Slashdot Mirror
The Internet Society is Unhappy with U.S. Govt's Internet Spying Tactics
On September 9, The Internet Society issued a position paper in which it said the group "...is alarmed by continuing reports alleging systematic United States government efforts to circumvent Internet security mechanisms," and went on to say, "The Internet Society President and CEO, Lynn St. Amour, said, 'If true, these reports describe government programmes that undermine the technical foundations of the Internet and are a fundamental threat to the Internet’s economic, innovative, and social potential. Any systematic, state-level attack on Internet security and privacy is a rejection of the global, collaborative fabric that has enabled the Internet's growth to extend beyond the interests of any one country.'" Those are tough words from an international organization that usually spends its time bringing the Internet to people in out-of-the-way villages and sponsoring the Internet Engineering Task Force. You can join the Internet Society for as little as $0 per year, and possibly help beat back some of the U.S. government eavesdropping and encryption circumvention efforts. And if you can make it to San Francisco on October 2, you can attend a (free) Internet Society discussion. Meanwhile, today's Slashdot interviewee is Paul Brigner, the Internet Society Regional Bureau Director for North America, who talks about the Internet Society in general, as well as the group's reaction to the U.S. government's online surveillance.
and possibly help beat back some of the U.S. government eavesdropping and encryption circumvention efforts.
And I got a bridge to sell you.
People are more up in arms about Milli Vanilli Cyrus than they are about the who NSA reading your emails thing. The government knows that it's as safe as can be. The two party system will go on as planned, duping the Americans into thinking that it's a problem with what party is in power... 90+% of the morons ate that up hook, line and sinker.
Nothing will change as long as people have TP, TV and SUVs.
The move away from robust peer-to-peer to centralisation - esp. more points of failure at which all traffic passes/arrives - is absolutely undermining technical foundations.
The Internet could easily have become about all computers acting as peers, caching data for one massive net of networked data storage ("the network is the computer" taken quite literally). Instead, thanks to the desire of capitalists and governments (but I repeat myself) to control, it's very firmly split itself between producers and consumers - just the way the boys at the top like it.
We only unlocked your doors, snuck through your house, and examined all your belongings to make sure there wasn't anything dangerous there. You should be thankful.
OK fine, if Verizon wants anything that goes over their network to be their speech, then let them be held liable for all the kiddie porn on their network.
Either you're a common carrier or you're not. You can't have it both ways until you build a quantum network.
Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the socialist "Internet Society" party?
You think McCarthy era internment camps were bad? Imagine the horrific witch hunt + the victims also having data-overload withdrawals, being cut off from texting & social media updates.
The web will fracture. The cracks have already formed. National Networks are coming with every approved packet signed via digital user IDs.
I can hear it now: You want the Internet back?! Why? So you can connect to your Chinese and Russian Spys? Or even Terrorist websites?!
Reject national digital ID systems w/ PKI authentication. That is the key they need to enforce the fracture.
Long live the Sneakernet, the last bastion of information freedom. It's what took down the other oppressive regimes in years past, and I fear we'll soon need it again when the Internet society has failed.
Never under estimate the bandwidth of a condom full of micro SDs.
Are they really surprised by the spying, and if not why didn't they respond sooner? Their leadership is questionable if they wait until they are compelled to act.
The U.S. government's spying has been reported for years. I understand that the general public didn't necessarily understand, but the Internet Society? It also involved the cooperation of many people from many companies, and I assume many of those people are involved with the Internet Society. People talk, even about confidential things. There must have been some awareness of what was happening.
So the only possible action is complacency or surrender? Please shut the fuck up you shill!!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Wikipedia? Are you really trying to make people believe that those who use Wikipedia are of some monolithic ideology? What?
Not to mention that just about anything that gets any real attention within the Slashdot community is normally from one of the same 300 or so users. There may be a larger user base here but most of it goes unheard and the inner circle of mods and posters is established to the point that if you're not in it you won't be taken seriously no matter how factual or insightful you really are.
They are doing more than spying, they are using it to attack (or plant future attacks) critical infrastructure. Stuxnet was just the first public example.
Wikipedia? Are you really trying to make people believe that those who use Wikipedia are of some monolithic ideology? What?
Not to mention that just about anything that gets any real attention within the Slashdot community is normally from one of the same 300 or so users. There may be a larger user base here but most of it goes unheard and the inner circle of mods and posters is established to the point that if you're not in it you won't be taken seriously no matter how factual or insightful you really are.
Try logging in. Then we'll talk.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
And still, people use gmail, hotmail, Facebook, mobile me ....
Even worse: no one uses crypto. PGP is there. TOR is there (OK, with some problems with the latter),. a 4096bit key is a tough cookie to crack. There are 2-3 click installers for almost every OS (linux, win, osx, ios and android).
There is also OTR chat for chatting.
Still, I cannot convince one single person to use it, even for business matters that shouldn't go through mail servers and chat servers in clear text form.
I am talking about programmers, technical managers and system administrators, who find these tools either unnecessary, or too bothersome to use..... So how will average Joe convince grandma, grandpa, and uncle Joe to install these tools and go through the incredibly long (5 minute tops) learning curve and start using the F@#$@#$ tools?
Let's use diaspora, go back to vote-in BBS systems with made up names and use crypto ... but no... people are upset about their privacy while posting borderline illegal videos with under their own name with location services stamping info into the media.
ARE WE STUPID or what ?