On Sat, 28 Feb 2015 16:44:16 -0800, mo wrote:

Well. Duh.

As a happy recipient of this totally laundered crazy government money, and, yes, if you don't read any of the documents these entities provide it may come as a complete surprise to you, I am quite happy about them having to preserve some privacy.

Can't we be happy that government money can actually (try to) do good? Does really /everything/ have to be The Reptilian Conspiracy?

I don't think it's so much about 'The Reptilian Conspiracy' as it is about financial independence. The government money many times comes with strings attached and the most corrosive aspect is that it eventually creates dependency and thus places the recipients under a significant measure of control.

Word. On 3 March 2015 09:45:40 GMT+00:00, rysiek wrote:

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On Sat, 28 Feb 2015 16:44:16 -0800, mo wrote:

...

Well. Duh.

As a happy recipient of this totally laundered crazy government money, and, yes, if you don't read any of the documents these entities

...

...

it may come as a complete surprise to you, I am quite happy about

Dnia sobota, 28 lutego 2015 18:22:39 Seth pisze: provide them

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having to preserve some privacy.

Can't we be happy that government money can actually (try to) do good? Does really /everything/ have to be The Reptilian Conspiracy?

I don't think it's so much about 'The Reptilian Conspiracy' as it is about financial independence. The government money many times comes with strings attached and the most corrosive aspect is that it eventually creates dependency and thus places the recipients under a significant measure of control.

I cordially invite you to provide sufficient funding to all the freedom/privacy/human rights related initiatives that are government-funded today.

As soon as you do, please drop me a line, I know a whole bunch of NGOs and activists that would ditch government/EU grants in a heartbeat as soon as some other source of funding is available.

-- Pozdrawiam, Michał "rysiek" Woźniak

Zmieniam klucz GPG :: http://rys.io/pl/147 GPG Key Transition :: http://rys.io/en/147

-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

OHAI, Dnia wtorek, 3 marca 2015 07:59:07 piszesz:

On Tue, 03 Mar 2015 01:45:40 -0800, rysiek wrote:

...

I cordially invite you to provide sufficient funding to all the freedom/privacy/human rights related initiatives that are government-funded today.

I'm not sure that cordially inviting an individual to single handedly replace the 'funding' provided by a violent organized criminal organization that can extract funds from entire populations under the threat of violence, and also 'print' their own goddamned money is really a solid counter argument.

Well, provide any funds, at all, at least, then.

Is the funding of FLOSS privacy enabling software a problem? Yes.

Glad we can agree here.

Does it therefore follow that lining up at the government's stolen money slop trough until another solution can be devised is ever going to be a good idea in the long run? I would argue 'No'.

I would argue "that's not an easy answer". Depends on many variables, and boils down to: are we hacking the system to have our way, or are we being co- opted by the system. It's never black or white, so it depends on a given situation.

Look at the history and deviousness of government infiltration of 60's counterculture groups that were deemed a threat to state power. Timothy Leary an FBI snitch [1]. Richard Aoki, the man who helped arm the Black Panthers, an FBI snitch. [2].

And yet he helped arm the Black Panthers.

Is it not reasonable to assume that these FLOSS privacy software projects represent a direct threat to state power? Is it not reasonable to assume that the state is therefore going to try and co-opt them?

Of course.

Say by creating financial dependence via a seductive flow of stolen money, among other tactics?

Of course. Does it follow that the state necessarily will succeed in co-opting such projects? I would argue "no". The outcome is not so clear, and I do find the fact that these projects *are* funded and can continue to deliver the great tools they do deliver a rather positive one. Until I see evidence of co-option (like backdoors in code or binaries, etc), I will continue to be cautiously optimistic here.

Look at this recent Pando.com expose of the BBG (Broadcasting Board of Governers) which recently started pouring money into these privacy projects via the Open Technology Fund. [3]. These people are not on our side.

Also, regarding funding as a method of control. What did the U.S. federal government do when certain states were balked at raising the drinking age to 21? They threatened to cut their federal highway funds. Every state ended up caving to this demand. That's just one high profile example.

