Privacy Advocacy Turns Out to Be Common

It is fairly common for security people to also be privacy advocates--it's security on a personal scale. So the NSA/Snowden thing is something I follow. And, while I don't really want this blog to become focused on something so politicized, some additional commentary is in order.

Here is a graphic I found particularly striking.

I am not a fan of Anonymous. The Guy Faulkes masks work, and they have been known to do what seemed useful cult-control. A large amount of media attention was a foregone conclusion, as was a commensurate amount of attention from law enforcement.

I can't approve of their methods, or admire their approach to operational security. If you are going to declare <Operation Whatever>, which often enough consists of a DDoS attack, don't use a tool like LOIC, which reveals the IP number of everyone you talked into the gig. Duh. Law enforcement did it's thing, and anons are being busted left and right. This will continue, and it is unfortunate that so many people were, in the end, victimized by Anonymous.

Idealism always carries a high cost, and it is usually dis-proportionally borne by the young and not yet cynical, so this is not a surprise.

It is a pretty sad state of affairs, as usual. Law enforcement is supposed to do it's thing. That's what we pay them for. If we, as a society, find the idea of the future of our children being ruined abhorrent, what needs to happen is fairly obvious. The law, and government accountability under the law, has to change.

It turns out that there are economic incentives to fix this. So even we cynics have some cause for hope. I'll either update this post, or point to new post(s) with updates. I'd prefer to just update this post.