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Phil Zimmermann's New Venture Will Offer Strong Privacy By Subscription
New submitter quantic_oscillation7 writes with this excerpt from the Register: "Phil Zimmermann and some of the original PGP team have joined up with former U.S. Navy SEALs to build an encrypted communications platform that should be proof against any surveillance. The company, called Silent Circle, will launch later this year, when $20 a month will buy you encrypted email, text messages, phone calls, and videoconferencing in a package that looks to be strong enough to have the NSA seriously worried. ... While software can handle most of the work, there still needs to be a small backend of servers to handle traffic. The company surveyed the state of privacy laws around the world and found that the top three choices were Switzerland, Iceland, and Canada, so they went for the one within driving distance."
Wow slashdot, a new low: Not even providing a link to TFA for people to complain about other people not reading.
Canada is decent, but they can still be forced to modify their code to catch people on demand of Interpol there.
Look what happened with Hushmail.
Link is http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/14/pgp_seal_encrypted_communications/ since it wasn't in the summary.
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
encrypted email, text messages, phone calls, and videoconferencing
With the proper encryption software on the endpoints, and properly encrypted storage, why does the server location even matter?
If nothing was actually stored on the server (or if everything stored there was encrypted with keys unknown to the operators) there would be no point in any government agency grabbing the server other than to shut it down. And nothing prevents that better than multiple sites.
It would seem to me the best solution would be for that server to have zero knowledge about the content of any data, and serve as a store and forward repository for content where one or the other party is off line (file transfer or email). For Video conferencing and text messages the servers might serve only as a routing agent for firewall piercing (where each participant is behind a firewall). But in no case should it contain un-encrypted data, and all logging should be to /dev/null.
Almost all of this is available today using a variety of off the shelf software with PGP keys, etc.
Wouldn't concentrating this traffic in a single place make it easier to monitor? If nothing else, a monitoring agency can gain the equivalent of pen register data simply by doing packet analysis at the upstream of such a service provider.
Wouldn't merely subscribing to such a service (and leaving a money trail) become a red flag?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
But if it's made up of a bunch of ex-navy seals, can you really trust that it's going to be secure against american intelligence access? And if it *IS*, what does that say about these EX-SEAL personnel? The old 'loyalty to your job' versus 'loyalty to your country' :D
Are they aware of the Canadian Conservative party's utter contempt for online privacy and willingness to grant broad snooping powers with no oversight to completely unqualified authorities? All without a warrant? Bill C-11 is currently in the process of being rammed through along with plenty of other unpopular legislation. Need I even mention the unabashed kowtowing to the whims of U.S. media conglomerates?
"You can either stand with us or with the child pornographers" - Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety.
As a Canadian resident, I wouldn't count on our privacy laws remaining strong, or - above all - being strongly enforced - with the Conservative party in power. They should have gone with Sweden or Switzerland.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
What do SEALs have to do with it? Are they going to infiltrate the datacenters of privacy violators and blow them up? Secure this company's underwater cables? Now some NSA or CIA signals intelligence veterans might be helpful.
The old 'loyalty to your job' versus 'loyalty to your country'
"Country" means more than just "the guys holding political office right now." Perhaps they see the sad state of privacy laws in the US, remember the 4th Amendment, and realize that they would be doing their country the best service they can by offering this sort of solution.
I'm sure they did their due diligence, but from what Ive seen the last couple years Canada seems to be heavily influenced by US politicians, lobbyist, etc.. And I would not be surprised to hear of a joint task force as in" go ahead eh" taking down the servers for from the US privacy destruction machine. Just my tinfoil hat 2 cents.
They just nee to make sure they don't discuss any details of the service at the airport...
that way have better world coverage and can shift if the local politics go to crap on privacy.
You get the apps at the iPhone/Android store, so does it just use a password? Where's the 2/3 factor authentication, or a security quiz from the system before you can start using it? Can you set an 'alarm' password that tells everyone you're under duress, or an innocuous password that only shows fake data?
Trying to make it easy to use is commendable, but trading ease for security would be better.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
They should have gone with one of the other two. My government doesn't have the balls to stand up to US pressure (eg copyright and digital locks legislation--bill C-11--going through the house right now that will make it illegal to even make a backup of media we buy). I have more faith in both Switzerland and Iceland to show more independence.
They teamed up with Navy SEALs to develop this. That means a branch of the US Government is involved.
