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Julian Assange: "Online Totalitarianism Is Near, Entire Nations Are Intercepted"
dryriver writes "Russia Today's correspondents have visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where Assange has been holed up for nearly 6 months now. In the 12 minute long interview with RT, Assange has many interesting things to say about privacy, and government data interception in particular. A small excerpt: 'The people who control the interception of the Internet and, to some degree also, physically control the big data warehouses and the international fiber-optic lines. We all think of the Internet as some kind of Platonic Realm where we can throw out ideas and communications and web pages and books and they exist somewhere out there. Actually, they exist on web servers in New York or Nairobi or Beijing, and information comes to us through satellite connections or through fiber-optic cables. So whoever physically controls this controls the realm of our ideas and communications. And whoever is able to sit on those communications channels, can intercept entire nations, and that's the new game in town, as far as state spying is concerned — intercepting entire nations, not individuals. ... So what's happened over the last 10 years is the ever-decreasing cost of intercepting each individual now to the degree where it is cheaper to intercept every individual rather that it is to pick particular people to spy upon.'"
RT knows all about freedom of press, hm?
Ceci n'est pas une
it spies on everyone
but Russia Today? seriously?
there's no sincerity here
just Russia sniffing out that they can use this issue as a political football
Russia's track record shows that it clearly stands far less for the principles Assange talks about than the West
but this won't stop Russia using Assange as a club against the West
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Here is an interesting bit from the article about what Julian thinks we should actually do and what will happen if don't do it:
"So this is where we are at now, which is we've got to create education amongst people, so there can be a market demand, so that others can be encouraged to produce easy-to-use cryptographic technology that is capable of protecting not everyone, but a significant number of people from mass state spying. And if we are not able to protect a significant number of people from mass state spying, then the basic democratic and civilian institutions that we are used to – not in the West, I am no glorifier of the West, but in all societies – are going to crumble away. They will crumble away, and they will do so all at once. And that's an extremely dangerous phenomenon."
I like this idea a lot, and wonder how this could occur.. But I am more interested in the answer to the question of... How much is being stuck in a building for 6 months affecting Julian psychologically?
This has been the gameplan all along. The stated reasons given to the american taxpayer for the internet (given to the big telcos by Clinton admin) were free information and instantaneous communications. Look closely at what has come to be -- another place for merchants to peddle their garbage. And facebook. The ad companies (like google) work with facebook and sell the data to the NSA.
The internet is effectively the first comprehensive spying machine. Stalin and the East German Stasi couldn't ever have dreamed of something like this.
Checkmate.
Well, duh. That's what always made me LMAO at the internet idealists and the hippy dippy "The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" types. It's pretty much a no brainer that all the fiber, infrastructure, and servers that make up the Internet are owned by a government or by a corporation who will bow to their government's wishes. The fact that the Internet was a free for all for the past two decades is merely the fact that legislators and the judiciary have been slow to understand the technology and how to regulate it.
The Wild West days of the Internet are drawing to a close, kids; civilization is 'a coming.
I'm still out here, buy my autobiography and other mass-produced crap to...uhm...well, it's not for my trial anymore...to...smuggle me to freedom? Yeah, that sounds as good as anything else, I guess.
Imagine a hack that circumvents all security, imagine a hack that 'wraps all' in a bubble of space/time/possibilities'..
Imagine a hack who's 'code' is written in a way that lets it travel on the ENERGY of electrons, freely...
Now you're getting the picture of what it took to become who I am... That's just a start....
Why talk about the wholesale spying on an entire nation? Because it bears discussion.
2 Good reasons: first, because he is a world class attention whore, which means that when he says something, it's news and it's being listened to. Second, because it is not elementary to many. I think few people out there know of the scope and capabilities of current and upcoming surveillance technology.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Imagine they had a backup, fine. Who gets access to the data? I can't even find my own files and people forget what we discussed on a mailing list. It is wrong to keep people in fear. And it is wrong to keep company with RT.
So what if they're snooping on entire nations.
After all, if nobody in a nation is doing anything wrong, then that nation has got nothing to worry about.
Is now an arboretic cage. . Chop it down. Break it up. Do something new. .
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
As the Cypherpunks have been saying for maybe 20 years now: Use encryption. Not just SSL when you buy something online, but for everything. Heck, we should all be running IPSec. But it's not going anywhere because we don't understand interception and think it doesn't happen to us.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The Internet cancer.
... have come forward and discussed dragnet unconstitutional surveillance that they were personally involved with. Remember Tice?
But everyone was worried about the latest Linux build, who is suing who, or Kim Kardashian's ass...
I don't know about all that. If you asked my parents, who can barely send email, if the internet is truly anonymous and outside the grasp of various nations' surveillance, they'd laugh at the question.
It seems more likely that we regularly submit, read, and comment on these things because it's our way of bitching about it. Which I suppose is reason enough on its own.
You gravely overestimate the knowledge levels of the average internet user.
Let's send a message to those state spies. Maybe if we all download the filthiest pornography we can find and....
Oh. I see.
Never mind.
There are evidence that various agency (not only the NSA/CIA!) have at central hubbing point special room where they intercept a lot of the comms. It has been known (for , what, 1 decade or even more ?) that if you want to have something communicated securely, you have to avoid certain communication channel, unless you use some very expansive form of encryption which can't be decoded (either transmit physically without electronic copy in diplomatic channels / electronically with OTP - very expansive due to the cost of physically distributing the cipher text for what should never be decoded if intercepted - or very long key cipher for what can be intercepted and decoded much later without damage). *shrug*. Nothing new here. It might concern a few people, maybe some corp or people not in love with their governement , but for the rest, information agencies, it is a known quantity.
I will follow your advice and put you on my ignore list, attention whore.
It can only be done if businesses participate, but businesses cannot participate as long as the governments can punish businesses, tax them out of existence, regulate them out of existence for any pretence reason without disclosing the real reason
So what you're saying is that a "real Internet" is just a libertard pipe dream that's only slightly more viable than Seasteading.
Your parents may not understand how to use that technology, but they understand its implications as they saw the world change as it became widely used. Children and teenagers growing up around this stuff though that just take it for granted? They don't have a fucking clue.
While I agree with your comment, I think the bias here is blatantly obvious -- it is a state-funded TV station launched in 2005.
Russians also have been critical of RT. Former KGB officer Konstantin Preobrazhensky criticized RT as "a part of the Russian industry of misinformation and manipulation".[104] Andrey Illarionov, former advisor to Vladimir Putin, has labeled the channel as “the best Russian propaganda machine targeted at the outside world.”[66]
James Kirchick in The New Republic accused the network of "often virulent anti-Americanism, worshipful portrayal of Russian leaders."[105] Ed Lucas wrote in Al Jazeera that the core of RT was "anti-Westernism."[106] Shaun Walker wrote in The Independent that RT "has made a name for itself as a strident critic of US policy."[107] Allesandra Stanley in The New York Times wrote that RT is "like the Voice of America, only with more money and a zesty anti-American slant."[46] David Weigel writes that RT goes further than merely creating distrust of the United States government, to saying, in effect: "You can trust the Russians more than you can trust those bastards."[29]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_%28TV_network%29#Objectivity
So let's be real about the motive. This isnt just normal "people" bias, this is state-funded propaganda. Doesn't make it wrong, and again I agree it is worth looking at, but not just with a grain of salt.
They are some still around. Most, however, got jobs and internalized the dogmas of their managerial overlords.
Nice to know that Assange is so well informed, as he has been bundled up tight in the Ecuadorian embassy for quite some time.
That suspected sex offender/attention whore ought to realize that he ought to shut up because he is hurting his cause.
Oh, but he can't shut up . . . because he's an attention whore.
Absolutely!
A lot of laymen that I talked to about ECHELON think that I am some kind of crazy conspiracy theorist even though it is very well documented. Even in a report to the European Parliament. Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
And the somewhat smarter people obviously know that nothing on the internet is untraceable, though you can make it really hard, but they do not realize and/or accept that it is commonplace to intercept, datamine and record all online communications. And that it is kept till the end of days. Sadly enough datastorage is just that cheap these days.
Now the question arises will that information harm you now, in one year, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years...
The best response that I've heard to people saying that they have nothing to hide: Just tell them to give you all their passwords, to their Mail Account, Facebook, Dropbox, etc. If they argue that they do not trust YOU, tell them to send it in an envelope to the FBI, NSA, etc.
Is Julian really that much of an idiot, or is he just trying to play the Paranoia Violin. "Entire Nations are Intercepted" is a pretty bold paranoia claim. Now if he's just just over blowing the fact that every nation spys on each others international traffic then he should read a history book. The NSA has been in the business of trying to intercept international communications for a while now. I highly doubt the US can copy all of Russias Traffic or any others traffic. However, international communications are a different story, and any country or person thinking those kind of things haven't been business as usual is foolish.
So whoever physically controls this controls the realm of our ideas and communications. And whoever is able to sit on those communications channels, can intercept entire nations,
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
Projects like Tor are popular in nations which are invasive in monitoring and blocking. They're not popular in countries which don't, because they're perceived as not being necessary. It won't take long for that to change if governments start stamping their boots.
Remember when Gmail and a lot of other services didn't use SSL by default (or in some cases, at all)? Now, it's practically unthinkable - in part because companies like Google and Twitter and Facebook want people to be able to use their services safely if they need to. They've recognized the power to do good that their services have.
Hell, these days you can't even detect what people are googling for by snooping on their traffic.
(sad to see that slashdot still doesn't support SSL.)
Please help metamoderate.
Geeks are to blame for most of the loss of human rights on the net.
We write so much software that other geeks use, but can't seem to get a handle on ease-of-use or taking action.
If Thunderbird incorporated the equivalent of Enigmail from the start, lots of people would be using it now. The extra security would be a selling point, causing other applications to compensate by becoming compatible. Over time, every E-mail client would have been secure, some committee would have come up with a standard, and that would be the end of it.
If linux had encryption built into the OS (what are the functions of an OS anyway, if not to manage such things?) so that secure sockets were trivially available, the same thing would happen for other protocols.
Instead, we leave it as an exercise for the user. The user has to know that they want security, then know where and how to get it, then learn how to use it, then convince other people how to do the same. We leave encryption as an exercise to the coder, an add-on to be implemented in every new application.
We have a "reply to all" button, why can't we have a "make private if the recipient has encryption" button?
This sort of mass surveillance can only happen when the surveillance is easy. Why don't we just make it hard?
Instead of wailing and gnashing of teeth, how about we actually solve the problem?
Nota Bene: Yes, there are issues to be resolved, none of which are very difficult. No, perfect security is not attainable, but "good enough" security will help a lot. And no, none of the problems that come to mind are insurmountable.
The best thing you can do with an attention whore is ignore them.
And yet you get modded informative...
Politicians put people's lives in danger on a daily basis for political and personal gain, are you going to say the same for them?
"...first, because he is a world class attention whore"
So fucking what? We NEED an attention whore in that position--anything less will be ignored.
Since the day I discovered, many years ago, that AT&T had let the Feds install what amounts to a listening station on their backbone, I've assumed that the Feds are listening to everything. That being said, when it comes to fighting this madness, what have YOU done?
Don't knock Assange unless you've got a better plan, hotshot.
This whole article screams a Kojima~ism.....
Wikileaks openly works with the Belarus secret service to round up dissidents. Belarus is Europes last dictatorship and Wikileaks is a neo Stalinist front.
Julian's points about the power of big data resonates with me, since I work in and teach data warehousing. I show clients how to amass and structure massive amounts of data and datamine it so that they can identify customers who meet specific criteria, such as those who are more likely to buy beer, or who may be more likely to make insurance claims.
