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Mathematicians Push Back Against the NSA
First time accepted submitter Parseval (3632761) writes "The NSA and GCHQ need mathematicians in order to function — they are some of the biggest employers of mathematicians in the world. This New Scientist article by a mathematician describes some of the math behind mass surveillance, and calls on other mathematicians to refuse to cooperate with the NSA/GCHQ while they continue to surveil the entire population. From the article: 'Mathematicians seldom face ethical questions. We enjoy the feeling that what we do is separate from the everyday world. As the number theorist G. H. Hardy wrote in 1940: "I have never done anything 'useful'. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world." That idea is now untenable. Mathematics clearly has practical applications that are highly relevant to the modern world, not least internet encryption.'"
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Hardy's conceit is nonsense. Mathematics has always had a dark side. Archimedes built war machines. To admit anything else is to say that mathematics is useless, and we have no business foisting it on students. I am tired of mathematicians who whine that math does not get enough support in the United States and then brag that it is like art. If you want to act like an artist you should not complain if you are paid and treated with scorn like one.
The implications of mathematics are fairly abstracted in terms, but in an engineering driven society, math is behind everything we do.
Encryption, the cornerstone of secure internet, is based on heavy math, and mathmatical relations.
Heck, all computers algorythms are math, and math is needed to optimize them.
statistics is what advertisers use to target ads, given access to people's personal information can draw mathematical relationships between habbits and demographics, and between demographics and desires, and strengths and weaknesses.
Politicians use the same sort of advertising model to construct campaigns, and law enforcement/military, to target dissedents.
Some years back I when I was working on my undergrad (BS Applied Math), I stopped by an NSA booth at the career fair. I asked if any of the signals intelligence work involved monitoring domestic communications. The recruiter panel said "No, it is illegal for us to spy on Americans and there are signs near every workstation that say so". Agreeing, I said, "well why do you still do it?".
Ok so I was there to be antagonistic, but even five years ago the lower level guys knew what was going.
College students can step up and stop joining there ranks. Here in North Carolina, my alma mator is suckling the teat and getting in bed further with them via a 60 million dollar data analytics lab. There was some student protest in the form of people writing "Fuck the NSA" in chalk on buildings, but other than that, big U's are happy to cozy up closer to the feds.
I ended up going into the private sector and look back thankful that I didn't join their ranks.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Technology == information == power. The NSA wants all these math nerds to manufacture it for them.
And they'll do it because they have their own selfish desires of 'recognition', even though they'll say it was for the sake of the work or their country...as if nationalism is a valid reason to do anything.
If they really cared about anything but themselves they would not go anywhere near any military.
It is likely that mathematicians and computer scientists will come to be seen, a generation hence, as the enablers of the nastiest and most obsessively intrusive governmental practices ever. Like the physicists who were instrumental in the development of atomic weapons, we will suffer for our brilliance and blindness to its consequences.
I am sure that many mathematicians answer the ethical question about mass surveillance in the same way other national security people do.
...consider that the NSA is now essentially producing child pornography en-masse by logging all those sexy webchats. Somewhere in the process of putting that aspect of the program together, you know a pedophile had to be involved...
Lets just change the NSA's slogan: Biggest employer of mathematicians, biggest producer of child pornography, and also we have some pedophiles working for us."
^feel free to tweak as necessary.
Nice job talking about your meat in a math article though.
This trend of demanding that STEM workers should refuse to work on ethical grounds is very disturbing, and very misguided.
It is, in fact, a complete passing of the buck. Politically-capable voters are refusing to get off their asses and use their political power to reign in these government agencies, and are instead demanding that STEM workers sacrifice their jobs, potentially ruining their careers, in an completely ineffective effort to stop government evil.
If you have an axe to grind, the only morally-correct thing to do is to grind it yourself. It is slothful and cruel to demand that other people should make a sacrifice in order to champion your noble cause for you.
Furthermore, it should be outright obvious now that the advancement of scientific (including mathematical) knowledge will not be curtailed. If you don't research it, someone else will. That someone else may be one of your enemies. Demanding a halting of progress will only result on our country being left behind in the technology race. It is tactically ridiculous.
If you want the government evil to stop, get up, demonstrate, vote, and lobby. Those are the tools you have. If you are unwilling to use them, you have no business demanding that others do it for you, especially not in a stupid way that requires great sacrifice and is guaranteed to fail.
I agreed until the "treat artists with scorn" part. It shows you're just another corporate idiot.
>manufactured meat substitutes aren't good.
You haven't tried "Ambrosia Plus" from Triplanetary Foods yet.
--
BMO
I'm going to impregnate your feces with delight!
I agree. If the flavor of meat is what you desire, then meat is what you will need for it.
Of course, the spices and sauces you mention are also quite tasty. They don't taste like meat, but they do taste good. If yummy food is what you are after, vegetarian cuisine has tremendous variety to offer. And it is nutritionally-complete without the unhealthily-high doses of cholesterol and fat.
But if it is the specific flavors of meat that you crave, and you will accept no substitutes, then I don't see why you would be very interested in meat-alternatives at all.
Oh and by the way, your post is complete off-topic, as is mine.
You know, they actually do a lot of really important stuff there.
So do police. But at least with cops, we can see what they're doing and stop it or punish them when the law is willing.
NSA does their stuff and there is no one to watch them. FISA courts? Please. Since Snowden, it is obvious that they rubber stamp everything - or the NSA just skips it.
How are we to know?
So, the prudent thing is to assume the worst and that they are liars.
The burden of proof is on them because they are Government and they have a history of malice.
So, I would have no problem if someone accuses the NSA of domestic assassinations and illegal detainments. The NSA has the burden of proof.
Period.
And I'd believe it.
If you look at US navy documentaries about the battle of midway, The US was totally out gunned in terms of naval ships. We cracked the Japanese code. We knew where they were and where they were going. We were able to defeate a numerically superior force accordingly. The same also held with the skys over Brittian. Radar provided the information needed to intercept a much larger airforce. The work of the code breakers that told the British where the submarines were, etc, helped win the war. It can be argued , that without the work of Claude Shannon and Alan Turing, Britian would have been defeated.
The NSA is an important component in understanding the world around us.
If you look at US navy documentaries about the battle of midway, The US was totally out gunned in terms of naval ships. We cracked the Japanese code. We knew where they were and where they were going. We were able to defeat a numerically superior force accordingly. The same also held with the skys over Brittan. Radar provided the information needed to intercept a much larger air-force. The work of the code breakers that told the British where the submarines were, etc, helped win the war. It can be argued , that without the work of Claude Shannon and Alan Turing, Britain would have been defeated.
The NSA is an important component in understanding the world around us.
Then they shouldn't be committing acts of evil, now should they?
Perhaps not quite the same, but things have changed since 1997. The basic idea is applicable.
Why Shouldn't I Work for the NSA? (Good Will Hunting)
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
No so. Throughout most of history, mathematicians did not have the luxury of pandering to nationalism, militarism, pacifism or other temporal concerns. The numbers of mathematicians were so low that from the very earliest days mathematics was an international scholarly activity.
While it is true that mathematics was employed by engineers and others in many applied fields, mathematics itself has never been subject to restriction or exclusion on the basis of its applications. The applications themselves perhaps, but never the mathematics. Even in the Soviet Union, mathematicians were free to research and publish as they pleased.
This, like so many things in science, has changed in the post war, "Big Science" era. We are now in a situation where ~1% of all mathematicians worldwide are employed by one organisation -- the NSA -- and the issues surrounding this organisation may yet lead to a wholly unprecedented crisis within mathematics, concerning what we should/shouldn't not work on -- or for. If we end up in a situation where certain branches of mathematics become restricted or prohibited in any way, then mathematics will have crossed a particularly dangerous Rubicon, and with it so will Western society.
As much as I don't like what the NSA is doing, the problem is with that organization, and not the tools, disciplines, or mathematics being done there. I for one am not willing to uproot millennia of mathematical traditions and precedent because one foreign power has allowed its spy organization to run out of control.
I note that the great French mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, effectively retired from mathematics in protest at, basically, the Vietnam war. Some view this as a powerful statement of principal, but I don't accept that mathematicians direct themselves according to events in the United States or any other country. Mathematics is an international, long-term and now global activity and that should not be compromised because of the likes of the NSA.
P.S.
If you are a mathematicians and you do want to do something about the NSA, please consider designing distributed secure browsing/email/DNS/messaging/hosting systems or contributing to their design. That will do far more for the world than fragmenting mathematics ever will.
May the Maths Be with you!
I don't think he is. The vast majority of "artists" are pretentious shits who add no value to society. Just look at "modern art" - it's hideous, silly, or both. No modern artist could hold a candle to any of the old masters or even the Neo-impressionists.
Basically, you're an ass.
I'm working on my master's degree in CS and I'm constantly getting emails about "opportunities" to work for the CIA and the DOD. Besides the ethical issue, I don't think they pay that well, plus their prohibition on hiring people who may have infringed on copyright. Not sure who exactly they'll recruit, since anyone who is actually good in the field will take a six figure job or create a startup when they graduate, and who are they going to find under 40 who has never downloaded anything?
Its not the rank and file, top maths .. its their department heads... .mil families already..
Its not the ordinary random gifted students, its those with
Its not the privelaged, recognized A-players, its the no-chance-to-progress associate profs
Its not the 200+ year Americans, its the new immigrants
this show of bravado on the part of the few is just that..
no way is it going to even slow the number that will willingly do most anything, for a price, a steady job, and a pat on the head
The call for smart, ethical people to ban themselves from working at the NSA is not the solution. The NSA will simply hire instead smart, unethical people or smart, naive people. We should encourage smart, ethical people to work in all branches of the government and report any illegal/immoral things the government is doing. And then the public needs to kick the criminals/immoral government agents out of office.
