I previously talked about my helpless anger regarding Prism, the NSA, the arrogance of the US' government and my mistrust of my government's activity's with regard to this affair. I have observed an interesting reaction to the situation. The German online newspaper I like reading, Spiegel Online (or short SPON) is now giving guidelines on how to encrypt your e-mails, so that it is less easy for the secret services of this world to follow your every communication.
I think it is great, that a newspaper with such a long reach (most read German online newspaper) is giving guidelines on how to encrypt your mails. A feat that most "normal" users would find daunting and confusing.
The problem is, though, that for this to work, one would need to give a decryption key to the recipient of the mails (no you can't send it by normal mail, that would defeat the point). Being the sceptic that I eternally am, I highly doubt that the general population will ever get to the point where this is the norm.
The majority of people will not do it. If it is due to lacking know-how or plain laziness is up for discussion here. I am sure that if I started to encrypt my mails right now, I can only think of very few of my contacts that would follow through with this. In fact, many of my "computer-literate" friends wouldn't bother with it at all. For pretty much either my reasons or laziness. I'm almost so certain, I would bet on it.
I am tempted to start a survey on this topic and ask friends... If anyone reads this, I would be very interested, so please do add a comment at the bottom.
Showing posts with label NSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NSA. Show all posts
Thursday, 18 July 2013
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
The long term effects of the outrage over the NSA, Prism, Tempora scandals
I am currently forcing myself to write this. "Why?", you may ask. Simply, because it matters to me. As moot and untelling as the message of this article may be, I want to voice my opinion about the subject of the privacy scandal, espionage, Prism, the NSA and whatever else there is to say about it. The Brits were exposed for something similar right afterwards with Tempora. Sadly, I have no illusions that the Germans have a similar organisation.
The media has been full of it of late ever since Edward Snowden made us aware of the scandal. Just run the keywords "Prism" and "NSA" through your favourite search engine and you will find plenty of material.
I, personally, think that the man has balls to do this and should for all intents and purposes be declared a modern day hero. I am no lawyer or in any way well versed in these matters, but what the NSA has done must violate several laws and/or human rights of citizens in the Western World.
Unfortunately for him, I don't think it will matter in the long run. I have long lost any faith in the people supposedly trying to protect me. As a German citizen, I am already overwhelmed that our chancelloress even addressed the issue. And then that was that.
This is the harrowing conclusion, I have to draw yet again. I am apathetic to all these events. One scandal after the other. Everytime we find out more about how the government or the industry tries to take away our privacy, monitors our every move, decides, what is best for us... and I sadly stopped caring. It has been shown again and again. No matter what we do, the effect is minimal. It will happen anyways, slowly but surely.
We have a vote to democracy and we can "threaten" with not voting for the people in power. So what? The political parties are all the same and their inofficial credo is "Stay in power! For as long as we possibly can!" So we essentially just exchange one egomaniac for another. Once the deed is done outside of our country all bets are off anyway. Have you recently seen a Western political figure being tried in Den Haag? Without saying names, certain politicians should defend themselves for starting a war under false pretences that ultimately proved to be wrong.
Take again the Edward Snowden case. He has done something big. He exposed one of the governmental organs of the self-proclaimed stalwart of democracy and righteousness as a violator of two fundamental human rights (the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression). One would expect that he would be protected by the Western World's judicial system for this...
Well, in actual effect, he first had to hide in Hong Kong, a part of China. Now they are really renowned for respecting the Human Rights... not. Now he is ogling with stays in Russia, Ecuador or Venezuela. Several other "stalwarts" of democracy.
What did I say earlier? Oh yes, no matter what you do, the effect is minimal. I haven't seen an obvious change in the way things are handled now. Everyone's up and arms, but it will die down, everything will go back to normal, and the governments will go back to spying again. The thought fills me with so much joy, that I will probably go and drown myself in booze. Good night.
The media has been full of it of late ever since Edward Snowden made us aware of the scandal. Just run the keywords "Prism" and "NSA" through your favourite search engine and you will find plenty of material.
I, personally, think that the man has balls to do this and should for all intents and purposes be declared a modern day hero. I am no lawyer or in any way well versed in these matters, but what the NSA has done must violate several laws and/or human rights of citizens in the Western World.
Unfortunately for him, I don't think it will matter in the long run. I have long lost any faith in the people supposedly trying to protect me. As a German citizen, I am already overwhelmed that our chancelloress even addressed the issue. And then that was that.
This is the harrowing conclusion, I have to draw yet again. I am apathetic to all these events. One scandal after the other. Everytime we find out more about how the government or the industry tries to take away our privacy, monitors our every move, decides, what is best for us... and I sadly stopped caring. It has been shown again and again. No matter what we do, the effect is minimal. It will happen anyways, slowly but surely.
We have a vote to democracy and we can "threaten" with not voting for the people in power. So what? The political parties are all the same and their inofficial credo is "Stay in power! For as long as we possibly can!" So we essentially just exchange one egomaniac for another. Once the deed is done outside of our country all bets are off anyway. Have you recently seen a Western political figure being tried in Den Haag? Without saying names, certain politicians should defend themselves for starting a war under false pretences that ultimately proved to be wrong.
Take again the Edward Snowden case. He has done something big. He exposed one of the governmental organs of the self-proclaimed stalwart of democracy and righteousness as a violator of two fundamental human rights (the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression). One would expect that he would be protected by the Western World's judicial system for this...
Well, in actual effect, he first had to hide in Hong Kong, a part of China. Now they are really renowned for respecting the Human Rights... not. Now he is ogling with stays in Russia, Ecuador or Venezuela. Several other "stalwarts" of democracy.
What did I say earlier? Oh yes, no matter what you do, the effect is minimal. I haven't seen an obvious change in the way things are handled now. Everyone's up and arms, but it will die down, everything will go back to normal, and the governments will go back to spying again. The thought fills me with so much joy, that I will probably go and drown myself in booze. Good night.
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