DoD Paper Proposes National Security Through a Culture of Restraint (and Stigma) 310
decora writes "An SAIC analyst has written a paper [PDF] calling for the 'stigmatization' of the 'unattractive' types who tend to discuss government secrets in public. The plan, described in the Naval Postgraduate School Homeland Security Affairs journal, is to promote self-censorship as a 'civic duty'. Who needs to censor themselves? Amateur enthusiasts who describe satellite orbits, scientists who describe threats to the food supply, graduate students mapping the internet, the Government Accountability Office, which publishes failure reports on the TSA, the US Geologic Survey, which publishes surface water information, newspapers (the New York Times), TV shows, journalism websites, anti-secrecy websites, and even security author Bruce Schneier, to name a few."
Sounds rather un-american (Score:5, Funny)
self-censorship as a 'civic duty'
I'm speechless.
Re:Sounds rather un-american (Score:5, Funny)
Yes,
But do you feel a duty to remain speechless?
Re:Sounds rather un-american (Score:5, Funny)
I couldn't say.
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Not to mention that saying "Keep mum about things that are fairly easy for the common man to discover, lest it falls in the hands of the enemy", by definition means it's fairly easy for the enemy's common man to discover.
Sounds rather Chinese (Score:2)
Chinese? (Score:3)
Keeping the secrets everyone knows is one of the common threads of totalitarian government (wannabees) from time immemorial.
(It ain't just the Chinese. The guys who wrote the US Constitution saw it coming, the Greeks saw it a bit too late some two thousand years ago, the Egyptians, well, I'd get into controversies about historicality if I said anything specific, but it wasn't new then, either.)
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I'm speechless.
That is the spirit comrade! Continue on your way.
Joking aside, this is scary. Real scary.
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*and by this, I mean calling the government out when it is behaving illegally or irrespo
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It's been done before.....
LIPS SEALED! [plakaty.ru]
The Soviet version translates roughly as "Be on the alert. In days like these, the walls listen. It's a fine line between chatter/gossip and betrayal. KEEP YOUR LIPS SEALED!"
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proposing good citizenship responsibilities? omg whats next corporations are not people and thus don't have the rights of a citizen?
Well, at least that would free them from the responsibilites of good citizenship.
(As if many of them give a sh*t now.)
Restraint? The road to disaster. (Score:2)
Security through strong-armed obscurity, leading to security through censorship.
What, it's obviously not secure? Sorry, can't talk about the fact that the door is actually open.
Is this for real? (Score:2)
Re:Is this for real? (Score:5, Interesting)
What choice do you have? The machinery of aristocracy and control is well beyond the need for your support. They're self-sustaining and the level of corruption in all aspects of government and politics so unbelievably extensive and deep and convoluted that there is no way to simply excise the foreign tissue by itself.
Naomi Wolf does a great job of describing the process that seems to be occurring right now (including this event) in her book "The End of America".
I mean, we live in a country where our president's (last president) family did extensive business with the family of the man that killed thousands of Americans. We live in a country where government officials who are employees of Goldman Sachs take a trillion dollars from the tax payers to bail out Goldman Sachs. We live in a country where our president appoints Ken Lay as energy advisor to deregulate his own industry on his own terms. We live in a country where we allow our government to pass bills that allow the president to point at a citizen and make them disappear. Off to gitmo for torture, if he wants. Without representation or a trial. We live in a country where judges are paid off in millions of dollars by the private prison industry to fuel their business by unfairly punishing minor juvenile violators with many months in juvenile detention (google it - in Pennsylvania).
It's probably not too late to force change, but by the time you could ever even remotely possibly convince enough of the population to give a flying fuck and get their heads out of their Bible and Twilight or their "durr durr abortion" and "durr durr immigration" and "durr durr religion" bullshit to actually do something about the real problems facing us, it'll definitely be too fucking late.
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Oh, you're one of those people.
I've heard about people like you -- there was some sort of un-American stigma attached to those of your ilk, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is...
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You forgot to mention that the Bushtards then promoted and implemented a war that has resulted in the killing of tens (hundreds?) of thousands of brown people, thousands of its own people (more than 9/11 did) and cost Amerika The Great billions upon billions (trillions?) of dollars. Cluster fucked doesn't even begin to describe it...
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Were you asked to speak up about this citizen?
If not, please remain silent.
