
I Transcribed Glenn Greenwald's 30C3 Keynote - poppingtonic
https://github.com/poppingtonic/greenwald-30c3-keynote/
======
salient
Greenwald's speech was great, but so far the most interesting one to me has
been Jacob Appelbaum's speech where he gives a lot more technical details
(including new information) about how the NSA is hacking systems and how far
they are willing to go, like wanting to create a "Great Firewall of Earth" or
even radiating people with up to 1KW in order to get what's in their computer,
which just proves how out of control and power hungry the NSA is and how
indefensible their actions are, despite what some of the NSA HN users around
here or their supporters might say.

Highly recommend it:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0w36GAyZIA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0w36GAyZIA)

~~~
malandrew
Why isn't there a video of this talk on media.ccc.de?

How was part 1 by Claudio Gaurnieri (@botherder) and Morgan Marquis-Boire
(@headhntr)?

~~~
revelation
There will be, but the conference only concluded today, so it may take some
time to be post-processed.

------
coldcode
Reading this (and others) makes me conclude that we the people (or any
country, but especially here in the US) are truly and royally fucked. For
every brave person who stands up there are a hundred thousand who refuse to
the see the sun rises in the east and continues to believe what they are being
told, that it rises in the west.

~~~
AlexanderDhoore
Technology will be the solution, not politics. Cryptography is the only way
out of this hell.

~~~
Luc
Exactly the opposite. The NSA already had firmware exploits for BIOSes,
harddrives, mobile phones in 2008. They have won on the technological front -
if they want to track your communications, they'll find a way.

Only laws could rein them in. There's simple no computing platform that can be
trusted to do your encryption on.

~~~
amagumori
what about the loongson laptops? they run on their own proprietary silicon,
designed and built in china. yep, this is where we're at in 2014...the
technology designed in a communist country is more trustworthy than the stuff
designed here.

------
aryastark
How the hell is James Clapper still in office?? Isn't what he did so obviously
perjury?

The America of 2013 is absolute bullshit. I can't even fathom how corrupt this
country is.

~~~
exarch
>How the hell is James Clapper still in office?? Isn't what he did so
obviously perjury?

Yes, what he did clearly meets the statutory definition of perjury. He's still
employed by the government because our officials, elected and appointed, are
almost completely unaccountable to the public due to the political process
being broken down by a corporate-controlled media and corporatocratic (see:
Mussolini) system of government. The law is no longer equally applied -
wealthy, important, and powerful people are "too big to fail", while even the
most urgent concerns of average proles is generally beneath notice of those in
charge. The only exception to this is when the proles' concerns become so
widespread that a movement forms and majority demand for democratic change
might result. In these cases a number of pacification strategies are adopted,
like co-opting the proletariat movement with well-spoken placebo change agents
who offer strong messages of hope, and have absolutely no intention of
following through with them, or discrediting the movement by airing the dirty
laundry of those movement leaders who cannot be corrupted or co-opted.

~~~
ajslater
If Clapper were removed from office, his successor would have to take the
damage on. Clapper will be scapegoated for as long as this fracas lasts.

------
detcader
A good summary of events so far, in a general sense. More important stuff to
check out from/on Greenwald, one of the most important journalists in US
history, at least by the nature of what he's helped publish (but of course
more than that):

Conversations with History: Glenn Greenwald -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-qlF...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-qlFjrgGqVA)
~2011

Glenn's "Frequently Told Lies" page -
[http://web.archive.org/web/20131007002618/http://ggsidedocs....](http://web.archive.org/web/20131007002618/http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com/2013/01/frequently-
told-lies-ftls.html) (it's currently down, both on archive.org and the
original page)

The American columnist who can't live in America -
[http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/10/the-american-
column...](http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/10/the-american-columnist-
who-cant-live-in-america/) (this is before the striking down of the gay
marriage law in question, I think)

How Glenn Greenwald Became Glenn Greenwald -
[http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/how-glenn-greenwald-became-
glen...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/how-glenn-greenwald-became-glenn-
greenwald)

Believing oppression only happens elsewhere -
[https://theoldspeakjournal.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/believin...](https://theoldspeakjournal.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/believing-
oppression-only-happens-elsewhere/) (the original blog is down)

Endless War, Radical Presidential Power, and a Rotted Political Culture: A
Talk by Glenn Greenwald -
[http://translationexercises.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/endless...](http://translationexercises.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/endless-
war-radical-presidential-power-and-a-rotted-political-culture-a-talk-by-glenn-
greenwald/) [28 Mar 2013]

------
3ds
nice work, maybe you would like to contribute it to the subtitle team effort?

[http://subtitles.media.ccc.de/](http://subtitles.media.ccc.de/)

specifically here:
[http://subtitles.pads.ccc.de/5622](http://subtitles.pads.ccc.de/5622)

~~~
poppingtonic
Seems someone already did it, thank you.

~~~
officialjunk
I think you are mistaken. The official crowd sourced transcripts for the CCC
were more or less complete prior to your efforts. Refer to the timeline for
this event's transcript here:
[https://subtitles.pads.ccc.de/ep/pad/view/5622/latest](https://subtitles.pads.ccc.de/ep/pad/view/5622/latest)

It would be nice if you could contribute back, by making any corrections, as
these are the transcripts that are linked to from the CCC's website and
probably most people will find.

------
jnbiche
Thank you, tipped (he has a Bitcoin address in the README).

It's a sad era indeed when we have a whole network of American journalists
living outside of U.S. borders for fear of imprisonment and other reprisals
from their own government.

~~~
poppingtonic
Hi, I just synchronized with the blockchain. Thank you for your donation! You
just gave me my first Bitcoins ever! You truly represent what's good in the
world. Thank you again.

------
dewey
Here's the official recording:
[http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/30C3_-_5622_-_en_-_...](http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/30C3_-_5622_-_en_-
_saal_1_-_201312271930_-_30c3_keynote_-_glenn_greenwald_-_frank.html)

------
znowi
The video for the reference:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEJIR0-KJu0#t=275](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEJIR0-KJu0#t=275)

------
lispm
'Applause' at the end is an understatement. He got a long standing ovation for
his contributions to expose the NSA's war on people.

------
varelse
Playing an unfortunate devil's advocate, all this ludicrous surveillance state
gadgetry seems to be less of an attempt to be the United Stasi of America and
more of a ridiculous over the top reaction in fear of being accused of going
soft on terror.

I don't like it, and I don't agree with it, but I acknowledge that if a 2nd
9/11 level event were to occur after the government relented and imposed
reasonable limitations on data collection that the party out of power at the
time could easily scream bloody murder and take all 3 branches of government
in a single election cycle. I'd previously only expected this from the party
of Kang, but Obama's stance on drones and NSA surveillance has revealed the
party of Kodos is no better.

Which is to say I think the surveillance state is a symptom more than the
disease. America has lost all sense of perspective.

~30,000 automotive deaths (of which ~10,000 resulted from drunk driving)
annually.

~11,000 gun deaths.

~6,000 deaths from falling off ladders.

~3,000 people died on 9/11.

Ergo we should ban ladders, guns, alcohol, and cars: it's the only way to be
sure, no?

~~~
lazyjones
> _more of a ridiculous over the top reaction in fear of being accused of
> going soft on terror._

As you wrote yourself, terrorism is a minor issue in the US. Most of the fear
is fueled (and some of it created) by the government, because it's so
convenient for manipulating the population. Therefore the government itself
cannot be driven by the fear of being accused of going soft in this matter,
because if that was the case, it'd simply stop perpetuing this fear of
terrorism.

I'm sorry, but there is no cheap way out for this goverment. It's
fundamentally evil and corrupt, it uses terrorism to keep a certain elite in
power and to channel taxpayers' money to the pockets of the military-
industrial complex. That's the only logical explanation I've seen so far.

------
beernutz
I wanted to thank the poster for their work in transcribing this! I personally
really appreciate it.

I REALLY dig doing this via github as well. I submitted a pull request with
some spelling changes.

------
mjallday
Did you do this by hand or use a tool and then touch it up afterwards?