No thanks.
No one is adopting "austerity measures" for fun, and those measures are not disastrous, nor have those measures cause any sort of recession etc. The underlying economies of countries adopting "austerity measures" are disasters! These "austerity measures" are a last-gasp attempt to prevent total collapse of economies, not some 1%-er imposed hardship!
Countries that wildy overspent beyond their means (e.g., Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain) are finding that no one now believe that ending them even more money is a smart idea. Countries that made some reasonable attempt to live within their means (e.g., Switzerland, Germany) are still fine, if they don't let the others drag them down. Ireland actually embrace their austerity measures, and by all measures seems to be on the path to recovery without collapse.
And clearly your definition of "Rent Seekers" is "people I don't like", unless there's some "tax cut for the MAFIAA" bill I haven't seen (which, admittedly, wouldn't surprise me).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Sounds good.
I believe them when they say it is a good privacy protection package, and $20 sounds reasonable.
It better be open, and available for public comment, for every single line of code that goes into it otheriwse, then no, I don't believe it is safe to use.
I want to see it and make my own determination.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
[citation needed]
Remind us again who enabled the problems austerity measures are supposed to fix, who benefited from the faud^w 'boom' and who is now being forced to pay the price?
Post secondary education in Canada is not free.
Iceland went through a economic collapse and currency devaluation in 2008, savaging the savings of it's citizens. It's stock market fell 90%. At one time it's external debt was nearly 8x GDP. For weeks external currency transactions were frozen making critical imports difficult.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aVFtDRGwcc50&refer=europe
It was the largest economic collapse by any country in history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932012_Icelandic_financial_crisis
This looks like the same architecture the NSA is advocating for a secure Android communication platform using encrypted VoIP. The problem with their (NSA) proposal is that it requires 3G+ data network coverage to work and this isn't available everywhere. What data speeds are required by Zimmerman's project? Also, won't using this tool immediately flag the user as suspicious? As a hostile government/network provider could I not just block/flag traffic routing towards the Canadian server? What is to keep someone using this in someplace like Ethiopia from being immediately picked up by the authorities and jailed indefinitely or tortured into revealing the data the cryptography was meant to protect?
It was a banking collapse. Iceland's economy is now growing, lives improving, and most importantly, the economic disparity, which is the source of so many social problems, is lessening.
If you are a middle class 23 year old in Iceland, your financial future is brighter than a middle class 23 year old in South Carolina.
You are welcome on my lawn.
My definition of "rent seekers" is people who accumulate wealth while contributing nothing to society.
It's called the Paul Ryan budget.
Greek workers put in as many hours as German workers. They retire no earlier than German workers. When you talk about "living within their means" you aren't talking about the working and middle classes. The ones that didn't "live within their means" were entirely the financial sector and the "1%".
Yes. the "rent seekers" whose income is entirely in capital gains.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The concept of "privacy" as a paid, centralized service leaves something to be desired.
Phil Zimmerman has been compromised ever since PGP 2.6 (IIRC), which was curiously released RIGHT AFTER he was hassled by the IRS. Curiously, 2.6 is incompatible with 2.3a, which was the version just BEFORE PZ was "re-educated" by the Feds.
Now it's time for me to put some copper foil on my hat; because the tinfoil doesn't block enough of the mind-control waves...
This has no one worried. PGP was broken in 1991 and is the only Phil Zimmerman is not in jail.
That's why we use one-time pads. :)
It wasn't so much "broken" as it was that PZ was pressured into compromising it himself after having the IRS sicced on him. I remember those days very clearly. It was around the time I stopped using PGP...
I hate to respond to my own post; but in the interest of fairness, here's what PZ has to say about backdoors, et al.
I also note that he says the source to PGP is still Open.
The "Lawful Access" provisions don't require access to the end-user terminals.
Well, fine, mean whatever you want to mean when you say "rent seekers", but what most people mean is "those who seek income from the government", via monopoly or other corruption. For example, if you pay a tax on a blank CD that goes directly to some company, that's a perfect example.
Maybe you're talking about bank bailouts? While bank bailouts are generally messed up, in the European countries currently in trouble, it's mostly holders-of-public-debt who are getting bailed out (which do include banks!). If you think somoene is an "evil rent-seeking 1%-er" because they buy government bonds and wish to be repaid, well, so do many who oppose austerity. But how can you expect the whole system of governments spending more than they collect to work, if you make it clear that loans won't be repaid? Really?