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That's what we want you to think. ^_^
Shorter solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's stigmatize SAIC analysts who have internalized the mind-set of the Soviet Union.
It will save lots of time in the long run.
All successful governments have similar mindsets. (Score:2)
Whether we are talking about the mafia with omerta, or a terrorist cell, or a full fledged government, they all rely on secrecy to maintain power.
And they all hate snitches, traitors, leakers, informers or whatever they choose to call the person who tells the secrets.
So it's nothing new. On the other hand opposing groups see the snitches, traitors, leakers, informers as heroes. Why? Because by revealing secrets and leaking, it protects lives on the opposing side, but keeping secrets protects lives on your g
No, nobody likes a snitch. (Score:2)
Not even the whistleblower, I mean, snitch, I mean, leaker who leaks the secrets of the enemy.
No one likes a snitch.
Use the snitch, sure. Then make sure you either corrupt him to keep him under control, or get rid of him before he snitches on you.
Not that this is a new thing.
Of course, the only way to lose to this kind of government is to give up and fail to do your civic duty. So I disagree with you there, too.
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Not even the whistleblower, I mean, snitch, I mean, leaker who leaks the secrets of the enemy.
No one likes a snitch.
Use the snitch, sure. Then make sure you either corrupt him to keep him under control, or get rid of him before he snitches on you.
Not that this is a new thing.
Of course, the only way to lose to this kind of government is to give up and fail to do your civic duty. So I disagree with you there, too.
First there are differences between leaker, snitch, whistleblower. The difference is subjective not objective, and it's determined by who is affected by the leak. If the leak benefits me, thats not a snitch, that's a hero. If the leak hurts me, thats a snitch and nobody likes a snitch. If the leak benefits my group, thats still not a snitch.
So basically in order for someone to be a snitch they have to be within your group, and they have to sell out the group. According to the US Military Bradley Manning is
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How about we stigmatize, culturally, independent thought, investigation, and critical anlysis.
Hmm. seems like some other folks were 60 years ahead of me.
In Other Words (Score:5, Insightful)
As an American (hopefully not for that much longer), this is shameful. Every so-called patriot should be fighting against censorship and spying, in every form, yet both the "small government" republicans and "progressive" democrats are for this kind of crap.
Welcome to the road to a third-world banana republic, America.
Not all governments are corrupt (Score:2)
Well, at least, not all governments are corrupt all the time.
On the other hand, every institution (not just governments, as you note about Sony and Microsoft) has this same tendency.
It's one of the problems of systems. Systems, once constructed, tend to self-destruct. At least, the systems we build do. Trying to make a system self-correcting generally tends to make things worse when they slip out of the defined behavior modes.
The only solution is continued monitoring -- eternal vigilance.
And that requires,
Morals other than sexual mores? (Score:3)
Torture, genocide, slavery, human rights abuses, these are also moral issues.
As is the question of who should get what information.
God only knows the difference between a snitch and a whistleblower and a leaker in most cases.
Turn the tables on them! (Score:5, Interesting)
How about a culture where attempting to stigmatize people for your own gain is looked on as bad?
Or one where openness and freedom of speech is looked upon as helpful?
Does anyone with more than a room temperature IQ think the "bad guys" don't know the satellite orbits?
authenticated cowardice (Score:4, Insightful)
Kind of opposite of "anonymous coward" is the "authenticated coward", which is what this "culture of restraint" will encourage. You are someone only if you don't say anything. Anyone who says something (not officially condoned) is a persona non grata.
Yuck! Someone tag this Do Not Want, please.
You neglected to mention... (Score:2)
You neglected to mention the most important 'government secret' that henceforth should not be allowed to be discussed in the open...
A list of 'government secrets' that shouldn't be discussed in public.
It is vital that we discourage people from mentioning these items, primarily so that we can attack anyone for anything at all.
No, I am not being serious. This is a bad idea and should be fought against, fortunately it violates the first amendment, lets hope that means something still. Yeah Obama and transpar
Ladies and Gentlemen (Score:2)
Better solution (Score:4, Insightful)
PS: Yes, I saw some of the bizarrely paranoid things they suggest self-censorship for. That's just their culture of paranoia kicking in.
Why is the US so paranoid? (Score:2, Insightful)
It makes no sense to me. You have by far the strongest military in the world. The USSR is gone. Ok, so there's China, but so far they have not made any seriously threatening moves. Who is left that is any threat?
