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U.S. Proposes Centralized Internet Surveillance
Mr.Intel writes "The Times is reporting that President Bush is 'planning to propose requiring Internet service providers to help build a centralized system to enable broad monitoring of the Internet and, potentially, surveillance of its users.' The recommendation is part of a report entitled 'The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace'. It is due to be published early next year."
Communism:
IN SOVIET RUSSIA the Internet reads YOU for information.
Capitalism:
IN US of AMERICA the YOU re....
Never mind....
My Kettle
I think this sounds like a great idea. Sincerely, Satan
Actually, my first thought was *shrug*. My second thought is "Go Freenet!".
Well.. I'd write something critical of the plan here ... BUT THEY MIGHT BE LISTENING!
I am not a US citizen. If they are monitoring everything on the net, how would they know that I am British and not American. If they do build up a profile of foreign populations, does this classify as espionage?
In my case, Blair sucks up to bush anyway, but what if I was chinese or something?
And.. it is going to be a huge amount of data... realtime monitoring of all peer2peer traffic etc.. Sounds like they need a big budget =)
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
"The international and unregulated nature of the internet has, up until now, enabled communication that was completely untappable. This should do more for solving that problem, at least for law enforcement authorities (no hackers tracking my traffic please ;) ), giving criminals and terrorists alike nowhere to hide. I for one welcome these measures, as I don't wish to see another 9/11, and presumably neither do the rest of you."
You have to be trolling. Oh well, in answer to that...
1) Centralised data means a single point of attack.
2) Trust your government, do you? Even after Iran Contra?
3) I don't notice anyone saying that they've gotten any useful intelligence from emails _before_ a crime has been committed.
OD
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
This Wired article notes that states are rapidly passing legislation that locally prohibits much of the federal gov't activities outlined in the Patriot Act.
We have found the enemy and he is us. - Pogo
REUTERS -- The Internet is planning to propose requiring the Bush administration to help build a centralized system to enable broad monitoring of the White House, and, potentially, surveillance of its cabinet.
The proposal is part of a final version of a report, "The National Strategy to Secure the Bush Administration," set for release early next year, according to several people who have been briefed on the report. It is a component of the effort to increase national security after the theft of the 2000 election.
-- Hey, turnabout's fair play!
The RIAA, and MPAA will want to "watch" the internet through this network and nab any Tom dick and Harry who pass music files.
Of course, independant music won't be distinguished in order to make thier stats look better "43 trillion music files were traded last year, and our revenue only increased by 2 billion. If we make each of those users pay every time they trade a file, we could make gazillion's (to quote jk) more. Of course we'd give 1 million to the governemnt for letting us use their network for our own commercial gain.
Folks, the internet is dying because it became the true meaning of free speech, communication and information. Corporations are slowly killing the net, which requires Goverments to get their hands in on regulating things.
I don't use the net as much as I did because of all the popups, spam and corporate cluelessness.
If anyone knows of a protected Sub-net (encrypted, anonymous use) please let me know to restore my faith.
Thank you.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Just read alt.terrorists.currentplans and that will keep you up to date. Do NOT get it confused with alt.binaries.terrorists.erotica or you will be really sorry.
Giving up freedom for a false sense of security is never a good idea.
You Americanos scare me sometimes. No, I don't want to see more terror attacks, but isn't this the kind of stuff you hated the Soviet states for? Spying on people can be used easiely for controling people and because it can, it will.
Quod in aeternum cubet mortuum non est,
Et saeculis miris actis etiam Mors perierit
This is looking at the whole Internet.
Well, the Volkssicherheitsministerium will have a hard time to peek into, e.g. European research networks. It's unlikely that they would export flow data (or something else) to the U.S.
Isn't this already happening by virtue of Echelon?
--
Phil
"Mr President, there seems to be a large flow in identical messages"
"Ah, must be terrorist code. Let me see it"
It says "Increase your penis size."
or
"Mr President, thousands of americans are visiting this web site every day, www.goatse.cx".....
Perhaps the problem is less that people have lost several illusions or blankets of privacy and more that people are worried that a system of this nature could one day become abused or broken into.
I'm still fond of being reasonably anonymous and having the ability to conduct conversations in privacy though; imagine the uproar if people were told that they wouldn't be allowed to privately converse with friends over the phone or even in their own homes! At the very least, I feel that citizens should not be trackable except without due cause; sort of like getting a warrant, I suppose.
Hey George Bush! I accidentally ran over your pet cow yesterday. Personally, I hope the system gets filled with garbage. ^_~
----- Wtcher Dragon, UDIC
What monitoring everyone all the time does is make everyone a suspect, thus in the eyes of law enforcement a criminal. Everyone's Internet usage is automatically monitored regardless of probable cause. Blanket surveillance regardless of guilt or cause is the foundation for the police state that Bush, Ashcroft, Poindexter, etal. wish so desperately to establish.
STOP ROCK VIDEO
Damn, if the Bush Administration want to look at porn, why don't they just do it themselves? Thats most of what they will see in the internet traffic...
Instead they will view it via this ruse of "monitoring the internet".....uhhhh huh, sure you are *wink*
Laura and Barbara Bush: "What are you boys doing in there?"
The 2 Georges: "Maintaining national security! Don't come in!!!!"
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
If your government is trying to undermine your constitution then is it doing it on its own behalf, or the corporations that own it?
How is Internet or any TCP comnmunication different than a real phone, or a letter ? As far as I can tell to watch over and tap your phone or letter authroity need a special judge writing. So why suddenly Internet which is only another form of communication , is soooo different that it need to be surveyed in real time ?
Second, any terrorist communicating message not encrypted over, hidden in picture or other data, or using a code word system is already a dead or arrested terrorist. How THIS system is supposed to rpeevtn another 9/11 when the FAILURE of theuautorithy was to INTERPRET THE DATA and NOT get the data ?
Call me a paranoid , but if you control the communication between people, you control the people too. It looks more like population control than terrorism fight.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It's kind of sad.
Bush administration makes alot of noise that they're doing something serious to deal with Internet Security, and *gasp* all they're up to is just cajoling private industry to get their act together. The slackers!
A half year goes by, and again, more noise. This time they're doing something real -- central monitoring, accountability, mandatory support for legal interception, and *gasp* all they're up to is stealing control of private property to further their own nefarious goals. The nazis!
I'm not sure what people want. I'm not sure what I want. The only thing I am sure of is we'll not be happy with whatever we get.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
No no, AOL centralises all the spam on the internet.
match all the ac postings to the users real ID (shudder)...
Even if only American sites are to be included, I think you will find that a substantial number of the webpages you visit happen to be American.
At the very least you will have to go look for new websites to browse, but for some people who use American websites for research purposes or some other practical means may be concerned by this.
I wonder if soon we will have to register and "clear Customs" before "crossing the border" into American cyberspace. We Canadians might one day find that accessing the virtual US gets harder than physically crossing the border!
It's really disgusting how the US governement is abusing the 9/11 attacks to take away the rights of the US citizens. The victims must be spinning in their graves.
That I live in Canada!
Mmm-hmm... well, thankfully if these go through you won't be able to keep your schemes against us a secret, and we'll topple your regime in no time. That'll teach you that we know better than anybody what's appropriate and allowable in the world.We eat the pig and then together we BURN!!!
Something like this might be just what's needed to make non-geeks use things like Freenet and encryption. Or at least it'd be a good reason for it. Of course then Freenet might become illegal, with the resulting developments in steganography...
I don't think that anything good will come out of this. Hopefully people will wake up before we all end living in a totalitarian state.
Benjamin Franklin actually said it best:
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty or Safety."
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
National... broad monitoring of the Internet... National... broad monitoring of the Internet...
Is this yet another example of American Imperialism?
In my country (somewhere in Europe, thanks to my forefathers) we have quite extensive privacy legislature; could I sue the US if they would gather data on me and if they refuse to remove it on my request?
Sombody send Bush an AOL CD-ROM.
So instead of securing vulnerable and critical systems, we're going to monitor THE WHOLE INTERNET. Okay... That sounds like a plan...
Setting the civil liberties nightmare aside for a second, and even assuming the terrorist threat to the computing infrastructure is real and justifies this level of response, this approach is just bad policy. This is yet another expression of our Cowboy President's locker-room-towel-snapping "let's go get them bad dudes" mentality. Any IT security professional will tell you this aproach is precisely backwards.
Why do we have a PlayStation2 controller for the 'Your Rights Online' icon? Bring back the harmonica guy!
Honestly, does anyone believe that the Feds could actually get through all the data? Sure natural language processing could analyze some of the data, but all of it? And really, do we believe that terrorists really so stupid as to put "Attack this Thusday at Place X--Bring Explosives" in their subject lines?
Apart from the practical nature of the collecting and analyzing data, are we just a little too nutty about wanting to feel safe? Homeland Security, watching our neighbors, analyzing what sites I surf, will that really keep terrorists out of the US? Is this all just a bunch of fear motivated policies that will keep us placated while we go about our day, at least until the next event.
Sure we need to be prepared and all, but at least lets demand a little intelligence and thought.
My little rant.
"Tiffany Olson, the deputy chief of staff for the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, said yesterday that the proposal, which includes a national network operations center, was still in flux. She said the proposed methods did not necessarily require gathering data that would allow monitoring at an individual user level." [Emphasis added]
Just another chip off the mantle of Lady Liberty.