With Julian's insight, I can now see how, by storing the data of each web search, each facebook posting, each email, and each blip of a person's GPS, governments could identify (or think they identify) insurgents, rebels and general troublemakers even while they are only thinking of doing something, before they commit any crime. And I see no technical reason why this could not and is not being done currently, even in real-time. The irony is that the US was formed by rebels and insurgents, and now the US, with their ability to collect and mind this massive amount of data, would be in a position to be able to squash nascent insurgencies before they even occurred. It seems expeditious, and tempting. And so what if a few innocent people get swept up and go missing along with the "baddies?" Isn't the world better off as a whole? I can see the entire terrifying slippery-slope now. But maybe it hasn't yet occurred. We don't really know.
But Julian's point is that there is tipping point that can occur, and in fact, -will- occur, simply by collecting so much data and mining it, the system is already set up. Someone with access to those systems, and with enough legitimate power, would just have to create a different query, and then it all begins, and slowly slides down the slope with more and more queries targeting more and more key people, finding ways to "take them out" with their own weaknesses. Hence, this "turn-key" system is already in place, just waiting for the most basic of human characteristics: weakness and greed, to come along and turn the key and use it for one man's gain. Why not? If you saw a way to control the entire world, and it was just sitting there, silently, waiting for you to use it, wouldn't you be tempted?
One ring to rule them all...
Sent from my ENIAC
Now he isn't just a douchebag, but also a retard.
It's not just the knowledge levels, it's also the care factor.
Concerned Citizen: The government is tracking your activities on that site!
Internet User: How dare they?!
Webmaster: But there's kittens!
Internet User: OMG! So cute!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAYhNHhxN0A
* "Welcome, to the REAL World..."
APK
P.S.=> Your mission, should you & your IM Force team accept it? Is to listen to that tune... See subject-line!
... apk
After 9/11 there was a telecom lawsuit of spying on Americans dismissed by the courts. The reason was said to have been looking for terrorist which was not technically possible, but what was possible was the monitoring of american attitudes and this spying coupled with controlled proproganda of the mainstream media provided a feedback loop for manipulating the american people.
This feedback loop process is still going on, being used.
The opportunity here is for an increasing number of Americans to become aware of this and to make use of what they want to communicate to those running teh feedback spying loop. Its an opportunity to educate the paranoid psychopathic authoritarians of the problem they face with their illness and as such proceed to nullify the damage those spying are causing in the propaganda they create based on the feedback loop.
The alternative is to run and hide and that is not going to solve anything, its not going to help anyone but those with mental illness to continue to believe their self supporting dependencies, their self fulfilling prophecy.
Time to make use of the opportunity! .
You might be right... they do have historical context, having lived through the cold war and all.
But then do we keep revisiting this (otherwise very obvious) thing for the benefit of those very, very naive children and teens? I think most people just don't care, and we do it because we want to vent.
Your parents may not understand how to use that technology, but they understand its implications as they saw the world change as it became widely used.
There are some things that they get, sure, but most of the information retrieval that people see is or seems unstructured. E.g. google. They have no idea that you could do something like (in pseudo SQL)
Select emailer.name, emailer.id, friend.name, friend.id, email.body_subject, email.id, friend.sedition_rating, from emails, people as emailer, people as friend, friendship where friend.id = friendship.a_id and friendship.b_id = $target_person, and email.body_subject in (select subject from email_subjects where subject_area = "political" or subject_area = "fishing" );
and get a complete list of emails sent to your friends on political subjects and fishing (where they know you sometimes meet your political contacts) in order to start guessing who else might be worth picking up and interrogating to find out more about your own political activities. The old people think of email as something like faster/instant letters. They definitely don't understand the implications of the structured data included and the ease of feeding such data into databases.
In many ways, the "little bit of knowledge" is much more dangerous than no knowledge. The whole "I've got nothing to hide" comes from not understanding that what you wanted to hide might be something that you didn't even know about yourself. E.g. that two of your friends are doing something secret that you would want to support if you knew about it but wouldn't want the government to know about.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Yes, eliminating a delay in the inevitable (since "his guilt is already confirmed") is TOTALLY worth betraying one of the most important precepts of the rule of law which untold millions of people have died to uphold around the world.
You sad, myopic, fucking moron.
There is nothing new under the sun. Ever read "The Puzzle Palace"? http://m.cdn.blog.hu/hi/hirszerzes/file/James%20Bamford%20-%20The%20Puzzle%20Palace%20-%20Inside%20The%20National%20Security%20Agency.pdf
Fight however can mean a lot of things but first of all it means strategy. Sun Tzu said that the epitome of excellence in warfare is to win the war without fighting a single battle. Barring that be smart. Forget what you learned from movies. Remember what you learned from playing Go. At the signing of the Vietnam Peace Treaty in Paris, essentially a surrender, an American general confronted a Vietnamese General and said "You never defeated us in battle!" The Vietnamese General replied 'That's irrelevant now isn't it?"
The best thing you can do with an attention whore is ignore them.
And that is why we are going to ignore you, you illiterate piece of shit.
Why do people hold Assange in such high regard as to even give him the attention he is looking for?
He leaked confidential documents and put people's lives in danger. He is well over due for his just-deserved from whatever country will arrest him and give him his just-deserved, preferably bypassing any such due-process since his guilt is already confirmed.
If that means life in prison, so be it. If the United States gets him and holds true to their treason penalty, well... yeah, as per the US Constitution that's it for him.
My, you are a good little fascist, aren't you ?
Why don't you publish your home address so we can come over and get ...
your autograph
I think we ought to introduce classes in school that focus specifically on online security, seeing as so much of our lives are now spent online and archived in The Cloud. Mind you, this might be horseshit as for all I know they already exist.
In fact, you just did. With the ol' chestnut of many an apologist by saying: "Well, look at THOSE guys. Over there. They're MUCH worse than me." The unfinished part: "So what *I'M* doing should be OK by you."
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
That's America. A nation led and bred to love their government because we all know that's the patriotic thing to do. How do you explain to people the power of deep data and the enormous capacity to mine data for information. If Google can create a unique interest profile for one person from billions, and target that person for services and commerce, what can your Government do having trapped every bit that flows through its sphere of power. Moreover, What the Government hasn't got on you, it buys from the SuperMarkets and Search Engines you frequent. How many endless megabytes of data must exist for each person in this country. You'd have to live in a cave or be Amish to escape with your identity intact.
So I am grateful to Julian, and I'm happy to have him shout this from every mountain top. If he get's stiff nipples over getting the public spotlight, small price to pay. Of all the personality flaws I can think of, being a showboat is probably one of the least detrimental. Anyway, I wasn't looking to marry the guy. Just have him ream the government folks doing dirty deeds in the dark of night.
I've watched Russia Today on a number of occasions and Aljazeera -- frequently, as well as Fox, Cnn, MSNB, AND listened to Boortz, Limbaugh, Hannity, The Young Turks, NPR, BBC, ad nauseum. Have you?
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
I think we should have a class in fifth grade called "The Truth about History." It should start out most of what you hear is a lie. Because its one persons perspective and that view is going to be seen through the filter of that time, its society, politics, religion and social beliefs. So its a lie, less in most case by commission than omission and must be so as a personal expression. In fact truly great historians who have done truly brilliant works purely out of the belief that getting the unadulterated truth was more important than reporting on their point of view.
It should teach our children, its up to them to find the "True, true" (to paraphrase Cloud Atlas), and that starts with discovering that our Founding Fathers seriously looked at Anarchy because governments in general offended their sensibilities and rightfully so. Letting them know what a endless bunch of pigs and douchebags most of our nations representatives have been. Which is why its so remarkable when a true statesman arrives. Lincoln did so many things wrong, and he did so many things right. It would be interesting to see what might have happened to this country if Lincoln might have lived to bind up the Nations wounds. It might have been interesting if Kennedy had lived to pull us out of VietNam (he'd already made it clear to his brother Bobby that VietNam was another Korea without the interesting barbeque, and he was going to pull the American advisers out.) Its time we taught our children the truth, but also inspired them to appreciate, their actions are the history for tomorrows children and it will be their courage and genius that will make all the difference. We could use some of that right now.
Its so much worse than that. They have deep informatics tools that don't even require that you ever said a word online that made anyone question your patriotism. All you have to do is visit the right sights, engage in conversations in the right places, buy the right books or talk to the right people and you might as well be burning he flag in Central Park. because the CIA will be up in your schist so fast you will get bowel lock. The power of looking for common informatics among certain social groups mean that you could get clumped with any number of very bad people just for having network habits that make your Government think they have something to worry about you.
I am the ghost of Fear that makes you look gooooood!
... and rather pathetic in his attention wh0ring.
First thing... try looser panties, clearly the ones you have on must be chafing.
Next Your sentence seems somewhat unclear, again probably due to that chafing problem. So just for clarity sake, are you saying You want Mr. Assange tried as a criminal or not. I ask because you imply he's a guilty criminal and the rule of law is a noble thing defended by the blood of untold millions while in the same breath saying betraying that is TOTALLY worthwhile.
So I would simply add, assuming that you want to pop Mr. Assange like a pimple, whistle blowers need to be protected, supported and held in the highest of esteem. Our government perpetrates atrocities at the drop of a tiny hat, and unless we open up the closed doors and closed emails to public scrutiny, that government get's away with it heinous acts with impunity. I would trade national secrets for government transparency in a femtosecond. The citizens of this country have a right to know what crimes it government perpetrated on their behalf. We need to hold out leaders to that very same rule of law. So if on the other hand you are saying that its is worthwhile to betray this moments rule of law for the greater good of government transparency to better honor the rule of law on a global scale, then I whole hearterly agree.
" I would trade national secrets for government transparency in a femtosecond." "I am an idiot" is a much shorter way of putting that.
And rape chicks from Sweden! What a hero! Weeeeeeeee!
Python
Because it's not "elementary" enough. Not nearly.
No matter what you think of Assange, he's not an idiot, and he's absolutely correct in this case.
Except...if you see the danger as a phenomenon of nations and governments, you miss the fact that the alpha and omega of the control of information is corporate. It does no good to be vigilant against government encroachments and not notice the engorged throbbing anal probe that we willingly accept from private industry. Because one thing you can say about every government, everywhere, regardless of political system: they're all corporate takeover targets. And your life, your information, your labor, your wealth - your very mind - are nothing more than inventory. For the ownership class, it's eat or be eaten, and we are the consumables.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Either the Internet is overrun by bots, black-hats, pirates and 911ers or "the government is in control".
So long as viruses and criminals move freely around the Internet, I think we are pretty safe from e-totalitarianism.
I'm still scared of America. It has all the weapons and none of the brains.
Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of the everyday routine, the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration - whereby those important events of the past, usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, are celebrated with a nice holiday - I thought we could mark this November the fifth, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.
There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now orders are being shouted into telephones and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?
Cruelty and injustice...intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told...if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.
I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War. Terror. Disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.
oh that's a ripe pile
if someone isn't on the agenda of attack the usa first, ignore all other players in the world, they must be an asskissing american apologist
the usa leads the world on a whole number of vile evil wrongs
did you read that? i will repeat if your cranium is too thick:
the usa leads the world on a whole number of vile evil wrongs
i. just. wrote. those. words.
are we clear?
however, the subject of the free flow of information, assange's core concern, is NOT one of the issues the usa is doing badly in. in fact, it's by far one of the cleaner countries in the world on that subject matter, most definitely including as compared to a country like russia
i'm sorry if a little simple intellectually honesty is so glaring to you. if facts don't jibe with your political agenda, then reality must have a political agenda against you, right? because i don't know how else to process your desperate smear on my motivation here
i have some advice to you:
if you attack the usa on the actual subject matters in which it actually does wrong in the world (AND THERE ARE PLENTY OF THEM), rather than trying to twist every damn subject matter into an attack-the-usa rodeo, you might find that you have more traction with people who wish to take you seriously, but currently cannot
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The underlining concepts of the Internet are very anarchic and resilient against censorship. What weaknesses do exist are generally the result of government intervention. Regulations (including the DNS root zone) have created centralization - a single point of failure, which potentially is also a single point of censorship. Government-granted monopolies in things like phone and cable have led to the stifling of competition, reduction of consumer choices, and underinvestment in decentralized technologies like: wireless broadband, satellite Internet, local ownership of wired "last mile" infrastructure, local cache proxies, etc. There are ongoing efforts to introduce ever-more destructive regulations (ex. "Net Neutrality"), which need to be opposed at all cost.
Of course part of the blame rests on the consumers themselves, who choose sites like YouTube over P2P protocols, or Facebook over a mesh of smaller less government-entangled sites. It initially makes some sense to do so, since mega-sites can afford far more computer and bandwidth resources, but, as technology progresses and becomes more affordable, their advantages decline. What we need is a more prepper-like Internet user culture - people who mirror all their favorite sites (as well as the sites that are most likely to be censored) in case those sites (or their own global connectivity) disappear! Back in the 80s and early 90s, pretty much every town had a few local dial-up BBS'es, with the most important files of the day available for download. Information was copied, organized, stored, and shared thousands of times - BitTorrent users do the same thing today, but bit-for-bit there's a lot less data-hoarding vigilance than in the olden days... Today most content just sits on a single Web server - and if someone's search engine or Web browser caches it to disk then it does little reliable good without some special effort. (Search engine cache is difficult to scrape and disappears rather quickly, and, even with limitless storage, browser cache is personal, not organized, and incomplete.) Some BBS'es had cost tens of thousands of dollars to operate, and most didn't really make money (many were free, or had limited free accounts) - people did it for the love of technology and access to information. Given one such "prepper" SysOP in a neighborhood with today's technology (a powerful wifi device on his roof wired to some epic storage servers in his basement), and the whole neighborhood would have access to the most vital and the most endangered information even if the government pulls the switch on the Internet at large - which, given this deterrent, would be a lot less likely to happen!
And a part of the blame also goes to Web browser developers, the standards-issuing authorities, and certain Web archiving orgs for not emphasizing resilience and not making decentralization easier. For example, to help prevent link rot, why doesn't every browser support metalink / multi-mirror links as an alternative to a single HREF? Given that there is a great copyfree BT library, why isn't there Web browser support for links inside torrents (and even inside compressed multifile archives)? Why is there no standard for "download this site" - easy bandwidth-efficient mirroring and preemptive local cache? Why doesn't
Because only terrorists try to hide from the government. That is how the government thinks.
... have come forward and discussed dragnet unconstitutional surveillance that they were personally involved with. Remember Tice?
But everyone was worried about the latest Linux build, who is suing who, or Kim Kardashian's ass...
The NSA wants to monitor the internet to secure the USA and the world. It has to be done as the threat of terrorism and the amount of wars combined with the shitty economy and excessive radicalization of the USA and extremism around the globe, it's not an option to allow individuals to keep secrets from the government. The question is how can we give the government all our secrets without fear of being arrested or having the information abused or leaked?
In South Australia they teach source analysis in schools, but only really in History and English (and in English it is part of literary criticism in general, or used to be), and not properly until year 10 (approx. US 9th grade). Unfortunately, that's really too late to start.
Fight however can mean a lot of things but first of all it means strategy. Sun Tzu said that the epitome of excellence in warfare is to win the war without fighting a single battle. Barring that be smart. Forget what you learned from movies. Remember what you learned from playing Go. At the signing of the Vietnam Peace Treaty in Paris, essentially a surrender, an American general confronted a Vietnamese General and said "You never defeated us in battle!" The Vietnamese General replied 'That's irrelevant now isn't it?"
While we all have a right to be free the only way to maintain that freedom is to have a world with no individual secrecy. Governments should know all our individual secrets and keep our collective secrets confidential.
The problem with governments is they leak secrets. They leak secrets because of Wikileaks founders like Julian Assange.
I think you forgot the bit explaining why the average citizen should care? I used to work for the govt, and I used to work for some ISP, so I think I have a handle on what's probably going on but still don't really care. So I read some news websites, watch porn, download music and talk shit to a bunch of people I've hardly met. Let's assume the absolutely worst and that the govt knows every movement and every word I've ever spoken, how is this bad for me? (and try to answer this without using some science fiction as your supporting evidence)
How can there be secret wars if there is no secrecy?
Our grandparents would've thought our outlook is crazy, we think our grandkids outlook is crazy. Doesn't mean the world is ending, it's just how it works
David Brin often discusses the solution to this on his blog: Watch the watchers. http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2012/11/is-law-enforcement-going-dark-dilberts.html?m=1
-- Who am I? How did I get here? My God, what have I done?!
You're an idiot.
Absolutely!
A lot of laymen that I talked to about ECHELON think that I am some kind of crazy conspiracy theorist even though it is very well documented. Even in a report to the European Parliament. Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
And the somewhat smarter people obviously know that nothing on the internet is untraceable, though you can make it really hard, but they do not realize and/or accept that it is commonplace to intercept, datamine and record all online communications. And that it is kept till the end of days. Sadly enough datastorage is just that cheap these days.
Now the question arises will that information harm you now, in one year, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years...
The best response that I've heard to people saying that they have nothing to hide: Just tell them to give you all their passwords, to their Mail Account, Facebook, Dropbox, etc. If they argue that they do not trust YOU, tell them to send it in an envelope to the FBI, NSA, etc.
We should keep that information away from the police and do what we can to keep that information secret. The government might have legit reasons to have our secrets but at the same time they have to be kept from exploiting our secrets in their political pursuits, the pursuit of justice, or anything other than national security.