I know 9/11 left some big scars on the collective psyche but seriously, it's been 10 years, you invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, killed Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Surely there's been enough restitution?
I worry that one day the rest of the world is going to have to unite against the US as
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It makes no sense to me. You have by far the strongest military in the world. The USSR is gone. Ok, so there's China, but so far they have not made any seriously threatening moves. Who is left that is any threat?
People who don't vote the same way you do.
my neighbor, my new enemy ... (Score:2)
That's just because they don't want to look in the mirror and face their own worst enemy.
When all other enemies are gone, can we really face ourselves?
Re:Why is the US so paranoid? (Score:4, Interesting)
It makes no sense to me. You have by far the strongest military in the world. The USSR is gone. Ok, so there's China, but so far they have not made any seriously threatening moves. Who is left that is any threat?
The problem isn't so much the degree to which the threat is or isn't real. If they wanted to fabricate unreal threats, they could certainly do a better
The problem is that there exists a truly massive security-industrial complex. For example, a huge percentage of the population within commuting distance of Washington DC have some kind of security clearance, and their employment depends on it, it's part of their social group, etc. Often these people have lived a relatively sheltered "whitebread" life, except for commonly military service in some place like Iraq. Their biggest worry is that they'll accidentally be friends with someone who'll be busted for pot and that will complicate up their security paperwork for the rest of their life. Sadly, these people are hard-pressed to understand America's freedoms, having renounced much of it for themselves.
Large, highly profitable industries have arisen to service this part of the Federal budget. So they hire people and more people to fill more and more funded positions with names like "Analyst". They write papers which sometimes come out like this.
Personally, I think this is one of the stupidest, most short-sighted, bits of analysis I've ever read. But it's important to contemplate how these things emerge from a process in which most or all of the people involved consider themselves to be doing the right thing for their country, career, employer, social circuit, etc..
Re:Why is the US so paranoid? (Score:4, Interesting)
It makes no sense to me. You have by far the strongest military in the world. The USSR is gone. Ok, so there's China, but so far they have not made any seriously threatening moves. Who is left that is any threat?
I know 9/11 left some big scars on the collective psyche but seriously, it's been 10 years, you invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, killed Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Surely there's been enough restitution?
I worry that one day the rest of the world is going to have to unite against the US as you decide to pacify or nuke us all since we are deemed a threat to national security.
The answer to your question is explained in a book I am currently reading called Jesus Wants to Save Christians [amazon.com] by Rob Bell. It's geared towards a religious audience, so if you aren't interested in that sort of thing, then you'll have to wade through a lot of writing that's off-topic for you. The gist of the answer is this: 1) America has more than enough. 2) When you have more than enough, you start building ways to protect what you have, lest someone else take it from you. 3) When you start fearing that others might take away what you have, you begin to divide the world into an "Us" and "Them." 4) You then begin to fear all of the "Thems" and begin oppressing them. FWIW, I think Bell is right, and it deeply disturbs me. I just don't know how much I can do to stop it. And, you are exactly on target about the fear we have in this nation, and how illogical it is. I wish I could get the rest of the U.S. to understand that.
Bell is describing the enemy within. (Score:2)
The enemy within is the last enemy, but most people would rather invent enemies without than face the fact that they are their own worst enemy.
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I'm pretty sure this is typical of everyone given authority.
There's an old saying about how police see the world in 3 distinct and non-overlapping groups: Cops, Cops' families, and suspects.
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"There is no profit in peace". Follow the money - who's getting filthy, stinking rich off of this faux 'at war' stance?
"Loose Lips Sink Ships" (Score:2)
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We are not at war. Just remember that.
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Actually, the ad campaign included a lot more. The random soldier telling the wrong person that they were deploying with their unit that night, the dock worker who comments in a bar that a particular ship came back heavily damaged and would be in port for at least a month. It was aimed at people all over, who might not realize at first what they knew could be valuable in intelligence.
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No, it refers to the fact that people have a natural tendency to leak an entire secret very slowly over time. Normally people with sensitive information won't give it up if one asks directly. But without training most will give up damn near the whole thing if asked for small portions of it when interspersed with conversation. Hence the saying.
It's really not applicable to this sort of situation.
Fortunately... (Score:2)
We are a nation of loudmouth dissenters. Especially the younger generations. Looks like the baby boomers might have trained us well after all. Well, then again, they also trained the authoritarian idiots in control.
Not new (Score:2)
Don't tell me that I'm the only one who was reminded of the classic posters during World War II: Loose lips sink ships!
Troll Article (Score:4, Insightful)
A single analyst at a private company writes a paper, and now everyone pretends that it is the official policy of the US Government, 'cause by golly, we haven't had our two minutes hate yet today, and we need something to be outraged over!
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A single analyst at a private company writes a paper, and now everyone pretends that it is the official policy of the US Government, 'cause by golly, we haven't had our two minutes hate yet today, and we need something to be outraged over!
Not at all, from the synopsis:
So, that means this nutter is given space for his perverted ideas in a journal for people working for the US military, and influencing them. This is bad unless there is a good commentary in the journal showing what an ass that guy is and how perverted his ideas are. But if they do that (sorry, can't be bothered to check: I'm betting they don't do it!) then they shouldn't really mention him
Re:Troll Article (Score:4, Informative)
SAIC is not exactly your typical private company. Like many such contracting companies, it's essentially a quasi-private arm of the US government, and it's deeply tied in with (among other things) the intelligence community. We should take this paper just as seriously as if, say, a CIA analyst had written it.
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But we don't take anything a CIA analyst writes seriously either. Or at least the US government doesn't. Otherwise we'd have known something was up before 9/11.
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We should take this paper just as seriously as if, say, a CIA analyst had written it.
I wouldn't take a paper by a single CIA analyst seriously either. Hell, even a proposal by a single congresscritter shouldn't be taken as the stance of the government. The only individuals important enough that their word should be taken as official policy are the President, the heads of various departments (Sec'y of State, Defense, etc., CIA Chief, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and so on) and maybe the Senate/House majority leaders.
If Leon Panetta comes out tomorrow and endorses this paper, then we can grab the
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A single analyst at a private company writes a paper, and now everyone pretends that it is the official policy of the US Government,
No offense, but this is how things start.
The PATRIOT Act is a collection of policy ideas and model legislation that were once considered fringe.
And yet here we are re-re-passing that collection of intrusions without amendments or serious debate.
A lot of bad ideas come out of think tanks and lobbying organizations, before being appropriated by politicians or government agencies.
The best thing the public can do is express as much outrage as early as possible so that if anyone ever tries to bring crap like thi
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The Patriot Act is the exception. Most papers written by desk jockeys never go anywhere.
The best thing the public can do is express as much outrage as early as possible so that if anyone ever tries to bring crap like this up again, they'll remember the furor it caused the first time around.
No, the best thing the public can do is actually be smart about who you vote for, instead of being a single issue voter, or voting for party over person. If you elect a fascist bastard, it won't matter if you later express outrage at his actions. Ask the folks in Wisconsin. (Yes, that law got cancelled, but only on a technicality.)
Re:Troll Article (Score:4, Insightful)
> A single analyst at a private company in the employ of the United States government
There -- fixed that for you. It does not have to be policy for it to be an affront to the sovereign citizens of this nation. It is an affront for our government to use our money to finance research into social manipulation -- particularly when the targets of that social manipulation include dissent regarding the operation of government programs.
> 'cause by golly, we haven't had our two minutes hate yet today, and we need something to be outraged over!
I am not sure if you are being serious, as that is a sterling example of using social stigma to suppress dissent. But I will respond to your statement as though it is a genuine supposition and not a mere caricature of the very topic under debate:
What should strike you as more despicable is that at least two minutes worth of such offenses against our nation happen every day. This nation was founded on dissent, by dissenters, with the express purpose of encouraging and facilitating dissent as expressed in great detail in the Declaration and Constitution. That those sworn to defend those principles are instead using taxpayer money to fund research into the suppression of dissent is anathema to This Grand Experiment.
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You can either be with us or against us. If you ridicule stupid ideas that are government policy, then you are against us and it is your duty to shut up.
Therefore, your best option is to use High Frequency Trading algorithms to ridicule stupid ideas during the first millisecond (*) of time between the moment that they stop being merely stupid ideas abou
If the terrorists missed (Score:2)
the original publication of these scary ideas this sure does make a nice "management summary" for them along with links !
