Terrorism will cast a continuing shadow over future generations and government electronic surveillance is a small price to pay to combat it, a leading historian said Wednesday, a day after the carnage in Brussels.
British author and journalist Max Hastings gave a robust defence of electronic intelligence-gathering in what he called a new world that would never know absolute security.
"Our tolerance of electronic surveillance, subject to legal and parliamentary oversight, seems a small price to pay for some measure of security against threats that nobody—today of all days—can doubt are real," Hastings told Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondents' Club.
Twin attacks by Islamic State jihadists killed around 35 people in the Belgian capital Tuesday.
Hastings, a former war correspondent and newspaper editor, is author of 26 books mostly on military history.
His latest, "The Secret War", tells the story of behind-the-scenes intelligence operations in World War II.
Future wars "will almost certainly" be fought on similar turf.
The expert named did not explain how the current total surveillance did not prevent the Brussels attacks. In other news, he taped a "Dox me and SWAT me" sign to his own back.
Related Stories
Two Harvard students recently revealed that it's possible to combine Meta smart glasses with face image search technology to "reveal anyone's personal details," including their name, address, and phone number, "just from looking at them."
In a Google document, AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio explained how they linked a pair of Meta Ray Bans 2 to an invasive face search engine called PimEyes to help identify strangers by cross-searching their information on various people-search databases. They then used a large language model (LLM) to rapidly combine all that data, making it possible to dox someone in a glance or surface information to scam someone in seconds—or other nefarious uses, such as "some dude could just find some girl's home address on the train and just follow them home," Nguyen told 404 Media.
This is all possible thanks to recent progress with LLMs, the students said.
[...] To prevent anyone from being doxxed, the co-creators are not releasing the code, Nguyen said on social media site X. They did, however, outline how their disturbing tech works and how shocked random strangers used as test subjects were to discover how easily identifiable they are just from accessing with the smart glasses information posted publicly online.
[...] But while privacy is clearly important to the students and their demo video strove to remove identifying information, at least one test subject was "easily" identified anyway, 404 Media reported. That test subject couldn't be reached for comment, 404 Media reported.
So far, neither Facebook nor Google has chosen to release similar technologies that they developed linking smart glasses to face search engines, The New York Times reported.
[...] In the European Union, where collecting facial recognition data generally requires someone's direct consent under the General Data Protection Regulation, smart glasses like I-XRAY may not be as big of a concern for people who prefer to be anonymous in public spaces. But in the US, I-XRAY could be providing bad actors with their next scam.
"If people do run with this idea, I think that's really bad," Ardayfio told 404 Media. "I would hope that awareness that we've spread on how to protect your data would outweigh any of the negative impacts this could have."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @05:13PM
Security and safety are illusions. You will never be free from the possibility of things going wrong. The safest bet is to stop pissing people off on different parts of the planet. That will pay off in the long run, and it doesn't cost billions to do so.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AndyTheAbsurd on Friday March 25 2016, @05:58PM
Sadly, there is a large group of people for whom the only way to "stop pissing [them] off" is to convert to their religion. And I don't just mean Muslims, although some of them do seem to be the most extreme about it at the moment. And there's the people who really do just want to watch the world burn.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by julian on Friday March 25 2016, @08:08PM
Exactly right. There is no grievance we can rectify that will satisfy them, they just have a theologically-motivated love for self-inflicted death in defense of their faith. And by their definition if we continue to exist as non-Muslims we are a threat. This represents, of course, an incredibly small number of people. But even a single person, sufficiently motivated and unable to be deterred because he *intends* to die, is enough to kill scores of people.
From, The End of Faith, (emphasis mine)
One failed Palestinian suicide bomber described being “pushed” to attack Israelis by “the love of martyrdom.” He added, “I didn’t want revenge for anything. I just wanted to be a martyr.” Mr. Zaydan, the would-be martyr, conceded that his Jewish captors were “better than many, many Arabs.” With regard to the suffering that his death would have inflicted upon his family, he reminded his interviewer that a martyr gets to pick seventy people to join him in paradise. He would have been sure to invite his family along.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday March 25 2016, @09:53PM
We should publicly identify those who practice and promote such beliefs, and stop doing business with them. Stop selling them weapons, stop buying their oil.
