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Forced Exposure

groklaw.net

391–400 of 430 posts

Re: Forced Exposure

#391
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People must understand that every interaction with an Internet service means voluntarily sending your data to them. These companies don't just "vacuum it up", the data is simply sent directly to them. Maybe you don't see it that way, but that is why the perception needs to change. When you use Gmail you are sending your mail to Google , first, and then it is relayed to the recipients. When you search for driving dire…

> People your you you you your you you you they You them you they People who do not understand technology to the depth and detail that you do are not halfwits or children. They know what they intend to accomplish and giving up their most personal information for perpetual archival is seldom a property they are asking for. If the technological tools they possess do not faithfully obey their intentions with a minimum o…

Putting users' needs first is a great ideal, but ultimately any exchange with a company in a private market context is an economic one.

I don't think anybody is an idiot just because they don't understand this. They've come to see Internet services as something like public utilities. There is very little to reinforce the idea that you are indeed giving the provider something for the service, since what you are giving is invisible/intangible.

Re: Forced Exposure

#392

Can anyone explain for the uninformed how anything like surveillance affects Groklaw? I was under the (probably wrong) impression that most of what Groklaw did was explain the law and court cases in simple terms.

PJs coverage of several cases contained information that often found its way into the court room much to the chagrin of the Plaintiff. PJ was subject to a very nasty, dishonest expose by a shill for SCO at one point. PJ also regularly put out calls for prior art that resulted in patents being invalidated. A strategic leak of information by the government could be very damaging to some of Groklaw's contributors... even though the contributors likely did nothing they could go to jail for.

Oh, and she did all of the above in simple terms. Groklaw is easily one of the best blogs ever. Sad day to see PJ go.

Re: Forced Exposure

#393
post #167

Chomsky noted in a speech recently ( http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_noth... ) that the very vast majority of us have absolutely no impact on the policy of our governments. Only the upper tiers have influence and the utter richest minority are likely to get what they want. In both the US and where I am in Australia, the two major parties are barely different and doubly so in regards to this wh…

The idea is great, but unfortunately it won't work for the majority of Americans. Paycheck-to-paycheck is a reality for way too many people. I know a lot of people who are opposed to Walmart, and wish that they could afford not to shop there, but they can't. The price is just too compelling. Feeding their kids is a lot more important to them than making a political statement.

Sure, but there are other small steps that can make incremental differences. Cheaper than driving a car (insurance, registration, fuel bought from a megacorp) is riding a bike now and then. Or getting coffee from the little place on the corner rather than the chain. Or even buying from the third biggest fast food company in the country rather than the first biggest.

Re: Forced Exposure

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Here's hoping that the people eventually figure out that instant runoff can be implemented state-by-state." I prefer approval, but hey, your state can have IRV and mine can have approval and thanks to the electoral college that doesn't break things! Unless we're in the same state, in which case we'll have to agree on something I guess.

Unpack "approval" for me? Honestly, I'm in favor of any modifications to winner-take-all. "None of the Above" would be a major win for the protest vote, with a huge meta-electoral effect even if it never wins. And while it would boost morale and turnout for presidential years, the real effect would be seen if we elected Congress that way as well.

"the real effect would be seen if we elected Congress that way as well."

Elaborate on that a bit - I know it's popular to say that Congress has a low approval rating, but no one votes for "congress" - they vote for their congresspeople, who typically have high approval ratings. There may well be other effects I'm not spotting, though...

Re: Forced Exposure

#396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitmessage is essentially a torrent server where everyone gets a copy of everyone elses emails, so you get your email by downloading all emails. Unfortunately in such a system, you have to download all emails, or request what you want in order to actual get the email you want. The system either does not scale, or will leak information in order to remove the requirement of getting everyone elses emails. Also, the gove…

I haven't checked Bitmessage's protocals, but that it is not nessasary to identify the intended recipient. If you publish the ciphertext with no meta-data, then everyone can attempt to decrypt it. Only the intended recipient would succeed, but an ease dropper would not be able to identify who successfully decrypted the message. This raises an obvious scalability question, as you need to attempt to decrypt every messa…

If you read the wikipedia entry is says that the destination id is required. I assume these must be created somehow and communicated to the sender before being able to receive anything.

So long as this is occurring, the way the scheme works, unless you download every message, it could be determined which id belongs to whom. Once you determine that it is easy to track originating packets to that destination since it is not an onion system.

Additionally, without side channel communication ( in person or posting that address somewhere publicly ) it is impossible to anonymously communicate to an intended recipient.

Re: Forced Exposure

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments are composed of people. The people who ran the government in the 1940s no longer did by 1960s... and the people who ran the government in the 1960s no longer do today. No, governments are composed of institutionalized sets of behaviours and response guidlines; colloquially known as "Laws" - the architecture of governance. The "people" in these organizations are agents of these systems. They behave exact…

Sure, if you wanna be a defeatist. But IMO, that viewpoint is lazy, and unacceptable to the hacker. Governments change, be it to external factors (9/11 -> passage of Patriot Act -> PRISM), or internal factors (Erm... the Civil Rights Movement ) We, the Millennials, have a good shot at becoming the next greatest generation. We grew up during the rise of the internet. We witnessed 9/11. We fought in two oversea wars, w…

And make the same mistakes as your forebearers...

Re: Forced Exposure

#398
post #8

How feasible is Freenet for email? We can use PGP today, but the metadata is available to all. But what journalists who need to communicate more anonymously that that used pseudonymous PGP keys - one per story, rather one per person, and posted encrypted messages on Freenet?

[deleted]

Re: Forced Exposure

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments are composed of people. The people who ran the government in the 1940s no longer did by 1960s... and the people who ran the government in the 1960s no longer do today. No, governments are composed of institutionalized sets of behaviours and response guidlines; colloquially known as "Laws" - the architecture of governance. The "people" in these organizations are agents of these systems. They behave exact…

Sure, if you wanna be a defeatist. But IMO, that viewpoint is lazy, and unacceptable to the hacker. Governments change, be it to external factors (9/11 -> passage of Patriot Act -> PRISM), or internal factors (Erm... the Civil Rights Movement ) We, the Millennials, have a good shot at becoming the next greatest generation. We grew up during the rise of the internet. We witnessed 9/11. We fought in two oversea wars, w…

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I'll give you Reddit and (most of) SOPA. But Google and Wikipedia are definitely GenX products; we'll split the difference on Obama, and the wars ;-)

Re: Forced Exposure

#400
Americans! Every time someone wants to introduce gun control, you bang on and on about your right to keep and bear arms being necessary to the security of a free State.

Well, your free state is in jeopardy. Now is the time to assemble your well-regulated militia to secure it!

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