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NSA Surveillance May Have Dealt Major Blow To Global Internet Freedom Efforts
An anonymous reader writes "Simply put, the US government has failed in its role as the 'caretaker' of the internet. Although this was never an official designation, America controls much of the infrastructure, and many of the most popular services online are provided by a handful of American companies. The world is starting to sober up to the fact that much of what they've done online in the last decade is now cataloged in a top-secret facility somewhere in the United States. The goal has been to promote internet freedom around the world, but we may have also potentially created a blueprint for how authoritarian governments can store, track, and mine their citizens' digital lives."
- Senator Barack Obama, 2007
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-57440895-501465/new-york-lawmakers-propose-ban-on-anonymous-online-comments/
This will ensure only comments that support that the USA promotes internet freedom will stay up on some US forums.
i.e. a proper balance between security and privacy.
"A web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate."
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
One area the US has dominated is all things internet. We don't focus on manufacturing things, so the internet is somewhat important to us. We provide a huge number of great services to the world. We might find that we have done billions in dollars in damage in the name of fighting terrorism. This is self inflicted. We may have already done more damage than any terrorist could ever dream of doing. Governments around the world may start to ban using internet companies based in the US or with US operations for their government workers. Public companies around the world have a duty to keep non-public data non-public. MS 360 is all about the cloud. This product might be DOA. Skype, Linked In, Facebook, etc. You don't want your banking data, business plans, unreleased financial data, etc. being accessed illegally. What is worse, is that this might have nothing to do with terrorism, and more to do with spying:
www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap-data-with-thousands-of-firms.html
What to do now? Invest as fast as you can in every little internet company outside the US that provides services that might compete against the US giants. Once they get a little momentum, they could take off and make huge profits.
It was for the US to lose. We chose this path. The traitors should be shot for treason (This is slashdot. Irony never seems to be understood. I'm not talking the guy in HK), but that will never happen.
In other words more people will be aware of ;) )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_CHAOS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MERRIMAC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_RESISTANCE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Core
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/18/patriot_games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_SHAMROCK (just an exercise
later http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MINARET
A nice chilling effect on any protesting, politics.
The problem with RSA1024 on everything is the US gov will still have the tame US based OS makers, cell phone hardware as you enter your message before it hits any encryption efforts.
Also recall Total Information Awareness, Room 641A, Romas/COIN later Odyssey where also pointers to a public private partnership.
What the State cant get, they will buy in wholesale.
Its like been given a cheap rebadged Enigma unit in 1946 by the UK....safe for any diplomacy and commerce
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I suspect that as a result, the rest of the world is going to be deeply suspicious of the US in the future, and it is going to be much more difficult to maintain control of the Internet's key systems and keep them inside US borders as much as is possible. I
That's definitely true. A UK political programme on TV last night that was focussed on the thorny issue of Scottish independence ended up talking about the US and their spying intentions. Even the politically mixed audience, who had been arguing from different positions all through the programme, joined in condemnation of the US for unwarranted spying on personal communications.
The guy running NSA should in the first place go to jail for perjuring himself at a congress hearing, when he denied the NSA is doing any of that couple months back. We are way past the, dumb and right into the territory of criminal. Despite the program potentially even being legal (really? are you kidding me?), he still lied to congress under oath. It's just like with Martha Stewart... to the jail he goes.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
The real question is why didn't they just admit to it from the start?
Because it's a flagrant violation of the 4th amendment.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
What if the Internet is just unworkable?
What if big government is just unworkable?
Define "big government"? The United States has among the lowest taxes in the first-world and has among the shoddiest safety nets in the first-world.
Who did what now?