
Offering software for snooping to governments is a booming business - PretzelFisch
https://www.economist.com/business/2019/12/12/offering-software-for-snooping-to-governments-is-a-booming-business
======
ignoramous
LMFTFY: Offering software for snooping to the oppressors [0], the rich [1],
the law-breakers [2], the law-makers [3], the advertisers [4] is a booming
business. The modern day tech _seems_ like a curse and a cancer, despite its
enormous potential for good.

/rant

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109474](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109474)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20336762](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20336762)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16874999](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16874999)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21346307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21346307)

[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18082017](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18082017)

...ad infinitum

------
adamsbriscoe
Once upon a time I worked on a mobile app that was to be used by the VA to
help with the management of medical trainees. I thought it was routine stuff
(time logging, policy directories, etc)...

They actually wanted a system that would do that stuff too, but behind the
scenes it would track the location of each user down to the room they were in.
The administrators were suspicious that residents/trainees were sneaking off
premises to "work from Starbucks" and they wanted ammunition to use against
the sponsoring institutions to revoke payments (which go to resident
salaries)... They weren't the slightest bit worried about the legal, moral, or
safety implications. It never crossed their minds at all. (They never got what
they wanted, at least not from me.)

~~~
Spooky23
It's an example of why collective bargaining is important in your relationship
with a big company.

Standard terms dictated by an employer and accepted by the employee are that
you have no expectation of privacy, period. With modern EDR tools and
smartphones, even less sophisticated companies can do big-brother stuff that
only a relative few could years ago.

------
hotsauceror
I would prefer it if the journalists who wrote about issues like this would
stop using cutesy words like "snooping" when they talk about government
surveillance programs. It sounds like an effort to whitewash what "those
naughty rogues" are doing. Same thing as saying that Politician X is a
"fibber". No one out there, as far as I am aware, is clamoring for us to treat
this behavior as "naughty", so I don't see why they've chosen to employ this
langauge.

~~~
tzs
Snoop means, according to Oxford: "Investigate or look around furtively in an
attempt to find out something, especially information about someone's private
affairs".

Surveillance is "Close observation, especially of a suspected spy or
criminal".

Going by those definitions, I'd sure rather have someone surveilling me than
snooping on me. I don't see why you consider the word "snooping" to be cutesy
or for whitewashing.

~~~
hotsauceror
"Snooping", to me, brings to mind images of disapproving mother-in-law looking
through your medicine cabinet or little kids trying to find where you hid the
Christmas presents. Whereas "surveilling" implies gathering the information
necessary to blackmail, imprison, or kill someone.

~~~
MereInterest
Agreed entirely. "Stalking" would also be an appropriate term.

------
tptacek
What drives me nuts about this narrative is how it immunizes the companies
making the most money from these government programs. You'll hear a lot about
NSO, but not very much at all about Cisco's role, despite the fact that NSO's
revenue from foreign surveillance apparatuses is a rounding error compared to
Cisco's.

~~~
ga-vu
Probably because Cisco is a hardware vendor. NSO actually has support staff
that will craft exploits to attack certain targets, fix your server so you
won't get discovered, write phishing emails, if you need a hand getting off
the ground. Big difference.

~~~
tptacek
There is in fact not a big difference. Cisco's AM's know exactly what use
their hardware is being put to, and Cisco makes far more money off their
hardware than NSO makes off their exploit packs and implant software. They are
equally blameworthy.

------
notlukesky
Selling surveillance technology is a booming and legal business in most
jurisdictions subject to respective export control laws. But they are not as
ethically challenged as companies who deliberately sell lemons and backdoors
to their customers in return for a payout from the NSA like RSA (part of Dell
EMC) did:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-
rsa/exclusiv...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-
rsa/exclusive-secret-contract-tied-nsa-and-security-industry-pioneer-
idUSBRE9BJ1C220131220)

[https://www.theverge.com/2013/12/20/5231006/nsa-
paid-10-mill...](https://www.theverge.com/2013/12/20/5231006/nsa-
paid-10-million-for-a-back-door-into-rsa-encryption-according-to)

~~~
JohnFen
I don't agree. I think they're equally ethically challenged.

I accept that there will always be companies that sell offensive software to
governments and the like. What gets my goat is when they aren't portrayed as
what they are: sleazebag attackers.

------
luisehk
This is why software engineers should also study some humanities.

~~~
SeanAppleby
Is there substantive evidence that studying humanities or even ethics is
causal to people behaving more ethically?

~~~
tokai
No. The evidence is that ethicists are as moral as everyone else.

[https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/12/10/why-arent-ethicists-
mo...](https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/12/10/why-arent-ethicists-more-
ethical/)

------
ljd
I'm surprised that Palantir isn't even mentioned in this article.

~~~
manfredo
Palantir does not build surveillance technology. They build data visualization
technology. They build tools to let organizations better view and correlate
between the data they collect. This could be considered to be adjacent to
surveillance technology, but the company does not in fact built surveillance
tools.

~~~
ljd
Nothing I know is first hand, so I may be wrong. I've been influenced by
articles like this over the past decade:
[https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-
palanti...](https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-
helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/)

~~~
manfredo
That article illustrates the point I'm making:

> For example, a 2010 demo showed how Palantir Government could be used to
> chart the flow of weapons throughout the Middle East by importing disparate
> data sources like equipment lot numbers, manufacturer data, and the
> locations of Hezbollah training camps.

Government agencies are the ones collecting data. Palantir is building tools
to browse it.

~~~
ljd
I understand what you're saying but I feel like it's splitting hairs.

[https://thenextweb.com/artificial-
intelligence/2019/12/11/re...](https://thenextweb.com/artificial-
intelligence/2019/12/11/report-palantir-took-over-project-maven-the-military-
ai-program-too-unethical-for-google/)

~~~
BinaryIdiot
The issue here is the Palantir tool versus the Palantir company.

When I did DoD contracting work I worked both with the Palantir tool and
worked on a competitor to it. The tool itself basically correlates data from
multiple sources and works very well for that.

The AI work mentioned in this article, I believe, is separate contracting
work.

Granted these two things (their AI work and their tool) may end up being
combined. Also, as part of contracting work there may be times where they are
directly connected to tools and could _technically_ be considered as
surveiling. But, in general, they're mostly used as the glue between a bunch
of databases to let analysts better understand the data already collected.

So, in a way, I think you're both kinda right?

------
ga-vu
You don't say.

Someone's been reading Motherboard, I see.

------
m3rc
If there's any justice in the world every person who participates in this sort
of work will be shamed and ostracized in the future.

~~~
briandear
Is there any possibility that some of this “snooping” actually keeps us safer?
Ostracizing these people is not unlike ostracizing police. Even though police
have abused power from time to time, I bet there isn’t a single one of us that
wouldn’t call the police if our child has been kidnapped.

~~~
saagarjha
> Is there any possibility that some of this “snooping” actually keeps us
> safer?

Even if it does, is it worth violating rights in the process?

