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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

From the article: "The I.T. expert said the crime lord also asked him to install spyware called FlexiSPY on the “special phones” he had given to his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, as well as to two of his lovers, including one who was a former Mexican lawmaker. ... Mr. Rodriguez also gave the (FBI) the user names and passwords of Mr. Guzmán’s FlexiSPY accounts, allowing agents to read — almost in real time — the intimate and incriminating texts he sent his romantic partners."

Right there is one of the best arguments to make against backdoors. If you put in a backdoor for yourself, someone else may use it, too. This example will get that across to CEOs and politicians.

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It was a pretty common occurrence in medieval times to start a war, buy an army of mercenaries, miscalculate something, not be able to pay them their salaries, get conquered by your own mercenaries.

The conclusion people got from this was "make sure you pay your mercenaries on time", and not "don't start wars".

I'm honestly not sure it will get that across. The common mindset always for those pushing for these kinds of backdoors is that _they_ are the ones who will be the sole beneficiaries of it. They either fail to accept (or ignore) that something being protected solely by policy is not the same level of protection as something truly impossible.

The world doesn’t change by “getting things across” to CEOs and politicians. If a CEO’s enlightenment gets int the way of his fiduciary responsibilities, he will simple be replaced.

It’s about systems, not Great Men.

People make the system. The CEO. The board. Your local city council. Your federal representatives. There is no smart contract, there is no code that evaluates the rules obediently without interpretation. Just people.

Personally i'm with you on that. Unfortunately cold objective science says different:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory

"In terms of its effects, a system can be more than the sum of its parts if it expresses synergy or emergent behavior. "

On a micro scale, yes. On a macro scale, it's easy to see that even the higher ups are just players in a bigger game, the rules of which they did not make. But the most successful ones (according to a specific definition of success) play the game well.

This is reductive. Systems are not merely sums of their parts (people): they have emergent properties.

Systems don’t change because people as individuals decide to do things differently. That’s not sociology, that’s just individualism. Unfortunately(?) there is no way to avoid analysis at the systemic level. Neither individuals nor “smart contracts” can get around that.

And yet ... there's a tremendous degree of variety between and among people, but it seems that certain archetypes tend to emerge time and time again in specific positions of power and authority, including in business and politics.

One simply has to wonder if these systems either select for or change those they come in contact with. Which would then point to a systemic rather than individual responsibility role.

How do you affect change in systems if not by applying pressure and leverage against elements in the system?

You apply pressure to the system. Not just elements (individuals?) that make up the system. The most enlightened human being could become a CEO (insert your favorite mythical person) of an oil/coal company; they would still simply be fired if they didn’t do their job.

See especially Donella Meadows "12 Leverage Points":

12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards)

11. The size of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows

10. Structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport network, population age structures)

9. Length of delays, relative to the rate of system changes

8. Strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the effect they are trying to correct against

7. Gain around driving positive feedback loops

6. Structure of information flow (who does and does not have access to what kinds of information)

5. Rules of the system (such as incentives, punishment, constraints)

4. Power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure

3. Goal of the system

2. Mindset or paradigm that the system — its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters — arises from

1. Power to transcend paradigms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points

Note that "members of the system" doesn't even make the list.

This is cool. I'll note that "members of a system", implying individual focus, is a slight straw man of my argument, which is that elements such as "CEOs" or "boardmembers" could be incentivized with new knowledge. 5 and 4 seem relevant--new risks cause companies to restructure their processes all the time, it seems like making clear that backdoors can pose direct risks can cause systemic change.

So did this man commit a crime against people on behalf of the drug man, and then the FBI became co conspirators to th crime? Or did they seek some sort of warrant?

From this article https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/01/09/El-Chapo-jurors-r...

"FBI Agent Steven Marston said the agency obtained warrants to intercept hundreds of text messages from 2012 via the spyware Guzman installed on the phones of his wife Emma Coronel Aispuro, associates and purported mistress Augustina Cabanillas Acosta, The Los Angeles Times reported."

The US warrants can protect against wrongs in the US, but mean little outside the us. If we look too closely we can probably find some illegality somewhere, but everyone is now in the US and will probably never leave. Given the case, i doubt any country will speak up about the fbi tapping the phones of drug dealers outside the us.

But do the same for political or trade reason and yes, they will cry foul.

Funny enough, but this reminds me almost exactly of what I was asked to do while working for an Asian husband and wife duo.

I'm not Asian, but am curious to know why the word Asian is relevant in your post?

Perhaps it refers to geography rather than ethnicity?

Because detail is how we bring stories to life. Otherwise all of our statements would be “I did a thing with a person.”

“Funny enough, but this reminds me almost exactly of what I was asked to do while working for a White husband and wife duo.”

“Funny enough, but this reminds me almost exactly of what I was asked to do while working for a Jewish husband and wife duo.”

I guess it does add more detail.

Some details are merely descriptive. Others have a history of being associated with discrimination in some form.

Unless race is relevant to the story, it should be omitted. I’m sure there are plenty of other details about the couple that could be mentioned if you need to spice up the story.

"this reminds me almost exactly of what I was asked to do while working for a short guy and his wife."

"What do you have against short men?"

It's about as meaningful as "a couple that had a red toothbrush," unless you want to make something from a word as nebulous as 'Asian.'

There's no life to the story, it's to vague to even parse. Who was eavesdropping on who? Both on each other? A mutually distrustful relationship? How much was the pay, what were the stipulations? Does 'duo' imply they work together?

Oh well, at least I know they're Asian.

Even funnier, this reminds me when my white boss asked me if I could hack into his white wife’s email. I told him I couldn’t. I’m also white.

Should've hired an Asian hacker.

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