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posted by cmn32480 on Monday November 14 2016, @11:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the those-who-do-not-learn-from-the-past... dept.

On 27 March 1943, a cell of the Dutch resistance committed an attack on the municipal register of Amsterdam. The German occupier had found this register to be extremely convenient: it contained the details of 70.000 Jews in Amsterdam. Also, it proved useful as a means of cross-checking information on identity cards.

Gerrit van der Veen, Willem Arondéus, Johan Brouwer, Rudi Bloemgarten and a number of others had thoroughly prepared the assault and decided there could be no casualties. They entered the building disguised as policemen. Guards were overpowered, given a sedative and taken out the back to be parked in the Artis zoo for safekeeping. The filing cabinets containing public records were turned upside down. After soaking the files in benzene, the group set the largest possible fire.

That night, the fire department played a crucial part. A few resistance sympathizers among the firefighters had been notified of the attack. When the alarm sounded they intentionally delayed the deployment of trucks in order to give the fire time to do maximum damage. Water was used extra generously during and after the extinguishing, in order to add water damage to the havoc of the flames.

In the end, the attack turned out less successful than planned. Due to the tight stacking of the identity cards, a lot of information was saved. Approximately 15 percent of the documents was destroyed by the fire, a few thousand were rendered illegible by the water and of course the overall disarray was enormous.

There are modern lessons to be had from the "big data" collection in states that turned authoritarian during Word War II.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday November 14 2016, @02:31PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday November 14 2016, @02:31PM (#426531)

    During the 2016 presidential election, both candidates also had something to hide.

    Yes, the argument "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" is totally bogus. I think everyone here understands that. On the other hand, if you are doing something wrong, that does imply you have stuff to hide, and that's where leaks and police surveillance and such come into play.

    This is why the rule for transparency needs to be not just "anybody can always hide things", but "the more power you have / seek, the more transparency you must have".

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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