Seems like kind of a weak attempt at a 'gotcha'. I don't think there's really any expectations that attendees at a conference are only doing work related things 100% of the time. The fact that politician X was reading the paper online while waiting for a talk to start is pretty weak tea.
If anything, I think this sort of reinforces what a lot of people think about these sort of surveillance concerns. That their web-traffic isn't particularity interesting, so they don't really care if the gov't, or whomever, knows about it.
I think a large portion of this was to make the people who make policy about surveillance also feel surveilled. Any one who was there will have to ask themselves about what places they visited, what emails they read, and if leaked, what impact that can have on them personally.
I don't think the point was to catch them surfing other sites, but more to show people how they can be fingerprinted and identified by doing "metadata" surveillance.
So, this isn't any regular conference. This is a conference filled with mostly Swedish politicians, some in government/office and a lot of different Swedish agency officials. Then there's of course some foreign dignitaries, as well as press and a few select normal persons.
It wasn't translated, but in the Swedish press release - they note that "Myndigheten för Samhällsskydd och beredskap", the Swedish equivalent of FEMA in the US - had at least one official agency staffer connecting to their agency e-mail server over this insecure/open network.
That said, most conference attendees are at the conference in their official capacity, ie. at work.
If that is a security risk, then they ought to make the mail unconnectable outside their own network and demand VPN usage. You cannot blame the person for a poor security setup within his organization.
I think it's a good idea actually. Make politicians feel what it's like to be monitored, to have their privacy violated, that kinda stuff. Protests and objections in themselves probably won't sway politicians into opposing surveillance; being the subject of said surveillance probably would.
I think it was more that attendees at a conference just log onto the nearest available wifi, regardless of whether it is secure or not, not what sites they were going to
They were also logging onto government mail servers for example, which, whilst it may be boring to you or me, there are probably people out there who can make use of log in details for various sites that may have been accessed over open wifi.
> Still, he concluded his statement to Swedish media by observing the “good news that through our reconnaissance we could not find any preparation for terrorist activities.”
It would be pretty funny if he had actually modified the web pages people view, especially considering the attendees. They would go to http://www.example.com/economy and see that everything is crashing, when in reality, everything is fine. It would send a stronger message, IMO. :)
By what metric? For some reason, it seems to be a pretty common media complaint that "the economy is bad", and people seem to take that at face value. In reality, by most metrics, the worldwide economy is doing pretty well, and the media is just manufacturing artificial problems per usual.
"the economy is doing well" is always accompanied by a silent "for me and mine". As is the the inverse.
We are frail and limited creatures and while we can comfortably encompass the notion of a tribe. The concept of nations and of common humanity are abstractions to most of us on the level of idols or ideals.
As rulers have known since time immemorial: nations must be whipped into existence with all the tools of propaganda and religion. It must be clear to citizens that there are fearsome punishments for traitors and dissidents. And simple symbols must, through ritual and repetition; be imbued with mystical powers commanding allegiance.
And the economy as an abstraction of the economic health of the citizens is a tool of propaganda and of class war. When the owned media celebrate the economy, they are often performing a triumphal flourish for the ownership class; while the working class is being mugged.
Thus has it always been. But that is starting to change. All affinity groups can make themselves heard these days. The tools of media creation are so common that most adults carry them on their person all day long in the wealthier parts of the world. And those who have dreamt that they were the rulers are frightened by this. They seek to enclose the internet commons and drive us back into the feedlots of broadcast style media where the owners of the means of media production are the only ones heard.
People of the Internet; now is your time. Talk to each other. Create your own measures for the health of the economy. Ask the big questions. Are people being housed and fed? Is public health and hygiene being maintained at an adequate level?
Is everyone you know free from the fear of starvation, homelessness and violence?
How about everyone who knows everyone you know?
By talking to each other; we render those who would arrogate to themselves the title of rulers, irrelevant.
But by that metric economy was NEVER doing well. Ever. So what is your suggestion, do we just keep saying that economy is bad until .....what exactly? How do you define "bad" or "good" economy? I would say that an economy where we have achieved the lowest poverty levels across the human race in the history is "pretty damn good". As for the starving children in Africa(or America,or anywhere else) - we will fix that too.
Depends on how you define poverty. Living on a couple of dollars a day was probably quite good many years ago. So now we have millions living on $2.50. we are doing better, right?
I personally want to see a far greater redistribution of the wealth. What the point in a county having economic growth if it only affects 1% who are already comfortably well off?
As for staving children in Africa, what have you done to help exactly. You claim you are fixing it? How? Writing a mobile app?
I feel like you are missing the point entirely. Economy is doing better than at any point in human history, and so do we as a human species. There is less people dying today from hunger or diseases than in any point in known history, and these numbers are falling every single year.
And why are you so aggressive in asking me how I am helping? That's none of your business - and I meant that again, as a society, we are fixing those issues. We are sending humanitarian aid, we are sending food, we are establishing helping programmes at home. When I say "we will fix those issues" I mean we, as humans, will fix them.
So once again...why would you define the economy as bad, when it's in better shape than ever before? You can make another clever point about wealthy people becoming more wealthy,but it doesn't change the broader outlook.
Economy is doing well for the one percent. Unemployment is high here in Eurpoe. Apparently its the same in the States if you compare it to 2006. Many of the jobs that have been created in recent years are low paid, unstable jobs, not the sort you would base a career on.
You define that the economy is doing well, ignoring that fact that many people are a lot less well off than they were a few years ago. Inequality is rising. Fewer people own a larger share of the wealth. Many people are struggling.
Your claims of helping have absolutely no substance, which is why I am questioning them.
No substance? I imagine the trillions of dollars spent globally on charity are "absolutely no substance"? That every humanitarian aid we sent to countries struck with disease or famine is "absolutely no substance"? We as humans are doing more than ever before - no one was sending food aid to Africa 100 years ago,because we had our own problems at home - but now, because of the improved economy we can!
Sure, middle and working class workers make less now than they did in 1990 dollars. So what? An average human being is much less likely to die from illness or starvation than as little as 100 years ago, and you keep iterating that the top 1% make more money than ever before?
But you know what, whatever - let's say that the economy is shit if you insist. I still keep asking(for the 3 time now!) what is your definition of the good economy then?
Your claim of " As for the starving children in Africa(or America,or anywhere else) - we will fix that too." had no substance.
I would prefer a more stable fairer economy that rewarded the people actually doing the work rather than the owners of capital. People that are working a full time job or more should not need to have to worry about being able to afford essentials like rent and food (the UK has seen a huge growth in the use of food banks despite your thriving economy).
Technology is making many things better, but not fairer. And why do you choose 100 years ago as your comparison? Why not 2006?
Because I am looking at the large scale of things, while you concentrate on the few last years. This is the problem between our arguments. You refuse to see that as society we are doing better than ever before, consistently pointing out how things have gotten bad in the last few years. Yeah, they have - that doesn't change the broad outlook.
As for the food banks - fantastic! That means that the system is working - if you are hungry, you will not starve because the economy can afford to feed hungry people even if they don't have a job! Don't you think that this is a success?
Generally when speaking about economics, people are talking in those sort of timescales or shorter, not over a hundred years. So economically we are doing poorly.
As for your food banks comment - I think you are a fool or a troll.
If anything, I think this sort of reinforces what a lot of people think about these sort of surveillance concerns. That their web-traffic isn't particularity interesting, so they don't really care if the gov't, or whomever, knows about it.