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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.'"
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.
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.
Telling me of other acts of spying will not convince me that freedom is worthless, which is what you want me to believe. Freedom and principles are simply more important than security. You belong in North Korea.
That's the message I want to send, regardless of how wrong you are in comparing every act of spying to what the NSA is doing.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Oh no, no, no! I am not trying to convince you that "freedom is worthless," but rather am pointing out that you have no useful idea about how your freedom was gained, maintained, and what is needed in the future to ensure it.
If we need to infringe upon our freedoms to freedoms in order to 'preserve' them or even gain them, then I'd rather go down fighting. We're supposed to be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave,' not the land of the utterly worthless cowards. Cowards like you, who worship the government and pretend to want a small government at the exact same time. It's a fucking eyesore.
If you are confusing what goes on in North Korea with what goes on in the US you are badly uninformed indeed.
Your goal seems to be to make the US like North Korea. I merely suggested that you move there instead, since it's a quicker way to get what you want.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
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...
no need for anyone else to do anything.
No one is suggesting that we not do anything else. These people just need to refuse to take part in immoral activities, even if you think it's 'useless'. Principles matter.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
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...
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});
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.
History is full of tragedies facilitated by people "just doing their job".
Source: I'm from Germany.
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp