Re: The US government has betrayed the Internet. We need to take it back

[Sam Moats <sam () circlenet us>]

True I shot from the hip, he does address the concerns later. I'm used 
to implementing technologies to solve security problems. It's just damn 
frustrating to have your hands tied in such a way that you can not and 
that's the position that I see myself and most other network ops in.

Our customers decided at the ballot box that they didn't want 
protection and it was acceptable to entrust their privacy to the system. 
They seem to forget that decision when they ask if they are vulnerable 
to this type of intercept and what they can do about it. The answer is 
not much because I will not and can not break the law, it's unethical 
and wrong. I will encourage people to seek to change the laws to 
encourage true end to end security but the odds of that happening are 
near 0.
Sam

On 2013-09-06 06:47, John S. Quarterman wrote:
> > On 2013-09-06 05:57, Roland Dobbins wrote:
>
> > > There are no purely technical solutions to social ills.  Schneier 
> > of
> > > all people should know this.
>
> Schneier does know this, and explicitly said this.
>
> -jsq
>
>
>
> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/05/government-betrayed-internet-nsa-spying
>
> Three, we can influence governance. I have resisted saying this up to 
> now,
> and I am saddened to say it, but the US has proved to be an unethical
> steward of the internet. The UK is no better. The NSA's actions are
> legitimizing the internet abuses by China, Russia, Iran and others. 
> We
> need to figure out new means of internet governance, ones that makes 
> it
> harder for powerful tech countries to monitor everything. For 
> example,
> we need to demand transparency, oversight, and accountability from 
> our
> governments and corporations.
>
> Unfortunately, this is going play directly into the hands of 
> totalitarian
> governments that want to control their country's internet for even 
> more
> extreme forms of surveillance. We need to figure out how to prevent 
> that,
> too. We need to avoid the mistakes of the International 
> Telecommunications
> Union, which has become a forum to legitimize bad government 
> behavior,
> and create truly international governance that can't be dominated or
> abused by any one country.
>
> Generations from now, when people look back on these early decades of
> the internet, I hope they will not be disappointed in us. We can 
> ensure
> that they don't only if each of us makes this a priority, and engages 
> in
> the debate. We have a moral duty to do this, and we have no time to 
> lose.
>
> Dismantling the surveillance state won't be easy. Has any country 
> that
> engaged in mass surveillance of its own citizens voluntarily given up
> that capability? Has any mass surveillance country avoided becoming
> totalitarian? Whatever happens, we're going to be breaking new 
> ground.
>
> Again, the politics of this is a bigger task than the engineering, 
> but
> the engineering is critical. We need to demand that real 
> technologists
> be involved in any key government decision making on these issues. 
> We've
> had enough of lawyers and politicians not fully understanding 
> technology;
> we need technologists at the table when we build tech policy.
>
> To the engineers, I say this: we built the internet, and some of us 
> have
> helped to subvert it. Now, those of us who love liberty have to fix 
> it.