Edward Snowden And The Surveillance State

[Poppins]

Since it's been a while since I started a thread on this topic I thought I would put a new twist on it.

 

I think that the revelations of Edward Snowden were mostly already known (except for in their technicalities) and, I must admit, that I was aware that this was happening far before Snowden blew the whistle. What I think is happening is that there are a lot of movements around the world to reform their government into what has come to be called a "surveillance state". What I compare the term "surveillance state" to is Scientocracy; a government where policy is based on evidence.

 

What people are saying is that the revelations have helped the terrorists and I don't believe that this is the case. What I do think is happening is that surveillance (even if it happens to fall into the hands of terrorist organizations) can only bring peace. Like Glenn Greenwald says (when making reference to the Panopticon), the idea that we are all being surveilled at all times in itself causes us to become civil and obedient. With this in mind it's easy to see that surveillance will bring peace no matter who chooses to use it.

 

What a lot of people say is that when you're looking for a needle in a haystack you typically don't want to add more hay. Well, as it says in one of the slides on the PRISM program, the "new" collection posture of the NSA is to "collect it all, process it all, partner it all, sniff it all, exploit it all, know it all."  So, given the phrase that I underlined in the quote, we can see that the answer is to add more hay and the reason for that is that we have a machine that processes the hay. Let's say that we haven't found that needle in two tons of hay, and yet we know that there is a needle in the hay somewhere but we haven't processed it all just yet. What we need to do is add more hay and trust our processor in the ability to suck out that needle.

 

I'm willing to give up privacy in support of the surveillance state (a.k.a. Scientocracy). I won't give up my privacy entirely unless I know that I can trust the persons in charge to not abuse that power. I think that most people are willing to give up their privacy for this cause as well if only for the rationalization that "if you're not doing anything wrong, then you don't have anything to worry about". Well, with the type of work and research that I am involved in, privacy does matter. I've witnessed obvious exposure on the part of the people that I've researched (some of which have earned/won millions of dollars) to the programs that I've written when I thought that my Google Drive was private. It turns out that Google Drive is not private, it's at the heart of economic espionage and I do believe that they should be held accountable for their actions (which could result in up to 30 years in a federal penitentiary). These people are the worst thieves in the world.

 

I have to wonder, does that keep them up at night knowing that they are being rewarded for other peoples work?

 

Thank you for your responses.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Poppins

[LaurieAG]

Hi Poppins.

 

In the book 'The Classical World' by Robin Lane Fox (Penguin Books) he describes a change in the citizen status of ancient Romans under Hadrian. Maybe the US empire has undergone a similar change this millennium.

 

For the same crimes, these two social orders were now to be liable to different punishments: there was to be no flogging, no torture for respectable citizens, and no crucifiction, beheading or deportation, either. Previously, protection from these extreme penalties had been linked to posession of Roman citizenship and was founded on that cardinal principle of Roman liberty, the right to call out or appeal. Now a 'humble' Roman citizen was liable to the most brutal penalties like anyone else of low status, as if his citizenship carried no privelege. Respectable persons were protected because they were respectable, whether citizens or not.

Edited December 12, 2014 by LaurieAG

[sanctus]

Remember, humans are not perfect, so there will always be abuse by some people working in the surveillance.

 

the idea that we are all being surveilled at all times in itself causes us to become civil and obedient.

 

Not at all, it causes us to try to APPEAR civil and obedient, because you don't want to fall in the net. The majority of people is anyway civil,  but those who are not will find ways to appear so.

 

Generally, don't you see that this becomes a form of dictatorship (or has a big potential to)? A litle bit deviant from what your government wants (without being criminal) and voila you are in trouble. Why would you want a society were different opinions are not allowed with impunity?

 

And I do not believe it would bring peace, more likely a bigger and bigger uprising against the system. Because people want to be able to criticize stuff without having to be scared to be arrested for it or denied entry into a given country. And people want to have an online presence without always having to analyse all possible consequences of what they say or do.

