paranoid ?
in [ASM]
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From: Wolfgang Kern on 13 Jan 2008 10:23 Sorry for this four double posts yet winXP chrashed early this month ... and exactly after the mails were sent this time. __ wolfgang
From: Rod Pemberton on 14 Jan 2008 03:56 "Wolfgang Kern" <nowhere(a)never.at> wrote in message news:fmd9sv$dkc$1(a)newsreader1.xoc.utanet.at... > > Rod Pemberton replied (long), > > at first I thought Beth is back again ;) > Damn, who was this "Beth"? It seems everyone here is in love or intense admiration of "her"... or is desperate... ;) > Thanks for your deep insight on the matter Rod. "Deep insight"..., I guess that means I won the "Man, you're _really_ paranoid!" award... ;-) I told you I'd be called paranoid yet again! Okay, no more paranoia from me for a while... > GI'll Othink Oabout Dhow to Ihide Dsensible Eposts Awith !my very own method and > mail the decoder parts disguised as pictures or else apart from it. > You think "their" algorithms can figure out I encoded "GOOD IDEA!" ? Everyone who reads it can, but what about a computer program? Do you think they'd even waste computation time checking for something so simple? With megabytes of data being transmitted for simple Activex and Java webpages, movies, music, how do you find the needles in the haystacks? You'd need pretty good intel on on which needles and which haystacks... On the other hand, with decryption of a semi-decent encryption algorithm taking months to years, if you could convince everyone to encrypt everything, little or nothing of any real value to a paranoid government would ever get decrypted... It's probably best if the governments encouraged this themselves. Then it severely limits distribution of "found" secrets to just the culprits and friends and not the entire world..., at the price that you're not likely to catch or punish the culprits... Is it more important to punish or control the information? Rod Pemberton
From: Wolfgang Kern on 14 Jan 2008 06:44 Rod Pemberton wrote: >> at first I thought Beth is back again ;) > Damn, who was this "Beth"? It seems everyone here is in love or intense > admiration of "her"... or is desperate... ;) Her inspiring spirit haunted ALA,CLAX,AOD, and sure other NGs too for many years and some of us communicated with her by email in addition. >> Thanks for your deep insight on the matter Rod. > "Deep insight"..., I guess that means I won the "Man, you're _really_ > paranoid!" award... ;-) I told you I'd be called paranoid yet again! > Okay, no more paranoia from me for a while... Fine. :) >> GI'll Othink Oabout Dhow to Ihide Dsensible Eposts Awith ! >> my very own method and mail the decoder parts disguised as >> pictures or else apart from it. > You think "their" algorithms can figure out I encoded "GOOD IDEA!" ? > Everyone who reads it can, but what about a computer program? Do you think > they'd even waste computation time checking for something so simple? With > megabytes of data being transmitted for simple Activex and Java webpages, > movies, music, how do you find the needles in the haystacks? You'd need > pretty good intel on on which needles and which haystacks... On the other > hand, with decryption of a semi-decent encryption algorithm taking months to > years, if you could convince everyone to encrypt everything, little or > nothing of any real value to a paranoid government would ever get > decrypted... It's probably best if the governments encouraged this > themselves. Then it severely limits distribution of "found" secrets to just > the culprits and friends and not the entire world..., at the price that > you're not likely to catch or punish the culprits... Is it more important > to punish or control the information? It would be enough to have private and business mails in sealed envelops, and I can imagine a method to fool this culprits with things which look like confident information, but mean actually something else. I got net-banking, but because this is an ill detoured story, I never used it for money transfers. And there is a pub near the bank-office ... __ wolfgang
From: Robert Redelmeier on 14 Jan 2008 09:31 Rod Pemberton <do_not_have(a)nohavenot.cmm> wrote in part: > Well, I don't believe anyone in '87 or '92 or even '99 > would've thought that their posts to usenet were being > archived. By 1999, such individuals would be sorely underinformed. Dejanews started in 1995 and also introduced the X-No-Archive header. But even before that, just how much privacy can you expect for a msg you post to the world? Some people have long memories. Archives just make them more reliable. > US property, then Canada or Mexico will do. Or, they can > pay foreign governments to do the wiretapping... e.g., > Germany or Britain. Yes, yes, we know all about ECHELON. An interesting evasion of prohibitions on domestic spying: "You spy on mine, I'll spy on your citizens". Not very scalable and drowned in the info flood. Like all clandestine activities always subject to the dilemma of using info revealing source. > Have you ever tried to use GNU PGP with someone else? Sure. My perferred mail user agent [mutt] has nice hooks built-in for PGP/GPG. > The entire conversion, using public key encryption, would > be secure except for the first encrypted message... Look up mixmaster anon remailers. > Well, when I thought someone was trying to steal my Dad's wallet > as a child, I was told I was paranoid. We did end up having > something stolen from us, but I didn't explicitly see him... Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Who knows? Maybe you were right. But there are alternative explanations. > When I saw police officers beating a guy, probably to death, under > an overpass and saw them drive away from the closest hospital and > away from the nearest police station, I was told I was paranoid. Maybe. And maybe the suspect was high on drugs and required plenty of force to subdue. And the officers invovled were from a different unit than the nearby patrol station. And or they had been directed to a different hospital because the nearest was full. I cannot know. But there is more than one probability. > When I saw drug dealers passing drugs in front of a Federal > Court house and a few feet from a police hang-out with numerous > police around, I was told I was paranoid. LOL! First you complain about police violating rights, and now you complain about police respecting (4th Am) rights. Just because it looks like drug dealing does not mean that it is. Quite possibly the dealers were snooking a crook at the cops with sugar and flash cash. Great for a defense. Otherwise, police generally do not act unless there is obvious and immediate danger or specifially tasked with enforcing a given set of laws. Who knows they might be interfering with an undercover op. > When I saw a city bus crash into a brand new police car, back up, > drive into it again and push it up onto the sidewalk breaking > both passenger side axles, I was told I was paranoid. And just what do you suppose was the conspiracy there? My best guess in a bus driver got very upset. Second would be he was order to clear the road for some reason. > When I saw police trailing me at different points in my life, > I was told I was paranoid. It is their _job_ to trail people. Especially suspicious characters like you! It is perfectly legal and considered good police practice. > Years ago I had a history teacher who told us that radicals > had strong beliefs (both liberal and conservative) > and moderates had weak beliefs. Supposedly, moderates > with their weak beliefs could be "molded" to conform to > peaceful ideals which is why governments desired them. Hoo boy. Yes, radicals need strong beliefs because otherwise social pressures move them to the center. But that does not preclude centrists from having strong beliefs. As for what governments desire, you and he are presuming a great deal of intelligence, internal trust and cooperation, and long-term thinking. Far more than has ever been shown. I have seen inside many government operations (various levels) and the process is much closer to "Charlie Wilson's War" than "1984". > I tried to tell him he was wrong, but he wouldn't listen. > I tried to tell him that people with weak beliefs were part > of the reason why the Nazi's rose to power, and why Germans > passively allowed the Jews to be slaughtered. Sorta, but the onion has more layers on it than that. > write down all US paranoid beliefs from the '80's on paper > and ask someone, "Does this exist in the US today?" And, > they'll answer (wrongly), "No." Of course abuses exist. Anything not against the laws of physics _must_ happen given enough chances. Of course there are rogue cops and even occasionally rogue depts. But these are not policy even if it may take years to fix. > protect us from thieves! Our government tells (brainwashing? > densitization?) us if someone attacks, don't fight back > - it'll just be worse - let the police protect you. ?!? They do not say the police can protect you. Or at least no one with a modicum of sense would believe this. However, cooperation statistically is probably the safest alternative unless you have a loaded weapon with muzzle on target. Do NOT draw on a drawn gun. You won't make it. > "We're defenseless lambs ready for slaughter..." Well, > it took 30 years, but it happened on 9/11. Yes, and that exploit is one-time. As soon as news had spread to pilots, it became irrepeatable since they would bounce or even roll their aircraft rather than yield their seats. > The hijackers used the lack of citizen weaponry to their > advantage. Certainly, but with sufficient numbers, weapons are irrelevant. UA93. The key was knowledge. > It didn't take a rocket scientist to know it was coming > and many knew that it would. Of course, the US government > just saw it as another chance to remove the power of the The loss-of-face and internal recriminations from the attacks was far more damaging to the politicians and bureaucrats than any possible gains from the clamp-down. > Control is an authoritarian ideology with rules and laws And excess is socio-economic and ultimately geopolitical power suicide. It kept China down for 1000+ years. It allowed some tenuous, hardscrabble colonies to surpass Europe in 300. Most recently there has been the Soviet failure. If the USG were quite so authoritairian and efficient, why would it tolerate things like FOIA, Miranda and "fruit of the poisoned vine"? -- Robert
From: Evenbit on 14 Jan 2008 16:00
On Jan 13, 3:50 am, "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_h...(a)nohavenot.cmm> wrote: > > The two, control and freedom, are > contradictory. Both can't exist in full. Control is an authoritarian > ideology with rules and laws and punishments for everything and freedom is a > libertarian ideology without rules or laws or punishments for anything. > Ones views people as inherently bad, the other as good. The truth is > inbetween. They can only exist together in compromise. For the government > to gain more control, people must lose freedom. But, the ends never justify > the means. Authoritarian nations tend to accomplish "big" things. Just look at China. They are building large and spledid cities. They are an economic superpower. They may even have the capacity to eclipse our achievements in outer space. Do we really want China to be the only "master of the solar system?" If you want to lead a large group of people to accomplish something really big, then every member of that group must "pull" in the same direction. This is why authoritarian regimes strengthen nations while democratic ones destroy them. Nathan. |