Comment by benjamincburns | Hacker News Reader

Comment by benjamincburns | Hacker News Reader

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First, thanks for recommending Steven Levy's Crypto. It's a historical account that I think more hackers need to read.

I'm probably on the hairy edge of the "young readers" you've mentioned. I'm 27. My present view on the recent NSA leaks is a distinct lack of outrage, but watching this huge response I can't help but feel the whoosh as something big flies straight over my head.

I've agreed to use technology which by its very nature monitors my activity in all kinds of ways. As a software engineer who does a lot of web work and dabbles in cell-enabled embedded systems, I understand and I'm fully aware of most of the ways I'm being monitored. Maybe I'm naïve to think of the recent data sharing between corporations and government as a non-issue, but if this is such a big deal wasn't I just as naïve by allowing these corporations to collect this information in the first place?

This isn't the Clipper Chip or key escrow. This isn't the government grappling for an ear into conversations which nobody except Alice and Bob are intended to transceive. You could argue that were I Bob, Alice is the phone company, but I have no freaking clue who "the phone company" really is. To me it's just a faceless entity who I've allowed to collect data about me. I'm finding it hard to become angry over one faceless entity sharing said data with another faceless entity. And frankly, I have no clue if I've already agreed for this to happen because I don't really care. I expect them to share a ridiculous amount of information about me without abandon. I'd be far more upset if they were sharing content of actual conversations, but metadata feels firmly within the realm of what I expect to be slung around willy-nilly.

I agree that this reasoning is wholly a "death by a thousand cuts" brought on by more and more invasive technologies. As an anecdote, many Facebook early adopters will remember the outrage over the news feed when it was first launched. Now can you imagine the outrage that would ensue if Facebook were to take it away? We're pretty much begging for invasive technology in our lives. How do you propose to correct that? How do we get millions of people to "vote with their feet" against useful-but-invasive technologies?

It took thousands of years of human civilisation before we got relatively benign governments. Power structures are not inherently benign; they must constantly be pressured to prevent malignant people using them to leverage their actions.

A non-authoritarian government is an historical anomaly. It's a ball balanced on top of a hill, pushed there by the deaths of millions, and kept there by the vigilance of those who care.

Please start caring.

That is a beautiful metaphor. I mean that sincerely.

I care. If I didn't, I wouldn't have posted what I did.

But let me clarify. What I meant by the above is that by the recent leaks I feel like I've been photographed in a public place rather than in my bathroom. Further, I feel like I've given some degree of implied consent, or if I haven't, I would in order to keep using the technology that we all so enjoy. I offer these feelings as an anecdote to say that I think most people in my generation feel the same way.

As an aside, my feelings are similar but ultimately different from the "you don't have to worry if you have nothing to hide" argument. It's more "you don't have to worry about it if you've decided not to" with absolutely zero connotation as to what you as an individual should choose to do.

I do agree that this won't work for everybody. My grandmother probably doesn't know that cell base stations can, and do, log connections and RSSIs, making it easy for a cell phone company to know where you are whenever your phone's radio is reaching out in the most basic way. I don't think she has the information to make the kind of implied consent that I have. That definitely angers me.

You mention history. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to argue that government's ability to collect these data about us is actually preventing the kind of paranoia that brought about McCarthyism or Japanese internment. I'd imagine people in government today view these as horrible, crude, blunt instruments which mitigated tiny amounts of threat at huge irreparable cost. If we're going to have the paranoia, I'd rather they use surgeons tools and look before they leap.

That segues into my real concern. Paranoia. All of the activity discussed in these recent leaks stem from the same kind of paranoia that brought about the incredibly dark periods in our history which I mentioned above. How did we stop it those times? I think the answer is that we didn't. So how do we stop it now?

I care. I want to do something, but I love my country and I don't think paranoia can be battled with further paranoia or outrage. Sadly, I don't know the tools with which to fight.

If I could vote this up a thousand times, I would. Very nice metaphor.

You make what I believe is a fatal mistake of thinking that your individual efforts matter significantly one way or another. To suggest that any one person's level of care will impact the outcome of the US government is both disingenuous and frankly offensive to anyone who understands a modicum of statistics.

In other words, don't be so harsh on someone who doesn't think their individual vigilance is going to change the world. It is sufficient, morally speaking, to support a group who does your "caring" for you. Representative caring, you might call it.

If you want to suggest someone towards an activity, suggest the help a group that they believe in. But that draws the question, "What if there aren't any groups I believe in?" What do those truly in the minority do? Nothing is the answer to that question, because individuals mean nothing, and it leads to the following statement:

If you don't believe the same things a sufficiently large group of other people do, then your voice and your opinions don't effectively matter. How can you blame such a person for "not caring"?

If you're apathetic its because you don't know your history. For example, our government not that long ago locked up every Japanese-American they could find in prison camps. The government is entirely capable of doing terrible things. We should by principal only give them as much power/money/information as necessary and not an iota more. Being cynical and apathetic is a danger to you and your fellow Americans.

I wonder if that would be possible today with people being so connected. You can't disappear Americans without people noticing.

They weren't disappeared -- the American population was aware that it was happening, and there was a mix of support and opposition. The US Supreme Court in 1944 -- during the war -- voted 6 v 3 in Korematsu vs United States that it was a military necessity and, thus, Constitutional. Perhaps we would see stronger, more organized opposition today, but it wasn't hidden from the population.

The Japanese internment was not done in secret. Hell, the government advertised it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_for_Japanese-America...

I doubt that having twitter would have helped. The public knew and there was significant support for it.

Interesting related aspect of that dark point in history: "The United States Census Bureau assisted the internment efforts by providing confidential neighborhood information on Japanese Americans. The Bureau's role was denied for decades, but was finally proven in 2007.[11][12]"

"Nothing to hide" indeed...

You can't disappear Americans without people noticing.

Tell that to those 3 women in Cleveland who were kept against their will for years & years...

Oh, people noticed that they disappeared. There were all kinds of vigils in support of at least one of the women. (Apparently, the kidnapper was even at some of these. This in my mind was the most bizarre fact of the whole story.)

See my other comment in this thread.

I disagree very strongly that my position is apathetic. I'm conscious and alert to what's going on around me and my opinions are well-formed. Choosing not to be outraged isn't the same as apathy.

> I'm conscious and alert to what's going on around me and my opinions are well-formed.

Question that. The key to Andy Groves success.

Yeah, I probably was unwise to state that so conclusively. How about this?

"I try to have well-formed opinions and to be conscious and alert to what's going on around me."

I should have phrased that better, I think if you reexamine some history you will be more outraged

Like I said in my comment above, from my always-shrinking knowledge of history, battling institutionalized paranoia with individualized paranoia and outrage just escalates the problem. I'm not saying there's no problem here to fix; I believe quite the opposite. It's just that promoting anger and fear will get us nowhere.

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