I would believe that most companies can handle their own surveillance needs and if need be, contact authorities.
It seems expensive, and probably not very efficient in stopping terror attacks. Perhaps the Federal government should consider issuing guidelines, just as they do for roads and railroads as to how a national ISPs network should be built for proper de-centralization so that a lights-out situation doesn't affect the whole nation?
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
I run a small website for news and discusion. Last month I had 15,000 visits and served up over 500,000 pages.
How many visits does slashdot get? How many page views? Ebay? MSNBC? Weatherchannel? Tom's Hardware?
Does anyone here actually understand the magnitude of pages, sites, and information that they are proposing on watching and filtering?
The number is mind boggling.
We have folks comparing this to another step twords 1984. In readiong their comments, I wonder if they've even read the book?
All this "surveillance" of the web will accomplish is a useless oversized database with statistics that will take people years to get a grasp on. It'll be a case of "too much information" that won't be easily collated - and hence , pretty useless.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Wonder how they gonna persuade Irak and Iran to send such data to Bush though ;-)
Maybe by bombing the shit out of them?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I STRONGLY suggest people read The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose between Privacy and Freedom? before drawing conclusions about surveillance technologies
Here's the publisher's blurb:
The Transparent Society
Will Technology Force Us To Choose Between Privacy And Freedom?
In New York and Baltimore, police cameras scan public areas twenty-four hours a day. Huge commercial databases track you finances and sell that information to anyone willing to pay. Host sites on the World Wide Web record every page you view, and "smart" toll roads know where you drive. Every day, new technology nibbles at our privacy.Does that make you nervous?
David Brin is worried, but not just about privacy. He fears that society will overreact to these technologies by restricting the flow of information, frantically enforcing a reign of secrecy. Such measures, he warns, won't really preserve our privacy. Governments, the wealthy, criminals, and the techno-elite will still find ways to watch us. But we'll have fewer ways to watch them. We'll lose the key to a free society: accountability.The Transparent Society is a call for "reciprocal transparency." If police cameras watch us, shouldn't we be able to watch police stations? If credit bureaus sell our data, shouldn't we know who buys it?
Rather than cling to an illusion of anonymity-a historical anomaly, given our origins in close-knit villages-we should focus on guarding the most important forms of privacy and preserving mutual accountability. The biggest threat to our freedom, Brin warns, is that surveillance technology will be used by too few people, now by too many.A society of glass houses may seem too fragile. Fearing technology-aided crime, governments seek to restrict online anonymity; fearing technology-aided tyranny, citizens call for encrypting all data.
Brins shows how, contrary to both approaches, windows offer us much better protection than walls; after all, the strongest deterrent against snooping has always been the fear of being spotted. Furthermore, Brin argues, Western culture now encourages eccentricity-we're programmed to rebel! That gives our society a natural protection against error and wrong-doing, like a body's immune system. But "social T-cells" need openness to spot trouble and get the word out.
The Transparent Society is full of such provocative and far-reaching analysis.The inescapable rush of technology is forcing us to make new choices about how we want to live. This daring book reminds us that an open society is more robust and flexible than one where secrecy reigns. In an era of gnat-sized cameras, universal databases, and clothes-penetrating radar, it will be more vital than ever for us to be able to watch the watchers. With reciprocal transparency we can detect dangers early and expose wrong-doers. We can gauge the credibility of pundits and politicians. We can share technological advances and news. But all of these benefits depend on the free, two-way flow of information.
In The Transparent Society, award-winning author David Brin details the startling argument that privacy, far from being a right, hampers the real foundation of a civil society: accountability. Using examples as disparate as security cameras in Scotland and Gay Pride events in Tucson, Brin shows that openness is far more liberating than secrecy and advocates for a society in which everyone (not just the government and not just the rich) could look over everyone else's shoulders.
The biggest threat to our society, he warns, is that surveillance technology will be used by too few people not by too many.
David Brin has a Ph.D. in physics, but is best known for his science fiction. His books include the New York Times bestseller The Uplift War, Hugo Award-winner Startide Rising, and The Postman. He lives in Encinitas, California.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
I don't think they could. Sure, they can tell in hinsight that they detected communication that indicated something was going on. But, realizing beforehand what is significant and what is not, not even 100000 trained monkeys could do that.
The problem is "too much information". The problem isn't getting the information, the problem is realizing what is important and what is not. Of course, going big-brother is going to help sooo much on the information overload... :-P
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
The difference with a phone or a letter is the billboard or library functionality the internet provides. You can publish any information public to the entire world... Phonecalls end and a letters arrive, but some information on the internet will stay...
Anyway, I think scanning all accessible information - especcialy if we are talking about emails and chat sessions - would be a major violation of privacy laws.
Second, what does this mean for sites or forms of communication which are restricted to certain users/members? I mean if one is a member, by payment, by job or whatever other means of a site or mailinglist providing religious, pr0n0graphic, research or even terrorsit information what right do they have to scan these 'private areas'. I mean, hey, the CIA, FBI nor ATF have anything to do with the amount of beer I keep in my java & web enabled refrigidator...
And at last I cannot image how anyone would accomplish such a task. I mean to monitor the all work being published would - I guess - take one 'spy' on each six or so people publishing. Perhaps the US government just wants their own people to turn each other in... Something similar to the system used in eastern Germany while it still was a communist country...
Perhaps publishing under DMCA would... No, fuck that.
giel.y contains 2 shift/reduce conflicts
After all, nothing assures freedom like constant, unchecked surveillance.
As far as I can tell to watch over and tap your phone or letter authroity need a special judge writing.
Although this isn't really an English sentence, I'll respond. You missed it. Several laws have been enacted in the past few months so that law enforcement people don't even need a warrant (aka: "special judge writing"). They can already listen to/watch anything we say/do without any kind of warrant or even reason. Orwell's 1984 arrived several months ago, they're just tidying up the details now.
Suck me off and swallow, Ashcroft.
Ok, lets cure a couple of common misconceptions here :
:-))
1.The nature of internet makes it fully possible to create secure channels for communication that is practically untappable. Teorrists are able to hide their communications and its content from this kind of survielance.
And since they KNOW everything is unsafe, there will be less chance for crucial slip-ups. Remember that the goverment was able to establish enormous amounts of facts very shortly after the 9/11. So this will simply be enhancements and publicity to a existing system
2. Survilance do not solve *ANYTHING*! 9/11 is the biggest wake up call saying this. Looking for somthing without knowing what, will always be futile. Criminals and terrorists have to be properly investigated to stand trail. If the goverment had put more resources to investigation than to surveilance, 9/11 might never happened.
3.Criminals doesnt loose in internet surveilance . You do. Its your privacy that is threathen, and its your life that can be simply destroyed by any computer literate that want to hurt you by using your computer.
The good news is that when I get tired of my goverment, I can retire it with a carefully crafted message.... (its impressive to see what the press can do if they get a hint about childporn on a goverment computer
What really gets me is that the governments (UK and US are equally bad with regards to this) think that because your online activity can be tracked it should be. They seem to think that 'digital rights' count for less than ordinary ones. Can you imagine the uproar if the government made everyone wear a GPS/mobile thing. That recorded every conversation you had and everywhere you went. That would be unacceptable to jo public so why should this be treated with any lesser contempt.
The regulation of investigtory powers act (RIP act) in the uk is trying to achieve the same thing. But no one has worked out who is going to pay for it yet. I can imagine an 'online security' tax being added to my ISP bill. So I pay to be spied on. Great.
How long do you think it will be before you have to show ID before you log on at an internet café
In fact in today's news there is an article about the phone companies being flooded with request for information on mobile calls and locations. Half a million in a year. Over 1% of phone users in the UK would have been checked up.
This will not stop terrorism, it will just mean that the terrorists will have to find some other way to communicate, or a more sneaky way of doing it online.
I've skimmed the entire proposal document and read the first third completely (killing a small forest by printing out the pdf document).
I'm not going to cite details as I don't currently have the block of paper in front of me.
However, I do feel I have to comment. This document is based in fear, not hope. It is not a workable proposition in the United States of America, but would have been very well accepted in the former East Germany or in almost any coldwar eastern block nation.
Under the proposals all persons accessing information or making transactions electronically, or having transactions made for them, would be monitored, recorded and archived at all times for later retrieval under unstated conditions, by unstated persons, for vague purposes of security.
Stalin would have loved it.
The next step beyond this would be to outlaw any and all transactions that were deliberately masked to try and hide from the evesdroppers the origin, content, or time of the communication, because if you feel the need to hide, you must have something to hide, and you are assumed to be a criminal.
I can't speak for everyone, but I do know that I felt safer on September 12th 2001 than I will on September 12th 2005 if all this continues.
The article notes that such a plan would require Congressional and regulatory approval.
So with this on our radar, privacy advocates and reasonable-minded citizens can practice good ol' democracy, and stop this thing in its tracks.
It's worked before (c.f. Clipper Chip), and can work again.
four nine eighteen twenty-7 thirty-nine forty-7 fiftyeight sixty-nine seventy-9 eighty-8 one-hundred-and-nine one-twenty
I'm going to start e-mailing naked pictures of my ugly ass to known terrorists. Cruel and unusual? Maybe. But,
1. Terrorists deserve the torture
2. So does any asshat listening in
... I'll point everyone again to a slightly unrealistic idea I had over 2 years ago:
http://webpages.charter.net/ezahurak/idea.html
But ya never know, it could work.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
The Los Angeles Times? Seattle Times? London Times? High Times? ;-)
It's good to remember that the New York Times, although a very good newspaper, isn't the only "Times" and that not everyone is fixated on the East Coast.
