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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?
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...
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.
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
... 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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!
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.
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.
Don't forget. In his book he claims he's a cypherpunk founder. Yes. He's just that awesome. Why I heard he invented cryptography too.
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.
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?