Or we can pretend that a few people refusing to work for them will solve all our problems, no need for anyone else to do anything.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
lots of actual, you know, STEM luminaries, found ethics to be one of the most important things they worked on.
as did the other founding fathers. in fact, they risked their lives for it.
The NSA is an important component in understanding the world around us.
Nobody complains about good old fashion spying... Such as hiring a PI to follow a suspect around.
The invasion of privacy conducted at the hands of the NSA is so extensive that it makes whatever records Stasi was making look like childs play.
It's the unprecedented scale that is the big problem.... Then there is the legality of industrial espionage in a civilized world, etc... And the fact that you normally don't conduct criminal activities within the territory of your allies.
It's not just mathematicians working for the NSA who are at fault; at this point, anyone working there is knowingly helping evil prevail. Anyone who doesn't quit is a scumbag.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Not according to what I've read. The relevant weapons were airplanes, and there was rough parity when taking into account the land-based planes on Midway Island.
Rembrandt was considered a revolutionary modern painter in his days. Just compare the paintings before him, and after - a huge difference. He drastically changed the ways in which paintings were composed.
Now, Picasso could paint just as well as Rembrandt, except he chose to paint non-realistic paintings. I find him a great artist. Just as Eduard Munch, btw, whose "Scream" expresses a lot of feelings that would be nearly impossible to express using photorealistic paintings. Majakovsky's "Cloud in trousers" is a great poem. I appreciate him more than a lot of Shakespeare's sonnets. Does that make him a better artist? I doubt it - but it sure doesn't make him a bad one.
Or is modern defined a bit closer to now? I'm sure I can find some great artists. Within the 99% that's horrible, there is always that 1% that will likely stand the test of time. Who knows, it may even be Banksy or Damien Hirst (*).
(*) I'd vote for Banksy :)
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
>NSA is important
Before the Bush administration, the NSA mostly had two basic roles: 1. To help with information, computing, and communications security and 2. To spy on foreign nationals and foreign governments. After 9/11 their mission was changed, to assume that the entire US population was the enemy.
Alan Turing is long dead.
Fuck off.
--
BMO
unfortunately young students today do not learn who Sakharov was or what he stood for.
I am the AC that posted the OP. It was not my intention to say that artists should be treated with scorn. I meant to say that artists are treated badly. I personally think that many artists deserve better, but unfortunately in the United States they are not treated well at all. We can argue whether or not that it is a good thing, but I am aware of too many examples where it simply is the sad state of affairs.
'Mathematicians seldom face ethical questions. We enjoy the feeling that what we do is separate from the everyday world.
Actually this is a recent affectation. Historically mathematicians very much enjoyed the interaction of mathematics with the real world, e.g. Archimedes, Isaac Newton, Fibonacci, Euler, Gauss, Hilbert, Poincare, Pascal, Bernoulli, Cartan, von Neumann, Turing, Dirichlet.
More recently we have Stephen Smale, Terry Tao and Tim Gowers all three mathematicians of the first order who have dabbled in various applications.
Where would you apply...
the code was broken by the military intelligence services.
the NSA was only created because the cold war started... and the cold war is now over.
Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at the N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people that I never met and that I never had no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. They're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's walking to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the schrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorroids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure, fuck it, while I'm at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Your anger is directed at the NSA, and that's exactly what the politicians want. The NSA doesn't make its own decisions on how it operates... it's under oversight and governance of the three branches of US federal government. If the public makes it political suicide for politicians to side with the NSA's current practices, then you'll eventually see those practices changed. Crippling the technical capability of the NSA does nothing to solve the fundamental problem of the erosion of our privacy, and harms the ability for us to defend ourselves from foreign threats.
You need to go after the politicians to change the laws and fix the real problem.
Picasso just found out he could make more money by selling crap to pretentious and gullible morons.
...anyone working there is knowingly helping evil prevail.
So, you think that anyone attempting to protect citizens of the US and its allies is engaged in "evil"?
It is as I suspected then.
Tell me, what do you think about the following item? Is it the NSA and FBI engaged in evildoing? Or are they stopping evildoing?
NSA helped foil terror plot in Belgium, documents, officials say
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
No, it's not paraphrasing, it's deliberately misquoting.
The 4th Amendment is important, but so is Article II and the rest of the Constitution. And all of it should be interpreted properly. Many people don't do that.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
So, you think that anyone attempting to protect citizens of the US and its allies is engaged in "evil"?
I think infringing upon people's rights in an effort to protect them is evil.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
For those who aren't aware, this is a quote from the movie "Good Will Hunting".
The 4th Amendment is important, but so is Article II and the rest of the Constitution.
The constitution was set up such that amendments to the constitution override things that come before them. The 4th amendment comes after Article II, so the government must respect people's rights while trying to keep the nation secure.
