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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.
(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.
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.
Very Dumb Americans Show 'Surprising Willingness' To Accept Internet Surveillance.
FTFY
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.