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NSA targets the privacy-conscious

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Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#141

Post by enraged_camel »

Holbein wrote: post #61
pessimizer wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're overestimating the difficulty of the problem. The difficult part is access to the channels of information. After that, it's a matter of applying well-known algorithms while filtering and processing streams. The only reason that I suspect that the government is still terrible at this is because they have to rely on government contractors to implement it. If they're intentionally funding startups that ha…

> You won't get to hear about how the trial turns out from your grave. Well, in contrast to you, I plan to enjoy my life instead of wasting it by worrying about some possible bad actor spying on me, which is what I'm must read is how you spend your life. Sure, fight the NSA by engaging a little bit politically, and buying the right things. But apart from that, don't worry so much, man.

>>Well, in contrast to you, I plan to enjoy my life instead of wasting it by worrying about some possible bad actor spying on me, which is what I'm must read is how you spend your life.

Let me guess: you are a straight white dude with a comfortable income.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#142

Post by sliverstorm »

yry4345 wrote: post #137
sliverstorm wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold on there friend. I was not suggesting we replace the judicial system with a filter. Rather arrests. I.e., make the arrest based on the filter, then run the trial in the same old jury-of-your-peers. Convictions should be false-positive-free. But our system would not work if arrests also needed to be 100% false-positive-free. I'm also not advocating punishment for crimes that have not yet been committed. Rather, t…

Granted, arrests are held to a different standard than convictions in that they merely require "probable cause" rather than proof of guilt and this lower standard does make it look like the spam filtering analogy scenario may fit - but in calculating this new "guilt probability" our spam filter is relying increasingly on the "testimony" and "facts" presented by the surveillance database itself and it is the objective…

I guess my theory partly depends on the filter being too sophisticated for any one person to co-opt. We can design machine learning, but there can't be many people who are capable of wrapping their head around a running machine learning system, and be able to reach in right here and peek/poke some weight and bam your nephew is arrested in Texas. On the bright side, most of those people are probably not officers, whom you seem to be most afraid of.

As for the objectivity of feeding the filter data, I envision something completely automatic. No selective entry for this or that suspicious person- the filter is fed a database of all people, and perhaps monitors the internet's traffic on its own. Maybe ACH traffic too. Financial crime could be this system's biggest win- computers are way more suited to uncovering financial crime relative to humans.

Basically, when it's big enough and sophisticated enough and automated enough that no one person can fully understand it, it becomes significantly harder to pervert. And, as I mentioned before, it needn't be perfect- our current system is pervertable too (see: papers please, racial profiling, etc), so this one would just need to be less pervertable...

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#143

Post by euank »

SeanDav wrote: post #80
pyre wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but saying "treat all people trying to hide things as potential terrorists" is a very wide net to cast (to the point of useless).

It is a vastly smaller space than "all people that use the internet". Also I think it makes sense to assume that the "privacy seekers" set would contain a higher proportion of "bad actors". I am not in any way supporting them, but I understand why they do it - even if I hate the idea.

The fraction of terrorists in "all people that use the internet" is approximately equal to the fraction of terrorists in "privacy seekers" -- both are roughly zero.

The NSA only was given such pervasive power to catch terrorists. The fact that privacy seekers are more likely to be "bad actors" is moot unless that means terrorists because regular "bad actors" are supposed to be innocent until guilty, handled by police/fbi, etc. NSA only is allowed to work essentially with no due process because it's for cathing "terrorists". Interestingly, now that terrorists know about the NSA, they no doubt will simply not use the internet (or phones) at all, thus making it so the NSA can't catch a terrorist by any of its methods.

I definitely expect all terrorists are extremely careful about internet activity now that they know the NSA is so invasive, thus making the NSA's actions even less defensible (not that I thought they ever were).

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#144

Post by yxhuvud »

vidarh wrote: post #68
yxhuvud wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boiling milk? No thanks, boiled milk tastes funny. You should remember that not everyone live in the same hot climate as you where milk generally don't go bad immediately, and that there are plenty of people around in cooler climates that have stomachs that usually can handle milk without problem.

> Boiling milk? No thanks, boiled milk tastes funny. Boiled milk, yes. But unless you get milk straight from a farm, it's likely pasteurised: Heated to 72 degrees celsius for 15 seconds. [EDIT: I didn't realise how many places allow sales of unpasteurised milk; yikes - I'll be careful about reading labels next time I'm travelling] > and that there are plenty of people around in cooler climates that have stomachs that…

I agree totally on your points when it comes to pasteurized milk - I was commenting on a comment that claimed regulation wasn't necessary because farmers would boil the milk anyhow, which is simply not the case.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#145

Post by pessimizer »

canvia wrote: post #139
pessimizer wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. If you want to fight, I'll support you. I donate money to causes that I know raise my XKeyscore, and I subscribe to magazines that I know raise my XKeyscore. My long term plan is to find somewhere where this is not happening, and move there, though. If I were planning to stay here for the rest of my life, I wouldn't risk political posting on the internet, donating, or subscribing. You'll get more help for me…

Unless the first amendment has changed, there is no risk for consumers.

I don't know what this means.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#146

Post by runiq »

acqq wrote: post #79
higherpurpose wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amplify this by 100, and welcome to Minority Report, where you get a arrested for having a "very high score". This is where the "mass surveillance" and "let's monitor everyone just in case they might do something bad" thinking inevitably ends up.

> Amplify this by 100, and welcome to Minority Report, where you get a arrested for having a "very high score". Or maybe welcome to Oceania of 1984, having to deal with Thinkpol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime "The Thought Police (thinkpol in Newspeak) are the secret police of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is their job to uncover and punish thoughtcrime."

>thinkpol

Yup, we don't have thinkpol yet (and hopefully we never will), but we do have a pretty damn good analogy to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_policing

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#147

Post by sqrt17 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #84
higherpurpose wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amplify this by 100, and welcome to Minority Report, where you get a arrested for having a "very high score". This is where the "mass surveillance" and "let's monitor everyone just in case they might do something bad" thinking inevitably ends up.

... you get a arrested for having a "very high score". Considering this is PRECISELY how spam filtering works, it doesn't seem entirely irrational. Much like spam filtering, it would all come down to dialing in your filters and picking a good threshold. Hell, if the system was good enough, it could actually improve freedoms. We currently arrest many innocent people as part of the legal process (who are later exonerat…

Spam filtering works using actual data that someone once used to train it - if we are taking this at face value, it means that the NSA is not just targeting people who might be terrorists and collects data on other people as a side effect, but that it actively targets people with no ties to terrorism whatsoever, for reasons that both US and international public might find unsavory if they found out about them.

Spam filtering also works in a very different context - the spam-to-nonspam ratio is something like 90% spam and 10% nonspam, which means that there is lots and lots of spam to filter out; if an important email slips through, people are bound to notice and either adjust their spam filter or do something about it. In the other setting, you have 99.99% or more of people who have nothing to do with terrorism or criminal activities, and maybe one or two dozen (among tens of millions) who you are actually targeting. First thing, erroneously targeting a substantial chunk of your non-interesting population ties up resources - you're spending your time investigating people who are not terrorists - but since it's difficult anyways, at least you seem like you're doing something with all the money you receive, and nevermind if some of the data is used for industrial espionnage or hunting people that only poultry farmers and fracking magnates would call terrorists. And if you miss one of the two dozen other people, well, they won't do anything harmful this year or the next because they also have to fear regular law enforcement, and when they do it'll be in a moment that's probably suitable for you to ask for more money.

tl;dr: Because we don't have a large sample of actual terrorists on hand, it's hard to evaluate activities like the NSA's, which would however be desirable since we're giving large chunks of money to them that could be fruitfully used in making everyone safer if used to fight actual crime and not some fuzzy notion of terrorism.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#148

Post by sqrt17 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #140
tesq wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with such a filter is it will be perceived as inefficient and broken by those evaluating it if it denies an officer the authority to arrest someone he's already detained or determined to be worthy of arrest. It will be another system which grants permission at the whims of the department, one that absolves individual officers of blame, punishment and consequences for bias and abuse they'll continue to rev…

There is no reason such a filter need be an authoritative source. Arrest someone it didn't suggest, if you like. Choose not to arrest someone it did suggest. Human discretion would still be applied. But if it proved accurate, officers would trust it, and the population would get upset if it identified a criminal an officer did not arrest. No different than a virus or spam scanner, really. I trust my scanners. Sometim…

At least in the US, officers have quotas of arrests to fulfill, which are most easily fulfilled with petty crime that happens all the time and is easy to find. Attorneys get promoted based on successful cases, meaning those where they could convince a jury that the person is guilty; any foresight that goes above or beyond what they can present to a jury of laymen is lost time and will get them recognized as being ineffective.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#149

Post by dredmorbius »

canvia wrote: post #139
pessimizer wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. If you want to fight, I'll support you. I donate money to causes that I know raise my XKeyscore, and I subscribe to magazines that I know raise my XKeyscore. My long term plan is to find somewhere where this is not happening, and move there, though. If I were planning to stay here for the rest of my life, I wouldn't risk political posting on the internet, donating, or subscribing. You'll get more help for me…

Unless the first amendment has changed, there is no risk for consumers.

Yeah. Sure. http://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#150

Post by antocv »

Did you seriously think news.ycombinator.com doesnt increase your score and suspectibility of having your computing devices hacked into? And puts you on a very interesting NSA/CIA/Letter-Combo/For-Your-Safety list?

Look at Ukraine. War just pops up. I wonder which list they will go by first.

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