Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

schneier.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 122 posts

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#81

Post by specialist »

ferdo wrote: post #63

I've never trusted the government or the internet. I trust my family and friends. "...the three aims of the tyrant. These are, (1) the humiliation of his subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will not conspire against anybody; (2) the creation of mistrust among them; for a tyrant is not overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another; and this is the reason why tyrants are at war with the good; the…

I only "trust" distrust. Mutual suspicion of belligerents (adversaries) to keep each other in check. Balance of powers.

I was a very engaged election integrity activist. The reason elections in the USA worked as well as they did for as long as they did is because no one trusted the system, each other, etc. Hence the Australian ballot system of voting. If all the players agree to the count, then I as Joe Citizen have greater confidence (vs trust) in the results.

The moment anyone mentions "trust", I assume there's a scam of some sort, either by default or by design.

PS- I sometimes trust family.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#82

Post by ferdo »

specialist wrote: post #81
ferdo wrote: post #63

I've never trusted the government or the internet. I trust my family and friends. "...the three aims of the tyrant. These are, (1) the humiliation of his subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will not conspire against anybody; (2) the creation of mistrust among them; for a tyrant is not overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another; and this is the reason why tyrants are at war with the good; the…

I only "trust" distrust. Mutual suspicion of belligerents (adversaries) to keep each other in check. Balance of powers. I was a very engaged election integrity activist. The reason elections in the USA worked as well as they did for as long as they did is because no one trusted the system, each other, etc. Hence the Australian ballot system of voting. If all the players agree to the count, then I as Joe Citizen have…

"There are all kinds of devices invented for the protection and preservation of countries: defensive barriers, forts, trenches, and the like…But prudent minds have as a natural gift one safeguard which is the common possession of all, and this applies especially to the dealings of democracies.

What is this safeguard? Skepticism.

This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you can keep this, you need fear no harm."

Demosthenes, 4th century BC

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#83

Post by saraid216 »

mseebach wrote: post #40
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it has gone beyond that - if Obama stood up and said "I've made that phone call, Gen. Alexander is turning off PRISM as we speak" would anyone believe it? Its verifiability that counts.

Well, he could very easily create an independent committee with input from EFF and such organisations (they should be able to find some technically competent people with TS clearances they trust) to go in and review the systems.

> an independent committee with input from EFF and such organisations (they should be able to find some technically competent people with TS clearances they trust)

I see no particular reason to trust these people more than Obama.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#84

Post by saraid216 »

0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #80

Welcome to the press briefing today. Our first agenda item is to discuss where the drones will attack... Schneier must not mean that when he talks about coming clean. Anyone who has been betrayed by a friend or lover can regain trust in that person somehow, but that's not the same as regaining trust in a group of people. I don't trust large groups, and how does a whole group (or government) start down the path of reg…

I have an easier time trusting large groups over individual people, because groups can display trend behavior whereas individuals are always going to have eccentricities that can't be mitigated by aggregation.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#85

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

saraid216 wrote: post #84
0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #80

Welcome to the press briefing today. Our first agenda item is to discuss where the drones will attack... Schneier must not mean that when he talks about coming clean. Anyone who has been betrayed by a friend or lover can regain trust in that person somehow, but that's not the same as regaining trust in a group of people. I don't trust large groups, and how does a whole group (or government) start down the path of reg…

I have an easier time trusting large groups over individual people, because groups can display trend behavior whereas individuals are always going to have eccentricities that can't be mitigated by aggregation.

So call tmobile or verizon they are thankful for your call after all.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#86

Post by Torgo »

rayiner wrote: post #61
graedus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Neither party cares about the issue because the people don't care And why don't the people care? Corporate-owned media has a huge amount of influence on what people care about. But in the never ending search for ever increasing profits that is built into their structure by law, they, like the major political parties are "just giving people what they want" too by chasing ratings in order to gain larger market share…

> And why don't the people care? Corporate-owned media has a huge amount of influence on what people care about. Again, I go back to my mom because she's the greatest insight I have into the typical voter. My mom doesn't watch the news. Her opinions are her own. She places a high value on social order, trusts the government, and assumes that the government wouldn't use any information they get from her e-mails to hur…

Her ability to be empathetic about others that are not like her exists in a social (in large part one-way media) framework that either encourages, or ignores or actively discourages such thoughts. To be passive you have to go with the flow, and in a society that overtly emphasized consideration for all its members, she would too because it would be more work to not care about them. Encouraging extreme passivity is beneficial to making every American a malleable consumer. I think that is our societal pressure.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#87

Post by malandrew »

junto wrote: post #33

The question is then; in a two party system where both offer the blue pill, who the hell do you vote for? Neither Democrats nor Republicans will change this. Due to the way that the political system works, a third party isn't possible. In the UK we have a Conservative/Liberal coalition, where traditionally Liberals were strong privacy advocates, but now turn a blind eye to the massive Orwellian/Huxley-esque society g…

TBH, I just want a political party whose sole platform is fixing corruption, mandating transparency, and putting fixes in place to make sure we don't get back in this place. Think of it as a temporary political party. For every issue that is not core to these changes, the official stance is to defer those votes until the next election when someone from a different party gets into power.

