesn't do B, then I assume that you support A…

The main difference is what they believe they're doing. I seriously doubt that most or many people at the NSA think they're in the line of "suppression of dissent". Even though people doing the wrong things for the right reasons can cause a great deal of harm and should be stopped, it's still less of a threat than people doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons. For example, I doubt anyone from the NSA would show…

I think I need a citation for "...less of a threat than people doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons." Offhand, I cannot think of any societal-scale examples of anyone doing "the wrong things" for anything other than what they perceive to be the "right reasons".

For example, the Chinese internal intelligence services were likely not attempting to "ruin [anyone's] lives"; instead, they were probably trying to limit the damage a purported "human rights lawyer" could do to their society's stability. Unlike you, I have no doubt that United States (or any western) intelligence service would use similar tactics for similar perceived ends.

And if you want evidence of that, I'll just point you to the entire discussion of the justified use of torture after Sept. 11, 2001.

Re: The Transparent Chinese

#52

Post by mcguire »

stygianguest wrote: post #38
k-mcgrady wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "It just goes to show that most of the countries of the world actually do like the United States" I doubt countries support the US in things like Snowden because they 'like' them. They do it because the US is powerful and the repercussions of not extraditing Snowden aren't worth it to them.

It may seem hard to believe, but countries like Germany did operate by the assumption that the Americans at least have good intentions. Everybody knows that the US can and will push their agenda when they think it is important, but often nobody sees real harm in cooperating either. That is also why the spying on Merkel is extremely harmful to American-German relations. It changes the view of the public at large on th…

Actually, that is the oddest part of the story, to my mind.

Is it really true that Merkel, or any other major political figure in any major country, believed that they weren't being watched by essentially every other country, allied or not?

I can see that the public at large does not understand that, but the only reason I can find for the issue to come up is Merkel using that lack of understanding to manipulate German public opinions.

If the shoe were on the other foot, and it came out that German intelligence were listening to Mr. Obama's phone calls, I would at worst chuckle and at best be impressed if they came up with a new way of doing it. And I'd view any outrage from U.S. government circles as the cynical attempt at manipulation that it would be.

Re: The Transparent Chinese

#53

Post by oceanstone »

rayiner wrote: post #35
ilaksh wrote: post #14

>>The Edward J. Snowden affair finally raised a chilling question for the whole world: How much privacy do citizens have to give up for the sake of public security? For us Chinese, this question is slightly different: How much privacy do we have to give up for the sake of the government’s security? The thing that most westerns still don't realize is that the reasons we are giving up privacy actually are the same. Our…

Both you and the article miss a basic point, which is that the preservation of government, for its own sake, is in the interest of both the people who compose the government, and also of the people. This is particularly true in democratic countries, where the government is the vehicle for the popular will. The fall of a democratic government almost always leads to tyranny, because very few revolutionaries go to the t…

> ... democratic countries, where the government is the vehicle for the popular will

Ideally.

Re: The Transparent Chinese

#54

Post by stcredzero »

rayiner wrote: post #35
ilaksh wrote: post #14

>>The Edward J. Snowden affair finally raised a chilling question for the whole world: How much privacy do citizens have to give up for the sake of public security? For us Chinese, this question is slightly different: How much privacy do we have to give up for the sake of the government’s security? The thing that most westerns still don't realize is that the reasons we are giving up privacy actually are the same. Our…

Both you and the article miss a basic point, which is that the preservation of government, for its own sake, is in the interest of both the people who compose the government, and also of the people. This is particularly true in democratic countries, where the government is the vehicle for the popular will. The fall of a democratic government almost always leads to tyranny, because very few revolutionaries go to the t…

> Both you and the article miss a basic point, which is that the preservation of government, for its own sake, is in the interest of both the people who compose the government, and also of the people. This is particularly true in democratic countries, where the government is the vehicle for the popular will.

The USSR made the exact same sort of claim.

> In authoritarian regimes like China, there is less of an overlap between the interests of the people and the interests of the government.

There may be more of an overlap with the interests of the people as a whole, but less overlap with the interests of individuals. Polls are used extensively by party officials:

http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_s...

Re: The Transparent Chinese

#55

Post by stcredzero »

ilaksh wrote: post #14

>>The Edward J. Snowden affair finally raised a chilling question for the whole world: How much privacy do citizens have to give up for the sake of public security? For us Chinese, this question is slightly different: How much privacy do we have to give up for the sake of the government’s security? The thing that most westerns still don't realize is that the reasons we are giving up privacy actually are the same. Our…

The irony here, is that individuals and through them society are hurt tremendously by the loss of individual privacy, while institutions and society as a whole are benefitted by becoming more transparent. Yet, the balance of power is such that it is the individuals who are disclosing more and more information and the institutions who are controlling it.

Seems like there's room for another series of disruptions in the relationship between individuals and governments. I have a hunch that a society where rationality, privacy, and data security are truly prized would have economic advantages over the current ones.

Re: The Transparent Chinese

#56

Post by revelation »

idm wrote: post #42
revelation wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not setup your own? Dedicated servers are super affordable nowadays (if you are on HN, anyway).

How realistic is this in practice? On this side of the "great wall," it is relatively simple to create and use a VPN. Isn't it likely that VPNs are prohibited, or at least given special attention, within China?

I don't think they outright ban VPN just yet, but even if they did: get the OpenVPN source, XOR every incoming and outgoing byte with your favorite constant. That will already beat any packet detection engine out there (if you also take a little care to eliminate the "side channels", i.e. run it on a random port), while not compromising the security at all.

I wish we could just have dynamically mutating protocols, and Tor et al are certainly working in that direction, but for a single person with the education, this would be my way to go.

Re: The Transparent Chinese

#57

Post by prewett »

samspenc wrote: post #50
ender7 wrote: post #47

For almost a decade, “weiwen,” or “maintaining social stability,” has been the government’s public mantra[...]“Stability” has been deemed more important than education, health care and even national defense. Political and social fixity (to use an obnoxious historian term) has been one of the overriding goals of the dominant Chinese polity since before the Great Wall was built. It's something that Westerners have a lo…

Possibly, but the Communist Party is perhaps the only one of its kind that uses tax money to protect its stability, not necessarily the stability of the nation. I think that's exactly what the author is trying to say with this statement: > For us Chinese, this question is slightly different: How much privacy do we have to give up for the sake of the government’s security?

I think if you take a look at Chinese emperors you will find that they had a similar view on using tax money to protect their own stability.

For instance, the Qianlong emperor, one of the best recent emperors, banned over 2000 book and burned 150,000 copies of revolutionary literature. [1]

I'm guessing European kings also had a similar view of dissenters...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor#Burning_of_boo...

Re: The Transparent Chinese

#58

Post by senriblyume »

maize33 wrote: post #49

One quibble: the article says that the ubiquitous surveillance cameras "have little to do with crime prevention" and cites a single case in which they weren't useful as proof. In fact they're constantly used to bust hit and runs, muggings, etc. I agree with Franklin's "those who would trade..." quote but its dishonest to pretend that this kind of surveillance doesn't help catch a lot of crime.

Can't agree more. There are loads of examples show that surveillance cameras did play an important role in crime prevention and criminal convictions, but they are conveniently ignored in the article ... He made some valid points, but using surveillance cameras to support them? I don't buy it.
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