There's Only One Place To Put The Blame For Russian, Chinese Fallout From NSA Spying: On The NSA
from the everything-else-is-a-distraction dept
We recently wrote about how Kurt Eichenwald's bizarre and irrational deference to his friends in the security state led him to claim that Ed Snowden is a Chinese spy, whose work was specifically designed to aid China in its attempts to attack the internet. The level of cognitive dissonance to make such an argument is quite stunning. Thankfully, most people seemed to see right through the insanity. In the meantime, over at The Guardian, John Kampfner has what might be considered the much more accurate version of the same story. It notes how the knowledge of the NSA's activities have played right into Russia and China's hands concerning their efforts to gain greater control over the internet:Slowly but surely governance of the internet is moving from the existing mishmash of institutions and into the hands of national governments. The Chinese call this "cyber autonomy".And, yes, the knowledge of what the US is doing is giving the Chinese, Russians and plenty of others greater confidence to push for their own agenda. Amazingly, and in a sad statement on the state of the US government today, the report notes that a Chinese official recently argued:
Authoritarian regimes are showing ever-greater confidence in restricting information, filtering, blocking, monitoring and punishing anyone who steps over the mark.
American dominance of the internet is being challenged on several fronts. The Obama administration and its spooks only have themselves to blame.Except, of course, they're using compliant mouthpieces like Eichenwald to, instead, try to blame the messenger. Nothing is going to get fixed here until the current leadership either takes responsibility or is replaced in office by those who will take responsibility.
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Filed Under: china, cybersecurity, espionage, hacking, kurt eichenwald, nsa, russia, spying
Reader Comments
The First Word
“This is galling to those of us who built it
Most of the people who've built what you all know as "the Internet" aren't famous. Or rich. Or powerful. (And many of the people who are famous, rich, and powerful are really quite unimportant: Mark Zuckerberg is a mere ignorant newbie whose primary talents are stealing others' work, scamming people, and spamming.)If you go read the IETF mailing lists, or the NANOG mailing lists, or the Linux development lists, or any of the other places where the people doing the heavy lifting talk to each other, you'll find all kinds of people you've never heard of...but who've spent their professional lives building this place. I'm one of them, although admittedly I think my contributions are rather minor.
But whatever our level of involvement, those of us in the USA are horrified to see what our own government has done with our work. It could use it to promote freedom, autonomy, democracy, learning, health, peace, human rights -- all the positive things we could hope for. Instead it's turning it into a spying engine and directing it against its own people.
The consequences of this are vast and we probably don't even see what all of them are yet. But they're coming. This (see above) is one of them. There will be more. And the economic, intellectual, political, social impact on the USA is going to be painful.
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Authoritarian regimes
Going back to Glyn Moody's Techdirt story from earlier today, “How China Is Going Global With Its Censorship” …
From p.45 of the full CIMA report:
Since when do Chinese officials get to say which reporters get access to the White House? Well, I guess since at least Februrary 2012, during Mr Obama's presidency.
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Re: Authoritarian regimes
Other authoritarian regimes ...
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This is galling to those of us who built it
If you go read the IETF mailing lists, or the NANOG mailing lists, or the Linux development lists, or any of the other places where the people doing the heavy lifting talk to each other, you'll find all kinds of people you've never heard of...but who've spent their professional lives building this place. I'm one of them, although admittedly I think my contributions are rather minor.
But whatever our level of involvement, those of us in the USA are horrified to see what our own government has done with our work. It could use it to promote freedom, autonomy, democracy, learning, health, peace, human rights -- all the positive things we could hope for. Instead it's turning it into a spying engine and directing it against its own people.
The consequences of this are vast and we probably don't even see what all of them are yet. But they're coming. This (see above) is one of them. There will be more. And the economic, intellectual, political, social impact on the USA is going to be painful.
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Re: This is galling to those of us who built it
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Umm, Treasury bills: the paper promises that the Chinese have (so far) accepted in exchange for real goods.
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Re: Umm, Treasury bills: the paper promises that the Chinese have (so far) accepted in exchange for real goods.
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Re:
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Re: Umm, Treasury bills: the paper promises that the Chinese have (so far) accepted in exchange for real goods.
Nice strawman.
Try again.
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Re: Re: Umm, Treasury bills: the paper promises that the Chinese have (so far) accepted in exchange for real goods.
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This is what the US government has come to.
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Re: Re:
Of all the nations of earth, only the USA spend still as much money on it's military as in the cold war. Go figure.
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So in other words, it will never get fixed...
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