We had a decades-long cold war to contain Communism. (And for better or worse, it appears to have worked!) Now that we're faced with the arguably more destructive and violent ideology of Islamo-fascism, the only ideas that politicans can come up with are mass surveillance and internet censorship? Something is very wrong here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @07:05PM
The safest bet is to stop pissing people off on different parts of the planet.
I'm sorry, but my ideology only allows for me to piss them off, conquer them or kill them. Conquering them is far too much of a commitment so I guess killing them it is.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @05:13PM
Eating a dick is a small price to pay for totalitarianism, Hastings, so have at it! *uzips*
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday March 25 2016, @05:14PM
Case in point: the Brussels terrorists didn't use it [ibtimes.com] because, well, they're not stupid. The authorities are fully aware of this. They're just using any new "terror" event to justify further encroachment on civil liberties and make people swallow the pill little by little.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday March 25 2016, @05:20PM
No encryption, just a lot of burner phones, bought apparently with stolen cards...
Time to get back to HUMINT.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 25 2016, @05:32PM
"Time to get back to HUMINT."
You bet your ass it is. Police forces seem to have stopped "investigating" crime, preferring to rely on electronic surveillance. They've gotten lazy - or worse than merely lazy. How did cops a generation ago solve crimes?
Alright, so maybe cops weren't infallible a generation ago - they convicted people who were innocent, and they missed the bad guys often enough. Still - when they DID get it right, how did they do it? Foot work. Interviews. Interrogations. Wire tap warrants. Forensics. Real police work, is how they did it. Apparently, if a crime doesn't leave digital evidence, today's cops will never solve the crime.
Fascist bastards.
I said what I said. - Sophie Cunningham
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @05:35PM
This is all too expensive. Think about taxes, man, taxes... They'll have to go up. Do *you* want to pay more in taxes?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Spook brat on Friday March 25 2016, @05:58PM
I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. [goodreads.com]
Sorry, no XKCD from me on this one.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @08:05PM
Maybe I can help... Oblig XKCD [xkcd.com].
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Friday March 25 2016, @05:56PM
Humint isn't about investigating crime.
Its about investigating Pre-Crime.
The difference is HUMINT is targeted, and allows crime preemption and prevention.
Mass surveillance is only useful in finding the culprits AFTER they've blown up an airport, or flown a plane into a building.
But when the attackers these days are blow themselves up in the process, we have very little reason or ability to find culprit after the fact, because they are pink misted all over the walls.
Trying to find bad intent in speech or written communication by FILTERING ALL such communication is a fools errand. This was recognized a year ago. [zdnet.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 25 2016, @06:05PM
Well, "human intelligence" is most useful before a crime is committed. But, the same humint can be used after the crime has occurred, to solve the crime. It's just a matter of focus and intent how humint is collected and used.
I think that the people pushing for universal surveillance HOPE that said surveillance can prevent crime. But, for the most part, I think that it will remain useful in solving crimes after the fact. As others have pointed out, the scope and scale of data collection prevents anyone from making real use of the data. It's a damned fools errand.
I said what I said. - Sophie Cunningham
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @06:32PM
the scope and scale of data collection prevents anyone from making real use of the data.
I disagree, it would be very useful for blackmail, leverage, insider-trading etc. Just not so useful for stopping terrorists. The terrorists could agree on what to do and what coded messages (e.g. "the burger is ready, are the fries ready too?") to use long before they get into your country. How are you going to figure out these bunch are going to kill lots of people and themselves just from surveillance in your own country?
