Fwd: Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 12:21:03 -0800
Subject: Re: Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security,
Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman
To: Blind Democracy Discussion List <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>

I'm not sure that Bill Blunden is fairly representing Glenn
Greenwald's remarks. This government belongs to, and fronts for the
American Empire. This government does not surrender any of it's
control. If we think that we have examples of that, just take a look
at what gains were incurred by the Corporate Empire. Tightening or
loosing government control always benefits the Empire and it's
constant move toward world dominance. We can play all the word games
we wish, but the bottom line is that any benefit we Working Class
folks receive is incidental to the massive gains for the Empire. With
great effort and lots of grovelling, we can possibly increase living
conditions for some members of our Working Class. But these can be
taken away if the need arises within the Empire. Remember, no matter
how high up the ladder you clamber, no matter what name you choose to
call yourself, as long as a portion of your labor goes to someone
above you, you are not a member of the Ruling Class. You are not a
Citizen of the Empire. Sure, we think of ourselves as American
Citizens, but we have no say in the affairs of the American Empire.
As long as our activities do not interfere with the goals of the
Empire, we are given room to practice our freedom and speak our free
speech. But when it interferes with the Empire, we are shut down. We
are spied upon, lied to, and humbled through loss of jobs and stature.
The American Empire is not interested in compromise or negotiation.
Even as it may mouth those words it is laying plans to have its own
way.
But hey, lots of folks like to be told what to think, shown what is
right and placated into believing that they belong to the most caring,
generous, loving, democratic, peace loving nation God ever shed His
Grace upon.
As Chester A. Riley was so fond of saying, "My head is made up. Don't
confuse me with facts."

Carl Jarvis



On 11/29/14, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
> Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as
> the Bogeyman
> ________________________________________
> CounterPunch [1] / By Bill Blunden [2]
>
> Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as
> the Bogeyman
>
>
> November 24, 2014 |
> This week the USA Freedom Act was blocked in the Senate as it failed to
> garner the 60 votes required to move forward. Presumably [3] the bill would
> have imposed limits on NSA surveillance. Careful scrutiny [4] of the bill's
> text however reveals yet another mere gesture of reform, one that would
> codify and entrench existing surveillance capabilities rather than
> eliminate
> them.
> Glenn Greenwald, commenting from his perch at the Intercept, opined [5]:
> "All of that illustrates what is, to me, the most important point from all
> of this: the last place one should look to impose limits on the powers of
> the U.S. government is . . . the U.S. government. Governments don't walk
> around trying to figure out how to limit their own power, and that's
> particularly true of empires."
> Anyone who followed the sweeping deregulation of the financial industry
> during the Clinton era, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act [6] of 1999 which
> effectively repealed Glass-Steagall and the Commodity Futures Modernization
> Act [7] of 2000, immediately sees through Greenwald's impromptu dogma.
> Let's
> not forget the energy market deregulation in California and subsequent
> manipulation [8] that resulted in blackouts throughout the state. Ditto
> that
> for the latest roll back of arms export controls [9] that opened up markets
> for the defense industry. And never mind all those hi-tech companies that
> want to loosen H1-B restrictions [10].
> The truth is that the government is more than happy to cede power and
> authority. just as long as doing so serves the corporate factions that have
> achieved state capture [11]. The "empire" Greenwald speaks of is a
> corporate
> empire. In concrete analytic results that affirm Thomas Ferguson's
> Investment Theory of Party Competition [12], researchers from Princeton and
> Northwestern University conclude that [13]:
> "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups
> representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on
> U.S.
> government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups
> have little or no independent influence."
> Glenn's stance reveals a broader libertarian theme. One that the Koch
> brothers would no doubt find amenable: the government is suspect and
> efforts
> to rein in mass interception must therefore arise from the corporate
> entities. Greenwald appears to believe that the market will solve
> everything. Specifically, he postulates that consumer demand for security
> will drive companies to offer products that protect user privacy, adopt
> "strong" encryption, etc.
> The Primacy of Security Theater
> Certainly large hi-tech companies care about quarterly earnings. That
> definitely explains all of the tax evasion, wage ceilings, and the slave
> labor. But these same companies would be hard pressed to actually protect
> user privacy because spying on users is a fundamental part of their
> business
> model. Like government spies, corporate spies collect and monetize oceans
> of
> data.
> Furthermore hi-tech players don't need to actually bullet-proof their
> products to win back customers. It's far more cost effective to simply
> manufacture the perception of better security: slap on some crypto, flood
> the news with public relation pieces, and get some government officials
> (e.g. James Comey [14], Robert Hannigan [15], and Stewart Baker [16]) to
> whine visibly about the purported enhancements in order to lend the
> marketing campaign credibility. The techno-libertarians of Silicon Valley
> are masters of Security Theater.
> Witness, if you will, Microsoft's litany of assurances about security over
> the years, followed predictably by an endless train of critical zero-day
> bugs. Faced with such dissonance it becomes clear that "security" in
> high-tech is viewed as a public relations issue, a branding mechanism to
> boost profits. Greenwald is underestimating the contempt that CEOs have for
> the credulity of their user base, much less their own workers [17].
> Does allegedly "strong" cryptography offer salvation? Cryptome's John Young
> thinks otherwise:
> "Encryption is a citizen fraud, bastard progeny of national security, which
> offers malware insecurity requiring endless 'improvements' to correct the
> innately incorrigible. Its advocates presume it will empower users rather
> than subject them to ever more vulnerability to shady digital coders
> complicit with dark coders of law in exploiting fear, uncertainty and
> doubt."
> Business interests, having lured customers in droves with a myriad of false
> promises, will go back to secretly cooperating with government spies as
> they
> always have: introducing subtle weaknesses [18] into cryptographic
> protocols, designing backdoors [19] that double as accidental zero-day
> bugs,
> building rootkits [20] which hide in plain sight, and handing over [21]
> user
> data. In other words all of the behavior that was described by Edward
> Snowden's documents. Like a jilted lover, consumers will be pacified with a
> clever sales pitch that conceals deeper corporate subterfuge.
> Ultimately it's a matter of shared class interest. The private sector
> almost
> always cooperates with the intelligence services because American spies
> pursue the long-term prerogatives of neoliberal capitalism; open markets
> and
> access to resources the world over. Or perhaps someone has forgotten the
> taped phone call of Victoria Nuland selecting the next prime minister of
> Ukraine as the IMF salivates over austerity measures? POTUS caters to his
> constituents, the corporate ruling class, which transitively convey their
> wishes to clandestine services like the CIA. Recall Ed Snowden's open
> letter
> to Brazil [22]:
> "These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying,
> social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power."
> To confront the Deep State Greenwald is essentially advocating that we
> elicit change by acting like consumers instead of constitutionally endowed
> citizens. This is a grave mistake because profits can be decoupled from
> genuine security in a society defined by secrecy, propaganda, and state
> capture. Large monolithic corporations aren't our saviors. They're the
> central part of the problem. We shouldn't run to the corporate elite to
> protect us. We should engage politically to retake and remake our republic.
>
> [23]
>
> See more stories tagged with:
> silicon valley [24],
> security [25],
> surveillance [26]
> ________________________________________
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/tech-companies-are-peddling-phony-version-security-u
> sing-govt-bogeyman
> Links:
> [1] http://www.counterpunch.org/
> [2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/bill-blunden
> [3]
> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/where-congress-after-summer-proposed-n
> sa-reform
> [4]
> https://www.emptywheel.net/2014/11/12/why-i-dont-support-usa-freedom-act/
> [5]
> https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/19/irrelevance-u-s-congress-stopp
> ing-nsas-mass-surveillance/
> [6]
> http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/05/business/congress-passes-wide-ranging-bill
> -easing-bank-laws.html
> [7] http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/
> [8]
> http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/52157:tapes-show-enron-caused
> -rolling-blackouts-in-california
> [9]
> http://www.propublica.org/article/in-big-win-for-defense-industry-obama-roll
> s-back-limits-on-arms-export
> [10]
> http://news.cnet.com/Gates-wants-to-scrap-H-1B-visa-restrictions/2100-1022_3
> -5687039.html
> [11] http://www.belowgotham.com/Deep-State-Wins.pdf
> [12]
> http://policytensor.com/2013/01/24/the-investment-theory-of-party-competitio
> n/
> [13]
> http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPPS%2FPPS12_03%2FS1537592
> 714001595a.pdf&amp;code=6a4a2e23886bed651339879b90c07d0c
> [14]
> http://www.brookings.edu/%7E/media/events/2014/10/16%20going%20dark%20techno
> logy%20privacy%20comey%20fbi/20141016_fbi_comey_transcript.pdf
> [15] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29891285
> [16]
> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/04/nsa-cyberwar-stewart-baker
> -cloudflare-snowden
> [17]
> http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrate
> d-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/
> [18]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-secur
> ity
> [19]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/sep/05/sigint-nsa-collabor
> ates-technology-companies
> [20]
> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors
> -for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html
> [21]
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-docum
> ents/
> [22]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/17/edward-snowden-letter-brazilian
> -people
> [23] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Tech Companies Are
> Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman
> [24] http://www.alternet.org/tags/silicon-valley
> [25] http://www.alternet.org/tags/security-0
> [26] http://www.alternet.org/tags/surveillance
> [27] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
> Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
> Home > Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the
> Govt. as the Bogeyman
>
> CounterPunch [1] / By Bill Blunden [2]
>
> Tech Companies Are Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as
> the Bogeyman
> November 24, 2014 |
> This week the USA Freedom Act was blocked in the Senate as it failed to
> garner the 60 votes required to move forward. Presumably [3] the bill would
> have imposed limits on NSA surveillance. Careful scrutiny [4] of the bill's
> text however reveals yet another mere gesture of reform, one that would
> codify and entrench existing surveillance capabilities rather than
> eliminate
> them.
> Glenn Greenwald, commenting from his perch at the Intercept, opined [5]:
> "All of that illustrates what is, to me, the most important point from all
> of this: the last place one should look to impose limits on the powers of
> the U.S. government is . . . the U.S. government. Governments don't walk
> around trying to figure out how to limit their own power, and that's
> particularly true of empires."
> Anyone who followed the sweeping deregulation of the financial industry
> during the Clinton era, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act [6] of 1999 which
> effectively repealed Glass-Steagall and the Commodity Futures Modernization
> Act [7] of 2000, immediately sees through Greenwald's impromptu dogma.
> Let's
> not forget the energy market deregulation in California and subsequent
> manipulation [8] that resulted in blackouts throughout the state. Ditto
> that
> for the latest roll back of arms export controls [9] that opened up markets
> for the defense industry. And never mind all those hi-tech companies that
> want to loosen H1-B restrictions [10].
> The truth is that the government is more than happy to cede power and
> authority. just as long as doing so serves the corporate factions that have
> achieved state capture [11]. The "empire" Greenwald speaks of is a
> corporate
> empire. In concrete analytic results that affirm Thomas Ferguson's
> Investment Theory of Party Competition [12], researchers from Princeton and
> Northwestern University conclude that [13]:
> "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups
> representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on
> U.S.
> government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups
> have little or no independent influence."
> Glenn's stance reveals a broader libertarian theme. One that the Koch
> brothers would no doubt find amenable: the government is suspect and
> efforts
> to rein in mass interception must therefore arise from the corporate
> entities. Greenwald appears to believe that the market will solve
> everything. Specifically, he postulates that consumer demand for security
> will drive companies to offer products that protect user privacy, adopt
> "strong" encryption, etc.
> The Primacy of Security Theater
> Certainly large hi-tech companies care about quarterly earnings. That
> definitely explains all of the tax evasion, wage ceilings, and the slave
> labor. But these same companies would be hard pressed to actually protect
> user privacy because spying on users is a fundamental part of their
> business
> model. Like government spies, corporate spies collect and monetize oceans
> of
> data.
> Furthermore hi-tech players don't need to actually bullet-proof their
> products to win back customers. It's far more cost effective to simply
> manufacture the perception of better security: slap on some crypto, flood
> the news with public relation pieces, and get some government officials
> (e.g. James Comey [14], Robert Hannigan [15], and Stewart Baker [16]) to
> whine visibly about the purported enhancements in order to lend the
> marketing campaign credibility. The techno-libertarians of Silicon Valley
> are masters of Security Theater.
> Witness, if you will, Microsoft's litany of assurances about security over
> the years, followed predictably by an endless train of critical zero-day
> bugs. Faced with such dissonance it becomes clear that "security" in
> high-tech is viewed as a public relations issue, a branding mechanism to
> boost profits. Greenwald is underestimating the contempt that CEOs have for
> the credulity of their user base, much less their own workers [17].
