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.'"

Comments

NSA College Campus Recruiters

[cosm]

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.

Re:NSA College Campus Recruiters

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

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.

Re:NSA College Campus Recruiters

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

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.

Fight your own battles

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Fight your own battles

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

Someone else might do it instead, but that's no excuse for doing it yourself. You're still helping government thugs commit acts of evil, which is inexcusable.

Yes, we should be tackling the issue in multiple ways, but that doesn't mean people are excused for 'just doing their jobs.'

Re:Fight your own battles

[Cenan]

It is, in fact, a complete passing of the buck.

Not really, this is a mathematician calling on other mathematicians to actually think twice before they accept that lucrative summer job at NSA. Other than that, your reply is utter bullshit. If we can't factor in the ethics of the work we do, the assholes down at NSA have already won. It is exactly your kind of mentality that keeps those wheels spinning - just a drop in the ocean, nothing to see here, more along citizen - if I don't do this, someone else will.

Re:Fight your own battles

[Immerman]

It is on the other hand completely legitimate to condemn the jack-booted thug for crushing your neck under his heal - after all every individual bears absolute personal responsibility for their actions. Should we condemn any less the mathematician sitting in an office somewhere who is responsible for determining where the jack-booted thugs should be targeted?

Certainly the electorate needs to get off their collective asses and change things, but at present there is no effective mechanism for them to do so. The election system has been gamed to the point that it's virtually impossible to wrest control from the two-faced party currently in control, short of a major grass-roots campaign to toss the bastards out, and such campaigns inevitably need leaders and organization to give them focus, which the NSA is quite likely doing their best to disrupt (we have documented evidence that the intelligence organizations have been infiltrating and undermining potentially powerful citizen groups since at least the McCarthy era, do you really think anything has changed?)

I would truly love to hear any ideas you have as to how we can realistically disrupt the current system nonviolently - I have a couple, such as a direct democracy party being implemented within the context of the existing political structure (with elected representatives legally bound to obey the will of their constituency on individual issues), but I just don't see a way to get such system off the ground before the established power structure changes the rules to make it impossible.

Re: Fight your own battles

[uniquename72]

The key to effectively solving a complex, multifaceted problem is to attack it from all possible angles. 1 method does not negate the others; it compliments them.

Re:Fight your own battles

[CrimsonAvenger]

/sighs.

Not this again.

The Bugs in Heinlein's Starship Troopers were NOT unintelligent. Not were "Brain Bugs" a product of stress - they were the boss bugs all the time. ,

Note that you're probably thinking of the movie (again), and that what you're describing wasn't even part of the movie.

In Mote In God's Eye, the Engineer subspecies (not caste) were NOT completely silent, they just didn't talk well. They also did NOT "not interfere with the controlling political caste", since the "political caste" (which wasn't a caste, it was a subspecies) was actually a hybrid (read: mule) of the Ruler subspecies and the Engineer subspecies.

Re:Information is often more important than weapon

[jopsen]

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.

Re:Mathematicians Have Always Had To Consider Ethi

[BiIl_the_Engineer]

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.

My job interview with the NSA didn't go well at al

[paiute]

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.

+1

[gentryx]

History is full of tragedies facilitated by people "just doing their job".

Source: I'm from Germany.