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DoD Paper Proposes National Security Through a Culture of Restraint (and Stigma)
decora writes "An SAIC analyst has written a paper [PDF] calling for the 'stigmatization' of the 'unattractive' types who tend to discuss government secrets in public. The plan, described in the Naval Postgraduate School Homeland Security Affairs journal, is to promote self-censorship as a 'civic duty'. Who needs to censor themselves? Amateur enthusiasts who describe satellite orbits, scientists who describe threats to the food supply, graduate students mapping the internet, the Government Accountability Office, which publishes failure reports on the TSA, the US Geologic Survey, which publishes surface water information, newspapers (the New York Times), TV shows, journalism websites, anti-secrecy websites, and even security author Bruce Schneier, to name a few."
censorship? how 'bout "roadtofascism"?
self-censorship as a 'civic duty'
I'm speechless.
They have learned the value of secrecy.
In order words, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Security through strong-armed obscurity, leading to security through censorship.
What, it's obviously not secure? Sorry, can't talk about the fact that the door is actually open.
Seriously, is this some kind of joke? Why do we keep paying these people to suggest things like this - what value are they bringing to our lives?
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Let's stigmatize SAIC analysts who have internalized the mind-set of the Soviet Union.
It will save lots of time in the long run.
The United States government is so corrupt that the only way they see it surviving is to use 1984 as a howto manual.
As an American (hopefully not for that much longer), this is shameful. Every so-called patriot should be fighting against censorship and spying, in every form, yet both the "small government" republicans and "progressive" democrats are for this kind of crap.
Welcome to the road to a third-world banana republic, America.
Great Intellect...
How about a culture where attempting to stigmatize people for your own gain is looked on as bad?
Or one where openness and freedom of speech is looked upon as helpful?
Does anyone with more than a room temperature IQ think the "bad guys" don't know the satellite orbits?
Snitching = bad. Right?
It's not hard to stigmatize snitching. It's already universally recognized as bad by everybody who doesn't work for government and who isn't a cop. And the cops only think it's good when the snitches are working for them. So basically governments don't like being snitched on, but so what? Governments are the ones funding the informants and snitching by offering prizes in cash to the biggest leaker/informant/snitch.
And governments don't have a problem trying to use morality to convince people it's right to leak when it's to them. Suddenly it's your civic duty to help the FBI solve it's crimes, or to turn on your friend to help law enforcement, but if it's the other way around and someone within the FBI reports crimes going on to the media, suddenly it's snitching again.
It's the blue code of silence. So we have to decide whether or not leaking = snitching.
If leaking != snitching, then why would leaking be wrong? Why should any of us care about government agendas if we don't work for them?
Why should Bruce or Bob or Alice care about the governments private agenda? We don't know about it, so we don't have any responsibility. Also we haven't taken an oath. And finally, it's a matter of does the government care about the agenda of individuals when they are out to make arrests or conduct whatever operations? I highly doubt they would.
So lets have the debate. How much leaking is too much? When does leaking become snitching? And what are the effects of a leak or snitch culture vs a culture of secrecy? It's not like these questions have been fully discussed. So lets ask them.
Kind of opposite of "anonymous coward" is the "authenticated coward", which is what this "culture of restraint" will encourage. You are someone only if you don't say anything. Anyone who says something (not officially condoned) is a persona non grata.
Yuck! Someone tag this Do Not Want, please.
You neglected to mention the most important 'government secret' that henceforth should not be allowed to be discussed in the open...
A list of 'government secrets' that shouldn't be discussed in public.
It is vital that we discourage people from mentioning these items, primarily so that we can attack anyone for anything at all.
No, I am not being serious. This is a bad idea and should be fought against, fortunately it violates the first amendment, lets hope that means something still. Yeah Obama and transparent government!
Downplay economic crises, lock up those who speak out against the atrocities, remove factual information contrary to the state's agenda and eliminate anyone who refuses to be kept poor and stupid. Why is this anything anyone is championing for?
He spilled the beans on this new strategy. This Dallas Boyd character is a real terrorist threat. Discussing these strategies in the open only helps the terrorists. Shame on you Dallas G Boyd. Feel free to contact this shameful, shameful man at dallas.g.boyd@saic.com.
This is the sort of thing the Chinese do.
Palm trees and 8
Whether we are talking about the mafia with omerta, or a terrorist cell, or a full fledged government, they all rely on secrecy to maintain power.
And they all hate snitches, traitors, leakers, informers or whatever they choose to call the person who tells the secrets.
So it's nothing new. On the other hand opposing groups see the snitches, traitors, leakers, informers as heroes. Why? Because by revealing secrets and leaking, it protects lives on the opposing side, but keeping secrets protects lives on your governments side, and depending on which side you are on you will care about secrecy or not. It's completely subjective and determined more by what side you see yourself on.
This stigma of secret might work on people who swore an oath to keep secrets. These people probably do feel responsible. On the other hand ordinary civilians have no reason to give a shit or choose a side. They'll choose whichever side pays them at the time, which is all sides, or they might choose no side, or they might choose one side or another based on ideology, but they have no responsibiliy or reason to choose the US governments side.