(Quoted again) The international and unregulated nature of the internet has, up until now, enabled communication that was completely untappable.
(Ergo, in order to provide security for the people, government needs the ability to monitor law-abiding citizens.)
The underlying assumptions to this argument are that (a) government would be unable to perform its primary function, which is to protect the people from the initiation of force, without the continuous monitoring of peaceful, law-abiding citizens, (b) the freedom destroyed by this legislation is worth less to the average citizen than the security gained by implementing the program, and finally, (c) the legislation *will* actually increase the security of the average citizen.
Naturally, anyone who favors this sort of oppression can and will offer definitive proof for assumptions (a), (b), and (c).
someone go and tell him he's already got Echelon running?
If I were genuinely concerned about being watched, this is what I'd do:
/dev/random, all of which would be sent to random IPs and ports, especially to nations that are considered hostile to the US.
The best way to prevent surveillance from interfering with your life is to make it useless information. One way to do this is by creating more noise data, which makes the signal data harder to retrieve.
There is one really easy way to do this with the Internet particularly, and that is to create an application, which can be run voluntarily or propogated the same way Nimda and Melissa were. That running application would then spread random false alarms at such a high rate that nobody can keep up with them, thereby throwing the profile of a terrorist way off. This junk data can be trigger phrases from a dictionary, or it can just be faked PGP encrypted data from
If you wanted to take that a step further and screw with Echelon, you could create a virus that gained control of various corporations' PBX servers, then randomly dial numbers in Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Everytime a connection is made, you could have an audio file play various trigger phrases, thereby adding noise to that medium.
In the real world, the solution is to make yourself appear as a terrorist even if you're not. Check out "How to Build a Nuclear Weapon" and the Koran from your local library. Use your credit card to buy dual-use products that you need. If everyone is suspicious, then the data is useless.
Now, the problem is, that I, as Joe American, can think of this, which means that the real terrorists can certainly think of even more effective ways to cripple surveillance tools. The sad part is that the government agencies still think that they are able to find a signal in complete white noise. The only people that are going to be effectively watched are the ones that don't need to be.
A large part of the issue here is that US Goverment is OPENLY proposing that it monitors the communications of ALL people, not just its own citizens.
What does George Bush claim gives him this right ?
The only way this would be semi-valid would be if it was a proposal of the UN and maintained and monitored by an independent judiciary and analysis organisation.
Or of course you could act like a total bigot and claim that everyone else in the world should be answerable to the US.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
... please tell me, which one of you voted that warmongering idiotic prick into the whitehouse? Come on, own up, who was it?
If I were genuinely concerned about being watched, this is what I'd do:
/dev/random, all of which would be sent to random IPs and ports, especially to nations that are considered hostile to the US.
The best way to prevent surveillance from interfering with your life is to make it useless information. One way to do this is by creating more noise data, which makes the signal data harder to retrieve.
There is one really easy way to do this with the Internet particularly, and that is to create an application, which can be run voluntarily or
propogated the same way Nimda and Melissa were. That running application would then spread random false alarms at such a high rate that nobody can
keep up with them, thereby throwing the profile of a terrorist way off. This junk data can be trigger phrases from a dictionary, or it can just be faked PGP encrypted data from
If you wanted to take that a step further and screw with Echelon, you could create a virus that gained control of various corporations' PBX
servers, then randomly dial numbers in Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Everytime a connection is made, you could have an audio file play various
trigger phrases, thereby adding noise to that medium.
In the real world, the solution is to make yourself appear as a terrorist even if you're not. Check out "How to Build a Nuclear Weapon" and the
Koran from your local library. Use your credit card to buy dual-use products that you need. If everyone is suspicious, then the data
is useless.
Now, the problem is, that I, as Joe American, can think of this, which means that the real terrorists can certainly think of even more effective ways to cripple surveillance tools. The sad part is that the government agencies still think that they are able to find a signal in complete white noise. The only people that are going to be effectively watched are the ones that don't need to be.
I just want to know who is coming up with these ideas? Clinton wanted the Clipper chip and Bush wants an Internet version (in a manner of speaking). It would almost point to the same person or organization doing the "suggesting". Curious.
I think it took me a total of about 8 seconds to think of a workaround to network data gathering.
Find an aspiring country that doesn't give a shit about President Bush beating his chest wanting data and set up a VPN tunnel through their network.
Problem solved.
It seems to me it is our responsibility as those in the know to inform those not in the know that stupid ideas like this are just that and nothing more.
We did it with Circuit City and DivX. We can do it again.
Posted to the submitters Journal entry
This effect was in a documentry in 1969!
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Sounds like a tax of sorts on ISPs. Serves those guys right for giving more money to Democrats!
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
bomb, explosive, nuclear, terrorist, encryption
Just kidding, Dubya!!
So essentialy this plan means another taxation of internet acces while it also means (as ussual) loss of some privacy and (as ussual) higher potential for abuse for (as ussual) not that big increase in safety (if any increase at all) for (not just, as ussual) US tax payers.
(By "ussual" I mean "as was alredy reported on ./ with regards to some other attempts". Or at least I hope those were mainly attempts.)
hany
The real problem is one-sided transparency: if the government has all the knowledge, the government is all powerful: it can use its knowledge for blackmail, for constructing "secret evidence" to be used in trials, etc., and ordinary citizens have no way of fighting that.
Take speed traps as an example. As long as the police does not release detailed information on who gets caught where and when, you can argue until you are blue in the face in front of a judge--if a policeman stands up and says you speeded, you will get convicted. If, on the other hand, all related data is available, you might well be able to prove that the policeman didn't calibrate the radar gun, that they are engaging in selective enforcement, that the speed limit at that location is deliberately too low, that the location is being used for "revenue enhancement", etc.
The Bush administration is one of the most secretive governments we have had in a long time. People like Poindexter don't want transparency, they want a large differential in the amount of information available to the government and corporations vs. the amount of information available to individuals. And they want that as a means of control.
That Russia gets more Democratic while America gets more Communistic.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
The Times is printed in London. It's not called the London Times. It's not called the City Times. It's just called the Times. Now the New York Times may be referred to as the Times by some Americans, more cosmopolitan Americans and world wide slashdotters recognise it as NY Times, NYTimes or The New York Times.
Wow. Who was surprised? Anyone?
Maybe one day you can tell your children what it was like to be a free person.
-... ---
I'd apologize for the dupe, but I'm applying for a Slashdot editor position.
In the future you will need to get into only ONE SYSTEM to monitor everyone.
Yeah, centralized monitoring is a really *great* idea.
Everybody, especially Slashdotters, tend to be such critics. Doesn't anybody think that an open discussion (including the merits of the proposal) on the topic is best for all of us? Doesn't it make sense to have a system in place where authorities can track Internet communications of an individual or organization if there is strong evidence that such tracking is justified? Sure, sure "Big Brother is watching us" blah blah, but isn't he always going to be? Isn't one of the best solutions to make it illegal for the feds to perform this kind of monitoring unless they have strong evidence that from a court that it should be performed and then allow them to put this sort of system in place? Why not treat it more mail or the phone system or like a search warrant?
In theory, you're right -- but you kind of prove idris33's point with your last paragraph. Americans have the means to defend their own freedom as do very few other peoples (AFAIK, in the First World, only the Swiss and the Israelis are more armed than we) but we're incredibly unlikely to use those means until it's too late. Europeans have fewer guns than we do (although not as many fewer as most Americans seem to believe) but they also have much more responsive governments. They learned their lessons the hard way, across the centuries, in the fires of the English Civil War, the French Revolution, German unification, Fascism, and Communism. Apparently we haven't learned those lessons ... yet.
As an American, and as a veteran, and as the grandchild of European Jews who came here to escape Nazi and Soviet oppression, it pains me to say this, but it's true: we are perilously close to losing whatever claim we have ever had to "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." No, it won't perish from the Earth -- it's just moving back across the Atlantic. I only hope that in getting it back, we don't pay the same price they did.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Maybe if the goverment whent through with such a plan , ordinary people would start to use heavy duty encryption and offshore anonymizing proxies for web browsing. This would probably render this plan useless untill Bush & Ashcroft make encryption illegal.
The U.S. are looking to control the internet in a centralized manner? I wish them a lot of luck, as there will be countries unwilling to cooperate (China, anyone?).
If the efforts would be successful enough, this would at most result in the internet being split up in 'sub-internets'. Doesn't sound very much like centralized control to me.
Unless *all* countries in the world cooperate, of course. That would require world peace first; so, I fully support this initiative!
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I am willing to bet that the information gleaned from such a system will be secret, and used only by various intelligence agencies.
So this has nothing to do with "transparent society". In order for this information to be useful in civil society it must be released in civil society.
This is just another way the government can gain more power over ordinary citizens.
There was an artist last week who spread 28 large black boxes painted with the word FEAR around Grand Central Station in New York. It shut down the terminal for 5 hours.
Bush et. al don't know what to do. The idea that disenfranchised individuals from a foreign nation might sacrifice themselves and find some domestic support for their cause has him baffled. Like anybody else when he is scared, he is doing anything he can think of, no matter how useless.
Homeland security seemed draconiun, redundant, but understandable considering what the Army/Navy/AF/Marines have been doing over the past few years. Then unlimited detention without arrest, INS prisions, refusing entry for stage performers, a dangerous smallpox vaccination program, a symbolic war with IRAQ, threats against North Korea...
Bush is scared, and helpless. He knows that the information was available to law enforcement before the attack, but he doesn't have enough finesse to understand that processing information is harder than gathering it. So, by the "Bigger is Better" American mentality, he is trying to fix America's intelligence agency by gathering tremendous amounts of basically irrelevant data. Not that this president sees the elegance of checks and balances: let's be honest, if he could get away with Ashcroft declaring him emperor, he would have done it a long time ago. But all that information and power will at some point be used wrongly. Not that it will be abused, but it will be used wrongly. History has proven that.
It's funny, but if the terrorists were attempting to shread American values and traditions, thus making it an unliveable country and reducing it's power on a world stage, then they have succeeded. And by not reappearing and therefore presenting an elusive target, the service their cause even further.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
-C
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
Yours Sincerely
Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Scott McNealy.
PS And we need to buy more Islands, Ferraris and Houses.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Cute. :)
The search-the-trash Q was settled a long long long time ago. There is no Fourth Amendment property if the trash is on public land, as it is considered to be discarded. The line has to be drawn somewhere -- could they search it after dumping it in the truck? At the city dump? At some point control is surrendered.
But you can't commit trespass to get the trash. It sounds like the police crossed that line here anyway wit the original suspect.
They impose speed limits on the "Information Superhighway."
In the Soviet Union, they limited the number of long distance phone connections to the number of KGB agents available to monitor them.
With our mighty American technology, all traffic could be monitored by outlawing connections faster than 300 baud.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
Since everything you write and create is copyrighed and since they'll have to outlaw encryption on transmissions across the Internet, they will have to make it illegal to encrypt copyrighted material. Should make the DMCA !circumvention provisions pretty moot WRT Internet downloads....
(OK I know they'll set it up so the "little people" get fucked while "trusted" big businesses can do whatever they want, but at least I tried to present what is IMO the logical outcome of this...)
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
I hate to sound old-fashioned, but please do not forget the traditional method of democratic control -- the ballot box.
:)
C'mon, I bet some of you complaining now did vote for Bush, and might even live in Florida. Your votes count. When you write to Congress, to the President, and so on, mention 2004 more often than the Constitution. They'll be much more impressed.
I'd love to say, oh, this will never go anywhere, but then I might have said that about the Patriot Act if I had had a chance to read it before it was passed, in record time. Who says Congress is slow?
Let's face it.. ground mail and phone contact is far more efficient for malevolent forces to utilise than the net is.
If I were a terrorist lunatic, the LAST medium of communication I would be utilising right now would be the internet.
I'd revert to the old standbys.. passing notes in trash cans, microfiche, all that good shit that actually WORKED for both our boyz and the soviets during the cold war.
This is just a power grab ala 1984 on the part of our socalled 'caretakers'.
As geeks, we have the power to collectively say 'FUCK YOU!' and kill this puppy in its' cradle.
Anyone of an IT or scientific pedigree who willingly works towards the implementation of this nightmare of a future world is a flagrant traitor to this nation and its' citizens.
The potential consequences for such individuals are left as an exercise for the reader.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Other than Canada, where can a typical (only english speaking) US citzen move to and work with minimal ammounts of hassle, paperwork, etc.??
I jokingly said if GW won the first time I'd leave. If he wins another one (or gets installed in office like he did this time) I'm actualy going to do it.
Sadly, he'll hold off on his bullshit "war" with Iraq until his strategists say it'll peek his popularity right at election time....
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
Fortunately when you live in the day where Bob Barr supports the ACLU, I don't think this'll get off the ground (or if it does, it'll be crippled or shot down shortly after).
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I mean really, what are you going to be doing? Ripping log files appart on a MASSIVE scale, and Generating reports. Maybe they'll give Schwartz clemensy if he writes the system...
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
That sez it all
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Ok, - get me a webcam, and I'll show Bush a part of Canada he's never seen before! :-)
Aren't we jumping a bit far to assume this needs to monitor data?
When I read the article, I see this as the ISPs being required to ping around their network, and then send those ping results back to governement servers in real time. This would be a burdensome hassle for the ISPs, but it wouldn't be any data that would compromise user privacy.
And this data could be very effective... if Google can't be pinged, it's the first alert of a DOS attack on a vital piece of 'net infrastructure. If all of Los Angeles goes dark, this would be first notificaition that something's gone very wrong...
Your sig is stupid.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Yes, and the proof-of-concept for centralized internet monitoring is already underway in China. The Bush administratio has only to follow their lead, an we too will be on track to be as free as China one day!
- US cracks down on encryption.
- Encryption work moves offshore.
- Washington realizes futility of its efforts.
- US recants.
All that was accomplished was to harm the US economy.When VPNs are outlawed, only outlaws have VPNs.
Besides, it would be against the Canadian Constitution's provisions on privacy and security of the person. Any citizen could then sue their ISP and require that all packets not specifically bound for the US not be routed through an American-monitored node.
Third point - this will just spur people to use encryption and/or anonymizers.
Last point - As a matter of sovereignty, other governments may then decide that all packets passing outside their borders be encrypted by the local ISP.
The Civil War Reconstruction collapsed promptly, along with the federal military presence and really any effort to change conditions in the South. Segregatikon, Jim Crow, sharecropping, and so on followed propmtly and the federal gov't could not for decades develop consensus for even a federal anti-lynching law. States rights was the rejoinder
But the civil rights movement did (mostly) clobber "states rights" to defy federal authority. This was the last defense of so-called nullification. Remember President Eisenhower sending in paratroopers to integrate Little Rock High School? Ike was not too jazzed about integration, but he was certain what he thought of defiance of the national government and courts. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned segregation in multiple forms down to a local joint called Ollie's Barbeque, which lost its appeal to the Supreme Court. What was new was the Supreme Court's recognition of broad federal powers under the 14th A. and the Commerce Clause, which it never would have done before th New Deal.
The question here is whether states can impede legitimate (constitutional) federal law enforcement. The answer is (now) no. They have significance via the 10th A., and certain federal efforts to regulate have been deemed too intrusive, but the states are in no position to impose a stricter version of the 4th A. than the federal constitution already has.
The obvious problem with authority is that it be easily used or abused. That's why we have democratic control of our gov't. The question to ask is, who arounbd you does support this sort of national surveillance of "other people" on the off chance it might avert another 9/11? I think there are quite a few. I'm sympathetic, too, except I don't think many realize how impractical, expensive, and damaging this could be, like certain other national defense measures we're looking at....
Al Qaeda released a statement that they would be hiding all future communiques in spam, hoping after the 10,000,000th copy of "Enlarge Your Penis By 8 Inches!" spam, that anyone watching would inevitably lose interest.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
But at the other end of the spectrum of reaction, Mr. Vatis warned, "You end up without technology that could be very useful to combat terrorism, information warfare or some other harmful act."
Well that is precisely the problem Mr. Vatis. In the wake of 9/11/01 we have done away with surveillance restrictions and due process to combat terrorism. Now you are proposing that we take the first step toward doing the same to combat "some other harmful act". Presuming my guilt and keeping me under surveillance in case I engage in "some other harmful act" is not what our forefathers were fighting for.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Whatever will the terrorists
do?
Seriously though, the advent of projects like Freenet makes this legislation a complete farce. ANY subversive and violent organization who wants to communicate securely and confidentially over the Internet can do so, in a myriad number of ways, with a little bit of research, and have a fairly high chance of escaping detection by a Carnivore-type system.
There's only two possible explanations for this bill: 1) Ignorance on the part of those drafting the legislation, and 2) Terrorism being used as a pretext to clamp down on other criminal activity that would otherwise be difficult to investigate and prosecute, due to Fourth Amendment restrictions.
I don't know which explanation worries and frightens me more.
BRAVO!
Beautiful post.
I'm normally a right winger, and despite the (few) misspellings, I'm totally in accordance with this d00d.
Bush and his crew (I mean EVERYBODY, even Colin.. look at the crap his son is on about) must GO!
I will *not* live in a police state. Period.
The second amendment affords us the measures needed to reconcile conflicts such as this. It's there for a reason. That reason is looming. Now.
Vote first. Make noise.
Believe in democracy, for what it's worth.
There may, however, come a time, when we, the concerned, must take this thing up into our own hands. The masses will not support us, as they are complacent.
We can shut the Net down. Easily.
We can take up the Gun! The masses will flee before us, leaving easy targets.. the PHB's, politicians, etc.
OOOh.. I'm babbling! Not Good(tm).
This is starting to sound nutty, but there are nuggets of sincerity in there.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Legally, the Federal government has jurisdiction over interstate commerce. That definitely includes the Internet.
That really depends on the legal definition of "commerce." If I host a web page that contains some information and I make no money off the web page, and someone in another state views the information on the web page, is that commerce? No money changed hands.
If two people communicate, using walkie-talkies, over state lines then is that also interstate commerce?
I'm trying to stimulate discussion. I'm not trying to be confrontational.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Even so it is important to think of the level in the administration that this type of proposal comes from. This looks to me like something that the spooks have had on their shopping list for years and are simply putting it on the agenda now they smell that the administration will let them.
The news on Haliburton this morning makes this the first administration ever in which the President and Vice President were invesigated by the SEC for stock frauds. As if having the first President with a criminal conviction was not enough! It also means that there will be even more strenuous efforts to change the subject to Iraq, even if that means starting a war.
One thing to get really worried about is the lengths that the spooks may go to get their way. Peter Wright's autobigography 'Spycatcher' describes some of the dirty tricks that MI5 used against Harold Wilson's government. Given the character of the people in charge you have to wonder what additional information the spooks might have that they could use as leverage to get their way. After all this is what J. Edgar Hoover did and his name is still on the FBI HQ.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Where does it all end? Do I get accused of being a terrorist because I believe that George W. Bush and his administration are a bunch of fascist criminals who are wiping their ass with the Bill of Rights -- and dare to publish said information? Am I "encouraging terrorism" and thus a "person of interest" for saying such?!
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Doors often impede surveillance. Terrorists and criminals hide behind closed doors as they plot destruction, build bombs, sell drugs, plan murders. Think of how much safer you'll be after all of those irresponsible doors are removed, so that legitimate law enforcement can actively safeguard your freedoms without impediment.
Even smoke signals could be seen from afar.
* You may be a redneck if you put firemen's hats on the Three Wise Men in your outdoor nativity scene, "because it says in the Bible they came from a-fahr." *
All other potential problems aside, this opens a gigantic Barrel of Worms (as opposed to can). Just IMAGINE the huge amount of lawsuits that could come out of it.
;)
Think the deficit is bad now . . .
In all seriousness, this is the kind of plan made completely without the thought that it will affect actual people. Forgetting that usually leads to disaster.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
The central thesis of 1984 was that people will abuse the power they have. Once technology was developed to monitor your thoughts, thoughts would be monitored and any thought that might detract loyalty from the government would be outlawed. The term was thoughtcrime and it was related to sexcrime. Any means to achieve this state, including bombing your own people would be used and perpetual warfare was required to motivate the people and waste their efforts. We are very much on the way here in the US.
First, examine thoughtcrime. We already have laws against thoughts such as "hate crime" laws which gauge the intent of the criminal rather than actions and harm done. The federal government has long forbiden any group recieving federal funds from donating to "hate" groups. That's disturbing on it's own but much more so in a society where more than 1 in 4 $ of GDP are federal spending. Symbols are being outlawed, words and phrases are not far behind. These new monitoring plans are extensions of police "profiling" efforts and Carnivore. Now, thanks to Patriot and USA Act, domestic spying including inflitration of religious organizations, is legal. Illegal activities are being encouraged, with the understanding that it will lead to evidence that CAN be legaly used, and that is the spirit of these new laws. Today, your thoughts will get you monitored and blacklisted which involves a real loss of privalidge. Soon, those thoughts might get you raided and jailed. As the machinery of thought monitoring improves, more thoughts will become illegal. This new survailence system WILL be targeted, and hence very useful. Everybit as useful as the random checks of indviduals by two way televisions of 1984. The could be watching, so you have to behave, forever.
Now examine what the government is willing to do to achieve the above violation or your rights and expansion of it's power. I have yet to see reasonable proof of exactly who was responsible for 9/11, and so have not put the CIA or Israeli secret police off my list. Ossama was trained and supplied by the CIA when the struggle was against the Soviets. Any institution that has gained since then is suspect. There is no end to the "war against terror" A war against individual criminals is not a war, it's a police action, but that will have to do for now. Soon enough, we can get ourselves into a shooting war. Orwell predicted that all the centers of culture would be wiped out in order to make the new perpetual oligarchical states. I hope the folks willing to trade a little freedom for a little security are not also willing to trade a little prosperity for a little order.
And that is enough duckspeak for me today. File it, it will come in handy when The Book of rebelious thoughts is compiled to trap the disobedient. Oldthinkders unbellyfeel Ingsoc!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I don't think this helps anything, anyone who wants to "talk" on the internet is going to use SSL/SSH if they know what they are doing, so this means they would have to crack every single key and filter through everything is realtime, and have monkeys at terminals watching for anything suspicious. I don't think this is going to help anything, it is only a waste of tax dollars and abuse of the whole 9/11 tragedy. I don't think groups like the taliban uses the internet anyway.
"Privacy and Power"
o ve da/Database-Privacy%20FINAL%20VERSION.doc
Computer Databases and Metaphors for Information Privacy
Daniel J. Solove
October 17, 2000
http://law.shu.edu/faculty/fulltime_faculty/sol
The federal government has for purposes of this discussion, unlimited money. And I'm not sure you realize the scale of what's possible with carte blanche funding.
Take a look at Google sometime to get a sense of the scale of what's possible just with some private investment, licensing and advertising revenues.
They can do it. It'll be about focusing, winnowing, and summarizing the datastream carefully at various stages.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo
:)
Actually I think the one after Jury is traditionally "Jail."
Well, this is no big surprise, however disappointing it is. Bush is obviously not the sharpest pin in the cushion; he doesn't understand the internet. Everybody is telling him that the internet is bad, so the only thing he can do is try to "contain" it. Nothing much will change. Your grandma's email will be readily available to them.
But I predict starkly contrasting changes will occur in the way you and I use the 'net. Chat and email programs will come with 128-bit or better encryption. PGP and similar programs will once again protect us from those who wish to protect us. We might use an SSL-enabled proxy in a "free-er" country to access web pages and encrypt them for transit to our "free" country.
This, of course, will bring back the debates of whether we should give big brother a key to our hope chests and diaries through back-doors and government keys. These efforts will be defeated. If they succeed, someone will hack the gov't key and reveal everyone's content to the world, and people will learn why gov't keys are a Bad Thing.
And the cycle will begin again. Peaks and troughs, peaks and troughs.
All we can continue to do is be vigilant in our struggle to contain this beast of a gov't that was started only a couple hundred years ago by a room full of good-intentioned men fighting taxation and abuse by their gov't.
Be strong.
Screw reciprocity. I am 100% for surveiling those in government, although this will be more feasible for some than others.
Realistically, it will have to be 100% blanket surveillance of those we chose to be effective - every letter, fax, night vision the bedroom - the whole deal. Congressmen, and the President, for instance, will make many claims that this is outrageous, etc. but only one class of such complaints really moves me, which is that "matters of national security," etc. prevent the publishing of such surveillance. To this I propose spot reviews by n (5-15?) randomly selected members of opposition political partie(s) for asserting that a) no crime occurred, and b) making an embargo on the data for n years (5? 25?).
The accountability is long overdue, and they don't call it the public life for nothing. It sounds ridiculous at first, but it would work. It would drive a lot of the people you don't want out of politics virtually overnight. Public service in elected office (and I don't think just elected officials should be eligible for such a program) is a solemn duty with the heaviest responsibilities to the people. Both common logic and "reasonable suspicion" should compell us to take this step.
But I see no reason why this requires "reciprocity" for private citizens.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
And I have a feeling we're in good company.
I wish slashdot had more marketing types around. What we need are more good ideas for making privacy understandable to people who have enjoyed it all their lives and won't otherwise know why it's worth keeping until after it's gone.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Oh, come on; the two-party system makes a mockery of the word "democracy". Your vote is worthless, the "lesser of two evils" is not a choice.
Besides, every election is won by the party that spent the most of their campain. This is extremely consistent over the years.
from the article: WASHINGTON, DC--Flanked by key members of Congress and his administration, President Bush approved Monday a streamlined version of the Bill of Rights that pares its 10 original amendments down to a "tight, no-nonsense" six.
Which means that if/when this monitoring system is in place, it would be in the US government's "security" interest to try to make all traffic of interest go through US-controlled territory at some point.
Which, in turn, means that the US government would be very happy to see US-based multinational corporations gain control of all the main routing points worldwide, because those corps would already have the monitoring technology in place. Even though the monitoring laws should only require monitoring in US territory, what would prevent the US government from making secret deals with those companies to monitor non-US traffic, too? Only if the monitoring can be detected and revealed by third parties can we be sure that this is not happening.
In other words, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - unless there is a simple, reliable way for us peons to monitor the monitoring, the potential for abuse will only be restrained by the conscience of those using the monitoring. Not a good situation.
But, the main point is that no amount of increased surveillance will make this fundamental problem go away.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
As with many of the new "security measures" we're currently swallowing, from most of the Patriot Act, to this, all the way to, perhaps, the coming war itself, no one seems to be able to make the case very well that any of them would have helped to prevent 9/11, or will help to prevent future attacks.
In fact, by tasking these agencies with vast new responsibilities in monitoring Americans, we can realistically expect worse performance when dealing with future terrorism.
Many citizens don't have the faculties or the will to recognize this fact, and many more who do stop themselves from asking why. But a man writing over 50 years ago gave us a few answers which I believe hit frighteningly close to the mark.
His name comes up so often now that he is in danger of becoming a cliche. But listen to his words:
"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the massses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labor power without producing anything that can be consumed."
"What is concerned here is not the morale of the masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war."
"The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact."
-George Orwell, 1984
I urge to read the whole book. In my opinion he was an excellent writer of fiction in adition to everything else. But if you skip it, I'll just add that "keeping the structure of society intact" is code for keeping those on top, on top.
We're on the road to Tycho.
Read through the technical specs for CALEA wiretaps. There have been some recent, wierd changes. Wiretap data used to be delivered over leased T1 lines, which at least meant that it was going to some well-defined place. Recently, dial-out wiretapping capability has been added to Nortel and Lucent switches, allowing the delivery of wiretapped calls to any phone.
