Category: Privacy, Surveillance, & Security

How a Cashless Society Could Embolden Big Brother – The Atlantic

Source: How a Cashless Society Could Embolden Big Brother – The Atlantic

When money becomes information, it can inform on you.

A cashless society promises a world of limitation, control, and surveillance—all of which the poorest Americans already have in abundance, of course. For the most vulnerable, the cashless society offers nothing substantively new, it only extends the reach of the existing paternal bureaucratic state.

As paper money evaporates from our pockets and the whole country—even world—becomes enveloped by the cashless society, financial censorship could become pervasive, unbarred by any meaningful legal rights or guarantees.

 

The USA only has 300 million people while China and India each have well over 1 billion. In 20 years, China and India will be “need to serve” markets for multinational/international corporations – including those which handle financial transactions. What if the Chinese or Indian government suggests that such a company might show and see goodwill if it would voluntarily choose to not serve an American – possibly even one running for public office? Imagine an election campaign that couldn’t accept digital/electronic donations, or a Super PAC which had its funds frozen for a few crucial days or weeks.

A future cashless society that isn’t utterly private and anonymous (which has its own risks and downsides) is one in which *huge* control will be held by those capable of influencing digital-finance bottlenecks.

The FBI Has Successfully Unlocked The iPhone Without Apple’s Help : The Two-Way : NPR

Source: The FBI Has Successfully Unlocked The iPhone Without Apple’s Help : The Two-Way : NPR

The Justice Department says it is withdrawing its legal action against Apple because it has been able to get data from a terrorist’s phone. A spokeswoman says the FBI is reviewing the data.

It took FBI investigators about a week to test a third-party tool and successfully crack the San Bernardino shooters’ iPhone passcode.

 

Everyone at the FBI responsible for either a) lying about the need to force Apple to do something and/or b) taking 5 months to use a third-party tool when national security was/is at stake, should be reprimanded (or fired if/as appropriate).

The Feds Have Let the Cyber World Burn. Let’s Put the Fire Out | WIRED

Security expert Dan Kaminsky writes that the government lets weak cybersecurity burn our society while tech companies try to put out the flames.

Source: The Feds Have Let the Cyber World Burn. Let’s Put the Fire Out | WIRED, by Dan Kaminsky

Instead of helping put out fires, though, the FBI is “concerned.” A world where not everything can be hacked is a world where it can’t necessarily hack everything. And so, in a case where the FBI has enjoyed almost complete cooperation with Apple, it is demanding more: The engineering authority to require a “backdoor,” making the extraction of data from any device trivial, and setting the dangerous precedent that the government can turn any or all of the technology in our lives against us.

The moral, economic, strategic, and technical leadership of the United States is at stake here. If Americans are not allowed to repair cybersecurity, somebody else will, and the damage to our interests will be incalculable and self-inflicted. Whoever masters making a secure digital world not just possible, but practical, will own the next Silicon Valley.

Those defending and repairing the Internet must be separated from those with offensive cyber missions, no matter how legitimate. “Dual Missions”—playing defense and offense, fixing infrastructure one day and exploiting it the next, are a lie and everybody knows it.