Re:Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany
by saiya-jin on Monday October 14, 2019 @07:51AM
(#21247255)
Take a look at how many dubious Israeli companies are there in sphere of surveillance, remote hacking and other amoral activities.
History seems to be apparently a poor teacher once things happened 2+ generations away
Re:Clash over Surveillance Software Turns Personal in Germany
by luckylion on Monday October 14, 2019 @08:19AM
(#21247441)
The StaSi wasn't 2+ generations away though, the SU (and with it the GDR) only collapsed in the late eighties.
I do believe that most people aren't appalled by what was done, they are appalled by what was it done for. "To secure the rule of the party" sounds bad. "To end human suffering" sounds much better, and we tend to have a thing for rationalizing why it's righteous (or at least necessary) to do it this time.
Never mind those, they work in Germany, which as a country had its hand in 2 world wars, and directly exterminated 10+ million people, and was the home of Stasi, one of the fiercest surveillance agencies until 1989...
That alone, and how totalitarianism can be close at home at any time, should give them pause regarding making surveillance software, never mind what some developing world authoritarian regimes would do with it ...