

A Conversation with Edward Snowden at HOPE X [video] - etiam
http://new.livestream.com/internetsociety/hopex1/videos/57007569

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droopybuns
The contrast of perspectives between Ellsburg's plea for the moral imperatives
for leaking and Snowden's resistance to shaming those who don't leak was
really interesting.

It seems like Ellsburg had developed a real contempt for all of us in America
until Manning and Snowden came along.

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acqq
There was no Ellsburg there, but

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

A great guy, you should read about his life. Or even easier, watch "The Most
Dangerous Man in America" documentary (cca 90 min).

~~~
mcb3k
Are you giving him flak for misspelling Ellsberg? Because otherwise Daniel
Ellsberg was the keynote speaker at HOPE X (which the keynote was right before
Snowden's talk), and was the one asking the questions to Snowden.

~~~
acqq
Of course I know that Ellsberg was asking the questions and I am aware of the
keynote. For me, the misspelling of the name and the dubious and trollish
claim of the "contempt for all of us in America" don't appear like written by
somebody who even understands what Ellsberg actually did. I can write
"citation needed" since Ellsberg definitely hasn't expressed "contempt for all
of us in America" but then we're dancing to the troll's tune.

Instead, I really suggest learning more about Ellsberg, it's definitely worth,
in my opinion.

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droopybuns
Eek. I didn't intend to sound trollish. I was on a mobile earlier and it
didn't encourage great eloquence.

I greatly admire Ellsberg's courage and moral consistency.

~~~
acqq
Thanks a lot for the explanation droopybuns. Do see the documentary once, I'd
be interested to know your impression on it.

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droopybuns
Is there anywhere I can download it? seems like it is physical media only. no
itunes, no netflix...

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acqq
I don't know of any way to pay to watch it on-line directly. I guess to
support the producers at this moment you'd have to order the DVD. I have an
impression that the film can still be found on-line with the search engines,
some place where some user posted it on some video platform and it's still not
removed, but I haven't actually tried.

Yes, somebody should also suggest to the producers to make the film available
for on-line purchases (I'm too lazy to be that somebody this time).

You can read the DVD reviews on amazon.com to get the idea how people respond
to it. Amazon sells the DVD cheaper than the official site.

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dobbsbob
If Snowden ever does get a trial, they won't prosecute him for anything he
leaked to avoid his justifiable defense. He admitted transporting classified
docs to China that were never released because the information did not involve
illegal surveillance. They can put him away for life just for admitting to
mishandling top secret data regardless if he released it or not. Pretty sure
there are clear rules on storing that data and none include taking it on
laptops to China encrypted by software likely not approved. He can never come
back because of talking too much to the media, all that can be used against
him

Watch this [http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc](http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc) then
imagine you are a federal prosecutor tasked with prosecuting Snowden. Go
through all his interviews and find crimes he admitted to not related to the
200k docs he sent to journalists to prevent any defense. Bonus points find
inconsistent statements you can manipulate to claim he is a liar to further
wash away any defense. Automated tools to grab indiscriminate secret docs,
illegal transportation, tons of potential crimes there based on his own
admissions alone.

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davej
I'm not familiar with the whistleblower act but Snowden could legitimately
argue that they were necessary steps towards "blowing the whistle". Snowden
did not have the professional experience to be able to decide what information
was safe to publish and in the public interest — so the responsible thing to
do would be to present the documents to a professional while taking
precautions to secure the data.

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josho
Your point is logically correct, but the grandparent is right as to what would
happen in the real world.

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marvin
Which is actually really scary, when you think about it! Because sidestepping
the law when someone in power has been embarassed is the thing that
totalitarian states do. Democracies under the rule of law are supposed to
follow the spirit of the law. So maybe that's worth thinking about.

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adnsr
The big difference between the two is, that Edward Snowden realized that a
positive vision is needed. Full respect for whistleblowing, but people need an
alternative vision of society they can work towards. I would like to see more
Hackers follow this approach of inspiring people to use technology to empower
people. I mean we all know that evil things happen, so there is no point in
repeating it all the time. The majority of people won't care. Especially here
in germany the focus is way too much on influencing the world by talking. What
Edward says goes in the right direction, but the vision is still too biased
towards privacy concerned people. It's not about making encryption more
accessable, it's about building great products people want to use and building
encryption in as a byproduct. Lets take socialnetworks for example: Facebook
is highly addictive, but without real value for the consumers. They don't want
to connect the world, they want to generate adrevenue. It should be possible
to build a platform where communication happens in a less perverted, self-
centered way with encryption added on.

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Canada
Surveillance will occur to the extent that we allow it to. Spies gonna spy. If
we have a problem with that then we have to learn to secure our devices and we
need to deploy user friendly end to end encryption for the masses. And we need
trustworthy, open implementations of critical infrastructure... baseband
(software radios, mobile protocols), drivers, etc.

It's 2014 and I still can't get an decent open source workgroup switch let
alone a complete cell phone and base station to go with it. ASOP, OpenBTS, and
the Wedge are encouraging, but none of these are enough.

Anyone remember the anti-sec movement? Well, they got what they wanted. Nobody
discloses anything good for free anymore. Pretty much all the 0 day is now in
the hands of established power, just another tool of control in their
increasingly well equipped tool belts. The rest of us are either completely
defenseless, or mostly defenseless and paying by the hour. I hope they're
happy with how it's all turned out.

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Just-A-Guest
Livestream is blocking my access to this video (server error 500). Could
anybody please provide a download or a torrent link, thank you very much!

~~~
quite
Download from:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXFaU1TWRWk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXFaU1TWRWk)

~~~
Just-A-Guest
Thank you very much!

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dublinben
Does anyone find it slightly odd that Snowden was (quite obviously) joining
the presentation over a Google hangout? I suppose it's better than a Skype
call, but shouldn't he know better? I would expect him to insist on using
Jitsi or something similar, like Jacob Appelbaum does for his appearances.

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dllthomas
... because the NSA might be able to monitor his public broadcast?

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davej
Presumably they might be able to find the IP address he is using. It's very
likely that he's running it through a few layers of VPN/proxy/Tor though.

~~~
dllthomas
True, on both counts.

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k-mcgrady
I think the most interesting thing from this was his hint that he personally
might be working on software built to maintain the users privacy. He also
referred to SpiderOak (Dropbox competitor) and the "zero-knowledge" method.

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Create
We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question
whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with
the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States
government has led not only us but the world.

This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.

[http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html](http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html)

Surveillance is not an end toward totalitarianism, it is totalitarianism
itself.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/europe-24385999](http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/europe-24385999)

~~~
dreamweapon
_Surveillance is not an end toward totalitarianism, it is totalitarianism
itself._

That's quite an oversimplification.

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cryoshon
Surveillance provides knowledge.

Knowledge is power.

Also oversimplified, but I'm pretty sure that's the line of reasoning. I'm not
convinced that it's wrong.

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krapp
But if you work from the premise that if totalitarianism is evil, and an
inevitable function of power, which itself is an inevitable function of
knowledge, then you've proven that knowledge is fundamentally evil, haven't
you?

There may be some dimension of truth here but i'm not entirely sure the
premise does more good than harm.

~~~
nitrogen
You're missing an important qualifier: "concentrated"

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pinpoll
We asked our community if Edward is either a "Traitor or Hero" \- a stunning
72.85 % think the latter :)
[https://pinpoll.net/poll/1804](https://pinpoll.net/poll/1804)

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dbrian
The two aren't mutually exclusive. He's kind of like Batman. He might operate
outside of the law but he's a hero to the people and fights corruption in the
system.

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pinpoll
Solid points, dbrian! Also reminds me of Julian Assange.

And the lesson I took from my comment: never ever post a link to your own
website (even if there's relevant content behind it), people here seem to
immediately think of spam and downvote :(

