[mkal_tsr]

What I've always found interesting in the nebulus of Assange/Google/NSA/etc. is 90%+ of the time, people only focus on this as it if is only as US-gov issue. As if Russia, India, China and others haven't developed similar systems of surveillance. It's not to say that any system is wrong or right (whole different debate for another time) ... but it just astounds me that people look at what was leaked/released/unclassified and say, "well, look at all the threats to the US, look at what we need to protect. it's for our safety" completely ignoring that other governments and organizations are also developing similar systems. In my mind, it should just be treated as a baseline of possibility/capability.

[hardwaresofton]

But a lot of those other countries are fundamentally different (or at least they are on paper... specifically old constitution paper) than the US.

When the US does it, it's hypocrisy (because of written law, and what we supposedly stand for), when the other countries do it it's not questioned because their citizens don't have the same protection by a long shot.

So while contradictory, I think (partially) that it IS a US-gov issue -- other countries it's a non-starter because they don't have the same rights (or claim the same things).

[mkal_tsr]

True. But then an easy way to clarify my point would be ... when you make a connection with a server, can you verifiably prove your packets haven't been intercepted at any point and recorded by a foreign entity (for sake of this point, China/Russia) or undisclosed corp, given everything known about certain TLA security agencies? And that's kinda what makes things interesting ... that conflict drives innovation on both ends of the spectrum. The next decade is going to be interesting, that's for sure, heh.

[hardwaresofton]

Yeah, pretty sure the answer is no (though it's funny, we wouldn't have any idea how bad it really was, and maybe still don't, without the whole PRISM thing)....

yeah, the next decade is definitely going to be interesting.

[_nedR]

Everybody and their grandmothers know that Russia, India, China are using everything within their means to spy on the world, and their citizens. Its the US hypocrisy of whining about this, while doing as much and more is what gets people.