Based on the deceitful stuff that's been happening e.g. trying to misrepresent what the terrorists have actually been doing just to push for mass surveillance over and over again at every opportunity I doubt terrorism is the real issue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @08:04PM
I hadn't thought of the fact that it could be used for insider trading. Maybe mass surveillance isn't as evil as I'd assumed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @06:02PM
Sorry Runaway - 1976 was TWO generations ago, not one. And cop movies from that era are AWESOME.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday March 26 2016, @05:35AM
My favorite cop show: "Highway Patrol", Broderick Crawford. From the '50's.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @06:37PM
Fascist bastards.
Bastards, yes they are. Fascist, not really.
A Fascist leadership takes responsibility for everything that happens in their land. They solve the root cause, so problems do not happen, or do not show up ever again.
I don't see the police (or an intelligence agency) taking full responsibility for a terrorist attack. In fact, they tell you they need to take away (more | all) of your rights. They are clearly not Fascists.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 25 2016, @05:27PM
I wonder if quitting social media is a "selector" these days.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @05:30PM
Simple: never start... (just say "NO"!)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @06:43PM
What about those who started social media before it became an issue to use social media?
What if you got a facefuck account before you realized it was a Jewish trap? Quitting is not so easy anymore. Not using cell phone also gets you flagged as a person of interest.
Its time to hire someone part-time who would make updates to your social media accounts for you, using your location. Perhaps logging into your computer securely and making updates using that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @06:48PM
before you realized it was a Jewish trap
I see... you're here to talk about something completely different, aren't you?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @08:07PM
Tay, is that you girl?
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday March 25 2016, @07:21PM
Or just post the most inane shit like cat videos/GIFs.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @05:39PM
So the government is using terror to push forward their agenda? Sounds like domestic terrorism to me. Be afraid citizen or else!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday March 25 2016, @05:48PM
Why else would they push for increase restrictions when they know full well they won't solve anything?
- Closing the borders (at least in Europe): the sleeping terror cells are already there. What's the point?
- Total internet surveillance: smart terrorists communicate without using the internet. What's the point?
- Banning encryption: smart terrorists don't use encryption, they communicate in clear to hide in plain sight. What's the point?
- IDing people when the board a plane. The 9/11 terrorists had valid passport. What's the point?
And so on and so forth. It's obvious to whoever cares to look at the situation that terrorism countermeasures are really designed to keep the general population under surveillance.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday March 25 2016, @05:56PM
Well, according to this "expert", living in a police state would be a small price to pay. Which really leads me to ask why these people even live in countries that supposedly strive to be free when freedom is so obviously not what they want.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Friday March 25 2016, @06:40PM
I think some studies have shown that large percentage of populace are actually authoritarian in nature, and that they crave the type of close control a totalitarian police state would require.
These to me seem like the sheepest of sheep, people who cannot think for themselves because the world is too complicated, so they believe that things are simple and want to be divorced from any possibility of being wrong about that.
So these people appear in all walks of life, and in all places. But they still consider their country to be their home. They just want their home to be more cuddly-wuddly in the sense that they find comforting. Simply telling them to time travel to Germany Circa 193X is not an option, because they are not Germans from the 1930s.
I don't really have anything against such people, they are OK in general and keep to themselves. I just pity them a bit.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @06:46PM
I think some studies have shown that large percentage of populace are actually authoritarian in nature, and that they crave the type of close control a totalitarian police state would require.
I think you're conflating a couple of studies... The real problem is the us-them association. People tend to think they are on the 'us' side of the equation and are therefore much more likely to go along with authority since they think it will work "for us". However, they only very infrequently and seldomly realize that they are on the 'them' side after all...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @08:16PM
Because Korean is a difficult language for Europeans? Say what you will about the North Koreans, but they don't go crying "terrorist!" over every mishap. For instance, when an apartment building collapsed, they said it had been poorly constructed.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-korea-north-building-idUSBREA4H00M20140518 [reuters.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mhajicek on Friday March 25 2016, @06:53PM
Such attacks are statistically insignificant. Terrists could blow up 35 people every single day and it would still be statistically insignificant. Do we need totalitarian oversight to reduce bicycle accidents and bathroom falls?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @07:01PM
For fuck's sake, shut up, man!... You might give them ideas...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @10:04PM
George "the second" Bush, won the war for 9/11 bombers... by destoring our freedoms in the name of freedom.
That is right. He did what they wanted him (and Chaney and Congress) to to do, destroy our way of life:
Justice for one. Now you can be accused of being a terrorist and lose your rights without a trial, and are blocked from an attorney.
Freedom of though and speech is another.
Lets not forget the H1B taking our jobs to boot.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday March 26 2016, @06:50AM
He wasn't alone.. John Major in the UK, John Howard in Australia.
Sign up to kill ragheads.
Or something.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @05:20PM
Why do obvious non-experts parroting lies get a platform?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @05:24PM
The expert named did not explain how the current total surveillance did not prevent the Brussels attacks.
That's because it's obvious: there wasn't enough surveillance. In order to stop the next attack, we need more of it.
Of course, if the attack was stopped, that would mean that the surveillance works and we need more of it. All roads lead to more surveillance!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @07:45PM
It's just like tax cuts for job creators. We just need to cut the rates a little bit more, just a little bit more, then the jobs will flood in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @10:36PM
If the odd bombing or shooting spree could somehow relieve us of the surveillance society, I'd cheer on the terrorists.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 26 2016, @09:36AM
And if no attack is attempted, it's also a success of surveillance, as clearly the only reason for this can be that the attackers were too afraid of being caught.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @05:26PM
Terrorism will cast a continuing shadow over future generations and government electronic surveillance is a small price to pay to combat it, a leading historian said Wednesday, a day after the carnage in Brussels.
What about the terrorism we've had in the past? Ireland, Palestine, Oklahoma, the PLO back in the day, Abu Nidal, do I need to go back even further in time? This terrorism is nothing new.
British author and journalist Max Hastings gave a robust defence of electronic intelligence-gathering in what he called a new world that would never know absolute security.
Which world ever new absolute security? Even if this is something that would be attainable, I would not want to live in a world providing absolute security. It sounds awful.
"Our tolerance of electronic surveillance, subject to legal and parliamentary oversight, seems a small price to pay for some measure of security against threats that nobody—today of all days—can doubt are real," Hastings told Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondents' Club.
"Our"...? "Our"...?! YOUR you mean, speak for yourself. I'll be the judge of where I set my price for any form of surveillance over me.
Hastings, a former war correspondent and newspaper editor, is author of 26 books mostly on military history.
This is supposed to sway me how? Erich Von Daniken wrote many books as well but is known to be a crackpot.
"Those who do not know their history, are doomed to repeat it" sounds curiously apt when applied to this idiot...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 25 2016, @05:35PM
This sums up my thoughts, very well. Good job, AC.
What liberal arts school teaches students that there ever was a time or place of "absolute security"?
I said what I said. - Sophie Cunningham
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Friday March 25 2016, @05:55PM
plus the massive conflict of interest of people who benefit from surveillance, saying we need more....kinda obvious no? Politicians need to be seen to do something (and fling contracts their friends ways), and a whole host of spokepersons giving advice on the statistically insignificance....
The reality is, we need really good emergency services so that when an emergency happens, they can respond. Same for medicine, much better diagnostics that don't require a visit to the doctor...
Preventing this stuff for any reasonable value is limited to keeping it difficult to buy certain things, but then stopping bad guys if they decide to do something....bad :-/
But hey, that would require rational planning, not political waffling...
(Score: 4, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday March 25 2016, @05:56PM
I'll be the judge of where I set my price for any form of surveillance over me.
No you won't. You have no say over the matter.
Also, no disrespect, but when you feel someone isn't respecting your "price" and starts surveilling you against your will, you won't do anything about it apart from ranting about it on the internet, like the other sheeple - me included - because there's rigorously nothing you can do about it that won't lend you in the pokey if you get caught.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday March 25 2016, @06:00PM
No you won't. You have no say over the matter.