Civic duty will not work. It's like expecting people to conduct business in a way which promotes the nation. That isn't going to happen. People aren't going to care and I highly doubt any of these people are going to give a damn what the government says unless they work for the government and their paycheck is determined by their ability to keep government secrets. (Such as if they have a clearance)
Welcome to the Dystopian Future. Welcome and enjoy the fear. And if it all gets just wee little bit too much to handle, why we can just take a vacation in Brazil. Just one thing: stay away from the libraries. They are full of subversive literature and free thinking. Can't have that now, can we? Anyway, once again, welcome. I have to run now, I'm off to the Animal Farm. Cheers.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
How about we get a culture where things don't have to be leaked? Almost everyone who leaks something is doing so to attract public attention to a problem those responsible refuse to solve. If you institute a culture of "if someone brings a serious problem to your attention, you fix it, regardless of what it does to your bottom line or to your dignity", then leaking never needs to happen.
PS: Yes, I saw some of the bizarrely paranoid things they suggest self-censorship for. That's just their culture of paranoia kicking in.
It makes no sense to me. You have by far the strongest military in the world. The USSR is gone. Ok, so there's China, but so far they have not made any seriously threatening moves. Who is left that is any threat?
I know 9/11 left some big scars on the collective psyche but seriously, it's been 10 years, you invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, killed Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Surely there's been enough restitution?
I worry that one day the rest of the world is going to have to unite against the US as you decide to pacify or nuke us all since we are deemed a threat to national security.
"The plan, described in the Naval Postgraduate School Homeland Security Affairs journal, is to promote self-censorship as a 'civic duty'."
hmmm.... self-censorship, this rings a bell... Ah, yes... Doublethink.
to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed
Yes, I think this is a very nice example of Doublethink.
Obviously, that phrase has led us into the 10th circle of hell known as Amerikkka! (Yeah, that was sarcasm. But it was so hard not to parody everyone else on this thread.)
It is, however, very useful for a lot of very large and very computer intensive research problems, such as in artificial intelligence.
for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
Does that slogan mean anything besides, "Lie. Cheat. And Then Lie Some More." Or, "Go Ahead, Be Despicable." Oh yeah, that's a wonderful civic attitude. No wonder Las Vegas has the reputation for being Sin City. Horrid. Perfectly horrid.
"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."
It's not just the US government. All governments act the same way and promote secrecy among their employees but don't want citizens to have any secrets and promote informing and transparency among civilians. So basically this is a matter of the military and
other law enforcement factions wanting to keep secrets, which they can use, but they don't want any of us to be able to keep secrets from them because they have to enforce the law and protect themselves from us (the terrorist civilians).
So why would we want to help keep their secrets? Whats in it for you or me to not discuss something when we don't work for them?
To put it more basic, whats in it for you or me to work with the government if the government isn't paying us to do it?
And if the government is willing to pay people then they can just pay for a clearance and do it properly. This looks like they want to have the
benefits of a security clearance without actually paying for it. So for example government employees cannot discuss wikileaks, or government secrets, but we aren't government employees. We didn't take an oath, and we don't have a security clearance to protect, so what right does the government have to censor our speech?
It's like if Microsoft or Sony were to try to enforce an NDA on users of the software rather than on developers. the user shouldn't be subjected
to an NDA but the developers are getting paid by Microsoft and Sony and signed the NDA, they can be subjected to it.
Basically this is like Microsoft and Sony deciding they don't want to bother with making people sign NDA's, people are just supposed to culturally embrace the NDA like some sort of mafia omerta. Honestly it's a fatuous idea but I suspect they will try to implement it.
Yeah thats BS.
People on the right are just as disloyal to me as people on the left.
We are a nation of loudmouth dissenters. Especially the younger generations. Looks like the baby boomers might have trained us well after all. Well, then again, they also trained the authoritarian idiots in control.
We (as in USA) are already a fascist state. We're not on "the road" there anymore.
Don't tell me that I'm the only one who was reminded of the classic posters during World War II: Loose lips sink ships!
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire
Please, we all know that when we keep inconvenient subjects out of the public discussion, they are always competently addressed. And to prove my point, I would direct your attention to Windows7...
A single analyst at a private company writes a paper, and now everyone pretends that it is the official policy of the US Government, 'cause by golly, we haven't had our two minutes hate yet today, and we need something to be outraged over!
That includes the USA. They all hate leakers and all love informants who leak to them.
Keeping the secrets everyone knows is one of the common threads of totalitarian government (wannabees) from time immemorial.
(It ain't just the Chinese. The guys who wrote the US Constitution saw it coming, the Greeks saw it a bit too late some two thousand years ago, the Egyptians, well, I'd get into controversies about historicality if I said anything specific, but it wasn't new then, either.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
the original publication of these scary ideas this sure does make a nice "management summary" for them along with links !
On a more positive note, at least it advocates persuading people to do the right thing. It's not unreasonable for the government to issue a statement along the lines of "if you can think of an attack vector, call us first on 1-800-RUA-CRANK". At least then they could publish any funny ones
Nullius in verba
It's a war, it's a war for control of global resources and it's a covert war.
Or do you think all the world leaders sit together in a room and decide who gets what with talk?
We (as in USA) are already a fascist state. We're not on "the road" there anymore.
Trains run on time in fascist states.
[cencorship]...it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.
Leaking is snitching. Or, I should say, snitching is leaking.
Snitching is only bad when we have something to hide.
Getting rid of everything we have to hide scares most people. Or, at least, scares most of the people who spend the most time talking.
The silent majority knows about the secrets and do what they can to mitigate without making much fuss of it. At least, until somebody decides to make an example of them by saying how wonderful whistleblower X or Y was.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Since when did discussion of censorship of any kind in a republic become fashionable?
I immediately identified myself as an undesirable.
Thank god to, I always thought I was a terrorist and chixs dig it!
Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
You rat on everyone even your self!
Good luck handling unintended consequences of complex situations with many actors, Mr. Boyd.
Also, what's the secret to getting your nose so far up your employer's ass that you can smell what he'll have for supper?
Not even the whistleblower, I mean, snitch, I mean, leaker who leaks the secrets of the enemy.
No one likes a snitch.
Use the snitch, sure. Then make sure you either corrupt him to keep him under control, or get rid of him before he snitches on you.
Not that this is a new thing.
Of course, the only way to lose to this kind of government is to give up and fail to do your civic duty. So I disagree with you there, too.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
One governments snitch is another governments hero.
But as civilians, we are usually caught in the middle of these snitch wars or whatever you want to call them.
Now of course it's not snitching if it's detailing human rights abuses against civilians. That is not snitching.
It's snitching when the leak destroys civilian lives. An example would be if some rogue hacker decided to hack top secret FBI files and leak a bunch of files on a bunch of people to the media. That is snitching.
It doesn't matter whats in those files. It's snitching. It's also snitching if the names of informants are leaked, that too is snitching. If you know who is or isn't an informant, and you leak that, their lives are put directly at risk. Even if you don't particularly like informants, it's probably not wise to leak that kind of information.
Anonymous leaked Hal Turner's status as being an FBI informant. That is the perfect example of snitching on a snitch. It's still snitching if you do that. For people who don't believe it happened just Google Hal Turner and Anonymous.
Well, at least, not all governments are corrupt all the time.
On the other hand, every institution (not just governments, as you note about Sony and Microsoft) has this same tendency.
It's one of the problems of systems. Systems, once constructed, tend to self-destruct. At least, the systems we build do. Trying to make a system self-correcting generally tends to make things worse when they slip out of the defined behavior modes.
The only solution is continued monitoring -- eternal vigilance.
And that requires, erm, morals, ethics, some sort of cosmology comparable to, dare I say it? ...
This is one of the reasons a society without a moral compass tends to generate a lot of smoke and loud noise before it disappears.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Well, okay, so the demise of secret keeping is postponed, and we have to look back to social engineering.
You're right to point out that the state of the art won't force us to be saved, but everyone seems to find security in secrets, and that's just backwards.
Giving up secrets is the only really safe thing left to do.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
So now someone is promoting that it no longer be "see something, say something"?
"See something, put your hands over your eyes and shut up" just doesn't have the same "zing".
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
The biggest difference between left and right in psychological terms (and we'll leave out the middle to keep things simple) is that people on the left value fairness and equality more than people on the right, who value loyalty and authority in their valuative psych profiles.
Bunk, and here's why. What does "fair" mean to you? How about to your neighbor down the street? How about to the homeless guy on the street corner in town? How about to the CEO of the company that pays your salary? I'll bet you every one of those answers is different. To me, "fair" means I work hard for my money, and therefore I have earned the privilege of deciding how it gets spent. The homeless guy on the street corner probably would look at the surplus I have, and think that it's not fair for me to have more than enough and him to not have enough, and therefore, to be fair, the government should take* some of the money I earned and redistribute it to those that don't have enough (food, housing, clothing, etc.). Let's assume that the CEO of the company I work for earns $1,000,000 per year -- I have no idea if that's accurate or not, but for sake of argument, it will work. Suppose he and I both pay roughly 30% of our gross income in taxes (we don't, but again, close enough for argument's sake). That's fair, right? We're paying the same percentage of our income in taxes, after all. But wait...his salary is over an order of magnitude more than mine, so if we are paying the same percentage of our income in taxes, then he's paying a larger total sum than I am. Is that fair? Why should he be penalized (taxed) for being more successful in business than I am? He's providing a greater benefit to the economy than I am...he's paying my salary, and that of about a thousand other people, beside!
The problem is, "fair" isn't an objective term. "Fair" depends entirely upon the perspective of the person who is using the term. IMHO, the difference between the left and the right is that the left wants to take care of everybody while the right wants to take control of everybody. Personally, I find both viewpoints repulsive, albeit for very different reasons.
*To be clear, I don't have a problem with sharing my surplus with those who don't have enough to meet their needs, and I do, in fact, contribute to various causes. However, I have a real problem with government telling my I *have* to share with others, that this is how much I must give, and then skimming a percentage off the top. I believe that my money can do a lot more good if I skip the government middle-man and give it more or less directly to those who need it.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
The kind of Rovian bastard that comes up with this sort of slimy plot is the most disgusting slime that a sick society can possibly produce. The SAIC is disgusting just for allowing such smarmy and clearly anti-American skum to work for them. I remember a day when analyst used to mean something. Usually a technician promoted high enough to present data a meeting, But now, I am embarrassed that Dallas Boyd holds a title that I once held. Why didn't this slime ball practice what he preaches and self censor himself. He should have chosen to protect our democracy and values, but no, he had to go and publish this damned fascist drivel. What a horridly unattractive sort of weasel. He should be stigmatized for presenting such clearly dangerous schemes!