> Does allegedly "strong" cryptography offer salvation? Cryptome's John Young
> thinks otherwise:
> "Encryption is a citizen fraud, bastard progeny of national security, which
> offers malware insecurity requiring endless 'improvements' to correct the
> innately incorrigible. Its advocates presume it will empower users rather
> than subject them to ever more vulnerability to shady digital coders
> complicit with dark coders of law in exploiting fear, uncertainty and
> doubt."
> Business interests, having lured customers in droves with a myriad of false
> promises, will go back to secretly cooperating with government spies as
> they
> always have: introducing subtle weaknesses [18] into cryptographic
> protocols, designing backdoors [19] that double as accidental zero-day
> bugs,
> building rootkits [20] which hide in plain sight, and handing over [21]
> user
> data. In other words all of the behavior that was described by Edward
> Snowden's documents. Like a jilted lover, consumers will be pacified with a
> clever sales pitch that conceals deeper corporate subterfuge.
> Ultimately it's a matter of shared class interest. The private sector
> almost
> always cooperates with the intelligence services because American spies
> pursue the long-term prerogatives of neoliberal capitalism; open markets
> and
> access to resources the world over. Or perhaps someone has forgotten the
> taped phone call of Victoria Nuland selecting the next prime minister of
> Ukraine as the IMF salivates over austerity measures? POTUS caters to his
> constituents, the corporate ruling class, which transitively convey their
> wishes to clandestine services like the CIA. Recall Ed Snowden's open
> letter
> to Brazil [22]:
> "These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying,
> social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power."
> To confront the Deep State Greenwald is essentially advocating that we
> elicit change by acting like consumers instead of constitutionally endowed
> citizens. This is a grave mistake because profits can be decoupled from
> genuine security in a society defined by secrecy, propaganda, and state
> capture. Large monolithic corporations aren't our saviors. They're the
> central part of the problem. We shouldn't run to the corporate elite to
> protect us. We should engage politically to retake and remake our republic.
> mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Tech Companies Are Peddling
> a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman
> mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Tech Companies Are Peddling
> a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman[23]
> See more stories tagged with:
> silicon valley [24],
> security [25],
> surveillance [26]
>
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/tech-companies-are-peddling-phony-version-security-u
> sing-govt-bogeyman
> Links:
> [1] http://www.counterpunch.org/
> [2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/bill-blunden
> [3]
> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/where-congress-after-summer-proposed-n
> sa-reform
> [4]
> https://www.emptywheel.net/2014/11/12/why-i-dont-support-usa-freedom-act/
> [5]
> https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/19/irrelevance-u-s-congress-stopp
> ing-nsas-mass-surveillance/
> [6]
> http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/05/business/congress-passes-wide-ranging-bill
> -easing-bank-laws.html
> [7] http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/
> [8]
> http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/52157:tapes-show-enron-caused
> -rolling-blackouts-in-california
> [9]
> http://www.propublica.org/article/in-big-win-for-defense-industry-obama-roll
> s-back-limits-on-arms-export
> [10]
> http://news.cnet.com/Gates-wants-to-scrap-H-1B-visa-restrictions/2100-1022_3
> -5687039.html
> [11] http://www.belowgotham.com/Deep-State-Wins.pdf
> [12]
> http://policytensor.com/2013/01/24/the-investment-theory-of-party-competitio
> n/
> [13]
> http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FPPS%2FPPS12_03%2FS1537592
> 714001595a.pdf&amp;code=6a4a2e23886bed651339879b90c07d0c
> [14]
> http://www.brookings.edu/%7E/media/events/2014/10/16%20going%20dark%20techno
> logy%20privacy%20comey%20fbi/20141016_fbi_comey_transcript.pdf
> [15] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29891285
> [16]
> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/04/nsa-cyberwar-stewart-baker
> -cloudflare-snowden
> [17]
> http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrate
> d-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/
> [18]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-secur
> ity
> [19]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/sep/05/sigint-nsa-collabor
> ates-technology-companies
> [20]
> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors
> -for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html
> [21]
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-docum
> ents/
> [22]
> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/17/edward-snowden-letter-brazilian
> -people
> [23] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Tech Companies Are
> Peddling a Phony Version of Security, Using the Govt. as the Bogeyman
> [24] http://www.alternet.org/tags/silicon-valley
> [25] http://www.alternet.org/tags/security-0
> [26] http://www.alternet.org/tags/surveillance
> [27] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blind-Democracy mailing list
> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
>