Not that I'd object to a pernanent end to deficit spending, mind you, but those who oppose these austerity measures seem to just want unlimited, consequence-free money from the government, possible only with ever-increasing deficit spending. Sorry, I canna change the laws of physicis captain! When there is no money, there will be no checks.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Major collapses are normally followed by economic improvement. Sometimes they collapse again, sometimes they continue to improve for a long time.
The fact is the the purchasing power of a family in Iceland is now 30% less than it was prior to the collapse. The currency devaluation effectively cut wages 50%. These as disasters.
The loss of economic disparity = loss of capital and flight of capital from Iceland dooming the country to slow future growth. The only industries they have that are healthy now are fishing and tourism.
Iceland is still under pressure from Britain and the Netherlands to make good on deposits lost to their citizens when Iceland's banks collapsed.
Trying to compare a 23 year old in South Carolina vs one in Iceland is stupid. Both have real challenges to face. Who can tell what the outcome will be 40 years from now?
One thing this does show though is how wrongheaded the Euro is. You cannot have a currency union without an economic union.
Canada might not be a good choice. Our privacy laws right now might be decent, but the Harper government is selling rights to write our laws to the US and to US lobbyists. Don't count on Canada having sane privacy laws nor "Intellectual Property" laws for much longer.
The MPAA, RIAA, and NSA count more to Harper than citizens.
You bet: the energy industry, telecommunications industry, banking industry, pharmaceutical industry, private capital industry, insurance industry, all of Wall Street, hell, the entire financial sector. Start at the top of the Fortune 500 and work your way down. Rent seeking with exceptions you can count on one hand.
Yes, I think that covers it, but I'm sure I can think of a few more if I think about it a while.
You believe economies follow the laws of physics? Why? Money is completely virtual. It can be both created and destroyed. It does not respect any natural law. Since 2000, 40% of the net worth of Americans has disappeared, almost entirely from the middle and working classes while the net worth of the top 1% more than doubled. Do you believe most of the world suddenly became worth less? That work suddenly became worth less? Did humanity suddenly become worth less? Did rich guys suddenly become twice as valuable to the world? Does any of that sound like behavior according to the "laws of physics"?
Yes, really. I would recommend two books by Joseph Stiglitz, both written in 2010:
Time for a Visible Hand: Lessons from the 2008 World Financial Crisis, Jones, S.G., Ocampo, J.A. & Stiglitz, J.E. (Ed.), Oxford University Press.
and..
Mismeasuring Our Lives: Why GDP Doesn't Add Up, Fitoussi, J-P., Sen, A. & Stiglitz, J.E., The New Press.
Given what I take to be your view of our current political/economic situation, I would highly recommend Stiglitz' most recent,
The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future, Stiglitz, J.E., W.W. Norton & Company.
Honestly lgw. Take a look at these books and read them with an open mind. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and send you a copy of one of them if you promise to read it through.
Oh, Stiglitz has won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, a Clark Medal, and was Chief Economist of the World Bank until he realized the whole thing was a huge scam and resigned. His book-length analysis of the 2008 world economic crisis was exceptional in its criticism of globalization and the IMF. He's probably the top living economist and rather unique in that discipline in that he has a both a first-rate mind and a fully-human heart. Most important, he really knows what he's talking about, in real-world, practical terms.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Post-secondary education in Canada is not free.
And the reason we don't need austerity measures like some other countries is that we have a well-regulated banking system that couldn't give dubious loans to greedy consumers with an inflated sense of entitlement.
Canada went through some austerity measures back in the 1990s and our economy is much stronger as a result. The US cannot take the necessary painful steps to fix its economy because the political system in the US is fundamentally broken. Polarizing partisanship coupled with an unworkable political framework ensure that no actual decisions can ever be taken. The US will simply careen from emergency to emergency with no clear plan.
You believe the banking crisis in 2008 was because of "greedy consumers with an inflated sense of entitlement"?
If so, you don't know enough to participate in this discussion.
You are welcome on my lawn.
bill C-11--going through the house right now that will make it illegal to even make a backup of media we buy
If you do, I doubt that penalties for individual infractions will be worth anyone persuing. The Supreme Court of Canada has used the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to slash excessive restrictions on individual freedoms, and so would probably not tolerate the heavy-handedness that exists in the US.
