Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

alternet.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 81 posts

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#71

Post by mikeash »

rayiner wrote: post #42
e40 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

terrorism is not anywhere near a big enough threat to justify the counter measures, loss of privacy , freedom and the threat of a scary totalitarian future To put it into perspective, more people die walking across roads in the US every year than died from terrorism in 2001. Most years other than 2001, the difference between them is staggering. Yet, you would be hard pressed to find anyone that we should take drastic…

Comparing death tolls is a facetious argument. DC ground to a halt during the sniper's shootings even though he killed just a handful of people. The whole point of terrorism is the psychological impact. Also, cars kill twice as many people as murderers each year. If we ignore the difference between accidents and malicious acts, and the deterrent effect involved, you can probably make a case that its not worthwhile to…

The point of comparing death tolls is not to ignore the psychological impact, but rather to argue that the psychological impact should be the target of the remedies.

For a country like the United States, terrorism is an allergen, and the reaction to an attack is anaphylaxis.

When a person is allergic to bee stings, the best solution is to convince the immune system that bee stings aren't really a big deal and should not have such a strong response. This is hard, but it's the best possible way to deal with the allergy if you can accomplish it.

Imagine if somebody was stung by a bee, and then the subsequent allergic reaction nearly killed them. Imagine if you use their near death as a reason to to be hyper-vigilant against future bee stings. Imagine if your proposed hyper-vigilance involved numerous measures to boost the immune system response against bee stings.

This is, essentially, current policy on terrorism. It's unsustainable and outright dangerous. The only long-term solution is to figure out how to get the immune system to stop reacting so strongly i.e. figure out how to get people to react to terrorism in a way that is proportionate to the direct damage it causes.

I don't know how to accomplish that outright, but we could at least start by not having the government play along with it.

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#72

Post by rayiner »

foobarqux wrote: post #51
rayiner wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key word: "their." The lynchpin or a lot of the surveillance efforts is accessing information that doesn't belong to the target of the surveillance. Phone call metadata is generated by the phone company, stored in the phone company's computers, and is used for the phone company's business purposes. Its the phone company's data, not yours. Same thing with the data Google and Facebook collect about where you go on the…

Putting aside what the law and constitution currently say, do you think mass surveillance of metadata, URL tracking and search history should be fair game?

I'm pretty apathetic to the whole issue. I'm a lot more worked up about the fact that these things are already fair game when it comes to private corporations. As someone who isn't hoping for some libertarian, trans-national world order based on the internet, I'm a lot more worried about how private companies can abuse that data than how the government can do so. Yes, the government can throw me in jail and private companies can't, but the government has little reason to want me in jail. Meanwhile, private companies have a lot of incentive to access that data and screw me over.

I think the libertarianness of the whole digital privacy movement is losing a lot of potential supporters. If the restrictions on government surveillance were bundled together with restrictions on corporate surveillance with a consumer protection angle, I think you'd get a lot more people on board.

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#73

Post by BugBrother »

mikeash wrote: post #70
BugBrother wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a minor problem now, but it will get much worse if you consider technical development. Every individual gets more and more power and capabilities with time. In not too many decades, hackers will be able to design bacteria for hobby at home, even if they probably will send for a lab to synthesize the DNA etc. Now, it is still quite expensive to make artificial life. Consider North Korea and the possibility of…

What is the link between futuristic biological terrorism and NSA surveillance? You seem to be assuming that NSA surveillance might stop it, but how? It does seem like a potential problem and I also don't know how to solve it, but I would personally say that either technology will present us with the solution, or there will not be a solution. We have plenty of technology right now which, if transplanted back in time a…

The problem with biological attacks is that the agent can be designed for years, then spread quickly and the process to stop it after it has been spread is hard; the virus/bacteria has to be found, analysed and then some specific solution/treatment must be found/designed. In days or weeks.

That is why I selected biological methods as an example. There will of course probably be many other areas where it might be easier to make an attack than to defend against one.

My point was -- this discussion will almost certainly get more intense, because of more extreme threats. [In some areas, the technological development will make it harder for the attackers, in others it will be much easier. And attackers choose how they attack.]

Edit: Clarity.

