Comment by jsmthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsmthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

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I get annoyed by this because Stallman wasn't exactly predicting a hurricane, here. It's like making a conclusion about Ukraine. Nobody can prove it, but most people infer. Certainly since 641A and other even older signals those who pay attention received, the possibility of total surveillance was plainly apparent. The people who laughed it off were merely banking on the morality of government, but it was not a surprise at all that such things were technically possible. Those who paid attention already knew. Just no proof.

He was not some oracle of technical insight that nobody else had or shared. Many people made such claims long before he did. His free software ideals put him in a very good position to be retroactively proven right about surveillance, because the people who are super into free software and the people who practice real opsec end up looking fairly similar.

I'm not minimizing that he was right, just countering that we all were. And we failed to deliver the message and/or trusted in our government a bit too much. 641A should have been the catalyst. The EFF continues on it to this day. It took Snowden and the proof to get there, and we are still not there. I don't think we even know where the hell "there" is.

Another important thing to remember is had we listened, nothing would have changed. Us heeding Stallman and others wasn't the problem, it was a state actor perpetrating while making it nearly impossible to know about it. It makes us kumbaya a bit, maybe democracy could have fixed it, but all of us were (and are) almost entirely powerless in representative government. Even Joe Biden said as much on VICE the other night, just about a different topic.

Surveillance was going to happen. It was a done deal. The terrorists beat us the second those aircraft hit, because terror has driven us every minute since.

> It's like making a conclusion about Ukraine

I totally don't agree. Every Ukrainian can tell you what actually is happening. Media on the other hand are different story. They pretend some things aren't real and other are real ( depending on the country's origin opinion ).

I'm not gonna pretend I know exactly what is happening there, but I know a lot, a lot of Ukrainians ( here in Berlin ) that most certainly can tell you the story in a sustainable way that matches all the dots.

I don't want to sacrifice those hundreds of people on that Malaysian airplane that vanished, because "nobody knows what is happening". Sorry.

For the other part of your comment I mostly agree.

P.S. I don't want to do politics in HN, that's why I didn't write my opinion.

Right. You actually supported my point. The Ukraine thing was an aside and I don't want to open it up (much like you), but as you say, most Ukrainians can say what is happening. But can they prove it? The media aspect corresponds to the proof of the thing. I think short of a signature on an order to shoot down the airliner, there will always be just enough doubt to keep the nearly obvious conclusion at arm's length.

We said the same thing in different ways, because surveillance was almost identical. We all knew. We could explain it, probably even whiteboard it. But we had no way to show the world in 30 seconds without any ambiguity. Snowden gave us that. The government records your phone calls. Here's the unequivocal proof. Bam. Now you have peoples' attention, and it's turning out not even that is enough.

Neither of us are sacrificing anyone, rest assured.

"Many people made such claims long before he did." Could you give an example?

I also think it's dangerous to say that we shouldn't act because we are almost entirely powerless in representative government. Same argument could have been made against civil rights and suffrage movements throughout history.

Interestingly, though, those movements very much relied on their cohesiveness around a single, fundamental grievance.

Eventually they reached a 'cultural' tipping point and that brought about cascades of change.

Currently the field looks a bit different, as there's been an exponential growth in both the quantity of information, and the effectiveness of its delivery (via the media, technology) at lower costs.

This is, of course, not an argument in favor of inaction... I just think we should be wary of the fact that it's now a lot easier for capital to change culture (by way of advertising and private-interest media) than it is for culture to rally around a sustained idea long enough to produce legislative change.

(And remember a lot of these forces work in both directions, however I do believe the biggest benefits of technologies' reach will always be concentrated among those with capital)

I think it requires a bare minimum of effort to enumerate the scores of commentators who predicted the surveillance state and the need for opsec, because it's in the bedrock of the computer security community itself. One needed only attend DEFCON, especially after 641A, to hear enough about surveillance and countersurveillance to last a lifetime.

Hippies, free software, counterculture, copyleft, cypherpunks. All of that shares the same DNA. Stallman represents that culture sharpened to a point, and it's been the basic tenet of all of it that government does not have our best interest at heart. Cypherpunks exist, arguably, because of it. That'd be the example I'd offer, perhaps even that consumer cryptography itself exists.

I also didn't say that. You added a bit. I disagree with the addition.

I'm really confused here... you said "Many people made such claims long before he did." and I asked for an example. I didn't ask what movements he's a representative of and I don't know whether anyone who attended DEFCON heard about it. All I wonder is if their is one clear example of someone who made such claims long before he did?

What did I attribute that you didn't say? I assume you refer to "to say that we shouldn't act because we are almost entirely powerless in representative government" and I can see what you mean but what point was you making when stating that we're almost entirely powerless in representative government if not argue against taking action?

That's just it, though, the movement is the example. If you can't get there abstractly, John Gilmore comes to mind.

I also very clearly said nothing about action. You added that and I happen to disagree that we shouldn't act. Powerless in government is an orthogonal concept and you conflated them and disagreed with something I didn't say.

Ah I see, I suppose we interpret what I asked for differently. I had hoped for en example of some specific statement (perhaps from John Gilmore) that can be dated to more than 10 years ago, thus proving that "Many people made such claims long before he did."

It's not even that I doubt you, just that nagging feeling in the back of my head that say "He haven't given an example of a person making such a claim dated earlier than 10 years ago." I have to apologize because I feel that this has more to do with some mild form of OCD on my part.

Yes, you clearly said nothing about action (I don't see why you're adding "also" because that was exactly what I was addressing in my last comment?). I'm not sure what you mean by "Powerless in government is an orthogonal concept" and thus I wouldn't know how I conflated them (not even sure what "them" refers to, action and governemnt, powerless and government?)? I do agree that I made a strawman and for that I apologize, to clear this up could you answer the question in my last comment: "what point were you making when stating that we're almost entirely powerless in representative government if not to argue against taking action?"

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