Fuck. That.
How about a really nice salary to keep quiet and respect from the boss for having to live under a cloak of secrecy? Bonus Points each week redeemable at the canteena could also generate some interest.
please do not harass mr boyd in any way. it is legal to share your opinion, it is illegal to threaten, abuse, initimidate, or harass someone. it is also morally wrong.
it is important to speak out against harassment not only because of the moral and ethical issues, but also because it is a classic 'false flag' of certain organizations to actively foment and promote violence using undercover agents inside of peaceful civil liberties groups.
How many times have we heard from the cable news or politicians, completely new and original ideas about how to wreak havoc against people, airports or government infrastructure that describe in enough detail that a teenager could follow the instructions and research the rest on their own.
I honestly think that the fear and insecurity reaped from those efforts is much more damaging than anything Bruce Schneier has to say.
The enemy within is the last enemy, but most people would rather invent enemies without than face the fact that they are their own worst enemy.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
This is the problem. Morals ought not be coded in laws.
The essence of the problem we have now, and the source of our snitch culture, is the fact that law enforcement has made so many
victimless activities illegal, that they now have to find a neverending source of snitches/informants. They have an agenda to turn ordinary civilians into snitches, and then complain about snitching when it affects them.
In essence in order to fight crime, you have to rely on the criminals turning on each other and selling each other out (snitching).
Well now a significant amount of our population has made a lifestyle out of selling people out, now it's a career.
And when those snitches are turned on the government, and they start revealing human rights abuses and crimes committed by the members of the government and their social network, then they want to stop snitching?
I'm not into the whole moral argument. I just don't care about that. I do think we should be concerned about torture, genocide, slavery, human rights abuses. I don't think we should be concerned about what civilians do with other civilians even when its illegal.
no one will take anything that comes from SAIC seriously
-Xen
That's just because they don't want to look in the mirror and face their own worst enemy.
When all other enemies are gone, can we really face ourselves?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
It is nothing as differentiated as that.
"Snitch" is simply a pejorative term for someone who for whatever reason(s) breaks a social contract regarding secrecy, written or unwritten, that he/she had with other person(s), or that other person(s) thought that they had.
Regardless of the nature of the secret one is disclosing, and to whom it is disclosed to, one is always seen as a "snitch" by the party whose secret(s) are being revealed.
Others might label "the snitch" an informant, an insider, a whistle-blower, an inside source, a concerned citizen, a witness, a patriot, a man of honor and integrity...
Or a hacker, a thief, a spy, a traitor, a criminal, a terrorist, a lowlife who would sell out his/her own mother...
But he/she will always be a snitch to those whose secrets he/she is revealing to the third party.
The term is SO precise and determined you may just as well use "asshole" instead. Or "cunt".
It's simply a bad word for the people you don't like cause they tell on you.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The US is fascist because it appeals to civic duty in an effort to prevent sensitive information from reaching parties who may use it to inflict death (for example) to US citizens? In other words, appeal, as in 'Please?' Oh, the oppression.
A simple thought experiment: you are a nuclear engineer and are privy to some information not widely known in the literature or on the internet that, in the wrong hands, could cause great harm. Therefore, as an act of prudence, you keep it to yourself/your colleagues. Congratulations, you just 'censored' yourself. A word, like 'nuclear', which causes a Pavlovian response in a large percentage of the population, even on Slashdot.
Civic Duty. Prudence. Not bad ideas. It's the expansion of this idea to absurd lengths that's the real problem.
...who create goverment secrets?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You made very insightful points.
The people who have the highest clearances are the least free. But the difference is those people chose to enlist. They chose to give up their freedom. And they are paid handsomely for that decision.
The rest of us who don't work for the government should not be held to secrecy. We aren't a part of the government. It's not our group.
You describe the clan like nature of this group of people precisely. They live in their own world, all their friends typically live in that same completely isolated world, they probably aren't even allowed to have friends outside of their world.
And this would be fine, just so long as they don't try to expect us to follow their rules of their world. Cops are their own group. Feds are their own group. Soldiers are their own group. And civilians are our own group.
Until we see it like that we are always going to be sucked by notions like "civic duty" into doing things against the civic interest but perhaps in the governments interest. And yes there is a huge difference. The war on drugs, and a lot of these wars are entirely in the governments interest. Not in the civilian interest because often the people being locked up, or being turned into informants against each other, are the civilians, while the fed puppet master exploits civilians to win some war or conduct some secret operation that only they know or care about.
And you are right, when they think of their country they are thinking of their isolated sheltered government community where everybody is a veteran, or their parents are veterans, and everyone works for the government in some way, or has a security clearance, and yes they'd be helping their employer so I cannot blame them for taking the stances they take, but for the rest of America they don't benefit us whatsoever.
When people think about the country they think about their own social network. And lets face it most people who believe in civic duty and who are worried about this stuff are government employees from government families.