I'm sure you and I will be the first ones tortured^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdetained for questioning in connection with disparaging government efforts to "stop terror."
("And a free trip to a Carribbean island? Great!")
In all seriousness, this christmas I'm giving copies of 1984 to a number of people, and I suggest others do the same if they're stuck for an idea, or just need something cheap to give a lot of people that will have the effect of (maybe) making them think.
I read it for the first time recently and found it quite eerie how similar some of the passages were to contemporary events.
Plus, for 12 bucks a pop, I've got gifts for christmas for several smart, "hard to buy for" people. Amazon is where I got the cool, hard-back edition I'm giving this year. I don't get anything from clicking on the link--so do so guilt free.
Who did what now?
A little sideways to the topic, but see also http://www.librarian.net/technicality.html Perhaps ISPs could formulate and post similar "technically legal warning signs". Perhaps a calendar marking all the dates that the FBI did NOT inspect their network.
IMO, there is little difference between libraries and the internet at large -- both are essentially public information access, merely via a different medium. What happens to one, be that surveillance, censorship, or other restrictions, sooner or later will happen to the other.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
For practical purposes, not only unlimited money, but unlimited mainframes. People here talk like that string of Xeons represents the max available in data analysis, making it automatically impractical. And the gov't doesn't think in terms of "can we afford it?"
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
While you are right partially in the DMCA, it is not with respect to privacy. Privacy exists in Europe and it can be enforced. Example, lack of junk mail and never being interrupted by a phone call that I do not want.
One place where you can get these privacies in North America is Quebec, Canada. Quebec Canada is the only place in North America where Europe will exchange data with. Quebec has passed as strict laws as Europe with respect to privacy and it shows. At our house in Quebec I never get any junk mail, nor do I get interrupted by a phone call at dinner. Vivre, le Quebec!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Remember, this is the US saying it's going to monitor the entire Internet. So, how would it REALLY be done, and what would be the results? I foresee the following: 1) Engage in lengthy debate in Congress. Have several failed bills. When the final bill emerges, it addresses not only Internet security, but also the planting of genetically altered grapefruits in economically depressed regions with a high percentage of illegal immigrant migrant workers. 2) Create an oversight board to monitor the activity of the department created by the President's Bipartisan Commission on Genetically Altered Citrus Crops and Suspicious Internet Activity (PBCGACCSIA). 3) Staff oversight board and department with board members from failed megacorporations whose CEO's have already burned through their golden parachute funds. 4) Employ technical people who are capable of formulating, within 12 months, a 14,521 page document outlining methods of collecting and analyzing data from Internet activity of migrant workers picking brocolli in North Dakota. 5) Declare genetically altered fruit "illegal combatants" and issue sanctions against imported Kiwi fruit.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
I swear I thought it said:
a report entitled 'The National Strategery to Secure Cyberspace'.
(If he runs against Daschle, he can't loose.)
Corporations do not want the government to monitor their corporation.
The gov-internet-monitoring staff might sell their corporate secrets to another company. corpoate espionage.
no i dont fear that this will pass.
I fear when corporations will monitor us completely, decide, and execute their laws how the corporations seem fit.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
First I'll address the intenet monitoring.
YES IT CAN BE DONE!
The internet is a very dangerous tool of the people. The working classes.... Untill not the digital divide and kept most of the concerns of our and other governments out of or even off the internet. You see ideas are more powerful then gun, missles, plains and tanks. Collectivly we have power. Divided we have a mess of opposing ideas. I believe it was richard nixon that first coined the phrase "The silent majority". He used this as a justification for trying to keep his office of president. The idea was that... Sure everyone was shouting for his removal but there was a "Slient Majority" that wanted him to stay in office. History has shown that this "Majority" was only 35% of the population.
The Metaphor of War.
When I was 17 I joined the Army. I did this because it has been a family tradition that I thought was valuable experiance. I was a patriot joining to help defend our way of life and to attest my belief in the constitution of the united states. This country has been defended by 4 generations of Richardsons. When you join the Army you are asked to give a oath to uphold the constitution against enemies both foreign and domestic. I'm not making this up. So why does the powers that be want to remove personal freedoms?
Does anyone remember when the War on Drugs was started against the American people? Well It never affected me. All the people in public housing that have to concent to searches going in and out of there homes. After all there was a "Majority" of people that believed in it right? The war on drugs is just a Metaphor! There is no real war going on except against the american people. All the shooting in south america and other drug producing countries are by rebels that actually might have a good reason to take up arms against their governments. I don't live there... I only know whats going on from what I read on the internet. Well years later we are still fighting the war on drugs. Low and behold searching people in public housing was not enough. We need roving check points on our borders. We need survalance of everyone. We go after people that in most cases are not even stronge enough to commit a violent crime. All in the name of keeping america safe from the drug crazed elements in our world. It's even created whole new types of corperations. Prison corperations that live off of a steady stream of bodies that need to be warehoused.
Does anyone remember the first Metaphor war in this country. Correct me if I'm wronge but I believe it was "The War on Poverty" started by the carter adminstation. I have a personal belief that this war was not sexy enough for the republicans. Because we seemed to drop that pretty fast when the poor started to be viewed as Crazed Crack addicts. Now if we as a nation were going to take up a impossible war this is the one we should be fighting. I don't think anyone can disagree with this. But we don't... We funnel in millions to law enforcement to fight drug use in the form of locking up the users. Ask a cop if he feels good sending a 18 year old to jail for having drugs. I've known A+ students that served 10 years for drug charges. What service did we get from that. A really scary person that could have been something grand. I don't want dealers on the street and I DON'T want drugs legal.
Which brings me to the War on Terrorism. Hey I'm all for protecting the country/world against bad guys. But let me ask this question.... If we stoped pouring resources into a failing drug war based on locking up the users. And instead turned to actually tighting up our borders couldn't we maybe get more truck, ships and planes searched for both drugs and weapons?
Where is all this leading? Your focusing on a battle not the war. Your focusing on the symptoms not the root cause. You watch your government take more and more away from you and you sit in your homes and pretend that you are so aware that it makes you a better person. Well did you vote? you did? did you get someone that did not vote to vote? Did you write your congressman to show disaproval of the fact that they signed the Patriot act after only reading a 3 or 4 page summary? I know that NO ONE was there to say "Hey you can't search these people just because they live in public housing". And I bet no one will be there to stop this landslide that is taking over the nation. We need to be vocal with this failing form of government. It's not a democratecy if only 40% of the population votes.
As a nation we need to find the root cause of this encrochment of our person rights and freedoms. I believe the root cause to be the lack of respect for the constitution by our government leaders. They will sit and tell you that for your safety we do these things.... They are lying! They do these things because the benefit the people that got them into office. The corperations and special interest groups. So when you whine about your posts to the everquest board shouldnt' be monitored your kidding you self. They can do what they want because even with the internet we are not ready to band together under the banner of freedom outlined in the constitution of the united states of america. So when they start replacing internet routers with computers that log ever packet. All to be gathered and processed by a government contractor that will be using your tax money to read your e-mail to mom. When the police get information on what pron movie you purchase with your credit card. When the army comes knocking on your door to recruit your 17 year old son because their records show that he can follow orders in his online games. Don't Panic. Because its all in the name of your protection.
"Silence means security, Silence means approval". --REM
P.S. spelling and grammer errors left in due to the fact that I really don't have the time to type this in the first place.
Last one in jail is a fascist.
I don't think this helps anything, anyone who wants to "talk" on the internet is going to use SSL/SSH if they know what they are doing
Sure, and where are most people going to download these SSL/SSH clients from?
That I still do post things as AC if I don't want the public to know, but don't mind if CowboyNeal and the government know.
In fact, if it were possible to block Timothy stories and keep track of responses to your posts without having an account I'd post everything as AC. But once I start tying views and details to a single account, that information already identifies me as uniquely as (in fact more than) my name.
The Internet Surfs You!!
"Uberwachung macht Frei"
or
"Surveillance is freedom"
Coming to an internment camp near you........
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
There is a third and more likely explanation. They are using this fake "war on terror" as an excuse to create a surveillance state for the sole purpose of controlling everyone, and destroying anyone who gets in their way. Period. It has nothing to do with stopping terrorism or crime, quite the opposite - it is designed so that they have the monopoloy on both.
Planet P Blog - Liberty with Technology.
www.enthea.org
I can see slashdot getting a visit in the near future for their server logs......
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
that's from the declaration of independence. now, if nothing else, the evil power-hungry money-grubbing world-domination-seeking republicans (and if you honestly believe the democrats are a better alternative..well...heh) have at least upheld the indivdual right to keep and bear arms...which was originally put into the constitution not for something as silly as the defense of the country, but to insure that the above quote was eternally valid - very much the "a man with a gun is a citizen, a man without a gun is a subject" mentality. so instead of bitching or trying to do some sort of fuzzy warm feel-ggod sit-in protest that isn't going to do jack squat, why not just pick up your guns and march on Washington? if everybody on slashdot who calims to be fed up with the US gov't actually had the cojones to do something about it, you could probably drum up 50-100,000 supporters and make an armed march on washington. the military probably wouldn't shoot back at you; if they did it would just whip up more support for your cause [the american public may be dumb cattle, but they'll notice if we start shooting our own citizens] - and then you can put in whatever form of government you want. yes, i honestly do believe it would work, and i also believe that in order for you to get the government to behave as you want them to, you need to have a rebellion. personally, i don't see a difference between republicans and democrats; at least the republicans are pragmatic and open with their plans for world domination...i plan to just see where things go over the next few years and then decide on my course of action...no matter what freedoms they take away, ashcroft is rabid about letting me keep my guns, so i always have that option to fall back on.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
"...some real terrorists?" Why go overseas when they're all right here, ruling the U.S. with fear? The sad thing is that the US elected them.
"If you don't like it, screw you." Sounds like the Bush Admin. You work there?
Now YOU are a terrorist....
It was tried before. Remember the Civil War?
Irregardless of the evils of slavery,
I believe the South was justified in their cecession.
The same argument that the founding fathers used in their revolt against the crown applied there as well.
The basic argument is "My forefathers cannot give up my rights to self determination for all time to ANY government."
Lastly the Army WOULD shoot you, and you would be on the nightly news in a blurb such as
"And in other news today a terrorist attack on Washington was thwarted by regiments of the United States Army. It is unclear at this time how many terrorists were killed but White House officials commented that the group was linked to Al-queda."
And that would be that......
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Mmmm... I find that prospect to be significantly *less* likely. A vast conspiracy to turn the U.S. into a police state couldn't succeed, at least not without significant cultural and systemic changes. The problem for would-be oligarchs is that there are simply too many checks and balances in our system. Petty political feuding is the backbone of freedom, in that any overt attempt to significantly curtail civic freedoms would be quickly shot down -- not through popular uprising, but simply because for every John Ashcroft there is a Tom Daschle, eager to gain power and prestige by tapping into popular resentment.
What I fear far more is the slippery slope towards tyranny of the majority, greased by politicians attempting to maximize both their votes and their influence within the bureaucracy (e.g. the Justice Department). In such a state, reason and justice take a back seat to the howling of the mob. People are scared right now, and they're willing to let a few suffer for the illusion of safety and security. The worst thing to fear is not a shadowy government conspiracy -- it is the apathy and moral laziness of a people who have forgotten the principles upon which their country was founded.
Yes, I said "nineteen fifty four," and not "nineteen eighty four."
...and you've got it about right.
The phrase of the day is "chilling effect," brought to you by the letters H, U, A, and C.
Or isn't anyone else thinking that TIA (and friends) is a little closer to the HUAC than Orwell's book? Just alias "Commies" to "terrorists," and it works just fine.
I mean this new plot is like, well, imagine -- naah, hold on, I have to say it -- imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Joe McCarthys...
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
hmmmm, now you have me thinking. So between your alternative and mine, which is worse? I suppose we could say since we are dealing with so many variables that all of the above is true. It is hard to argue though that people like Ridge, Ashcroft, Poindexter, Rumsfeld, Horowitz, and Cheney are not conspiring. Everything they do suggest that is exactly what they are doing - they want total global world domination. Even their Policy of the New American Century clearly outlines this agenda. And every move they make has been an agressive higly co-ordinated attack on our civil liberties.
If I were to systematically conspire to create a slave orwellian state, I can see no better way than what they are doing now. Their plan for total domination and control could not have been more brilliantly executed. Ask the average American from 3 year ago and they would be shocked at how far we have slid into facism.
www.enthea.org
Tower of Hypocrisy that we live with here in the USofA. Do as our leaders say, not as they do. It afflicts the government, the corps, and even the church.
All I can say is we need the OSS community to keep cranking out encryption stuff, because that is our only hope.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
And if it's as stable as M$ shit, we have nothing to worry about :-)
Can't be done because of the routing algorythms used, that try to send packets via the least expensive (in terms of number of hops, latency, etc) route. An easy way to circumvent this will be to fix the routing tables so that any "monitored" router is assigned a routing cost of 255.
Of course, if they try to invade here, we'll fix 'em. Poutine and Canadian Beer!!! They'll either go AWOL or die of cholesterol.
Can't they do it like in the old USSR (I'm not going there) and keep it secret? I don't want to know about this stuff, especially when I can't do anything about it (and yes I voted and wrote my "representatives"). Sheesh they can't even get spying on their own people right.
Can't be done. To "monitor" the whole internet would require that all traffic pass through a central point
But it can be attempted. Maybe you don't have 100% coverage. But the fact of the matter is, large chunks of the net do flow through finite points. Witness the concern in previous months over Worldcom's business problems -- their pipes carry a significant percentage of internet traffic.
Besides, it would be against the Canadian Constitution's provisions on privacy and security of the person. Any citizen could then sue their ISP and require that all packets not specifically bound for the US not be routed through an American-monitored node.
And how that has stopped CSIS (the canadian security equivalent to the CIA) in the past? Or, for that matter, how would that stop a US government agency operating outside of the jurisdiction of Canada? And, finally, how many citizens would have the time, resources, and commitment to 'sue their ISP'?
Third point - this will just spur people to use encryption and/or anonymizers.
I seem to recall people claiming this point when PGP first came out. Has widespread adoption of encryption tools come about? No. Will it? Don't think so -- it's too inconvenient for regular usage.
Does American Airlines fly to Nazi Germany?
Ask Security Services in the US, UK, Indonesia (Bali) or anywhere for that matter, to deny this:
Internet surveillance, using Echelon, Carnivore or back doors in encryption, will not stop terrorists communicating by other means - most especially face to face or personal courier.
Terrorists will have to do that, or they will be caught!
Perhaps using mobile when absolutely essential, saying - "Meet you in the pub Monday" (human bomb to target A), or Tuesday (target B) or Sunday (abort).
The Internet has become a tool for government to snoop on their people - 24/7.
The terrorism argument is a dummy - total bull*.
INTERNET SURVEILLANCE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STOP TERRORISTS - THAT IS SPIN AND PROPAGANDA
This propaganda is for several reasons, including: a) making you feel safer b) to say the government are doing something and c) the more malicious motive of privacy invasion.
Government say about surveillance - "you've nothing to fear - if you are not breaking the law"
This argument is made to pressure people into acquiescence - else appear guilty of hiding something illegal.
It does not address the real reason why they want this information (which they will deny) - they want a surveillance society.
They wish to invade your basic human right to privacy. This is like having somebody watching everything you do - all your personal thoughts, hopes and fears will be open to them.
This is everything - including phone calls and interactive TV. Quote from ZDNET: "Whether you're just accessing a Web site, placing a phone call, watching TV or developing a Web service, sometime in the not to distant future, virtually all such transactions will converge around Internet protocols."
"Why should I worry? I do not care if they know what I do in my own home", you may foolishly say. Or, just as dumbly, "They will not be interested in anything I do".
This information will be held about you until the authorities need it for anything at all. Like, for example, here in UK when government looked for dirt on individuals of Paddington crash survivors group. It was led by badly injured Pam Warren. She had over 20 operations after the 1999 rail crash (which killed 31 and injured many).
This group had fought for better and safer railways - all by legal means. By all accounts a group of fine outstanding people - with good intent.
So what was their crime, to deserve this investigation? It was just for showing up members of government to be the incompetents they were.
As usual, government tried to put a different spin on the story when they were found out. Even so, their intent was obvious - they wanted to use this information as propaganda - to smear the character of these good people.
Our honourable government would rather defile the character of its citizens - rather than address their reasonable concerns.
The government arrogantly presume this group of citizens would not worry about having their privacy invaded.
They can also check your outgoings match your income and that you are paying enough tax. What do you think all this privacy invasion is for? The War on Terrorism? You poor dupe. All your finances for them to scrutinize; heaven help you if you cannot account for every cent.
The authorities try make everything they say sound perfectly reasonable.
e.g. Officials from US Defence Department agency have said that they want, "the same level of accountability in cyberspace that we now have in the physical world".
Do government currently keep records of everything that you touch in the physical world to analyse?
No they do not - So then, is that the same level of accountability?
They wish to keep an electronic tag on you, like some kind of animal. Actually it is even worse than this - like some pervert sex offender - a child molester that they have to keep track of. Would any person of intelligence call that accountability?
Do not believe the lies of Government - even more of your money spent on these measures will not protect us from terrorists. Every argument they use is subterfuge - pure spin.
In UK, the RIP Act is unjust - dim-witted ill-informed MPs believed governments 'experts'. Remember - they will get everything about you, your phone calls, emails, TV viewing - everything. It would be like having a spy living in your house.
Americans - the Total Information Awareness plan, USA Patriot act and Homeland Defence - you are more technologically aware, are you really that easily misled?
I cannot stress enough - all your personal thoughts, hopes and fears will be open to them. I know from experience, as fact, they have no morals and will purposefully twist this information to use against you. I have documentary evidence of this - actual government agency case notes. Should government take legal action to deny that they pervert how personal information is used, then these documents may be viewed in a court of Law.
P.S. The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization and the United States Department of Commerce are hiding the simple solution to trademark and domain name problem. The solution was ratified by honest attorneys. Please visit my site - not associated with United Nations WIPO.org. The United Nations WIPO deal with these conflicts - but are without honour and too cowardly to directly answer my easy questions (as are the US DoC).
Thanks for destroying my ping times (as if they aren't bad enough already).
NOW, I have to spend more money to get access to a server on foreign soil, and have ALL my traffic run through an ssh tunnel to that machine before being routed to the actual destination.
The alternative is to have all the damn monitoring software slow it down through the normal routes, AND lose any semblance of privacy in the process.
Why does the United States Government feel obliged to try and control things they have no juristiction over? If they're going to do this, then they need to open and read every letter and document that goes through the post office as well... since terrorists will then go back to using paper mail (not enough manpower to open, read, reseal ALL of it) and, as usual, honest citizens will suffer.
Just like copy-protection, punish the honest people since criminals will find ways around it regardless...
As for me, I think it's time to use PGP or a related tool at all times. I've honestly been lazy about it. Time not to be.
sulli
RTFJ.
Yeah, the moral questions are important. But I also wonder about the technical side.
If every packet on the internet is both going to its intended receiver and into a surveilence database, how much will that slow down the internet and/or increase its cost?
As for G. W., I doubt that he's going to get voted in during the 2004 elections, since it's doubtless by now that he's going to have half the country nuked by screwing with Iraq.
... and I hope you weren't serious in evaluating Iraq as a serious nuclear threat to us.)
Yeah, Bush's horrible 65% approval rating really hurt the Republicans in this last election. Riiight.
(Oh!
Face it, the masses love this guy. There's nothing that he can do wrong so long as he keeps consolodating power in the background while waving the flag of fighting Iraq in the foreground. We're doomed to another 4 years of him, and there's nothing that we can do. Privacy issues? Corporate accountability? The environment? Corruption in government? No one cares anymore. No one but marginalized intellectuals care, and we aren't a significant voter base in this nation of happy and complacently uninformed consumers.
Hell, they don't even care that we still haven't gotten Osama bin Ladin yet, just like GWB's dad never got Sadaam Hussein. GWB started beating the Iraq war drums when it became evident that we weren't going to get him. As long as we've perpetually got some future military action to keep America distracted, he can do whatever he likes with a high approval rating. As long as Americans know that we'll never get mired in another Vietnam and we can sit back and plunk missles and bombs at disadvantaged enemies, they'll love any Republican President that gets us involved in a war, because Republicans know just what kinds of enemies get Americans riled up.
"Corrupt Somalians oppressing their people? Butchers in the Balkans performing 'ethnic cleansing?' Who cares? Get our boys back home!" As long as they can keep the masses scared, they'll ladel love and worship on any President who "stands up to" a country that would never ever defeat us in a straight-up war. Bush knows it. Clinton got us involved in wars in other nations based on issues and principles like opposing racist genocide without giving us a reason to fear the enemies. America hated it. The key to the love of the American people is fear of foreigners. As long as you can stoke up nationalism and fear of another nation, you can keep their hearts by doing something about the "problem."
It's disgusting. Real issues don't matter. Constitutional freedoms, civil liberties, and the accountability of those in power don't matter next to fighting Eastasia or Eurasia in our coming Orwellian nightmare. Welcome to at least four more years of Bush and four more years of the War against Terrorism where the words Freedom and Terrorism have lost all meaning.
Screw this. I'm voting Green in 2004. If whoever I vote for is destined to lose anyway, I want a chance for federal money to go to someone in 2008 who'll try to at least get issues in the public limelight without fear of "looking bad" like the Democrats will in the next election. I'll bet money that they'll soft-shoe their way through the next election without raising any issues like they did this year in the new Democrat / "Republicans Lite" fashion. At least in 2008, there's a chance the American people will have become tired of Bush after he has four years to run the nation into the ground without caring about getting reelected.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Nope, that's not good enough. I want a well documented proof in the public record. I want the guilty to stand trial and be convicted for all to see. You know, sworn testimony and all that. CNN film footage is not reasonable proof, even if it contains proportedly self incrimiating statements. I want the folks who made those statements caught and tried and proved guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. Even self incrimination is not enough when you are dealing with suicide bombers!
You don't get that kind of proof from snooping on inocent people's email and business transactions. You get that kind of proof by examining witnesses and physical evidence AFTER a crime has been commited. Total Information Awareness will not prevent or solve terrorism any more than the universal police camera coverage in London has decreased crime or terrorism there. Total Information Awareness is simply a move towards tracking and harassing opposition. In the future it can be used to eliminate that opposition and it will be.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Here's an article that is discussing capturing all traffic in the UK. From the BBC article
AOL's Director of Public Policy Camille de Stempel told MPs that it would cost it £25m just to implement the requirements and another £9m to maintain each year.
It would also require 360,000 CDs a year to store all the data.
It also emerged that ISPs would not be able to simply pass the CDs on to the police.
This would contradict rules in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which state that any requests for communications data must be proportional to the crime committed.
Instead ISPs would have to search for particular pieces of information, requiring an indexed and organised system which would push up the costs still further.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
The Students for an Orwellian Society also stand in support of the realization of Orwell's great dream as set forth in his prophetic work in 1984. Unite to bring Orwell and Bush's dream of IngSoc to the Oceania people today!
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
"The Pope? How many divisions does he have?"
- Uncle Joe.
Why do people care about Brin's vision as anything other than a cool premise for a sci-fi novel?
Self Censorship.
This is really the trick behind any form of censorship.
The moment you know that suspicious activity is tagged, you will stop behaving "suspiciously". This again raises the profile of the few that does.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Must be something hallucigenic in that Potamic water ... They just announced $11+ billion to implement a star wars system that has not has significant experimental success yet.
What makes you think I "hate and abhor" the American system? I love it. I spent eight years of my life in uniform defending it, and continue to defend it with my words and actions every day. What I hate and abhor are the forces which are trying to take away "the best freedom in the world to criticize it."
Of course, you lack the guts to identify yourself; my name is up there for all to see.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Sounds like familiar doublespeak. Perhaps you meant "Freedom is Slavery."
You know, I used to think all references to 1984 were over-the-top black helicopter crowd nonsense, but Bush has brought me around. Did you know he was born just a couple of years before the book came out? Maybe it was his bedtime reading as a toddler.
Remember when the White House proposed an office of disinformation -- and got driven back? Wouldn't they have done better with "Ministry of Truth"?
Remember:
* War Is Peace
* Freedom Is Slavery
* Ignorance Is Strength
* Big Brother Is Watching You
(The SOS site has other useful tips.)
Yes, voting worked really well for you circa 1933.
The Clipper chip was a universal ENCRYPTION system so that people could NOT listen in.
It would allow the government, with a warrant, to easily snoop on anything. With the ease they can get warrants, this would not trouble you?
Currently ANYONE can listen in on your phone calls and internet messages.
With a encryption chip that did not have a back hole in it, NO ONE would have been able to intercept it. A back hole does mean that there is one more avenue for others (non-government) to attempt to break it.
This assumes it is not as easy to break as CSS was.
it didn't stop you from using your own encryption if you are concerned about that.
If I am concerned about my own encryption, why should I PAY to have a broken (in my eyes) chip placed into MY phone?
"police state"
"police state"
"police state"
Liability laws holding businesses responsible in the civil sense for damage done to end users or other businesses using their computers and networks would clean up the "corporate idiots spreading [virus of the week]" problem, the insurance companies will force their customers to clean up their acts immediately.
Liability laws holding end users responsible the same way and a few high-profile lawsuits will have the same impact.
A "safe harbor" for "best practices" makes this fair. Perhaps ISPs could be required to distribute anti-viral software or firewall software that updates automatically with their installation, or to require their use via TOS.
If you're a home user:
Best practices for businesses depends largely on business size. Consensus can be created to provide explicit guidelines as to what businesses in X size range should be doing without limiting overly what businesses can use for servers and workstations. If a business wants to run IIS/XP, I think it stupid, but as long as they're competently managed, OK, the dangerous installations are the ones run right out of the box by people whose MSCE certificates are still drying anyway.
Cost to taxpayers? Pretty minimal, much of it would largely be recovered by court costs.
Effectiveness? If you are not a member of the Bush Administration, you know that about 99% of all malware depends on somebody leaving a gateway for trouble, patches not up to date, antivirus not up to date, or not bothering to read the articles that would tell the user not to click on file attachments from unknown people.
The stuff we need end users to do is NOT rocket science. The stuff businesses need to do can be done by any competent sysadmin. If they don't have one, what the hell are they doing on the Internet? They are no more entitled to dump bad packets on the Net than they are to dump their raw sewage into the people's drinking water.
The zero-day exploits we're mostly all vulnerable to, but they are also pretty rare.
So we have a simple and relatively cheap way to make people and businesses responsible for cleaning up their own acts.
Who says that this is impossible?
Why does the Bush Adminstration want to create a single monitoring point / single attack point for enemies? Answer that question for yourself. It isn't like there's no other choices for securing the Net.
I'm sure there are other ways to accomplish this as well, and I'd like to see some discussed.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Cheney is the president.
We're going to have 16 years of Cheney -- the man in the bunker.
America Uber Alles.
As far as I understand, to have a complete IPv6 implementation, it is required that it be possible to choose to use IPSEC. Eventually crypto will become transparent to people... How then will they continue to monitor? It would be *highly* CPU intensive to do umpti-gazillion man-in-the-middle attacks, and those are easy to stop with a chain of trust anyway...
SSL Certificate
Here's the link for the pdf file for those who didn't read the whitehouse page far enough to read the reference to it.
Whoopee Shite!!!!
Next time you do a traceroute from your machine in Canada, to a server located in Canada, see that the frikin' packets hop through US networks and cities... :-(
This information while not illegal could be embarrassing and therefore useful for blackmail, boardroom coups, politics of personal destruction, discrimination.
This is, in fact, what J Edgar Hoover used the FBI for. His personal blackmail tool. Even he had something to hide, though..