Well, I won't argue with your definition of your pet phrase, since it's basically irrelevent.
As you seem to agree, printing more money doesn't change the actual amount of goods and services available - so what would you actually change? Give control of the means of production to a Central Planning Committee? You'd have to be completely blind to history to think that was a good idea. Leave wealth in current hands, but take away any rewatd for making wise investment decisions? Might as well just bail out every failing company if that's your goal, since we seem to be heading that direction anyway.
Greece and Spain and the rest in trouble consume more than they give back to society, and have for many years, and now the debt has come due. What would you fix? Would you decouple what someone contributes to society from what society owes them? (Aside from a very small % who need charity due to injury or disaster, which we can and should carry.) From each according to his ability, to each according to his need? Never was there a system more vulnerable to corruption than that! Reward the skill of appearing needy, and punich hard work, and, well, again history shows where that leads.
Or do you simply deny that "making wise decisions" is more valuable than "manual labor"? On Slashdot? I think most of us are here because we value the work of the mind.
Sure, keep defining "smart people" as "those who agree with me" and let me know how that works out for you.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Therefore the only way such software can be known to be secure is if the source is published.
Use free software for security.
Does anyone remember Zero Knowledge, they had a product in the late '90s to early 2000s called Freedom, that basically did what Silent Circle is going to be doing, however, it was only for PCs.
Michael
http://s1.sfgame.us/index.php?rec=58163
Zimmerman and PGP opened a back door to their encryption on orders of the US spooks years ago - hence GPG, an open-source alternative that the spooks don't backdoor.
Why o why would I let them have my encrypted voice communications when I know full well they'll hand the keys to the spooks?
This is quite interesting because if you make a project open source there is much much less that the government can do to stop your project. The thing that makes this even more interesting is this is being started by exactly the same person who PUBLISHED the source code for PGP IN A BOOK just to protect it from the government!
Tor will be illegal/compromised shortly. Or the ISPs will make the use of Tor an offense under their terms of service, and shut the nodes down. The new worldwide police state ain't gonna let you operate an encrypted network for long.
That simply is not true. Repeating it does not make it more true.
Seriously, friend, get one of the Stiglitz books. Any one.
Then why are the real wages for high-tech workers going down in such dramatic fashion? Do you believe that such work has become less valuable in the past decade? And if "making good decisions" was tied in any way to compensation, why are very very highly paid investment bankers getting bailed out time after time, all over the world? And still getting bonuses?
Please, the Stiglitz. Read him. If the books are too forbidding, start reading Krugman at the Times daily for a few weeks. Just a few weeks is all I ask. If that's too much, and you dislike anything with the word "liberal" in it, then read Yves Smith's blog. Just look at it, is all I ask.
The people who have been "making good decisions" economically worldwide have been doing a very shit job, yet their pay goes up and up and up. The economic elite have broken the social contract so badly that we face a downward spiral from which there is no path back to prosperity and full employment. We have tax policies that favor them, and still nobody's growing, and the countries with the austerity measures are doing particularly badly. Profits are going up and workers wages are going down. Income disparity is causing social breakdown. The countries that are spending money to address the issue of income inequality, like Brazil, are doing best comparatively. They are moving in the right direction, growing, prospering. The countries that are "tightening their belts and addressing deficits" are doing poorly in direct proportion to their "belt tightening". I don't know how many more ways there are to say it. Just look.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that a national economy is anything like a household budget. The rules of physics do not apply. But one rule does apply: Growing economic inequality leads to very bad social outcomes. Every single time.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Iceland is doing fantastic actually, and instead of propping their banks up, they told them to go fuck themselves.
http://www.moneymorning.com.au/20120227/the-lesson-from-icelands-economic-recovery-let-banks-go-bust.html
Then why are the real wages for high-tech workers going down in such dramatic fashion?
I don't see that at all. Worldwide, they seem to be skyrocketing upwards -developer wages in Bangalore are closing in on rural US. Sure, US wages are going down a bit, but we're a tiny part of the world, after all, and we've sucked at educating engineers for the past couple of decades, while India and others have made a national effort to train high-tech workers.
the countries with the austerity measures are doing particularly badly.
Of course, the countries who are doing the worst need the austerity measures, because they have no other choice! What else can Greece possibly do? Your complaints about income inequality - do they apply somehow to the most socialist of European nations?
