31–40 of 67 posts
I wonder if even now, those involved, have any idea of the nature of what they've done and what the magnitude of the consequences are shaping up to be.
What would be helpful would be decentralized services that match the user experience of the existing ones. But that kind of innovation isn't what's going to be discussed here, I'm afraid. On the contrary, such eavesdropping-safe technology would be viewed very conspicuously by the non-tech savy politicians in Europe and other places.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Er, the UK has been part of the European Union since 1973.
Cameron promised a referendum. I hope they get out for good this time.
The thing it, while many of the people who vote Tory want the UK to leave Europe, the people who actually fund the Conservative party make a lot of money from being part of the EU. The disconnect between the voters and the funders of the Conservative Party has been a defining feature of theirs for decades.
This is why mentioning Europe is so destructive for them, because they have to stay in Europe, but cannot publicly admit that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, any traffic that needs to cross the Atlantic, via the Apollo cables, takes a detour via GCHQ Bude, which is funded by the NSA ( http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/USA-spent-millions-Bude-spy-... ). I suspect a lot of non-US traffic goes via London, too.
Used to be a much greater proportion than it is today, largely thanks to the growth of places like the Amsterdam Internet Exchange. At one point there was a building on the Isle of Dogs (former island in the Thames) through which an absolutely terrifying proportion of the network traffic for western Europe travelled.
This is such a great development, and I fully support it. The more decentralization we can make, the more freedom we'll have. As long as they are standards based, not pay-to-play, and, open to everyone.
Merkel and Holland are politicians of a special kind. Politicians & their intelligence thugs caught in bed conspiring with foreign agencies/corporations against the people they represent. France quietly pushing through military legislation authorizing spying on its citizens [1].
We should not allow governments to have any more control over the internet. Look how much damage has already been done. Instead we need to build decentralized systems [2] and mesh networks [3] to route around censorship and government/corporate control.
[1] http://www.examiner.com/article/france-overtakes-nsa-spying-... [2] http://torrentfreak.com/how-the-pirate-bay-plans-to-beat-cen... [3] http://openlibernet.org/
I seriously doubt that Merkel's intentions are pure on this. For starters, we know that Germany has given some degree of cooperation in NSA spying, including allowing the US to build an army base that will be used by the NSA[1]. Secondly, we know that the BND used the NSA's systems for its own intelligence purposes[2]. Something tells me this is as much (if not more) an attempt to put European users' data within reac…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_inst...
(Not saying they are used by the NSA.)
This looks rather clueless, I think. As others have mentioned, the problem isn't so much in the interconnects, but more with the services being used. But there isn't going to come a new Facebook or Google out of Berlin - or anywhere else for that matter. What would be helpful would be decentralized services that match the user experience of the existing ones. But that kind of innovation isn't what's going to be discu…
That is, in part, because the kinds of privacy invasion those two organisations routinely conduct would probably have been challenged earlier and more aggressively if they had been within European jurisdiction, and particularly within Germany.
This is a feature, not a bug.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A more self-sufficient European network, especially one that excludes Great-Britain (sorry guys...), would raise the effort required to do surveillance. The NSA doesn't have a limited budget. It already has more data than it can use.
>would raise the effort required to do surveillance. The UK isn't the only country that co-operates with the US authorities on this, sadly.
I seriously doubt that Merkel's intentions are pure on this. For starters, we know that Germany has given some degree of cooperation in NSA spying, including allowing the US to build an army base that will be used by the NSA[1]. Secondly, we know that the BND used the NSA's systems for its own intelligence purposes[2]. Something tells me this is as much (if not more) an attempt to put European users' data within reac…
You comment made me curious how many US army bases there are on German ground. More than I expected: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_inst... (Not saying they are used by the NSA.)
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So you would also find it perfectly normal if in the pre-Internet era the US government would open each and ever letter and parcel send from outside the US. I'm old enough to remember regimes in which that was common practice back in the day. I know people who grew up in them. We did not refer the them as either friendly or free and democratic nations. But congrats on being a sovereign nation, and good luck with that…