Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
On Mon, 2013-06-17 at 09:19 -0600, Steve Smith wrote: Technology encourages the concentration of control in the same way that it encourages the concentration of wealth. I agree that this *can* happen and often *does* happen. I'd be interested in a broader discussion of the mechanisms. The simple answers seem obvious to me, but I suspect there are more subtle/complex ones? Well, I don't know how subtle it is. But it seems to me that the trend of steadily giving up our privacy via technology isn't at all a conscious act. People simply didn't/don't think very hard about what they're giving up when they, e.g., upload pictures of their food or retweet tweets from @anonymous (or whoever). I often argue that more ubiquitous technology like mortgage loans systemically centralize power into the hands of the people who understand how mortgages work. Even the people growing in power (loan officers, real estate agents, etc.) usually don't realize that the technology is what gives them their power, much less that the power is being concentrated into them. Another point is highlighted by the article Owen posted. The mere concept that Google, Apple, or Microsoft might be _defending_ us vassals from the government by publishing the government requests for data is laughable ... to me. But I am often wrong. And I know lots of people who are implicitly pro-corporation. They're loyalty runs very deep to some corporations or their faces in the sense of a brand. Great taste! No! Less filling! comes to mind. Or the provincial loyalty to Ford vs. Chevy or Coke vs. Pepsi. The process grows more complex with green or non-GMO food labeling, or charity-based corporations like neuman's own or ben jerry's and ideology-proximal corporations like credo or progressive insurance. This corporations vs. the government vibe is great for stoking those old brand loyalties. But all it really does (I think) is concentrate power into the hands of the corporations. And since there's only the thinnest veil between corporations and government, it brings us closer to fascism. Yes, I just asserted that if you claim to like Miller better than Budweiser, or vice versa, then you support a fascist government. ;-) I have to go to great extents to keep my non-sequitur master certification. The only way out is to claim both are garbage beer and head over to 2nd Street for some real beer. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella Root up the trees caress the dirt FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
I'd be impressed if they managed this. From what I've seen, once a project loses funding, it atrophies and is either cannibalized for funded projects or dies (slowly). But I could see that as long as the black budget stays black and if it grows, then a project could receive a minimum of sustenance from black sources until it can be rebranded and get larger funding from a more transparent source. Hell, for all I know some of the black budget is already used for this sort of thing. On Mon, 2013-06-17 at 12:34 -0400, mar...@snoutfarm.com wrote: Going back to the government contractor vs. employee issue. What I imagine will happen is that the legally questionable work will be compartmentalized to contractors (BAH, Chertoff group) and they will `advise' the government on imminent risks. That way, if/when the contractors do illegal things they can have their contracts revoked, be fined, etc. but the capability remains (perhaps in the hands of another contractor if needed). This has the added benefit that the officials that run the government organizations during some administration have a nice and profitable place to continue their work in later years. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella I pinned my baby into yanking satan's crank FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
On 6/18/13 6:18 AM, glen wrote: I'd be impressed if they managed this. From what I've seen, once a project loses funding, it atrophies and is either cannibalized for funded projects or dies (slowly). Building a hammer could be decoupled from using a hammer. The contractor could be motivated to be especially aggressive or reckless with the hammer [1], but when they step over the line (e.g. get caught), the government takes away the hammer and gives it to someone else. Risk mitigated. In terms of enduring companies that misuse hammers, I'm thinking Blackwater. Marcus [1] Hammer Attack! http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3070201.shtml?cat=504 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
On 6/18/13 6:12 AM, glen wrote: The mere concept that Google, Apple, or Microsoft might be _defending_ us vassals from the government by publishing the government requests for data is laughable ... to me. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower They are legally compelled to comply and maintain their silence in regard to specifics of the program, but that does not comply them from ethical obligation. If for example Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple refused to provide this cooperation with the Intelligence Community, what do you think the government would do? Shut them down? FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
On Tue, 2013-06-18 at 06:53 -0600, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: Building a hammer could be decoupled from using a hammer. [...] In terms of enduring companies that misuse hammers, I'm thinking Blackwater. In the abstract, I agree. But in the concrete, these systems (mostly computer-based systems, but including meat-space social networks) require continual energy input. Their half-life is much much shorter than that of a hammer. The only reason Xe/Blackwater is able to maintain their abuse is because the government and Xe are very very competent at the transitioning/rebranding. Those involved are masters at their gaming of the system. Such mastery is more of an exception than a rule. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella I can tell just by the climate, and I can tell just by the style FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
