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Most Consumers Support Government Cyber-Spying
scurtis writes "Nearly two thirds of computer users globally believe that it is acceptable for their country to spy on other nations by hacking or installing malware, according to Sophos's mid-year 2010 Security Threat Report. And 23 percent claimed to support this action even during peacetime. Perhaps more surprisingly, 32 percent of respondents said that countries should also be allowed to plant malware and hack into private foreign companies in order to spy for economic advantage."
Nearly two thirds of people agree with whatever their government do. Right ?
Otherwise, how would they get elected in the first place, at least where elections do take place ?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
“It’s kind of curious, because these are the people that have got no time for hackers and the bad guys at all, but seem to think it’s all right for countries to do this,” said Cluley. “I think they need to remember that, one day, it might be a country attacking your company’s network, and trying to infiltrate it, and how are you going to feel about it then?”
Hire people like us thats what you do. Information security professionals know how to deal with malware attacks, just as nationalist cyber armies know how to attack and infiltrate. This creates jobs for both sides so it's not really a bad thing for most of us on Slashdot. Also how long did we really think we could go around being ignorant of security procedures and leaving networks open to infiltration? It's time that corporations spend the money necessary to defend from infiltration and it's time that the government create their elite army of hackers that they keep hyping up and talking about.
Let the cyberwarfare begin.
So why not take the best hackers of the United States and train them to hack China, Iran, Iraq or whereever the foreign networks are? It's not like the foreign networks aren't hacking the US networks.
Also it creates jobs. Since most people on Slashdot work in these industries imagine the amount of jobs the billions of dollars of funding will create for all of us? High paying jobs for American citizens.
I like how we are merely consumers and no longer Citizens now.
Fuckers.
as long as people identify themselves as french, or muslim, or black, or brazilian, or christian, or asian, or whatever
before they identify themselves as human
when you identify your nationality, or your religion, or your race, as your primary source of pride and your primary source of identity, you are what is wrong with this world, you have just committed the original sin, which allows all the wars and transgressions and crimes you see in this world to take place
pride in some arbitrary signifier, above your basic humanity, is the opening move in the game of dehumanizing all other nationalities, or religions, or races, and thereby accepting or rationalizing or acknowledging, even if simply by staying silent, atrocities against other, fellow, human beings
you can still be proud of your nationality, or your religion, or your race, of course
as long as you identify as a human being, first and foremost, above and beyond anything else, and you know that your pride in your nationality, religion, or race, is but a triviality, not a serious factor in your life
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The mocked up stats ITFA almost seem pretty skewed. I love how the central polling audience are called 'computer users', then went on to ask them their opinions VERY in-depth topic that only someone who loathes in technology for pleasure, employment or both would understand (e.g. DDoS). Since my wife is a 'computer user', I'll make sure to ask her what a her stance on using DDoS attacks against foreign banking institutions and after being drawn in by her blank stare, have her call me a 'nerd' after the fact. Whole article sounds superficial to me.
Nobody's national anthem begins with "We're Number Two!"
Obviously, you've never been to Canada.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
What's that?
And 72% of news articles misrepresent the news. Seriously, the vast majority of the poll respondents (or shall I call them consumers?) were opposed to governments spying during peacetime. The majority were ok with it during war, but presumably dropping bombs on a country is significantly more serious than cyber-espionoge, and frankly I wonder why anyone would be opposed to spying if we are at war already. It might end the war earlier and save lives on both sides.
Qxe4
The bigger question is: how many people support domestic cyber-spying? I can see support for foreign espionage, since it's widely assumed that every country does that anyways, but in my little circle of acquaintances I have been seeing more and more people actually support and push domestic spying as not only acceptable but something to be praised.
For example, I wouldn't be surprised that this 2/3rd advocating government spying, constituted mostly of Chinese computer users, that have been brainwashed by the Chinese government propaganda. China is the most populated country in the world after all.
And considering that even in USA, the other country with highest number of computer users, over half of the population voted in Bush for a second term and what with the war on terror propaganda. It implies that at least half the Americans will willingly and happily live in 1984, if they are told that it is necessary to "keep them terrorists away".
I scanned the actual Sophos report and nowhere did I see a presentation of how the sample was drawn, how it's distributed across countries, of the level of sophistication of the respondents. At a minimum, I'd like to see the sample divided out by countries or regions. Talking about "computer users globally" requires some substantial documentation before I'll believe they've even come close to drawing a world-wide sample, much less one that is statistically representative of computer users worldwide. How many people did they interview in China, India, or Kenya? How was a "computer user" defined? Any study as bold as to claim that it represents the attitudes of "computer users globally" needs a lot more documentation than the article or the Sophos report provide.
The most telling statistic on the kinds of people who might be in the sample comes from responses to the question "Do you think you will quit Facebook over privacy concerns?" If you believe the data from Sophos, Facebook should be seeing a mass exodus. About 18% of the respondents say they've already left Facebook for this reason, and another 30% claim to be "highly likely" to quit. It's hard to take these figures seriously when Facebook just recently reporting having over half a billion accounts.
By the way, the section of the report entitled "No OS is Risk Free" talks only of Windows and OS/X. While I don't think Linux is "risk-free" either, I'm guessing Sophos writes reports for organizations on the platforms that generate its income. Sophos is hardly a distinterested party when it comes to evaluating operating systems and platforms.
I don't see why this is so surprising. Most people recognize that their own governments spy on other countries as part of legitimate defense of their country.
Of course, the question asked by the media is far too broad to be meaningful. They don't ask whether they support their government spying on other countries when it's not legitimate defense of their country. And they don't ask whether they support their government spying on their own country, whether it's "legitimate" defense of their country or not.
Or whether it's ever legitimate to spy on their own country, violating their fellow citizens' rights instead of protecting them, when there's no probable cause, warrant or other due process. No data on where people accept that line being drawn inside their own country.
So the results are really just another straw on the camel's back of innuendo that pushes headlines about "people support being spied on". Because the corporate mass media and its ecosystem of spook-infested think tanks are so corrupt, lazy and complicit in the globe's many and interlocking police states that all they can do is sell us lies to con us into allowing our own governments to spy on us.
--
make install -not war
In short, all those people agreeing to that crap would probably not be so keen on the steps it would require to insure our security in a world where that behavior is commonplace and acceptable for all governments. Nevermind that we should have been taking those steps for the past several decades because like it or not, that's the world we're heading to.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If you can avoid a fight, avoid it. If you are in a fight- you must survive by any means necessary, preferably by escaping. If that fails, by using maximum amount of violence and aggression in shortest period of time possible, and by using every advantage or imporivsed weapon available. And then escaping. Fighting is scary ugly uncivilized brutal thing to be avoided, and that's the way it should be. If your martial arts instructor is teaching you anything else, find some other instructor or style.
Regarding violence in everyday life- I don't see any of it living in the middle of London. It's all over the news, but I think that's just reporters chasing stories that sell. And there's plenty of it in movies & games, but that's because violence & sex sells. As far as I know, statistics show that violent crime in real life is declining, and has been for a while.
I do agree that governments around the world are getting more totalitarian now, and that is scary. It's not the violence per se that scares me the most, it's the "1984" like boot stomping on a human face forever.
--Coder
2/3 of people with money to burn!
AKA poor people don't count!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine