John McAfee Airs His Beefs About Privacy In Def Con Surprise Talk 124
John McAfee made a surprise appearance at Def Con to talk about privacy: he's for it. Trouble is, he says, lots of companies feel otherwise, and he took the stage to single out "don't be evil" Google: “Google, or at least certain people within Google, I will not mention names because I am not a rude gentleman, would like us to believe that if we have nothing to hide, we should not mind if everybody knows everything that we do,” he said from the podium. “I have to take serious issue with that.”
The BBC has video. McAfee also announced his new complaints website, The Brown List. (Good usernames are still available, and your complaint can be about anything, not just privacy violations by humongous corporations.)
Why? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because his arguments stand on their own merits.
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Come on.... which arguments?
This man has claimed shit loads of things that have been pure crap. Do you really need references?
Of course privacy is important, everyone knows it's important, we don't need some washed up crapware peddler to tell us that.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
Old man yells at cloud
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Come on.... which arguments?
How about where he demanded Intel take his name off that piece of crap AV they sell? I find no fault with any of this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
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That isn't an argument?!?
If Intel bought the company and the product why wouldn't they keep using the name it already has and that still is associated with anti-virus programs? That would be ridiculous and potentially revenue loosing
If they would stop using the name of a drugged-out criminal, pedophile, probably murderer it would be for PR reasons. But the public mass doesn't really follow the "adventures" of this idiot like we /. readers are forced to.
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Forced to? You were required by the Slashdot license to click on the link to this story? Wow, the terms of service for your account really suck. I'm glad I got a lower account number. I didn't have to click through a TOS page like that when I signed up on this account.
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Such as? If you're going to post such things, you need to back them up.
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Come on.... which arguments?
That "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is nonsense, among other things. That's an absolute truth regardless of who says it. Ad hominems don't exactly make for logical arguments.
Of course privacy is important, everyone knows it's important
Who is "everyone"? Because that's just false. I've encountered numerous people who think things like the TSA, the NSA's surveillance, DUI checkpoints, unfettered border searches, constitution-free zones, warrantless wiretapping, or stop-and-frisk are okay if they think it keeps them safe. Most people either think they're okay, or no
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His 'arguments' here are just vague complaints about Google and privacy with nothing informative or substantive added. You'd get better arguments by reading the comments on a /. post about Google with moderation set to -1.
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Fair enough, but attacking him based on his character is just stupid and won't debunk anything he said.
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Indeed, they do.
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Because you're not paranoid when "they" really are out to get you.
If you can't understand this, try removing the paychecks you get from shilling out of the way and read again.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
You must be young.
You sound like someone who was raised in this surveillance culture we're now living in, and as such have been so thoroughly indoctrinated by the societal, corporate, and government propaganda and conditioning, that you actually believe that 'privacy' is something only sought after by criminals and the mentally ill. Either that or you just don't understand that we're being surveilled constantly, with plans to surveil us even more than we already are.
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There are several whole generations coming up now who don't have a fucking clue.
Yes, I know. Every generational cycle goes like that. I didn't have a fucking clue when I was 20 either.
But the last few cycles have been filled with clueless fucks who think anybody who asks questions during a college lecture that won't be on Friday's test or the Midterm should SHUT UP because they're undermining the process. People who've bought into the system so far that they think brown nosing is a nested recursive proce
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Very much so. Asking question is not brown-nosing. It is having an actual interest in the subject matter and starting to thing about it independently. Anybody that does not manage to get there should drop the subject (and maybe college), because they will never be any good at it.
I think "mediocre" is the new "good" or "excellent" in many fields. I am not sure about the reasons.
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Don't you mean fondle your crotch in search of "weapons"?
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Privacy is an illusion (Score:5, Interesting)
A compelling illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. The metadata generated by even the most privacy conscious individual leaves a mark, and given the resources of an interested government, only the most dedicated living off the grid can escape their view.
The only thing we have going for us, is that the vast majority of us won't raise the eyebrows of any government employees in our lifetimes. The sad part is that a lonely few will, and they'll be dealt with unfairly and harshly.
The general masses don't have much to fear, but anyone who raises the ire of a nameless bureaucrat will.
Re:Privacy is an illusion (Score:5, Insightful)
> A compelling illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.
Absolute privacy is an illusion. In the real world privacy is a spectrum. Just because your friends know something about you doesn't mean anyone else should know it too.
> the vast majority of us won't raise the eyebrows of any government employees in our lifetimes.
Government is not the problem, imbalance of power is the problem. The lose of privacy is ultimately the loss of personal autonomy -- it doesn't matter if you lose that autonomy to a government bureau or to a corporation, you've still lost it to an organization that is more powerful than you.
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If you thought that your Constitution was ever more than a meaningless piece of paper, I've got a Japanese internment camp to sell you, fully stocked with natural born US citizens.
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Apparently you don't know how the fuck freedom of speech works, nimrod.
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The info will be collected no matter what. We simply have no say in it. If you don't like it, create your own chips, write your own code, manufacture your own products. It's what is DONE with that info that we should be focused on.
Casting a wide net is a good strategy. Giving the punk ass fuckin police and other gubment agencies freedom to do whateverthef
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Privacy isn't the absence of information. Privacy is the consensus not to look. That's why we call it "respecting privacy". In that sense, privacy is dead, because that consensus doesn't exist anymore. When privacy advocates recommend ways of keeping ones data private, they are not trying to keep the data from a determined attacker. Instead the goal is to make violations of privacy more expensive and/or less useful, so that those who abandoned the consensus will realize that the "advantages" of abandoning p
Re:Privacy is an illusion (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a pretty trite comment, if you don't mind me saying so. We already know that *if we don't fight for it*, then privacy is at best an illusion. Duh. If I don't enter the lottery, I can't win either. My god, are you sure, really? I actually have to enter? I never knew that!
Privacy is a set of rights that must be demanded to be built into the system of government and society at large. It's one part of Liberty, and it's up to us to make it happen. We can make it happen through laws, we can make it happen through free software, we can make it happen through education, we can make it happen through threats and violence, etc. No single option is a silver bullet. All options can advance the cause in some small way. Figure out where your talents are then you'll start to see where you can help out (assuming you want privacy).
Re:Privacy is an illusion (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing we have going for us, is that the vast majority of us won't raise the eyebrows of any government employees in our lifetimes. The sad part is that a lonely few will, and they'll be dealt with unfairly and harshly.
Which means it falls to us as the vast majority to hold those who abuse their governmental power to account when they deal with someone unfairly. A duty, I'm sad to say, we are all falling woefully short of...
And before anyone bitches about me just bitching, here is the first and most important step you can take. Inform Yourself! Check your putative representative's voting records, and compare it to what he's saying. Go out and but a newspaper from the "other side", to get balanced view of things. Challenge your friends when they make wild, or even just unsubstantiated, statements. A phrase I like personally (from CSI) "state your source". It's gentle, and mostly non-offensive, and goes down well as a pop-culture reference. And lastly, if you don't have the resources to fact check something, suggest it to a fact checking agency. They don't work for free often, but if you put something on their radar, they can at least look in to it when some suitably close paid for work comes in. Better yet, tip off the opposing politician's campaign, and get them to pay for it.
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Lol, I totally read that as "punative representative". Now I'm not sure which word is more accurate.
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..only the most dedicated living off the grid can escape their view
At this stage of the game, the best bet for anyone wishing to be left the hell alone is the 'hide in plain sight' tactic: Leave enough of a digital footprint and paper-trail to appear ordinary, and this be left alone. At least for now, that'll work and will keep you safe, because they (governments, corporations) still don't have the processing capacity to bring the signal-to-noise ratio up to the point where they'd even see the patterns in that well enough to realize you are using surveillance countermeasu
You have zero privacy now, get over it (Score:5, Interesting)
Sun Microsystem's Scott McNealy made that prescient quote back in something like 1998. He may have been thinking partly about Google, but he was really talking about a trend that would occur regardless of whether Google was around to help lead the way.
There's a lot of surprising consequences of the Internet, big data, mobile computing, and robotics that help and hurt people and professions and entire industries. It's an upheaval not unlike the Industrial Revolution in the first half of the 19th century.
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" You want to help restore privacy? Donate to the EFF."
They're about as useless as the ACLU.
You want to help restore privacy? Start by burning down the Google offices and NSA headquarters.
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That won't do anything. Step 1 would be getting CALEA and any similar laws requiring networks to be built in an insecure manner repealed. Once that's done, rebuild telephone and email networks to support easy to use end-to-end encryption. And make sure any storage devices encrypt all data at rest. Any services which require you to store data on a third-party server, or transmit through a third party server, u
I don't get the point of this site (Score:2)
You can complain about literally anything? So it's the superset of all reviews sites/forums on the internet? How accurate do you expect the results to be?
Re: I have a complaint (Score:2)
You 'ave a complaint!? Look at these shoes! I've only 'ad 'em three weeks and.....
Slashdotted? (Score:2)
Black Fly in your Chardonnay, etc, etc... (Score:5, Informative)
Pretty impressive, actually⦠(Score:5, Interesting)
Most people would likely get thrown off the stage at DEF CON for using it to promote their business in such a fashion. Instead, Mr. McAfee gets applause and people lining up to take photos with him.
Aside from that, the whole concept of simultaneously railing against the erosion of privacy while creating a web site that encourages people to share private information (without much information about how it will be safely secured) that is possibly libelous and may even be criminal at times is, well, going to be interesting. Especially with a FAQ [brownlist.com] which states things like " Yes, any entity can respond to a complaint. However, if the entity is not a subscriber, the response will not be featured in the official response section." and " It must not be possible for information on the site to be altered for any purpose."
It is going to be very interesting to see how this latest business venture of Mr. McAfee's turns out.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Just like the McAfee AV software: (Score:1)
http://www.brownlist.com/ [brownlist.com]
- Slow
- Pointless
- Buggy
Nothing new. The guy is still making crap software, for pointless projects.
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Just like Google+
Just like Anonymous Coward's.
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It's more like your knowledge of English grammar, or lack thereof.
I take it your American and cannot comprehend correct English. Let alone your inability to log in and stop yourself trolling.
Peter Norton (Score:5, Funny)
He needs to show up too!
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Peter Norton has been dead for decades. He was inadvertently killed the day that they slapped a big piece of glass over him (similar to the cover glass in a microscope slide) to make a fresh Peter Norton(tm) bitmap for the new packaging.
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Prove it that he is dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... [wikipedia.org] doesn't say so. :P
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Prove it. :P
Complaints? (Score:2)
I've got a complaint... The site is slow as shit and buggy as hell. After a long wait, the homepage FINALLY loads. Click on anything, and get a spinning little "loading" thing pop up in the middle of the page, and then nothing happens. After some minutes, and error box popped up in the top-right corner of the page saying there is some technical issues.
OH wait, this is McAfee we're talking about... yeah, shit's gonna suck, forgot.
Maybe wait a little till judgement (Score:2)
He may well be right...However John McAfee has a well earned reputation of drugged out paranoia, so I think I will reserve judgement for now
brownlist.com very, very private (Score:2)
Server Error in '/' Application.
Runtime Error
Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons).
[...and some more]
Slashdotted?
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John McAfee? (Score:2)
Didn't he retire to a life of sex and drugs, preferably of the illegal kind?
I'm all for privacy, but I'm not sure if that argument gets more weight if it's John McAfee who says it.
Google's 'Do No Evil' policy... (Score:1)
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He may have done some drugs, but we all have. As far as murder, well, let's just say you'd have to be a complete idiot to think he killed anyone.
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He may have done some drugs, but we all have.
No we haven't.
you'd have to be a complete idiot to think he killed anyone.
How do you know he didn't?
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Sorry, but you're a liar.
Ooh, ouch. Called a liar by a pedant on the internet.
By contrast, your vilification of Mcafee is utterly baseless.
I've never villified him. I have no idea, and no real opinion, on whether or not he killed anyone. I do have an opinion of those who - with likely little more knowledge of the actual facts than anyone else - go around spouting invective against anyone who dares to disagree with them.