> "I'd be shocked if there are not 10+ countries actively trying to gain technology advantages for spying."
Yes, and US has spying "partnerships" to spy on each other's citizens, with all of them. If US really wanted to do something about stopping it, they could do it, at least for 80% of the "Internet".
Of course, in the end it's up to all of us to demand that. The US government will never do it on its own. Just like it sees an advantage in having the strongest military power over others, it sees in advantage in being able to spy on every citizen on this planet, and having a large arsenal of viruses and hacked systems in other countries.
It's up to us to tell it that's wrong, at least if we still care about quaint things such as democracy, freedoms and human rights..
If your goal is to unilaterally disarm the West in the info wars while China, Russia etc. go unchecked, which of course they would because there is absolutely no chance of accountable governance, then count me out. I want the West to win the info wars, we just need to make sure there is proper oversight.
I would much rather the west create an infrastructure that minimizes any destruction from an infowar entirely. As much of all infrastructure in every country and all endpoints sold (phones, tablets, computers) should have end-to-end encryption.
If the USG wants to protect us from any country they consider an aggressor in the info wars, then they need to equip every one of us (its citizens) with the tools to protect ourselves.
The US does not know which of the kids today will grow up to be a Senator, Congressman, President, NSA agent, CIA agent, etc. If one of the infowar aggressors had the kind of information on every US citizen that we suspect the NSA to have, then that means that they could have enough information to blackmail many of this nation's future leaders, with many of us being none the wiser.
Take David Patraeus for example. What if a foreign intelligence agency knew about his extramarital affair, but no one else did. That's a perfect circumstance for that agency to coerce him.
Add to that fact that the NSA and CIA recruits heavily from the Mormon community. Imagine if one of those people was a gay and still had not come out about that fact. Such a person may be extremely worried about being outed to their friends and family in their religious community. Imagine if a foreign intelligence agency knew everyone who was was still in the closet. They would all be blackmailable. [0]
[0] One of my very close friends is bisexual and was raised as a very devout Mormon (but left the Church years ago) and she completely agrees that this could be a reality for a Mormon who has not yet come out of the closet, because of how much that community chastises people who are gay. Most of the people she knew growing up completely disowned her since coming out of the closet and leaving the Church.
> If the USG wants to protect us from any country they consider an aggressor in the info wars, then they need to equip every one of us (its citizens) with the tools to protect ourselves.
Well the USG has given us SHA-1, NSA Suite B collection of Cryptographic standards, NIST-organized crypto standards, and have funded the development and most of the ongoing maintainence of Tor.
So they're trying to be helpful in that regards, which is why you can't just talk about USG as if it was a single-headed monster.
>Well the USG has given us SHA-1, NSA Suite B collection of Cryptographic standards, NIST-organized crypto standards, and have funded the development and most of the ongoing maintainence of Tor.
Certainly. But they've also given us CALEA-mandated backdoors into telecommunications equipment and a regulatory environment that encourages wanton third party custody over sensitive information.
Obviously some of this is subtle and unintended. For example, allowing government-issued spectrum monopolies to be leveraged into walled garden mobile devices is seriously bad for security because it excludes anyone from improving the security of the device's OS or system components other than the manufacturers/carriers who coincidentally have the incentive to deny anything that would reduce user dependence on cloud-based data storage.
The point being, even if we're not doing nothing, we could be doing more.
I'm saying that they should further promote the usage of everyone of those technologies everywhere, all the time, by all the people of these United States.
Protecting us from enemies that could coerce future leaders has the great benefit of also protecting us from the NSA.
The info wars will not have a winner, any more than warfare with black powder, warfare with motorized artillery, or warfare with airplanes produced clear winners. The best possible outcome is to survive until the next kind of war makes the current one obsolete.
Yes, and US has spying "partnerships" to spy on each other's citizens, with all of them. If US really wanted to do something about stopping it, they could do it, at least for 80% of the "Internet".
Of course, in the end it's up to all of us to demand that. The US government will never do it on its own. Just like it sees an advantage in having the strongest military power over others, it sees in advantage in being able to spy on every citizen on this planet, and having a large arsenal of viruses and hacked systems in other countries.
It's up to us to tell it that's wrong, at least if we still care about quaint things such as democracy, freedoms and human rights..