Now that we know that information is intercepted and analyzed.
Remember how in "Good Wife" they discovered that the company network was being eavesdropped electronically by one partner?
Does it come with a free frogurt?
Julian's problems epitomize the fact that NO ONE is secure in his home and person any longer. Julian's conduct offended those in power, primarily in the United States, and those in power have reached out to touch Julian.
It seems rather preposterous to me, that any "sexual misconduct" less serious than rape or child molestation merits an international crime case and extradition. And, the women involved in this scandal have BOTH stated quite clearly that Julian did NOT rape them. In fact, both women seduced Julian.
Sexual misconduct? The women wanted him, they got him, then they complain? Hello, World - there's something more to this "scandal" than meets the eye.
Behind the scenes politics? Yes? No? It will never be proven unless one of the conspirators admits to it, or disposes of a hard drive with sensitive data on it. But, a person has to be a fool to dismiss political motivation for Julian's legal problems, out of hand.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
One thing is when the government figures out the way you're likely to vote and if they don't like it they throw a screw into your voting right. This also goes for the opposition party as well who also has access to buying data that private companies have collected.
Here in Canada, the last election may have been thrown just by phoning up supporters of the opposition and redirecting them to the wrong polling place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Assange is the poster for crybaby silver spoon spoiled generation.
"Boo Hoo, they listened in on my internet."
Go live in Africa for a couple of years where people don't even have a DVD.
Its not that I disagree with everything he says, I just think he is an asshole. This was one of the most self indulgent childish screeds I have ever read.
He doesn't say anything new or particularly interesting, he just drones on.
Since the allegations he's wanted for questioning about are NOT "less serious than rape" - they do, in fact, include "rape" by any reasonable definition of the term - may we conclude that you think his alleged rape DOES merit an international crime case and extradition?
Got a credible source for that bit of information? (note, "justice4assange.com" is not a credible source) I keep asking for it every time I see this idiotic meme, and not a single motherfucking one of you lot has been able to provide one.
If you don't even know which agencies are the ones responsible for domestic network surveillance, how can you possibly claim to know how it works or anything else, like the results?
Obviously if you think it is the CIA that responds, then since you've never heard any credible report of the CIA messing with Americans in the US, then instead of thinking that going to the wrong site gets a CIA response, you'd logically believe it to be rare on unheard of.
It is a nice thing to remain aware of, in broad sci-fi type of terms, but that is very different than having identified it as an actual problem in the real life USA. And if it was a problem, since you care about it, you'd have even heard about which agencies are involved.
There is no reason to think that because consumer data storage is cheap, that that means you could archive the whole internet, not just once but over and over recording what everybody does, and stored forever. That is just nuts.
Obviously, everything you do is only recorded for a limited time, and only activity that meets some sort of flagging criteria is kept forever.
I would say no, Assange is clearly an idiot, whatever else you think of him. He's hiding in a small room to avoid being extradited for questioning on dubious allegations that he is unlikely to ever be charged with, much less convicted. He's doing this on the fear that he would then be extradited to the US, a country that not only hasn't charged him with anything, but is not seriously investigating any alleged crimes by him. And indeed, his role in all of it is a protected role in the US, and both the New York Times and The Register also published the same information as him. This is complete protection in the US system. Yes, US officials who are not part of any investigation have opined they'd love to see him charged... with something. And just based on these weak, unclear threats, he's hiding in a little room.
There are lots of problems with the US legal system. But in certain ways it works very well. And as far as journalists being protected from government harassment, it work very well. It is also very difficult to get political convictions. It is just not a serious threat in the US. As long as he doesn't do something extra-stupid, like travel to a war zone and get captured by uniformed forces while himself being without a uniform.
I think is funny, even though I'm generally sympathetic to his situation; they've managed to trap him like a rat just with non-specific wishing that he be locked away somewhere. They can't lock him up, so they goaded him into locking himself up!
from Wiki
Creation of Russia Today was a part of larger effort by the Kremlin intended to improve the image of Russia abroad.[15] RT was conceived by former media minister Mikhail Lesin,[16] and Vladimir Putin’s press spokesperson Aleksei Gromov[
As far as the content of Assange's comments, come on. He would see the ability of terrorists to plan and execute operations increase exponentially thanks to the internet with no concomitant increase in our ability to detect them. Everyone gets to operate at the speed of fiber optic and distribute globally but the national security infrastructure has to get a subpoena to steam open snail mail. Fuck you. Prove to me that there's a better way than mass interception / storage-for-possible-later-retrieval to do the job that needs to be done. Solve the problem in some equally effective and constructive way. Would YOU have taken unredacted dumps of classified information and splayed them out to everyone and anyone thinking " Oh well, let's see what happens?". Seriously would you have? Because I wouldn't have for the reason that I might be endangering people's lives and not just any people but the people who risk their lives fighting the really bad guys, the guys who could give a shit about your freedom liberties, civil rights or the women's movement and just want to see you motherfuckin' living in the 14th century where you belong.
Assange did what he did, finally at the end of the day, because he put his own ego, his own lust for fame and relevancy and desire to be player on the world's stage above every other consideration. Sorry, but that's no-go territory for most people. He's not a freedom fighter, he's a reckless asshole.
The national security apparatus has had the ability to reach out and personally fuck you over using their computing power for decades now. Have they ever done that /. paranoiacs? Ever once? Does it ever occur to people like Assange that these organizations are staffed and run by people who share his and our core values?
The thing with people like Assange is, what they mostly hate is the fact that there exists in the world someone with more access, more power, more knowledge than he'll ever have. Some must watch while some must sleep. That's the way the world is because of this fundamental sinister fact- YOU'RE one person with one consciousness united under one skin with limited time, attention and energy and other people are OTHER things of the same description. From this it follows that don't get to live all lives all at once, you live one life and that life comes with limitations that necessarily exclude YOU from things like access, knowledge and decision making power in a LOT of areas you'd be interested in being a player in, this being one of them.
