puscii: > http://www.puscii.nl/blog/content/whats-wrong-kids-these-days > > What's wrong with the kids these days? > > On the moral decay of the Dutch hacker scene >
I'm really happy to see that someone took the time to write this article and I'm also happy to see that it was related to puscii. For those that do not know the history of ascii and puscii - these two groups are two extremely important parts of Dutch/European sustainability, artistic, hacking and autonomous culture. I've long respected their squatting activity, their Free Software ethics and their political actions. I find the observations in the article extremely grim and depressing - it is largely as a matter of agreement, I might add. The desire to collaborate with authoritarian power structures is often hand-waved away with "one has to eat" or "we're not helping Syria" style arguments. They're often followed up with arguments about fear of punishment or about the so-called justice done on occasion by such structures. The privatization of this kind of policing is concerning. It is built on the already questionable notion that the police themselves would be legitimate actors in this space if they merely had the talent. This is false in many cases and such partnerships generally seek to expand the authoritarian reach of the State, without any of the democratic oversight, transparency or even the semblance of consent on the topics at hand. Most people hardly understand the abstract ideas involved, let alone the actual concrete details. The Dutch police actually do this on many levels - that is - they do it not only with private Dutch companies like Fox-IT but also with other law enforcement. The FBI has some full time people who are embedded within the Dutch law enforcement offices. My understanding is that they have desks in the same (!) office area as other Dutch police. Consider this as a threat not only to the Dutch democratic processes but also to the notion that the Netherlands is somehow independent in terms of law-enforcement and intelligence. Surely, one would not jest that the FBI deployed with the Dutch police would serve the Dutch police first, right? Perhaps they'll take some puscii members who are actually Dutch citizens to sit with their FBI office counterparts? It seems doubtful and as such, it raises questions on a number of levels. I've met a lot of Dutch police in the last few months as I have recently visited the Hague for the latest NCSC event. Many of the higher level computery security folks are personally nice people. Even some of the AiVD people are personally friendly - quite a difference from some of the other intelligence agencies. Obviously, I'm not in agreement with a lot of their policies, their methods, tactics, strategies or even comfortable with their relationships. While they do work for goals that I think are reasonable such as stopping non-consensual human trafficking, it is perhaps with methods that may lead to abuse or other serious concerns. I don't hold any personal contempt for them for doing what amounts to a thankless job. I do however find myself thinking that the new Dutch hacking generation should not forget that some power structures are not worth supporting simply because one is not personally oppressed by it on a daily basis. With that said, the complicity of hackers in these kinds of actions is beyond loathsome. Rather than helping to actually secure our systems, we see compromises that undermine the very core of our modern world. If we look to the physical world for an analog of such total surveillance, even in camera heavy parts of the world, humanity still largely rejects such total spying programs, if they are lucky enough to be consulted at all. Why then should people of any stripe help to build similar systems that are nearly total and almost completely incomprehensible to most people on the planet? The answer is simple: we shouldn't! Hackers and those who are technically literate have a responsibility to consider the larger issues at stake. Those who don't, who just follow orders, who use simplistic self-serving reasoning in place of thoughtful ethics - those people are building a world where most of humanity will be subservient to such architecture. Total identification, total and complete logs of our activities, our relationships, our beliefs, our experimentations, our core values - everything. History will not reflect well on such people and the near future will be extremely uncomfortable if those resisting have anything to say about it. I look forward to leaked documents and leaked software about companies like Fox-IT as well as details on such surveillance programs. While people are digging, don't forget to identify the people and the money trails involved - if such companies will promote and construct such systems for all of us, lets give it to them first! Leak more documents! In solidarity, Jacob -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at [email protected] or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
