Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Salt Typhoon also compromised the private portals, or backdoors, that telephone companies provide to law enforcement to request court-ordered monitoring of phone numbers pursuant to investigations. (theconversation.com)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Lost in the noise of the story is that Salt Typhoon has proved that the decades of warnings by the internet security community were correct. No mandated secret or proprietary access to technology products is likely to remain undiscovered or used only by “the good guys” – and efforts to require them are likely to backfire.

So it’s somewhat ironic that one of the countermeasures recommended by the government to guard against Salt Typhoon spying is to use strongly encrypted services for phone calls and text messages – encryption capabilities that it has spent decades trying to undermine so that only “the good guys” can use it.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

They knew the warnings were correct. And because I knew they knew, I also knew where their priorities lie, and they do not lie with our security, as I explained two days ago: https://lemmy.ml/post/23222525/15342981

If China’s access to your data were actually a high priority to the US security state, then they wouldn’t be installing these back doors. They’re much more interested in 1) accessing your data and 2) convincing you that China is your enemy.

The US security state isn’t interested your security, they’re interested in what the capitalists are interested in: imperialism and screwing over the working class.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Well, yeah, it's not our security they're worried about.

They're worried about their security. The security of their big mansions, millions or billions of dollars in the bank, the security of being able to be a horrible fucking weasel whose decisions end people's lives but sleep like a baby at night knowing no one can touch you.

But they're also small-minded enough to not realize how this compromises everyone's security, because they were busy only worrying about securing themselves.

Like look at the UHC CEO who just got shot in broad daylight. The company wasn't even willing to spring for good security for a guy who metaphorically put a noose around countless people's necks.

They only care about their own security but they're too myopic to see past themselves enough to understand the cascading consequences of not caring about anyone else's security, and how that might, in the end, undermine their own security.

We're not dealing with the cleverest people, here.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

We’re not dealing with the cleverest people, here.

If you continue to think they are stupid, you will never understand how power really works in capitalist states.

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/soren-mau-marx-mute-compulsion/

In the end, capitalists participate in the same totality as the rest of us, and they are often just as subject to the “tyranny of necessity” as the lower orders whose labor they command. In [Søren] Mau’s terms, the class domination we see in capitalism is “impersonal,” since it isn’t this or that particular capitalist who ultimately dominates workers but rather capital itself. This is why it is so necessary to understand capitalism as an alien totality, rather than condemn it through pointing to notably bad capitalists.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Like look at the UHC CEO who just got shot in broad daylight. The company wasn't even willing to spring for good security for a guy who metaphorically put a noose around countless people's necks.

Apparently that decision was made for PR purposes. They do not want pictures out there of daddy CEO being escorted by goons everywhere while they deny claims to dying children and grandmas.

I wonder why that would make them look bad lol