The people who have been "making good decisions" economically worldwide have been doing a very shit job, yet their pay goes up and up and up.
Wall Street has had vast, vast layoffs - with no bubbles to inflate, there aren't any jobs any more. Just becuase the market doesn't correct at internet speed, doesn't mean it doesn't get there eventually (though the fucking bailouts did their best to avoid the consequences for hte bad ecision makers, but that's sadly as old a problem as banking).
Please, the Stiglitz. Read him. If the books are too forbidding, start reading Krugman at the Times daily for a few weeks
Right - if I disaree with you is can only be because I don't understand your ideas. Sory, reality doesn't agree. Also, Krugman is a fool whose ideas are proven false daily - look around for goodnees sake, the more Keynesian the nation, the worse the nation is doing right now! And yet the worse it gets, the more they blame it on not being Keynesian enough! Well, reality will intrude, followed by economic collapse.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that a national economy is anything like a household budget.
The fundamentals are indeed the same, at least as a small business budget. Spending what you don't have to live beyond your means is just a mistake, no matter how pleasant it might be to rationalize it away. Transfering spending to the public sector, where it's less effective, just extends recessions. With FDR's follies the depression was extended indefinitely, saved only by the full employment caused by the war. A high price to pay indeed.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Iceland will recovery faster than any EU country, precisely because they told their banks (as well as Britain and the Netherlands) to go fuck off:
http://www.moneymorning.com.au/20120227/the-lesson-from-icelands-economic-recovery-let-banks-go-bust.html
Start at the top of the Fortune 500 and work your way down. Rent seeking with exceptions you can count on one hand.
And who made that possible? Why would corporations choose to spend resources on corruption and accumulating undue influence? Do you not see that it's the pervasive power of governments to grant and enforce these monopoly powers and privileges which creates and perpetuates the problem? The only answer that works is to avoid centralization and concentration of power in the first place, which means limited government. Ironically, it's the Left that encourages the sort of large, powerful and centralized governments that make all of this possible while at the same time mocking those who offer up the cure: limited and decentralized government.
Within driving distance of the FBI?
They won't think twice about grabbing it. Look what they did to Megaupload and that was in Hong Kong/New Zealand and only affected the RIAA, not "national security".
Let's hope they put it in a huge bunker with lots of heavy timelocked doors - buy enough time for it to become a massive scandal before the MiB can get through to the servers.
No sig today...
Do they accept payment in bitcoin? or will they?
They probably like being able to do things like pay their staff and creditors in actual money, so no.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Because it makes them more profitable in the short run.
Do you believe that removing the power of government would mean that monopolies would happen less often?
There is no "free market" mechanism for preventing monopoly, or limiting the power of corporations. Not in a global economy.
You are fighting last century's war. The only way to get "limited and decentralized government" is to limit the scope and power of corporations.
There has never been a political milieu in which corporations had more power than they do today. Not the "Gilded Age" and not by a mile. Big Government is not a creature of one political ideology or another, it is a creature of corporate power.
Did you just fall of the turnip truck since 2008? Where have you been since 1980? Government grew faster under the Right, but the only difference was that it grew in order to benefit a very very few.
If you want small government, it's corporate power that belongs in your crosshairs.
There really is not any "free market" solution.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Default. Leave the Euro. Negotiate.
They work every bit as hard as Germans, don't retire any earlier. The banks are looking to transfer their bad debts to the backs of regular Greek people, just as they have in the UK, in Ireland, the US and elsewhere.
And no, the "fundamentals" of national economies and household budgets are not the same. Not even close.
And it's easy enough to spend a few minutes with Stiglitz or Yves Smith to get an understanding of why you're wrong. I've read Wealth of Nations, why won't you read even a few articles by Joseph Stiglitz or Yves Smith?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Thanks, that's helpful.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Really excellent point. I don't know where you live, but there was so much hysteria about Japan and the "Lost Decade" and how oh my god if there wasn't sufficient supply-side policy and cuts to the social safety net there was just going to be absolute disaster and what's wrong with Japan.
Also notice how little they tend to muck about militarily in other countries' beeswax.
So much of our political discourse is all about maintaining a military/industrial wealth-sucking machine that we hardly notice that it's possible to succeed without it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No, not at all.
We could have paid off all those huge McMansions that those greedy firemen and teachers bought AND paid off every single sub-prime mortgage in the US for a little over $100billion.
