Cryptome reveals – Internet Is a Spy State

At 06:09 AM 3/18/2013, Eugen Leitl wrote on Cypherpunks:

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance/index.html

The Internet is a surveillance state

By Bruce Schneier, Special to CNN

March 16, 2013 — Updated 1804 GMT (0204 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Bruce Schneier: Whether we like it or not, we’re being tracked all the time on the Internet

Schneier: Our surveillance state is efficient beyond the wildest dreams of George Orwell

He says governments and corporations are working together to keep things that way

Schneier: Slap-on-the-wrist fines notwithstanding, no one is agitating for better privacy laws

Editor’s note: Bruce Schneier is a security technologist and author of “Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust Society Needs to Survive.”

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Cryptome:

That the Internet is a gigantic spying machine has been known since its invention, the security industry has made billions pretending to protect against its spying.

Schneier has also written recently that security does not work, cannot work, that attackers are always going to excell over defenders, due to the economic incentives to attack being greater than those to defend.

Long a top expert selling security services, what is Schneier up to with gloom and doom that is usually associated with selling snake oil — his favorite target. Has his amply promoted 24×7 services been defeated by attackers? Is he keeping that quiet? Is he about to be doxed, has been hit with a blackmail demand, or worse, his defenses compromised? Who else among the experts are colluding with this initiative to admit Internet deception from the git go?

Recall that beloved Peter Neumann and others advocate chucking the current Internet and starting over with better security and privacy basic requirements. Uh huh, and what will take its place, will it be better or more snake oil? And what to do with all that stored data of the world’s greatest spying machine promoted with the complicity of Internet advocates and the security industry?

Pardon, monsieur, foxes in the hen house, comes to mind.

Schneier says in his security-is-doomed-to-fail piece a public discussion is needed on what to do, the experts don’t have answers. That’s a good start after years of experts promising to do better next time, meanwhile trust open source, trust us.

Where does snake oil end and “something better” begin? Is something better ever not snake oil? Is a public discussion of an issue never not rigged in favor of the organizers? Is tumultous public discussion never not preamble to a coup justified as needed to control the mob who has gotten out of hand, who voted the wrong way, who attacked the leaders? Who hacked the experts?

Coups are always justified as needed for security, and who Machiavelli’s the coup masters other than security and propaganda experts yearning to maintain privilege and reputation.

Coups are not always obvious, the most effective are hardly noticed.