On Tue, 2013-06-18 at 07:37 -0600, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower They are legally compelled to comply and maintain their silence in regard to specifics of the program, but that does not comply them from ethical obligation. If for example Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple refused to provide this cooperation with the Intelligence Community, what do you think the government would do? Shut them down? I think Snowden is being a bit naive: --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_for_NSA_spying Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, convicted of insider trading in April 2007, alleged in appeal documents that the NSA requested that Qwest participate in its wiretapping program more than six months before September 11, 2001. Nacchio recalls the meeting as occurring on February 27, 2001. Nacchio further claims that the NSA cancelled a lucrative contract with Qwest as a result of Qwest's refusal to participate in the wiretapping program.[13] Nacchio surrendered April 14, 2009 to a federal prison camp in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania to begin serving a six-year sentence for the insider trading conviction. The United States Supreme Court denied bail pending appeal the same day. - The beauty of the corporation, is that it can survive the removal of the humans involved, it's open to material flow. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella I said children of the atom I'm gonna set you right FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
Very nice screed, indeed. And I'll infer the questions are rhetorical and, then, infer the rhetoric. You're saying that we've based our identity on contrasts with this monster and have been fighting this same monster, perhaps in slightly different guises, for decades. But, for some reason, now, even when it's placed right in front of the public, roughly 1/2 the population is at least blase', if not comfortable, with the NSA collecting metadata on us. Your position seems to split into 2: 1) How has our government changed so as to cause (most important), motivate, and justify the metadata collection? 2) How has our populace changed so that we (1/2 of us, anyway) accept that our government collects this data? My answer to (1) follows from a naive requirements analysis of the problem with which they're faced. The simplest way to discover socio political trends is to index communications. That's what they're doing and it's what I'd do if I wanted to solve that problem. The ethical question: Is it ethical to index communications? isn't asked within the rank and file because these people think of their work as _jobs_ or careers. Ethical choice doesn't flow down through the ranks. You either do your _job_ or quit. My answer to (2) is population density and the speed of information flow. As long as the wealthy (including anyone not facing starvation on a daily basis) can exercise the freedoms they're aware of, the majority will be satisfied to donate their energy to unevaluated ends. They'll continue to work their jobs, complain about their boss, yell at the other commuters from the isolation of their cars, etc. ... just as long as they can buy their iphones, choose between all the flavors provided by Unilever and Proctor Gamble, and be passively entertained by dancing rabbits selling toilet paper. [*] On Fri, 2013-06-14 at 10:12 -0600, Grant Holland wrote: I thought that the kind of general governmental overreach that we are talking about here was the reason we took on the USSR as an enemy during the 1950s+ (not to mention Viet Nam +). Didn't we unconditionally denounce the commies because of it? Wasn't that kind of government the reason we were supposed not to like the commies? Didn't we (humans) almost bombed ourselves out of existence - and take the planet with us - ultimately because we didn't like it? Wasn't our national identity arrayed against that kind of totalitarian behavior? Didn't we scribe a range of artworks (e.g. Orwell) against it in our culture? When Rand Paul and the ACLU agree on a topic, something is up. What was that famous quote about security vs liberty issued by Thomas Jefferson? -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella I have gazed beyond today -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella Brainstorm, here I go, Brainstorm, here I go, FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
On 6/18/13 7:51 AM, glen wrote: But in the concrete, these systems (mostly computer-based systems, but including meat-space social networks) require continual energy input. Their half-life is much much shorter than that of a hammer. Probably because `nail gun' is in development at the same time `hammer' is being mastered in various ways by various groups. :-) Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
[FRIAM] wed tech mailing list app
Greetings! Who do I contact to find the status of my application to be on the wedtech mailing list? While it might be steve gaurun (sp?)-I'd think with the umpteen simulation projects he has going-I'd think some else is just as able to review my request. -Thanks in advance. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] wed tech mailing list app
Hi Gil, I processed your subscription request from three days ago. If you have any changes you can also reach out to Owen Densmore. Are you familiar with him? :-) -S --- -. . ..-. .. ... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... stephen.gue...@redfish.com 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505 office: (505) 995-0206 tollfree: (888) 414-3855 mobile: (505) 577-5828 fax: (505) 819-5952 tw: @redfishgroup skype: redfishgroup gvoice: (505) 216-6226 redfish.com | simtable.com On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 6:52 PM, Gillian Densmore gil.densm...@gmail.comwrote: Greetings! Who do I contact to find the status of my application to be on the wedtech mailing list? While it might be steve gaurun (sp?)-I'd think with the umpteen simulation projects he has going-I'd think some else is just as able to review my request. -Thanks in advance. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] wed tech mailing list app
yes but unlike other familliars he has strong drothers that might be a D20 roll problem :P On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 9:03 AM, Stephen Guerin stephen.gue...@redfish.comwrote: Hi Gil, I processed your subscription request from three days ago. If you have any changes you can also reach out to Owen Densmore. Are you familiar with him? :-) -S --- -. . ..-. .. ... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... stephen.gue...@redfish.com 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505 office: (505) 995-0206 tollfree: (888) 414-3855 mobile: (505) 577-5828 fax: (505) 819-5952 tw: @redfishgroup skype: redfishgroup gvoice: (505) 216-6226 redfish.com | simtable.com On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 6:52 PM, Gillian Densmore gil.densm...@gmail.comwrote: Greetings! Who do I contact to find the status of my application to be on the wedtech mailing list? While it might be steve gaurun (sp?)-I'd think with the umpteen simulation projects he has going-I'd think some else is just as able to review my request. -Thanks in advance. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
Glen - Technology encourages the concentration of control in the same way that it encourages the concentration of wealth. I agree that this *can* happen and often *does* happen. I'd be interested in a broader discussion of the mechanisms. The simple answers seem obvious to me, but I suspect there are more subtle/complex ones? Well, I don't know how subtle it is. But it seems to me that the trend of steadily giving up our privacy via technology isn't at all a conscious act. People simply didn't/don't think very hard about what they're giving up when they, e.g., upload pictures of their food or retweet tweets from @anonymous (or whoever). I often argue that more ubiquitous technology like mortgage loans systemically centralize power into the hands of the people who understand how mortgages work. Even the people growing in power (loan officers, real estate agents, etc.) usually don't realize that the technology is what gives them their power, much less that the power is being concentrated into them. A penetrating analysis as always... I *do* agree intuitively with this, but I'm still noodling on just what the mechanisms are. My own glib answer would be something about a ratchet mechanism... that the technology has a tendency to make sure that those who understand it systematically tend to always benefit from it while those who don't understand it or understand it casually tend to lose over the long run. Advantages gained by the system tend to hold shile advantages gained by the individual tend to be isolated and transitory? One way of explaining it might be a little like the house advantage in casinos and the additional hidden advantage of deep pockets? Even in a fair' game of chance, the random walk of the individuals pile of chips will eventually walk them into bankruptcy while the casino can't be bankrupted (without orders of magnitude longer walks)? Another point is highlighted by the article Owen posted. The mere concept that Google, Apple, or Microsoft might be _defending_ us vassals from the government by publishing the government requests for data is laughable ... to me. But I am often wrong. And I know lots of people who are implicitly pro-corporation. They're loyalty runs very deep to some corporations or their faces in the sense of a brand. Great taste! No! Less filling! comes to mind. Or the provincial loyalty to Ford vs. Chevy or Coke vs. Pepsi. The process grows more complex with green or non-GMO food labeling, or charity-based corporations like neuman's own or ben jerry's and ideology-proximal corporations like credo or progressive insurance. This corporations vs. the government vibe is great for stoking those old brand loyalties. But all it really does (I think) is concentrate power into the hands of the corporations. And since there's only the thinnest veil between corporations and government, it brings us closer to fascism. I think (also) of this game as some combination of being shaken down by two bullies who pretend not to know or like eachother and a good cop/bad cop game. Yes, I just asserted that if you claim to like Miller better than Budweiser, or vice versa, then you support a fascist government. ;-) I have to go to great extents to keep my non-sequitur master certification. The only way out is to claim both are garbage beer and head over to 2nd Street for some real beer. Done! FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
I'm starting to think the Root Cause is simply ignorance. I don't mean that to be as harsh as it sounds. It's simply that not only the core tech changes rapidly, but now the whole web-app ecology has caught people by surprise. I know this via two recent family events. One was that we found a web site that simply did not run with Snow Leopard. Obsolescence and upgrade is a sneaky way to push folks into unfamiliar territory, and much more likely to make mistakes. This is especially true with Apple's Back To The Mac approach which tries to converge the iPhone/Pad/Pod/TV world with the more standard desktop. And behind this BTTM is much more use of the cloud, and more exposure. The second was a lament by a family member that they couldn't do things as easily as they once could. And this is a person who put together a Linux system a in the '90s! The problem here was similar. Way too many accounts, logins, passwords .. and lack of password standards .. along with the evolution away from the computer to the cloud .. and with so many devices to keep coordinated. Although similar to the first obsolescence, I think the second is more subtle. Do you remember migrating from your first computer to a second? Surprised all your email disappeared? And all the subtle configurations that had to also be migrated? Then the shock when you had both a desktop and a laptop and the email got split between the two until you grok'd IMAP and/or gmail/yahoo/ms .. all of whom took care of you but to whom you gave huge access to your information? Remember changing ISPs in the early days and having to tell everyone you have a new email address? .. and you then figured out you needed your own DNS? It goes on. The fact is that we need to license use of the web just as we do driving or amateur radio. Yup. An internet merit badge! I'm quite serious .. we somehow have migrated slowly but surely into the hands of a not very nice future via the lack of reasonable internet education. And every computer with poor security hygiene is a threat to me, not just the computer's owner. -- Owen On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 10:21 AM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: Glen - Technology encourages the concentration of control in the same way that it encourages the concentration of wealth. I agree that this *can* happen and often *does* happen. I'd be interested in a broader discussion of the mechanisms. The simple answers seem obvious to me, but I suspect there are more subtle/complex ones? Well, I don't know how subtle it is. But it seems to me that the trend of steadily giving up our privacy via technology isn't at all a conscious act. People simply didn't/don't think very hard about what they're giving up when they, e.g., upload pictures of their food or retweet tweets from @anonymous (or whoever). I often argue that more ubiquitous technology like mortgage loans systemically centralize power into the hands of the people who understand how mortgages work. Even the people growing in power (loan officers, real estate agents, etc.) usually don't realize that the technology is what gives them their power, much less that the power is being concentrated into them. A penetrating analysis as always... I *do* agree intuitively with this, but I'm still noodling on just what the mechanisms are. My own glib answer would be something about a ratchet mechanism... that the technology has a tendency to make sure that those who understand it systematically tend to always benefit from it while those who don't understand it or understand it casually tend to lose over the long run. Advantages gained by the system tend to hold shile advantages gained by the individual tend to be isolated and transitory? One way of explaining it might be a little like the house advantage in casinos and the additional hidden advantage of deep pockets? Even in a fair' game of chance, the random walk of the individuals pile of chips will eventually walk them into bankruptcy while the casino can't be bankrupted (without orders of magnitude longer walks)? Another point is highlighted by the article Owen posted. The mere concept that Google, Apple, or Microsoft might be _defending_ us vassals from the government by publishing the government requests for data is laughable ... to me. But I am often wrong. And I know lots of people who are implicitly pro-corporation. They're loyalty runs very deep to some corporations or their faces in the sense of a brand. Great taste! No! Less filling! comes to mind. Or the provincial loyalty to Ford vs. Chevy or Coke vs. Pepsi. The process grows more complex with green or non-GMO food labeling, or charity-based corporations like neuman's own or ben jerry's and ideology-proximal corporations like credo or progressive insurance. This corporations vs. the government vibe is great for stoking those old brand loyalties. But all it really does (I think) is concentrate
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
A big problem with teaching internet literacy is that it would amount to teaching moving target: change is so hard to teach, since it keeps changing :-) On a tangential note, I'm trying to come out of retirement (sabbatical :-) after about five years, and whoa, it's incredible how much has changed, even though I've tried to stay more or less current the whole time. Forget SourceForge, it's all on GitHub now! Does anyone even consider the possibility that a user might have JavaScript disabled in their browser? You wouldn't get very far these days. What's this cloud thing again? Makes me want to give up and go back to watching X-Files reruns :-) ;; Gary On Jun 18, 2013, at 11:48 AM, Owen Densmore o...@backspaces.net wrote: I'm starting to think the Root Cause is simply ignorance. I don't mean that to be as harsh as it sounds. It's simply that not only the core tech changes rapidly, but now the whole web-app ecology has caught people by surprise. I know this via two recent family events. One was that we found a web site that simply did not run with Snow Leopard. Obsolescence and upgrade is a sneaky way to push folks into unfamiliar territory, and much more likely to make mistakes. This is especially true with Apple's Back To The Mac approach which tries to converge the iPhone/Pad/Pod/TV world with the more standard desktop. And behind this BTTM is much more use of the cloud, and more exposure. The second was a lament by a family member that they couldn't do things as easily as they once could. And this is a person who put together a Linux system a in the '90s! The problem here was similar. Way too many accounts, logins, passwords .. and lack of password standards .. along with the evolution away from the computer to the cloud .. and with so many devices to keep coordinated. Although similar to the first obsolescence, I think the second is more subtle. Do you remember migrating from your first computer to a second? Surprised all your email disappeared? And all the subtle configurations that had to also be migrated? Then the shock when you had both a desktop and a laptop and the email got split between the two until you grok'd IMAP and/or gmail/yahoo/ms .. all of whom took care of you but to whom you gave huge access to your information? Remember changing ISPs in the early days and having to tell everyone you have a new email address? .. and you then figured out you needed your own DNS? It goes on. The fact is that we need to license use of the web just as we do driving or amateur radio. Yup. An internet merit badge! I'm quite serious .. we somehow have migrated slowly but surely into the hands of a not very nice future via the lack of reasonable internet education. And every computer with poor security hygiene is a threat to me, not just the computer's owner. -- Owen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
The ARRL http://www.arrl.org/ licenses amateur radio operators. They are non-governmental but I think the FCC has to OK the levels of the examination. -- Owen On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM, Marcus G. Daniels mar...@snoutfarm.comwrote: On 6/18/13 10:48 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: Then the shock when you had both a desktop and a laptop and the email got split between the two until you grok'd IMAP and/or gmail/yahoo/ms .. all of whom took care of you but to whom you gave huge access to your information? [..] The fact is that we need to license use of the web just as we do driving or amateur radio. Uh huh. And what trustworthy entity will issue the licenses? Marcus ==**== FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/**listinfo/friam_redfish.comhttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
On 6/18/13 10:48 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: Then the shock when you had both a desktop and a laptop and the email got split between the two until you grok'd IMAP and/or gmail/yahoo/ms .. all of whom took care of you but to whom you gave huge access to your information? [..] The fact is that we need to license use of the web just as we do driving or amateur radio. Uh huh. And what trustworthy entity will issue the licenses? Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
On 6/18/13 11:07 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: The ARRL http://www.arrl.org/ licenses amateur radio operators. They are non-governmental but I think the FCC has to OK the levels of the examination. Let's say that the PRISM accusations are true, and that Microsoft was first on board providing compromised services and software to the NSA. Why would anyone then believe that any sort of Microsoft Certified Solutions Whatever should be any indication of expertise in ensuring security as opposed to merely giving the appearance of security (except for the NSA)? Such `experts' are, well, stooges. Same goes for Cisco, Oracle certifications etc. You can extrapolate that all the way to universities funded on the public dime. `Educators' are just as well subject to influence through funding [dis]incentives as anyone -- and that possibility is _truly_ insidious. Organizations like the EFF seems about the best bet, since they are focused on this issue. That also makes their leadership targets, should they gain larger popularity. The first thing that has to go if people want privacy are their proprietary operating systems. In the open source community, where people actually care about this stuff, they bother to debate it in an open way. Personally I'm less afraid of the NSA than opportunistic sharing of things like medical data, financial information by corporations, say to reduce insurance payouts. Deals completely behind the scenes and deniable. I get the impression that many people accept the story that the policies and laws are what matter and not the deployed capabilities. It's a remarkable mistake. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
Maybe the problem is that the amount of pertinent technical knowledge is growing, like the amount of scientific knowledge, and it exceeds any one person's or any one organization's grasp. Not to mention all the obsolescent knowledge. You talk as if there were someone, somewhere, who has an adequate grasp of all the details. Or as if you could sit down and study for a few weeks and be competent. Or as if there were some well known amount of time to budget each year for study to keep yourself up to date. There ain't no such person, no such book, and no such plan. If you felt competent in the past, it's simply that you chose your areas of ignorance well or were sublimely blind to them. So when CBS headlines: 'Obama on NSA programs: Americans not getting the complete story', yeah, like who is getting the complete story? Does Obama understand how these programs work? No, he understands what Clapper and his other security wonks tell him. Who's got the the complete skivvy on how the NSA programs actually work? Who has the more complete understanding of all the technology that the NSA spends its secret budget on and the ramifications of that technology? The president of the united states? Or a 29 year old sysadm? -- rec -- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 11:50 AM, Marcus G. Daniels mar...@snoutfarm.comwrote: I get the impression that many people accept the story that the policies and laws are what matter and not the deployed capabilities. It's a remarkable mistake. The code is the law, look at what the code does, pay no attention to their stated intentions. -- rec -- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
As the owner (and author) of an on-line store, I have a few comments: On Jun 18, 2013, at 11:26 AM, Owen Densmore o...@backspaces.net wrote: Why do I need a login to buy stuff for example? Yeah, I'd have to retype my address .. which the browsers seem willing to do for me. They also remember the logins .. but we could make that illegal, or at least much less easy to opt-in for. The credit card is LESS exposed during an atomic transaction than in laying around in a server. For a software download, there is no need for any information beyond the credit card (number, billing address, etc.) For a shipment, we can use an email name to give the customer a heads-up when it ships, and can send a tracking number. Sometimes a user wants to check on the status of his order via the web; in that case we need a password or some authentication. If something goes wrong -- address was invalid, out of stock, etc. -- we need an email or at least a snail mail address, or the user is screwed. We are redoing our store, and most sales will be downloads. We will take email addresses (optional but strongly recommended) and credit cards (not saved). The user can optionally sign up for our newsletters. 2-factor authentication is good, but I'm leery of single sign ons, especially with Google. I see it as another way they can track wherever I go. Also, the backup is a long (15 characters? I don't recall exactly) password, which is probably shorter than the passwords I use with 1Password -- which makes my single password more secure as long it is never sent as plain text. If I don't have to remember a password, why not make it 20 or 25 characters long. Having said that, I agree that passwords are a pain. I thought Git *is* a source control system. Perhaps programming is getting easier because computers are getting more powerful and so can handle the yucky parts like reference counting, garbage collection, and I/O. But remember how dominant the following languages were in their day: C, C++ -- 1990 Java -- 1995 Perl -- 1995 VB and C# in the MS world -- 2000 Now JavaScript, which dates back to 1995 but was rescued by newer interpreters. Outside the browser world, you could argue that Python and Ruby outrank JavaScript. JavaScript will probably last as long as there are browsers. --Barry So just like internet tax moving us to saner tax reform, internet licensing would move us toward saner hygiene. Another simple move would be to simply better security. A 2-factor standard would help, as well as OpenID or o-auth protocols. I don't mind getting a silly pin from Google when I need to login, it works just fine. Mozilla and others are slowly working on a login-less world. So I think the education remains pretty basic: The basic computer: libraries, accounts (root/usr), file system, along with tools for rootkit/malware. The basic network stack, simplified. DNS. Internet protocols for web (http/https), mail (IMAP/POP) and so on. The core is pretty solid and teachable. On a tangential note, I'm trying to come out of retirement (sabbatical :-) after about five years, and whoa, it's incredible how much has changed, even though I've tried to stay more or less current the whole time. Forget SourceForge, it's all on GitHub now! Does anyone even consider the possibility that a user might have JavaScript disabled in their browser? You wouldn't get very far these days. What's this cloud thing again? Makes me want to give up and go back to watching X-Files reruns :-) I hear you! Steve G and I have been discussing this relative to SimTable and AgentScript. Its a race to just stay in place. But even here there is a core that is pretty solid. Git has replaced source control and is pretty understandable, more so than the others when you get that it really is a file system of sorts, with all the usual create, rm/mv, file/folder, etc components. Github does throw in a wrinkle or two. This is one of the reasons for wedtech. We need to know what we don't know. And then we need help distributing the load. We've gotten so there are local experts on git, webgl, html5/css3 and so on. More importantly, there is one huge simplification if you fit it: javascript. It is now the client (browser apps phones/tvs), the server (nodejs), and the network (async IO with JSON). I recently experience this when I wanted to make AgentScript.org more easily managed. I graduated from a simple coffeescript build command and a few bash scripts, to a coffeescript based make called, naturally, cake. It was completely familiar because it was javascript/coffeescript all the way down. So in one area, programming, its actually getting less complex. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
JavaScript is sorta lisp with braces. Seriously, Brendan Eich the JS creator, had 2 weeks to build the scripting language for Netscape in the early '90s. So he came up with a version of Scheme. The bosses all said yuk, we want a real language, you know like C and Java! .. go fetch another rock. So he just built a Scheme with braces! -- Owen On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Gary Schiltz g...@naturesvisualarts.comwrote: On Jun 18, 2013, at 12:26 PM, Owen Densmore o...@backspaces.net wrote: On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 11:01 AM, Gary Schiltz g...@naturesvisualarts.com wrote: On a tangential note, I'm trying to come out of retirement (sabbatical :-) after about five years, and whoa, it's incredible how much has changed, even though I've tried to stay more or less current the whole time. Forget SourceForge, it's all on GitHub now! Does anyone even consider the possibility that a user might have JavaScript disabled in their browser? You wouldn't get very far these days. What's this cloud thing again? Makes me want to give up and go back to watching X-Files reruns :-) I hear you! Steve G and I have been discussing this relative to SimTable and AgentScript. Its a race to just stay in place. But even here there is a core that is pretty solid. Git has replaced source control and is pretty understandable, more so than the others when you get that it really is a file system of sorts, with all the usual create, rm/mv, file/folder, etc components. Github does throw in a wrinkle or two. I was mainly commenting on the fact that I have a whole lot of catching up to do. Actually, I'm really excited about the internet landscape of 2013, and I'm pretty sure I prefer it to the landscape I left in 2008. This is one of the reasons for wedtech. We need to know what we don't know. And then we need help distributing the load. We've gotten so there are local experts on git, webgl, html5/css3 and so on. More importantly, there is one huge simplification if you fit it: javascript. It is now the client (browser apps phones/tvs), the server (nodejs), and the network (async IO with JSON). I recently experience this when I wanted to make AgentScript.org more easily managed. I graduated from a simple coffeescript build command and a few bash scripts, to a coffeescript based make called, naturally, cake. It was completely familiar because it was javascript/coffeescript all the way down. So in one area, programming, its actually getting less complex. It does seem that the internet ecosystem is settling down rather nicely, with emphasis on standards (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, RDF (maybe)). Personally, I'm a Lisp fan, and these days it's possible to use Clojure server-side (it compiled to JVM byte code) and ClojureScript client-side (it compiles via Google Closure to optimized, minimized JavaScript). But then, paraphrasing a popular Ruby article from half a dozen years ago, I can see how JavaScript is an Acceptable Lisp. And with a more open ecosystem, I don't have to choose what is an Acceptable Lisp, but write in whatever language that gets compiled to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, RDF. ;; Gary FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
And then from May 15 Google's added PHP runtime to their App Engine: http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/15/google-opens-up-powerful-aws-competitor-compute-engine-to-all/ How horrifying is that? Robert C On 6/18/13 2:52 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote: It does seem that the internet ecosystem is settling down rather nicely, with emphasis on standards (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, RDF (maybe)). Personally, I'm a Lisp fan, and these days it's possible to use Clojure server-side (it compiled to JVM byte code) and ClojureScript client-side (it compiles via Google Closure to optimized, minimized JavaScript). But then, paraphrasing a popular Ruby article from half a dozen years ago, I can see how JavaScript is an Acceptable Lisp. And with a more open ecosystem, I don't have to choose what is an Acceptable Lisp, but write in whatever language that gets compiled to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, RDF. ;; Gary FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] Obama on NSA Surveillance
On 6/18/13 12:09 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote: You talk as if there were someone, somewhere, who has an adequate grasp of all the details. Exactly. Individuals and all kinds of organizations have come to expect promiscuity without consequence when it comes to the use of software. As more and more critical system software is written overseas, or by foreign nationals in the U.S., it is stupid to think that these individuals, organizations, and/or governments aren't fully capable of planting malware in trusted tools and services. Even assuming that engineered malicious software could be reliably identified and quarantined from executable content (it can't), there's an ever increasing body of spongy, bug-ridden software just waiting for motivated people to exploit for unfriendly purposes. For applications that matter, my view is that the whole software stack must be made available for inspection as source code, and a community of expertise and criticism must be built around it. This not to say that there will be someone that gains the`adequate' grasp. But, with all this in hand the organization can at least see the scope of their potential risk. For anything non-trivial the risk will be large. Those that claim to care about security above all else must begin to realize the extent of what they don't know, and carefully build up systems from components that are, as much as is possible, transparent and tested -- or proven -- to work in all possible situations and refuse to work outside of that domain. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
