
A review of Yasha Levine’s “Surveillance Valley” - craftsman
https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2018/06/08/all-watched-over-by-machines-a-review-of-yasha-levines-surveillance-valley/
======
mirimir
He makes some good points. But some are just silly:

> Noting that, "Tor works only if people are dedicated to maintaining a strict
> anonymous Internet routine," one consisting of dummy e-mail accounts and all
> transactions carried out in Bitcoin, Levine suggests that what Tor offers is
> "a false sense of privacy" (213).

That's like saying that you'll be killed if you run across a freeway. I do
agree that Tor Project ought to teach better OPSEC, however.

And this is just plain wrong:

> Yet, as the case of Ross Ulbricht (the "Dread Pirate Roberts" of Silk Road
> notoriety) demonstrated, Tor may not be as impervious as it seems –
> researchers at Carnegie Mellon University "had figured out a cheap and easy
> way to crack Tor’s super-secure network" (263).

Ross outed himself. In a post on bitcointalk.org, he announced SR in a thread
about "heroin stores", using an account created using his real name.[0] In a
later post, using the same account, he advertised for a coder, and included
his real-name Gmail address.[1] And he got a visit from the FBI, after
ordering a bunch of fake ID from SR.[2] So he was a person of interest in
their SF office. Also, the SR server was misconfigured, such that Apache error
messages bypassed Tor.[3] And oh yeah, also the infamous Stack Overflow post,
looking for PHP help.[4]

And all that went down _before_ the CMU attack. There were many prosecutions
after CMP "researchers" turned over data to the FBI. But SR wasn't one of
them.

Overall, it's just polemical and agenda-driven.

0)
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175.msg42670#msg4267...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175.msg42670#msg42670)

1)
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47811.msg568744#msg5...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47811.msg568744#msg568744)

2) [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/how-the-feds-
too...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/how-the-feds-took-down-
the-dread-pirate-roberts/)

3) [https://www.wired.com/2014/09/the-fbi-finally-says-how-it-
le...](https://www.wired.com/2014/09/the-fbi-finally-says-how-it-legally-
pinpointed-silk-roads-server/)

4) [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-
conne...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15445285/how-can-i-connect-to-a-
tor-hidden-service-using-curl-in-php)

------
twirlip
The other part of the allusion to Richard Brautigan's poem (emphasis mine):

"I like to think

(it has to be!)

of a cybernetic ecology

where we are free of our labors

and joined back to nature,

returned to our mammal

brothers and sisters,

and all watched over

by machines _of loving grace_."

~~~
whatshisface
Further, the legal theory behind warrant-less mass surveillance is that you
aren't being watched over until a human opens up your documents.

~~~
salawat
That's a bit like saying all the nation's classified material is secret
because no one has checked it out from the National Archive yet.

The data shouldn't exist in the first place.

------
ogennadi
> Surveillance Valley is a troubling book, but it is an important book... What
> it demonstrates in stark relief is that surveillance and unnerving links to
> the military-industrial complex are not signs that the Internet has gone
> awry, but signs that the Internet is functioning as intended.

------
badrabbit
The five eyes IC apparatus has invested in Tor relays and mitm attacks of Tor
exit traffic so much so that I personally think using Tor endangers you [1].
They were doing this ~10 years ago (public info - [2]).

As for the surveillance state,I keep pondering other aspects of society. Like
how public restrooms are intentionally designed to lack privacy,how in the
military and prison you're expected to be comfortable with being completely
naked around others and how it is completely acceptable for an arrested
citizen to be forced to undress in front of other prisoners and possibly
undergo a full on body cavity search all without the chance to defend his
accusation in court. I could go on,but you get the point.

I am not so sure the people want privacy. Or maybe they think so lowly of
their freedoms,short term safety is always more preferable.

From the intelligence community's perspective, it's all about information
control. They do this in other countries. They topple regimes and adjust
public opinion in the inteterests of western security and economical goals. If
I was in their shoes, I can see myself using fear of other countries doing the
same thing against us and use that as an excuse to "beat them to the punch"
and take control of information flow in the west.

They simply don't have the clear consent of the people to use the means they
use by which they justify the end goal: national security. Regardless of how
oblivious and clueless the people may be, the very foundation of a democratic
republic is consent. An agent or officer of any democratic republic who
persistently acts in subversion of the people's consent is a traitor even if
no particular law is broken.

[1]
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/how_the_nsa_a...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/how_the_nsa_att.html)
[2] [https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/german-
intelligence-f...](https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/german-intelligence-
first-developed-attacks-tor-network-advises-not-use/)

------
stareatgoats
> many people have their hopes invested in the belief that these companies are
> building a better brighter future

OT, but I'm reminded of how many times in recent history that we (as humans)
have hitched hope for a better future on some tangential circumstance:

\- the socialist notion that industrialization would bring about peace,
equality and well-being for all

\- the liberal notion that freedom from tyranny would bring about peace,
equality and well-being for all (through trade)

\- the general notion that airplanes would bring about peace since no-one
would be so demonic as to drop bombs on people from the air.

Those dreams are now in shambles. I find it prudent to be highly skeptical of
similar claims that have not yet been similarly disproved, i.e.

\- the feminist notion that freedom from patriarchy will bring about peace and
equality for all

\- the popular notion that atomic weapons will end all wars since no-one would
be so crazy as to start an nuclear war.

I think it's time to hitch our hopes on simply not starting wars, and simply
divert our productivity towards environmental sustainability and general well-
being for all, instead of waiting for some tangential causations like those
mentioned to do the trick, which in hindsight doesn't amount to much more than
marketing fluff.

~~~
meko
You are heavily oversimplifying (to the point of incorrectness) every concept
you outline, reducing them all down to various flavors of utopianism. On top
of that, your final call to action is a mirror reflection of what you just
criticized. The truth of the matter is these concepts and many others are all
weaving together in a complicated and nuanced way.

~~~
stareatgoats
Simplifying - guilty as charged. Please show me a statement that is not. But
agreed there are limits to how oversimplified things may be portrayed. I
sometimes grant myself some leeway in search of a larger picture however, when
I assess that someone applying some philosophers charity might find value in
it [0]

The main difference between those "Utopian dreams" I refer to and my own
suggestion is that they hitch hopes on some technology or extraneous happening
(the extent to which certainly is debatable), I just wish we would put
ourselves and our own moral agency in the drivers seat more.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity)

------
iuguy
If you enjoyed this review, Adam Curtis' "All watched over by machines of
loving grace" documentary series[1] is an absolutely beautiful watch.

[1] - [https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/all-watched-over-by-
machines...](https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-
loving-grace/)

~~~
taneq
I found the part tying the East Asian economic problems and their causes to
the GFC absolutely fascinating. Definitely recommend.

