Replies to post #234079 on Wave Systems Corp. (fka WAVXQ)

[aleajactaest]

hi waveduke,

"If there is a back door here, you can just assume there is a backdoor everywhere -- abide by the law and you should be okay"

i have seen the variations of this argument over and over.

abide by the law and everything is okay.

actually, i have an interest in privacy that has nothing to do with illegality. i have an interest in privacy because i just want to keep my stuff to myself, thank you. i didn't invite someone to make my life an open book. i didn't invite the police or the nsa into my life simply because i switch my pc on.

so many folks on this board seem to think privacy is only valuable as a thing defined against lawful behaviour. it is much more than that. people change their behaviour when they think other people are observing them. for instance, people make jokes to friends that they wouldn't make if they knew they might be being observed. surveillance chills free private expression.

this is called by some folks the panopticon effect. it is a well-known phenomenon. I suggest that everyone who thinks the obligations of privacy are measured only against lawful behaviour should immerse themselves in reading about the impact of surveillance on society. it's well documented.

but as it happens, the normal idea of privacy which apparently americans swear by is that it works the other way around to the way you think it does. individuals have a right to privacy. governments only have a right to act in contradiction of this right if they have a probable cause for their suspicion. it's right there in the bill of rights.

maybe this doesn't operate in the digital realm. i kinda think that is going to be discussed over the coming years for reasons other than tc.

for myself, i think broad surveillance is a repellant thing. but i guess however many times i explain the idea of privacy as having a value, i am not going to persuade an investor who has a vested interest in seeing no value in it. even so, it is a worthwhile thing and actually a bedrock of freedom.

"Most influentially, the idea of the panopticon was invoked by Michel Foucault, in his Discipline and Punish (1975), as a metaphor for modern "disciplinary" societies and their pervasive inclination to observe and normalise. "On the whole, therefore, one can speak of the formation of a disciplinary society in this movement that stretches from the enclosed disciplines, a sort of social 'quarantine', to an indefinitely generalizable mechanism of 'panopticism'" The Panopticon is an ideal architectural figure of modern disciplinary power. The Panopticon creates a consciousness of permanent visibility as a form of power, where no bars, chains, and heavy locks are necessary for domination any more.[40] Foucault proposes that not only prisons but all hierarchical structures like the army, schools, hospitals and factories have evolved through history to resemble Bentham's Panopticon."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

[Armp]

When it comes to computer security I have been most concerned about the US or Israel spying on companies for commercial secrets. More recently I've added China. About ten years ago it was indicated to me that NSA routes all hotmail out of the country, scans the email, and then routes it back into the US. It wasn't said, it was indicated, by a high level NSA manager.

This using government and military power for the benefit of business friends is not new. I recall how surprised I was to find in a company repository all kinds of technical documents lifted from foreign companies detailing their processes or underlying scientific theories. The source of the documents - the US government. That experience was about 35 years ago!

In my company, to protect our investment in advanced technology, none of our computers with technical content are connected to the web. No technical documents are transferred by any form of direct link to another computer. Employees are given two computers, one for internal work and another for connecting with the world. No one is allowed to travel with computers having technical content (we spend a lot of time in Israel, China, Korea, Japan and naturally the US (stone age in this technology). And for phone communications we have a rich vocabulary of code words so that we do not discuss matters in the clear.

The Snowden disclosure was not a surprise to me but the extent of non-essential spying on people is disgusting. Even the code names for their spying programs reveals a juvenile mentality- these are immature jerks not serious defenders of their country.

I understand the need to gather communications from our sworn enemies and I don't mind some excursions into my privacy to assure completeness.