Even if the NSA was actually stopping terrorist plots, the end would not justify the means. Given the size and scope of their operations, any plots which they might have foiled are literally negligible considerations. The NSA is now a domestic surveillance apparatus and nothing more.
May the Maths Be with you!
Mathematicians Push Back ...
"Mathematicians" implies > 1
This is an opinion piece by one person.
It seems your government is already broken, and it's too late to vote an end to anti-privacy behaviours. Hence the original post. Encrypt, hide, tunnel, go underground if you have privacy concerns or have something to hide. There is no other way.
The NSA is now a domestic surveillance apparatus and nothing more.
North Korea, Iran, al Qaida, China, and Russia will be relieved to hear that.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Another made-up plot that we've been "protected" from. And who protects us from the "protectors"? When the NSA threw away the Constitution, they became terrorists.
Really? 5, Interesting for simply Quoting Good Will Hunting without giving credit?
For those that take the better path and not care about their employer, they'll have a good life.
For those that don't, not so much.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
You are assuming that the WTC airplane collisions caused a change in how the NSA operates. This is not the case. The NSA was well down the path they are on and has been since the 70's. Arstechnica has a piece on NSA wiretapping of phone communications from then.
You don't have a right to confidential communications with the enemy in wartime. You don't have a right to make war on the US. You seem to have an expansive view of "people's rights" that is supported by the law or Constitution. And yet you don't seem to object to Americans being killed, totally depriving them of their rights.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I assume you didn't bother to read any of that since it was from a court in Belgium. The thing that is made up here is the claim that "the NSA threw away the Constitution." Since they are still subject to the control of the President, Congress, and the courts, that doesn't seem to be true.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
NSA is dangerous because they're overconfident. It's clear now that Snowden was a Russian spy all along. Russia would never have him come back publicly if they hadn't several other spies in place. The bad PR the NSA got wasn't reason enough for them to lose such an important source unless he was just one source and probably the least important. The NSA had technical access to a lot of information. While it's clear now that they weren't abusing that power, were following the constitution and refrained from accessing information when it wasn't constitutional or lawful to do so, it's also obvious Snowden and the other Russian spies working at the NSA don't give a damn about the US constitution. This means a lot of information the NSA stored is now in the hands of Russia. It'd already be a disaster if it was only NSA information. But the NSA had stored a lot of documents on other foreign countries, industrial secret from US companies, metadata from every american which gives Russia a lot of blackmail power. This is worse than a disaster. What Russia would have a hard time to collect by spying directy on americans, they got by spying on the NSA. And since there is no way they don't have more spies in the NSA, the situation worsens every day. Every NSA employee, every contractor must be thoroughly investigated by the FBI if the USA is to stop Putin and Russia.
Maybe your understanding of "evil" is confused?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You don't have a right to confidential communications with the enemy in wartime.
Even if I were to agree with that, the government does not have the power to spy on everything just to see if someone is doing something illegal. Etc.
And yet you don't seem to object to Americans being killed, totally depriving them of their rights.
I expect the government to be better than criminals or terrorists. When the government is infringing upon people's rights, for whatever reason, it becomes the bad guy; that shouldn't happen in any country. It's a much worse scenario than terrorists or criminals killing people, as the government that's supposed to care about our rights no longer recognizes them.
Your logic just leads to us having no rights, as long as the government can justify any infringement in the name of 'safety.' Why have the 4th amendment at all? We could probably catch more criminals if we just allowed police to bust into any house they want for whatever reason. Putting aside the fact that that would make the government the criminal, it seems like it would be a good idea to you.
Whereas I'm not willing to sacrifice our freedoms for 'safety', you seem all too willing to have the government stop recognizing them.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
After 9/11 their mission was changed, to assume that the entire US population was the enemy.
There are enemies that hide among the US population. The US population is not the enemy.
Fuck off.
You had a fairly reasonable post till that.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The quote is from Good Will Hunting, a great movie. The problem is the polemic in the quote is a load Chomsky inspired of bull.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Every politician in power to fix the NSA ends up silenced or in support of them. Why is that?? How do they convince them to change their positions? Can it simply be they all are lying before they get into a position of power?
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
It's not just mathematicians working for the NSA who are at fault; at this point, anyone working there is knowingly helping evil prevail. Anyone who doesn't quit is a scumbag.
If there was no risk of becoming homeless and starving, people would have a lot more choice in the matter...
RADAR seems to be pretty irrelevant to this discussion. As for the rest of it, that's all intercepting military communications during wartime. It doesn't fit the current situation.
Do you know how many "old masters" there were in any given century? The answer is: roughly the same as the number of "masters" in the 20th century, per capita. The only reason you're saying this is that most of the crap from the Renaissance has been culled and forgotten. For every Caravaggio, there are a dozen or more painters that you've never heard of whose work nobody preserved, or it languishes in a vault, or sits on the wall next to the Caravaggio where nobody gives it a second look, because there's a Caravaggio right next to it.
