HOPE X: You've Lost Privacy, Now They're Taking Anonymity

[InactiveUser 188]

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNZrq2iK87k

 

If you haven't seen this yet - this is a 2+ hour, must-watch presentation about the current state of data collection / analysis / surveillance / targeting, held by (right-wing, anti-Snowden!) private investigator Steven Rambam at the HOPE X conference.


Money quotes:

"If this stuff had existed during the American Revolution, all of the leaders of the revolution would have been identified and arrested."

"It's a double-edged sword. Undercover agents, people risking their lives assuming identities, what do they do about this? (..) It's a nightmare now. (..) Motorcycle gangs now have membership applications. And they hire private investigators to check them out."

"All of this stuff is being done to catalog us, pigeonhole us - is it actually translating (..) to a reduction in crime rates, catching of terrorists, finding missing persons? No. Not at all."


This presentation is a great reminder that yes, we need technological solutions like VPNs and Tor but the real problem lies so much deeper. It doesn't matter how hard we try, we can't escape or avoid "the system". We have to change it and it's not just some crooked governments or a few misguided corporations: it's the current, global mindset that enables these violations and this wrong way of thinking.

[zimwebob 7]

"As long as there are a majority of idiots, there will always be tyrants to make use of them." -Me