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Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

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Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#131

Post by stjohnswarts »

l332mn wrote: post #74
mellow2020 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last guy who touched upon it On the other hand, people like Chomsky aren't being persecuted. Though all in all, I would also say they get ignored very efficiently, Chomsky still isn't exactly unknown either. Is there a Chinese author and speaker with decades of real harsh criticism of their government under their belt, who is living in China with their works being translated in all sorts of languages and also a…

You can't really draw a direct comparison between PRC and the US, and ask how China would react to a 'Chinese Chomsky'. Their respective conditions and rational incentives for population control are not very similar. The US (after the fall of the USSR) is a country who's stability has not truly been threatened by criticism and dissident voices, while China is a state which has been and currently is extremely vulnerab…

I don't think any of what you say is true. The people in China would like to be free just like in the USA (although our freedoms are fading with time). People have the right to speak freely. What the CCP is doing is a dictatorship, plain and simple. They're afraid of free thought and criticism.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#132

Post by imheretolearn »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #35
aborsy wrote: post #22

Surveillance pertains to asymmetric information, a situation where a few in the society (those in power) have access to the information of the rest of the society (those not in power, namely, the public) but not conversely. The asymmetry of the information gives those in power great advantage over public. The rich and powerful claim, we monitor you to protect you, and to better serve you. The scope and the characteri…

There is also the implicit assumption of "superior goodness" of those in power, who will "benevolently assure our security". If anything, power corrupts. Trusting a certain small group to be ethically superior is insanity. If anything, history proves that, on average, those with more money are _less_ethical_. They often got the money by being that way, then convince everyone to give them more power.

>> If anything, power corrupts

It is possible that power does not corrupt. If you generally agree with the forbes most powerful people list [0], it has people like the Pope, Bill Gates and Antonio Guterres as well.

>> If anything, history proves that, on average, those with more money are _less_ethical_

This would also include a lot of HNers who work in FAANGs of the world since they are the people with more money than at least 80% of the world. The giving pledge[1] is also evidence to the contrary. Can you cite some sources to support your claims?

[0] https://www.forbes.com/powerful-people/list/

[1] https://givingpledge.org/

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#133

Post by xster »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #130
dsbleia wrote: post #30

I'm asking this question not to spark a contentious debate or be ridiculed. But I'm genuinely curious, as someone who has little experience with China and only lived in the US, is the US just as much of a surveillance state as China? We often hear a lot of 'information' (bordering propaganda), about China being an "authoritarian surveillance state". I don't mean to sound absurd, but is the US that much better in term…

Honestly they probably try just as hard to get into your email as China. The difference is what happens afterward. Even the slightest dissent in China can land you in prison and be the next one on the organ donor list for someone in the CCP. In the USA unless you're planning terrorism or some criminal act they are just going to consider you boring. I suspect it's the same in all these these 14 eyes countries as well…

Are you referencing something specific?

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#134

Post by xster »

chrisco255 wrote: post #83
l332mn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think courts or government institutions in China are subject to or follow Chinese law, or do you think that the state is particularly prone to abuse of the law (moreso than in the US)? How do you suppose "fighting the CCP" would work in practice? If you are up against the legislative and judicial body itself, you have only the law to support you. It's not really a good sign as you think that people are winn…

Not at all. No. The CCP will bend the law and the laws don't go nearly far enough to protect the individual. Obviously China is currently an authoritarian, uniparty state, so there's only one way to fight that: revolution. > It's not really a good sign as you think that people are winning legal battles against the state anywhere, because that's merely a symptom of the state abusing the law in the first place. Really?…

Are you referencing something specific?

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#135

Post by mindfulhack »

eivarv wrote: post #24

The Norwegian parliament recently passed a bill that implements bulk metadata collection here as well. I tried debating with ministers, writing op-eds, and even organizing petitions (over 1000 security, privacy and tech professionals in a couple of days) before the vote. While every informed person I know thinks it's a bad idea, and every organization consulted massively criticized it as mass surveillance, a huge maj…

I don't know if this comment is out of place, but it makes me realise the 'Americanisation' of the world (whenever that takes place) is not only the exporting of 'democracy', but also USA-style surveillance (and also American prudish cultural values - see Facebook as the instrument of that).

It makes me realise that on some level, it's great we see countries who refuse to bow down to such 'americanisation'.

I'm certainly not advocating for countries having despotism and corruption in their own right, but on some level, we need diversity.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#136

Post by eivarv »

dependenttypes wrote: post #121
eivarv wrote: post #24

The Norwegian parliament recently passed a bill that implements bulk metadata collection here as well. I tried debating with ministers, writing op-eds, and even organizing petitions (over 1000 security, privacy and tech professionals in a couple of days) before the vote. While every informed person I know thinks it's a bad idea, and every organization consulted massively criticized it as mass surveillance, a huge maj…

> my jaw was literally agape from some comments I am curious, would you mind sharing some of them?

Context: This bill would mean implementing collecting all metadata of communications "crossing the border" (in practice most of Norwegian traffic), and that "service providers" (undefined) would have make unencrypted communications available if they can. The bill was about out military/foreign intelligence service. They would also combine this with "metadata" from other sources, as well as unspecified data from unspecified sources. They would be able to search in the metadata-storage via court-order. Content data could also be collected via court-order.

From memory:

- Members of the committee kept stating that this bill would provide us security (without arguing how/why)

- Members of the committee kept ignoring rights-based arguments re: privacy from orgs like our DPA, Amnesty, the Norwegian Institute for Human Rights, Norwegian Society of Graduate Technical and Scientific Professionals, etc.

- Members of the committee kept suggesting that the bill would let us protect ourselves against the types of attacks we've seen on large public (petroleum, health) services

- Member of the committee kept harping about how this bill could protect us against identity-theft, hacking by extranational threat actors, etc. (despite obviously being out of legal scope)

- Member of the committee arguing with consulted bodies (incl. organizations of editors, journalists) that source protection was not about democracy or the public, but about the individual

- Comments from our Minister of Defense like: "This is not mass surveillance; It is mass storage" (mirroring arguments from Europe) and "Source protection should not be something threats to the nation can hide behind"

- Top politicians conflating privacy with securing against external threats throughout debate, and claiming that we had to remember that the Norwegian state is not "the bad guy"

- The government stating that without this bill, we'd be a less attractive collaborative partner internationally, and that most other countries have this sort of practice

- The Minister claiming that the external intelligence service needs these tools to be able to do their job at all, casting doubt on the existing of a chilling effect, claiming the ends justify the means...

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#137

Post by PeterStuer »

hundchenkatze wrote: post #56
freddyym wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd. As a team member, I can confirm that we (obviuosly) take privacy very seriously. This shouldn't have happened. Do you have a screenshot?

I think you misread (I did too at first) it to mean the cookie consent was on privacytools.io. However, I think they're referring to the Belgium link under the "Key disclosure laws may apply" which links to https://tweakers.net/nieuws/163116/belgische-rechter-verdach...

Yes, this is exactly what I meant, the cookie consent on tweakers.net where you are directed following the 'Belgium' link. I'm sorry for what I can now see as potentially confusing language in my original post.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#138

Post by boomboomsubban »

chrisco255 wrote: post #123
boomboomsubban wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Look I'm no fan of drone strikes in general, but if you leave the United States to go join a terrorist organization and incite violence against the U.S. and other innocent people in other countries like Somalia..you clearly have lost Constitutional protection. We don't give trials for foreign terrorists or armies, that's a given. So if I accuse you of a bad enough crime due process doesn't matter? Seems like a prett…

He wasn't merely accused, he was living with Al Quaeda in Yemen. If I move in with Al-Quaeda in Yemen and incite acts of terrorism against America and other civilians in Yemen and Somalia, yes, it doesn't fucking matter. Any Navy SEAL is free to kill me if I ever do something that stupid and criminal. In fact, I'll even pre-posthumously thank him for his service.

>He wasn't merely accused, he was living with Al Quaeda in Yemen.

Without a trial this can only be considered an accusation. The US government claims this, many other people claim he was never part of a terrorist group. Living in Yemen is not a crime.

>incite acts of terrorism against America and other civilians in Yemen and Somalia, yes, it doesn't fucking matter.

Not only are the claims that he "incited terrorism" overblown, his right to free speech allows him to make such declarations.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#139

Post by koonsolo »

pdonis wrote: post #55
eivarv wrote: post #24

The Norwegian parliament recently passed a bill that implements bulk metadata collection here as well. I tried debating with ministers, writing op-eds, and even organizing petitions (over 1000 security, privacy and tech professionals in a couple of days) before the vote. While every informed person I know thinks it's a bad idea, and every organization consulted massively criticized it as mass surveillance, a huge maj…

> how can we work against this on a technical level? As the saying goes, you can't use a technical solution to fix a social problem. One way to fix the social problem is to vote politicians out of office when they make bad decisions--not just about surveillance, but in general. People who don't have to pay a cost for bad decisions have no incentive to make better decisions. Another way is to not give powers like this…

> As the saying goes, you can't use a technical solution to fix a social problem.

True, but the law is so slow that you can continue to outpace it with technology.

Re: Global Mass Surveillance – The Fourteen Eyes

#140

Post by arcticbull »

jkepler wrote: post #124
vkou wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State, federal, it's still the government.

No, not when state or county governments disagree with or refuse to enforce federal government laws. Haven't 37 US states legalized (to some extent) marijuana, while the federal government still has prohibition laws/rules in place? Or county/city governments that have countered executive orders from their respective state governments regarding COVID-19 (Orange county in Florida, or the Pennsylvania country York PA is…

> Haven't 37 US states legalized (to some extent) marijuana, while the federal government still has prohibition laws/rules in place?

I mean, that's a bad example because if you admit you've done drugs to a border guard (even while in a state where it's 'legal') you'll get deported. It's not really legal anywhere in the US, there's just a bunch of people doing illegal things. At best this is a case of "it's not illegal of you don't get caught" even if that's because the locals are intentionally trying not to look.

This is an example of dysfunction, not successful function, and an abject failure of federal policy and leadership.

I agree that it should be a states rights issue.

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