BitCoins for Edward Snowden.

[mco65]

I guess my first question would be;
if privacy is your main concern, why would you run to a communist country?
odd

[1714754421]

1714754421

[1714754421]

1714754421

[cr1776]

Encryption itself seems safe, but the problem is that for SSL/tls the centralized certificate authorties which are subject to government coercion, hacking and the like. Meaning fake certificates and man in the middle attacks. Plus some centralized vulnerabilities in tor. 

Without some type of working peer to peer CA (perhaps tied to bitcoin or namecoin) this is a big vulnerability as Moore's law marches on because it becomes easier and easier to monitor more and more. (Or save more and more for use later).

I just don't get it, why HongKong? what the fuck, he's going to get extradited.
why didn't he just go to HongKong, out of reach of the Americans, THEN go to Iceland, THEN TELL YOUR STORY.
balls.

edit: I don't buy the 'i couldn't reach iceland in the short time'.
earning $120k a year and your telling me he couldn't sit at HKG, pay in cash/credit for the first flight out to KEF?

He was worried that he would have been captured in Iceland before he had a chance to go public.  Iceland is small and the US can exert enormous pressure and maybe even have its agents operated directly there.  Hong Kong, under China's umbrella, would not suffer from those same risks.  Did you see that Snowden said he would have had to give the NSA 30-days of notice before he left the country?  He was worried he might not have even made it to Hong Kong without being nabbed right off the airplane.

The good news :

Snowden says encryption is safe.  It must be. Otherwise how could he be giving all these interviews out in the open?

[lazydna]

I just don't get it, why HongKong? what the fuck, he's going to get extradited.
why didn't he just go to HongKong, out of reach of the Americans, THEN go to Iceland, THEN TELL YOUR STORY.
balls.

edit: I don't buy the 'i couldn't reach iceland in the short time'.
earning $120k a year and your telling me he couldn't sit at HKG, pay in cash/credit for the first flight out to KEF?

He was worried that he would have been captured in Iceland before he had a chance to go public.  Iceland is small and the US can exert enormous pressure and maybe even have its agents operated directly there.  Hong Kong, under China's umbrella, would not suffer from those same risks.  Did you see that Snowden said he would have had to give the NSA 30-days of notice before he left the country?  He was worried he might not have even made it to Hong Kong without being nabbed right off the airplane.

He was already safe when he hit Hong Kong and out of reach of the authorities. He could instantly got in the next available flight paying cash to KEF and nothing could have stopped him short of someone shooting down the plane.

[visionary]

i wanna do it！


maybe snowden in here

[atariguy]

Snowden is looking more and more like a treasonous liar.

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?doc_id=264687&f_src=securitysentinel

[Its About Sharing]

Snowden is looking more and more like a treasonous liar.

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?doc_id=264687&f_src=securitysentinel

We should worry more about the charges and less about Snowden.
If the NSA has nothing to hide then they shouldn't be worried. (I think I've heard that somewhere before...)

[NewLiberty]

Snowden is looking more and more like a treasonous liar.

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?doc_id=264687&f_src=securitysentinel

We should worry more about the charges and less about Snowden.
If the NSA has nothing to hide then they shouldn't be worried. (I think I've heard that somewhere before...)

Seems they do.
http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/nsa-outlines-steps-to-reduce-leaks-a-5843

[ErisDiscordia]

Ha, no, not me personally. "We" meaning US society as a whole.

This confirms my suspicion that you're conflating society with government.

As in if this was put to a vote tomorrow, there's zero doubt the people of the US would choose to keep the NSA and every other branch of the US government that deals with national security matters.

Here you seem to be assuming that democracy is a good thing for anybody and a valid expression of the "will of the people" (whatever that may be).

I would go so far as to say that without such institutions, the US simply wouldn't be the superpower it is today.

Finally I can agree with something you've said You can't have a superpower without necessary institutions. But what good is a superpower? Does it do any good for you? What other people are profiting from the fact that there is a superpower? I can tell you that personally I prefer power of any sort to be as fragmented as possible - it can do less harm that way.

Chances are we wouldn't have the freedoms we enjoy today.

I admit that you've lost me completely here. What freedoms are you talking about?

[runam0k]

I admit that you've lost me completely here. What freedoms are you talking about?

All the freedoms you enjoy and take for granted. Or are you suggesting you have no freedoms?

If nothing else, you have the freedom to go elsewhere, renounce your US citizenship and stop paying US taxes.

[BitcoinAshley]

I admit that you've lost me completely here. What freedoms are you talking about?

All the freedoms you enjoy and take for granted. Or are you suggesting you have no freedoms?

If nothing else, you have the freedom to go elsewhere, renounce your US citizenship and stop paying US taxes.

Nope, wrong. The U.S. Government has the power to decide whether or not you can leave the country. If you attempt to leave the country after they decide to specifically bar you from leaving by denying your passport application or denying you at the border, you could be arrested or shot at the border. How the fuck is that a "freedom" if someone else gets to decide whether you have it or not?

"Tyranny of the majority" for sure.

Please explain why you think the tyranny of the majority deciding that we should keep the NSA and other departments meets my needs as a U.S. citizen, and without some off-the-cuff false-choice crap about "you have a smaller chance of getting your legs blown off after running a marathon". Please explain why the U.S. being a "superpower" benefits me as a citizen, or benefits the citizens of Pakistan, Libya, etc, seeing their family members being blown to bits by predator drone strikes and aerial bombs, and landmines left over from previous wars, and uranium bullets used by U.S. troops giving people cancer. Superpower indeed.

Power should be as fragmented as possible so it can do less harm.

[BTCLuke]

If nothing else, you have the freedom to go elsewhere, renounce your US citizenship and stop paying US taxes.

Nope, wrong. The U.S. Government has the power to decide whether or not you can leave the country. If you attempt to leave the country after they decide to specifically bar you from leaving by denying your passport application or denying you at the border, you could be arrested or shot at the border.

Hey, you forgot to mention: Even if you Don't get denied or shot at the border, and everything goes fine... Leaving your tax farm for another incurs pretty stiff exit fees!

The USA doesn't let its' livestock go cheaply... Expatriation fees are rarely less than 10% of your total worth, and you still get taxed on all income earned for the next 10 years!

...And if you don't expatriate properly, you will be taxed by the US for the rest of your life, yes, even on income from other nations that they have no business knowing about. People who try to ignore uncle sam because they've lived overseas their whole lives find this out the hard way in the end. Let's just say extradition treaties exist for a reason other than whistleblowers.

But hey, you're more free than anywhere else in Murika, right? Why not stay home... Obomba will take great care of you.

[WhatsUpFreak]

I guess my first question would be;
if privacy is your main concern, why would you run to a communist country?
odd

Hong Kong isn't communist, it has a very high degree of autonomy and operates without the economic and political contraints of mainland China.

[hashman]

The only surprising thing to me here is:  a long bitcointalk thread where nobody questions the official story of the MSM. 

I wondered this myself and came to the conclusion that no-one even bothers questioning the MSM because they implicitly assume (KNOW?) that they are spinning propaganda ... it must have been like this with Pravda during the USSR.

I'm not sure I follow you there..  can you give an example? 

[marcus_of_augustus]

Encryption itself seems safe, but the problem is that for SSL/tls the centralized certificate authorties which are subject to government coercion, hacking and the like. Meaning fake certificates and man in the middle attacks. Plus some centralized vulnerabilities in tor.

Without some type of working peer to peer CA (perhaps tied to bitcoin or namecoin) this is a big vulnerability as Moore's law marches on because it becomes easier and easier to monitor more and more. (Or save more and more for use later).

Namecoin project has recently got TLS (https) working for names in the namecoin blockchain, "NAMESEC" ... i.e. TLS without CA's is now possible using namecoin blockchain and .bit domains.

http://dot-bit.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4285#p4285

.... the "NAMESEC" protocol

[ErisDiscordia]

I admit that you've lost me completely here. What freedoms are you talking about?

All the freedoms you enjoy and take for granted. Or are you suggesting you have no freedoms?

If nothing else, you have the freedom to go elsewhere, renounce your US citizenship and stop paying US taxes.

I'll let Saint George Carlin explain to you that you don't have any right or any freedoms. What you have is temporary privileges. Freedoms are no freedoms if there is someone who can just take them away.

[NewLiberty]

Encryption itself seems safe, but the problem is that for SSL/tls the centralized certificate authorties which are subject to government coercion, hacking and the like. Meaning fake certificates and man in the middle attacks. Plus some centralized vulnerabilities in tor.

Without some type of working peer to peer CA (perhaps tied to bitcoin or namecoin) this is a big vulnerability as Moore's law marches on because it becomes easier and easier to monitor more and more. (Or save more and more for use later).

Namecoin project has recently got TLS (https) working for names in the namecoin blockchain, "NAMESEC" ... i.e. TLS without CA's is now possible using namecoin blockchain and .bit domains.

http://dot-bit.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4285#p4285

.... the "NAMESEC" protocol

This is profoundly delightful.

