Greenwald Advises Market-Based Solution To Mass Surveillance 157
Nicola Hahn writes In his latest Intercept piece Glenn Greenwald considers the recent defeat of the Senate's USA Freedom Act. He remarks that governments "don't walk around trying to figure out how to limit their own power." Instead of appealing to an allegedly irrelevant Congress Greenwald advocates utilizing the power of consumer demand to address the failings of cyber security. Specifically he argues that companies care about their bottom line and that the trend of customers refusing to tolerate insecure products will force companies to protect user privacy, implement encryption, etc. All told Greenwald's argument is very telling: that society can rely on corporate interests for protection. Is it true that representative government is a lost cause and that lawmakers would never knowingly yield authority? There are people who think that advising citizens to devolve into consumers is a dubious proposition.
"very telling" indeed (Score:4, Insightful)
Just asking this question (in a serious context) is foolish and ruining America:
The enemies of freedom want us to be asking fsking moronic questions like this!
**of course 'representative government' isn't a lost cause**
The fact that we are even putting this on /. is the thing that is actually "very telling"...it shows people have forgotten the basics of being a free individual
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Indeed. People should shut up and remember the real freedom - that is consuming, watching Kardashians on TV and bitching about taxes.
Please ignore these trolls who tell you differently. They are ENEMIES OF THE FREEDOM!
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I'm not at all surprised. Remember, the first thing Greenwald released from the Snowden stuff was the powerpoint slides that misrepresented the programs (because it was prepared by a contractor who wasn't actually using the stuff they were training!) He leaked out something like 8 months of lies and misrepresentations before the real programs got leaked, and by then most people had stopped paying attention to the details.
I always assume he's the NSA damage-control guy.
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Yeah, everybody should just trust the large corporations to ensure your personal privacy, please ignore how it's been violated for the past 10 years through the use of NSL's and secret warrants that the corporations couldn't tell you about, and that the administration [either R or D] will then use some other secret interpretation of laws and previous secret interpretations/rules to order the corporations to install secret back doors into their systems, with "your company will go bankrupt" sized penalties if
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The government answers to Corporations People answer to the government.
Why would anyone think that People answering to Corporations answering to the Government would work?
The only solution that works here is:
Government answers to the people.
Constitutionally enforced term limits would be a good start. Completely eliminating campaign contributions and setting up mandatory public funding for all elective federal offices would be a good follow on.
There. FTFY.
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"Removing party affiliation from the ballot would be an excellent first step."
I like this idea! I suspect that most US voters wouldn't know who to vote for without the letter, presidential election excepted.
In the UK system, parties are a formal element of the democratic process. In the US they are really just an informal overlay.
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Sure they would, they would just be using an endorsement list from their party, instead of reading it off the ballot.
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But that requires some minimal level of effort.
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Removing party affiliation from the ballot would be an excellent first step.
It does nothing at all except lower turnout. If you have single vote winner-takes-all elections, you'll still have political parties controlling everything, and there will be exactly 2 at a time with most of the power. It is just a side-effect of winner-takes-all.
OTOH, you can leave party affiliation on the ballot, and change to preference voting, and then you'd have a wide variety of parties that would all be successful and you'd have different alliances different election cycles.
That all flows from the ma
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Didn't Japan do something like that after WWII with the zaibatsu system? Seemed to work quite well for them...
It does. It's giving people exactly what they demand, whether that's getting tough on crime (and ignoring "technicalities" like actual evidence), tryijng to stamp out drugs with maximum prejudice, ensuring no one gets anything they haven't earned, etc. Every single p
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Constitutionally enforced term limits would be a good start.
Many jurisdictions have implemented term limits. There is no evidence that it has led to better government. The primary effect seems to be an increase in the power of lobbyists, since the legislators have less expertise.
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Term limits are undemocratic by definition (the same arguments[1] for not allowing voters to vote for the same person if they want to can be used to allowing voters to vote in the first place). And they cause power to shift elsewhere (this should be obvious if you think about it - how long can real power stay where there are term limits?).
So term limits just cause voters have less influence over those that rule over them.
It's not just that legislators have no expertise. The stupider well-meaning ones could
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In that section, it does say: "Instead, these changes are taking place because these companies are petrified that the perception of their collaboration with the NSA will harm their future profits, " from which
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I agree that the article is misrepresented badly. I read the article long before it was posted here and what I drew from it was that Greenwald seemed to advocating that the solution to mass surveillance would start from bottom up activism, such as boycotts and demonstrations, and not from congress spontaneously deciding that they would play nice. Which is honestly how democracy really works. If congress is failing to reign in mass surveillance it is because they don't fear losing their jobs over their fa
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I agree, but it's still worth pestering corporations to get what we want. They have a lot of power, and a lot of money for lobbying. If we can align Google's or Apple's interests with our own we can take advantage of that.
It's a dangerous game but democracy is so broken in the US it's what you are left with.
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Really? Because my immediate reaction was to laugh out loud at the naivete. Companies care about bottom lines. They don't care about security, as amply demonstrated by banks which can have vulnerabilities pointed out to them, and then try to criminally prosecute the guy who tells them, and don't fix the problem.
This has happened over and over right here on Slashdot.
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Exactly and that's the point. If a flight of customers is going to make a business go under, that business is going to bitch to reps/senators and then something will happen.
To get there though, users must engage in flight to alternatives in a recognizable pattern. You think Google would totally not care if there was a demonstration day, where say google's usage rate dropped by a third and DuckDuckGo's septupled or whatever? Google would totally notice. So would DDG for
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Actually, in response to a government that seems to give less than a concerned moment for privacy, and happiness and rights as individuals, we should seek to secure our data to prevent their current run of abuses. If everyone encrypts and goes iundergroud with their data we can make the laws as written wholly irrelevant. Your thoughts about being free are sound and I agree with the goal, but the right now of it all doesn't give us a drop of secrecy, until we either revolt, vote out a lame congress etc. It i
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I think a good point is being made that corporations are a lot better at telling the government what to do than the citizenry. Interestingly, that also boils down to corporations caring a lot more about protecting their interests. Maybe they understand what the masses do not: Ultimately, your very existence depends on it.
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Biggest lie in politics (Score:2)
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**of course 'representative government' isn't a lost cause**
Indeed. In my opinion just adding a federal recall procedure would fix a lot of mess in USA. Campaign funding should also be addressed, but is is a secondary problem once the elected knows he/she can be thrown out for misbehaving.
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Voters were disillusioned by promises of hope and change but delivery of more government as usual. promises of the most open administration but delivery of the opposite. A lot of people were hurting from 2008 and were not any better off in 2014.
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Exactly. Democrats are the new Nixons: perpetual war, Nixon's health care plan, mass surveillance beyond Nixon's fantasies. That liberals are not voting for Democrats is called being logical, and not voting against your beliefs.
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I'm anti-partisan. We basically have a single monolithic GOP: the Blue GOP favors gay rights and abortion, the Red GOP does not.
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krokodil more likely.
Consumers aren't interested in privacy (Score:1)
Case in point: Google.
It only takes a little (Score:2)
I can see how Greenwald would think that. He isn't in the business of buying and selling their authority.
customers refusing to tolerate insecure products (Score:2, Flamebait)
Greenwald is either a deluded Randroid (but honestly, is there any other kind?) or a front for those pushing corporatism for the sake of those who run large corporations.
Re:customers refusing to tolerate insecure product (Score:5, Insightful)
Telling us to rely on corporations to shield us from an invasive government is like the fox convincing the chicken that it can rely on the wolf for protection. One way or another, you're going to get eaten.
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There is a significant difference between "giving up privacy to a company that is legally constrained in what they can do with it" and "having privacy taken from you by a government that is already ignoring its self-imposed legal limitations".
The worst Google can do with my data is serve me bad ads or publicly release it. I'm not important enough for anyone to really care about my indiscretions, and I've not done anything that would make me infamous if it were announced. Unless Google were to try very hard
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I don't see the difference. You say "legally constrained", but such constraints can only be enforced by government. If the government is pro-surveillance, they will co-opt the corporations that collect information and attack the *cough*Qwest*cough* ones that don't. If the government wants to throw you in Gitmo, they'll get all of Google's information on you. Corporation vs. government will not protect you.
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The legal constraints are on Google, not on the government.
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Right now the majority of that information is kept in the dark from the consumer. Most don't realize just how much data can be acquired and what kind of profile can be built against anyone utilizing it. Even if the data is released for public scrutiny, the explanation and implications of it would have to be toned down a bit to fit the typical users understanding of it. ( No law or enginee
House reps are always campaigning, have small dist (Score:2, Interesting)
Representatives in the House are elected every two years, and their districts are small enough that the number of politically active people is limited, especially in midterms. By politically active I mean people who directly affect the local. vote, not those of us who only post on Slashdot.
With a few hundred people who attend town hall meetings and debates, post on that rep's Facebook wall, call into the local radio station when the rep is on etc, a dozen or so active citizens might well swing a represen
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Just saying "abolish the NSA" leaves one wide open to the rebuttal "who then will keep on eye on China, Russia, and actual terrorists like ISIS? "
When ex-NSA employees are suggesting that the NSA is too entrenched to be reformed and has to be rebuilt from the ground up (sorry, I can't find a reference at the moment), maybe it's not such a bad idea.
But if we don't go that far, an NSA watchdog group might be the next best thing. It could be comprised of EFF, the ACLU, and oh I don't know, Slashdot, Reddit, and 4chan. Sadly, that's probably not the stupidest suggestion so far. But seriously, how were foreign threats monitored prior to the NSA's exist
700,000. (Score:3)
Representatives in the House are elected every two years, and their districts are small enough that the number of politically active people is limited, especially in midterms. By politically active I mean people who directly affect the local. vote, not those of us who only post on Slashdot.
So the House is completely doable. It just requires a few people _in_each_district_ who care enough to study and understand beyond the headlines, then put in a few hours of time.
Political effectiveness demands a serious investment in time, money and manpower.
It can't be done on the cheap.
There are 435 congressional districts in the United States House of Representatives, with each one representing approximately 700,000 people. These are not small numbers. Congressional district [wikipedia.org]
Of which 150 show up, 30 talk about NSA. Sample (Score:2)
> each one representing approximately 700,000 people.
Of those 700,000, about 150 will show up to a town hall meeting to let the rep know what they think of some topic. Some are most interested in what's happening with the VA, whatever. Of those 150 who show up, maybe 30 will be there to talk about the NSA and such. When the rep thinks about what voters think about a particular issue, he's guided by a small sample - the 30 people who told him what they think.
Re:House reps are always campaigning, have small d (Score:4, Interesting)
With a few hundred people who attend town hall meetings and debates, post on that rep's Facebook wall, call into the local radio station when the rep is on etc, a dozen or so active citizens might well swing a representative's vote,
That's so cute that you believe that! The average congressional campaign [opensecrets.org] cost USD$1.2 million this year. Money talks and it's corporations and other monied interests that are doing the talking, not "concerned citizens." Sure your congressperson will pat you on the head and say "I work hard to make sure our district gets what it needs! I work for you." But the truth is they work for those who pay their way.
You must think things work as they did back in 1946 [amazon.com] when this was written. Sorry champ. Those days are long gone.
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With a few hundred people who attend town hall meetings and debates, post on that rep's Facebook wall, call into the local radio station when the rep is on etc, a dozen or so active citizens might well swing a representative's vote,
That's so cute that you believe that! The average congressional campaign [opensecrets.org] cost USD$1.2 million this year. Money talks and it's corporations and other monied interests that are doing the talking, not "concerned citizens." Sure your congressperson will pat you on the head and say "I work hard to make sure our district gets what it needs! I work for you." But the truth is they work for those who pay their way.
You must think things work as they did back in 1946 [amazon.com] when this was written. Sorry champ. Those days are long gone.
Money doesn't talk as much as people think, and the return rate on dollars to candidates elected for SuperPACs remains poor. It only works when the messaging goes unchallenged.