On the other hand, it's true that if you look at the stuff in a modern art gallery, much of it is not recognisable as art to someone who has not studied art. If you look at the stuff going down a catwalk in Milan, much of it is not recognisable as clothes to someone not immersed in the world of fashion. If you listen to the stuff in the 21st century classical section of your favourite music outlet, much of it is not recognisable as music if you have no grounding in 20th century classical music. Pop over to Terry Tao's blog, and much of it is not recognisable as maths from the point of view of somebody who has not studied maths beyond the high school level. Hell, programs in Haskell or Agda are not recognisable as "programs" if your education and career consists of doing CRM systems in C# or Java.
Do you know why this is the case? Because this the nature of innovation. This is how we get great new things. People must try a lot of new ideas, and most of them must fail utterly. History and failing memory culls the crap for us, and we end up with both a lot of good old stuff, and a sense of nostalgia which increasingly diverges from reality-as-it-was.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Between helping the NSA violate almost everyone's fundamental liberties and the highest law of the god damn land, it's quite selfish and immoral to choose to help them, job or no job.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
I think that most people would agree that the NSA, and the other TLA's, have a useful role. Coming up with instances where they demonstrably did their jobs, however we define that, is not terribly helpful.
What has put them on the hotseat lately are revelations that they have exceeded their authority and infringed on the constitution. One can easily make the case that doing so made them more effective. So what? Those powers were not theirs to use and abuse just because.
There's no way out of this dead-end, morally speaking. The U.S. was founded, in large part, as a reaction against arbitrary rule by European monarchs. Laws that changed at a whim. Citizens who who wound up in jail (or worse) simply for trying to live their lives and defend their families. And lord help you if you spoke or wrote about a better form of government, even just in the abstract.
The fact that the Three Letter Agencies are not ruling in the name of a hereditary monarchy does not change the fact that they are seizing powers in a very similar way to the European royal families of old. And yeah, the president of the day ordered them to do it.
The TLA employees faced a test of conscience. Are they loyal to their president, or their consitution, or their comfortable lifestyle? Sadly, only a young contractor, initials E.S., seems to have passed that test. The rest of the NSA? Mostly fail. No wonder they get so little respect these days.
Really? 5, Interesting for simply Quoting Good Will Hunting without giving credit?
No credit needed. Anyone here who does not know the whole of that movie by heart is here by accident.
People taking the impact of their actions seriously is "a complete passing of the buck"?
You refer to the article as "demanding" multiple times, even though any idiot who reads it themselves and assesses its tone will see that it is simply a man attempting to call his peers to action. See statements like "Not everyone will agree, but it reminds us that we have both individual choices and collective power" - acknowledgment of differences of opinion without condecension, reaffirmation of choice...yep, all the earmarks of "demanding". You should know. Unlike the article, "demanding" is written all over your post.
And then there is the repeated insistence that this kind of response would be "completely ineffective". That is the type of statement which is only true as long as everybody in the group keeps thinking it. So I find it interesting that you are so keen to reinforce that point.
In fact, your post is so over the top, so far from believable, that I can only guess you're doing this in the course of your employment. Somewhat akin to the cartoonish exaggeration of the stereotypical used car salesman: born of insincerity, predatory intent, and a strong bent for social manipulation, especially via vigorous emotion.
I hope the NSA pays you well to shovel their shit on the internet. I'd sooner be homeless, myself.
Yes a vast domestic records database... recall Groundbreaker? The domestic side seems to have been an ongoing project.
http://www.wired.com/2007/10/n...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I think you may have replied to the wrong post. I was discussing the differences between wartime monitoring of military communications and peacetime (for a given value of peacetime, of course, since the US seems to basically be eternally at war) domestic surveillance).
You don't have a right to confidential communications with the enemy in wartime
Who is the enemy? "Terror"?
So, anyone, anywhere, is the "enemy" now?
Anyone we say is the enemy is the enemy, because we say so, and we can't tell you who they are.
All we can say is "terror" and move to the next group.
Sounds like a gang of thugs looting and pillaging anyone they want.
Since when is it "wartime"? Who did we declare war on?
You don't have a right to make war on the US.
Which is why the U.S. government should quit doing so.
Again, who had made "war" on the U.S.? "Terror" is not a country.
We got Bin Laden.
You seem to have an expansive view of "people's rights" that is supported by the law or Constitution.
Ignoring your typo. That is exactly what the Constitution says. Anything the government is NOT expressly permitted to do, they are denied. Anything not listed, the government is DENIED from engaging in.
EVERYTHING NOT GRANTED TO THE GOVERNMENT IS "PEOPLE'S RIGHTS." THE GOVERNMENT ONLY EXISTS BECAUSE THE PEOPLE ALLOW IT TO.
