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What conferences?

Why is it popular? Serious question.

Indeed. Repeated use of scapegoats like "communists" and "terrorists" may make up for our move away from religion as a source of shared ideology [1]

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating#The_.22scapegoat_m...

You could asses any natural disaster or mass genocide with the same "maybe" logic. I don't know you, but I doubt you applied the same framework to September 11th or the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. These events are objectively tragic, as is the death of Ilya.

Please. Give Einstein, John Von Neumann or Francis Crick another 50 years on this planet and tell me the world would be worse off because of it.

Interesting idea. Seems like the NSA could easily shut this down given the dossier & data stream they must have tied to Snowden by now. He probably can't even turn a computer on without red flags going off.

Keith Alexander, Director of the NSA spoke at DEFCON last year to a standing-room-only audience. Every year "the feds" have a presence at DEFCON.

I think people are interested in Snowden because people are curious to see what happens to someone who so brazenly defies a democratic government in the name of democracy.

Because of all this bad press, the US will rally around a fake-libertarian or Republican in 2016. Rinse, wash and repeat.

All encryption is temporary encryption. "In other words, if your messages are encrypted, the NSA is keeping them until they can decrypt them."

Never before seen? Uploaded on Oct 6, 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfNvmF0Bqw

We're definitely not immune to collapse. Nuclear weapons just make things a collapse more sticky. Society needs a scapegoat to channel it's inherent violence (ie the Communists of the 50s, the "Barbarians" of Europe as you mentioned & the Terrorists of today) It's not a coincidence. Check out professor Rene Girard[1] from of Stanford if you haven't heard of him. The people who run this show know exactly what they are doing.

[1]http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rene+girard+scap...

Security reassurance is something I hadn't thought of, but I think you are right that this leak goes way too far for that to work. I don't believe this either...but if I wore a tinfoil-hat I would point out that:

1) The NSA "leak" is not really news because it was reported in 2006[1].

2) "Bad" publicity from it is the beginning of Obama's 2nd term downfall which is happening too soon in his 2nd term for us to be angry enough to elect a Libertarian 2016. It'll be an opportune time to usher in an all-talk small government Republican in 2016 to maintain Red State vs. Blue State illusion. Even if the Repub doesn't win, it'll look like the election was a close ideological fight, which is all that matters in the eyes of the public. Of course, all 2016 candidates will continue to support the NSA oversight regardless of what they say during their campaign, so it won't matter whether red or blue gets the oval office.

Like I said... science fiction.

[1]http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.h...

What I'm about to say is absolutely nuts, but it could be that this is something the NSA leaked intentionally and the media is running with it for reasons we are not aware of. Despite twitter and the like, the mainstream media is still largely in control of what occupies the "news" and therefore what the otherwise apathetic public is concerned about.

We trust the same elected officials with weapons capable of making our species extinct and suddenly when we discover the same people have an "information bomb" which can query your porn history, it's time to get upset?

Tearing down America with Orwellian surveillance is one thing, losing NYC to mushroom cloud is something entirely different. The mushroom cloud issue is a very real problem and many (everyone?) would say we would do whatever it takes to prevent such a thing.

Huh? Could not a rogue nation smuggle a nuclear device into a city? How would this not fall under the umbrella of a "foreign" individual posing a threat to US national security?

I like this quote, but Ben Franklin didn't live in a world where a device the size of a beer cooler could instantly turn Philadelphia into a parking lot.

Very helpful. Thanks for the information.

Take a hard look at fish populations in the ocean and I think you may reconsider your stance on private vs. public property for "public goods". The problem isn't the inherent nature of private enterprise, the problem is the marriage of private enterprise and government which has created an anti-competitive ecosystem in the telecom industry. The monopolies you speak of are created with the help of government favoritism.