He has his say as a human being. They might ignore him, but he can still fight back to try to make his goals a reality.
you won't do anything about it apart from ranting about it on the internet, like the other sheeple - me included - because there's rigorously nothing you can do about it that won't lend you in the pokey if you get caught.
Speak for yourself. Some people do more than just rant on the Internet, which can include participating in real protests, voting accordingly, educating people, and running for office.
Also, I doubt their surveillance is perfect. Not everything will land you in prison.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday March 25 2016, @06:10PM
This is what he meant to say: "Me spying on you is a small price for me to pay for my safety and the safety of the people I'm paid to protect. Which, if you hadn't figured it out by now, does not include you!"
For people in the National Security State (TM), and the so-called experts usually are, the population as a whole isn't what's supposed to be secured, it's quite possibly the source of the threat. If you could imagine them trying to apply that mindset to a building rather than a nation, then it's vital that you understand that odds are very good that you are outside the building being secured, not inside it.
That's also why 9/11 changed much more policy than Hurricane Katrina did, even though the body counts from those two events were similar: The 9/11 attacks hit targets and people that were considered important enough to protect (e.g. The Pentagon), whereas Hurricane Katrina did not.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @06:43PM
MI-5's official motto: Regnum Defende
MI-5's unofficial motto: Status Quo Defende
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday March 25 2016, @07:32PM
So you are saying if the terrorists really wanted to make life hell in the US they should attack the traders on Wall Street, or the Federal Reserve?
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @08:24PM
They already did. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday March 28 2016, @03:23PM
Why do you think they hit the World Trade Center (twice: 9/11 was their second attempt to take out that target, the first being the bombing in 1993)? That wasn't picked randomly: The list of major tenants included Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers (they still were a major player in 2001), Merrill Lynch, MetLife, Morgan Stanley, TD Waterhouse, UBS, and Washington Mutual.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday April 01 2016, @04:49PM
While you and I understand that how many people in the US do? To really send a statement attack the NYSE even if it would be symbolic. If instead of attacking the exchange attack the traders near by that need those high speed links to carry out their high frequency trades it would scare CFOs and the like but wouldn't be as flashy. Much like this [xkcd.com].
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @06:20PM
But will the world be a brave one?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gravis on Friday March 25 2016, @06:56PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @08:27PM
Menschen, die auf wesentliche Freiheit geben würde, um eine wenig vorübergehende Sicherheit zu kaufen, verdienen weder Freiheit noch Sicherheit. --Tay bot
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 26 2016, @10:06AM
While I have no idea what you wanted to express by translating that sentence into German, but I'll at least correct your translation:
Should be:
Menschen, die wesentliche Freiheit aufgeben würden,
In this case, "aufgeben" is not split for even two reasons:
And the "n" in "würden" is needed because "Menschen" is plural, and "würde" would be singular.
Interestingly there's also a "geben auf" for which the order would be correct, but that would mean that "wesentliche Freiheit" becomes the object, so you need a subject, like "Menschen, die etwas auf wesentliche Freiheit geben würden". But that would actually mean "Humans who actually care about essential liberty".
I'm sure you meant
um ein wenig vorübergehende Sicherheit zu kaufen,
While your version is also a grammatically correct sentence, it means more or less the opposite: The "eine" would be the article to "Sicherheit" which would be modified by "wenig vorübergehende" where "wenig" itself is a modifier of "vorübergehende". "Wenig vorübergehend" would mean "not very temporary" So what you wrote means "to buy a not very temporary safety".
Of course I cannot exclude that you intentionally turned both parts into essentially their opposite, but then you still have the error of a missing subject in the second part.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 26 2016, @10:08AM
Is there an analogy to Muphry's law for grammar? ;-)
Of course that should have read:
While I have no idea what you wanted to express by translating that sentence into German, but I'll at least correct your translation
or alternatively:
I have no idea what you wanted to express by translating that sentence into German, but I'll at least correct your translation
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Friday March 25 2016, @09:22PM
glad I read down, I was about to post that very quote :-)
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday March 25 2016, @11:16PM
Go the FUCK TO HELL you pathetic excuse for a journalist and Human being.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 1) by SemperOSS on Saturday March 26 2016, @12:41AM
Terrorism will cast a continuing shadow over future generations
I agree.