Personally, I do not feel safe unless having my cavities are sore and my bags emptied on the counter. The sound of parents angry about their kids getting groped reassures me like only the sight of an MP5 can.
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
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This is dangerous. They act as if government and everyone else must be like a high school cheerleader.
I do understand that the national economy and ultimately even national security are linked to the happiness of the general public. Business raises revenues and money and arms are both dependent upon people dashing about in a blissful state of ignorance.
The problem is that at the end of the road we end up dead and ignorant and that no problem ever gets dealt with. Pointing out that the US has a problem does not imply that other nations don't also have their own problems. In fact one of our greatest problems is getting peoples' eyes wide open and their minds focused. Sometimes a bit of shock and awe get people to wake up. Pointing out that I'm not seeing many solar cells or solar collectors or windmills is not an act of treason by any means. Tidal or river current power generation remains a mystery we read about in Popular Science but never see completed. So what is wrong with shouting fire when the theater is on fire and we are about due to get our fannies well roasted?
The US is fascist because it appeals to civic duty in an effort to prevent sensitive information from reaching parties who may use it to inflict death (for example) to US citizens? In other words, appeal, as in 'Please?' Oh, the oppression.
A simple thought experiment: you are a nuclear engineer and are privy to some information not widely known in the literature or on the internet that, in the wrong hands, could cause great harm. Therefore, as an act of prudence, you keep it to yourself/your colleagues. Congratulations, you just 'censored' yourself. A word, like 'nuclear', which causes a Pavlovian response in a large percentage of the population, even on Slashdot.
Civic Duty. Prudence. Not bad ideas. It's the expansion of this idea to absurd lengths that's the real problem.
The wrong hands would be any hands other than yours.
You think the US government wouldn't abuse it? Or any government for that matter?
So unless you as a scientist have agreed to work for the US government how would you determine which hands other than your own are right or wrong?
If we don't talk about problems that we all KNOW are there then nobody from other countries will think the problems exist, so effectively by pretending the problems don't exist they cease to be problems!
Sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan from a government intelligence organization.
To some it up in just a few words:
Just bury our heads in the sand.
It should work.... nobody will ever take advantage of us, right?
Sounds MUCH more effective than actually working on problem areas and increasing security both physically and electronically.
Now that you have the idea, you can add any other place where there are no effective civil rights.
There are people in the US government to want to add the US to this list. You're known by the company you keep.
Why is Snark Required?
Whatever.
Have gnu, will travel.
In fact, the US government might be one of the parties I censor my communication with, though I hadn't fully considered it in my thought experiment.
In such a situation requiring moral judgement, having more options is always better, and one option when dealing with sensitive information is to keep it private. The 'keep it private' option should be judged in the context of the facts at hand, not automatically and universally ruled out ahead of time on the basis that it is 'self-censorship'.
In fact, not saying anything is potentially as much an act of freedom as speaking out. It's not always the correct choice, but should always be an available one.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I do security for a mid-sized university.
You shouldn't trust my opinion any more than you should trust this guy's opinion. What good is security if you can't make up your own mind?
That's the fundamental problem with secrecy. You can't have security if you can't do meaningful evaluations. Secrecy blinds evaluation. Secrecy isolates security from it's community.
Is the US so dependent on secrecy that we must sacrifice security to have secrecy?
Miles
i have just read for the first time ever, a whole page of slashdotters who all *agree* with each other, about how bad this is.. Surely.. there must be some kind of way to use that to stop these totalitarian maniacs.. i only wish i knew what that was...
the Cultural Revolution 2.0.
It is unfortunate that morality is often taught via guilt by the weak-minded.
It is morality that should be the guide here. Open discussion on certain topics is inappropriate until someone has been given a chance to correct them, or at least fair warning that they exist. Major vulnerabilities in infrastructure, for example. But such chance cannot be indefinite in duration, because open discussion incentivizes people to get their acts together, and because any limits on free speech is inherently problematic in a pluralist society purporting to be governed by democratic ideals.
And other things really are significant national security issues: Satellite orbit info was actually a major problem about ten years ago (and I'm sure continues to be today), but pre-web, pretty much only Russia and China and a few other countries had the capability in their intelligence agencies to track our satellite movement. Once the web became popular, that information became much more widespread--making it much harder to get certain kind of intelligence on medium- or even low-technology nations, terrorists, etc...
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Torture, genocide, slavery, human rights abuses, these are also moral issues.
As is the question of who should get what information.
God only knows the difference between a snitch and a whistleblower and a leaker in most cases.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I am part of one of the groups targetted in this paper: amateur classified satellite trackers. And I am highly offended in how the paper presents us: it has little to do with reality.
The author apparently did not bother to contact any one of us: on what grounds he then comes to the conclusion that we don't show restraint, is completely unclear. Moreover, his conclusion in this is incorrect. We do show restraint, more than he imagines. What we make public, is actually only a part of the story, and it is the part that any adversary (State or ideological group) can easily assemble themselves with very little effort.
