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NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

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Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#131

Post by Amadou »

infectoid wrote: post #130
Amadou wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think NSA people are evil. They believe that the things they do are for good. Evil like in the movies doesn't exist. In the real-world evil is simply a lack of perspective (some would call it empathy instead). No one ever wakes up and decides they want to be a villain. They always have some sort of logic that rationalizes their actions as being reasonable if not outright good. The more they act on that lack o…

Indeed. But also imagine that as an engineer on any secret NSA project, being shown real information regarding atrocities that have never been publicised and knowing that you can help to make the world a better place. You would have the passion and motivations to do these things and have meaning in your life and work. Evil in this case is an aggregation of actions by many parties, not individuals and is rarely commit…

imagine that as an engineer on any secret NSA project, being shown real information regarding atrocities that have never been publicised and knowing that you can help to make the world a better place.

Yep. Of course if that engineer had perspective he would have to wonder if there was more to the story than just what he was being shown. It is easy to doubt the people we already think are wrong, the hard thing is to doubt the people we agree with.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#132

Post by swalkergibson »

adventured wrote: post #126
swalkergibson wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not support this level of spying, period. However, the ignition of any real movement would certainly be helped by the personal embarrassment of anybody with a large enough mouthpiece. s/Glenn Beck/Rachel Maddow if you want, the point still stands. Somebody has to get really, really worked up over this. EDIT: As it so happens, Glenn Beck is actually not in favor of this type of surveillance. I would have never gu…

Isn't Glenn Beck a strong Constitutionalist? I was always under the impression that was his entire platform.

He is, but I made the assumption that due to his other markedly hawk-ish opinions that he might have suspended liberty in favor of security. I do not say this often, but it seems like Glenn Beck and I are on the same page on this issue.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#133

Post by nl »

SheepSlapper wrote: post #101
marvin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that, folks, is why we as engineers and hackers have a moral duty to be very selective in the types of work we take on and for whom. Computer yechnology work is still a wild west. Other fields which have similar ethical considerations - medicine, chemistry, engineering - have ethics courses which make it clear to the graduates that their professional decisions have consequences. There is no such standard for co…

IEEE Code of Ethics: http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html ACM Code of Ethics: http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics So, the standards exist but people choose to ignore them. Which, I guess since you're not forced to be a member of either professional society as a "computer person", isn't all that unreasonable. But personal ethics should win out in these situations without someone else having to…

I took a look at the ACM Code of Ethics, and I don't see anything that would be violated by working on PRISM. Specifically:

1.7 Respect the privacy of others. ..

User data observed during the normal duties of system operation and maintenance must be treated with strictest confidentiality, except in cases where it is evidence for the violation of law, organizational regulations, or this Code. In these cases, the nature or contents of that information must be disclosed only to proper authorities.

That specifically allows the kind of work done by PRISM.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#134

Post by SheepSlapper »

nl wrote: post #133
SheepSlapper wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IEEE Code of Ethics: http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html ACM Code of Ethics: http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics So, the standards exist but people choose to ignore them. Which, I guess since you're not forced to be a member of either professional society as a "computer person", isn't all that unreasonable. But personal ethics should win out in these situations without someone else having to…

I took a look at the ACM Code of Ethics, and I don't see anything that would be violated by working on PRISM. Specifically: 1.7 Respect the privacy of others. .. User data observed during the normal duties of system operation and maintenance must be treated with strictest confidentiality, except in cases where it is evidence for the violation of law, organizational regulations, or this Code. In these cases, the natur…

Maybe 2.7 or 3.1 of the ACM code?

2.7 Improve public understanding of computing and its consequences.

Computing professionals have a responsibility to share technical knowledge with the public by encouraging understanding of computing, including the impacts of computer systems and their limitations. This imperative implies an obligation to counter any false views related to computing.

3.1 Articulate social responsibilities of members of an organizational unit and encourage full acceptance of those responsibilities.

Because organizations of all kinds have impacts on the public, they must accept responsibilities to society. Organizational procedures and attitudes oriented toward quality and the welfare of society will reduce harm to members of the public, thereby serving public interest and fulfilling social responsibility. Therefore,organizational leaders must encourage full participation in meeting social responsibilities as well as quality performance.

Or number one on IEEE?

1. to accept responsibility in making decisions consistent with the safety, health, and welfare of the public, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment;

Given, what's "best for the public" is up for debate (at least according to the people doing the collecting).

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#135

Post by rickdale »

marvin wrote: post #65
angersock wrote: post #3

From the article: NSA Director Keith Alexander disclosed in Senate testimony in October that the NSA had run a pilot project in 2010 and 2011 to collect “samples” of U.S. cellphone location data. The data collected were never available for intelligence analysis purposes, and the project was discontinued because it had no “operational value,” he said. Alexander allowed that a broader collection of such data “may be so…

> And that, folks, is why we as engineers and hackers have a moral duty to be very selective in the types of work we take on and for whom. Computer yechnology work is still a wild west. Other fields which have similar ethical considerations - medicine, chemistry, engineering - have ethics courses which make it clear to the graduates that their professional decisions have consequences. There is no such standard for co…

I'll never forget when I was taking CS in high school and we were forced out of the lab for a week and had class in the library. Our teacher spent the week teaching computer programming ethics. We talked about a lot of stuff, as you can probably imagine, but I was glad to have someone show me what he believed a good path to take with development was. In the end we all had to write a paper that he graded pretty damn aggressively for a cs class. Thats the only time in all my cs education that computer programming ethics in this context came up. Definitely agree it deserves more conversation.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#136

