David Cameron plans banning secured communications?

David Cameron sounds like the UK version of Stephen Harper. We should get Harper, Cameron and Obama in a room together and unleash the hounds.

Yup…“In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which…we cannot read?”

It’s happened – this is literally Newspeak and could have been taken straight from Orwell’s “1984” – the reasoning behind the slogan

“Freedom is Slavery”

My above post covers both

“Ignorance is Strength” and “War is Peace”

……(swigs Victory Gin as tobacco falls from loosely packed Victory cigarette…)

I moved 17 posts to a new topic: Violent tendencies in Christian and Muslim Religions

The Safe network is a decentralized app. So similar in that respect to bittorrent. It doesn’t hook to any central server. So shutting it down is next to impossible. It sends and receives through what appears as common UDP - so this can’t be shut down or blocked either - at least not without effectively shutting down the internet itself.

2 Likes

I’m just thinking about this US/EU TTIP trade agreement thing and if this could possibly be another attack vector. I’m not technical, but is it at all feasible to ring-fence the US/EU internet infrastructure? What I’m also thinking is that this trade agreement will basically (as far as I understand it) enable corporations to sue Govts.
eg- Tobacco industry successfully sued govt for loss of profits due to introduction of plain packaging.
Is it not foreseeable that pressure will be applied and at some point in the future the govt will be saying to us that it has to “introduce something” to avoid the taxpayer having to fork out billions in costs. I can probably think of a few scenarios.
All I’m saying is that there may be other ways to attack us other than on security grounds. Is all this un feasible and I can stop worrying?

Technically it’s possible, if you really want to. Politically it’d be hard to pull off I guess, since it’d hurt the world economy and I think most Western citizens feel cosmopolitan enough to not want to be isolated like that from the rest of the world. SAFE would be able to function within though. Not as securely as when it’s world wide, but it definitely wouldn’t kill SAFE.

1 Like

I was just watching an interview on RT with a retired NSA analyst – he served 35 years up to around 2000 (pre-911). What this guy had to say, I found quite illuminating and pertinent to this thread. I’ve already stated my case for how this whole terrorist thing is framed in the way the govt’s want it to be, the mis-direction, wrong apportioning of blame, ascribing of cause and suggested solution. I also (I hope) showed how Govt cynically uses religion for it’s own ends. I was suggesting there were more underlying layers to the onion in regard to the misleadingly named “war on terror”.
Anyway, I’d just like to point out another layer regarding why the Govts (USA and UK) really want all the mass surveillance in the first place – the history is interesting: Prior to the 2nd World War, America had no standing military, by the early sixties it had a huge military complex/industry – this brought along with it a potential for undue influence on the govt….Eisenhower summed it up eloquently in this 2 minute warning from history:

So, back to the analyst; you can watch interview here (it starts at 16 mins and lasts 8 mins):

http://rt.com/shows/going-underground/223603-human-rights-nsa-uk/

If you can’t be arsed watching, he was basically saying that NSA used to be selective about what they monitored/intercepted etc until the explosion of the internet in the late 90’s. At this point it was basically decided to farm NSA responsibilities out to industry and the concept of “mass” surveillance replaced “targeted” surveillance. This developed into an un- healthy relationship between Govt and Industry/military complex.
I think that this all demonstrates an Orwellian triumvirate in place, consisting of Corporations/Military complex (at the top), Govts in the middle and religions (cynically used by govts). This is done in order to maintain a perpetual state of war to feed the whole machine – as Orwell envisaged. The World is also apparently dividing into a variation of Oceania Eastasia and Eurasia too. As I have previously said Cameron is clearly making Newspeak arguments. Both Govts and religions use the same Newspeak and it is in order to keep the populace ignorant of the Truth and to propose alternative ultimate Truths…all by way of Newspeak……it is a common theme.
As I said, “Faith is a Virtue” is synonymous with “Ignorance is Strength” – it is not because I am an Atheist I say this, anymore than it’s because I’m white or got grey hair; I say it because these ways of thinking cause massive harm. If it didn’t cause harm, then I would not give a toss what particular Humpty Dumpty club people belong to….it would not impact me in any way….I would have nothing to say if I thought it benign. The problem is, that religion imposes itself, causes harm and makes itself my business. Just sayin’
Defo not tin foil hat stuff…conspiracy, not conspiracy theory before you start…lol.
The solution is to stop advocating this way of thinking, then those that would manipulate you have no power over you, religious terrorists (eventually) disappear along with religion and surveillance - terrestrial or Heavenly.

The ideology of faith in its modern form is perpetuated to us now through the approach of the ‘common man’ or ‘celebrity’ style role model. These people are usually from the sport or entertainment industry, but almost inevitably go on to blot their copy-book by being involved in dubious behaviour or some sort of scandal.

Unfortunately, the discussion of role models is common in education and somewhat legitimises its existence, but isn’t education more about finding solutions by ones own thought processes than that of finding ‘packaged’ individuals/groups and aping their actions? It could be said that any follower is simply too lazy to work it out for himself, but that’s a hard point to argue when the policy is officially promoted and indoctrinated through the education system.

1 Like

Obama sides with David Cameron: Obama Sides with Cameron in Encryption Fight - WSJ

Too bad for them they’re never going to win this. They have the tech world, both companies and individuals, arrayed against these ideas.

1 Like

It is nothing to do with terrorism - they will never use compromised tech. It is about spying on the general populous to make sure they are towing the state line.

Governments fear technology which cuts them out of the loop. Heaven forbid that borders are forgotten about, prohibition is circumvented and taxes go unpaid. It would demonstrate how people could function without them, which puts the fear right up the ruling classes.

