
A Story of Surveillance (2007) - llamataboot
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/07/AR2007110700006.html
======
_delirium
When it comes to damage-reduction, I think the most immediate step going
forward that can be done on the side of the private sector is to stop
collecting, as much as possible, extensive profiles on people, _especially_
profiles that are, or easily can be, tied to their real identity. For those of
us who aren't doing so ourselves, we can pressure companies not to do so,
either those we work for, or those we interact with as customers. This can
either mean not collecting profiles at all, collecting limited ones only as
needed, and/or collecting them tied to pseudonyms rather than making use of
real-names mandatory or default.

I realize it can be commercially valuable to have such profiles when it comes
to things like targeting ads or financial instruments, but on the whole I
think the damage such data can do, if it exists, outweighs that justification.
To take a concrete example, the side of the internal Google+ "nymwars" who
were against the real-name requirement were right.

Of course, we should also work to keep corporate and government data
collection separate. But I fear that will be a longer-term struggle, in which
case an avenue to pursue simultaneously is to minimize corporate data-
collection.

~~~
youngerdryas
>I think the most immediate step going forward that can be done on the side of
the private sector is to stop collecting, as much as possible, extensive
profiles on people, especially profiles that are, or easily can be, tied to
their real identity.

So Google and Facebook should commit Seppuku?

~~~
_delirium
Google has been making large profits since long before Google+ even existed.
There's probably some incremental value in having real-name profiles tied to
data, but there's very large incremental harm as well, such that adding such
functionality is net-negative for society. A large number of Googlers have
made a similar argument, which is why the real-name policy was so
controversial; the argument was already pretty strong before the NSA
revelations, and is only stronger now.

Facebook is a trickier case. Their business model may simply be incompatible
with a non-surveillance society.

~~~
physicslover
I think the original idea of elimination of the collection of all private or
personal information by all companies is a bit extreme.

From what we have learned, these programs are quite broad involving everyone
from banking institutions to ISPs and telecoms.

Should banks do their business without knowing anything a about you, same for
credit reporting agencies?

Maybe, but that would be quite a shift from the way things are done today.

Also, I thought it was common knowledge that some type of digital surveillance
has been going on for some time.

My recollection is that the FBI was able to gain access to ISPs and use
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_\(software\))
to track emails.

If an individual is concerned with privacy they should probably take matters
into their own hands and use encryption, cash, bitcoin and other tools to
protect their identity and leave as little private information online as
possible.

------
jpdoctor
Relevant, started in 2002:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office)

------
reirob
I would be interested to see if Mr. Klein achieved something in his fight
against NSA's surveillance program. It was back in 2007 and now we have 2013.
Five years gone.

~~~
INTPenis
I'd say it's more likely his life is destroyed, I would love to know how he's
making a living today.

Either way, he's not the one who was supposed to have "achieved something" in
that battle, we were, the people should have reacted. They didn't, and they
won't this time either. Sorry but we're just too complacent with all our
luxuries and comforts.

~~~
zxcdw
For most individuals things like these don't matter afterall. It's a small
minority which even cares, so I don't really even wonder anymore.

Just mind your own business and avoid problems, that works the best for an
individual person. Sad but true.

------
frankydp
I am still pretty confused about how this community seems to not have known
these programs existed. It has been widely reported almost since inception.
Not to mention the broad record of previous land line recording programs.

~~~
waterphone
I'm getting tired of seeing comments like this everywhere, which serve little
use. Yes, it's been going on for a long time. Yes, many people have been aware
of such programs as small bits have been leaked over the years. Yes, many of
us have been angry about it for a long time.

The difference this time is not specifically the new information but the fact
that it hasn't successfully been buried in the news after a day or two so far
and people are in fact getting more upset about it. This is a good thing. If
people aren't talking about it, the chance of doing anything about it and
expressing mass disapproval is significantly reduced.

Maybe nothing will happen this time either, but a lot of people are angry
about it at the same time, and finally talking about it en masse, and I don't
see that as anything but a great thing.

~~~
mtgx
Same here. Not only do such comments serve no useful purpose, but they are
actually negatively impacting the "cause" to change things, because such
comments are basically saying "relax people, this is old news...".

NO! Now is not the time to relax, and it really doesn't matter if it's 1 week
old news or 10 year old news. If it's that old, it's much more important to
finally have the debate about privacy, which Congress and the nation as a
whole mostly skipped over it because of the fear or terrorists.

It's about time that discussion started again, to see if things like the
Patriot Act and FISA are first of all, constitutional, and second of all, if
all the privacy breaching is worth it to Americans, and only if there is real
proof that it works not based on feeling and security theatre.

~~~
frankydp
Having a "public" discussion about security is an almost fruitless endeavor.

It is nearly impossible to have a public discussion about threat assessment
and mitigation. If a person has never truly experienced threat, which the
vast(99%+) majority of the US public has not, then a persons ability to even
identify threat is exponentially reduced. The perceived safety of a persons
daily life directly effects the perception of overall threats, which in the
context of the US severely jades any discussion towards inherently safe.

I am not an advocate of public surveillance and I am a strongly opinionated in
regards to privacy, but my experiences abroad have lead me to resolve this
conviction into the reality that is our world, and that world is not the lives
we have in the US. The threats to this country are real, are large scale, are
extreme, and are discovered every single day.

I know the argument is that we need to talk about this and we need to have
review, but this has happened already. It happens all the time. It happens
every time a warrant is issued. It was not one person or 5 people or 100
people, but thousands of people that have seen the threat and that have fought
the threat with their own hands. These are the people that have time and time
again decided that to much information is better than not enough.

I know that people will not agree with this, but I long ago discovered that
principles and good intentions do not stop bullets and bombs.