[runam0k]

Nope, wrong. The U.S. Government has the power to decide whether or not you can leave the country. If you attempt to leave the country after they decide to specifically bar you from leaving by denying your passport application or denying you at the border, you could be arrested or shot at the border. How the fuck is that a "freedom" if someone else gets to decide whether you have it or not?

"Tyranny of the majority" for sure.

Please explain why you think the tyranny of the majority deciding that we should keep the NSA and other departments meets my needs as a U.S. citizen, and without some off-the-cuff false-choice crap about "you have a smaller chance of getting your legs blown off after running a marathon". Please explain why the U.S. being a "superpower" benefits me as a citizen, or benefits the citizens of Pakistan, Libya, etc, seeing their family members being blown to bits by predator drone strikes and aerial bombs, and landmines left over from previous wars, and uranium bullets used by U.S. troops giving people cancer. Superpower indeed.

Power should be as fragmented as possible so it can do less harm.

Keywords highlighted; if you decide right now to leave the country, you are free to do so - UNLESS you are a person of interest against whom an order (as you hint at) has already been made. So don't pretend you're stuck here. If you don't like it (it being the system within which the group of people that call themselves the USA has decided to live), without wanting to sound overly harsh: fuck off go elsewhere. You have that freedom! Even Snowden had that freedom; had he chosen to do so, he could have quit his job quietly and left the country. (Ignoring for a second whether, morally speaking, that would have been the right thing or the wrong thing to do.)

Obviously I don't expect you or anyone else here to up and leave the US (unless, perhaps, you already live abroad and taxes are an issue). The vast majority sitting at their keyboards will weigh-up the opportunity costs and very quickly decide it makes absolutely no sense.

As to the tyranny of the majority statement... Really? You don't see how protection of US national interests has ensured and affords you the freedoms you enjoy today? Are you serious? Without these protections every other country that DOES actively protect it's own interests would quickly dominate the US. Try to remember, this is not just about terrorism. For decades now the US government has tackled - on a day to day basis - political and corporate espionage, hacking, spying, sabotage, etc. Without government level protections, the US simply would not exist in the form it does today. You certainly would not be enjoying the freedoms you enjoy today.

None of this means we should let the NSA or any other branch of the government run wild. But the question becomes, "how do you keep X in line, operating within the boundaries we set?" So instead of indulging in your plight, why not suggest a viable answer?

(All this is way off topic. Sorry.)

[runam0k]

I'll let Saint George Carlin explain to you that you don't have any right or any freedoms. What you have is temporary privileges. Freedoms are no freedoms if there is someone who can just take them away.

Great, love it.

He's wrong though. Society would never survive with his concept of unlimited rights. Instead we have (and this is the point you are making) lots of privileges. Temporary or not, we have lots and lots of them. Even better, we have the chance - albeit primarily through our elected officials - to increase the number of privileges we enjoy. Or, indeed, as an individual we can choose not to live with "privileges" and instead to go elsewhere and take our chances. The downside, of course: you abandon society and nobody has you back. Good luck with that.

[marcus_of_augustus]

The chains of your enslavement seem to rest comfortably around your mind. What's curious is why you feel the need to try so hard to convince others that it should be the same for them?


Edit: in other news DuckDuckGo private search engine sees 33% rise in usage since widespread secret govt. surveillance revelations. http://www.cnbc.com/id/100825956

[Room101]

"He's wrong though. Society would never survive with his concept of unlimited rights. Instead we have (and this is the point you are making) lots of privileges."

Yup. You have the privilege of owing hundreds of thousands of $ for debt the government racked up. You owe several hundred thousand more for the unrealistic promises made by your government to baby boomers. You have the privilege of paying your taxes to start wars all over the globe, face it YOU pay to kill brown people, women and children. You have more debt for the trillions spent on war to "protect your freedoms", despite the fact that you are a hundred times more likely to be killed by lightening, or peanuts, or snakes, than you are by terrorism. If you think what the government is doing in your name is OK, you are either a moron, or a coward. If you hide inside when it's raining for fear of being struck by lightening, then you are on the coward side. If you don't, and you agree with what the NSA is doing, then you are a moron.

All great societies start off free, but as the centralised power branches gather more and more power for themselves, they start to drain more and more resources. Like a parasite that goes from being helpful to one that destroys the host, all central governments eventually go the same way. Face it, the USA is totally broke, and the only way the government is going to be able to keep control as more and more of the population slips into poverty, is through oppressive means.

And all the good will the rest of the world had toward The United States of America, the greatest nation the world has ever seen, has been pissed away. When the other shoe drops, the dollar collapses, and you are all plunged into abject poverty, people that 30 years ago would have rushed to your aid, will laugh and say you reap what you sow.