Post by Crito »

onosendai wrote: post #123
agwa wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet there is no shortage of doctors willing to assist in torture of prisoners at Guantanamo, assist in executions of prisoners, or conduct non-consensual and medically unnecessary procedures (inserting catheters, rectal examinations, etc.) upon demand of the police. The problem isn't lack of ethics courses but a fundamental flaw in human nature, which is that people easily forget all their personal ethics when someon…

> people easily forget all their personal ethics when someone in authority (whether their boss or the police) tells them to do something. I don't know whether you're aware of this or not, but you just described a famous experiment which essentially arrived at the same conclusion. It's worth a read for those not familiar with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

I haven't looked into it myself, but I did hear that there is an alternative interpretation of that experiment. Apparently the test subjects did as they were asked, up until the very last prompt used, which was the strongest. Less a request and more a demand. As soon as the prompts stopped appealing to the test subjects desire to further science or not fuck up the experiment, but began making demands, the test subjects almost universally balked.

This interpretation isn't really any less disturbing, since it suggests that people will commit atrocities and simultaneously believe that they are doing the right thing. Perhaps it also says something about the general public's trust of, not necessarily authority figures, but rather scientists.

Reading up on this has been on my back-burner for a while, this interpretation might be well considered and discarded, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

I believe this is related: http://www.is.wayne.edu/MNISSANI/PAGEPUB/Milgram.htm

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#137

Post by foobarqux »

swalsh wrote: post #119
pit wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I humbly disagree. I was waiting for the site to "finish loading", and when I realized that it had, I was delighted.

My point is that, journalism is free because they are subsidized by advertisements. If you as an individual want to go directly to the print page... of course that's fine. It's great that you have that option. However, when posting a link on a site that will likely generate hundreds of hits (3% of which might click the ad), its only fair to THE COMPANY to post to their main site.

That doesn't really go far enough: If people don't buy more of the products being advertised as a result of the ad then the advertisers will stop running the ads and WaPo will lose revenue. That's not fair to WaPo.

Everyone should promise to buy whatever product is being advertised or at least convince themselves that their brain patterns have been changed so that they are more likely to buy the product in the future.

It's only fair to WaPo.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#138

Post by lazyjones »

agwa wrote: post #91
marvin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that, folks, is why we as engineers and hackers have a moral duty to be very selective in the types of work we take on and for whom. Computer yechnology work is still a wild west. Other fields which have similar ethical considerations - medicine, chemistry, engineering - have ethics courses which make it clear to the graduates that their professional decisions have consequences. There is no such standard for co…

Yet there is no shortage of doctors willing to assist in torture of prisoners at Guantanamo, assist in executions of prisoners, or conduct non-consensual and medically unnecessary procedures (inserting catheters, rectal examinations, etc.) upon demand of the police. The problem isn't lack of ethics courses but a fundamental flaw in human nature, which is that people easily forget all their personal ethics when someon…

> people easily forget all their personal ethics when someone in authority (whether their boss or the police) tells them to do something.

Now if we could get some prominent figures in tech with some authority to get more involved in these matters, but no - they're all a bit too comfortable in their well-paid, US-based jobs to risk anything.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#139

Post by Brakenshire »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #122

Posts with NSA in the title are heavily penalized here. Keep that in mind when submitting an important story. 2. Have I been pwned? Check if your email has been... 213 points by mountaineer 4 hours ago 3. NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, ... 266 points by 001sky 2 hours ago

It's one of the problems of these algorithmic measures of editorial importance, that these sorts of rules can be operating in the background.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#140

Post by etiam »

onosendai wrote: post #123
agwa wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet there is no shortage of doctors willing to assist in torture of prisoners at Guantanamo, assist in executions of prisoners, or conduct non-consensual and medically unnecessary procedures (inserting catheters, rectal examinations, etc.) upon demand of the police. The problem isn't lack of ethics courses but a fundamental flaw in human nature, which is that people easily forget all their personal ethics when someon…

> people easily forget all their personal ethics when someone in authority (whether their boss or the police) tells them to do something. I don't know whether you're aware of this or not, but you just described a famous experiment which essentially arrived at the same conclusion. It's worth a read for those not familiar with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

I know of no better or more accessible review of the psychology of evil than "The Lucifer effect" (2007) by Philip Zimbardo, a psychologist who, in spite of a long and illustrious career, probably is still best known for the infamous Stanford prison study. The companion website to the book is still up on http://www.lucifereffect.com/

Zimbardo has stated that he is still pained at the memories of the Stanford prison study, which had to be aborted prematurely because the vile characteristics it exposed in normal, healthy participants was going out of control. He reluctantly revisited the study in detail because he saw striking parallels to the torture and humiliation in the Abu Ghraib prison under US occupation. While he's at it he also reviews much other research into the psychology of authoritarianism, obedience, dehumanization and other facets of social psychology that add up to what may very reasonably be called Evil.

I might add that organizations like the CIA are well aware of these principles, and appears to have been working on ways of weaponizing them. It is my opinion that they are using them to corrupt individuals and whole social environments when that suits their ends. In fact, in spite of "The Lucifer Effect" being a fascinating read from beginning to end, one of the parts I found most interesting was the evidence indicating that US intelligence actively created the psychological conditions for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Highly recommended reading, and very relevant for much of the potential consequences of mass surveillance.

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