So why was the full TARP bailout almost $1 trillion? Because fuck you, pay me, that's why.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You believe the banking crisis in 2008 was because of "greedy consumers with an inflated sense of entitlement"?
Not completely. It was mostly due to government negligence and criminally greedy mortgage providers and brokers. But when a skanky mortgage broker advises someone to lie about his/her income in order to buy an unaffordable house, the person buying the house has to take some personal responsibility too.
Ireland != Iceland. :) But,yeah, I figure refusing to bail ou the banks is the very reason Iceland is doing so well!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
So you just refuse to admit that the debt that Greece is saddled with is the public debt, not the banks? That decades of the government spending more on government salaries, pensions, and social plans, than thye were taking in in taxes was just fine, but somewhere the Greek government bailed out Greek banks (when did that happen, other than partial payments on public bonds?) and that's the problem?
You're blinded by your ideology - this same behavior will be the downfall of the US. Even if we never bail out anything again, and set the defense budget, and all other government-doing-things budgets to 0 beyond "mailing checks to people", we still can't balance the budget!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"Public debt not the banks" doesn't really have any meaning without understanding how this happened.
You accuse me of being "blinded by ideology" but you just parrot Fox News talking points, and show zero willingness to see what people with actual expertise are saying.
By far, the biggest recipient of "checks" that are being written against tax revenues are going to people in the top few percent, and not to middle or working class people. Didn't know that, did you? Those social security checks are being paid almost entirely from social security premiums, not tax revenue. The part that's coming from tax revenue is the part that we knew was going to have to come from revenue because of the baby boom generation. And by the way, the baby boom generation can only get smaller, and after they work their way through the system in 30 years, Social Security is in absolutely great shape.
Even if nothing is done today, Social Security will be able to pay 100% of benefits through about 2030 and 80% of benefits for 10 years after that (and then it will actually start to show a surplus...again).
When you are willing to at least take a look at an opinion besides the Fox News orthodoxy, this discussion can be worthwhile. Your certainty flies in the face of what's actually happening in the world: What countries are doing well? Do those countries have universal health care, public pensions, etc? Of course they do. In fact, the handful of countries that are doing best right now have the most progressive economic socialization. It's not even a close call. No matter which direction you want to come at the problem, including the level of public debt, the countries that are doing best have hit a reasonable balance between private sector growth and public sector robustness.
Just watch: You're going to see all sorts of new "austerity measures" and entitlement "reform" and privatization of services and lowering of public sector payrolls and deregulation, and in 2018 there will still not be less than 8% unemployed. People in the high tech industries are making about 25% less than they were in 1997. When you figure in all the people who would have had fixed-benefit pensions thirty-five years ago, that number is more alike 35% less.
The sector that you work in is going to be hit the hardest. The US tech workers of today will be the working poor of 2020. Already, the average tech worker who was shifted to a 401k scam in order to funnel that wealth to the top 1% is going to retire with approximately enough money to live for 2-3 years. That's it. After that, it's catfood city for them. We are going to have the poorest elderly in the developed world. Because our economic overlords have looked at all the money that's currently in the hands of middle-class retirees and it makes them crazy. "Why should a 75 year old have such a great life without having to go to work?" they say. And you can read the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal from 1980-1990 and see exactly that sentiment.
When it lands on your doorstep, lgw, don't say you weren't warned. And don't say nobody tried to reach out to you and help you get the information you need to have a more realistic view of the situation.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I agree that Iceland and Ireland are fairly different, but at the same time, you shouldn't cripple your economy by backstopping phantom debt.
Sure, but I don't htink bank failouts are really a significant issue to any nation with a debt crisis right now. I just find in highly objectionable on principle, but in practical terms the US just did the biggest bailout in history, and that's maybe 10% of the debt we have to somehow pay off. We have deeper structural issues to deal with, and pretending it's all about the bailouts is a flimsy distraction to keep the government checks coming for just a few more weks until the whole thing collapses, instead of facing reality.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
+1 Agreed.
It seems rediculous to me that our governments are not drafting laws to require email services and voip telephone service to be encrypted in this way already. I cant understand why the government allows our data to be so insecurely handled and stored. It leads me to believe that they want us to remain open and suseptible to eavesdropping from all parties... only to allow them to have an easier time doing their job. The government meant to protect us is the same one trying to keep us weak. We the people should stand up and do something about this. Requiring laws to keep us weak in order to make their job easier is a serious threat to the protection of the public. Why is there no politician saying anything about this. If the public was aware of the danger they are putting the country in, then those who support laws which make encryption illegal or require back doors would be seen as the traitors they are and there actions would be considered treasonous.