The SAIC writer appears completely unaware of (or willingly ignores) what we really know but do not make public. For a number of classified satellites, we have formulated quite precise ideas about what they are doing (in terms of: the purpose of their mission): but decided within our little group to not go public with that, thinking it might endanger the mission of these satellites (and one satellite in particular, one of the most enigmatic there is out there). This is something this SAIC writer (who acts like a classic communist agitprop) seems not to be aware of (or put it differently: appears not te be interested in at all): and certainly hasn't even bothered to check. Talking about bias and being ill informed! So, how serious should we take this paper then?
The SAIC writer is highly unrealistic in his attitude and ideas. Our group basically is made up of 15 or so active observers. We track 300 objects. Many of those, are naked eye objects. All you need for this work is a good star map and a stopwatch, or a off-the shelf DSLR camera. We do it as a hobby alongside formal jobs, etc. The idea that any adversary, State or group, cannot create such an observing network themselves and is dependant on us, is ridiculous.
What this SAIC writer should realize, is that we simply show the limits to realistic secrecy. Within the US military, there is a group of people who have highly unrealistic ideas about secrecy. The more realistic people within the military (which luckily there are too) accept that some things cannot be kept secret (like a satellite that is easily visible naked eye), and realize that good military strategy includes being able to discern realistic secrecy from unrealistic attempts at secrecy. This SAIC writer fails in that regard, and displays an attitude that I feel is highly dangerous to US security as it amounts to the mentioned unrealistic ideas about secrecy that do not make for good military strategy. In other words: advisors like this SAIC Troll are the biggest danger to realistic US military strategy and from that US security. Not us satellite observers.
It are unrealistic ideas about secrecy like these that actually kill people. A military strategy that assumes their adversary doesn't have knowledge about the position of space reconnaissance assets is one that will quickly shatter to pieces, with lives lost, when the troops on the ground are confronted with the reality. The unrealistic calls for "secrecy" like those of this SAIC Troll therefore, is what if acted up on will increase the number of body bags coming back from war zones. THEY are the true danger.
I am not a US citizen by the way, and most observers in our network are not. In principle, I don't give a rats ass (and don't need to) about what the US government wants to keep secret. These very satellites might be spying on my own country (history shows the US is not beyond spying on allies).
Last but not least: the US is a signatory to the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies". This treaty specifically states that signature States (including the US thefore) must: "inform the Secretary-General of the United Nations as well as the public and the international scientific community, to the greatest extent feasible and practicable, of the nature, conduct, locations and results of such activities". This call for secrecy is therefore in violation of an International Treaty signed by the US government.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse
Providing a list of sources for potentially damaging information looks like a security risk to me!
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
When knowledge will be outlawed, only outlaws will have knowledge.
There are other considerations, some of which you mention in passing, only to return to the us-vs-them analysis.
As long as you are making the whole thing an us-vs-them problem, you cannot assume a higher moral ground than the government (or members thereof).
We are all in the same boat, even if the government at present seems to be deluged by people who misunderstand the fundamental principles of human interaction.
If the time comes for bloody revolution, well, such a time may come. Until then, if the best we can do is replace the people in power with our own, then the best we can do is become the next source of the problem.
It is common senselessness, not sense, to try to either subvert or get rid of the informant. In this world, there will always be more work that needs to be done than there are people to do it, and a person subverted is no more a contributing member of society than a person who has been disposed of.
Civic duty has nothing to do with who belongs to what group, nor with the agendas of (the people in) governments. Civic duty is much more about helping one's neighbors than about .
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Civic duty will not work. It's like expecting people to conduct business in a way which promotes the nation.
Given that the people running this country don't feel any loyalty, it's hard to find anyone else who does.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Just a few interesting lines:
a culture of voluntary restraint, (most of the world already knows voluntary restraint because of fear; now you want to have restraint because of xenophobia? preference for police states?)
citizens refrain from inappropriate revelations, (question is, who decides what's inappropriate)
individuals and institutions supplying disapproval of irresponsible discussion, (the eighties have called, they want you back)
discourage discussion of unclassified knowledge (this one is a particularly nice one),
societal responsibility, (now that's the one they like, a good one because they can swing it both ways)
recent anxieties have centered on publications in the life sciences and their potential utility to bioterrorists, (ok, one which I could agree with for a change, for sensitive biochemical research targeting diseases and bioweapon-applicability)
the NAS panel endorsed the concept of “voluntary self-governance of the scientific community rather than formal regulation, (of course they do, it brings more benefits to convince them on self-censorship in the long run)
Disparate, mundane information can be aggregated in such a way that the ultimate product is highly sensitive., (and of course this is true for all science areas, all aspects of life, all topics and all fields, and it's one of the classical ways of creating new results: bring what's available, build on it and create something better)
much dangerous knowledge will continue to be available, (that will remain true, with or without censorship)
the pursuit of scientific knowledge does not absolve researchers of their social responsibility. (of course not, but thing is, the meaning of that "social responsibility" in relation with writers, scientists, etc. has been changed by state and government before so handle with care)
I have to say, the writer seems to have genuine warm feelings towards a soviet-china-north-korea-like totalitarian state, with a bit more modern thoughts on achieving the desired level of regulation and control: make the people do it by themselves. Also, fairly large focus is on scientific research and science in general which I don't particularly like.
