Slashdot Mirror
How Spyware Reaches Oppressive Governments
New submitter blando writes "Between February and March of 2011, at the height of Egypt's tumultuous revolution, protesters stormed the offices of their feared State Security Investigations Service in Alexandria and Sixth of October city, on the edge of Cairo. It was there, amongst evidence of detentions, torture and surveillance at SSIS's headquarters, that information first came to light regarding a sales pitch by UK-based Gamma Group to Egypt's security agency for their FinFisher spyware."
if you took all of the economic spoils of the colonial era, of all of the european nations together, it would be a drop in the bucket of today's economy
additionally, this wealth dissipated very quickly over one or two generations. world war i and ii pretty much wasted it all, and then some
no: britain owes its current economic standing to its social values and political institutions that make current business ventures possible
economic might is a sum of current economic efforts and interests, and the values of the country. history means absolutely nothing. really. it is why a country like korea can go from poor farmers to world leader in a generation or two. same with china. country A is rich now because if its institutions and values. country B is poor now because of inept and corrupt government and a society that does not value the kind of work required to create riches
the sheikhs in dubai understand this, that is why they are trying their darnedest to turn oil wealth into permanent structural changes in society and government, because they know the gravy train won't last forever. and when oil dries up, they will be back to herding camels in the sand if they don't have societies and government institutions in place that value and protect the kind of attributes a country needs to succeed
if you took all of the bank accounts in britain and gave them to a poor basket case country, that money in the poor basket case country would dissipate in a matter of years, and britain would be back to being a rich country in a few years as well. due to the good/ bad political institutions and the good/ bad social values of both countries. money isn't some concrete thing that sits in a bank account, money and economics is about an engine with a constant flow of effort and production. if the engine stops, or if the attributes to the engine don't exist, or the engine is clogged and sputters, there is only poverty. history matters NOTHING on that score
but i suppose you believe that country A had wealth X, and britain came and stole X, and now X sits now in london forever. so country A will always be poor now and britain has money X from 200 years ago as its sole representation of riches. this is how it seems you think economics works. you are some sort of simpleton aren't you?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
nothing you said refutes what i said. nothing you said supports the ridiculous idea of yours that britain's current riches is something they stole from a country they colonized over a century ago
just admit that one country is poor and another is rich because of a particular country's values. nothing more. nothing less. history matters not one damn bit. any country anywhere can adapt better values (or lose them) and therefore get richer (or poorer)
it is not a zero sum game, where one country is rich because another is poor because it had material stolen from it a long time ago. nothing stops a country, any country, from adapting better values and becoming as rich as the richest country, if not richer. example: korea. example: china. wanna-be-example: dubai
in fact, i will go so far as to say this: the mentality of your lame blame-game is a good example of the kind of bad values that keeps a country poor. blame yourself for your lot in life. then you finally get ahead in life
but spend your whole time blaming someone else for your lot in life, you just sit and rot, stewing in hate and recrimination. that useless thinking creates no riches. if the way you think is an example of the way people think in a country you think is poor because of what britain did over one hundred years ago, then we have found the real reason why this country is poor
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it