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Today is The Day We Fight Back

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Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back

#161

Post by fidotron »

Loughla wrote: post #154
fidotron wrote: post #90

I honestly think this is naive at best, and at worst useful idiocy on behalf of the companies dependent on the illusion the aim is even achievable. Mass surveillance, if technically possible, is going to happen. Therefore make services where it isn't possible. If that screws with your business model you're part of the problem.

"Mass surveillance, if technically possible, is going to happen. Therefore make services where it isn't possible. If that screws with your business model you're part of the problem." Let's just extrapolate this. Mass surveillance is possible because of the connected style of world we live in. Anything that is created can be corrupted in some fashion by world governments or corporations looking for an advantage. There…

Oddly we had an international phone system that worked without routing all calls through servers in the US before, and the same could and should be done for cloud services.

We should move to a model where the end user has a cloud end point in their own jurisdiction which contains all the apps and services they want. Stuff like docker looks a lot like an enabling technology. For example, this means Google shouldn't host gmail, but it should be available as a component for local hosting.

But we should be clear, the problem is not governments (there will always be bad ones every now and again), it's naive companies that believe that if they collect the data it's not going to be stolen from them. I would go so far as to say regulating the companies to prevent this stupidity is more likely to effect actual change than attempting to regulate the government.

Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back

#162

Post by whatevsbro »

mildtrepidation wrote: post #123
whatevsbro wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're really interested in getting feedback on how future campaigns can be better I'd recommend addressing the actual problem , which the all-encompassing surveillance is a symptom of. The actual problem is that there is a government in place. For more information, look up Stefan Molyneux, Larken Rose, Michael Huemer, Murray Rothbard, David Friedman, etc.

And the actual problem that cancer is a symptom of is that we have bodies. So we should really be working towards the Matrix, not doing dead-end research on curing or treating diseases.

You're not following, but that's expected. It's not exactly difficult to see reasons for why governments should not exist. They're all around you, and there are countless of them.

As a very simple example, why are laws like SOPA and CISPA passed in secret, unless there's a massive uprising against them? Obviously, they're passed in secret, or stealthily, or all of a sudden - they're just rammed through exactly because they know the people would be against these laws if they only fucking KNEW ABOUT THEM.

Did you think defeating SOPA would be meaningful in the grand scheme of things? If they're passing one law that's harmful to the masses and against their will, why wouldn't they pass another? .. and another, and another?

Well, if they're passing harmful and unnecessary laws all the fucking time, do you think they just might not be on your side? I mean, how difficult is it to figure out that "your" representatives don't actually represent you? They're constantly passing laws that are against your will, after all. Oh, and they're extorting you too! (It's called "taxation" to make it more palatable)

Now then, since it's obvious that the government and its legislators are not on your side - contrary to what people commonly believe, strangely enough - doesn't it make you wonder whether having a government is a good idea in the first place?

Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back

#163

Post by declan »

crassus wrote: post #159
BrandonMarc wrote: post #147

I'm amazed that nobody's mentioned the biggest weapon we have against the political class: Primary elections. Not the final elections - by then the incumbents are in place and it's too late ... for national office, incumbents resign / die more often than they're beat by an opponent. Primaries are where the action is, for two reasons: * it's the one time an incumbent is most vulnerable * very few people vote in primar…

The way to measure your political effectiveness is how many people have lost their jobs. We're not making real progress until Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are unemployed, just like we aren't making real progress on IP law until most patent attorneys are working traffic tickets. The Tea Party began by running primary challengers to GOP incumbents, and they remain a powerful force today. It turns out that politici…

Yep. The thing is, though, that a lot of Republican primary voters support the Tea Party's message of lower taxes, limited government, and a return to constitutional norms -- to the extent that they're willing to toss out an incumbent, which loses DC seniority and risks having an even-worse Democrat elected instead. That's trading short-term costs for long-term benefits.

It's not yet clear whether R and D primary voters care enough about NSA surveillance to vote out incumbents on those grounds alone. (What about abortion? Environment? The need for higher or lower taxes? Gay rights? Firearms? Etc.)

I suspect that NSA revulsion among R and D primary voters is insufficiently strong to make displacement a real threat. Look at SOPA author Lamar Smith's easy cruise to primary reelection victory in Texas hill country -- after being feted by those SOPA-loving liberals in Hollywood and opposed by Reddit's TestPAC. Smith won nearly 80% of the primary vote. BTW, Feinstein, one of the most prominent NSA loyalists, isn't up until 2018.

If anti-NSA activists really want to have a tremendous political impact, they should unseat Rep. Mike Rogers, who beats out even Feinstein in his defense of warrantless surveillance. But National Journal last year said Rogers is in a "safe congressional district that’s poised to keep reelecting him until he decides to retire": http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/the-reason-mike-roge...

So good luck with that.

Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back

#164

Post by dllthomas »

declan wrote: post #163
crassus wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way to measure your political effectiveness is how many people have lost their jobs. We're not making real progress until Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are unemployed, just like we aren't making real progress on IP law until most patent attorneys are working traffic tickets. The Tea Party began by running primary challengers to GOP incumbents, and they remain a powerful force today. It turns out that politici…

Yep. The thing is, though, that a lot of Republican primary voters support the Tea Party's message of lower taxes, limited government, and a return to constitutional norms -- to the extent that they're willing to toss out an incumbent, which loses DC seniority and risks having an even-worse Democrat elected instead. That's trading short-term costs for long-term benefits. It's not yet clear whether R and D primary vot…

There are a lot of Michiganders uncomfortable with surveillance. Maybe some of them can eat a longer commute and move to Lansing?

Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back

#166

Post by dllthomas »

crassus wrote: post #159
BrandonMarc wrote: post #147

I'm amazed that nobody's mentioned the biggest weapon we have against the political class: Primary elections. Not the final elections - by then the incumbents are in place and it's too late ... for national office, incumbents resign / die more often than they're beat by an opponent. Primaries are where the action is, for two reasons: * it's the one time an incumbent is most vulnerable * very few people vote in primar…

The way to measure your political effectiveness is how many people have lost their jobs. We're not making real progress until Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are unemployed, just like we aren't making real progress on IP law until most patent attorneys are working traffic tickets. The Tea Party began by running primary challengers to GOP incumbents, and they remain a powerful force today. It turns out that politici…

Boxer is an odd target to single out. She's not been prominent or powerful in the NSA discussion, so far as I'm aware, and the most relevant thing I see on her Wikipedia page is:

"In June 2008 Boxer spoke in the Senate in opposition to the FISA Amendments Act of 2008,[51] a pending bill in the United States Congress to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,[52] and later broke with her counterpart Sen. Dianne Feinstein and voted against it.[53]"

Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back

#167

Post by declan »

josefresco wrote: post #82

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and suggest that if political involvement is what we're shooting for, robo-calling your representatives isn't the best way to achieve true reform. Pissed that the NSA (or insert gov agency here) is running amok? Get involved in your government, vote out the lawmakers who let/made [it] happen, and advocate for and vote in representatives who will invoke the change you want. Appe…

Can you give us a list of "representatives who will invoke the change you want?" Are there any?

You are correct, though, that following the DC pattern of "follow this script while calling your congresscritters" is insufficient. This turns privacy advocates/Internet users into just another special interest group -- which is dwarfed by AARP (40+ million members) or the NRA (which managed to defeat congressional efforts at more firearm restrictions last year despite the most favorable climate for gun banning in two decades).

The HN community can do better than mere phone calls. Here are some of my suggestions from 12 years ago: http://news.cnet.com/2010-1023-971115.html

Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back

#168

Post by beaugunderson »

iandanforth wrote: post #139
sinak wrote: post #25

All of the people who built the site and the banner are volunteers who met on HN across various threads, and not members of any of the advocacy orgs or companies listed on the site. We're really interested in getting feedback on how future campaigns can be better, and happy to discuss some of the decisions we made. The non-profits involved did all the legal and organization lifting, and this is a great opportunity to…

First off I love the "we'll call you and do all the work" implementation. Really lowers the barriers to entry. Second there are two tricky bits of the workflow that didn't quite work for me. 1. Feinstein doesn't have a mailbox, and if you wait on hold for more than 2 minutes the line hangs up. There was no mechanism to have tdwfb "try again later." So now the burden is on me again. ( tiny violin ) 2. I was connected…

Re: 1., we've just raised the time limit for calls to 20 minutes. Thanks for using the tool!

Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back

#169

Post by motters »

dredmorbius wrote: post #153
motters wrote: post #34

My little fight back are some instructions on how to provide your own internet services, including encryption. http://freedombone.uk.to/ It's not ideal, of course, but in the short term since there seems to be no political appetite for relinquishment or meaningful reform then technical mitigation strategies - if they can be sufficiently popularised - may help to reduce the harm resulting from mass surveillance. Ultim…

If you want some quick-and-dirty CSS to make that slightly cleaner: http://pastebin.com/7sGiHBwF ... it's just a set of styles I slap on blank pages myself. Consider it GPL v2 or better, BSD / MIT licensed, though honestly, I couldn't care less how it's used or by whom.

Needs some work, but that makes quite a difference. Thanks.

Re: Today is The Day We Fight Back

#170

Post by gkop »

I called the three New Mexico lawmakers through the tool, and was able to reach human beings at all of the offices (Senators Heinrich and Udall and Representative Luján). Thanks for making it so easy!
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