The question is not if the state can use such a tactic, but if those projects will bow down to such a tactic. Again, until I see such a situation, I will consider such funding an option, as long as there are no otehr options. I prefer good FLOSS that is funded by the state money than no FLOSS at all.

It's simply disheartening to see how gleefully some privacy activists accept the tainted govt blood money and then look hard the other way.

I'm sure you, my friend, have a steady cashflow that is in no way connected to blood money, and I congratulate you on that. Not all of us are so fortunate. As long as these privacy activists do not bow down and bend over -- and I have not seen evidence of that as far as several projects discussed on this list are concerned -- I don't see a huge problem. It *would* be better to have them funded in some other way, but it's still better to have them funded at all.

Never mind that the money was obtained by putting a metaphorical gun to the head of every person it was taken from. Never mind what the ulterior motives are of the organizations which are lavishing this stolen money upon the software privacy projects. Never mind the dependence this is going to create and the subsequent influence and control this is going to buy.

The means *are* the ends. And when the means are corrupted, so are the ends.

Cool. So let me ask you this: if you can either have (in large part) gov't- funded FLOSS privacy-protecting projects, or next to none of such projects, what do you choose? -- Pozdrawiam, Michał "rysiek" Woźniak Zmieniam klucz GPG :: http://rys.io/pl/147 GPG Key Transition :: http://rys.io/en/147

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 On 02/28/2015 07:17 PM, shelley@misanthropia.org wrote:

They're not *all* Reptilian; some are Grays!

Do I need to replace my cosmetic contacts? Dammit. Disguise is slipping again. - -- The Doctor [412/724/301/703/415] [ZS] PGP: 0x807B17C1 / 7960 1CDC 85C9 0B63 8D9F DD89 3BD8 FF2B 807B 17C1 WWW: https://drwho.virtadpt.net/ "Loading custom software." -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJU9L7UAAoJED1np1pUQ8RkRiMP/jBA2R/UO3JytVLumB0pK/+y /Ec2OoiKf5Sk3DufiIeQIxtGBGBCVAiDRGoIx5/cIPddrscw60uZAktzLzhf9eX5 mhEgQmZXQD/LZpvLc23rR+nuBiq9Qto4QP4D5odCvo+Wp1JobGqj/77wmlOcwveu sNIDG9naZ75RmPm7W0sA/OhBmB0mJPN9vb4GsiOahroR6lU8UoTuL4vhqHTWGXHi OZYsFOdTK+kZqD7nWabBfmCogVsyWhsqX+y/CD2u1hH1neg2irdIIUyDpzCMs3Vi O0Dxvqgs6YFDaeZanQkvR+CWsvG28HWPXba6GSoC+6p63M0RwwroKLI976TxFsXg iLBOBT4L7yBMvnew16ERwb/epd7gvNC3HOk68D7Tip1E4PVwmd8UM7jw5mThJLmP q80+EdDV1YtQ+4wlVJPLdb/HqmxKN2L2hl0Yh6vaZW+7utluPHKaAWEAInwb2r6S 9oaRl9XfDnvvx73Cqiny6xX05yh8UPmItzkEaOSIDxXCqQd5TkEnB6sKCCm/FsC+ Vaqr20ro4vqtbuNDXpiuPRTty1ngPuKhTPJiKDis+2lD/3TIerqUfsMhSbJkjiq/ qVErUnXPbqBMXfOMXthtM9xeF2MXY40o3ceIJBXAX9OHz2vlujGAnZpJZKc5sb0R 6nS1kdufI4tkK9ugfAxn =05hE -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Sun, 01 Mar 2015 01:44:16 +0100 mo wrote:

Can't we be happy that government money can actually (try to) do good?

Ah yes. 0.01% of the money the government steals is used to allegedly fix some of the damage....caused by government itself? How clever is that? You think the government is 'protecting' a tiny amount of the privacy it destroys? No, even that isn't true. It's just propaganda.

Does really /everything/ have to be The Reptilian Conspiracy?

You wouldn't be trying to mock anti-government people? Cause if that is the case, you are only mocking yourself.

