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[...] tech companies are under fire for creating problems instead of solving them. At the top of the list is Russian interference in last year's presidential election. Social media might have originally promised liberation, but it proved an even more useful tool for stoking anger. The manipulation was so efficient and so lacking in transparency that the companies themselves barely noticed it was happening.
The election is far from the only area of concern. Tech companies have accrued a tremendous amount of power and influence. Amazon determines how people shop, Google how they acquire knowledge, Facebook how they communicate. All of them are making decisions about who gets a digital megaphone and who should be unplugged from the web.
Their amount of concentrated authority resembles the divine right of kings, and is sparking a backlash that is still gathering force.
Is it that the tech companies are creating problems for society as a whole, or merely disrupting the status quo for the old Powers-That-Be?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 14 2017, @03:36PM (4 children)
I can't think of any "giant" of any kind that has ever been viewed as a "savior".
Has Russian interference actually been proved yet? I've seen no data, only a propaganda meme issued by Congress and their minions. Even if they did, it was certainly less than interference from other unconstitutional sources, whatever the fuck SCOTUS says about Citizens United v. FEC.
So first your premise is based on a propaganda meme, that even if true, only serves to demonstrate how separated the Congress's view is from reality. And how subject that view is to manipulation from corrupt intelligence sources, and their own legend.
Second, bad system architecture derives from the fact that software models reality, not theory. Since there is no such thing as institutional security (because institutions are not people) institutional security models DO NOT WORK.
What your looking at isn't bad code. It is code modeling bad theory. The theory of course, is that the 4th amendment can be violated in every facet of the lives of a Citizen, and that the institutions can still be secure. Nope. Wrong. You can put Galileo on the rack all you want, it isn't going to make you the center of the universe.
Software abides only that which can be modeled in math. When you choose to ignore those truths that are self evident, the closest you are going to get to security or freedom, is a bad approximation. Which is why all of these security problems exist. The Internet is approximating business and political theory that is self conflicting.
Again, with enthusiasm: It isn't because of bad code! It is because the code is modeling bad theory!
The simple truth is that there were bad decisions made back in the 80's that are still being reflected in systems architectures today. The engineering needs to be refactored all the way down to the wafer. And nobody is investing seriously in revised architecture, because intellectual property law does not have any facility for protecting against EEE. And EEE will always be used to break secure systems when it is profitable to do so.
So it is a legislative problem at that level at least. But that isn't how they are going to look at it. Instead they will declare that technicians should be locked the fuck up. Because it couldn't possibly be congressional cocksucking contests that are causing these problems. And they might get away with it for a while too, considering how the media has been demonizing tech workers in propaganda for the past few decades.
If your going to force reasoned men loyal to the constitution underground note; by and large; that will include most of the engineers. And the important thing about that, is that when heads start rolling, nobody is going to ask you what party your in. We already know.
You paid us to build the fucking databases.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 14 2017, @04:22PM (3 children)
The problem is defining what this "interference" is. The MSM intentionally doesn't dispel the insinuation that Putin had his fingers in the voting machines.
The way I see it, US elections are extremely predictable. The two major parties pick a member as their candidate for the election in November. One of them will win. Russia (and any country) will have a preference among the two. So they probably played the media to get coverage favorable to their candidate.
The US MSM often presents foreign policy as driven by the personal whims of the leader. If there was any personal satisfaction to Putin, it must be some feeling of payback for how the US fucked Russia in the Ukraine. That was like if Russia got Mexico to leave the US sphere of influence for Russia's.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by black6host on Saturday October 14 2017, @05:39PM
Trump may well precipitate something similar all by himself :) Trump hasn't been particularly kind to Mexico and if he screws up our trade agreements I think Mexico may well just say fuck you. It would cost them but if Trump puts them in a lose-lose situation...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 14 2017, @07:01PM
Slavic languages don't have articles - the a and an
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 15 2017, @04:37PM
"The problem is defining what this "interference" is."
I really don't care how they scope the question, provided that the specs of the compromise are made public. i.e. "Here is the code they inserted, here are the versions and models of equipment that were effected" etc. etc.
If on the other hand they are talking about Russia running its own personal 501(c)4 (PAC) organization and buying advertising with it, that isn't election interference. It is a violation of the emoluments clause of Article 1.
Now the problem with that is this: If that is what they are referring to (which they probably are) then EVERY investment in a PAC should require validation that it originates in the U.S. should it not? Which is why they are saying "Russian interference" and not "crime against article 1".
There is a fuck ton of foreign money in our political process from nearly every 1st world nation. It is a Constitutional crime. Everybody knows it. But they are bitching about the "Russians", instead of quoting the law. Why is that? They are lawyers are they not?
The simple answer is: for the same reason they've being doing it since the McCarthy hearings. It isn't about law, and it isn't about crime. It is about instilling fear in the American people, so that we all going running to the people offering solace in one hand, and a fist fuck with the other. i.e. The RNC/DNC alliance.
At some point you have to assess whether your fears are because there is something to fear, or because somebody is trying to make you afraid. And in that capacity, both parties are indestinguishable.