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Edward Snowden's Email Provider Shut Down Rather Than Comply With Feds
wraith808:
However, this:
The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.
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He couldn't have been more wrong. The question then is who and why?
-Renegade (August 09, 2013, 11:30 AM)
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I don't think he was wrong. If anything, he was prescient.
Because the version of the United States we're living in right now is a country nobody knows.
Us included.
-40hz (August 09, 2013, 11:34 AM)
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This :(
I look back to the days when coding didn't mean that you had to pay attention to political winds, people respected politicians, and people respected police... and I look at things now. If we knew then what we know now, would coders and technophiles have been willing to let things come to this? Technological complacency led to the exploitation of that same tech to the point that now we have to look at it with a scrutinizing eye- not just to how it could be used for good, but also for evil.
Very much akin to the introduction of nuclear energy- but with a less obvious downside. Hackers were the bad people, and we didn't really have to worry about them, because they were lawbreakers. But if this kind of thing had been discussed then- the possibilities of an electronic surveillance state because we have voluntarily tied our lives to technology to a frightening and exciting extent... what kind of conversations would have happened? And would it have made a difference?
I guess we'll never know.
TaoPhoenix:
This is no longer a matter of whether it's not the United States I and millions of others used to know. This is no longer the United States of America as defined by it's founding documents, period.
-Edvard (August 08, 2013, 11:24 PM)
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Yes. Isn't it amazing that fewer than 1 in 100 Americans realizes that the U.S. government has been overthrown - not by the communists, or Al Qaeda, or anyone else we've been repeatedly warned about - but by some self-proclaimed "patriots" with the U.S. government itself.
There's a term for what's happened in the United States. But say it softly. Because coup d'état is a foreign term for something that's only supposed to happen in foreign places. Not here.
:(
-40hz (August 09, 2013, 11:32 AM)
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Naw, I really want to get the terminology straight - the Govt hasn't been overthrown.
The Govt has succumbed to systemic abuses of power.
wraith808:
Naw, I really want to get the terminology straight - the Govt hasn't been overthrown.
The Govt has succumbed to systemic abuses of power.
-TaoPhoenix (August 09, 2013, 02:52 PM)
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I'd disagree with that assessment. Succumb means to Fail to resist (pressure, temptation, or some other negative force). That puts the onus back on the members, even in a backhanded fashion. On the other hand, overthrow is an active verb, meaning A removal from power; a defeat or downfall. That puts the onus where it should be... on those who actively have gamed the system to turn it into something that it wasn't meant to be. There is not a systemic failure of society or the government that is in power, but rather abuses (in some cases criminal) that people need to be punished for. Again, there needs to be a Reckoning (or a Wreckening as Ren corrected me when I went on this rant before). It needs to be realize that someone did this to us, rather than it was an inevitability given the level of corruption and such. One empowers, the other leads to a feeling of futility. And the patient isn't dead.. so there is a place for hope.
Sorry... I rant against that whenever I see it.
Stoic Joker:
The Govt has succumbed to systemic abuses of power.-TaoPhoenix (August 09, 2013, 02:52 PM)
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That's just a sugar coating ... The government put in place by the founding fathers has been indeed been overthrown by the corporate overlords in their bloodquest of petty interests.
Carol Haynes:
Lavabit was MY email provider. I used it because they were a small, relatively unknown email provider (read: smaller target), they used Linux servers (gotta support the flock :) ), but more importantly, they kept your email encrypted, with no master key. Only YOU could read your email. Ever.
-Edvard (August 08, 2013, 11:24 PM)
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Not strictly true - unless all you senders and recipients also use the same service and you can guarantee end to end encryption (with methods the government don't have backdoors into - I suspect they can get into most of them) your email can be read on the servers of people who write to you and who receive emails from you. OK it would make life a bit more difficult but really it is just processing time if they take an interest. I would guess using encryption is likely to make them keener to read your stuff.
The UK has an interesting policy - it is illegal to use encrypted mail - you can use encryption for transport but not on the servers. GCHQ has to be able to read all your email - they haven't enough to do with real terrorism.
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