Hard News: Vision and dumbassery
532 Responses
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CJM, in reply to
Jeez, I was just about to have my dinner, you've turned me right off!
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Jack Harrison, in reply to
Sorry .
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CJM, in reply to
No worries. I went out and shot a mousse. I'm just wiping it off the driveway now…mmm..chocolate...
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nzlemming, in reply to
It’s not a game.
Ah, but it is to people like "Jake". That's the problem. For them it's all about win/lose, zero-sum. They can't contemplate win-win because then the dreaded libruls would gain something and that's not permitted. It doesn't matter to them that families have no heating, can't afford food, can't find employment, because those aren't their people - they won't vote for the Right, so they don't matter. In "Jake's" worldview, when you're in government, you govern for the people that put you there, and everyone else can wait until their "team" holds the Treasury benches.
That's why you can't hold sensible discussions with them - they're not interested in anything but their own opinions, and they only come here to promulgate them and to distract us from our own discussions. Troll is as troll does. The best thing is to not engage. As mentioned on another thread, it's like wrestling with a pig - you get dirty and the pig runs away. Whether it's the three-headed "Jake" or one of the other Pseuds that have popped in here recently, they're not worth the effort.
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Dave Marks, in reply to
One answer could be that it’s the GCSB that want the tapping here. That would give them primary access to the information beyond what gets shared through 5 Eyes systems.
Yes, I suppose it would give GCSB access to Australia/Hawaii traffic and that can only come from the cables. Presumably totally legal as part of GCSB's mission to spy on people overseas. Useful intel, but very expensive to obtain - presumably GCSB would have to pay the entire cost (we'd be spying on America and Australia amongst others and I doubt if NSA would support this ....)
Another answer is redundancy. Perhaps the NSA is confident of their continued ability to monitor the US ends of the cable. They have received a lot more heat over the Snowden leaks than the GCSB seems to have.
They've got some redundancy already (at least of traffic between AU and Hawaii). I reckon that the sweet spot for NSA is to get all NZ traffic, i.e. within NZ as well as international traffic. If they were after that it would have to be a tapped within NZ and by its nature include international stuff. If they are going to spend the money they might as well capture everything... If that were the case the only reason for tapping Southern Cross would be to get even more redundancy of the already obtained NZ-international traffic which they have in AU and Hawaii anyway.
So I'm still not convinced of why they need to bother tapping cables within NZ territory
What I find interesting is that the moment of truth:
- promised to reveal bulk surveillance of people in NZ . I took that to imply that bulk surveillance means everything, not just international traffic.
- only delivered documentary info relating to the tapping of overseas traffic, much of which was already in the public domain already.
I think it's hilarious how they forced JK's hand; on the morning of the event JK sits down with Hoskings, talks about how how everything is "overseen by the inspector general" and says "it's a sound and light show tonight" and "there's never been mass surveillance undertaken by GCSB on New Zealanders". He then proceeds to release declassified documents that plausibly deny mass surveillance (and seem to give proof that we came really bloody close to setting up the necessary infrastructure for bulk surveillance ?!? ) Makes you wonder who's the "looser"JK is questioned today and "comfortably" says:
- (re NSA carrying out bulk surveillance within NZ) "well I don't believe they are, I'd be absolutely stunned if they were"
and
- "the Inspector General looks at the information that NZ agencies use and how it's sourced"I think he's pretty much admitted that GCSB use information from XKEYSCORE, but is maintaining that the NZ information therein was legally obtained (i.e international traffic only)
It seems that any impropriety would need be related to NZ Authorities using information from XKEYSCORE that's related to communications within NZ (i.e. not just international). If this is shown then it would follow that NZ authorities are aware of bulk surveillance within NZ (and that this information is freely available to the other 5Eyes partners).
So let's cut to the chase - I'd like Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Cheryl Gwyn to request that GCSB show her XKEYSCORE and prove whether or not shows internal NZ communications. Perhaps she could start by asking them to demonstrate how much of her own email correspondence, web browsing history, phone records and text messages are held by the NSA and available to the spies in Australia, US, Canada and UK. Can't be that hard, after all, Snowden said he could look at Obama's stuff.
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Jack Harrison, in reply to
Who are the people we are spying on? Or is that too much information? Maybe, just
why are we spying on them? -
Rich Lock, in reply to
Jake - if you do want to argue here in good faith, as you've stated, then bear this in mind:
We're all Russell's guest's here, but many regulars have been around for a long time, and have got pretty comfortable, as has already been stated. When a new guest comes to the party, starts talking loudly, acts a wee bit obnoxious to the extent that they can't give a straight answer to a question like 'what's your name?', then it's going to put a few backs up. I'm sure you can understand that.
