Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonplackett | Hacker News Reader

I assumed they’d only have asked for it if they’d already OKed it with the US, and that it was probably part of a plan to give US access too via 5-eyes sharing.

Turns out it was not 4D chess after all…

View on HN

I think if we'd had a "normal" administration, this probably would have been pushed by the US government. The US services have been gunning for this for decades. But we have an administration that seems extremely disjointed in what it wants to do and why it wants to do it. I'm kind of curious about the internal conversations that must be happening on the other side of 5-eyes nations services as they're trying to accomplish their ends with such an unpredictable ally.

For better or for worse, JD Vance is extremely online, and no one in his cryptocurrency-hoarding right-libertarian tweetsphere thinks government backdoors are a good idea.

I don't think there is much disjoint if you see Trump as a fairly clean break with the cold-war era GOP. The thing is that no one in the US remembers the cold war with pride. The left thinks the cold war was US imperialism. The right kind of agrees, and has moved on to other issues anyways. And Europe nudges, saying: "Hey, you're America. You love fighting cold wars! Remember?"

Too many Europeans are Chomsky-brained and believe that US foreign policy is controlled by the CIA. The reality is that US grand strategy is incoherent and has been for decades. The US doesn't have any actual strategic imperatives at the moment, and it's being pulled in too many different directions. I believe George Friedman argues that this is a recurring pattern in US history, where US foreign policy alternates between listlessness, and maniac focus on some objective (most recently in the wake of 9/11).

The UK home office has really, really wanted this for decades, through all sorts of technologies. Institutional paranoia.

> Turns out it was not 4D chess after all…

It never is. I'm guilty of thinking there's a secret master plan sometimes and there never is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

For me it's not so much a conspiracy as the natural flow as a society becomes more fascist (as most Western government are leaning) and more "police state". It's inevitable, they want to be able to spy on every aspect of our lives and keep it recorded indefinitely as technology and public sentiment will allow. Cops want to make their jobs as easy as possible, politicians want to be able to get as much dirt on everyone as they can.

That’s just run of the mill authoritarianism, calling it fascism glosses over how it has proponents in every political persuasion.

Authoritarianism has become very popular online these days for some reason. Giving in to fear and wanting total control are always going to be traits that pop up again and then humans have to relearn from history about why freedoms are important.

Yes, although fascism is probably a proper word to use here -- it comes from Roman "fasces", symbolizes power to punish king's subjects (i.e. it's not about other states and kings, but about internal affairs).

You chose to use fascist technology. If you're scared by the potential for your state to exercise the same power your OEM has, then stop buying from that OEM. Regulate shitty security models, demand transparency for opaque systems. Switch to honest and open alternatives that trust you with freedom and power.

Or, reap your fascist just deserts. Why the hell should I waste my time calling Apple a fascist if I haven't daily-driven one of their devices in a decade? You want us to protest, standing arm-in-arm with you against Apple? You wanted this, you told yourself Apple was a secure business.

The only person who insists on using technology that coddles it's user is you.

So rollover and accept it and try to silo my life to please fascists and not complain and vote against it (where possible)? No thank you.

Apple told you that you don't have a choice. Why is that so upsetting now but not when you bought their products?

Sometimes just voting is not enough.

For example, Nazi Party didn't come to power democratically. Hitler lost 1932 elections to Hindenburg, and didn't get any position. But in two months, Hindenburg appointed him to Chancellor position, opening way to big money. And there was no democracy after that: in about a month they organize the Reichstag fire and issue a lot of consecutive "emergency" decrees, kill political opponents etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com