What do the informed Linuxers make of the Government threatening to clamp down on Blackberry, Skype, etc. again, unless they get a back door into the protocols?
Do you think it is primarily motivated by national security concerns, or by a desire to snoop on citizens? Do we have enough safeguards to ensure that this government intrusion would not be a tool for political vendetta or corruption?
And lastly, what can we do about it?
Comment.
On Thursday 01 July 2010 16:51:49 Nishit Dave wrote:
What do the informed Linuxers make of the Government threatening to clamp down on Blackberry, Skype, etc. again, unless they get a back door into the protocols?
Total crap.
Do you think it is primarily motivated by national security concerns, or by a desire to snoop on citizens?
Phishing xpeditions to enable shutting up uncomfortable people.
The fact is the SNR is so abysymally low (in such mass snooping) that you would require astounding numbers of people to filter content. Even if intelligent bots were harvesting such info. Not to mention that you would be unknownigly not monitoring real threats by people smart enough to stay below such surviellance. Reminds me of the stupid google maps ban.
Do we have enough safeguards to ensure that this government intrusion would not be a tool for political vendetta or corruption?
None.
And lastly, what can we do about it?
Comment.
There are several groups devoted to protecting conventional top down freedoms (freedom of press, judiciary, TV etc). However everyone of these are products of the current macopoltical setup and have agendas more or less in sync with the rulers. There are only a few who actually fight for individual freedoms, the EFF being one such.
Our cops' conviction rate is an astounding 14%. This with people motivated merely by personal gain. The detection rate is close to zero with terror strikes.
Just getting these slobs trained for better investigation would remove all threats.
On Thursday 01 July 2010 04:51 PM, Nishit Dave wrote:
What do the informed Linuxers make of the Government threatening to clamp down on Blackberry, Skype, etc. again, unless they get a back door into the protocols?
I support it. If I was in the govt., I would not allow these services to start itself, without access to the protocol. Foreign companies comply with strict laws in developed nations and try to arm twist their way in developing ones assuming everyone to be up for sale.
The govt. is not going to snoop on every TD&H's blackberry but if it has information on criminals, it should be able to discretely monitor them.
On Thursday 01 July 2010 23:09:20 Rony wrote:
On Thursday 01 July 2010 04:51 PM, Nishit Dave wrote:
What do the informed Linuxers make of the Government threatening to clamp down on Blackberry, Skype, etc. again, unless they get a back door into the protocols?
I support it. If I was in the govt., I would not allow these services to start itself, without access to the protocol. Foreign companies comply with strict laws in developed nations and try to arm twist their way in developing ones assuming everyone to be up for sale.
Tightly bound by equally strict laws on snooping.
The govt. is not going to snoop on every TD&H's blackberry but if it has information on criminals, it should be able to discretely monitor them.
If it has information on criminals, It can act on such info within the more than adequate existing laws, including ordering a foreign company to provide details. Most of the time the GOI fails miserably on these phishing expeditions. Governments are always angling for more snooping powers and without exception misuse them. While the developed countries get shafted for such misuse, we do not have recourse to such luxuries. gitmo held "very important" security suspects. The vast majority of those are busy suing the US and UK governments. The last inquiry by a UK commission has told the government to bargain and accept a settlemnt, as a court case will be even more damaging to the government.
Take the case of the Bhatkal "terrorist". The government went on a phising expedition by trying to include the persons name in a case for which an FIR is already filed and the person not being mentioned anywhere at all.
Surveillance requires extremely specific information, not reading the whole worlds emails.
On Thursday 01 July 2010 11:33 PM, jtd wrote:
On Thursday 01 July 2010 23:09:20 Rony wrote:
The govt. is not going to snoop on every TD&H's blackberry but if it has information on criminals, it should be able to discretely monitor them.
If it has information on criminals, It can act on such info within the more than adequate existing laws, including ordering a foreign company to provide details.
True but if the protocol is available directly, it spends less time asking for it during an urgency.
Most of the time the GOI fails miserably on these phishing expeditions. Governments are always angling for more snooping powers and without exception misuse them. While the developed countries get shafted for such misuse, we do not have recourse to such luxuries. gitmo held "very important" security suspects. The vast majority of those are busy suing the US and UK governments. The last inquiry by a UK commission has told the government to bargain and accept a settlemnt, as a court case will be even more damaging to the government.
True.
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jtd -
Nishit Dave -
Rony