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Kaspersky Calls For Cyber Weapons Convention
judgecorp writes with a synopsis of talk given by Kaspersky at CeBit "Cyber weapons are so dangerous, they should be limited by a treaty like those restricting chemical and nuclear arms, Russian security expert Eugene Kaspersky has told a conference. He also warned that online voting was essential or democracy will die out in 20 years."
Just because I buy Kaspersky's anti-virus doesn't mean I support what that man stands for.
Online voting is a single biggest threat to democracy. If 20 years from now "manual" voting will become obsolete, and only online voting remains, no one will be able to tell, whether the results are authentic or not. The one who pays most to the guys administering the DB server is going to be the winner. And everything will look legit, without any proof and without anything that inspectors could do about it.
FUD was always good for the AV market.
Treaties always work. Never has a country ignored a treaty to accomplish some sort of nefarious goal. You'd think the Russians would have learned their lesson in 1942.
sudo make me a sandwich
From the article: He warned Cebit delegates that unless young citizens were provided with safe and reliable ways to vote online, democracy as we know it could be dead within 20 years. People would expect biometric, cryptographic online identification verification that was 100 per cent secure in order to vote online.
Without that he said that without that conventional modes of democracy could be extinct within two decades as the younger generation would not vote in a conventional physical polling booth, which could lead to “very serious conflict between the generations.”
And I bet the servers will have to be secured by Karpersky Antivirus, right? He is basically creating his own future market. Smart guy.
But seriously, democracy doesn't need and has never needed people who are too lazy to vote influencing the outcomes of elections for its perceived legitimacy
As for the "very serious conflict between the generations", the younger generation would only have themselves to blame, and most likely if they are too lazy to vote they will be too lazy to riot. Or, to reverse it a bit: if they have enough free time to set up riots and generation conflicts, they might as well vote.
The guy must be an optimist. After Citizens United, most of us concluded that democracy was already dead.
A general-purpose computer? Is Dell an international arms dealer?
How, exactly, does he plan on verifying compliance when any USB stick can hold, LITERALLY, an infinite number of "weapons".
And gigabytes worth of different "weapons".
And still be smaller than a thumbnail.
"conventional modes of democracy could be extinct within two decades"
At present "conventional democracy" has a vote every 4-5 years (perhaps with mid-term or local elections halfway) in which your bit of information (if that!) ends upo with a single bit of who leads for the next 4-5 years, during which politicians tend to drop their campaign promises.
Internet technology allows for finer-tuned democracy, yes, but if anything "election day" should be an annual day on which everybody does physically go to the polls and cast a secret ballot. Because although technology does allow secrecy (not necessary for all votes, but essential for some), the risk of back doors will always be greater than when a simpler and less technological procedure is used.
I'm in my forties now and want to be able to vote issues, not parties. I'd also like to be able to vote for individuals who have proven leadership qualities without them being beholden to a party. Not that I could vote Perot - being European - nor that I would want his finger on the button anymore than anybody else, and at least Obama comes across as somewhat statesmanlike even if his mantra of "Change" never really happened, but you should see the bunch of twits in Europe nowadays (on all sides of the political spectrum).
Almost as if we are forgetting what populism brought in the 1930s.
Would he suggest regulating programming languages, compilers, etc. as "cyber weapons precursors"? After all, certain chemicals and nuclear materials are strictly watched because they can be used to create chemical or nuclear weapons, right?
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I know it sounds crazy, but just think, if we all vote online, we can all keep track of our votes. We can see what/who we voted for, and have the option to publicly announce it online. If we think someone has been fudging the numbers, a re-count could be a simple has checking your email, and verifying how you voted. I would think that it would be easier for computer geeks to catch problems if something doesn't look right. When I vote on paper, I never see that ballet again. Who knows what happens to it, probably gets trashed.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Am I the only one who hates the prefix "Cyber"? Since when does "cyber" mean "digital"? Cyber bullying, cyber warfare, cyber crime; it's impossible to take it seriously! The mental images are too hilarious. When I think of "cyber" bullying, I think of a kid getting beat up by a robot. When I think of "cyber" warfare I think of Tron. They just coined it to scare southern housewives and the elderly.
More democracy Mr. Kaspersky? Okay. Keep the representatives, allowing them to craft laws and write bills, but when it's time for the "ayes and nays" have the reps stand-aside and submit the bill to the People for a direct referendum.
Also keep the Senate as is (a house representing the 50 Member States). If we had such a system the TARP Bailout Bill never would have passed the House, and 1 trillion not transferred to the top 0.1% as corporate welfare.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
1. You get a print-out of your vote.
2. You can optionally get a print-out that says whatever you want in case you are under duress.
3. There is a picture record of who voted for your ID in case of a question of voter fraud.
4. The machines are already everywhere, wired and secure enough to handle money.
5. You dont have to congregate at a place away from your work.
6. Your vote is filed under a random number, so you can call your vote back up if you are concerned about tampering
Im sure threre are other good reasons
...steal cars.
Clearly we need stronger legal controls.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
No.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.
Mr. Kapersky obviously has no idea just how oppressive and invasive most governments are willing to be when enforcing WEAPONS laws. The American BATF is currently being investigated for a false-flag gun-smuggling conspiracy meant to justify a huge increase in their power and authority. Lots of European weapons regulatory agencies are even more ruthless.
He does NOT want that camel's nose under the tent with anything having to do with programming or software development. There is nowhere for that to go but downwards.
