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John McAfee Airs His Beefs About Privacy In Def Con Surprise Talk
John McAfee made a surprise appearance at Def Con to talk about privacy: he's for it. Trouble is, he says, lots of companies feel otherwise, and he took the stage to single out "don't be evil" Google: “Google, or at least certain people within Google, I will not mention names because I am not a rude gentleman, would like us to believe that if we have nothing to hide, we should not mind if everybody knows everything that we do,” he said from the podium. “I have to take serious issue with that.”
The BBC has video. McAfee also announced his new complaints website, The Brown List. (Good usernames are still available, and your complaint can be about anything, not just privacy violations by humongous corporations.)
Because his arguments stand on their own merits.
A compelling illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. The metadata generated by even the most privacy conscious individual leaves a mark, and given the resources of an interested government, only the most dedicated living off the grid can escape their view.
The only thing we have going for us, is that the vast majority of us won't raise the eyebrows of any government employees in our lifetimes. The sad part is that a lonely few will, and they'll be dealt with unfairly and harshly.
The general masses don't have much to fear, but anyone who raises the ire of a nameless bureaucrat will.
Sun Microsystem's Scott McNealy made that prescient quote back in something like 1998. He may have been thinking partly about Google, but he was really talking about a trend that would occur regardless of whether Google was around to help lead the way.
There's a lot of surprising consequences of the Internet, big data, mobile computing, and robotics that help and hurt people and professions and entire industries. It's an upheaval not unlike the Industrial Revolution in the first half of the 19th century.
It's somewhat ironic that after his rant against Google, I go to sign up for brownlist.com and I see a "Login with Facebook" link, along with pages and pages of 'Terms of Use' buried in a pdf file.
Old man yells at cloud
Hello,
Most people would likely get thrown off the stage at DEF CON for using it to promote their business in such a fashion. Instead, Mr. McAfee gets applause and people lining up to take photos with him.
Aside from that, the whole concept of simultaneously railing against the erosion of privacy while creating a web site that encourages people to share private information (without much information about how it will be safely secured) that is possibly libelous and may even be criminal at times is, well, going to be interesting. Especially with a FAQ which states things like " Yes, any entity can respond to a complaint. However, if the entity is not a subscriber, the response will not be featured in the official response section." and " It must not be possible for information on the site to be altered for any purpose."
It is going to be very interesting to see how this latest business venture of Mr. McAfee's turns out.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
Come on.... which arguments?
How about where he demanded Intel take his name off that piece of crap AV they sell? I find no fault with any of this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
He needs to show up too!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Come on.... which arguments?
That "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is nonsense, among other things. That's an absolute truth regardless of who says it. Ad hominems don't exactly make for logical arguments.
Of course privacy is important, everyone knows it's important
Who is "everyone"? Because that's just false. I've encountered numerous people who think things like the TSA, the NSA's surveillance, DUI checkpoints, unfettered border searches, constitution-free zones, warrantless wiretapping, or stop-and-frisk are okay if they think it keeps them safe. Most people either think they're okay, or not important enough to do anything about. So who is this "everyone"? I vote, protest, and write to representatives based on my principles, but other people don't seem to do the same.
Also, how could my GP comment ever be construed as a troll in any way, shape, or form?
Fair enough, but attacking him based on his character is just stupid and won't debunk anything he said.
I think I like this John McAfee person.
You must be young.
You sound like someone who was raised in this surveillance culture we're now living in, and as such have been so thoroughly indoctrinated by the societal, corporate, and government propaganda and conditioning, that you actually believe that 'privacy' is something only sought after by criminals and the mentally ill. Either that or you just don't understand that we're being surveilled constantly, with plans to surveil us even more than we already are.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
There are several whole generations coming up now who don't have a fucking clue.
Yes, I know. Every generational cycle goes like that. I didn't have a fucking clue when I was 20 either.
But the last few cycles have been filled with clueless fucks who think anybody who asks questions during a college lecture that won't be on Friday's test or the Midterm should SHUT UP because they're undermining the process. People who've bought into the system so far that they think brown nosing is a nested recursive process.
We're glad you go that internship at Google (addressed to all the trolls flinging shit in this thread)
Yeah, it's true. I used to believe that I grew up in the 'Land of the free, home of the brave' that we were taught we were living in. Then I discovered that the U.S. wasn't so much the 'good guys' that I thought we were (although we have our moments) and that there are people like the entire Bush family of traitors (as in George and G.W., going back for generations) that have been actively working to *undermine* the U.S. Constitution for their own ends since shortly after the U.S. was even formed into it's own independent nation.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Apparently you don't know how the fuck freedom of speech works, nimrod.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Very much so. Asking question is not brown-nosing. It is having an actual interest in the subject matter and starting to thing about it independently. Anybody that does not manage to get there should drop the subject (and maybe college), because they will never be any good at it.
I think "mediocre" is the new "good" or "excellent" in many fields. I am not sure about the reasons.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.