[ExI] The NSA's new data center

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 09:16:44AM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> In the LONG term, isn't absolute complete transparency of everyone and
> everything the only real answer? The trend seems to be away from

No. Because it asymmetrically empowers the bad guys. Sharing is
a voluntary act. You need to work to share. In order to retain
your secrets, you do nothing. 

Consider the case for TPM. Why do they fight so hard to keep
their secrets, even against side channel and physical damage
attacks? Because they don't trust you, the user.

As you might well be aware, there's massive pressure from many
locations for total financial transparency. No, not for the big
guys. For the little guys like you, so you can be prevented from
rendering upon Caesar what is his. Y U no pay? Y U no like
65% tax at full financial transparency?

Think secrecy is bad? Abolish anonymous voting, then.
Military intelligence data and Apple campus should be open to 
everybody. Members of Congress should be fine with 24 hour
video surveillance, with full GPS track, and IDs of whatever 
people they interacted with. Everybody should know what
the Lawrence Livermore guys are cooking. I mean, everybody
should have access to the plans and the plutonium storage
facility. Nuclear weapons want to be free, and so want human
pathogens.

> personal privacy, away from government secrecy, towards open sharing.
> Is this trend something that can be stopped? Is it something that

I don't know which universe you live in, but I see the exact opposite.
*This* trend needs to be stopped.

> SHOULD be stopped? When individuals obtain the requisite technology to
> wipe out all intelligent life, is privacy sustainable?

Have you ever tried to account for fissibles in a processing facility?
And transport? They do transport plutonium in unmarked trucks, on public
roads. I think everybody should know the exact transport route. Just to
prevent that plutonium falls in the wrong hands. (The only right hands
are *mine*).
 
> Asking it a different way. If everyone in the world had a button, that
> if pushed would end the world, how long would the world last? Knowing
> that the answer is "seconds, if that long"... and knowing that
> individuals will likely obtain such technology some day in the not too
> distant future... Could privacy survive in such a world? Should
> privacy be allowed to survive in such a world?

Why do you want to live as Vinge's Emergents? You yearn to become
human automation?
 
> My motto, "Privacy is dead, get over it."

If you think that, you're not just one of the useful idiots.
You're actually the enemy. You're the enabler. Worse, you're
a hypocrite. Because you will not give up your SS number, your
banking details and your tax returns (the real ones, not the
ones you filed), your medical record including full DNA 
sequence (your insurance would dearly love that), full multimedia 
coverage of your sex acts and all your transactions, in full video and
audio. 
 
> If DCFS would install and monitor cameras in every room of my house, I
> would let them. Why? Because it would protect me from their wild
> imaginations! I'd rather let them in on all my so called "secrets"

You realize that burglars would pay money to have access to that
data?

> than have them assume that I have secrets that I don't possess in
> actuality. That's because they have absolute power over everything I
> really care about, my family. I might request that I have my own
> little private space for bathing and personal time... but eventually,

Not granted. 

> I think I could get over even that. Look at how quickly people on
> reality TV get used to the cameras and just get on with their lives.
> We'll ALL be reality TV stars in the future is my prediction.

Please kill me now.
 
> In no way would I give up rights, but I don't see privacy as an
> absolute right. Then maybe we'll get over this idea that we're not
> just smart bipedal apes, but rather somehow special.

I think you might have a cordyceps infestation. We need to dump this
fellow, quick, before he sprouts spores!