May 2009 Archives
From Bruce Schneier
(read the whole thing)
Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance. We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.
A future in which privacy would face constant assault was so alien to the framers of the Constitution that it never occurred to them to call out privacy as an explicit right. Privacy was inherent to the nobility of their being and their cause. Of course being watched in your own home was unreasonable. Watching at all was an act so unseemly as to be inconceivable among gentlemen in their day. You watched convicted criminals, not free citizens. You ruled your own home. It's intrinsic to the concept of liberty.
For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.
How many of us have paused during conversation in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on? Probably it was a phone conversation, although maybe it was an e-mail or instant-message exchange or a conversation in a public place. Maybe the topic was terrorism, or politics, or Islam. We stop suddenly, momentarily afraid that our words might be taken out of context, then we laugh at our paranoia and go on. But our demeanor has changed, and our words are subtly altered.
This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.
Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.
Via Gerry Ryans 2FM Blog
The Microsoft founder once told a high school the lessons he did not learn in school. They are:
RULE 1 Life is not fair; get used to it.
RULE 2 The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3 You will NOT make $40,000 a year right out of school.
RULE 4 If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
RULE 5 Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
RULE 6 If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes -- learn from them.
RULE 7 Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try 'delousing' the closet in your own room.
RULE 8 Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many chances as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
RULE 9 Life is not divided into terms. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10 Television is NOT real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
RULE 11 Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
The Microsoft founder once told a high school the lessons he did not learn in school. They are:
RULE 1 Life is not fair; get used to it.
RULE 2 The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
RULE 3 You will NOT make $40,000 a year right out of school.
RULE 4 If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
RULE 5 Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
RULE 6 If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes -- learn from them.
RULE 7 Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try 'delousing' the closet in your own room.
RULE 8 Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many chances as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
RULE 9 Life is not divided into terms. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
RULE 10 Television is NOT real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
RULE 11 Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Schneier on Security A blog covering security and security technology.
Virginia Data Ransom This is bad: On Thursday, April 30, the secure site for the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) was replaced with a $US10M ransom demand: "I have your shit! In *my* possession, right now, are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too. Uhoh :(For $10 million, I will gladly send along the password."
More details: Hackers last week broke into a Virginia state Web site used by pharmacists to track prescription drug abuse. They deleted records on more than 8 million patients and replaced the site's homepage with a ransom note demanding $10 million for the return of the records, according to a posting on Wikileaks.org, an online clearinghouse for leaked documents. [...]
