Edward Snowden....what do you think?

[Aada]

That is the weakest piece of shit I've ever read in all my years on this forum, even when it was Barrysworld.

Your views are religious. Your intellect follows the same line of bullshit sheeplike dogma.

Why do you assume I am as bent about this stuff as you?

 

[Aada]

Protect us from the truth?


Anyway. I've been waiting before posting in the hope that Ctuchik and Aada would turn up in the thread unprompted and comment on these developments. Unsurprisingly they haven't.

Why? My wager is that they're dumb enough and trusting enough to be as blinkered to crimes of the state as the religious are to the crimes of the orthodoxy.

I'll go back to this, I didn't make an unprompted comment because I do not care, I came here a month ago gave my opinion on Snowden and that was that, since then I have got on with a busy life, accept that and move on.

 

[Scouse]

Why do you assume I am as bent about this stuff as you?

I don't. You clearly aren't - and that in itself is the problem.

I don't know how old you are, maybe it's simply youth and an upbringing in a world where you're unaware of what we're losing as a society and what we've already lost.

Maybe you're the proverbial animal born in captivity unable to even see the bars it lives behind because it knows no better?


If that's the case you have my pity (want it or not). You also repulse me because that sort of unquestioning thinking, that obedient method of thought, that type of human, allows atrocities to go unchecked.

History is proof of this.

 

[Aada]

I don't. You clearly aren't - and that in itself is the problem.

I don't know how old you are, maybe it's simply youth and an upbringing in a world where you're unaware of what we're losing as a society and what we've already lost.

Maybe you're the proverbial animal born in captivity unable to even see the bars it lives behind because it knows no better?


If that's the case you have my pity (want it or not). You also repulse me because that sort of unquestioning thinking, that obedient method of thought, that type of human, allows atrocities to go unchecked.

History is proof of this.

Go find someone else to argue with and get your views across, from the looks of this thread anyone that has disagreed with your views, you've had a go at them.

 

[Scouse]

Go find someone else to argue with and get your views across, from the looks of this thread anyone that has disagreed with your views, you've had a go at them.

It's called argument - and at least I've got the decency to provide reasoning. To provide examples and attempt to provoke debate.

You've just gone "la la la, I think this. What? no! I'm so full of myself I don't need justification for my views".

 

[Scouse]

Come on then Chosen, what's your take on the article?

 

[Chosen]

I want beer and boobs

 

[Raven]

He reported a crime to the only people that will listen, now the perpetrators of that crime are after him. You don't report a robbery to the local drug dealer do you? Who else except the media should he have reported this crime to?

 

[bainteor]

The world is not fair, there will always be corruption and evil. What can we do? Nothing. We should just live our lives and be thankful that countries such as America, rather than countries like North Korea, are pulling the strings in this world.

 

[Aoami]

Whilst I was not surprised by the NSA/PRISM revelations, I heard a quote from Mirandas lawyer on the radio this morning that sung to me. Paraphrasing here - "Democracy is based on a balance of power between a government and it's people. The balance of power shifts too far away from the people when a man can not blow the whistle on his government without fear of punishment."

 

[TdC]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnMPQmIPibE&feature=player_detailpage

 

[Raven]

I remember when everyone joked about windows having backdoors.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23981291

 

[rynnor]

What about the rumoured flaw on the RSA encryption algorithm - thats fundamental to nearly all modern encryption.

 

[Chilly]

People work out flaws in it every now and then. They tend to have the affect of removing a couple of bits from a key, thus reducing the search space required for more conventional attacks. Ie, you go from having 2^2048 to 2^2045 brute searches. Don't get me wrong, that ^3 is HUGE, but the resulting key space is still also ludicrously huge. Having said all that, who really knows what the sons and daughters of Bletchley are capable of these days. Back in the day, some ex post office kit and a couple of maths grads took down the Nazis. We've got better maths and better kit now.

 

[rynnor]

People work out flaws in it every now and then. They tend to have the affect of removing a couple of bits from a key, thus reducing the search space required for more conventional attacks. Ie, you go from having 2^2048 to 2^2045 brute searches. Don't get me wrong, that ^3 is HUGE, but the resulting key space is still also ludicrously huge.

It does have these little issues and lots of bad implementations but the rumour is that the spooks have a mathematical trick that renders it pretty much useless.

 

[TdC]

tbh I don't think they have holes in the algos; I think they simply have the private keys. every US based cert authority will prolly hand them over on pain of death / being branded a filty red / reasons

 

[TdC]

well whaddayaknow 0o

http://www.lapsedordinary.net/2013/09/23/how-the-nsa-cheated-cryptography/

 

[rynnor]

As I said it's been rumoured for some years now but then most such rumours are based on paranoia...

 

[Chilly]

As I said it's been rumoured for some years now but then most such rumours are based on paranoia...