3 Likes

I agree and think you put your finger on the nub of the matter. It would be a good idea for people to actually think for themselves, rather than pick an ideology “off the shelf” or because a celebrity “moral authority” endorses it. You are right to say some people are “too lazy” as you put it to do this – these are the “moderates” to whom I apportion most blame:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Anon

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion."

Steven Weinberg

You are correct that the problem and the solution are both Education:
Children are indoctrinated in childhood usually, by means of the Faith School system – this installs the malware that there are alternative way of “knowing” things, that “Faith is a Virtue” and “Ignorance is Strength.” It also instils the idea of other “Faiths” and people as being “other” than them, which basically accentuates differences – it is certainly not a good way to enhance community cohesion or multi-cultural integration. These religious ideas are also passed on from parents and re-enforced socially by many means. Political ideas are not ascribed to one’s children and we don’t have Conservative or Labour schools do we? We don’t label our kids as being Communist or Anarchist in the same way we talk of Muslim or Christian children – why the anomaly?
Underlying all this is another more basic core issue – the concept that there are alternative or more effective methods of investigating the nature of physical reality than the scientific method….ideas like “Faith is a virtue” are really poisonous. This is why I extend my criticisms to all pseudo-science, psychic abilities etc – because it promotes the idea that there are alternative ways of knowing……if only you believe whatever the authority figure wants you to believe….
The solution is also Education though, which is why I’m chuffed about Maidsafe. My hope is that we can educate the ignorance away, where religious intolerance and persecution are at their worst - mainly caused by Christian missionaries, but that’s another story…

1 Like

How would this explain the willingness of ordinary Germans to support the Nazi regime? Unless the Nazi ideology itself would be classed as a religion for these purposes? (I might agree with that, but at that point, I think that what we are talking about “religion” as a sociological system, and “religion” as personal belief sets of individual people to nonrational questions become two different things.)

I still have a sense of foreboding about all this and the TTIP thing - wish I understood the tech issues a bit better myself around ring-fencing US/EU. Obama and Cameron have clearly stated their intentions, Obama stating that there are only a few “tech issues” to work through.
I’m wondering if this is because they really don’t have a clue about how de-centralised tech/encryption etc works - or they have a method to ring-fence the USA/EU with only some tech issues to work through…lol…I haven’t a clue but really wish I had your confidence (my lack of knowledge/understanding being the reason why not). .
It looks to me that at best, we are all going to be labelled as aiding terrorists and people will be encouraged to grass each other up by the media. I’ve got all my clever arguments and excuses ready anyway for when they come looking for someone to waterboard…“Happybeing made me do it”…lol

People tend to either believe priests or politicians. Few think for themselves

Society needs to out grow both. They are both full of contradictions which benefits those doing the preaching and often those doing the following too, in the short term.

Pretending some theft is fine, as long as you are a beneficiary doesn’t change the fact that it is stealing. Killing people because your rulers say it is ok, doesn’t mean it isn’t murder.

These contradictions need to be recognised and outed. The organizations who use propaganda to keep people ignorant will crumble under their own lies and deceit.

1 Like

I like how you’ve expanded on this, in particular the notion of political ‘faith’ schools is interesting and not something I had thought of before. Surely they’re as legitimate as any other personal belief… plus, they’re backed by the state. :smiley: What better way to ensure that no vote is wasted? :wink:

1 Like

Hmmm… I think I’d say National Socialism was structured in a way analogous to the way religions are . This is something both Hitler and Stalin utilised to their own ends. The basic idea is of a totalitarian type ultimate authority that was to be “followed” - otherwise some hellish punishment. I think ordinary Germans/Russians were taking huge risks to go against Hitler too. In Stalin’s case he had inherited a hugely religious population which already “thought that way”.
Don’t forget that Hitler’s ideology was also in some ways endorsed and aided by the Catholic Church and Hitler himself stated he was on some kind of mission from God. The SS had “Gott Mitt Uns” on their belts or “God with us” too.
Religion was in the mix there definitely, but mainly it was learning from and emulating religious power structures.
I think you are correct though and I would amend the quote (if mine) to say religion is either one way or the main way, rather than only way - though I can’t think of another other than maybe Fear itself. In fact I think this is the underlying issue, the fear of death , harm or eternal damnation - the self preservation instinct that the religions tap into so effectively.
I’m not sure about your last bit or why you would ever want an answer to a non rational question…it can only rationally be gobbledegook can’t it?

They can only do it by compromising the encryption and only when using closed source software and hardware.

If there are back doors, then it won’t be just the state who uses them. If some people have access then the back door will be leaked one way or another and the security provided will be nullified.

There has already been strong push back against us companies selling network gear which is suspected of being compromised.

The link in a post above explained why it technically isn’t possible, even if they decreed it anyway.

Yes, I read it and I don’t understand it - I’m thick in this regard. It appeared to state the opposite:

However, it would apparently not affect Safe…I’m confused. I was talking about like a big ring-fenced firewall type of thing. Seriously don’t worry, If you say it’s covered, I’ll take your word for it and defer to your better knowledge.

I think it would take deep packet inspection (a la the Great Firewall of China), and then a willingness to effectively cut off the countries in question from the rest of the world in terms of internet communications.

And thats not politically possible because it would hurt the interests of the Multinationals. Again, I think that the TTIP thing presents some real opportunities for SAFE, because it will necessarily mean a transition period, where neither the nation-state system, nor the “corporate citizen” system was in firm control.

I just seriously hope that SAFE is ready and operational before then.

1 Like

I’d have to think about the political reasons, just a bit worried that the " few technical issues to work through" Obama is referring to might be how to land Black Hawk helicopters full of Navy Seals in Troon…lol