

Blowback from the NSA surveillance. - teawithcarl
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/blowback_from_t.html

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furyg3
When I wrote my representative, this point is what I stressed.

Strong privacy protections will become a competitive advantage for nations
going forward, and the US will lose business if they maintain the right to spy
on 'foreign' communications which pass through their network (or don't).

Many Americans and EU citizens alike would probably pay extra for services
which are incorporated and hosted in countries with strong, enforced privacy
regulations. Some organisations may be _required_ to use services with strong
privacy protections located outside of the US.

~~~
leoc
Part of the reason that people from around the world are keen to put their
money into US property, and thus to contribute _significantly_ to the wealth
of the US, is because they justifiably believe that their US property rights
have some real and effective protection based in _law_ , not just the good
intentions of the US government. When they figure out that their US cloud data
has no similar protection, it's likely to have adverse consequences for the US
over time.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5853380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5853380)
(The situation with "upstream collection" of data passing though US telcos is
less clear-cut, and in any case there's SSL for that - it's the PRISM "direct
collection" which most demands attention.)

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Loic
The last sentence is very true, but what makes me really sad is that the
consequences of this leak is that at least in Germany and UK, the government
look for ways to fast-track the same kind of surveillance system. They want
the same thing for themselves!

~~~
greyman
Yes, that's right. I wonder whether Snowden could foresee this consequence of
the leaks.

It's obvious - the countries which possess such technologies will have big
advantage over countries which do not, so they have no other option as to
pursue the same capabilities.

The only other possibility would be for the Internet to "reinvent itself" to
provide true privacy and anonymity, but that is probably not doable.

~~~
dllthomas
My understanding is that the contractors that built this capability are
selling it internationally anyway. The only thing that's US-specific or
surprising about the system is its interaction with our particular laws and
particular rights, which it doesn't need to pretend to respect in other
regimes.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
Kind of takes the piss out of the argument that we have to keep all of this a
secret for "national security"

~~~
dllthomas
Shhhh.

------
richardlblair
Last night I was talking to a friend.

Instead of using Skype we used mumble hosted on a server he controls, over
SSL.

The repercussions of this will be huge. It is an international mess. I'm
Canadian, and now I find myself concerned and wondering how I can, if I can,
secure my communications.

------
qwerta
Rumors about Echolon were around since 1980ties. There were dozen cases that
confirms surveillance over last 10 years. And most governments know about this
already, they have similar project or were part of it.

So nothing is going to change. Nobody will use PGP because "it is too hard".
Everyone will stay on Facebook. And soon networks like Tor will get shutdown .
And cryptography will become illegal word-wide (already is in UK). Welcome to
21st century.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
sorry, cryptography is illegal in the UK? Huh?

~~~
DuskStar
If I remember correctly, you can be ordered to decrypt any suspected illegal
data on or travelling from your computer. Even ignoring the fact that the only
difference between a 2GB file of random noise and a 2GB AES-TwoFish file is
that the latter decrypts with the right password, (and thus if ordered to
decrypt the first you're kinda SOL) this law includes SSL connections, for
which the key is not known to you. There were some articles about the law on
HN a couple months back after it was proposed, and I think it managed to pass.
Again, AFAIK.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
do you have any links?

~~~
DuskStar
One from Falkvinge (first hit on google), responding about as you'd expect
[1], and a link to the actual law [2]. It doesn't make encryption illegal, it
just makes it illegal to not produce the key on demand. You can decide which
is worse.

1\. [http://falkvinge.net/2012/07/12/in-the-uk-you-will-go-to-
jai...](http://falkvinge.net/2012/07/12/in-the-uk-you-will-go-to-jail-not-
just-for-encryption-but-for-astronomical-noise-too/)

2\.
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/section/53](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/section/53)

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greyman
>> The revelations that have emerged will undoubtedly trigger a reaction
abroad as policymakers and ordinary users realize the huge disadvantages of
their dependence on U.S.-controlled networks in social media, cloud computing,
and telecommunications, and of the formidable resources that are deployed by
U.S. national security agencies to mine and monitor those networks. <<

I think the author doesn't go far enough, and it should read "users realize
the huge disadvantages of their dependence on ANY PUBLIC networks". It doesn't
matter if it is [directly] U.S.-controlled or not, since other networks are
controlled by their respective gov. agencies in that particular countries [or
soon will be], and the data can be traded/exchanged.

It seems to me this is a trouble for the whole Internet [or soon will be];
it's not U.S.-specific problem.

------
alan_cx
"We can't fight for Internet freedom around the world, then turn around and
destroy it back home. Even if we don't see the contradiction, the rest of the
world does."

Er, how is unregulated spying on non-Americans, fighting for internet freedom
around the world?

I take internet freedom to mean the USA has the world wide freedom to spy on
non people.... sorry, non Americans.

The blow back I would start worrying about is if the countries or the likes of
the EU start walling off the internet, sort of like China, to keep American
spying out. I now wonder if the Chinese firewall is as much about internal
control as it is defensive.

American actually risks the break up of the internet as one single thing,
unless it begins to respect people who are not American.

~~~
angersock
The Internet has faired pretty fucking well under American custody in the past
two decades. Let's not be at a rush to discount this fact in the face of the
leaks.

For better or worse, the US still seems to have probably the most progressive
stance on general freedom of speech and tolerance in the world. This is
perhaps the last example of nationalism to which I think tech folks can
subscribe honestly.

~~~
jivatmanx
The most progressive? Really?

Yes, we're better than China, but pretty far from the leader.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index)

The U.S. is the most important nation in terms of it's historical importance
to freedom in the world, but it's been decades since it's been considered an
example to emulate, in terms of either the electoral and political process, or
rule of law based in natural rights.

~~~
angersock
A red herring, my friend. From your link:

 _" The questionnaire asks questions about pluralism, media independence,
environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and
infrastructure. The questionnaire takes account of the legal framework for the
media (including penalties for press offences, the existence of a state
monopoly for certain kinds of media and how the media are regulated) and the
level of independence of the public media. It also reflects violations of the
free flow of information on the Internet. Violence against journalists,
netizens, and media assistants, including abuses attributable to the state,
armed militias, clandestine organizations, and pressure groups, are monitored
by RSF staff during the year and are also part of the final score."_

So, a whole bunch of other things are rolled into that--least of which is some
ill-defined internet component.

I know that it is very popular to bash on the US--often with very good reason!
--for its press. Fact is, we did this to ourselves. Fact is, we stopped paying
for newspapers that did good reporting. Fact is, we promoted and supported the
rise of media moguls and conglomerates that helped stifle solid journalism.
That was us, not some secret government cabal.

The US is pretty hands-off with regards to the 'net, especially with regards
to free speech that others may find offensive: contrast us with the way many
European nations seem to feel about hate speech or libel.

The only things I'd actively hold that we do incorrectly about the 'net is the
ICE domain seizures and massive data-mining of communications.

Then again, we again see that the private sector is more than happy to vacuum
up personal details. Thanks Google! Thanks Facebook! Thanks marketing firms!

Yet again, we do the worst of this to ourselves.

~~~
irishcoffee
It boggles my mind how people don't understand the point you're making here.

------
contingencies
On the phrase _new internet nationalism_ I would like to point out I snuck in
the nominal country of 'AA' to an IETF internet standards draft recently to
informally establish it as a potential touchpoint/alias for the internet at
large.

 _IIBAN subsumes the position of National Numbering Authority (NNA) for the
nominal [ISO3166] 'nation' of AA (the Internet) in order to provide a
financial endpoint registrar service for the internet community._
[https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-stanish-
iiban-01](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-stanish-iiban-01)

It's pretty token at this point, but I would be thrilled to see others pick
this up and run with it! (PS: New revision of that draft out soon.)

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abdulhaq
I wish Bruce was right, but the interception of so much internet traffic is
hugely valuable to the US (not just security but commercial spying too).
Therefore it will use all the leverage it can with its trade treaties etc to
lean on sufficient countries that it will maintain if not escalate its control
of the main internet routing systems.

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ianstallings
The problem they'll notice will be the slide in demand for our software and
internet services. We'll get hit in the wallet and they'll wake up. Because
the US loves a lot of stuff. But money always come first.