The only way anything works is not because we keep careful checks and balances on everyone and everything at all times but because the OTHER people who could be evil aren't evil just like you're not evil. We're all in this together and we need each other and we have to at some point have faith in each other. If there's a way of running a system as complex as national security by which you can exclude as necessary the elements of "trust" and "shared values " at every level and rely completely and only on hard core and public confirmation of every step, every process, every decision, then no one has put it out there even hypothetically . I am not arguing against oversight, I am saying that what Assange did was anything but oversight
People who solve hard problems and advance society are celebrated and revered for a reason. Go ahead and solve that problem Julian. I hear you've got nowhere to go and a lot of time on your hands.
As far as RT goes, RT would cynically use any pretext at all to bash the West including Assange's alleged status as a "freedom fighter" which in its way is as cynical as Reagan's use of the same term to describe the Contras in the 80s.
RT is the place that claimed that P
"Attention whore" = He managed to get attention without sucking up to any of the official arbiters of who deserves attention or not.
It's such a predictable smear, playing on the jealousy of people like you (who can't command any attention) and people like journalists (who can command attention, but sold out in order to get the privilege).
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
My god - when are Americans going to stop writing that?
It's "rather THAN". It isn't rocket science.
And then we have this sentence:
"'The people who control the interception of the Internet and, to some degree also, physically control the big data warehouses and the international fiber-optic lines."
Huh? "and, to some degree also". What? Does he mean "The people who control the interception of the Internet and, to some degree also," something else "physically control etc."?
Well it's also the way the law intended. Maybe it's different in America but I was always taught that you have to interpret laws in order. So if you have a law that has articles, it's considered more important to respect article 1 than article 2 (ditto in contracts, if 2 things contradict, if no other arguments can be made, the lowest article or clause number takes precedence. That way, there's never a real contradiction).
In the American constitution, article 2 pretty clearly states that the president (generally taken to be a way of saying "whichever part of the government the president appoints to this task") has to do everything in his power to guarantee the preservation of the constitution and state inside America's borders.
That would mean, that the president is free to violate any law in order to protect the constitution, which obviously includes the existence and the state itself, and only has to abide by 2 things. He cannot mess with elections to do this, and he cannot mess with the basic structure of the federal government. Also, the president is free to determine himself when the constitution is in danger, and take what he considers appropriate actions without oversight, although both the judiciary and congress can replace him for that (or any other thing they feel like).
This also means that when the government considers itself to be in jeopardy, it doesn't have to protect any personal rights, nor things like property rights. Unlimited detainments etc, is allowed in that case. I would assume that the executive government would take as a workable definition of "endangers the constitution/government itself" whatever congress would deem appropriate.
Since this is an established international law precedent, going back more than 2 millenia, you can bet that the founding fathers intended this in exactly that way, that protecting the country's existence takes precedence over every right any American has. Of course, without the American state, no American has any rights at all, not even "human rights" (if you read the actual human rights treaties, stateless persons and members of non-uniformed armed factions don't have any rights whatsoever).
Claiming that this situation is worsening, is bullshit. If you read stories of what sort of tactics European states used against their own citizens (UK and the Netherlands are particularly famous for this), you'll be amazed at how needlessly cruel they were, even when it was counterproductive. The laws that allowed the states to do those things, are still on the books.
The best response that I've heard to people saying that they have nothing to hide: Just tell them to give you all their passwords, to their Mail Account, Facebook, Dropbox, etc. If they argue that they do not trust YOU, tell them to send it in an envelope to the FBI, NSA, etc.
Why should I send it to FBI, NSA etc, from what you say they already have it!
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Mr Hand Flapper Assange knows that the minute he drops out of the headlines, he is fucked.
That's why you see him emerging from his hug-box in the Ecuadorian Embassy every now and again to make some kind of melodramatic, paranoid, loony statement. He knows his mentally-ill behaviour has made him some powerful enemies; and he has to keep working that symbiotic relationship he has with the media.
The only reason why this circus keeps rolling on, is because the irresponsible media keep feeding this publicity hungry monster.
Business as usual for that criminally insane nutter, sadly.
Incompetence Protects Freedom. Nice try, Mr INSCOM.
The truth is that they will visit you personally if you think you can *really* exercise Free Speech. They won't use the techniques of the KGB, but they will definitely try verbal and visual intimidation. Smart people then lie low until they have disappeared. Others will be shocked by the lies and half-truths they spread about them.
Maybe they are not omnipotent, but definitely they will notice if you verbally piss at the feet of $government. The only difference being that in the west there is police who will investigate violence and murder, so they stop short of that. But expect serious amounts of psyop crap. THAT is freedom, boy.
..they WILL use the intel gained from your phone line and email account, private facebook etc. to try to pressure you. Expect to have one of your private, most nasty/embarassing emails read to you over your favourite radio station or the like. Some of your (supposed) close friends will be fed with shit and eventually unload that shit on you.
Of course that does not kill, but it's not for the sensitive people either. You need to be tough if you dabble into politics and it definitely comes at some price. You will understand what Churchill referred to with "heat" and "kitchen".
Is that all you've got?
They have poliece around the clock at the embassy to get him should he try to leave the building. UKgov got and order from UKUSAgov to arrest assange at all cost under the threat of "damaging the special relationship". So UKgov bends over.
As soon as he is in Sweden, that government will be pressured the same way (they also have sort of a "special relationship" and they are even weaker than UKgov. Intel and fighter hardware for starters).
His fears are very real and both the UK and Sweden are the whores of a rotten* system of government, namely Washington.
*Torture, indefinite jailing etc.
That's all fine. Until it's not.
Today the worst thing I can see happening due to my footprint is due to commercial interests, not the government.
At worst, I'd like to keep it that way.
You want to wait until after we have a nasty problem before doing at least due diligence?
