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Americans Show 'Surprising Willingness' To Accept Internet Surveillance (dailydot.com)
Researchers from BYU recently took a survey of internet users (PDF), mostly from the U.S., to determine how they balanced opinions of security and privacy. They found, perhaps surprisingly, that over 90% of users are fine with somebody snooping their encrypted traffic, so long as they were informed of the snooping. Most of them also supported legislation requiring notification and/or consent. "Most respondents also agreed that employers should be able to monitor the encrypted Internet connections of employees even without notification or consent, especially when an employee used a company computer. There was less agreement when it came to employees using personal devices; approximately a third of respondents opposed surveillance in that case."
That said, "Despite accepting surveillance in a number of situations, 60 percent of respondents said that they would react negatively if they discovered that a network they currently use employed TLS proxies." The study also found 4.5% of participants were "jaded" toward the state of privacy and security on the internet, feeling that their traffic is already monitored, and that the government would circumvent whatever technologies we put in place to protect it. The researchers say this group "once cared about these issues but has lost all hope and has largely given up on ever achieving a secure world."
That said, "Despite accepting surveillance in a number of situations, 60 percent of respondents said that they would react negatively if they discovered that a network they currently use employed TLS proxies." The study also found 4.5% of participants were "jaded" toward the state of privacy and security on the internet, feeling that their traffic is already monitored, and that the government would circumvent whatever technologies we put in place to protect it. The researchers say this group "once cared about these issues but has lost all hope and has largely given up on ever achieving a secure world."
Americans Show 'Surprising Willingness' To Accept Internet Surveillance
... all pretense.
Offer them a free webcam and $1.99/minute and they'll drop
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Hitler also got to power because most people were "fine with it."
Don't confuse ignorance with acceptance.
So in my lifetime America has gone from "give me liberty or give me death" to a bunch of scared sheep repeating "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear"?
Essentially your liberty and freedom have been traded away to allow your government to watch everything you do as long as they pretend to be keeping you safe?
In 30 years we've gone from Americans making "papers please, comrade" jokes to fully embracing being constantly monitored for their own protection.
That's pretty damned pathetic.
Land of the free, home of the brave ... not so much.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They should have stuck to very very simple questions if they were talking to a low information survey pool.
Questions like:
Do you want the government reading everyone's email?
Do you mind if corporations know your every activity on the internet?
Avoid the technical crap. Just keep it very very simple.
*drops mic and walks*
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I work in network security, but I'm also highly sensitive to snooping and privacy issues. If you own it, you should be able to see the traffic. If you own the home or business network and home or business computer, then you should be able to see what is going on within that network and computer regardless of who is using it. I do need to draw a huge distinction between a privately owned systems and networks versus systems that qualify as service or carrier networks. If you sell or re-sell bandwidth then you should NOT have ability to view that traffic. On a similar note, encryption should be able to be used against the owner of devices. All encrypted traffic generated from apps/services on a device should be viewable clear-text by the owner of the device. Too often nowadays, encryption is used to the detriment of owners. Same goes for computer code. i.e. the Volkswagen scandel. Owners should have the option to see and review everything that occurs in their devices. That (transparency) is the *** ONLY *** way that companies will ever stop doing what they do.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
The majority seemed to be generally opposed to the government using them, but very open to private organizations using them. The idea being that if you are on your employer's machine on their network, you have no privacy rights that supercede the employer's interests in your use of their property, which is a view that probably would have been acceptable in 1776. In fact, the very notion that an employee can do private work while on the employer's dime is a fairly modern concept.
(1) Most people don't understand the full ramifications of breaking encryption. If they knew the 'snoopers' could impersonate them, steal their accounts, etc, they likely would have responded differently.
(2) In no situation was the majority of respondents in favor of 'snooping' without notification
(3) Only in workplaces, schools and libraries were the majority willing to accept 'snooping' without consent (but with notification).
