The interest question is where are the going to run to? With alleged free world leader america now violating the right to privacy on epic scale.. who isn't going to follow suit? Even fricken Canada is spying on everyone now. (part of five eyes). I'm old enough to remember when we used mock the Soviets as oppressive for doing this sort of thing. Now we are doing it. Instead of taking s strong stance against it, our own government is behavior like intelligence wing of the Comitern. And it isn't even a partisan thing. Most of the core figures of both Republican and Democratic party support this behavior. Apparently they not believe mass surveillance is "human rights". Thus the only way to end this behavior isn't waiting around for our megalomaniac politicians to stop it. The way to do it is to support private sector companies that produce technology that simply does not allow for backdoor. Politicians can pass the laws they want... but they cannot overrule the laws of mathematics.

The only way a language will be used if it offers something the other languages don't offer. Esparanto failed because it really didn't offer much value over existing languages. In the modern era we learn English because English is the language of trade and culture. There is really nothing special about English other than self-reinforcing popularity but why change when we already have a language right? One of the few exceptions to this rule of popularity was the Greek language. During Hellenistic times, and well past it, people learned Greek because the language it had many concepts that other language simply didn't have words for. Greek only fell out of use in academic a couple of centuries ago because other languages adopted so many Greek words they didn't need Greek anymore (around 15 percent of English is actually Greek) So my suggestion for a useful language... a language optimized for scientific discourse just like Greek once was. The language should be far more coherent than current spoken language but not quite as precise as math. Get rid of annoyances like abuse of analogy. (everyone is analogized to Hitler as some point of their life). Get rid of duplicate words that mean same thing (like we don't have enough things to remember). Get rid of words like "much" and "largely" and "somewhat". Strict grammar and spelling rules with no exceptions (rather than i before e..sometimes). Make in mnemonic friendly and make it metric. (i.e. optimized for remembering and/or extrapolating meaning). Might even be a language one sings (since we know it can re-enforce memory) . If it was concise and useful enough that scientists started using it..., it would eventually trickle down to everyone else.

Revenge Porn is the pressing issue of our times.... unlike the mass surveillance Al Franken has been supporting while presenting himself as a champion of liberty..

Ways to kill people.

firing squads
hangings
beheading
water boarding (except this time drown them)
poison that leads to agonizing slow death
crucifixions
stakes through the anus
removal of entrails with a chainsaw.
etc..

The more gruesome the execution, the better. The problem with "clean" executions is that it makes those that self-righteously advocate execution as a form of punishment feel "civilized". There is nothing civilized about executions. its just another form of barbarism, murder and sadism but one simply sanctioned by the state. Lets stop pretending to be civilized and show ourselves as brutes that we are by making executions a bloodfest. Put on TV on Saturday morning for kids to watch. Their parents shouldn't mind. Many of them still claim it as 'justice" after all.

If humanity manages to survive our technology, there is little doubt future generations will see our generation as still with one foot in the door of savagery for having allowing capital punishment

I've even been yelled at several times for referencing homeopathic "cures" as quackery. Apparently I'm "closed minded" for expecting evidence that they work. In short, I don't think an infinite number of studies that indicate that homeopathy is essentially snake oil will put dent in the industry. The homeopathy industry isn't much different than the religion industry. Some people want to believe what they want to believe.

Oh wait. Already done. http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

"FTFY. I dont even think Stallman is nuts enough to make that comparison"

Straw man.

Human rights violations doesn't only apply to "executions and kidnapping of babies". Ultimately human rights is about rights. Do we have a right not to be spied on by our own government? According to the US Constitution the unambiguous answer is yes. It's unfortunate that some that claim to stand behind that Constitution.. that claim to stand for freedom.. .that claim to stand for human rights... grossly violate the right to privacy... thus should be shamed as HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSER Watch how vast politicians, who wish to be re-elected, start respecting people's right to privacy if enough constipates and NGOS start using the word HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE to describe mass surveillance. If we pansy around with our words..they'll just keep doing what they are doing.

With a theoretically absolute security and privacy (in terms of computing) we can certainly still trust our data to others. We could still provide personal information about ourselves to others. The point is it should all be based on voluntary interaction not others using backdoors to get to our personal data without our permission.

I'm not implying that everyone will abide by principles of security I describe. Companies will still produce close source software and hardware. Ignore security principles I'm describing. That is their right if they wish. However, their products should be labelled "NOT TO BE TRUSTED" because ultimately we have no way of knowing if they've put in backdoors. Transparency in product design is what creates security. This is why government now demand MS open up its source code. This is why the NSA doesn't run any binaries or firmware on its servers where it hasn't first looked at the source code. The NSA has security far better than our own precisely because its sticking to principles that we are not.