~~~
poppingtonic
Thanks, I did it by hand. Emacs+Amarok. While I worked on this, I Googled for
transcription software, but couldn't find any packages or readily available
POSIX pipelines that I could use from Ubuntu, let alone web services that
don't require a credit card. Maybe I didn't look very carefully. Took two days
to complete, though. This is something that should be easily doable now, so
here's my personal RFS: fix transcription software. A user should be able to
either upload an audio file directly, use a Dropbox folder, or provide a link
to an s/OGG/MP3/whatever, and get a text file in return. They can then listen
to the audio while they make whatever edits that they need.

~~~
hnha
Aaaah! Why should a remote application be involved? It sounds completely
unneeded to limit this to a web browser running software controlled by others.

Just let the user select a media file and provide keyboard controlled playback
controls plus a text editor. I think some software like this is available for
subtitle editing.

~~~
poppingtonic
You must be really sensitive to horrible design choices. Sorry about that one.

~~~
hnha
in a discussion about the surveillance state it just seems wrong to suggest
web apps. :)

~~~
poppingtonic
Thanks for calling me out on that. With that comment, I basically lowered the
quality of a discussion that I started (being the poster), and for that I
apologize.

------
jonnybgood
I'm very skeptical of Glenn Greenwald. I'm surprised by how many will readily
accept whatever he says. That's kinda scary. There's a question of credibility
when you don't fact check[1]. Makes you wonder what else is Greenwald
exaggerating or not fact checking.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/wp/2013/06/1...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/wp/2013/06/11/did-snowden-really-earn-a-200000-salary/)

~~~
pnathan
Broadly stated: independent sources cross-confirming each other is the best
way to ensure reliability (an old scientific, police, historian, and
journalist principle). Simply because we agree with a single source's
statements and viewpoints doesn't guarantee the single source is right.

However, a variety of people over the years (Drake & others) have also
remarked on the over-the-top surveillance. It's also true that the NSA has
admitted certain of Greenwald's accusations. So at least in principle,
Greenwald has been confirmed.

~~~
jonnybgood
But the NSA has not admitted certain of Greenwald's accusations[1].
Greenwald's journalistic integrity has also been questioned before[2]. So, as
I stated, makes you wonder what else he can be exaggerating or
(intentionally?) not fact checking. I honestly can not see how someone could
not be skeptical Greenwald.

[1] [http://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/nsa-story-falling-apart-
un...](http://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/nsa-story-falling-apart-under-
scrutiny-key-facts-turning-out-to-be-inaccurate/)

[2] [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/08/1192256/-The-
Final-...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/08/1192256/-The-Final-Word-
on-Glenn-Greenwald#)

~~~
pnathan
Well, the big problem is that the default state of a secret spy agency is to
deny everything and to classify everything. So their denial means very little.
I would expect them to deny what they could. GG may, in fact be right in part
but wrong on some details; he may be right in principle but wrong in fact; or
he may be wrong, period. The preponderance of evidence of NSA behavior (going
back to the 90s), the previous whistleblowers, and the admissions to date
indicates that in principle, GG is correct. He may be wrong in detail or in
facts, but his story is generally consistent, if more than expected.

Of course, it would be nice if Congress forcibly opened the archives and let
the truth out into open air - then we could see clearly and make educated
decisions! Until then, we have to rely on the somewhat foggy environment of
leaks, whistleblowing, and journalists.

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plg
Thank you

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davedx
Thank you.

------
jokoon
watching the video, at some points there seems to be audio lag...

I even wonder if the NSA actually tried to DDOS the skype call conference.

~~~
danimo
They did not. For unknown reasons, the switch in the Conference hall got
manipulated (unplugged). It carried both the Skype call and the stream to the
outside world.