Because it makes them more profitable in the short run.
Of course it does. The corporations wouldn't do it if that weren't true. However, that profit opportunity exists ONLY because of government interference in the market. In a market free of government interference the corporations would be forced to spend their capital on productive uses, like R&D or improving the efficiency of their business, instead of unproductive ones like lobbying their governments to pass laws which benefit them unfairly and hobble their competitors. The government interference distorts the natural market outcome which would have otherwise occurred, had the government not interfered.
You are fighting last century's war. The only way to get "limited and decentralized government" is to limit the scope and power of corporations.
No. Wrong. Absolutely wrong. Who has the guns? Who prints the money? Who can kill and destroy at will and with impunity? It's not the corporations, but the government which has these powers. The corporations merely manipulate the government into doing their dirty work, but without the concentrated might of governments, the corporations would not be nearly as powerful. Failure to recognize the source of your problem will always blind you to the real solution.
There has never been a political milieu in which corporations had more power than they do today. Not the "Gilded Age" and not by a mile.
Notice that when government was smaller and less powerful the corporations were similarly limited and less powerful. You make my point perfectly. As government has grown in size, scope and power so have the corporations grown in lock step. Do you not see the connection?
Big Government is not a creature of one political ideology or another, it is a creature of corporate power.
The corporations and those who control them, recognizing that government backing in the form of monopoly and other privileges was more advantageous than trying to compete fairly, cultivated and encouraged the growth of government power and influence in order to secure and fortify their entrenched positions and vested interests. Corporations, like people, are lazy. They much prefer rent seeking, monopoly and subsidy to the discipline of the free marketplace.
Did you just fall of the turnip truck since 2008? Where have you been since 1980? Government grew faster under the Right
Lies, damn lies and statistics. Cherry pick all you like, but it proves nothing.
but the only difference was that it grew in order to benefit a very very few.
Powerful and centralized government invariably destroys individual freedoms. For example, the Soviet Union had the "nomenkaltura" of party bosses and other elites. Even in an "equal" society, some are more equal than others it seems.
If you want small government, it's corporate power that belongs in your crosshairs.
Again, you confuse the symptom with the illness.
There really is not any "free market" solution.
Wrong. False. The free market is what exists in the absence of government interference. It's almost never allowed to actually operate because most people, for one reason or another, don't like it but it's the only real way to achieve even a modicum of fairness in this world. The path of ever greater government leads only to an equal share of misery.
Peer-2-Peer requires peers which are addressable.
Sadly, most of the cell network are NATed with private IP ranges (10.x.y.z) and thus aren't directly addressable.
You mostly cannot do P2P on a network exclusively consisting of smartphones.
So you need at least some external server with publicly reachable IPs which should help setting up the connection (think Skype's supernodes, STUN, TURN, and the likes) and help a little bit with the key management.
But these servers suddenly become a single point of failure, so better host them in a country which isn't going to shut them down on a whim, just because said server help a secure non-wiretappable communication and said country like to wave the "evil pedo-terrorist" flag as pretext to snoop in every possible communication channel.
Also said servers can't be located into a country with wire tapping laws mandating backdoors in every communication channel, because the whole system is encrypted and thus cannot be wiretapped. It needs to be in a country where the server will be left alone. Unless there's a proper investigation (with all procedure properly followed) coming to ask legally for collaboration and where the server maintainer can legally say "we agree to help as much as we could, but as everything is encrypted peer-2-peer, and there's only minimal anonymous content on our server, there's not much that we can actually do" (without getting thrown in jail for "obstructing justice" or for not properly following wiretapping laws and building in the law-mandated back doors).
And that's probably why this new venture needs servers located in Canada.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Zimmermann originally developed his own symmetric algorithm called Bass-o-Matic, which was originally used in the first versions of PGP circa 1991. Bass-o-Matic was indeed flawed, and he was shown that it was breakable. Zimmermann replaced Bass-O-Matic with a different algorithm (which I don't remember), and that was the version that subsequently became much stronger and started to draw the attention of the investigation circa 1994. In other words, the part that was broken in 1991 was fixed by the time the investigation started.