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The Rise of the Global Surveillance Profiteers
blottsie writes "A new report takes a deep dive into companies like Hacking Team, which have sprouted up in the years since 9/11 sparked a global war on terror and a wired technological revolution. As the U.S. developed the online surveillance tools that, over a decade later, would eventually be revealed to the world by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, savvy businesses across the globe realized there were plenty of countries that might not be able to afford to develop such sophisticated technology in-house but still had money to burn."
While I may disagree with the business of data-mining and collection on a large scale, I don't think that 'profiteer' is the right term.
I always looked at someone that was profiteering as someone putting forth little to no effort in order to make the money that they make, and often it's a result of peddling someone else's work. A war profiteer was someone that stole military materiel and sold it, as an example.
These companies, while engaged in a business that I don't agree with, have had to develop the tools and techniques that they use to practice their craft. Depending on what they're monitoring or how they're doing it that might be a fairly substantial task, so I'm not going to downplay their efforts just because I disagree with them being engaged in to begin with.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The simplest feasible explanation is that the Bush regime made huge amounts of funding and credit available to defence software and IT subcontractors to develop this stuff. They're now taking govt./publicly funded R&D and selling some highly questionable tools to oppressive regimes around the world. So the govt./public funds the R&D and the subcontractors sell it at a profit. I think you can call that profiteering... or racketeering... or whatever you like. It's how they operate: Everything to do with war and resource extraction is a dirty business.
There is a way to fight back though.
I work for the State. I am involve in our "advanced traffic management system", part of which will include systems to interact with the new SRCR systems the feds are mandating on 2017 model year cars.
There are other people on this project who have proposed all manor of things like, "We should be able to turn off a car that is speeding excessively", and "We should be able to track a vehicles movements and tax them based on miles driven", which basically just hearing makes me feel like I need a shower.
But since I am involved in the process, I can push back on these things, I can point out that we shouldn't be tracking vehicles, that we should be tracking rotating GUIDs that make it virtually impossible to identify an individuals travel patterns should our system be compromised. That we shouldn't be enabling a system that would kill power steering and power breaks on a vehicle traveling 100 mph. That we should be focusing the ATMS efforts on systems that have proven trends to reduce accidents and prevent fatalities.
Believe it or not, your government is nothing more than a collection of citizens. And while politicians are generally the scum of the earth, there are many great state and federal employees who are doing their best to make the country a better place.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Suppose war causes a shortage of water in an area.
Someone had a 10,000 gallon tank already full, and they sell the water at $10 / gallon. They bought the water at $0.01 / gallon, so they are making a 100000% PROFIT.
On the other hand, if someone is buying goods at normal price and selling them at normal price, there's no PROFIT. You don't have PROFITeering without PROFIT. Such a person might be an arms dealer, they might might even be a smuggler, but they wouldn't be a profiteer.
“There is a real question here about the public’s need for privacy and our need for security. If we come down 100 percent on the side of privacy, which seems to be in vogue in tech right now, we are putting ourselves at very legitimate risk. And to ignore that is foolhardy. I think, by and large, we and the other people who are protecting this software are working to keep people safe.”
Translation - STFU or the big bad terr'sts will come get you. We know what's best.
Same as Obama's mealy-mouthed "we need to balance civil liberties with our security." No, in point of fact, we don't. A whole lot of men died in the Revolutionary War specifically to give us independence and the bill of rights. Now the very same would-be guarantors of our "freedom" (as such) will trot out the "balance" argument to do whatever the fuck they want. And sadly we've become such a nation of distracted pussies we go along with it.
great let me know what Dick Cheney (or anyone else in power making the actual decision) says about your points. O wait, your points are not listened to by decision makers. Any consumer/citizen protection or privacy is overruled and all tracking is on by default.
thanks for trying though, I really appreciate the thought.
An Ohio mother is trying to take on the NSA right now... http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
Profiteering is a gentle term for a disease that plagues America. The right wing does not feel that capitalism has anything to do with economics. They view capitalism as a religion. To them raking is huge sums for the least effort is the meaning of life. Materialism is a natural fruit of capitalism. This is what happens when you restrict the faith community in the schools. We have all heard of the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. It should be called the gold calf. It represented and abandonment of God and a worship of wealth. Today we see people worshipping money in every way. Worse yet governmental forces enforce this greed by requiring people to have money. One way or another the govrnment will insist that you agree to have money. If you want to wander about with a tent and not sign up as a member of modern nonsense the land will be called either private or public and your little tent will not be allowed. As my Haitian friend remarked those corporate types belong to Satan. She is sort of right.
Funny story, Dick Cheney and the like don't make decisions at this level.
When it comes to actual implementation projects with open bidding, there is a selection committee that handles the decision making. With scoring criteria based on measurable metrics.
Those selection committees contain a variety of stake holders. Typically you have someone from the brass, a couple of middle managers from the primary departments involved, an engineer, a business area expert, and management from IT.
Do you really think Cheney came up with an idea for a secondary email system to allow the Bush administration to get around the open records laws? No, it was a group of middle managers, brown nosers, political hacks, and someone from IT.
Now, there are serious issues when you wind up with no-bid contracts where senior political figures side step process and implement crap without regard for the law. But there is a lot of heat and pressure that comes along with those moves (as my own Governor has discovered).
But in other cases, IT leadership in state governments has a lot of pull on implementations. So yes, I do have the ability to shape the direction of our ATMS selection.
So if you want to do something about it, get off your pessimistic duff and get involved in government. If you don't trust others to do it right, then do it yourself!
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs