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Submission + - The NSA's Ultimate Goal: Undo Internet Privacy

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Time Magazine reports that the new round of disclosures from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has revealed the intelligence agency’s ultimate goal: undo Internet privacy as we know it and that the NSA has circumvented or cracked some of the most widely used encryption software in its effort to monitor global communications. “This is the golden age of spying,” one former NSA analyst told the NY Times. Among the revelations is that the NSA circumvents encryption by simply collaborating with cooperative technology companies. Other times the NSA has acquired encryption keys by hacking into a company’s servers. According to The New York Times, by 2006, the NSA had cracked the communications of three foreign airlines, one travel reservation system, one foreign government’s nuclear department and a different foreign government’s Internet service. The NSA has also successfully foiled several of the world’s standard encryption methods, including SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), VPN (virtual private networks), and the encryption on 4G (fourth generation) smartphones. But strong, non-commercial encryption systems still seem to thwart the NSA’s efforts with PGP having long been a cause for NSA anxiety. When PGP-inventor Phil Zimmerman announced the Zfone telephone encryption technology, NSA analysts reportedly received the news in an email titled “This can’t be good.”

Submission + - Schneier: The US government has betrayed the internet. We need to take it back. (theguardian.com) 2

Submitted by wabrandsma
wabrandsma writes: Quoting Bruce Schneier in the Guardian:

The NSA has undermined a fundamental social contract. We engineers built the internet – and now we have to fix it

Government and industry have betrayed the internet, and us. This is not the internet the world needs, or the internet its creators envisioned. We need to take it back. And by we, I mean the engineering community.

Yes, this is primarily a political problem, a policy matter that requires political intervention. But this is also an engineering problem, and there are several things engineers can – and should – do.

Comment Re:Public opinion doesn't matter (Score 1) 148

by Maelwryth (#44640147) Attached to: New Zealand Parliament Votes To Extend Spying Powers
I think it may be worse than that. The debate was purely based around email, giving an available back down position of saying 'not email' but leaving in everything else. Our publicly owned power companies are being sold off, firstly under the excuse of the financial crisis and now another one......for what? We are forecast to hit 5% growth. Post crisis just about every bank in NZ has had record profits, post the Chistchurch earthquake both the rebuilder and the largest insurer in NZ have posted record profits. Our last PM got a nice job overseas after losing, what is the bet this one does as well.

Comment Re:Public opinion doesn't matter (Score 1) 148

by Maelwryth (#44640119) Attached to: New Zealand Parliament Votes To Extend Spying Powers
Interesting. I have just asked around the table who was able to watch videos at either tvnz news or tv3 news about the GCSB saga and found that out of three people, two had tried and neither were able to watch any of the clips. Admittedly, this is in a localised area but in my case I have been unable to watch any news video on the GCSB debate for the past two weeks. They just failed to load. Everything else seems to load fine but not videos related to the GCSB. Now I feel paranoid. It is probably a local problem, but has anyone else in NZ had this?

Comment Re:Inevitable consequence of unfettered capitalism (Score 1) 255

"The only effective society is one which overtly and deliberately puts a cap on power"

I wonder what a society and economy would look like if wealth was capped at $50,000,000 for companies and individuals. I have never found any study investigating this and I believe it would be an interesting read at least. Something along the lines of;

1) No individual or company may hold more than $50,000,000 worth of assets.
2) If a company reaches $50,000,001 it must split or become government property.
3) If an individual reaches $50,000,000 then all property over $50,000,000 becomes government property.

I would be interested to see what people think would happen, if anyone is keen to have a go.

Comment What about those that fail? (Score 1) 827

by Maelwryth (#44590589) Attached to: The College-Loan Scandal

No where yet in this conversation have I seen anything about the people failing. According to this website, nearly a third don't make it through to the second year. This leaves them with the debt, but none of the benefit.

In my own experience, many of the people I saw dropping out of tertiary education (in NZ) did so because of external pressures. Everything looked OK on paper and they were encouraged by society and the state to enroll but it only took a little change for things to go wrong. Arguing with your parent and having to leave home, a break up in a relationship and the depression afterwards, pregnancy, abusive families and relationships, losing a part time job, mental health problems (especially in the medical sector, where having a mental health problem can prevent you from ever working in the sector), drug addiction, travel problems ,accidents, crime, racism, sexism, or an argument with a teacher. Some of these people make it a long way through, or try again when they have failed once only to fail again. Then they have the debt, none of the benefits, and usually large dose of depression from failing.

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