Comment by jwtadvice | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jwtadvice | Hacker News Reader

How did the Snowden Disclosures get completely dismissed by this report? US intelligence has been backdooring social and messaging apps for mass surveillance and propaganda (e.g. Zunzuneo) for decades.

Internet freedom was only a short, small blip of possibility. It died decades ago when control was consolidated into regulated corporations, its companies were infiltrated by intelligence personnel, and when modern communications became a specific military target (with UK and US leading the charge).

This story doesn't offer solutions (I get that it's not trying to). Rather, it repudiates specific countries for specific decisions while giving others a free pass for their own unsavory behavior.

It's cute that their map shows the former Soviet Union as "not free" and the former American Cold War strategic assets as "free" - but this cute glib approach to assessment is backed by a severe lack of security analysis and a severe lack of reasonable acknowledgement of basic facts.

Here's an approach: encourage technology whose transparency and control is centered in individuals & cede top-down influence over the networks of those individuals and their technology as much as is technically possible.

Don't like that solution? Well, you're in for a ride called "waning internet freedom". Color the map however you want. But appropriating the free software movement into some military geopolitical nonsense loses you credibility.

> It's cute that their map shows the former Soviet Union as "not free" and the former American Cold War strategic assets as "free"

Very good point. I think anyone interested in how "Free" press is used and how un-free it usually is, should read Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. Hate them or love them, they provide a very good examples that are documented of "free" media bias.

My favorite example is CNN recently. I think they at some point dropped the pretense and sunk to levels lower than what Fox has been considered. My favorite recent example is of course Chris Cuomo from CNN who said "...it is illegal to possess these stolen documents. It is different from the media. So everything you learn about this, you are learning from us." That is such a brilliant example of what is happening.

The only question there to ask is why be so blatant and desperate about censorship. And I think the answer is because they got desperate. They realized they lost control.

As you say, and Snowden showed US govt has been using Tweeter and other such thing to control and conduct various operations. I am guessing the Arab Spring is a good recent example.

That would be this CNN clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X16_KzX1vE

And this is the best explanation for why he was wrong:

https://popehat.com/2016/10/17/no-it-is-not-illegal-to-read-...

As for why they would do that, well, they leaked the debate questions to Donna Brazille. And then she lied about it, saying they were modified. Anyone on here can go check the DKIM headers, they're both valid and they cover the body of the message providing cryptographic non-repudiation.

Yes! that's the one. For some reason I just really remembered it and in my mind it summarizes what "media" has become.

It has always been this way, but I guess it has recently hit new lows.

Except that you fell for the GP incompetence in geography.

The fact is that one should read everything very very carefully everywhere and try to just access bare facts and abandon everything that is purely a (journalist) opinion. It is very important to know bias of the source and understand that information is used to distort the understanding of the reality.

There are quite many people who think that they have escaped the misinformation field except they have been fallen for other carefully constructed reality.

> Except that you fell for the GP incompetence in geography.

Sorry, I didn't follow, what do you mean by "incompetence in geography?"

Here copy from my direct answer:

Large parts of former Soviet occupied and Warsaw Pact countries are marked either as not assessed or free. Except Russia along with Belarus (not free) and Ukraine (partially free, well, except Crimea, that is at the moment Russian annexed, but probably marked after Ukraine, or vice versa).

Sorry about the confusion.

Ok valid point. I didn't verify that because it wasn't a central part of the argument.

However note, you also missed other parts like Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaidjan? Was that intentional? I don't know, perhaps saying "a majority of post-Soviet states have been labeled by Freedom House as having press freedom issues" is not that controversial?

The original discussion diverged into something else that basically say even "free" press doesn't mean what people think it means. And I brought CNN as an example?

It was not intentional, I just forgot those, more or less, I could not comment if these are correctly classified or not, but these countries are quite authoritarian, so possibly they are.

I believe that it is important to understand that in most cases news =/ objective truth. There is always some bias and it is very important to know this bias for every source.

Well, to be clear it probably is illegal to read for those with clearance. e.g. SF-312

It wouldn't be criminal, but it's certainly possible to receive a civil contract enforcement action.

> Well, to be clear it probably is illegal to read for those with clearance. e.g. SF-312

But do you think that is why he said that?

Agreed.

In the article the important thing is not freedom, but having facebook, twitter, google and other American companies restricted or not.

Given that after 9-11 free pass on the US gobertment directly controlling those companies in the name of security, the people using those products are not that free at all.

We need decentralization, we need trusting our hardware does not betray, report and inform to the overlords, that would be real freedom.

> the US gobertment directly controlling those companies in the name of security

[citation needed]

The OP is wrong.

The US _indirectly_ controls its corporations. It certainly forces its vassal companies to comply but does it by bartering public policy for private favors, by a revolving door of shared administration, by strategic alignment, and with monetary payouts.

Direct control is not something that the US government thinks is healthy to the long term efficiency of its power. It is much better to direct the ambitions and creativity of power aspirants to fulfill state objectives than it is to consume and directly run parts of industry.

For the layman in America there is hardly a difference in terms of opportunity or freedom between these two besides wild and fascinated imaginings that somehow, someday, they might wake up in this elite professional class of power broker - similar to the daydreams of poor people in pre-modern Europe simulating themselves as members of royal family.

This system of state-directed competition and macroeconomic investment ("dirigisme") was discovered in Europe around the 1920s, popularized by the Nazi Party in Germany, and adopted around the world by power hungry and competitive states that were looking for alternatives to the extremes of laizze faire and state-directed communism.

It would be cool if the OP has some examples of industries that were temporarily taken over by powerbrokers on K Street, but broadly - it isn't how the power relationship works in America.

Room 641A is a good example. One of many, actually.

> propaganda (e.g. Zunzuneo)

Here's a more recent example of the US government creating propaganda abroad and covertly embedding it into the local media:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/us-government-pentag...

> It's cute that their map shows the former Soviet Union as "not free" and the former American Cold War strategic assets as "free"

What is not true.

Large parts of former Soviet occupied and Warsaw Pact countries are marked either as not assessed or free. Except Russia along with Belarus (not free) and Ukraine (partially free, well, except Crimea, that is at the moment Russian annexed, but probably marked after Ukraine, or vice versa).

I think that the even more serious problem we face is that most people are distancing themselves from the reality and are falling into some lalaland where the reason is a very weak argument.

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