Its high time for such a conference. Not only do I support it, I fully support locking the doors and setting fire to the building about 15 minutes into the keynote address.
If there is anything we don't need more of, its more dead weight profiteer warmongers who do nothing more than invent bogeymen to protect us from, and expect us all to thank them and pay for it.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
He warned Cebit delegates that unless young citizens were provided with safe and reliable ways to vote online, democracy as we know it could be dead within 20 years. People would expect biometric, cryptographic online identification verification that was 100 per cent secure in order to vote online.
Without that he said that without that conventional modes of democracy could be extinct within two decades as the younger generation would not vote in a conventional physical polling booth, which could lead to âoevery serious conflict between the generations.â
Really young'uns won't show up to the ye olde fashioned polling boothe? And his evidence for this is.. what exactly? The Arab Spring, where polling booths ..... didn't work... correctly?
He recommends biometrics.. what biometrics exactly? Surely not this:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/steriley/archive/2006/09/20/457845.aspx
The guy must be an optimist. After Citizens United, most of us concluded that democracy was already dead.
Citizens United is about speech not votes. You can ignore speech. For example there is no amount of TV ads that Newt Gingrich could have run to convince someone significantly left of center to vote for him. Another example, BP can run many millions of dollars worth of "green" TV commercials and very few will be convinced that they are an environmentally friendly company.
It is still one person one vote. The only threat to democracy is complacency.
There are, essentiually, two options for social networking sites:
1. Total freedom.
2. Censorship and/or denial.
No middle ground. But then this is freedom. You are either free, or you are not. No middle ground. Freedom in some things does not change the lack of freedom in others.
Crap, now I sound like a Libertarian. I hate that.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
And of course, we can always trust the MANUFACTURERS of ATM machines to be free from any political influence, as well, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_Election_Solutions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_O'Dell
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Have gnu, will travel.
... want to be able to vote issues ...
You intentions are good but I think the wisdom of the founding fathers wins on this point. Direct democracy voting on issues is not the panacea one might think. For example look at California and its propositions system, it is largely what you are asking for and some really bad/dumb stuff gets passed.
The flaw in your plan, and a flaw the founding fathers presumably were expecting, is that direct democracy assumes a well informed electorate that seriously contemplates the issues and votes for the common good rather than self interest.
California is a prime example of WHY there needs to be decentralized power. Most things should be done at the state level. When national government gets things horrifically wrong, everyone suffers. When a state gets things horrifically wrong, only the people in that state suffer. With small, largely self governing states, leaving for another state is relatively easy, putting economic pressure on the state government to not do stupid stuff and to fix current stupid policies.
Not to mention there is often several ways to solve a given problem. Just look at alcohol sales. Most states have a reasonably good laws on alcohol sales. Some states are really stupid about it, but they are limited to those states. This variety makes comparison easy, since we don't have to work on theory, we can go look at how the different laws work in practice.
Not to mention that some problems are bigger in some places than others. Is anyone really going to care if a farmers pickup driving down a gravel road in North Dakota has a catalytic converter in it? One-size-fits-all national solutions simply mean that the solution will not fit anyone.
Treaty are between nations. Any individual, or group of individuals, in any or several parts of the world, can make a "cyberweapon", no expensive or controllable resources needed to build something that could qualify as such. And for them to believe that they control that means handling them in a silver plate the privacy and basically freedom, of everyone and every organization in any part of the world, except the prepared enough individuals that could do that "weapons".
In the other hand, nations already started cyberwar, like with all probability Israel and/or USA government agencies making Stuxnet. The bomb has already been dropped, and will be used as excuse by those very countries to push laws to avoid people doing that, killing their privacy, while at the same time keep producing those weapons when they think it should be necessary, and probably blaming individuals or "terrorist" organizations and reinforcing restrictions for everyone each time. Won't be the first time that something of that kind happens.
Internet eventually will split, either logically or physically, one with full government surveillance and intervention, other with ensured hard encryption, privacy and anonimity, and countries networks where all relevant services are enclosed by and for them.
Am I the only person who can't see the logic in either of these statements?
expandfairuse.org
FTA ...without that conventional modes of democracy could be extinct within two decades as the younger generation would not vote in a conventional physical polling booth, which could lead to “very serious conflict between the generations.”
That is probably perfectly okay with older generations,
Did you miss "very serious conflict"? Conflict as in riots and revolutions, because they're fed up with paying for old people's social security, and too thick/culturally blinkered to just vote themselves to reduce it (or because, once the separation occured, some of the old people increased hurdles for the few youths who still voted). I don't think it's likely, because voting is easier than rioting, but it's conceivable, and old people whose oxygen tanks got grabbed by a gang of youths aren't likely to find it perfectly okay.
...because the same technologies of computing could be used to create material abundance for all so there would be little reason to fight (like by sharing knowledge or collaborating online to build open robotics and advanced manufacturing systems). http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Cyber arms are invisible. You don't have to dig for uranium or run a cyclotron.
If such a treaty were signed, some counties would continue to use them, almost certainly using untraceable and denyable sub-contractors.
Therefore, no country with half a brain would sign such a treaty, with intent to obey it.
Kasperky needed new market, like online voting systems security or whatever comes with it
So if you hand him the "fake" then it will be totally consistent. He will think you voted the way he wanted you to. Also, it would eliminate the idea of selling votes. After all, the paper is worthless if it can easily be a lie.
There should be a way past that issue.
7. Your vote is readily availible to be tampered with by banks.