[former CIA director and National Security Agency director
General Michael Hayden] was quoted as saying: "Because of
the nature of global telecommunications, we are playing
with a tremendous home-field advantage, and we need to
exploit that edge.
I really hope the rest of the World understands the implications here and works to eliminate the home field advantage for the US and makes sure that no other country ever gets this advantage. No single country should ever have that power.
Gods, could the NSA get any more short-sighted? Once they started tapping into all of this data, how long did they think they could keep it secret, especially when tens of thousands of contractors knew about the program? Once the news leaked, what did they think other countries were going to do?
Whenever people in power setup perfect systems of abuse, the people being abused will change that system by going out-of-band.
This is the problem with having so much unchecked power. It's extremely tempting to abuse it and take full advantage of the benefits it gives you, and not think of the consequences years down the road, because you know you have the whole government backing you (even if it's unconstitutional) - at least at the time.
It's not even abuse in the sense that it will be done with evil intent.. It is, in fact, a natural consequence that even good people will do 'bad things' when put in the position.
Imagine the following: You, mtgx, are put in charge of protecting the mid-Atlantic states from an attack. You have been given complete access to all of the legally obtained intelligence that the nation has about the region and potential conspirators for said attack.
Do you not use it? What are your options? If you don't use it, and the attacks are successful, it will be your fault. You will have to live with the knowledge that your inaction, for whatever higher purpose, cost those lives.
I posit that even good people like you would take all of the steps you have available to do your job. Even if by day you are writing letters to the editors begging the nation to take those powers away from you.
For a reak example, look no farther than what happened in the case of the Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It turns out that we had a lot of intelligence on him; the Russians even alerted us that he was trouble. And yet, we did not feel we had enough evidence to invade his privacy. We didn't stop him (this is why I think that the people doing this are basically trying to do the right thing). And when we found out after the bombing that this could have been stopped? The shit hit the fan: People were declaring the FBI/CIA incompetent, etc.
The main reason to act on this privacy issue is to help the good people who have to do these jobs, not to stop evil people. The rules are now such that good people have to do evil things in order to be good.
We want to keep this in mind so that we solve the right problem.
The short abstract at Wikipedia states the opposite if what you're stating:
"His most important point is that the right to privacy is a constitutionally protected right and it does not have to be traded away for our way of life."
Unlike other forms of "progress", the disappearing of privacy is very much a choice. Yes, we're on the back foot at the moment when it comes to regulating the way technology is (ab)used, but those of us with a functioning democracy still have ample opportunity to fight back.
Also:
"He calls the government to take a stand for privacy by establishing an agency that will enforce privacy laws and act as a representative of individual privacy."
I presume this is an American perspective. Each EU country for instance is obliged to have such an agency.
>> "He calls the government to take a stand for privacy by establishing an agency that will enforce privacy laws and act as a representative of individual privacy."
> Each EU country for instance is obliged to have such an agency.
This sounds like a good way to create a centralized clearinghouse for abuse and corruption via regulatory capture.
The viable solution here will be to develop and use technologies that protect privacy as part of their inherent design; relying on the oversight of bureaucracies, especially political ones, to protect privacy just isn't going to work.
I want to subscribe to a print magazine. I send my payment to them, with my name and address. Each month they send me a magazine. At the end of the year they send me a couple of reminders.
What technologies will protect my information?
Here, the magazine has to register. They need to say what information they're collecting, and why. There are penalties if they then do other stuff with the information.
Your name and address are already matters of public record, anyway. This is hardly the kind of data that we're talking about.
For important, sensitive data - the kind of stuff that could someone could use to blackmail or manipulate you - the relevant technology is cryptography.
The bureaucratic solution will inevitably end in anyone you send any data to being required by law to transfer the data itself to a central government-run data store which will make PRISM look trivial in comparison.
>> Each EU country for instance is obliged to have such an agency.
> This sounds like a good way to create a centralized clearinghouse for abuse and corruption via regulatory capture.
The EU has these agencies.
You said
> The bureaucratic solution will inevitably end in anyone you send any data to being required by law to transfer the data itself to a central government-run data store
"It seems that we now have the choice between taking the time to understand and implement secure encryption or choosing services based on which governments we don't mind spying on us."
I prefer the first of those two options but it'll only have an impact if more people make the same choice.
I think the official line is that having investment from both China and the US was considered a dealbreaker by the US side, and since the US wouldn't fund it completely, the deal couldn't go through. Guess this explains why.
I'm a resident but not anyone important, so clarifications welcome
China investment meant a preference for Chinese equipment/vendors, which in turn would mean getting a landing in the USA would be very hard, essentially impossible.
The primary contract was signed with a US vendor, TE Subcom (actually HQ is in Switzerland for tax reasons), and whether the Chinese vendor could even do the job aside even from landing rights was a big question.
Funding from any source never amounted to enough to get it away. Which is a shame as the business case was - and still is - compelling.
I still don't understand what legal justification the US has for making it hard to get landing rights in the USA just because you use Chinese equipment.
If I ever have a spare $300mm or so, I know what I'm funding.
If there weren't any existing, it could make some. There are some very protectionist policies in the US and if you have the lobbying power you can get even more. That said, how many local industries aren't protected by their country's government? Some protection is good, but finding the balance can be a little tricky.
Because the US knows what's possible? They know how much they can tap the cable, and if the cable had Chines equipment, they'd be tapping it similarly too?
Thanks for commenting. It's good people like you are trying in NZ. I have mentioned to various ISPs in NZ that if they can provide a connection of any speed that is reasonable, I'll pay lots for it. Even 10Mb would have me pay probably 3x what we pay now. No ISP that I have found will provide a connection north of about 3-5Mb. 4 different properties all in Auckland. The business centre of the country has things this bad and I can help improve it as far as I can tell.
NZ internet isn't quite google fiber, but it's gotten a lot better recently with VDSL2 and residential UFB. Are you looking for a business line with dedicated / 99th percentile bandwidth, or a residential connection?
At least Snap and Telecom offer VDSL2 (and surely everyone else must be about to start), I get a constant 40/10 with a good-sized cap for a reasonable price in my small Christchurch suburb.
Slingshot offer a passable unmetered ADSL2+ pretty cheaply if that's your poison. Telstra's 100mbit cable service is also reasonably cheap and worth considering if you're in a supported area.
Residential. I'd take a tenth that speed in a heartbeat. No provider can provide anything better than crap anywhere I have ever lived. The lines on the street have always been too rubbish to support anything good. I know people who get about 10Mb but have never knowingly met an Aucklander who gets more than that currently I max out at about 3. It's so very bad.
I get 10-12mbit pretty consistently on unmetered ADSL2, and did at the last two places I lived as well. The couple of people I know with VDSL get 30-40mbit. A couple of others with UFB get the full 100mbit. Perhaps you're just really unlucky. This is all across auckland with telecom, vodafone, slingslot, orcon.
This might be a good time to ask. I'm currently with a Vodafone fixed line. 1Mb would be the best I get on a good day and those are hard to come by. We're a small little business so we can't afford anything too exorbitant. Auckland based. I have a residential line with Slingshot and not a fan. How's your interactions with Snap and Telecom support?
I'm just a consumer, i can't answer the question definitively. My VDSL's with Snap, haven't needed to call them at all except when i was setting the router up for the first time. They have a couple APIs and respected my right to disable the "support account" (backdoor) in the supplied AVM router, which was cool.
The internet at 'the office is a zero-rated relationship with a datacenter my parent company partners with, so i can't comment on that.
I don't know if this is the place for specific recommendations, you might find more opinions on say geekzone.co.nz.
So McCain says today US needs to start poking digits(pun?) into Putin's eye, and this NZ fragment leads me to wonder what fist or carrot incentive makes every(?) country in the world pipe their domestic surveillance back to US? Now, how then, do you apply all the world's intel to acquire whatever you want? What new US intel agency with an eagle logo orchestrates the `parallel construction' to `git 'er done'?
Clarke wasn't perfect, but Key's willingness to stoop to any level for the rich or powerful is shameless. Pandering to the US (Afghanistan, Dotcom), Sky city deal, Power company sell off and directors massive pay bumps, Kiwi rail shares owned by the PM whist the future of Kiwi rail hangs in the balance, bailing out Rio Tinto last week. How many dozen have I missed?
Anti-sea protest laws at the request of Royal Dutch Shell, 3 strikes law prototyped for the US and the attempted inclusion of software patents at the request of IBM and MS to name but a few. And most obviously the GCSB law change.