On 02/27/2015 05:20 PM, Polity News wrote:

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When asked for public records about internet freedom funding, the governments of the Netherlands and Sweden classified and redacted documents about the contracts.

http://piratetimes.net/governments-covertly-fund-internet-freedom-activists/

On Sun, Mar 01, 2015 at 04:22:15AM -0300, Juan wrote:

On Sun, 01 Mar 2015 01:44:16 +0100 mo wrote:

...

Can't we be happy that government money can actually (try to) do good?

Ah yes. 0.01% of the money the government steals is used to allegedly fix some of the damage....caused by government itself? How clever is that?

You think the government is 'protecting' a tiny amount of the privacy it destroys? No, even that isn't true. It's just propaganda.

I agree with this, possibly with very few exceptions (likely by chance). .gov doesn't want free sheeple, it wants owned sheeple.

From the original article:

http://piratetimes.net/governments-covertly-fund-internet-freedom-activists/

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“DDP works in very repressive environments, like Turkmenistan, China, Russia, Bahrein or Iran

Observe that they are not targeting western advanced socialism, they are targeting the enemies of their enemies.

*cough* it is being incorrectly framed as a 'sources' problem. You should be more interested in 'what' and 'where' rather than 'who' and 'how much'. One man's virus is another man's liberator. Travis On Mar 1, 2015 7:49 AM, "John Young" wrote:

Well said. Very few citizens receiving government funds, benefits, perks, favors, bribes, contracts, tax write-offs, and even fewer NGO beneficiaries are bothered by laws. procedures, pacts, secrecy, venality, venerable greasing of palms. This is what governments and NGOs were invented for and remain the premier source of livelihood one way or the other, especially for those who pretend opposition while royally partying with opponents. Royally, not peasantly.

6- and 7-figure dollar compensation of officers of NGO, edu, com, gov, religion, media ad nauseum, confirm the arrangement to promise public service as a lure to vampire the lucre of believers who think they will be able to become brazen vampires too. And it works, shrewd recruits and donors like Soros, Omidyar, WikiLeaks, Snowden and millions of followers flood into civil liberties, cybersec, anonymizing, FOI, spying, think tanks, ACLU, EFF, EPIC, Privacy International, Investigative Journalists, ProPublica, The Intercept, on and on ad nauseum from Day One to 0-Day.

Favorite rejoiner to accusations of perfidy is to accuse of conspiracy of various stripes, never ever confessing that the greatest conspiracies are promulgated by governments and their well-trained domesticates: Spies, agents, sources, cohorts, informants, educators, preachers, contractors, opinionators, operators, heroes, medalists, oh hell, us SOB maestroes of the Duh Conspiracy.

At 07:44 PM 2/28/2015, mo wrote:

...

Well. Duh.

As a happy recipient of this totally laundered crazy government money, and, yes, if you don't read any of the documents these entities provide it may come as a complete surprise to you, I am quite happy about them having to preserve some privacy.

Can't we be happy that government money can actually (try to) do good? Does really /everything/ have to be The Reptilian Conspiracy?

On 02/27/2015 05:20 PM, Polity News wrote:

...

When asked for public records about internet freedom funding, the governments of the Netherlands and Sweden classified and redacted documents about the contracts.

http://piratetimes.net/governments-covertly-fund- internet-freedom-activists/

...whereas actual political change in an institutional context (ngos, nonprofits, national orgs, etc) could dismantle/destroy these royal lifestyles via rapid loss of non-recoverable government funds/ideological subsidy (emptied wine cellars, filtered water basis for everyday luxury) On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 11:58 AM, brian carroll wrote:

perhaps the institutionalization of 'royal perks' explains in part the necessity of a one-party governing system, where any actual opposition (politics) are then managed and absorbed into this model, to protect/secure/maintain aristocratic lifestyles otherwise threatened by actual change, where the focus of issues of subsidy then becomes the poor:

"hark! peasants are drinking wine, wine!! with Our Money!"

(in a top-down surveillance context, who benefits/profits most?)

jya@pipeline.com wrote:

...

This is what governments and NGOs were invented for and remain the premier source of livelihood one way or the other, especially for those who pretend opposition while royally partying with opponents. Royally, not peasantly.