"Seriously? You're suggesting everyone trusts self-signed certificates as if they came from a CA that trades on their reputation for signing and delivering authentic security services?" You've misunderstood what I'm implying. Of course self-signed certificates are worthless by themselves but the current system of using centralized CAs is flawed because CA servers are being compromised. Security validation should be offloaded to P2P. This is not some fantastically unproven idea. Bitcoin blockchain functions off P2P security. With the right tweaking of SSL, CA's could be made redundant. Any system that depends on a centralized server... that can be compromised by an NSL... is inherently insecure architecture. NOT TO BE TRUSTED. With P2P and server side zero knowledge protocols NSL's largely become worthless pieces of paper.

Without absolute privacy we will have not have privacy. There is no in between state for security. We either have security or we don't. That's Bruce;s entire argument (and he's spot on). Of course average people people don't have the skills and resources like NSA and GCHQ but the technology for average Joe to snoop is out there too (if one is willing to hire a black hat)

"Remind me-- how many "open-source" processors, hard drives, SSDs, and SoCs do we have out there? Who do you trust to build your chips? You gonna label Intel's fabs "not to be trusted"? And if so-- which "FOSS Fab" do you plan to use?" You are speaking in terms of pragmatic reality in present. Pragmatism is precisely why systems are insecure today. I am speaking in terms of principles to get us where we want to be.. real security.

1. "No way to tell whether the provided source code matches the provided firmware"
Yes there is. See point about hash checking. Even firmware can be hash checked if the architecture is correct..

2. binary code will vary depending on the specific architecture, optimizations, and libraries during compilation. 2) a hash can be falsified as easily as a binary.
See point about using P2P technology to validate hash rather than central servers.

3. At least an order of magnitude less effective than open source, and we've seen that even "important" OSS like openssl can go decades without independent code review.
If apps are isolated from OS this can still be largely mitigated. (other than bugs in OS and firmware). Obviously until the day comes software is sophisticated enough to find all possible security errors zero day exploits will be a problem.

4, people will get frustrated when they lose their private key, and 5 years of family snapshots disappear.
Minor issue, Biometrics can be used to get around this problem. Furthermore if someone is too lazy to that one day they might misplace their keys they have no one but themselves to blame. Absolutely no different than users that don't bother backing up their data then complain the computer is somehow to blame.

5. Because you'd rather trust 1000 amateurs to secure all of their systems than one professional to secure his server
Absolutely yes. Your flawed assumption is that everyone is an amateur. The more eyes get to see the code, the more trustworthy it will become when experts also review it. Obviously there will be things that slip through but P2P based security is highly preferable to servers (which already know is a big fat target for intelligence agencies). Far harder to break into 100,000,000 systems without anyone noticing than just 1.

6. "Yeah, ranks right up there with executing journalists and kidnapping babies."
Mockery like that suggests you don't really see privacy as a human right. It is. And it has very real consequences to freedom when we don't have it. As for your ad hominem.. you destroy your own credibility.

Schneier is of course right. Unfortunately megalomaniac politicians around the world are violating the very rights their are supposed to be protecting which is why Bruce is naive is thinking this attitude will change any time soon. Thus the only path to security must come come through private sector. 1 Companies that sell software... better have all code open sourced (not same as free) or should be labelled "NOT TO BE TRUSTED". (including firmware.. Bios, NICs, HDD, GPU, riouter,s switches, etc..) Code (including scripts and updates) is then compiled locally and before first execution hash checked automatically against non-centralized database (p2p technology similar to bitcoin block chain) 3. All hardware sold with precise technical diagrams... or should be labelled "NOT TO BE TRUSTED" 4. All encryption always on client side. Virtually all major current email providers should be labelled "NOT TO BE TRUSTED" (salute to ProtonMail) 5. Get rid of centralized authorities for security (looking at you SSL) Centralized servers have big fat sign that say "NOT TO BE TRUSTED". P2P. 6. Create new network protocols (to replace www, ftp, imap, etc..) that are designed from ground up on zero knowledge principle. Websites not using it zero knowledge proof... "NOT TO BE TRUSTED" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... 7. Shaming lists on NGOs (applause to EFF). Any politician that votes for mass surveillance or doesn't adhere to above principles. put on NGO lists as "HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS" and NOT TO BE TRUSTED"..

http://mediamatters.org/video/...