[exelius]

In all honesty, it wasn't a great interview and didn't raise any points that most of us here on HN didn't know already. Snowden didn't speak all that much and what he did say wasn't incredibly insightful if you're a technology professional. His main gripe is that secure tools are too hard to use, and real security will need to come from the Googles and Apples of the world, but it's not in their best interest given their reliance on private surveillance for advertising purposes. So basically it was a plea to the next generation of the "next big thing" to think about doing security in a way that actually secures information.

[cinquemb]

>So basically it was a plea to the next generation of the "next big thing" to think about doing security in a way that actually secures information.

So basically, another entity ready to be co-opted by its aligning self interests with the State?

It's like we never collectively learned anything from the cyhperpunks:

"They think they can always find someone to protect them. No, you can't. You've got to protect yourself."

Society doesn't want to hear that… The same society that wants to elect people to solve their problems time and time again… and you know what? Maybe what society gets is what it deserves time and time again… but it doesn't seem to stop individuals that do achieve what they seek, despite it all, and at the end of the day that's what it always seems to come down to, and the steps snowden took to even conduct the interview (that is intolerable to listen to for the echo) is a prime example.

[exelius]

No; his point was that companies like Google and Facebook will never be truly secure because true security is at odds with their business model. They're advertising companies, so they need to look at your communications to serve you ads. On a private level, that's fine, because you implicitly choose to submit to this surveillance in exchange for the service, and if Google oversteps their bounds, there is legal recourse.

What he was asking for was for the next Google or Facebook, which will likely not be based on an advertising-centric business model, to take privacy seriously and do things in such a way that it can't be turned over to the government en masse. He didn't seem against surveillance as a concept; there is a place for targeted surveillance and he wants to use the technology to force individual surveillance to be the only viable option.

[cinquemb]

Sure, if one thinks the Facebook's and the Google's (and future ones) only misalignment is with their business model. I think it's more fundamental than that.

[exelius]

I don't know it gets more fundamental than the business model. Everything about a company supports its business model; not the other way around.

[cinquemb]

What about the formation of any corporation? To whom does the potential corporation submit itself to? And what benefits does it receive upon incorporation even well before any business model can be in sight or capital gained?

[exelius]

Corporations submit to the shareholders. Those shareholders submit to the government, because let's face it: governments have real power in the form of men with guns. Different governments have different rules about how and when those men with guns do things, and yes, that is a conversation that needs to happen in the US.

This was a talk targeted at technologists. All technologists can do is try to make it harder for governments to collect data on the entire population at once by using secure crypto schemes. If they want YOU, they can still get you, because one man vs. a government is never going to end in the man's favor.