But, as we still live in a world where a fairly large chunk of articles and results get to light, we get to also read this one, which is good for everyone - it's always good to know how people in such positions think about important issues.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
This debate is older than the hills and those in favour of suppressing information should have been defeated many times however they just keep coming because it appeals to the same simplistic mindsets that find communism attractive.
While it suppressing information appears to be a good idea the free flow of information makes democratic societies work. Military organisations are very inefficient because they limit the flow of information, communism had famines because they limited the flow of information. Surprisingly there has never been a major famine in a country with a free press in the last 100 years. If your airport security is broken fix it, don't attempt to gag the messenger who's telling you that your pants are round your ankles. If your leaders are leading you into a nuclear dustup they should be able to explain why they need a bunker and you don't get one. If there were enough bunkers for all a special congress bunker wouldn't be needed now would it.
The same argument for repressing information was unsuccessfully used to stop research into lock design a few hundred years ago and as a result we've got good quality locks at bargain prices. Stop trying to daemonize people and let society to come up with effective ways to stop idiots, for example by giving planes strong cabin doors
repression of speech and disagreement is the problem, not the solution.
He left out a key category of people who should be peer censored. "Stupid Defense Think Tank Assholes."
-- QED
I am not a researcher or a scientist and I can tell you about security problems that I see just going about my daily business in my city. If terrorists can't see the same exact issues then they are completely stupid. I have long talked about how vulnerable our food supply is, and our power grids. I have seen myself how easy it would be to take out huge sections of the power grid. How easy it would be to mess with the water supply and tons of other things that would be so easy to mess with. The Internet has several points that if you took them out would cut off large sections of the Internet. These are not secret, a few traceroutes and seeing who owns that equipment tells you a lot not to mention how things are named. Everyone who has any level Internet technological knowledge knows that there are a number of centralised points for the Internet here in the US.
The most common example of our country being completely stupid about security is at airports. They scan and molest everyone saying that it adds to security and makes things safe. How about the fact that I can drive my car right out on to the runway without anyone stopping me? How about I can easily walk right out to the airport tarmac and planes at the gates. If they were serious about real security, rather than the illusion of security, they would tighten security around the airport properties. They would also make sure that every guard could identify every worker on sight to prevent someone from trying to walk on or sneak on to the property.
Not a single bit of this is secret. All of this could be figured out by someone with half a brain and determination o do damage or just plain terrorise the public. The computer industry has taught us if you don't expose security problems then companies will not deal with them, and that the bad guys already know about the security problems and already uses them to do whatever they want to do. Not talking about security issues has never ever made them go away and it has never ever made things more secure.
To say not to talk about these issues is the height of arrogance and is offensive. They are saying people are stupid and can't see these issues without being told. The authors do not have some special brain that lets them figure things out and see issues that no one else can. Figuring out what to blow up or attack isn't rocket science and so easy to figure out. It isn't hard to say how many people use this or would be effected by it not being available, and how hard would it be to make it unusable. That will tell you instantly which targets are the best ones because of highest impact and lowest effort to effect the target.
There is a key difference. A snitch is a former member of one group who spills the group secrets (typically for personal gain).
Another more accurate word for a snitch is a sellout. Nobody likes a sellout.
On the other hand if you never were a member of the group you hacked, such as if you are a member of a rival group and you target the enemy group, thats not snitching and theres really no basis from which to make that person out to be a snitch. That could be spying, but its certainly not snitching because you were always the enemy and always loyal to your original group.
Personal gain is not a prerequisite to be labeled a snitch. Personal loss of some kind PERCEIVED by the labeler is good enough for that.
And a "sellout" is NOT more accurate OR synonymous to a "snitch".
A "sellout" MAY be a "snitch" who breaks a secrecy (or loyalty) contract for personal gain, but a "snitch" is NOT necessarily a "sellout" too.
Again. "Snitch" is NOT an objective word or a word of quantifiable value. It is a pejorative term. Basically a swear word.
When using those, it is not your goal to be objective and correct in your assessment of someones actions - you use swear words to hurt people.
It is a completely subjective decision by the labeler who and for what exactly will be labeled a "snitch".
Also, as for "a former member of one group who spills the group secrets"... Again... NOT NECESSARILY.
Just as the label is used purely subjectively, so is the actual loyalty, betrayal of secrets OR the belonging to a group. Labelers decide who is a "snitch" - not the one being labeled.
You don't have to be a member of the neighborhood gang for them to label you a snitch when you are called to testify on them. You are in the THEIR neighborhood and that's enough for them.
You don't have to be a member of the same military unit - it is enough if you are in the military.
You don't have to be a member of a white supremacy gang - you are white and that is enough for them.
You don't have to be a member of group X - you live in the same country and your actions are unpatriotic.
You don't have to live on Earth - you are a member of the human race and talking to Vulcans is SNITCHING.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
In a dictatorship the biggest enemy is your own supporters deciding to replace you. That's why they always have purges that end up killing their best and brightest, followed by years of poor economy and awful military capability. Naturally this leaves the country open to invasion or economic warfare, and that makes all your neighbours enemies of the state. This is helpful in repressing your own people as you now have national enemies to worry about.
