Mark Zuckerberg Says The US Has Become A Threat To, Rather Than A Champion For, The Internet
from the indeed dept
Better late than never: it appears that Mark Zuckberberg is finally really pissed off about the NSA surveillance efforts. This comes in the wake of the recent reports that the NSA sought to build a malware empire by setting up a bogus Facebook server to intercept traffic and fool users. While there have been indications that Facebook hasn't been happy about all of this, Zuckerberg has taken to his Facebook page to really dig in, noting that he'd even called President Obama to express his thoughts on the matter.I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future.Also, and perhaps more importantly, he notes that the US government has become a threat to the internet:
This is why I've been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the US government. When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government.Earlier this week we wrote about Google's Eric Schmidt directly claiming that the company was attacked by the NSA, and now Zuckerberg is publicly stating that the government has become a threat to the internet. From the very beginning of the Snowden revelations, we've been saying that the tech industry needed to speak out more vehemently about the kind of damage the NSA is doing to a huge part of our economy and the ability to innovate. It's taken some time but it's good to see these companies finally saying this stuff.
The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst.
Of course, words alone may not do very much. Zuckerberg admits that reform may be a long time coming, but instead is focusing on how the tech industry can build better (read: more encrypted, more secure) systems to fight back against this "threat." Google recently announced that all of its searches are encrypted, but that's just a start. The tech industry has to move to a world where encryption is the norm, and not the exception any more. It may suck in the way that it sucked when homes and cars finally "required" locks, but at this point it's a necessity.
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Filed Under: barack obama, cybersecurity, internet security, mark zuckerberg, nsa, surveillance
Companies: facebook
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Not sure what to think...
Hmm... Which evil is less evil?
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Re: Not sure what to think...
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Re: Re: Not sure what to think...
Does not take a lot of insight to choose to swallow a rabbit turd instead of a steaming cow-pie when someone makes those the only choices for themselves.
Tsk Tsk...
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Re: Not sure what to think...
(Hey fellow gawerkerite (??)!)
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Re: Re: Re: Not sure what to think...
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Regulars here read all the articles.
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Re: Not sure what to think...
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Re: Not sure what to think...
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Re: Not sure what to think...
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Hey Marky, expose everything you know about the NSA involvement in your company + do your own internal investigation and then maybe you would be doing something beyond lip service.
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NSA Plants
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'Better the evil you know than the one you don't'
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Universal encryption
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Re: Universal encryption
Not true. Snowden pointed out that encryption, done right, works, and there are plenty done right.
Yes, NSA has corrupted some, but not all.
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Re: Re: Universal encryption
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Re: Re: Re: Universal encryption
We have no, as in zero, evidence that anything other than a small handful of crypto schemes have been weakened. Perhaps they have, but it does no good to start jumping at shadows.
It's better to treat crypto as it should have always been treated: a method of delaying when the bad guy can read the message. Using crypto doesn't mean, and has never meant, that the secret it protects will be kept indefinitely.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Universal encryption
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Sorry but if I see a shadow... im going to shine a light in that direction to see whats there.
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In this day and age of surveillance... paranoia is not such a bad thing.
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Just because I am paranoid doesn't necessarily mean someone isn't watching me.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Universal encryption
Not true at all. There was quite a lot of evidence, long before Snowden. That's why nothing that's been revealed has been a true surprise to those of us who've been following this for decades. We just had no definitive proof until Snowden.
"im going to shine a light in that direction to see whats there."
Me too. That's rational. What's not rational is assuming something until the light has been shined (or at least until the shadows have been carefully observed.)
"paranoia is not such a bad thing."
Paranoia is always a bad thing. It decreases your level of safety and security from the actual threats. But caution nowadays is based on something real, and isn't paranoia.
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Re: Universal encryption
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I guess this means
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Like Zuckerberg has any standing?
The truth doesn't even matter when someone does the very thing they preach against. Hypocrisy! To follow such a one reveals those whom have a clear & present cognitive dissonance.
Facebook lead the way, showing that our privacy is not only for sale, but also free to be taken away from the idiot masses.
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Re: Like Zuckerberg has any standing?
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Re: Re: Like Zuckerberg has any standing?
Its like saying the dirtbag that only has dirty pictures of your daughter is okay to be your friend since they talked trash about the dirtbag that kidnapper her!
In short... Is it just too much to ask that we choose the people we are prepared to get behind out of the NON-hypocrite bucket instead of the hypocrite one? No wonder this country is going downhill fast... People forget everything in 2 damn minutes!
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Re: Re: Re: Like Zuckerberg has any standing?
Furthermore, even if he was being a hypocrite and advocating for privacy, his hypocrisy would not invalidate his point. The truth doesn't stop being the truth simply because it's spoken by a habitual liar. To the contrary, it suggests that the truth is even more profound or fundamental that even the habitual liar goes against their nature to speak it. Case in point, Feinstein is being a total hypocrite when she bitches about the CIA spying on her staffers while she defends the NSA for doing the same thing to the rest of the god damned planet. That does not change the fact that she is right to call the CIA out for spying on her staffers.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Like Zuckerberg has any standing?
Look, we get it, you don't like Facebook. So just unsubscribe and quit complaining.
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The most disturbing thing to me in this post
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Re: The most disturbing thing to me in this post
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Firesheep
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wow
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Re: wow
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Nope
Zuckerberg is just wrong.
Before the leaks, we had no transparency, and almost nobody thought that the NSA was working to systematically break the internet. Now we have transparency, and it turns out that they are trying to break the internet. Saying that people will "believe the worst" only works when the NSA isn't actually doing things that are worse than most people would find plausible.
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Re: Nope
Ignorance is bliss, has been for like forever
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Who cares?
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Re: Who cares?
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Re: Who cares?
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Yes, but that would mean admitting they ARE doing the WORST we're already imagining. So from their point of view there's nothing to gain by admitting to it.
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Sell Out
He's also the guy that wants to bring in more lower cost foreign workers via visas rather than hire or train unemployed Americans already here.
His concern now about the government "ruining" the internet is quite late, about a decade. Where has he been, having wine coolers with Senator Feinstein?
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Re: Sell Out
No, it's really not. Facebook is bad, yes, but you don't have to use it, and the information they collect about you isn't going to be used to do terrible things to you or to subvert our government and society.
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Re: Re: Sell Out
The NSA on the other hand is interested and will have a quiet word with their friends at the DEA and FBI, one of whom will likely be sending some folks to bust through your front door with machine guns drawn, shoot your dog as it comes running up to greet them as your children watch, and demand your wife tell them where you are, while you're at work. Then come trial time they won't tell you that they only became suspicious of you because they violated your fourth amendment rights.
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Re: Re: Sell Out
But friends and family may use it on your behalf without your consent.
A young relative gets married and decides to upload wedding photos with tags identifying people...
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Calls to a President
On a scale of 'famous people one should know and care about", he's about a 5, and others like Bill Gates, and all the Silicon Valley honchos are on it too, along with some pretty famous other people.
Wouldn't you take a call from him, too, if you were a politician? Would you dare to refuse a call from Bill Gates?
Of course not. These people have the influence and power to change a whole lot of minds and anyone in Washington who ignores them is doing so at their peril.
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