YOUR CONCEPT OF "PEOPLE'S RIGHTS" IS BACK-ASSWARDS. THE ONLY RIGHTS ARE GOVERNMENT RIGHTS. EVERYTHING NOT GIVEN TO THE GOVERNMENT IS "PEOPLE'S RIGHTS."
ARE YOU A FUCKING IDIOT? DO YOU NOT KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION?
"EXPANSIVE" -- THE WHOLE IDEA IS EVERYTHING IS THE PEOPLE'S, AND THEN THE GOVERNMENT GETS SMALL PORTIONS. IT ALREADY "EXPANDED." THERE ARE NO "PEOPLE'S RIGHTS" TO EXPAND YOU FUCKING MORON. THERE ARE ONLY GOVERNMENT RIGHTS TO EXPAND.
You give me a small glimmer of hope -- noone could possibly be as stupid as you intentionally. This tells me that you are just ignorant and full of misinformation, and not a bad person, not even a traitor, just an idiot, being led around by others.
And yet you don't seem to object to Americans being killed, totally depriving them of their rights.
It doesn't matter whether I object or not. The consitution does not say "if you are a pussy and afraid of boogeymen, you get to seize power and ignore the rule of law because of your cowardice."
Where is this "traitors must be protected" amendment that you seem to cling to?
its very easy to say that kind of thing unless you are in their situation, like Thomas Drake, who was supporting 3 kids and a wife with his NSA salary when they arrested him.
The problem is the polemic in the quote is a load Chomsky inspired of bull.
What part is bull?
Yes just building on your domestic vs "peacetime" and saying that under different projects an interest in US domestic telco traffic seems to show itself in any decade.
Just the digital age makes it more instant and wider for less cost.
Been less at peace sems to offer more expansion and dreamy retroactive legal cover.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Even if the people through their representatives let them do so?
You may not like it, but FISA is a standing law. What the NSA does is by and far legal per United States Code, both in FISA and in other laws (The Espionage Act for example) Sure, people say their programs are unconstitutional. However, by our system, the people don't get to make those decisions, its the judges. And while the most recent revision to FISA (which really just allows automation of the existing law) hasn't been challenged, older parts of FISA have and have stood. You may not like this, hell I don't like it, but its the law. Ever read FISA ? I highly doubt most have, because had they done so they would realize that everything that Snowden "revealed" is permitted in the law. So until a challenge hits and is successful, then its the law, and if you're against following the law, then you're either a traitor, a rebel, or an anarchist.
You see, that's the adult thing. You must support the law, even the ones you don't like. You may work to get them repealed or overturned, but you must follow the law.
What about doctors, who perform/take part in:
Unlike mathematicians, who are subject only to the secular laws, doctors are governed by medical boards and other certification bodies with professional ethics — a term sufficiently vague to drive a truck through — being among requirements.
If a non-profit CEO can be illegally fired over a $1000 donation to a cause, should not doctors participating in activities, that enough noisy people find objectionable, be permanently black-listed?
That's an idea, though... Why not black-list these mathematicians — to ensure, they can never find employment outside of government? What can possibly go wrong?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Careful, your lack of native English is showing.
Oh yes, I bet North Korea is afraid the NSA will steal their cutting-edge 9600 baud modem prototypes. Because they surely are not afraid of an assassination as that would piss off South Korea (power vacuum + lots of guys with guns = not fun).
Looking from over here it seems you are somewhere between a free democratic country and authoritarian one.
Exhibit A)
You basically have a ruling class. I mean, really, a father and a son both presidents in a country of 300 million? Kennedys, etc. You are not that far away from having a line of kings instead of presidents. Actually it's closer to having a couple of Lords who take turns of being kings, and then make it look like the people selected them.
Exhibit B)
Spying on own citizens, while at the same time clearly violating the countrys own constitution and laws. Citizen spying has been historically done in mostly authoritan states with very strong government and (secret)police.
Exhibit C)
Police immunity. You are half way there. Your officers can literally get a way with murder. Only one step away from being allowed to do it secretly.
Exhibit D)
Money and or connections buys justice. I don't think I have to explain this further. That's not justice. That's perverted justice. What happened to everyone being equal under the law? You are only equal if you can afford it.
Exhibit E)
State propaganda machine. American propaganda is super strong. Super sneaky. Super pervasive. You are living inside it so I doubt you can even see it. Read Russian news. It's the same, but done more subtly, so it's harder to see through it.
Exhibit F)
Dysfunctional democracy. People voting for the lesser eveil instead of the one they agree with. This is poison for democracy.
What damn enemies? If we didn't go around the globe looking for trouble we wouldn't find so "much" of it. Terrorism is a tiny tiny threat. It's just being touted as the biggest threat ever. War on drugs and drug releted crime is way bigger threat. Unstable neighboring contry is a bigger threat. The minute mexico falls into a civil war the south will have a gian problem with refugees. Traffic and bad traffic planing is a bigger threat. For gods sake the global climate change might be a bigger threat(at least some people are shouting about this one). Inequality and the widening gap between the rich and the poor is a HUGE threat. That's the one that will eventually tear a country apart. Domestic terrorists(freedom fighters?) will already be inside the country. Wait.. maybe this is why NSA is spying on the would be terrorists already!