One need only look at other cultures world wide to see when the people finally learn the facts of every day life. Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, the list goes on and on. These cultures use to do exactly what SAIC purposes what Americans should do. Of course, it's a fact that the SAIC makes a substantial profit creating fiction for the fearful. Does America really need SAIC? (by the way, nice office in the tourist town of La Jolla, CA)
From: http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
From there:
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ...
The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream.
We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety")
http://www.beyondintractability.org/audio/morton_deutsch/?nid=2430
and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
There are lots of alternatives I helped organize here for helping transcend an economy based around militarism and artificial scarcity:
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
===
Anyway, so expanding "the war on the different" and the "war on the unexpected" is just more of the same...
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html
"We've opened up a new front on the war on terror. It's an attack on the unique, the unorthodox, the unexpected; it's a war on different. If you act different, you might find yourself investigated, questioned, and even arrested -- even if you did nothing wrong, and had no intention of doing anything wrong. The problem is a combination of citizen informants and a CYA attitude among police that results in a knee-jerk escalation of reported threats."
Of course, that link is from one person on the list in the article about people publishing things being asked to be censored... Even if just "self-censored". In the end, most censorship only works by creating a climate of self-censorship.
From Noam Chomsky on "What makes the mainstream media mainstream":
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm
"The universities, for example, are not independent institutions. There may be independent people scattered around in them but that is true of the media as well. And it's generally true of
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
He said "done", not "won". They aren't the same thing. EDS, among others, made a fortune by maximising the latter while totally ignoring the former.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Work Will Set You Free
What Is Not Compulsory Is Mandatory
Silence Is Approval
It's For The Children
IT'S...A...TRAP!
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
SAIC is a company. It is not the gov't.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Who needs a quantum computer for encryption cracking with people spewing their every thought on to facebook and twitter?
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
I recently obtained info about SAIC participating in building a new tracking pilot system called IntelliDrive. Basically they are there to profit (cost plus) from approving the system. It's a huge industry to install military industrial tracking systems at every level of society. Story here:
http://tc.indymedia.org/2011/may/tcimc-exclusive-contracts-intellidrive-mndot-military-industrialu-m-plan-gps-track-all-cars
--hongpong.com
There are other considerations, some of which you mention in passing, only to return to the us-vs-them analysis.
As long as you are making the whole thing an us-vs-them problem, you cannot assume a higher moral ground than the government (or members thereof).
We are all in the same boat, even if the government at present seems to be deluged by people who misunderstand the fundamental principles of human interaction.
We do not all share a self interest. So we aren't all in the same boat. My self interest or goal might not be yours. My fate might not be yours. I'm not you unless you prove otherwise.
If the time comes for bloody revolution, well, such a time may come.
If the time comes for revolution, it's will be even more us vs thems. Only your us might not be my us, and your them might not be my them. Essentially every social network for itself.
Until then, if the best we can do is replace the people in power with our own, then the best we can do is become the next source of the problem.
I agree, but my people might not be your people, so that is why we cannot be "us". But I do agree with the strategy but who wouldn't agree with that? It breaks down into which families? Which social networks? My social network isn't being put into power so what us?
It is common senselessness, not sense, to try to either subvert or get rid of the informant. In this world, there will always be more work that needs to be done than there are people to do it, and a person subverted is no more a contributing member of society than a person who has been disposed of.
I agree. An informant is beneficial to my side. A snitch on the other hand is a traitor and not useful to my side. If someone gives me valuable information then I appreciate those people, because their information could save my life, but if a person is snitching on me, that person can die in a fire.
Civic duty has nothing to do with who belongs to what group, nor with the agendas of (the people in) governments. Civic duty is much more about helping one's neighbors than about .
But why would I help neighbors who hurt me for a living? They make money hurting me, they don't help me, the society they designed was hyper competitive and they expect me to give a shit about concepts like civic duty?
Shouldn't they provide healthcare and jobs if they want people to give a shit about team spirit? There is no team spirit because the winning teams aren't just beating the losing teams by a few points, no they are beating the losing teams by blowout, and then bragging about it, and finally when the season is over then they want to go and try to take the best players from the losing teams or get them to not be such sore losers, well maybe if the game weren't designed where losing wasn't an option, people would care more about civic duty.
Currently it's too easy to lose, too hard to win, and hyper competitive. There is no community, there are just families and social networks. There is no civic duty, there are just personal friendships, personal relationships, and duty to that.
I don't believe in government brainwashing like civic duty. If government wants to give us all a duty, they can put their money where their mouth is and pay us to keep the duty. Otherwise there is nothing for me and mine to gain by doing that. Civic duty is BS, a scam, a trick to get people to volunteer to do stuff to save money for the government.
In fact, the US government might be one of the parties I censor my communication with, though I hadn't fully considered it in my thought experiment.
In such a situation requiring moral judgement, having more options is always better, and one option when dealing with sensitive information is to keep it private. The 'keep it private' option should be judged in the context of the facts at hand, not automatically and universally ruled out ahead of time on the basis that it is 'self-censorship'.
In fact, not saying anything is potentially as much an act of freedom as speaking out. It's not always the correct choice, but should always be an available one.
Thats why governments have surveillance. Even if you don't say anything at all they still will probably figure out what you are working on.
So "security through obscurity" is the US model now? Because that works so well with closed-source operating systems? What other culture or situation applies? (third world countries don't apply).
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.