(4) The majority were against government surveillance, even with notification and consent.
IMHO, most things should be legal, with appropriate notification and informed consent of those who might be negatively affected.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
My employer owns my work machine and supplies the network it's connected to. I accept that the employer's right to monitor his own equipment and network.
However, that's a FAR cry from accepting internet surveillance. In fact, I never attach any of my personal devices to my employer's network precisely because I do not accept the surveillance of my own equipment.
Most, non-technical people simply do not understand the implications of using those 'reward cards' linked to credit cards, posting your entire life on facebook, allowing your phone to know your location 24/7, letting your car manufacturer sell you all those flatscreen gadgets, etc...
The real reasons against mass surveillance with minimal secret oversight have seldom if ever been pointed out to or thought about by your average American.
I've talked to many family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances and they all say the same thing in general - "I'm not that interesting so it really dosent matter." Neither am I but while true it's far from the problem. The problem is while mass surveillance has always existed, it so pervasive, massive, and easily accessable from databases that it is a game changer for doctoring the entire political and financial climate of the United States.
They have incriminating material on every last CEO, judge, congressman, president, senator, and even on down to the mayor of the random city of your choice. They can, and I have no doubt are already implementing, blackmailing, schemeing and conspiracies against the public. Take a look at the reaction of the whole European MP data collection.
But it goes beyond that. Knowing absolutely the political preferences alone is bad, far worse than the intrusive data collection ubiquitous today in both parties. In fact without serious and public oversight this type of system is a far bigger threat to American (and every country with any freedoms left) democracy than any terrorist group ever could be.
We've got at least a weekly "feel bad because you're male and you work in the computer field" article, and we mostly flame those, but we've come to expect them.
Now we're getting the opinion poll to manipulate opinion.
I miss the real / old Slashdot that exposed shit like this instead of propagating it.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Users are largely unaware that some corporations inspect their employee's encrypted traffic to alter malware and viruses, prevent the leak of intellectual property, and block harmful websites.
Really? Are those "users" employed? Every place I've worked made it quite clear that they monitored all network traffic.
User opinions toward TLS proxies are nuanced. Many express concerns about privacy and identity theft from hackers (75.8%) or surveillance by the government (70.9%). Yet there is broad, general acceptance of TLS proxies when used by employers, schools, etc (71.7%).
No surprise there. Employers and schools own the network, they own the traffic. I am surprised that 25-30% are not concerned about surveillance outside of those environments, but it's not clear to me that the people being paid $1 to take the survey were Americans or adults.
So in my lifetime America has gone from "give me liberty or give me death" to a bunch of scared sheep repeating "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear"?
Only if you're like 240 years old. Yes, yes I know all about what you did in WWII but it was mostly liberating and not so much dying, you might get a few points for the 1860s but outside of a few war veterans that have served abroad the average American hasn't really had to make that choice in ages. There might have been some high stakes poker played in the 1960s, but that was all done by the politicians. Having heard a bit from the occupation and resistance during the Nazi occupation here in Norway it's not that easy to put your money where your mouth is when the enemy is all around you. It's one thing to have a battle line, enemies in front, people you want to protect in the back and you choose to be in harm's way. Random, innocent people being killed just because they were at the wrong time at the wrong place is a lot harder to swallow. Except for Jesus-freaks running out of cheeks to turn to, the alternatives end up being either more surveilance or retaliation. And retaliation leads to collateral damage leading to more terrorists and even further escalation, if you run out of good solutions the poor ones start looking quite okay.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Very Dumb Americans Show 'Surprising Willingness' To Accept Internet Surveillance.
FTFY
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Here are the bullet point findings from the actual study:
User opinions toward TLS proxies are nuanced. Many
express concerns about privacy and identity theft from
hackers (75.8%) or surveillance by the government
(70.9%). Yet there is broad, general acceptance of TLS
proxies when used by employers, schools, etc (71.7%).
[Recognizing, no doubt, that organizations that own their networks should be able to operate them as they see fit]
Most participants indicated support for inspection of
encrypted trac as long as they were rst notied of it
(90.7%). Likewise, participants indicated strong sup-
port for legislation requiring notication or consent
(83.2%).
[The 90.7% makes me a little suspicious of the wording the study used. I suspect if the questions dealt with a specific scenario like "Would you oppose or favor the use of a TLS proxy to allow your ISP to capture and read the network traffic (including passwords) between your computer and your financial institution's online banking website?", the acceptance percentage would be drastically lower.]
When asked about specic situations on the second
survey, such as when accessing the Internet at work,
a school, a cafe, or at home, support for TLS prox-
ies ranges from 65% to 90% of participants. This
includes those who accept it, those who desire noti-
cation, and those who desire both notication and
consent. Support for TLS proxies without notication
or consent is strongest at elementary schools (45.9%)
and at businesses when employees are using company-
provided computers (47.9%). [Both minority opinions] In nearly all the sce-
narios we posed, only a small minority of participants
indicate that using TLS proxies is never acceptable.
The exception is when the government is conducting
surveillance, in which case 47.5% say that this is never
acceptable.
We identify personas based on participants’ responses
regarding TLS proxies. Three personas have some
similarity to the Westin categories [21, 13]: the prag-
matic majority (76.5%), the privacy fundamentalist
(17.0%), and the unconcerned (1%). Interestingly, a
fourth category, the jaded persona (5%) opposes prox-
ies but believes there is nothing they can do to stop
the practice.
[I would lump the "jaded persona" in with the "privacy fundamentalist" group since its likely they're people who value privacy but are cynical that significant privacy can be achieved nowdays. This raises the percentage to 22%, which again means the 90% acceptance figure is bs.]
Many users would have a negative opinion toward the
owner of a network that used a TLS proxy (60.8%),
though for some (34.2%) it would depend on who the
owner was and how they were using the technology.
Some would change their behavior on the network, ei-
ther discontinuing to use it (17.2%) or changing which
sites they visited (6%). Though these latter numbers
are somewhat low, these are self-reported through an
open response question, so they are likely conservative.
Read the actual study for yourself and don't rely on the media's misleading reporting of the study. The media always slant's a story to sell a narrative. Assuming the respondents are even aware of what TLS proxies are, the figure of 90% acceptance of them is not correlated with acceptance of "internet surveillance" Indeed, according to the study, 47.5% say that government use of TLS proxies for surveillance is "never acceptable." TFA is rubbish and, frankly, the study is not that great either. I certainly wouldn't say its definitive by any stretch.
That is because most people are quite sensible. The simple fact is all this stuff is already recorded, the phone company knows who you called, the Web site knows you visited and the email hosts knows you sent the email. Most people are relying on secure through obscurity and they know it full well. Even if the government doesn't have your records, the vendor always does and everyone knows full well they would have to turn it over to the government if forced. What people really want to know is the rules of the road and what the government is up to and what they are doing with it, just like they want to know what the business is up to and what they business will do with their data.
Never trust a survey where they do not disclose the exact questions being asked of the participants, whether it supports your belief or discredits it. What is asked is often as important as who is being asked (the demographics of the questioner is important too). All of these factors can and have been manipulated by the survey-takers in order to reach a desired conclusion (and sometimes it is not even being done purposefully).
In this case, it sounds like the questions of the survey (there is no full list but a few hints scattered throughout the PDF) were intentionally difficult for people to understand unless they had a grounding in the topic - computers, encryption, networking and security - being discussed. People tend to turn off their brain when confronted with this level of complexity and assume that the authorities who do understand this sort of thing have our best interests at heart (it seems built into the human psyche). Likely had the questions been more grounded - e.g., "do you think the government should be able to read any and all of your private mails, be it electronic or paper?" the results would have been different.