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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."
“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.
I think that it has less to do with governments and more to do with the paranoid, tribalist mentality that the so-called "civillized" world is regressing into.
H.O.A.'s, for example. Vigilante partols. "Concerned Citizens". Gang-stalking. Surges in the popularity of MMA.
The role of the government in this case is to turn half the population against the other half to distract them from the fact that they are robbing the population blind.
They don't agree with "whatever the government does." They agree with their government spying on other governments. This is not new. This has always been the case. It's on computers now. So what? Same old thing.
Your government can either believe another government's public statements or they can attempt to verify those statements with espionage. You will have far better data by doing both, which is why we've been doing it for so long.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
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
It's pretty funny how everyone was outraged when that russian spy was caught, and calling for his imprisonment or execution or whatever, but the same people give you a blank puzzled look when you point out that they strongly support espionage when it's the US doing the spying...
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?
That's neither funny nor hypocritical at all. At least during war, it's accepted that spying is a legitimate strategy for gaining an advantage. It makes perfect sense to want your government to gain an advantage over your enemy and to be angry when the enemy is gaining an advantage over you.
I'm not saying that spying is justified, all I'm saying is that there's no contradiction in supporting your government spying on other countries but being angry at other governments spying on you.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
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
I guess MMA is Mixed Martial Arts, I've never heard of that term or acronym before.
Humans have been into aggression for since before the dawn of the earliest civilizations, do you really think it's going to go away any time soon? Maybe you need to brush up on your history a little bit, "civilized" societies can and do go from their pinnacle to their worst in short time spans, shockingly short if there is a lot of pent-up tension. In some ways, I think it might be argued that civilized societies pretend they are free of humanity's worst aspects, when it's just denial or turning a blind eye.
Uhh, yea it's just you contradicting yourself.
What a crock of shit. You do realize that at one point in human history people were slaughtered for religion, thrown into an arena to fight to the death, and tortured for being gay/the wrong religion/funny looking? And that this was government-backed activity in the same civilized world that is now somehow 'regressing?' When was humanity ever any less violent than it is now? I'll give you a hint: never.
Just because shit kinda sucks now doesn't mean there was any point in history that sticks out as some beacon of truth, justice, and love. Because it never happened.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
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
All too true.
The cable news media is also a tool of some political misleaders to put the nation at odds with itself.
Anymore, I see slanted ignorant political garbage polluting public debate, which is really stupid, pathetic and counter productive.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
It's called escalation idiot. Once it starts where does it stop. Why hack networks, why not cripple the hardware, it stays down longer. Main cable trunks, main network junctions, one hole, some battery acid and your down for days.
Then why stop at network infrastructure, why not start bringing down all the other infrastructure, power, water and sewerage. Once your there why not start in on food supply, too easy, box of matches and your done.
Escalation, escalation, escalation, that is the consequence of idiot thinking, we can do this and get away with it and they will just have to suck it up stupid brown, yellow, olive, pink, black people. You want to uphold justice then you pursue justice not unjust criminal behaviour.
Peace brings more peace, violence propagates more violence, a willingness to break laws in other countries 'WILL' result in identical or worse, likely worse behaviour in turn. The global internet is a shared global resources, anybody absolutely anybody that attempts to corrupt and destroy parts of are committing a crime against humanity, it is a crime against humanity because of the opportunity for global communication and understanding that the internet provides. The internet is the single most important tool for global justice and peace.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
heya,
Maybe it's just me, and the fact that I live in Australia and not the US, but your post sounds like some ignorant, crazy little rant.
HOA - Home Owner's Association? I'm guessing that's like, what, our Neighbourhood Watch here in Australia? Last time I checked, that was a bunch of cute little old ladies, and retired schoolteachers, who provide help to lost schoolkids, and keep an eye out for people vandalising cars or trying to break into your house....hardly menancing, and the worst they can do to you is call the police on you...
Vigilante patrols? We don't really have that here, sorry. Maybe it's an American thing?
MMA? Ok, now you've just gone off the deep end. I happen to do MMA, and it's just a martial arts sport, like any other. I'm actually sort of insulted that you would lump it in to your weird, paranoid fantasy.
In fact, the people at my gym happen to be quite friendly, there's several mums/dads who bring their kids there to compete in comps. I can't think of anybody there who would fit into your weird crazy fantasy of people roving the streets a la Clockwork Orange.
And in case you were wondering, I go to here:
http://www.spma.net.au/
The instructors is Elvis Sinosic and Anthony Perosh, both ex-UFC fighters. So they're definitely serious. They just happen to actually be quite nice people. I mean, I don't know Anthony, but last time I checked, Elvis is a family guy, I think, and he rescues animals on his weekends (volunteers at some wildlife rescue thing).
You sound like maybe you've watched Hot Fuzz one too many times, and thought it was a documentary instead of a comedy...lol.
Look, there's no weird government conspiracy. Last time I checked, government departments were more interested in infighting, and navigating bureacratic jungles, then trying to brainwash the popluation, like you said. They can't even cooperate with each other, let alone pull off the sort of strange fantasy you've made up in your head.
A lot of these screwups are probably due to bureaucrats with too much time on their hands, a bit of a power-trip copmlex, and not thinking things through. Sure, sounds good on paper, we'll spy on other countries to protect our citizens, but when you try to implement it in real life, it never works out that well. And like somebody else said, there's always the danger of escalation.
Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
Cheers,
Victor
The headline doesn't say 2/3rds of people. It says 2/3rds of "consumers" whatever the fuck they are. it could say "people", it could say "citizens". It could even, at a push, say "the public". But no - it's "consumers". So I don't think they're people, whatever they are. Maybe some sort of cow?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I often get reply and explanation from US sysadmins when I complain while I get typical bot-net or hijacked machines port-scanning traffic, rarely do I get replies from China. Is it because China sysadmins are all hackers or because their organization is less professional and that are just less competent and get overflodded with complain reports ?
Just wondering... ;-)
They don't read English and/or have difficulties writing a reply in English, and everything you can expect to get from a machine translator would be gibberish. Even if you write the letter in completely correct Chinese they still won't care, unless you are his superior and he must obey your commands - this is the typical attitude among many Chinese sysadmins.
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
"consumers" whatever the fuck they are. [...] Maybe some sort of cow?
Close. A favorite passage of mine from William Gibson (by way of boingboing):
[...] a "consumer," what William Gibson memorably described as "something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth... no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote."