Schneier on Security

rrd • August 11, 2020 7:55 AM

The govt already has a much better tracking system as they have been in the core infrastructure for quite some time, so why would they bother paying for less comprehensive data? Of course, that doesn’t mean those megalomaniacs wouldn’t spend our money on even more data anyway.

Selling our data to private companies, however, is just a tell as to exactly how broken the system is — broken for us, that is; it is performing just as they have tweaked it to over the decades, as I’m sure it’s all quite legal enough.

People who have never done large-scale data processing don’t realize that the computing power to analyze 350M interrelated data sets over time has existed for quite awhile now. (Each of us being one of those data sets, of course.)

I worked in a place that had a recent employee who got a job at Equifax (as he was a vt100 app wizard and Equifax was all about that vt100 screenpop life). He came by one day and said that the deepest sub-level was nothing but rows and rows of high-density tape machines and storage shelves with robots that shuffle tapes into and out of the players/recorders. He said they already had everyone’s medical info, but they couldn’t legally use it yet. That was over 20 years ago.

At this point, I wonder if our attempts at internet anonymity are counterproductive as (a) we are already a known, tracked quantity in their systems (with their behavioral analytics), and (b) it enables so many bad actors online.

It seems to me that standing up and openly declaring one’s allegience is the only way to defeat fascism (and the ills of unfettered capitalism) without society descending into horrific chaos (bloody revolution being like burning your house down to kill the termites). I mean, in theory, anonymity keeps freedom fighters from being targeted by oppressive regimes, but if that’s already happening, what’s the point? (Yes, I prefer responsible anonymity but that’s seeming less and less viable or useful or even sensible by the day.)

I wonder, back in the 1930s, exactly how many of the Nazi leadership would have needed to be eliminated to nip their machine in the bud. Such would have been a kind of “Santa Claus Solution”. You know, who’s naughty and who’s nice. Or even more simply: Sequestering the Rabid until they’re cured.

It sure doesn’t seem like “On Earth as it is in Heaven” will happen by ignoring the evil bastids who have all the resources and no concern whatsoever for the misery and death they cause either directly or indirectly.

One way or the other, all the Earth’s peoples must come to terms with the fact that the current systems reward the aggressively amoral liars with more power than is good for us hoi polloi. Students of history must surely recognize the utterly constant theme of their ebb and flow. It is merely the long tail of our negative human potential, yet the levers they are able to wield do vast damage.

One day it will, indeed, be ended. The only question that remains is, “By which method and how much pain will the cure entail?”

rrd • August 11, 2020 3:35 PM

@ echo

Sheeple just blindly follow along with the herd, without critically thinking about the culture they’re a part of. They resist change, against all logic, making senseless and meaningless arguments for holding onto their ignorance with both hands.

Those of us who have humbly self-evolved ourselves into the new era can only look upon them and say, “I know what that was like as I once used to be there. But, for the Grace of God, there go I.”

So, yeah, for sure, we were all idiots at one time. It’s just that some of us have pulled our heads out of our keisters. Fresh memes get spread, offering us new fruits to partake of. Not all new memes, however, lead us out of idiocy; many pull us deeper into the darkness. Discernment of which are which is the single most important kind of decision we will learn to make as a part of our human development.

Ultimately, it’s a question of, “Does the person seek to uphold an ethic based upon ever more progressive ideals, or are they solely interested in keeping their station in the herd and the antiquated world it formed within?” It is obvious in 2020’s world that the latter far outnumber the former.

We are all someone elses idiot.

Our ability to learn and adopt better attitudes and behaviors means that that doesn’t have to be true, but the irony is that the less of an idiot one becomes the more the idiots of the world claim you are the idiot.