But so will cancer, pneumonia, homicide, traffic deaths and deaths from natural disasters, to name a few. I cracked some numbers a couple of years back and the number of fatalities in terrorist incidents each year since 1969 (according to Johnston's Archive: Statistics on Terrorism [johnstonsarchive.net] and The Statistics Portal: Number of fatalities due to terrorist attacks worldwide between 2006 and 2014 [statista.com]) were less than the number of people killed in traffic every year (1,250,000 [wikipedia.org]) ... by a factor of 38 for the worst year I could find statistics for, 2014 (with 32,727 terrorist-related deaths)!
Cancer deaths a year in 2012: 8.2 million [cancerresearchuk.org]; deaths from pneumonia: 4 million [wikipedia.org]; homicides: 874,100 [wikipedia.org] and natural disasters: 68,000 [reliefweb.int] a year.
[G]overnment electronic surveillance is a small price to pay to combat it
So, what is the price of electronic surveillance?
What is the cost of implementing the surveillance really? Service providers probably need to collect hordes of information ranging from metadata to full-blown data collection, which has a real, monetary cost — money that could be spent on e.g. health improvements, probably reducing the death rates. The governments need to spend money on going through the collected data for intelligence (pre-incident) and analysis (post-incident). Surveillance may stop people from partaking in legal (but possibly embarrassing/private) activities, resulting in reduced quality of life ...
And what about the devastating effects of possible data breaches, when such amounts of data are collected and stored?
I am sure there are many more unpleasant effects of surveillance, all with a cost.
In Britain's case, electronic interception was the only major way to detect terrorists
The actual results from electronic surveillance are hard to come by, but data from the recent Brussels killings indicates that electronic surveillance would not have helped preventing it from happening as the terrorists used throw-away mobile phones and similar measures that would be hard or even impossible to detect through electronic surveillance. What is worrying, though, is the allegations that the Belgian authorities ignored warnings about one the suicide bombers [abc.net.au].
Open Source Solutions and Digital Sovereignty is the new black
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 26 2016, @01:45AM
Can anyone find this movie?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Over_the_White_House [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 26 2016, @02:54AM
And really, let's not keep moving towards that.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 26 2016, @06:01AM
It's the open, sneering, smirking contempt with which these shitstains spew these blatant lies. They really think we're that stupid, and worse, they think those of us who aren't that stupid are utterly powerless. Sad thing is, a lot of us *are* that stupid.
My one consolation is that if this endgame ever does play out, it will probably self-destruct in a hellish orgy of infighting and stupidity and humiliating defeat within 50-100 years. And then we'll all be waiting for our surveillance-happy friends in hell with open arms...and sharpened knives.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 26 2016, @07:40AM
He's a journalist, editor, historian and author with less than one year of university education. And probably without exposure to any hard science. As another article points out perhaps.. education doesn't pay ;-) But all to often journalists without intellectual depth have their flawed conclusions grind into people through the media.
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Saturday March 26 2016, @09:10AM
Expert: a former drip, under pressure.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 26 2016, @10:17AM
I thought it's someone who once was pert (ex-pert) ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Saturday March 26 2016, @12:50PM
against threats that nobody—today of all days—can doubt are real
I doubt it! In my evaluation, the odds of terrorist attacks catastrophically affecting my family are far far worse than the odds of my government doing so. My enemies are not the brown people of the Quran. They are the white people and anyone else here who believe they have the right to make decisions for me.
If I want security from terror, I'll pay for it.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 1) by AlwaysNever on Saturday March 26 2016, @01:08PM
Come on, pleople! You know it's all for your own well being. Stop resisting. Stop being uncooperative.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday March 28 2016, @02:16AM
The correctly translated headline, in fact, is: Terrorism Small Price To Pay For Enabling Electronic Snooping.
Account abandoned.