11–20 of 42 posts
This post should be required reading for anyone in West working on this technology. It's one thing to spend your life working on something of dubious benefit to humanity, it's entirely another to be directly, actively working against freedom and democracy globally. I know of one company that used to (maybe still do?) recruit aggressively at my university, who shall remain nameless for the sake of civility, and cannot…
A long-held conspiracy theory of mine: While 99%+ of those watching broadcast or cable television never have the opportunity to buy Cisco equipment for their business, and much better suited advertising channels exist (IT magazines, even TechCrunch), Cisco spends a LOT of time & money advertising on TV. (Until recently, Cisco used other brands for consumer products, e.g. Linksys!) But if it’s not to reach the consume…
A long-held conspiracy theory of mine: While 99%+ of those watching broadcast or cable television never have the opportunity to buy Cisco equipment for their business, and much better suited advertising channels exist (IT magazines, even TechCrunch), Cisco spends a LOT of time & money advertising on TV. (Until recently, Cisco used other brands for consumer products, e.g. Linksys!) But if it’s not to reach the consume…
sounds logical, except what tools is Cisco specifically providing for "oppressive regimes’ censorship and e-terror campaigns"?
Edit: Jeeze borism, I mention Cisco because they are the ones with ads playing between Glee episodes. No, I’m sure they aren’t the “only ones.”
The battle for privacy was lost during the last decade - as in "we lost the war". http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2005/22C3-920-en-we_lost... The best we can hope for in future is a transparent or sousveillance society where an informational balance of power is maintained. Currently the main bottleneck is ISPs, and these are points of weakness where top-down control can be introduced to a greater or lesser extent…
The end of privacy was a foregone conclusion: with such rapidly falling cost for video and audio hardware, the only way to keep privacy would be totalitarianism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
sounds logical, except what tools is Cisco specifically providing for "oppressive regimes’ censorship and e-terror campaigns"?
What do you think Cisco imagines networking equipment sold to oppressive governments is going to be used for? Edit: Jeeze borism , I mention Cisco because they are the ones with ads playing between Glee episodes. No, I’m sure they aren’t the “only ones.”
obviously Cisco is the market leader and probably more of their equipment ends up everywhere (I'm not so sure though, for example Alcatel-Lucent equipment might be more welcome by anti-US regimes, than same equipment from US companies. A-L is also known UN sanctions violator).
or do you have any evidence that Cisco is specifically marketing for oppressive regimes?
"While the liberty movements in the West are busy enough doing good job fighting off the surveillance wave at home, the totalitarian customer segment remains steadily serviced, by the virtue of civil opinion there being discarded and silenced." That's a bold statement. I agree that liberty movements are fighting. But I don't think they are winning. We've definitely taken a few steps back in recent years. There are mo…
I think one of the most well known and egregious example of large scale surveillance outfit is the Stasi. It's reported that there was one informer per every 6 and a half people. Possibly the highest ratio of all known examples. Stasiland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasiland is a fascinating read. And of course "The Lives of Others" is a must watch. If for no other reason than to experience an eloquent demonstratio…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you think Cisco imagines networking equipment sold to oppressive governments is going to be used for? Edit: Jeeze borism , I mention Cisco because they are the ones with ads playing between Glee episodes. No, I’m sure they aren’t the “only ones.”
but then any company making networking equipment sold to oppressive regimes should be equally responsible, why did you single out Cisco? obviously Cisco is the market leader and probably more of their equipment ends up everywhere (I'm not so sure though, for example Alcatel-Lucent equipment might be more welcome by anti-US regimes, than same equipment from US companies. A-L is also known UN sanctions violator). or do…
I think one of the most well known and egregious example of large scale surveillance outfit is the Stasi. It's reported that there was one informer per every 6 and a half people. Possibly the highest ratio of all known examples. Stasiland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasiland is a fascinating read. And of course "The Lives of Others" is a must watch. If for no other reason than to experience an eloquent demonstratio…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal
The Stasi is a fascinating example because the fall of the GDR was quick enough that they couldn't destroy most of the existing files and evidence and we have a relatively clear picture of what happened there. For the Swiss files from the 80s, an official archive exists but access to actual data is relatively difficult. If other democratically elected governments practice Stasi-style surveillance, it would be extremely hard to find out (and would, arguably be the bottom of an iceberg ranging from regular law enforcement to espionage and counter-espionage, to proactive intelligence gathering to find likely terrorists, to proactive intelligence gathering on random citizens who are not terrorists but may have rented a car from a suspected terrorist's relative).
I think one of the most well known and egregious example of large scale surveillance outfit is the Stasi. It's reported that there was one informer per every 6 and a half people. Possibly the highest ratio of all known examples. Stasiland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasiland is a fascinating read. And of course "The Lives of Others" is a must watch. If for no other reason than to experience an eloquent demonstratio…
Oh, it's not limited to the GDR. Switzerland in the eighties had the "Fichenaffäre" when it came out that the Swiss federal police did surveillance, and kept records on, about 10% of the population. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal The Stasi is a fascinating example because the fall of the GDR was quick enough that they couldn't destroy most of the existing files and evidence and we have a relatively…