Is there any way we can eliminate mass surveillance??!!??

[deleted]

The question is in the title

Blastoidea

I do not believe we ever will.

Even a revolution will only substitute someone else’s surveillance for the one you overthrew.

[deleted]

Blastoidea I am afraid that you are ABSOLUTELY right and there in lies our biggest problem

roddyd

Mass surveillance isn't just governments and corporations. Even individual hackers can create surveillance systems using botnets. Anyone who has access to a large number of devices will be able to conduct mass surveillance. Unless the world became so decentralized that literally every computer was made by one of thousands of small companies, then it will always be a problem.

Keurig

With all that was said above...

One thing that we do know is we didn't have these problems back in the 90s. Certainly during the Napster days. Things just where what they where. Things where also OK during the early 00s. Everything went to hell after the patriot act went into play.

Cointell Pro NEVER stopped. Cointell Pro is now government policy.

roddyd

Keurig The reason there wasn't mass surveillance back then is because no one expected privacy. Nothing was encrypted, people assumed that everything they did online would be public anyway. In order for mass surveillance to exist as a concept (as opposed to an "open society"), there must be an expectation of privacy to oppose it.

Blastoidea

I believe there has always been an expection of privacy, among those who thought about such things.

There was no way to keep one’s communications private at that time. We had no choice.

Now, we can at least keep the honest people out. Sometimes I wonder if law enforcement isn’t as big a threat as the bad guys.

maade

I wonder how this topic is connected to the project.

Blastoidea

maade
Perhaps it is the fact that “”the whole point of “the project” is to keep other people’s noses out of our communications.

wonder75

Education would defeat mass surveillance.
Crypto works. AES, SHA, Diffie-Hellman.
They all work.

If people would truly understand the power of the widely available tools,
Big Brother would be powerless.

Eirikr70

I disagree that there was no mass surveillance back in the 90's. The tools were just at their beginning, so it was incredibly less spread and complete. But your bank could in any moment know where you were from your credit card, and there were already fidelity cards to trace your behaviour. The difference is now related to the digitalisation of the society and the fact that wherever you are and almost whatever you do, you leave traces in the Silicon Valley and probably in China ...