It's not paranoid if they are actually watching you.

 

[rynnor]

It's not paranoid if they are actually watching you.

Indeed but for every paranoid fantasy that turns out true there are a million crazy ones.

 

[Scouse]

Indeed but for every paranoid fantasy that turns out true there are a million crazy ones.

Or the million are true too but we just have no proof.

 

[Raven]

Most are bollocks that help muddy the water to cover up the true ones.

 

[Ormorof]

well there have been too many "oh they are just a bunch of nutters" cases that have turned out true in the last decade or so

americans and brits torturing people in prisons in Iraq? nah thats just nutjob iranian propaganda... oh wait

americans blowing up kids with drones, nah they would never do that... oh wait

brits spying on french and german diplomats during EU trade talks, nah they would never do that... oh wait

companies all over europe producing illegal meat products and selling it as Beef? naaah...

from holding people without trial or charges as "Detainees" to "Detaining" journalists in airports not to mention the other absurdly criminal things western governments are up to they should have lost the benefit of the doubt in most cases now but somehow are clinging on.

it amused me no end to see John Kerry harping on about international laws a few weeks ago when the whole syria chemical weapons thing kicked off considering just how often the US ignores these laws and isnt even signed up to quite a few of the major ones regarding human rights and war crimes

 

[TdC]

you're only a filthy criminal if you get caught!

 

[Ju[iaN]

Nothing he revealed was in any way surprising or new, frankly. I think he's some self centred prick who wants attention and broke the US version of the secrets act. It's fun to poke fun at governments but let's face it: absolutely nothing will change except the penalties for this kind of thing. What happened after the diplomatic cable leaks? Nothing. Same here, guaranteed.

but now, no-one can deny it. Imagine you came a year ago talking about the NSA being able to backup the whole internet traffic and that most of the western governments are collaborating with it ... you would have been taken for some wierdos conspiracy theorist flying everyday in his UFO with Elvis and 2Pac... At least we know now that we're being tracked for our so called safety and that our data is kept forever on servers (ex: facebook where nothing is really deleted..)

We're being f*****, at least we know it.. feel the pain there behind? ; )

 

[Chilly]

but now, no-one can deny it. Imagine you came a year ago talking about the NSA being able to backup the whole internet traffic and that most of the western governments are collaborating with it ... you would have been taken for some wierdos conspiracy theorist flying everyday in his UFO with Elvis and 2Pac... At least we know now that we're being tracked for our so called safety and that our data is kept forever on servers (ex: facebook where nothing is really deleted..)

We're being f*****, at least we know it.. feel the pain there behind? ; )

I'm not following you. I knew that before Mr Snowdon turned up. I knew FB et all keep everything for ever. Read their usage agreements, it tells you. I knew GCHQ sits on a bitstream of most UK and a large portion of international traffic. Honestly my outlook on the world has only got worse because now that this is widely known those in charge have not changed one single policy, or even mentioned that they might be interested in doing so.

 

[Ju[iaN]

I'm not following you. I knew that before Mr Snowdon turned up. I knew FB et all keep everything for ever. Read their usage agreements, it tells you. I knew GCHQ sits on a bitstream of most UK and a large portion of international traffic. Honestly my outlook on the world has only got worse because now that this is widely known those in charge have not changed one single policy, or even mentioned that they might be interested in doing so.

Yup, but at least, you're taken as weirdo when you speak about this things, now we have the evidence of that and if it was something that "everybody knew" that wouldn't have created this mess. It's not changing as you (or me) would like it to change (google "family bag pack pot police raid boston" the first article is a demonstration of how wrong it is going)
but now it's public, most don't give a flying F, but still, change is there, on a smaller scale, more people are aware...

 

[Ju[iaN]

and then you discover that the economical crisis was prepared 16 years ago google "larry summers and the secret end game memo" on Vice and you'll fall down from your chair..

damn, some people will start to ask question about the 11/09 attacks soon.. ahahaha

 

[Scouse]

I knew that before Mr Snowdon turned up.

No you didn't. You had a good idea, but you didn't have evidence.

my outlook on the world has only got worse because now that this is widely known those in charge have not changed one single policy, or even mentioned that they might be interested in doing so.

Your outlook on the world has become more accurate. Without accurate information you cannot make informed decisions or hold informed opinions. Snowden has made you a better human being!


Aanyway - the fallout from this has been entirely positive. There's huge pressure on the US from the public and external governments now that wasn't there before. Even if "us" sort of people had a good idea that this was going on and have had our suspicions confirmed - a lot have been genuinely shocked by this.

Raising the level of public consciousness above that of an ignorant child as to what governments are doing the world over is a good thing.

The price of peace is eternal vigilence? Maybe. But if that is true then it means just as much for the public to be able to hold their governments to account as their governments to hold others to account.

 

[Chilly]

Plenty of people are shocked, but nothing will change.