On a more positive note, at least it advocates persuading people to do the right thing. It's not unreasonable for the government to issue a statement along the lines of "if you can think of an attack vector, call us first on 1-800-RUA-CRANK". At least then they could publish any funny ones
Treason (Score:2)
Since when did discussion of censorship of any kind in a republic become fashionable?
I immediately identified myself as an undesirable.
Thank god to, I always thought I was a terrorist and chixs dig it!
Hack
"If you see something, say something" (Score:2)
So now someone is promoting that it no longer be "see something, say something"?
"See something, put your hands over your eyes and shut up" just doesn't have the same "zing".
Terrorist Crowd-Sourcing (Score:2)
How many times have we heard from the cable news or politicians, completely new and original ideas about how to wreak havoc against people, airports or government infrastructure that describe in enough detail that a teenager could follow the instructions and research the rest on their own.
I honestly think that the fear and insecurity reaped from those efforts is much more damaging than anything Bruce Schneier has to say.
How about we stigmatize the unattractive types... (Score:2)
Give them a piece of your mind. (Score:2)
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BMO
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Well, damn, I should have used the preview
That's 800 435 4234, not 4324, for "Ethics Concerns"
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BMO
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I wonder which poor desk jockey has extension 4324...
Jesus (Score:2)
This is dangerous. They act as if government and everyone else must be like a high school cheerleader.
I do understand that the national economy and ultimately even national security are linked to the happiness of the general public. Business raises revenues and money and arms are both dependent upon people dashing about in a blissful state of ignorance.
The problem is that at the end of the road we end
Other places SAIC can peddle this report (Score:2)
Now that you have the idea, you can add any other place where there are no effective civil rights.
There are people in the US government to want to add the US to this list. You're known by the company you keep.
So, like ... (Score:2)
Whatever.
Let me be the first to tell SAIC ... (Score:2)
Blind leading the blind. (Score:2)
I do security for a mid-sized university.
You shouldn't trust my opinion any more than you should trust this guy's opinion. What good is security if you can't make up your own mind?
That's the fundamental problem with secrecy. You can't have security if you can't do meaningful evaluations. Secrecy blinds evaluation. Secrecy isolates security from it's community.
Is the US so dependent on secrecy that we must sacrifice security to have secrecy?
Miles
Leaking = snitching. (Score:3, Insightful)
Snitching = bad. Right?
It's not hard to stigmatize snitching. It's already universally recognized as bad by everybody who doesn't work for government and who isn't a cop. And the cops only think it's good when the snitches are working for them. So basically governments don't like being snitched on, but so what? Governments are the ones funding the informants and snitching by offering prizes in cash to the biggest leaker/informant/snitch.
And governments don't have a problem trying to use morality to convince
Wrong debate. (Score:2)
Leaking is snitching. Or, I should say, snitching is leaking.
Snitching is only bad when we have something to hide.
Getting rid of everything we have to hide scares most people. Or, at least, scares most of the people who spend the most time talking.
The silent majority knows about the secrets and do what they can to mitigate without making much fuss of it. At least, until somebody decides to make an example of them by saying how wonderful whistleblower X or Y was.
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Leaking is snitching. Or, I should say, snitching is leaking.
Snitching is only bad when we have something to hide.
Getting rid of everything we have to hide scares most people. Or, at least, scares most of the people who spend the most time talking.
The silent majority knows about the secrets and do what they can to mitigate without making much fuss of it. At least, until somebody decides to make an example of them by saying how wonderful whistleblower X or Y was.
But it's impossible to get rid of some things. Since everyone has secrets, from medical history, to sexual history, to that project you are working on that you don't want stolen before you can patent it, everybody has secrets. Of course governments have secrets too, the problem is governments don't expect or allow individuals to have secrets. Governments all around the world know everything about each one of us, and we know virtually nothing about them or what their true agenda is.
So we know and understand
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Snitching = bad. Right?
It's the worst thing EVAR! [youtube.com] Right up there with eating babies.
It's bad or good depending on perspective (Score:2)
One governments snitch is another governments hero.
But as civilians, we are usually caught in the middle of these snitch wars or whatever you want to call them.
Now of course it's not snitching if it's detailing human rights abuses against civilians. That is not snitching.
It's snitching when the leak destroys civilian lives. An example would be if some rogue hacker decided to hack top secret FBI files and leak a bunch of files on a bunch of people to the media. That is snitching.