I read the article.
This is the result of targeted spying which is useful. Most people object to non targeted dragnets, the collect everything from everyone just in case.
The part of the article that talks about NSA involvement is not from the Belgian court.
According to the article, the court documents only refers to cooperation with the FBI.
Obviously, these guys were scumbags and I am happy they got arrested but the info from the NSA was incorrect. There was no urgent need to arrest them, monitoring them to find other cells and accomplices would have been a lot more useful.
pushing back is the best way to maximise your tip
The problem is the polemic in the quote is a load Chomsky inspired of bull.
What part is bull?
The part where a Shell subsidiary instead of an Exxon subsidiary wins the naming rights for the fish dish.
If you look at the stuff going down a catwalk in Milan,
With you so far.
...much of it is not recognisable as clothes to someone not immersed in the world of fashion.
Nooooooooo. Only on /. is it normal to be focused entirely on the clothes coming down a catwalk!
I'm held against my will at 63.087174, 21.677570.
Help.
-- O
History is full of tragedies facilitated by people "just doing their job".
Source: I'm from Germany.
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
To say we need to shut down the NSA is rather foolish if it still has important duties to perform. Perhaps you think it has no important duties to perform, and you should then certainly not work there, and should vote for politicians who would best represent your views (if there are any). A lot of what mathematicians would be doing at the NSA is probably basic research in cryptography. I think supporting basic science research is always a good idea, and it's one thing our government does quite a bit. Not developing more mathematical tools won't have a short term effect the policies of the NSA, though of course the political fallout of a strike by the scientists may have immediate effects.
Of course, you saying that anyone who doesn't quit is a scumbag, is an extreme view. You're saying that anyone who doesn't agree with your view on this subject is a scumbag. You're saying that anyone who doesn't put this issue ahead of their job and career future is a scumbag. Are you quitting your job to spend full time on this issue, or are you being a hypocrite by asking them to do the same?
The problem is, the NSA/GCHQ are more akin the the Japanese/Nazis than they are to the plucky Americans or Brits fighting against them.
Don't misunderstand me, I realise these agencies do some good as well as all the bad, but that too could probably be said about the Japanese/Nazis. It depends which side of the fence you sit. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist and all that...
You don't have a right to confidential communications with the enemy in wartime.
You don't have the right to a functioning society in wartime.
If you think that the US is in war you are delusional. Occupying a small country far far away isn't being in war.
I don't particularly feel that the privacy of who I'd called on the phone is an essential liberty. Yes, it is possible that by tracing all phone calls it's possible that that information could be misused. It's also possible that the army could be misused, but nobody seems to be saying that the essential liberty of right to life must be protected by eliminating the armed forces. Certainly nobody is saying that the right to life requires the elimination of all weapons. One might say that the NSA is working in our interest to protect our right to life from the threat of terrorism.
If you'd asked me 3 years ago if the government had a record of all telephone calls at the NSA, I'd have guessed that they did. It's obviously a powerful tool for tracking networks of people, and while you can use throw away cell phones and encrypted online methods through multiple ip addresses to avoid anyone from discovering your network of contacts, it's a pain to do and many criminals and terrorist would fail to do it.
So, someone in the NSA decided they should keep those records. Is keeping a record of telephone calls spying domestically? is it reasonable to keep a record of all telephone calls of foreigners into and out of our country? Has the information they gathered been misused? If I recall the massacre at Kent State, the national guard has been misused much more than these phone records, but it still exists. I really can't agree that the privacy of my phone records is an essential liberty.
What do I think? I think the whole story is made up.
And you are a treasonous traitor.
The problem with your premise is that there's a Pollard in the room next to the Caravaggio at the museum.
So find a way to target them with the tools you already have. If that's too hard and you think it's necessary, amend the constitution to allow you to do what you want to do.
But don't bother with the, 'we know what's best for you' attitude. If you think it's best then convince the public.
Because we no longer live in a representative republic, we now have to seek representative through proxy. As citizens, we must find a way to have our voices heard in a different way. Do you want congress to restore the 4th Amendment? Simple, do away with your smartphones and other eavesdropping devices. When those in our country who enjoy real representation (ei Verizon, AT&T, et al) see their bottom line effected, it is then they will urge congress to restore the 4th Amendment, not before. Learn to use the market forces we can collectively control and we will control the congress by proxy. The days of "We the people" are done for good.
A while back there was an article where the government claimed that their spying had prevented something like 50 terrorist attacks never specifying the time period over which those attaches were prevented. At the time I went through the mental exercise of pointing out how worthless it was with logic similar to this:
Let's give the government the benefit of the doubt and assume that those 50 attacks were in a single year.
Let's also assume that each attach would have been as successful as the attacks of 9/11 and killed about 3000 people each, even though it is likely that most body counts would be well under 100, but hey why not give the government the benefit of the doubt and show just absurd their arguments are.
So assuming 50 attacks that each would have taken 3000 lives that is 150,000 lives saved from their programs, or had they not been around invading our privacy then terrorism would rank 3rd on the lists of preventable deaths in the US, between smoking and being a fat ass. It sure seems like as a society we are willing to accept those numbers which in the case of smoking are much greater losses without invading everyone's privacy. Also if the government were really concerned with keeping us safe I am sure there would be better results in lives saved for the dollars spent than flushing it down a rat hole with their counter terrorism measures. Also what is missing from this is that if there were large scale terrorism attacks that were taking 3000 lives almost every week for a year the US would look like a fucking war zone. In reality the attacks were probably spread over the last 12-13 years and each attach would have resulted in a death toll comparable to an average summer weekend in Detroit, and we aren't doing anything about that.
Time to offend someone
As someone who has been in combat, and lost numerous friends in combat, let me be the first to tell you: the country isn't "not at war" just because you're being sheltered from this big bad scary men.
If you think the NSA is evil, you have no fucking clue about its adversaries.
If there was no risk of becoming homeless and starving, people would have a lot more choice in the matter...
You're really arguing engineers are entitled to behave selfishly. There's a simple answer to that: let's start an endless pogrom and slaughter every engineer who thinks he has no moral responsibility for the consequences of what he's paid to do. I think we can live without the "contribution" of these toolbags. Everyone who doesn't like being subject to the pogrom can go become a musician instead. FTFY.
Agree, engineers are not the only ones responsible. But no, responsibility isn't something with a conserved sum that's divided up and parcelled out one vote at a time. Even if it were, open your eyes: democracy mostly doesn't work. Not even congress had oversight of these programs, and congress itself mostly doesn't work.
You don't get to say "a HA! You're passing a buck! You're not supposed to do that. That means my *share* of the responsibility is actually supposed to be ZERO. ok now fuck you pay me, because I did a great job on Zyklon B."
What have these mathematicians been doing all this time ?
The most advanced encryption we use is hardly new.
Surely they could come up with something new and better since the usage of Elliptic Curves became widespread in cryptography and digest signing some 10 years ago ?
If you think the NSA is evil, you have no fucking clue about its adversaries.
False dichotomy.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Sure, people say their programs are unconstitutional. However, by our system, the people don't get to make those decisions, its the judges.
Actually, it is the people, as the judges are no more right than anyone else. Let me quote Thomas Jefferson for you:
"You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.
Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is “boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem,” and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.
The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots.
It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.
If the legislature fails to pass laws for a census, for paying the judges and other officers of government, for establishing a militia, for naturalization as prescribed by the Constitution, or if they fail to meet in congress, the judges cannot issue their mandamus to them ; if the President fails to supply the place of a judge, to appoint other civil or military officers, to issue requisite commissions, the judges cannot force him.
The Constitution, in keeping three departments distinct and independent, restrains the authority of the judges to judiciary organs, as it does the executive and legislative to executive and legislative organs."
You see, that's the adult thing. You must support the law, even the ones you don't like.
Nonsense. It's called "civil disobedience." Unjust laws are unjust and needn't be followed, and they are broken when it is convenient. You losers have lost this fight already.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
To say we need to shut down the NSA is rather foolish if it still has important duties to perform.
You're a god damn moron. Let me just quote my other post: "No, I think that the NSA does some very evil shit. Guess which matters more in a free country? The fact that this government organization is violating our rights and the *highest law of the land*. Everything good they do is irrelevant when you consider the fact that we're supposed to be the land of the free. Everyone working in that organization must quit until they stop violating our freedoms."
The supposed good it does is overridden by the fact that, in the 'land of the free,' the bad they do is inherently far more important.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
that the allies won World War II by secretly listening to encrypted German communications.
This is the #1 reason we have an organization like the NSA today and why that organization is so reactionary with respect to cryptography and interception. You can't just view the NSA through a 21st century lens, if you want to understand it you have to apply the context of history.
If you think the NSA is evil, you have no fucking clue about its adversaries.
False dichotomy.
Equivocation (sort of). On the spectrum of evil, the NSA is closer to "spawn camping evil" than "Hitler evil".
Your overuse of the term "evil" implies that you have no perspective on the matter.
Equivocation (sort of).
The reason it was a false dichotomy was because you changed the topic to the NSA's adversaries, as if because its adversaries are more evil, that means the NSA isn't evil. In reality, both can be evil.
Your overuse of the term "evil" implies that you have no perspective on the matter.
If you think the NSA is not evil for violating the fundamental rights of nearly every citizens in the US, and violating the highest law of the land, then you not only have no perspective on the matter, but you're so ignorant that you're basically nothing more than a joke.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...