I agree, I highly doubt porn, youtube and netflix are stored indefinitely. Think IM and email... what matters can be stored for a very long time. If google and facebook can do it, so the feds.
Tomorrow is another day...
You do realise the bulk of "National Secrets" are secrets explicetely to keep it out of reach of american public. When your government fight a secret war, people getting bombed are aware of it. Also, paranoia dont do good for long term international relationships.
Tomorrow is another day...
Everything Assange does is now easier to do if you are in the government? This is an obvious deflection on his part.... "hey look pay no attention to how I violate privacy of others communications.. look at how the government could theoretically violate YOUR privacy of communication".
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
> "They can't lock him up, so they goaded him into locking himself up!" Except for the little fact that he isn't cut off the internet which he certainly would be in US custody. duh.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Assange can whine all he wants: His end game is already written.
Well said
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
2 Good reasons: first, because he is a world class attention whore, ... who actually calls himself "Julian ASSange". If he wants my attention, he'll get a real name.
Sure, they have been capturing everything for a very very long time. Even before the internet was running, they were listening in on all phone conversations. There is not enough analytical power to make use of it. The danger comes in when they are targeting you but you can spout off on all sorts of shit before then and it will not trigger anything.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
I think you forgot the bit explaining why the average citizen should care? I used to work for the govt, and I used to work for some ISP, so I think I have a handle on what's probably going on but still don't really care. So I read some news websites, watch porn, download music and talk shit to a bunch of people I've hardly met. Let's assume the absolutely worst and that the govt knows every movement and every word I've ever spoken, how is this bad for me? (and try to answer this without using some science fiction as your supporting evidence)
You don't care because you don't want to change the status quo. If you wanted to change the status quo in some way (change environmental or business regulations, join the occupy movement, protest a war or other government action, try to expose the misdeeds of those in power, etc.) then you would care. You would care because the powers-that-be would care, and they would start bringing the power of this apparatus against you.
The problem is that in a republic the people are supposed to be able to change the status quo. They are supposed to be sovereign over their government. But that is less and less possible the more those in power, who benefit from the status quo, can spy on people to find out what they think and what they do and try to stop people from changing things.
So that's why I think you should care. No science fiction required.
Yes, but the frogurt is cursed and contains potassium benzoate.
Disclaimer: Consumption of the red pill may lead to: depression, anxiety, heart attack, suicide, government induced heart attack or suicide; other side effects may include: spontaneous critical thought, chrysophilia, hoplophilia, and in rare cases tricornephilia. Consult your lawyer before taking the red pill if you are susceptible to: punditry, paranoia, rebellion, or government induced patsy syndrome (Oswaldosis).
You Americans think that your governments cannot run anything efficiently, except when it comes to spying you. Relax, they are just as bad at that.
Governments should know everything but we know nothing. That is the most dystopian thing I've ever heard. Over the entrance to the CIA are the words from the Bible "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free". Maybe the government can keep a few secrets, such as how to make a nuclear weapon, but as little as possible should be secret within the government. On the other hand the government needs to go before a judge and present really good goddamn reason why they should know anything at all about me. I have nothing to hide but that's beside the point. You really piss me off, Mr. Police State. Your buddies Hitler and Stalin have croaked. I bet you feel real lonely without them.
Governments should know everything but we know nothing. That is the most dystopian thing I've ever heard. Over the entrance to the CIA are the words from the Bible "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free". Maybe the government can keep a few secrets, such as how to make a nuclear weapon, but as little as possible should be secret within the government. On the other hand the government needs to go before a judge and present really good goddamn reason why they should know anything at all about me. I have nothing to hide but that's beside the point. You really piss me off, Mr. Police State. Your buddies Hitler and Stalin have croaked. I bet you feel real lonely without them.
The government has to know everything about everyone to protect everyone from everyone. Anyone could be made into a terrorist at any time. Anyone could become a radical. Anyone could snap and try to kill someone important. For that reason everyone has to be known because anyone who has secrets could be plotting something bad.
It's better to just give the government your secrets or accept their right to know them. The only problem I have is with leaks. If they know ever immoral or stupid or illegal thing you've done but agree to keep it secret what is the problem?
The Internet has been wired since at least the late 1980s, when Rick Adams (sharing facilities with Software Tool & Die, associated with the infamous Barry Shein) and others, started UUNET, and persuaded a significant portion of the USENET to channel their traffic through their facilities, using low prices that, I suspect, were subsidized by a government agency - not necessarily the US Government, incidentally, although it, too, surely benefited from the centralization.
But that's ancient history.
More recently, I read an article written by someone embedded in the IOF during a military assassination of a Palestinian, and they described how the Shin Bet apparently had their target so well wired that they knew when he was going down his stairs towards the front door, even when he was flushing the toilet.
Occam's Razor suggests that they had infiltrated their target's cellphone.
(Although the IOF is likely to make use of surreptitiously embedded audio and video wireless store-and-forward devices, installed during home invasions - occupants cower in back, under guard, while 'searchers' actually install monitoring equipment in each room - and is also likely to have an increasingly robust infrastructure made of battery-powered repeaters and antennas disguised to look like boulders or other unremarkable objects - building and operating such an infrastructure is surely not cheap.)
Which brings us to smartphones, and that big storage-and-processing facility that the NSA is building, in Utah.
R U addressing *I*? Pi$$ off. Amateur...
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
PS: Here's a quarter. Get yourself a real grammer-checker.
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
Oh, GREAT!... Here I take the good time and trouble to call someone a pinhead for their spelling/grammar/proof-reading abilities, and for WHAT?!? So I can f$ck it all up, MYSELF!
http://www.beedictionary.com/common-errors/grammer_vs_grammar
That'd be grammAR checker... Pinhead.
Here endeth the rant.
Vote Quimby.
http://milobloom.tumblr.com/post/35829454814/its-not-me-its-you-or-the-rights-attempt-to
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.