Posts tagged with #security

Ed Snowden does a good job of explaining the other side of the argument regarding modern privacy, namely the line of “Sorry, if you want security, privacy has to go a little bit. It’s the price we pay to keep this country safe”

The interview was mainly around the Windows vulnerability that was discovered by cyber attackers causing worldwide damage, but the twist being that the NSA knew about this vulnerability and had been using it to their advantage for a long time. The debate being: was that right?

Paraphrased transcript below regarding some meaty bits of this interview.

Privacy and security improve together. They are actually tied to each other. When one is reduced, the other is reduced. Surveillance and privacy are the contradictory factors. When surveillance increases, privacy decreases.

And unfortunately…when surveillance increases security typically decreases. Now that might not seem obvious at first glance, but when you think about how surveillance actually functions it becomes quite clear, particularly in the computer security context. Surveillance operates by observing, witnessing, and exploiting vulnerabilities. Whether that’s you walking out on the street where you can be observed, rather than within the four walls of your home, that’s exploiting a property where you are insecure, and using that for the interests of whoever runs the surveillance thing.

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