Re:FOIA release: Completely Redacted Document About Text Sno...
by AnthonyMouse on Wednesday May 15, 2013 @12:40AM
(#5710200)
>Electronic warfare is going to be a thing, and I want to live in a world where the U.S. has the upper hand in it, not China.
It seems like "they're going to do surveillance so we need to do surveillance" is the wrong approach. All that does is increase the possibilities for abuse: By enemies and dictators, by corrupt bureaucrats, by foreign attackers who break into the domestic surveillance apparatus for their own purposes.
What we should be doing is to implement technology that will make surveillance harder for everyone. That leaves the U.S. at no disadvantage without invading everyone's privacy.
And it keeps us from having to fight an asymmetric war. If China has access to every U.S. company's trade secrets, the fact that the NSA has access to every Chinese company's trade secrets is a very poor consolation prize -- our trade secrets are more valuable. The economic damage that attacks on computer systems can do is greater against the U.S. than it is against its enemies. We don't need our government to do everything it can to exploit security vulnerabilities in order to conduct unconstitutional surveillance, we need it to help us (or get out of the way) in reducing the vulnerabilities.
And the two alternatives are pretty clearly opposed to one another. You can't have bureaucrats interfering with efforts to make the internet more secure in order to reduce the effectiveness of China's surveillance apparatus just because they're afraid it will reduce the effectiveness of the NSA's surveillance apparatus. You end up fighting a civil war instead of fighting the attackers.
It seems like "they're going to do surveillance so we need to do surveillance" is the wrong approach. All that does is increase the possibilities for abuse: By enemies and dictators, by corrupt bureaucrats, by foreign attackers who break into the domestic surveillance apparatus for their own purposes.
What we should be doing is to implement technology that will make surveillance harder for everyone. That leaves the U.S. at no disadvantage without invading everyone's privacy.
And it keeps us from having to fight an asymmetric war. If China has access to every U.S. company's trade secrets, the fact that the NSA has access to every Chinese company's trade secrets is a very poor consolation prize -- our trade secrets are more valuable. The economic damage that attacks on computer systems can do is greater against the U.S. than it is against its enemies. We don't need our government to do everything it can to exploit security vulnerabilities in order to conduct unconstitutional surveillance, we need it to help us (or get out of the way) in reducing the vulnerabilities.
And the two alternatives are pretty clearly opposed to one another. You can't have bureaucrats interfering with efforts to make the internet more secure in order to reduce the effectiveness of China's surveillance apparatus just because they're afraid it will reduce the effectiveness of the NSA's surveillance apparatus. You end up fighting a civil war instead of fighting the attackers.