$1.2 million buys Facebook campaign, etc. (Score:2)
Don't forget they spend that $1.2 million on something. They spend that money getting votes by first figuring out what message will work, then promoting that message. In 2008, 72% of candidates used some of their money on a Facebook page to get their message out ( Williams and Gulati 2012). So while the candidates are spending money building just the right Facebook presence to get votes, I suggested "post on that rep's Facebook wall". By doing so, when the candidate spends $1.2MM asking voters to "Like us
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Those days are long gone.
You really have to wonder whether "those days" were ever around in the first place.
Money always talks. The more money you have, the louder you can be. Even on the internet, which equalizes this a bit, money just goes into disinformation rather than information.
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Just saying "abolish the NSA" leaves one wide open to the rebuttal "who then will keep on eye on China, Russia, and actual terrorists like ISIS? "
That's not a valid rebuttal in "the land of the free and the home of the brave," or for any free country really. Our fundamental liberties are simply more important than safety, and it's extremely unsettling that most people living in the land of the free don't seem to care at all about the constitution or even our most basic liberties. As far as I'm concerned, such people can move to North Korea, which already has everything they could possibly desire in a government.
It's all bullshit (Score:1)
Government malfunction can only be blamed on the people who vote for crooks. What could be simpler? What is this? Does Greenwald think privacy is going to trickle down? Where have we heard that before? If people cared about their privacy they would vote for politicians that would respect privacy. But they don't. So forget about it. We just have to make the authorities more transparent.
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Both Parties are crooks. How can you blame the voters for an evil choice when the choices are evil and evil?
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How can you blame the voters for an evil choice when the choices are evil and evil?
Because the actual choices are evil, evil, I-don't-know-you, never-heard-of-you, who-are-you and I-don't-care-enough-to-actually-check-who-the-choices-are.
There are more than two parties in the system. The fact that only two of them matter is what voters can and should be blamed for.
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The other parties need to put up people who aren't loonies then. In the governor's race for my state there was a libertarian on the ballot, and I thought, "Oh, I might vote for a third party candidate!" So I went to his website and read his platform, and yeah, he wants my state to issue its own currency backed by gold.
Just saying "vote third party!" misses the point that the third parties have to be worth voting for.
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Because the actual choices are evil, evil, I-don't-know-you, never-heard-of-you, who-are-you and I-don't-care-enough-to-actually-check-who-the-choices-are.
And it's naive to assume that I-don't-know-you, never-heard-of-you, and who-are-you aren't just as evil, or at least as enthusiastically corruptible, as the scumbags we keep getting stuck with.
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Look at your own sig very carefully, and think about it a little bit.
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Except you're not. You're responding to someone who has begged off of voting to elect (but still vainly tries to keep shit like Florida's 2008 "Amendment 2" out, for some reason) because there are exactly zero options that don't equate to fucking himself over.
So you're preaching to the choir.
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Since the system works like an old-school video arcade (how much you can get done is directly proportional to how much money you have to dump into it), I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.
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How can you blame the voters for an evil choice when the choices are evil and evil?
Because the actual choices are evil, evil, I-don't-know-you, never-heard-of-you, who-are-you and I-don't-care-enough-to-actually-check-who-the-choices-are.
There are more than two parties in the system. The fact that only two of them matter is what voters can and should be blamed for.
However, as I think you know perfectly well, as long as we have single-selection first-past-the-post voting, it doesn't matter how many parties there are in the system—only the two major ones have more than a snowball's chance in Hell of actually winning more than 1 or 2 legislative seats in anything but the rarest circumstances.
No; once you've reached the polls, the chance to select better candidates is already long past. If you want a better choice of candidates, then the first answer is "do your be
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it doesn't matter how many parties there are in the systemâ"only the two major ones have more than a snowball's chance in Hell of actually winning more than 1 or 2 legislative seats in anything but the rarest circumstances.
And this is true exactly because everyone assumes it is true and adapts their voting behavior accordingly.
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it doesn't matter how many parties there are in the systemâ"only the two major ones have more than a snowball's chance in Hell of actually winning more than 1 or 2 legislative seats in anything but the rarest circumstances.
And this is true exactly because everyone assumes it is true and adapts their voting behavior accordingly.
Changing a political system, even one as inertia-ridden as we have in the US right now, is easier than changing human nature.
Dan Aris
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Then there's the point of people like you, the politcally ignorant
You assume a lot about people you've never met. Good thing you're posting AC, you would bring shame to your name if you didn't.
The backroom deals and "old family" names that have to have to nod to get the power behind a name.
Oh, please. You think the powers behind the curtain care one bit about the election results? Real corruption ignores the elections and goes to the institutions. Look at your government. Yeah, you elect the senators and presidents, but the guys who sit in the ministry of whatever for 20 years working on the laws, implementing the guidelines, writing the decision papers - you forget a
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No, it cannot be. They didn't vote for the crooks that are running the show. The people who did vote put them into office.
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No. The Party put them in office; the "people" didn't really have a choice. Here's how it works:
You might try to argue "well the people need to be smarter then," but you have to rem
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Fine, then don't blame anybody but the individuals in the collective. Everybody has the whole thing completely backwards. This is intentional, to avoid responsibility for the consequences of their own choices. 98% of the world disagrees with me. It don't mean shit. 98% of the world is what gave you the system you have. Without them, your "one percenters" would have nothing.
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government malfunction can be blamed on people who do not vote, and are then dissatisfied with the outcome
Funny, I was just about to say that government malfunction can be blamed on people who DO vote. Don't get me wrong - I vote. But I'm starting to feel like a sucker for doing so, 'cause the new boss is always the same as the old boss, and nothing ever changes except the facade and the window dressing.
Voting only works so long as there are truly, fundamentally, meaningfully different choices to vote for, and currently there aren't any to speak of. Sure, there are independent candidates nibbling at the frozen
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Funny, I was just about to say that government malfunction can be blamed on people who DO vote. Don't get me wrong - I vote. But I'm starting to feel like a sucker for doing so, 'cause the new boss is always the same as the old boss, and nothing ever changes except the facade and the window dressing.
You might want to try not voting for evil scumbags, or if you're fooled by their silly advertisements, you might want to try doing actual research on them. Had you done both of these things, you'd know that voting for The One Party candidates is the problem. Vote third party. Saying you won't because there's little chance they'll win is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But even if they don't win, enough people voting for them can send a message to The One Party. It's better than actively voting for evil, anyway;
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Saying you won't because there's little chance they'll win is a self-fulfilling prophecy
What about saying you won't because, in the end, you're not likely to see any appreciable difference anyway?
When the game board is made of toxic waste, going out and buying a new set of plastic tokens doesn't fix the whole "getting deathly sick" thing.
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That's just another type of self-fulfilling prophecy. By giving up and not doing anything, you're just bringing your chances of changing anything down to absolute 0, rather than simply being low.
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In my judgment, most of the third parties I've seen would be worse than the Democrats and Republicans. It is more feasible to try to change one of the parties. It's not easy, but it can have results. Look at the Tea Party and its effect on Republicans.
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One step at a time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Coincidentally, I have stopped using a mobile phone. This is much to the disgust of people around me, apparently it is their right to be able to contact me at any time these days. Failure to give a near instantaneous response causes anger! I have now realised that I was a slave to technology. I'm not willingly going to give any company my money any more. Consumerist propaganda can fuck itself. I am down to spending less than 20% of my income on core expenses (rent/food). Now the power of compounding interest is on my side.
Fight neo-feudalism. The corporation and government are not my lords. I am free, not a slave. I owe them NOTHING.
Welcome aboard (Score:1)
NoScript for the win! And Ghostery as a safety net when desperate.
Actually, now you've mentioned it, I don't think I was hassled about the lack of a cellphone by the inlaws last Christmas, nor since. It had been a bit of ritual for the last decade or so. Maybe it's starting to sink in for them.
Re:One step at a time. (Score:4, Insightful)
Coincidentally, I have stopped using a mobile phone. This is much to the disgust of people around me, apparently it is their right to be able to contact me at any time these days.
You don't have to ditch your phone to do that. You can simply realize that answering it is still a choice.
You can let a call go to voicemail. You can leave a text message sitting there, waiting for answer until it's convenient for you to answer it. It's possible, you know?
I love my iPhone because it puts things into my pocket that are useful to me. Maps, reminders, calendar, notes, and occasionally writing a mail or checking something on the Internet. I very rarely answer mails on my phone, for example.
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He could also be concerned about tracking via the cellphone, a reason to get rid of it entirely.
But even outside of that, some people just seem addicted to their devices (in metaphor if not in the literal sense), and the only way to break that is to get rid of it entirely. You wouldn't expect an alcoholic to keep beer around in case his friends want a cold one when they visit, so to me it's quite reasonable to toss the phone entirely.
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Now the power of compounding interest is on my side.
You get enough interest on your money to matter? Can I get the name of your bank?
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It's probably stocks. Making him the corporate lord.
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They are not upset that they can't contact you instantly, they are upset that contacting you is quite a bit harder. I'm guessing you don't have a Facebook account either... So basically they can call your land line and hope you are there. No calling your mobile, no text messages. It's an extra burden for them, and they don't understand your objection to being tracked.
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It also tends to be that people who forego cellphones still choose to utilize everyone else's. At some point that's a violation of the social contract - you're making yourself uncontactable, but taking advantage of that utility surrounding everyone else. Moreover, you're also starting to demand people adhere to your schedule on your terms: see complaining that people won't kowtow to your contact hours.
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I am free, not a slave.
Ah!-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa! Sit down, Number 6.
America is a Lost Cause (Score:2)
No, I do not agree that representative government is a lost cause. But I absolutely do believe that American representative government is clearly a lost cause.
Americans have no real choice when it comes to change. Obama has proven that change does not happen, no matter that a would-be president says.
Americans have only two choices. And those two choices have proven time and time and time and time and time again that those two choices are bad choices. The influence of money and corruption permeates all leve
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American politics is just a dysfunctional example. There are examples of it working better elsewhere in the world. Here in the UK, for example. We grumble about our politicians a lot, and it's no great secret that they are in bed with financial interests, but at the same time we do get to have a sensible debate over social issues in a manner that seems to be impossible in the US. You won't find anyone in politics here accusing the prime minister of trying to import illegal children to sell for medical resea
Why not both? (Score:2)
Is it true that representative government is a lost cause and that lawmakers would never knowingly yield authority? There are people who think that advising citizens to devolve into consumers is a dubious proposition.
Maybe working through both venues [theonion.com] would improve the chances of effecting change?
Citizens to consumers? (Score:2)
We're consumers enough already. We should maybe show people who to become citizens, aware of their duties and rights and able and willing to heed and exercise them, instead of just being mindless consumer drones.
Market-based way: Maximum profit, minimum cost (Score:2)
A market-based approach cannot work for cyber-security any more than a Government-led approach can, when the Government feels it has a vested interest in being able to monitor its own or other countries' citizens.
The market-based approach fails because the market-based philosophy is to maximize profit while minimizing cost, so the end result is a risk analysis of:
1. The odds of being hacked.
2. The odds of that hack being detected by someone outside the company, and that being published.
3. The odds of that h
De-evolution (Score:2)
There are people who think that advising citizens to devolve into consumers is a dubious proposition.
Devolve? I'm still waiting for them to evolve into citizens.
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Not every country is like the US (Score:1)
In most countries governments work pretty well.
no chance (Score:2)
Take a lesson from politics. Dictators have discovered in the 50s that it is cheaper and more reliable to put money into propaganda and oppression than into actually improving their peoples lives. The purpose of both approaches - at least from a dictators perspective - is to prevent uprisings and revolutions, i.e. to stay in power. Sadly, the same economically driven view that's being advocated here also makes the least desireable outcome be the most rational choice.
