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Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

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Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#241

Post by account42 »

rbanffy wrote: post #222
michaelt wrote: post #18

I sometimes wonder whether the people in the tech industry who worked on things like secure boot, attestation, and DRM saw this as the inevitability open source advocates always saw it as. Did they think, as they worked to transfer final say from users to corporations, by technical means, that politicians couldn't transfer that control to themselves by political means? Did they think they could lock things down to ex…

Politicians always had that power, because it was always technically possible. To think we could have done anything to stop it once there was a will to do it is naive. If you doubt it, just look at Palantir. People like us built that - Thiel and his minions only paid their salaries.

Boiling the frog is a thing. As is laying the groundwork. Governments are much less likely to pull off multi-decade plans than they are to make use of whatever technology is already out there.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#242

Post by AnthonyMouse »

michaelt wrote: post #206
cryptonector wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't TPMs nor attestation nor DRM making this possible. It isn't secure boot either. It's walled gardens with secure boot -yes, secure boot- that the consumer can't bypass. Secure booting isn't the problem in an enterprise setting -- of course we _want secure booting_ in the enterprise. It's consumer devices that can't be jail-broken that are the problem. Although even then, the silly age verification laws and th…

> Although even then, the silly age verification laws and the people pushing them don't even care if the OSes run on walled garden devices. Believe me, the people writing the age verification laws care a great deal whether the age verification can be turned off by the device owner . The whole exercise would be pointless if teenage device owners could turn the censorship off.

Would it? Parents who so choose could restrict their teenagers from owning a device and instead give them one owned by the parent and configured not to show adult content.

A sufficiently adversarial teenager could get a different one, but they could do that regardless since it generally costs even less to get some 18 year old high school senior or homeless adult etc. to lend you their ID than to buy another device.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#243

Post by account42 »

cortesoft wrote: post #142
michaelt wrote: post #18

I sometimes wonder whether the people in the tech industry who worked on things like secure boot, attestation, and DRM saw this as the inevitability open source advocates always saw it as. Did they think, as they worked to transfer final say from users to corporations, by technical means, that politicians couldn't transfer that control to themselves by political means? Did they think they could lock things down to ex…

I am guessing they thought "My kids are depending on me to pay our mortgage and buy food"

[flagged]

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#244

Post by account42 »

jjav wrote: post #204
michaelt wrote: post #18

I sometimes wonder whether the people in the tech industry who worked on things like secure boot, attestation, and DRM saw this as the inevitability open source advocates always saw it as. Did they think, as they worked to transfer final say from users to corporations, by technical means, that politicians couldn't transfer that control to themselves by political means? Did they think they could lock things down to ex…

> Did they think Having argued these topics for decades, I think that a lot of people just truly can't foresee the inevitable consequences. I don't know why, the consequences seem obvious but because they are not spelled out, many people say it won't happen.

The problem is that even when you do spell out the consequences many of them will wave them away.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#245

Post by trumpdong »

KaiserPro wrote: post #215
michaelt wrote: post #18

I sometimes wonder whether the people in the tech industry who worked on things like secure boot, attestation, and DRM saw this as the inevitability open source advocates always saw it as. Did they think, as they worked to transfer final say from users to corporations, by technical means, that politicians couldn't transfer that control to themselves by political means? Did they think they could lock things down to ex…

The people in the industry that I know were/are trying to stop fraudsters, script kiddies, nasty people, and governments from trying to exploit weaknesses and take unauthorised control of devices and services. The problem with that is it generally requires a central point of trust. Sure you can allow multiple points of trust, but for the unskilled user, that means that the little lock symbol becomes unreliable (or wh…

In today's world the 14-year-old girl who took a topless beach photo of herself would likely be criminally charged as an adult for production, possession and distribution of child pornography. So there's something about how our legal attitudes have changed too.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#246

Post by account42 »

shiandow wrote: post #57
michaelt wrote: post #18

I sometimes wonder whether the people in the tech industry who worked on things like secure boot, attestation, and DRM saw this as the inevitability open source advocates always saw it as. Did they think, as they worked to transfer final say from users to corporations, by technical means, that politicians couldn't transfer that control to themselves by political means? Did they think they could lock things down to ex…

The phrase 'banality of evil' comes to mind.

Does that really still apply when the people in question make six or seven figures for it? At some point we should expect some kind of individual responsibility.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#247

Post by trumpdong »

account42 wrote: post #240
bragh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, the people who work on secure boot, attestation, DRM, and other such features know very well, but don't care. This is because the claimed benefits for them, such as less hackers, less malware, less bot traffic, outweigh any possible downsides for the society.

There is definitely a common type of computer security enthusiast for whom the need for security is absolute and costs don't even enter the equation.

The difference is who controls it. If you want to set up secure boot with your own keys, good on you, go for it.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#248

Post by trumpdong »

michaelt wrote: post #206
cryptonector wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't TPMs nor attestation nor DRM making this possible. It isn't secure boot either. It's walled gardens with secure boot -yes, secure boot- that the consumer can't bypass. Secure booting isn't the problem in an enterprise setting -- of course we _want secure booting_ in the enterprise. It's consumer devices that can't be jail-broken that are the problem. Although even then, the silly age verification laws and th…

> Although even then, the silly age verification laws and the people pushing them don't even care if the OSes run on walled garden devices. Believe me, the people writing the age verification laws care a great deal whether the age verification can be turned off by the device owner . The whole exercise would be pointless if teenage device owners could turn the censorship off.

How do you feel about California's age verification law?

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#249

Post by account42 »

photios wrote: post #189
michaelt wrote: post #18

I sometimes wonder whether the people in the tech industry who worked on things like secure boot, attestation, and DRM saw this as the inevitability open source advocates always saw it as. Did they think, as they worked to transfer final say from users to corporations, by technical means, that politicians couldn't transfer that control to themselves by political means? Did they think they could lock things down to ex…

These people have names and addresses. Getting them out in the open will help a lot. I'm not saying we should lynch them, but a good deal of public shaming is in order. Who knows, their kids might pick a different vocation.

While I'm not fundamentally opposed to the idea I'm not convinced its going to be effective. A lot of the leaders that ultimately approved these developments are already public figures and that doesn't seem to affect their motivations.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#250

Post by trumpdong »

jjav wrote: post #204
michaelt wrote: post #18

I sometimes wonder whether the people in the tech industry who worked on things like secure boot, attestation, and DRM saw this as the inevitability open source advocates always saw it as. Did they think, as they worked to transfer final say from users to corporations, by technical means, that politicians couldn't transfer that control to themselves by political means? Did they think they could lock things down to ex…

> Did they think Having argued these topics for decades, I think that a lot of people just truly can't foresee the inevitable consequences. I don't know why, the consequences seem obvious but because they are not spelled out, many people say it won't happen.

It's difficult to get someone to understand something when his salary relies on him not understanding it.
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