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."
I dunno if Stalin did said the following or not, nevertheless, it does sound valid for this case
Stalin once said: " A Capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with. "
The creation of spyware and the selling that spyware to governments will only end up with all people in all countries being denied their basic human rights - including England, where the maker of the spyware, the Gamma Group, originated from
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
i'm going to hide my name and lurk on internet forums and cast mindless negativity and hateful judgments at anyone who proposes anything concrete or positive in the world, without knowing anything about the person or what they are doing
what do you think? because i think a person like that is awesome
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This has been going on for decades.
IBM assisted the Nazi Holocaust by providing the card reading/sorting technology which Nazi Germany used to locate and kill the ethnicities that the Germans wanted wiped out. (Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, etc.) "IBM's German subsidiary (was) known as Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft"
The actual punch card code for each concentration camp were:
Auschwitz — 001; Buchenwald — 002; Dachau — 003; Flossenbürg — 004; Gross-Rosen — 005; Herzogenbusch — 006; Mauthausen — 007; Natzweiler — 008; Neuengamme — 009; Ravensbrück — 010; Sachsenhausen — 011; and Stutthoff — 012.
some day, certain loudmouthed useless assholes will learn to judge nations as they currently behave, not as they behaved in ancient colonial or cold war history
let's put it this way: in the era of the british empire, whatever nation you are proud of, was doing nasty things you should be ashamed of. i know this for a certainty, because there exists no nation on this planet without a black stain on its past
therefore, randomly picking a dark era and judging a country entirely from that just makes you a useless asshole. because on the measure of a nation's past nasty behavior, all nations suck in this world
how about what the british actually think today, and their actual policy today? how about judging them on that?
i know: crazy, wacky idea
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's a depressing fact that oppressed people rise up against their oppressors, only to show that what they really wanted was just what the former rulers wanted: to oppress others.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
The rich took over the govn't, and then voted to quit taxing themselves and their interests. They even voted to bail out their companies on the backs of middle class citizens. Is that what you are referring to?
Because it sounds to me like you are implying social programs are bleeding us dry, which is a joke. Drop in the bucket.
how about what the british actually think today, and their actual policy today? how about judging them on that?
For the same reason I never forget anything you've ever screwed up: It comes in handy when there's a fight and you need to lose. Granted, it's a dysfunctional way of doing things, but it's popularity remains unchallenged. If the British pipe up and say "Oi there, over there in the colonies, you sure ronnied that bit up!" we can just shout back "yeah, how's Palestine working out for you?" See? No different than a couple arguing... each side loads up on ammo, and blasts at the other until nobody, not even the participants has a clue what's going on. It's a convenient way of maintaining the status quo -- neither side loses face, and anyone with an emotional interest in the outcome will bury themselves in the rhetoric until exhausted. Problem solved.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Don't want to be obnoxious or flaming, but isn't "putting profit over all else" the very foundation of the free market capitalism? Why this behavior surprises anyone is beyond me...
Yes, "profit over all else" is one of the cornerstones of free market capitalism, but you have to remember that capitalism is neither good nor evil.
For the situation at hand, it would appear that, at the time Gamma Group made the sales pitch:
1) There was a possibility of short-term profit
2) There was a fair likelihood that the sale would not be discovered
3) If discovered, there was a fair likelihood that it would be so far in the future that the persons responsible would be unaccountable
4) Well-connected companies tend to get lenient, slap-on-the-wrist penalties anyway
It is not capitalism per-se which is the problem here, it is items 2 through 4 which allows capitalism to be used for immoral ends. If we really value morality over profit, then we should strongly discourage immoral acts which use capitalism as a tool.
We don't. Blaming capitalism is avoiding the real issue, which is that morality is more important than capitalism (or rather, it should be).
It's like the old adage - any technology can be used for both good or evil.