Basically, the platform would be "We don't care about gun rights, we don't care about religion, pro choice, pro-life, etc. For every one of these debates we will shelve or delay every bill so the status quo is maintained. None of these typical party issues will be considered at all. This is the everything political stays the same platform. The only thing we will address is the revolving door, regulatory capture, transparency, etc."

One thing I would love happen with respect to transparency is to have every single penny the government pays paid from a common purse that is searchable by any citizen and everything goes back to one individual who is accountable. Every single project that money is never disbursed to any organization to then manage the finances. Instead they get a set of cryptographic keys that allow them to make payments from the government account to every single supplier. Every single person spending a tax dollar can have their entire spending history reviewed. No secrecy anywhere. For every single entity you pay, you would have to declare whether you know personally (i.e. outside of work socially) any officer, owner or individual with a vested interest in that organization. All that is disclosed by penalty of perjury. If you lie some citizen will find out. That's the kind of government we need.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#88

Post by AnthonyMouse »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #41
jseliger wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is then; in a two party system where both offer the blue pill, who the hell do you vote for? Greens or libertarians, which I have been doing for a long time. Real change starts at the ballot box.

The problem with "Real change starts at X" statements is that they necessarily handwave around the circularity of the problems we face. We can't get better policies until we elect better parties, but we can't elect better parties until we address campaign finance and fix the electoral system, but we can't address campaign finance and fix the electoral system until we elect better parties willing to pass better polici…

>We can't get better policies until we elect better parties, but we can't elect better parties until we address campaign finance and fix the electoral system, but we can't address campaign finance and fix the electoral system until we elect better parties willing to pass better policies. And the merry-go-round goes on and on.

So you have to pick one and fix it. It's an engineering problem.

So for example, you have to fix campaign finance. The people in Washington aren't going to fix campaign finance in Washington because the system that exists is the one that got them elected. Ditto for the people in Sacramento, Albany, etc. But wait, you can have Sacramento and Albany fund the federal campaigns of Senators running in California and New York (and so on). State Senators don't get money from K Street, they get money from an entirely different set of lobbyists, so you can get the bills through by taking advantage of the regional weakness of the specific opponents. And then do it the other way around and have the federal government pass a national campaign finance bill for state-level offices.

That is obviously not a trivial undertaking, but we can't jut say "damn it, we're stuck in a cycle" and throw up our hands or it'll never get fixed.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#89

Post by r0s »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #41
jseliger wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is then; in a two party system where both offer the blue pill, who the hell do you vote for? Greens or libertarians, which I have been doing for a long time. Real change starts at the ballot box.

The problem with "Real change starts at X" statements is that they necessarily handwave around the circularity of the problems we face. We can't get better policies until we elect better parties, but we can't elect better parties until we address campaign finance and fix the electoral system, but we can't address campaign finance and fix the electoral system until we elect better parties willing to pass better polici…

See Bush vs. Gore in 2000.

How many millions of voters thought the Democrats were so conservative they went green? After the dust settles suddenly Obama has a chance to compete with the rich old white guys.

Change only comes from outside pressure. I'm proud to vote against the status quo.

Re: Restoring Trust in Government and the Internet

#90

Post by r0s »

junto wrote: post #35
jseliger wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is then; in a two party system where both offer the blue pill, who the hell do you vote for? Greens or libertarians, which I have been doing for a long time. Real change starts at the ballot box.

Which is great and I would even good as far to say 'noble', but in a political system like the United States, your vote is wasted, because your vote is not proportionally represented in the House of Representatives. It means you face an ever-challenging battle against almost impossible odds in order to get your green or libertarian candidate into the House of Representatives.

Why would the goal be fair representation in a broken, unfair system?

I swear everyone thinks third-party voters have somehow never heard the words "your vote is wasted". I vote green because I've grown very cynical and I've heard it all a million times.

The goal is to register as a lost vote to the established parties. If enough votes are lost they will change message and platform. The other direct goal is to give visibility and direct confrontation to the unfair system.

Post reply on HN