For computers, the equivalent solution is
Like corporations can't be made to follow law. (Score:2)
stop using cruise ships, start cloudsteading (Score:2)
People *do* care about privacy. 86% have taken some steps to clean up digital footprints [pewinternet.org]. There's other stats that show the interest, but there's some serious overtones of impotence -- that there's just not that much anyone can do about it -- we all need all these super valuable cloud services so we must lock ourselves in to big vendors, who then might abuse our trust (or get hacked themselves, being a rich target).
But Greenwald is absolutely right, we must provide for our own safety, we cannot ever delegat
Apple does this (Score:1)
Stupid Clickbait Whoring (Score:2)
Specifically he argues that companies care about their bottom line and that the trend of customers refusing to tolerate insecure products will force companies to protect user privacy, implement encryption, etc.
Posting this article on slashdot is trolling, whoring for clicks, etc, because no technical solution can ever solve our political problems. As long as the USA is willing to use the rubber hose, presaged by a national security letter, nothing corporations can do can fix this problem.
Markets are defined by governments. Wank wank, stroke stroke, flonk flonk.
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How often does the government use the rubber hose? IANAL, but it seems to me there's a tendency in the US courts to not require people to hand over cipher keys as a general rule. If the NSA can't read your email. that's at least a bit of privacy you've gained.
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IANAL, but it seems to me there's a tendency in the US courts
The problem is that the US can ignore the law when it wants to. Although we're not seeing the average US citizen whisked off to gitmo, the general lack of respect for rights means that you cannot count on yours being protected.
Pray to God and Row Toward Shore (Score:3)
There's a religious refrain, "Pray to God but row toward shore." It means you should ask for God's help, but that doesn't mean you should just sit there in the boat and wait to be saved.
From the Cryptome PDF:
Yesterday the USA Freedom Act was blocked in the Senate as it failed to garner the 60 votes required to move forward. Presumably the bill would have imposed limits on NSA surveillance. Careful scrutiny of the billâ(TM)s text however reveals yet another mere gesture of reform, one that would codify and entrench existing surveillance capabilities rather than eliminate them.
We didn't really lose anything. The government chose not to pass a platitude. That's probably not going to change until we manage to fix the twin problem of fear and hatred, being stoked by those who gain from emotionalism.
In the meantime, we need to row toward shore. Keep working on all the cryptography solutions you have time to help with. If you have an interest in meme propagation on social media or propaganda, see if you can figure out some ways to weaken the grip of emotionalism. I am, and it's fun.
Sometimes your nation calls on you for service. Sometimes you have to know what it needs even if it doesn't know how to ask.
trust whom? (Score:2)
This is sort of confusing. Our government is doing what the highest paying corporations want currently, and Greenwald thinks us putting trust in them will save us?
They are part of the problem. Corporations & Governments, shitheads that walk hand in hand.
Finally - a leftist gets it about government power (Score:2)
Greenwald has an excellent point here: if the current Democratic -majority Senate rejected NSA reform, what's going to happen next year when Republicans assume power? We will get improved privacy rights only when consumers care enough about the subject to choose more secure products.
Want contactless payments? Then consciously go for the most secure implementations. Tired of having your e-mail account hacked while on vacation? Take the trouble to use two-factor authentication. Concerned about the NSA's abili
Money Talks (Score:1)
You don't know Greenwald (Score:1)
market-based approach (Score:2)
As it happens, I was just wondering to myself this morning how much of our present right-wing enthusiasm for our current economic system is rooted in capitalist democracy being far, far, far superior to pre-COBOL Stalinism. The true test arrives when some Asian economic model arises, one very different from our own historical model, and kicks us in the pants.
It's sad, really, that "market-based" turned into such a horrible cliche. Most of the damage was caused by so many people putting it in front of "sol
Re: (Score:2)
Right. If there are a half million Cynaogen mods out there, hell, let's make it a full million, they certainly don't represent "people getting their knickers in a twist". According to Wikipedia, there are something like 7E10 cell phones out there. 1E6 modded phones means absolutely jack.
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Re: (Score:1)
In contrast to sites such as this one, the majority of folks wielding a smart-phone, tablet or computer of some flavor aren't well versed in security, code vulnerabilities, and means and methods of keeping tabs on everything they do. It's why they're called " users " and not " engineers ".