It doesn't matter whats in th
Actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is nothing as differentiated as that.
"Snitch" is simply a pejorative term for someone who for whatever reason(s) breaks a social contract regarding secrecy, written or unwritten, that he/she had with other person(s), or that other person(s) thought that they had.
Regardless of the nature of the secret one is disclosing, and to whom it is disclosed to, one is always seen as a "snitch" by the party whose secret(s) are being revealed.
Others might label "the snitch" an informant, an insider, a whistle-blower, an inside source, a concerned citizen, a witness, a patriot, a man of honor and integrity...
Or a hacker, a thief, a spy, a traitor, a criminal, a terrorist, a lowlife who would sell out his/her own mother...
But he/she will always be a snitch to those whose secrets he/she is revealing to the third party.
The term is SO precise and determined you may just as well use "asshole" instead. Or "cunt".
It's simply a bad word for the people you don't like cause they tell on you.
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It is nothing as differentiated as that.
"Snitch" is simply a pejorative term for someone who for whatever reason(s) breaks a social contract regarding secrecy, written or unwritten, that he/she had with other person(s), or that other person(s) thought that they had.
Regardless of the nature of the secret one is disclosing, and to whom it is disclosed to, one is always seen as a "snitch" by the party whose secret(s) are being revealed.
Others might label "the snitch" an informant, an insider, a whistle-blower, an inside source, a concerned citizen, a witness, a patriot, a man of honor and integrity...
Or a hacker, a thief, a spy, a traitor, a criminal, a terrorist, a lowlife who would sell out his/her own mother...
But he/she will always be a snitch to those whose secrets he/she is revealing to the third party.
The term is SO precise and determined you may just as well use "asshole" instead. Or "cunt".
It's simply a bad word for the people you don't like cause they tell on you.
There is a key difference. A snitch is a former member of one group who spills the group secrets (typically for personal gain).
Another more accurate word for a snitch is a sellout. Nobody likes a sellout.
On the other hand if you never were a member of the group you hacked, such as if you are a member of a rival group and you target the enemy group, thats not snitching and theres really no basis from which to make that person out to be a snitch. That could be spying, but its certainly not snitching because y
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Nothing new under the sun when it comes to human beings wanting to tell other human beings how to live and think.
Re:tags (Score:5, Informative)
I got the feeling this was more along the lines of not talking about ship movements and stuff... The summary is a little extreme.
Did you read the paper (it's not hard, the link is right up there in the summary)? They specifically mentioned the "leaks" referred to in the summary. At least the ones I checked (GAO TSA report, Satellite orbit info, food supply threats).
If those aren't the kind of leaks they are talking about, then why do they mention them specifically?
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He read it, but unlike you he understood. That's why he does not mention XXXXX and XXXXX.
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I got the feeling this was more along the lines of not talking about ship movements and stuff... The summary is a little extreme.
Exactly. The Military is having a HUGE problem with people who can't keep their mouth shut and like to use social media. Too many Army, Navy, and Airforce guys are posting pictures and causal info on twitter and facebook. It's stupid stuff like pictures of where they are and comments that they're shipping out tomorrow to go raid some depot in some town to the north. The enemy no longer has to infiltrate and spy - they just have to subscribe to some idiots twitter feed or friend them on facebook to get t
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The Military is having a HUGE problem with people who can't keep their mouth shut and like to use social media. Too many Army, Navy, and Airforce guys are posting pictures and causal info on twitter and facebook. It's stupid stuff like pictures of where they are and comments that they're shipping out tomorrow to go raid some depot in some town to the north.
I say let Darwinism take care of these 'tards: They tweet, they die. No more tweeting 'tards. Evolution of the species and all that, nyet?
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In the Air Force, that falls under OPSEC (OPerational SECurity). I'm certain the other services have a similar, if not identical, set of rules. It's pretty simple - don't talk about work. The amount of intelligence that can be gathered just by overhearing simple conversations is surprisingly vast - our security officer cited a number of cases where it got people killed back in 'nam.
People in the military don't have a full set of constitutional rights, and one of the ones they most decidedly do not have i
Re:tags (Score:5, Insightful)
We can avoid the possibility of terrorists trying to destroy a free and open society, by eliminating the free and open element - therefore removing attractiveness as a target.
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Re:tags (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I guess Matt Blaze [crypto.com] won't fit into this brave, new world, Mr. and Mrs. AmeriKKKa.
This is a proposal for better security through psychological denial and cognitive dissonance.
As such, it fulfils the "Ignorance is Strength" part of the equation, which already has it's "War is Peace" and "Freedom is Slavery" components well under way. So begins the formalisation of thoughtcrime - through state promotion of doublethink.
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Nor would Billy Mitchell. The father of the modern air force, and the guy who blew the whistle on the vulnerability of Pearl Harbor to a Japanese attack in 1924 - 17 years before it happened.
He was court-martialed for it. (Actually, for publicly blaming incompetent Navy commanders for losing a dirigible and 14 crew at a slightly later date ... same deal really).
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Don't worry about that, they are taking you somewhere safe! No more questions citizen.
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Really? Look at it this way: when Germany turned fascist and cheered Hitler, people abroad saw what was happening, and everyone said "Why don't they see where this is going, why won't anyone there stand up and stop it?!".
During the early years of the rise of German National Socialism and Italian Fascism, both governments were widely admired in the US, with a quite large number of US Nazis who were cheered as they held parades, published newsletters, and organized.
They even had a number of large military-style camps. They were widely admired among the Liberal/Progressive "intelligentsia" of the day, as was Il Duce and his fascist Italy.
Unfortunately, nothing much has changed, as current-day US Liberals/Progressives still pus
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It isn't just the Liberals/Progressives, the conservatives/regressives are all about the authoritarianism and they're even more into the xenophobia and racism.
I'm curious why you point out code pink for "bigotry against Jews", the only recent event I can find on them re jews is a jewish member of code pink who got the shit beaten out of her (by some nice "patriots") for protesting the israeli PM's speach.
Believe it or not some jewish people see the dark road the state of israel has been going down and how i
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I'm pretty sure people are free to say what they want in this country. We are not fascists just because a person espouses beliefs that are extreme realizations of an ideal many Americans believe in. That does not mean we want to be ill-informed or unprepared for the sake of opaque safety. Freedom of speech does not make us fascist! We are not militant belligerents looking to fight out our grudges against neighbors because of some long forgotten slight. We may have made mistakes, but we are not afraid t
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We are not fascists
Not full blown fascists, but well on the road to fascism - and idiocracy.
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If they reject changes that are patently good for them, surely they'll reject changes that are bad?
I dunno - how many citizens have supported the extension of the PATRIOT Act? I suspect that quite a few did; maybe even the majority.
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It is, however, very useful for a lot of very large and very computer intensive research problems, such as in artificial intelligence.
Getting rid of secrets. (Score:2)
Well, okay, so the demise of secret keeping is postponed, and we have to look back to social engineering.
You're right to point out that the state of the art won't force us to be saved, but everyone seems to find security in secrets, and that's just backwards.
Giving up secrets is the only really safe thing left to do.
"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" (Score:2)
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"Eat, drink, and be merry. But be a basically good person. Lie a little. Take advantage of another person because her words give you an opening. Dig traps for your neighbors. There is nothing wrong with this, everyone has to fudge a little to get by. Besides, tomorrow we die, and if we take a slightly guilty conscience with us to the grave, there can't be anyone waiting on the other side who really cares about such little things."
(Paraphrase. Can you find the original?)
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The biggest difference between left and right in psychological terms (and we'll leave out the middle to keep things simple) is that people on the left value fairness and equality more than people on the right, who value loyalty and authority in their valuative psych profiles.
Bunk, and here's why. What does "fair" mean to you? How about to your neighbor down the street? How about to the homeless guy on the street corner in town? How about to the CEO of the company that pays your salary? I'll bet you every one of those answers is different. To me, "fair" means I work hard for my money, and therefore I have earned the privilege of deciding how it gets spent. The homeless guy on the street corner probably would look at the surplus I have, and think that i
please do not harass mr boyd in any way (Score:2)
please do not harass mr boyd in any way. it is legal to share your opinion, it is illegal to threaten, abuse, initimidate, or harass someone. it is also morally wrong.
it is important to speak out against harassment not only because of the moral and ethical issues, but also because it is a classic 'false flag' of certain organizations to actively foment and promote violence using undercover agents inside of peaceful civil liberties groups.