 

 

The problem with

 

"if you're not doing anything wrong, then you don't have anything to worry about"

is:

Wrong is defined by your government, eg. I am big critic of Israeli politics, the US government is giving full support to Israel so in their definition of "right" and "wrong" I would be doing something wrong getting me into trouble/"in depth surveillance".

 

I am sorry, I do not want to live in a society were all deviant voices are suppressed (which is also why I say that it would lead to revolution).

[ErlyRisa]

 

Survellieance

 

 

Not at all, it causes us to try to APPEAR civil and obedient, because you don't want to fall in the net. The majority of people is anyway civil,  but those who are not will find ways to appear so.

 

 

--->WORTHY of a Biblical quote! """""""APPEAR""""""" , obedient.!!!!!

[CraigD]

I’m an advocate of a general social principle I call “openness” (a term used to refer to similar but significantly different interpretations of the principle). I’ve written briefly about this is this 2005 and this 2006 post here at hypography. One of the most well-known non-fictional works on it is David Brin’s 1998 book The Transparent Society. My favorite fictional treatment of it is Robert Sawyer’s Hugo award-winning 2002 novel Hominids, the first of “The Neanderthal Parallax” trilogy.

 

If you read fiction and haven’t read Hominids, I highly recommend it. If you have read it, I’d be interested in your opinion of the open/transparent society it describes.

 

In short, I believe that the benefits or privacy (and secrecy, which I consider a near synonym) are greatly exceeded by the harms, so support social change that reduces, and technologies, laws, and other efforts that promote such change.

 

I believe that everybody should be able to freely see everything about everybody else. I don’t believe any technical or legal impediments to this should be allowed. For the same reason that people don’t stare and listen to conversations in public places like restaurants, I believe people in a completely open/transparent society would exercise restraint to avoid social stigmatization and shunning.

[AnssiH]

I'm willing to give up privacy in support of the surveillance state (a.k.a. Scientocracy). I won't give up my privacy entirely unless I know that I can trust the persons in charge to not abuse that power. I think that most people are willing to give up their privacy for this cause as well if only for the rationalization that "if you're not doing anything wrong, then you don't have anything to worry about".

I think this argument is missing the actual problems of modern surveillance. You not only have to trust the current government, you also have to trust all the future governments. The public opinions change, and your past opinions will forever be available for anyone who at any point in the future may believe your past makes you dangerous for their current beliefs. Are you pro-life or pro-abortion? Are you ready to go to jail if your future governments believes you were terribly wrong in your belief?

 

In addition, once all the governments in the world are operating this way, you will also have to trust every government you ever might visit. If your attitudes are automatically evaluated at an airport, you may find yourself being the enemy of their state.

 

We have had surveillance states before, where anyone perceived as the enemy of the state have become persecuted. I hardly have to point out any examples, I'm sure everyone knows enough history to come up with examples.

 

Another effect of modern surveillance, that I never see anyone mentioning, is that it hands over incredible amount of power to a very small group of people; those who have access to all of that information. You can be sure they will never use that information in ways that would undermine their own power.

 

Governments are large organizations, and I think the only thing you can trust a large organization with is incompetence. We already have people's homes getting raided over suspicious Google searches, precisely because of "surveillance state". Mistakes like these will fuel anti-government sentiments, and together with constant secret government surveillance that will create a positive feedback loop where more and more people will be persecuted simply because they don't want to live under secret surveillance.

 

These are the problems people should be thinking about.

[ErlyRisa]

A. For PC capabilty (with connectivity capability)

-Most if not all endevours of what was deemed too be humanity is DEAD.

 

eg. i surveil the local municipality to note what colour people are painting THEIR fences...but as a leech on society I have too apply my sucking aperture on the people that provide the justification for my existence: and the denotion of falling out of place with the colour of my fence is deemed on what is VOTING, on choices....b/c the commodity is SHARED existence.

 

There will come a time when each individual will no longer have to share anything -- for billions upon billions of years: too the point that the universe expands and those that "orented as descarted entities" will in effect be nothing more than a blank slate for a new perception of an unraveling of "time" too begin.

 

ie. the more individual you become the less of an external influence there is.

 

The problem with state: Is that it requires each member too accommodate "co-operation" in a shared space.

Space and the concept of time is mute when information b/cms addicted too itself.

Therefore surveillance (GOD complex -an entity addicted too watching), is the control algorithm for the "lowly" indivisible.

The question is : which is required?

 

Which is why sometimes I wish Decartes never existed...close too 2000 yrs the Church surveiled creativity to make sure that that particular train of though would not crop up again...soon we will get too live as pagans again, worshipping the five elements, and waiting for the rain and sun to do its thing:

but first we must enact armageddon, and get rid of that which is currently applying itself as the fake god...THE OFFICE WORKERS!!!!!

Edited December 14, 2014 by ErlyRisa

[Poppins]

I'm an office worker and it is my job to "surveil" the activity of inmates. My organization needs to know the risk involved when we are dealing with inmates and the only way to do that is by looking at their history.

 

I'm using only public information when I do this type of surveillance (if you can even call it that). The same goes for Facebook and Twitter among others. The information that people put out there over these platforms is mostly public and, because of that, I can use that information to make it a lot easier to recover fugitives. Also, what people may not realize (but probably should thanks to the Snowden affair) is that even text messages are public. I know people who have gotten into trouble with their own families because they have a family phone plan and something that they thought was private was actually being "surveilled" by Mom.

 

Anyone can use this surveillance. I think that we need to put limitations on who has access to this information. I prefer that only the government would have access to that information, but, I do agree with you guys, anyone who has access to that information has a higher degree of authority that can, and probably will, be abused.

[BrettNortje]

I'm an office worker and it is my job to "surveil" the activity of inmates. My organization needs to know the risk involved when we are dealing with inmates and the only way to do that is by looking at their history.

 

I'm using only public information when I do this type of surveillance (if you can even call it that). The same goes for Facebook and Twitter among others. The information that people put out there over these platforms is mostly public and, because of that, I can use that information to make it a lot easier to recover fugitives. Also, what people may not realize (but probably should thanks to the Snowden affair) is that even text messages are public. I know people who have gotten into trouble with their own families because they have a family phone plan and something that they thought was private was actually being "surveilled" by Mom.

 

Anyone can use this surveillance. I think that we need to put limitations on who has access to this information. I prefer that only the government would have access to that information, but, I do agree with you guys, anyone who has access to that information has a higher degree of authority that can, and probably will, be abused.

 

What is there to hide? if mom finds out Johnny is doing drugs, surely that is a good thing? if Mary is pregnant, then everybody should know, yes?

 

Secrets are against societies code, as, they are truths hidden from the world, and, that is like lying or "bearing false testimony." if you are an Athiest, then you could say that this is like living a life of espionage, yes? what do you have to hide? if everybody hid nothing, then this would be a better world.

[Eclogite]

What is there to hide? if mom finds out Johnny is doing drugs, surely that is a good thing? if Mary is pregnant, then everybody should know, yes?

 

Secrets are against societies code, as, they are truths hidden from the world, and, that is like lying or "bearing false testimony." if you are an Athiest, then you could say that this is like living a life of espionage, yes? what do you have to hide? if everybody hid nothing, then this would be a better world.

This seems a little too simple.

 

If Mary is pregnant, perhaps everyone involved should know, but how they learn about the pregnancy is surely up to Mary to decide. Until then it should remain confidential. i.e. secret.

 

I don't know any codes of society that declare secrets to be wrong. Can you give me an example.

 

Do you think I should go to work tomorrow and tell three of my colleagues that I consider them to be egotistical, incompetent whiners? That would be the truth, but would it not be better if I keep than opinion to myself - that I keep it secret?

 

The computer you are using contains a diversity of devices and software covered by patents. While those devices were being developed they were kept secret. Without that secrecy a competitor could have used the work of others to bring out their own devices. There would be no incentive for a company to do the research, since anyone might use it. Not having secrets would have kept our world in a more primitive tehcnical state. Do you think that is desirable?

 

Spys try to find out secretes. That is the reverse of keeping secrets.

 

If none of us hid things then morally, spiritually, economically and technically we would all be worse off.

[Poppins]

I don't think that Edward Snowden is a hero. He's quite the opposite. Our governments need to know about potential breaches in national security, and having this dude parade around the world preaching the value of secrecy from our government seems to be a step backward.

 

That is... unless it's a conspiracy for a good cause.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Poppins

[ErlyRisa]

I don't think that Edward Snowden is a hero. He's quite the opposite. Our governments need to know about potential breaches in national security, and having this dude parade around the world preaching the value of secrecy from our government seems to be a step backward.

 

That is... unless it's a conspiracy for a good cause.

 

The problem is, it's NOT the governements with the information and surveiling capability.

It's the main servers of the internet.

 

...and some organisations that have access are the only ones that can enact their will.

 

ie. Voting with your wallet took on a whole new level.

 

It used tobe companies did surveys, by hand, to guage demographics: These companies then switched over too cookies, and now that most of us no longer use any of the smaller servers on the net (all traffic is passing through only a couple of big servers) Information about the populous is much much much easier to know and extrapolate.

 

I don't care that everyone else is known down to the last pixel: but I do care about myself enough to want my own privacy.

 

ie. We are ALL FAMOUS now...b/c we were dumb enough to look up our old friends with our real names ....remember when we used the telephone book? it wasn't that long ago.

 

Of course people in espionage had peoples names from the time of birth...but ONLY THEY had that info: Now people are giving it away not knowing the reprecussions. eg. You can't change your LinkedIn profile...once you start advertising, it is there forever; does prostitute count as work experience if I want to get ahead in the official world? It fricken better b/c a damn lot of us are naked on the internet already.

 

Which brings me too botcoin: Do I pay an entity that is a prostitute? Or do I just build one?

[Poppins]

ie. We are ALL FAMOUS now...b/c we were dumb enough to look up our old friends with our real names ....remember when we used the telephone book? it wasn't that long ago.

 

I like what you said here about us all being famous. I would've never thought about it that way. I experienced yesterday that this girl from the Phillippines, who absolutely loves me, is now friends with one of my childhood friends mother. It's a very small world now-a-days now that people are befriending friends of friends who post on friends walls...

 

I agree with your statement that we are all famous now... it's kind of sad to think of it that way.

 

A few weeks ago I witnessed a post with over 60,000 shares on facebook. That post was about a woman who was rear-ended on a road near where I live. That woman was rear-ended by a Korean family. Allegedly she stepped out of her car making racial remarks to this family and accused their 17 year old son of having a small... uh yea. Since she acted that way, the family took a picture of the back-end of her car, license plate and all (not much damage by the way), and put their story up on facebook. This post got over 60,000 shares...

 

Yes, we are all famous now.

 

I have to wonder though, if this Edward Snowden saga is a conspiracy (and I'm leaning towards the answer that it is with a 99.9999% certainty... at least that the story is not entirely about Edward Snowden), I wonder what their motives are. The NSA has programs capable of guessing over a billion passwords per second, maybe they're just testing the waters to see if there's any patterns that they can extrapolate from these pass phrases.

 

I am almost entirely certain that the surveillance centers (Data Repositories) are being built at the moment, including the NSA and the GCHQ, as opposed to having already been built. I was aware of the PRISM program back in 2011 (as a CIVILIAN) when the slides were first released; I just happened to stumble across them ON THE INTERNET (good job guys). The NSA and the GCHQ had a head start on this endeavor solely because they are English speaking countries. It's not finished being built yet either, as we can see from the footage of the data repository being built in Utah. France didn't have a chance at preventing the terrorist attacks that happened recently in Paris because they don't have the data traffic that the USA and GB has.

 

In the USA, we've prevented at least 3 in the last couple of months, which has been reported by CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and even local news stations. It's working over here...

Edited January 23, 2015 by Poppins

[ErlyRisa]

I like what you said here about us all being famous. I would've never thought about it that way. I experienced yesterday that this girl from the Phillippines, who absolutely loves me, is now friends with one of my childhood friends mother. It's a very small world now-a-days now that people are befriending friends of friends who post on friends walls...

 

I agree with your statement that we are all famous now... it's kind of sad to think of it that way.

 

A few weeks ago I witnessed a post with over 60,000 shares on facebook. That post was about a woman who was rear-ended on a road near where I live. That woman was rear-ended by a Korean family. Allegedly she stepped out of her car making racial remarks to this family and accused their 17 year old son of having a small... uh yea. Since she acted that way, the family took a picture of the back-end of her car, license plate and all (not much damage by the way), and put their story up on facebook. This post got over 60,000 shares...

 

Yes, we are all famous now.

 

I have to wonder though, if this Edward Snowden saga is a conspiracy (and I'm leaning towards the answer that it is with a 99.9999% certainty... at least that the story is not entirely about Edward Snowden), I wonder what their motives are. The NSA has programs capable of guessing over a billion passwords per second, maybe they're just testing the waters to see if there's any patterns that they can extrapolate from these pass phrases.

 

 

Passwords! - my 8 yr old can do that.

 

You realise Fbook can not only extrapolate what you will look like, it can do it based on the products you liked.

It can already predict where you are going to be to the minute based on a typical working individual, and it can reverse engineer your coffee conversations with each and every single person you have ever known: It can also take guesses at too what kind of people you are likely too meet in the future.

 

The NSA CIA and the so forth is now just a childs toy by comparison.

 

by all technicallities...we don't actually exist: our profiles doo. ...and its facebook that controls our actions.

 

and I envisage , that by the time an 8yr old is 35, it would have been allowed to drive that vehicle to procur the accident in the first place -- or would it? b/c it is entertainment right? That is what SELLS on facebook? Pictures of grand kids -- yes the pun is intended.

 

ie. The only commodity will be "grand" events ... those that sell well and keep the media moguls in business.

Terrorism is a business right? - I wonder who is running the show?

Edited January 23, 2015 by ErlyRisa

[Poppins]

That's an interesting point.

 

To say that the government doesn't have a hand in facebook, microsoft, google, yahoo, paltalk, skype, AOL, and others is just plain false though. Facebook does not have information from Google unless you allow it those permissions, but the government has access to all of these tech giants.

[ErlyRisa]

That's an interesting point.

 

To say that the government doesn't have a hand in facebook, microsoft, google, yahoo, paltalk, skype, AOL, and others is just plain false though. Facebook does not have information from Google unless you allow it those permissions, but the government has access to all of these tech giants.

 

Beleive it or not they don't.

 

Its a technical problem.

 

True governements have and do surveille telephone through to bank conversations, but in the hey day of doing so it was minimalist. ie Its was only done where needed. If the capability was their to surveil ALL traffic , then the telephone companies may have opened thier mouths a little earlier.

ie the Tech inorder to survieil has to be hidden in amongst the legitimate technology without the companies knowing about them.

 

The web giants are the opposite. It's 100% known if someone external too the company is trying too access the information, and sofar trying too spawn in by offering ghost services on the cheap for the main companies is the only way to be able to access the data. So the case is the surveiling entity is only able too do any surveiling while pretending tobe a freind of the company. This system didn't work for too long and died in the cookie era, as slowly google took over almost all search queries. So the surveilers retaliated and started too push their product into the intermediate isp market (so that they can monitor actual packets mid stream) ...but now that has gone the day of the dodo too b/c most people only go toward one or two servers (google, facebook, microsoft, wikipedia) , and its impossible to be able too surveil as a third party ALL traffic without the telco or, the company offering the service, knowing about it. Espionage initself is dead.

 

Now that most of the planet utilises only a couple nooks out of the internet world, then the companies controlling us are being forced into providing information where deemed necessary.

 

eg. Google flags and pools all ip/entity profiles that are interested in chemistry. ie. Any query that looks to be from a person that understands a topic is placed into groups dependent on that topic. So me for example: I query Chem/Elec/WoodWork/MetalWork/Politics/Alternative Stuff ... the system flags me as a versed individual. It then goes into deliberate survellance mode, where it tries too gauge my assets...so it starts sending advertising that sends me toward sites inwhich I end up giving the system more of my personal information: height, weight, b.day, smoking status, ethnicity, hobbies, clubs. so on and so forth. If it sees that I am a fairly typical wage earner that is honestly just earning a living (maybe with family members) ...then it drops the flag and puts me on a lower rung of observation....

 

...but here comes the scary part.

 

if it sees that I am almost always alone, or whatever dynamic that I push on the internet (eg. no Facebook profile : computer asks why not?) , then the system flags me as a potential terrorist. (Alot of lonely nerds are actualy on the Anti Terrorism watch list)

 

Personally I am 200% sure that I have an approximate 100Mb personal profile of me sitting on the Google anti-terrosim flag list. and I know that the Google cpus that I occupy in, that are try to build up a profile of me are working double time in-comparison to say Lindsay Lohan. (and I just made a funny to the Google Ai processor only it would understand -> Now I can watch the advertisement processor trying to evolve and illicit a style of info out of me.)

 

 

WELCOME TO DYSTOPIA

 

The way too look at google, is that it is multiple "Profiling Processos" , and people (profiles) , occupy more processing power per type of persona that they are.

 

Bimbo takes up no processing power: b/c no one cares.

Nerd takes up alot of processing power: b/c the state is scared of them.

Family Man is a medium, in that the only processing needed is random shots at style advertising: ie He/Family doesn't matter too us, all we want is more cash out of those entities.

Some political and club entities are surveiled just for kicks: ie Inhouse programmers do it for fun/profit (extorsion).

 

 

Now all the stuff that I have told you about Google...was being done WAY BEFORE GOOGLE CIRCLES EVER EXISTED - the only reason it ever became open to the world (they would have ket it secret) is b/c of Facebook. ie. Google already had all of this data: just not too the Level that FBook does now.

Edited January 24, 2015 by ErlyRisa

[ErlyRisa]

What fbook does now...

 

Fbook now flags loners, and tries too get them too stay (alot of them don't though)

 

Those that don't stay get automatically promoted on the Google Watch list.

These Young loners are then profiled according too interest: eg. Gun lover.

If the loner is flagged as a gun lover at a young age then all advertising about getting an education is dropped, b/c we don't want future children gun lovers to have any education.

Rather the type of advertising that is started is a "Brainwashing" cycle, that tries to push that entity into a torrid loop of hell so that it becomes more economically strapped and stupider and stupider over time. This is done so that in the not too distant future, and as that child ages , it will become nothing more than a bum. --> and this is being done ON PURPOSE.

 

Suicide is another query I would have hoped that Google could have done a positive on: but these people are very hard too convince too continue to use the internet for socialisation. ie. Without physical interaction in real life, no amount of brainwashing is going to help them: Thankfully Google automatically puts helper organisations at the top of the pile, in the hope too illicit self help of the entity in trouble.

 

You see, there are positives --> but I'm telling you now: more effort is put into the anti-terrorism stuff.

 

Thankfully google does try to save the nerds: eg. Pushing 3d Printing (even though you can print a gun).

 

What google does with the Princesses is anyones guess.

 

The Shared family PC's are the most interesting hit list too look at...it's mostly trying to push gaming for the kids, and products for the parents. These hit lists look mostly random to me, with some slight differences in demographics. eg. A well of proffesional family gets a little more of the "interesting" mass media type of stuff (ie Newspaper adverts are stronger than Game download adverts) Wikipedia is also a higher hit amongst family PC's with professional parents.

Edited January 24, 2015 by ErlyRisa