Privacy advocates resign over facial recognition plans

Juan juan.g71 at gmail.com
Tue Aug 11 19:41:35 PDT 2015


On Tue, 11 Aug 2015 19:56:10 -0600
Mirimir <mirimir at riseup.net> wrote:


> I have no problem with calling bullshit. Not at all. But if nothing is
> workable, government criminals have won, and we're fucked.

	If that's the case, shooting the messenger will solve nothing.
	But that's not even what I said.

	Somebody asked about a particular idea and I commented on it.
 


> > 	What information is out there?
> 
> Methods, exploits, vulnerabilities, account credentials, passwords,
> etc, etc, etc. I'm not into that shit, but I know that it's out there.


	Governments have point-and-click wiretapping capabilies for
	instance. Are you saying that any script kiddy has the
	'passwords'  to those systems? 



> 
> > 	Are you missing the point on purpose? The networks are
> > 'owned' by the government and friends, and there obviously is no
> > 	fucking way for joe six pack to use their infrastructure to
> > 	'watch' his masters. 
> 
> Yes, the networks are owned by governments and their friends. But that
> doesn't mean that they're unusable.


	Usable/unusable for what? It seems quite obvious that
	'network administrators' can spy on users whereas users can't
	spy on networks administrators. The system is hierarchical by
	nature and design.

	And a rogue system administrator switching sides is not the same
	thing as users having power. 



> Free agents do get pwned, for
> sure. But all too often, it's bad OPSEC that gets them. Loose lips,
> mostly.
> 
> And yes, "joe six pack" isn't doing that. But once stuff has been put
> online, anyone can check it out.


	And before the internet, people read the newspapers.
	Newspapers that 99% of the time worked (and work) for the
	powers that be. 

	I don't think the discussion was about publishing information
	but about surveillance anyway. There may be some overlap but
	it's two different things. 

	
> 
> >> But it doesn't get posted on open mail
> >> lists. Results are put online, via WikiLeaks, Cryptome, pastebins,
> > 
> > 	Not what I was getting at, not to mention, the amount of
> > stuff that gets posted is (pretty) small.
> 
> What were you getting at? We've seen some amazing shit from Snowden.
> It's too bad that he was too patriotic to just drop the whole wad
> somewhere, however. So it goes.


	That's fine and dandy, but getting and publishing some secrets
	doesn't counter the surveillance capabilities of the system. 

	Also, there were (many) people who correctly assumed that the
	'programs' that Snowden leaked information about, were already
	in place.  You know, people who wore tin foil hats...

	But now that the information is 'officialy' public, has the
	nature of the surveillance mechanisms changed? 

	Can we now track the movements of the millions of state
	employees? Listen to their calls? Browse their 'metadata'? Read
	their mails? I don't think so. 


> 
> > 	Oh, and let me know when the nsa really gets 'hacked'  as
> > 	opposed as having one employee betray them.
> 
> They've been betrayed several times, that we know of. Mostly it's for
> money, and we rarely hear about that, even when people get busted.
> Have you read James Bamford's books on the NSA?
> 

	No. I'll see if I get a copy. 

	






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