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#74

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

mpyne wrote: post #32
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Why does everyone simply quote the Fourth Amendment as if that answers the question about privacy , especially privacy as applied to electronic communications ? Let me quote the Supreme Court decision establishing a right to privacy [1] (which was not previously considered present!): "Secondly, the Fourth Amendment cannot be translated into a general constitutional 'right to privacy.'" That Amendment protects individ…

The Supreme Court has long ago abandoned any interest in protecting the rights defined by the Constitution.

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#75

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

rayiner wrote: post #41
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Key word: "their." The lynchpin or a lot of the surveillance efforts is accessing information that doesn't belong to the target of the surveillance. Phone call metadata is generated by the phone company, stored in the phone company's computers, and is used for the phone company's business purposes. Its the phone company's data, not yours. Same thing with the data Google and Facebook collect about where you go on the…

Google and Facebook would also be protected by the Fourth, were it actually respected.

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#76

Post by foobarqux »

rayiner wrote: post #72
foobarqux wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting aside what the law and constitution currently say, do you think mass surveillance of metadata, URL tracking and search history should be fair game?

I'm pretty apathetic to the whole issue. I'm a lot more worked up about the fact that these things are already fair game when it comes to private corporations. As someone who isn't hoping for some libertarian, trans-national world order based on the internet, I'm a lot more worried about how private companies can abuse that data than how the government can do so. Yes, the government can throw me in jail and private c…

> but the government has little reason to want me in jail

It has plenty of reason to want dissidents in jail which you may care about for various reasons both practical and ideological. Though I think jail is outmoded: with (near) total surveillance there are more effective deterrents.

I do think you are right about the lack of emphasis on corporate surveillance.

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#77

Post by atmosx »

igravious wrote: post #29
atmosx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read 'Darkness at noon'[1] at year ago or two. It's one of the books Orwell was heavily influenced by. It's about Stalin's Russia and it's amazing. Same topic, total gov control. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_at_Noon

Second 'Darkness at Noon'. A very powerful read. By Arthur Koestler 1940. Orwell's 1984 was published in 1948, wasn't it?

Well yeah, wikipedia says 1949 but 6 months up or down doesn't change much..

About DaN[1]: 'In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Darkness at Noon at number eight on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.'

Although the depth of thought and analysis of the 'soviet regime' was impressive, I had no idea it was that highly praised novel.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_at_noon

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#78

Post by [deleted] »

igravious wrote: post #29
atmosx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read 'Darkness at noon'[1] at year ago or two. It's one of the books Orwell was heavily influenced by. It's about Stalin's Russia and it's amazing. Same topic, total gov control. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_at_Noon

Second 'Darkness at Noon'. A very powerful read. By Arthur Koestler 1940. Orwell's 1984 was published in 1948, wasn't it?

[deleted]

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#79

Post by monochr »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #66
monochr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The will to dominate others is as old as human kind. The idea that computers have changed anything is just historical blindness of the part of people who fail to realize how totalitarian all states were until the French revolution, where you had a literal thought police going after you and huge parts of the population spying on everyone else. Like it has always been the case any algorithm good enough to catch even a…

1. The point is not that they can. The point is that they believe they can. 2. Historically, there was always a place to hide to carry out nefarious activities. In the digital surveillance state, that space is shrinking. (Modern humans 200K years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens )

>The point is that they believe they can.

They are welcome to believing that, just as the Catholic Church is welcome to thinking I'm going to burn in hell for all eternity for not believing their god.

Re: Noam Chomsky: A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created

#80

Post by WorldWideWayne »

rayiner wrote: post #42
e40 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

terrorism is not anywhere near a big enough threat to justify the counter measures, loss of privacy , freedom and the threat of a scary totalitarian future To put it into perspective, more people die walking across roads in the US every year than died from terrorism in 2001. Most years other than 2001, the difference between them is staggering. Yet, you would be hard pressed to find anyone that we should take drastic…

Comparing death tolls is a facetious argument. DC ground to a halt during the sniper's shootings even though he killed just a handful of people. The whole point of terrorism is the psychological impact. Also, cars kill twice as many people as murderers each year. If we ignore the difference between accidents and malicious acts, and the deterrent effect involved, you can probably make a case that its not worthwhile to…

I think you meant to say "specious", not "facetious" but in either case - I disagree.

Why should the psychological impact be valued higher than actual deaths?

Post reply on HN