How Tech Vendors Help Governments Spy On Their Citizens

jfruhlinger writes "Most Slashdotters — even those living in democratic countries — would probably be unsurprised to know that their governments are spying on them. But most people are not aware of how complicit security vendors, who publicly work to protect the public from such electronic eavesdropping, are complicit in such monitoring. All this and more is revealed in the latest Wikieaks document dump, the Spy Files."

Comments

Re:Turnabout is Fair Play

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, consider that these days you, me, and every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there has access to virtually the same tech the governments and their corporate enablers do. Consider that even the cost factor for said tech is racing to zero. That is, the governments and companies are not using some secretly acquired alien technology that uses physics that the rest of the world doesn't grasp yet. You and I can understand the same physical laws and technology that the governments and the corporations in their employ do. And we do.

Unlike the government, we don't have the ability to force ISPs and such to cooperate with us by coercion. "Give us your logs or you're going to prison" carries a lot more weight than "Give us your logs or I'll complain about you on Slashdot".