Comment by rglover
6 months ago
> We are about to face many hard questions about these systems, including some difficult questions about whether they will actually be working for us at all.
And how. I'd lean towards no. Where we're headed feels like XKEYSCORE on steroids. I'd love to take the positive, optimistic bent on this, but when you look at where we've been combined with the behavior of the people in charge of these systems (to be clear, not the researchers or engineers, but c-suite), hope of a neutral, privacy-first future seems limited.
Given how politics and companies evolved, I actually trust those people in charge of XKEYSCORE systems more than ever. They may wear suits, but those people usually come from some military background, and have a sense of duty towards defending US, from threats both foreign and domestic, and historically have not really abused their powers no matter what the administration is. XKEYSCORE for example, wasn't really about hacking people, it was just about collecting mass metadata and building profiles, well within the legal system, and the blame should be on the companies that didn't provide privacy tools, because any big government could have build the same system.
Meanwhile, the anti anti-establishment Republican Party since 2016 who cried about big tech turned out to be the biggest pro-establishment fans, giving Elmo an office in a white house and Zucc bending a knee to avoid prosecution.
With these new systems, Id rather have smart people who only work in US defensive forces because of a sense of duty (considering they could get paid much more in the private sector) in charge.
Unfortunately, there are far too many examples of those very people abusing these tools. They shot the "sense of honor and duty" argument point blank just for allowing these things to exist in the first place.
If what you say is true, there would have been more than one honorable person to step up and say "hey, wait a minute." In the case of XKEYSCORE, there was precisely one, and he's basically been marooned in Russia for over a decade (and funny enough, XKEYSCORE still exists and is likely still utilized in the exact same way [1]).
Never underestimate the effect the threat of character destruction—and by extension, loss of income—will have on even the most honorable person's psyche. In situations involving matters like these, it's always far more likely that the "pressure" will be ratcheted up until the compliance (read: keep your mouth shut) rate is 100%.
[1] https://documents.pclob.gov/prod/Documents/OversightReport/e...
> far too many examples of those very people abusing these tools.
Name one. And not about some agency collecting data, or targeting a foreign national with suspected ties to terrorist, all which are within the bounds of the law. I want to hear an example where a US citizen, fully innocent, who was targeted for no reason what so ever for someone for personal gain.
You can't. Because it doesn't happen. Even in the report that you linked (which I know you didn't read btw), it literally states the multitude of guardrails in place for using XKEYSCORE.
>If what you say is true, there would have been more than one honorable person to step up and say "hey, wait a minute." In the case of XKEYSCORE, there was precisely one, and he's basically been marooned in Russia for over a decade
Here is a pro tip: anytime you hear or read about Bad Big Brother Government, ask yourself why should the person reporting it be given the benefit of the doubt and not the government. People took a lot of what Snowden said as gospel, despite him being technically wrong on a lot of stuff, all because its "cool" to be anti big brother, no matter what the actual truth is.
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> well within the legal system
It's not a search if we don't find anything, and it's not a seizure if we charge the money with the crime. These are court approved arguments, so they must be correct interpretations.
Point is: modern bureaucrats have proven that they are absolutely willing to abuse power, even in the best of times when there is no real domestic political strife.
Given the technical nature of this forum, its absolutely mind boggling that people still don't understand what the surveillance programs were about.
If you want to use an analogy, its more along the lines of people living in houses and driving cars made out of pure glass that are completely see through, with faces blurred, and NSA just having a cameras around. If you are going to tell me that this is an abuse of power, its like an argument comparing US to absolute utopia.
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Good thoughts but as you point out about Elmo & Zucc, there is no way it stays with just the responsible people. It will also not be limited to protest. Just look at what Florida, Texas, and other states are doing about women's healthcare - any general agent worth its salt and with a bit of data will know about any woman's periods, pregnancies, miscarriages, and travel - which is being criminalized ....
From personal experience in the government contracting world with a TS/SCI clearance, I have a lot of faith in people in charge not letting bad actors abuse these sort of powers.
Less so than before these days, but still Id wager on them holding true to duty to defend the constitution.
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> historically have not really abused their powers
How would you know?
We do know - that they demonstrably have abused their powers. I didn't realise it was possible to know about XKEYSCORE with no context or understanding of the Snowden leaks but GP seems to have missed that the "suits" "in charge of XKEYSCORE", the NSA, have repeatedly illegally wiretapped American citizens, to say nothing of the FISA abuses, Five Eyes, etc. Regardless of how you feel about the three-letter agencies' impacts on the rest of the world, the thought that anyone on Hacker News would consider these programs defensible is shocking.
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I absolutely do not trust it, but AFAIK the military doesn't feed much intelligence to law enforcement on US soil. (We'll see if that's still the case in the near future.)
My guess is that the main purpose of agents will be to train the AI on your data. Companies have run out of data on the internet for training AI's, so they'll use agents as an excuse to get access to your personal real-time data. This has always been the business model, you are the product.