I'm happy to hear decent, coherent counter-arguments to my prevailing view. If you want to make them, be my guest. But I'm not going to accept baldly-stated conclusions. You have stated:
1) Fran is a well-respected journalist (with an implication that because of that there's nothing wrong with her latest column).
OK, why? Facts, arguments, conclusion, please.
2) You think John Key is a good PM.
Same again, please. And I'm not interested in 'he's popular', or variants thereof. Lorde, Ritchie McCaw and Lion Red are all popular, but no-one's suggesting they should run the country. So why is he a good PM?
Like I say, I'd be delighted to hear a good fact-y argument. If you can't or won't provide one, then the rather inescapable conclusion is that you're just at this party to annoy people, because I'll do you the courtesy of assuming that you know that dropping into a group having a conversation and loudly and repeatedly stating an opposing and unsupported conclusion does nothing but annoy people.
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Greg Dawson, in reply to
Sorry, I think I've been reacting badly to the influx of apparently bad actors in what had seemed a safe place. Apologies for my part in the troll baiting.
On the upside, we've seen an influx of interesting new people in the chch as well as the dirty politics threads.
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Greg Dawson, in reply to
Hey!
That’s my shtick…Ya just gotta watch out for
those Factitious characters, though…I promise my intent wasn’t to be fractious (although maybe a little factious), and we’re all aware that your shtick is 24 carrot.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
No, none of that, but in that column she’s gone completely tribal in election week in a way (Snowden using “stolen National Security Agency files”) that betrays her own good work every time she has reported on the basis of leaked documents.
And I'll say it again to everyone: Fran O isn't stupid or deranged, but she is a willing cog in the Machine.
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'Jake' or 'Jack' or whatever; whacking kids is popular amongst some sectors of the NZ public but that ain't no reason for voting it back in.
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mark taslov, in reply to
Left with little doubt as to her persuasion, that link came as a surprise, I can respect the transparency. A much needed context for her descriptions of Key as being credible or having integrity.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I think he’s pretty much admitted that GCSB use information from XKEYSCORE, but is maintaining that the NZ information therein was legally obtained (i.e international traffic only)
I'm not sure. But my international traffic includes:
- All my email
- My Facebook messages
- My Twitter DMs
- A lot of my web browsing. Including my use of my own website,
- Etc.We just need to know more than we're currently told.
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nzlemming, in reply to
I’m not sure. But my international traffic includes:
- All my email
- My Facebook messages
- My Twitter DMs
- A lot of my web browsing. Including my use of my own website,
- Etc.We just need to know more than we’re currently told.
Exactly. This whole trend to "the Cloud" means that everything we do passes through international servers. At one point, sending email from Auckland to Wellington went via Sydney because TelstraClear. Anyone doing a traceroute can see that there is no effective difference between "international traffic" and "domestic traffic".
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Just desserts...
I went out and shot a mousse.
I’m just wiping it off the driveway now…
mmm..chocolate…is it a tort
or a torte?
or both... -
Dismal Soyanz, in reply to
Depending on its flexibility, it could even be a taut tort(e).
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nzlemming, in reply to
I thought you better taught...
(but then I taut I taw a puddytat)
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CJM, in reply to
Ur torte (very rich). Not having seconds was torture.
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Trevor Nicholls, in reply to
I won't compromise on my Key-admiration status.
I do wonder what this admiration is based on.
I'll tell you why I don't admire him, not at all. I suspect a few others on this site share my sentiments.
I have not seen a single statement of his that was delivered with conviction and which he stuck to despite it being unpopular or inconvenient. Not a one.
- He does not tell you the truth, instead he tells you what he thinks you want to hear. If he doesn't know what you want to hear he stalls and comes back with an answer tomorrow (probably, we now know, after some rapid Curia polling).
- He does not answer questions honestly and truthfully, instead he says whatever he thinks he can get away with. Until he can't get away with it any more, when he changes his answer to whatever looks like it will work in the light of new data. And again the next day. The daily changes to the position on GCSB surveillance are just the latest in a whole series of these volatile positions; it's the M.O. which we have seen over and over again for the past six years. As Bob Amsterdam rightly said, the man is a trader. His experience is in volatile markets and that's the experience he draws on in his present office. Honesty doesn't matter, what matters is being ahead at the end of today. And tomorrow. The positions change, the competition, the game, doesn't.
The fact that people like you, and evidently they make up a majority of the people responding to opinion polls, find this personal characteristic something to admire is really rather horrifying. It's just a further demonstration that, faced with a comfortable lie or an uncomfortable truth, almost everyone opts for the comfortable lie. And almost everyone prefers the comfortable liar.
I think it's shameful, myself.
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Yeah, I worked for startups in Silicon Valley for 20 years, when I see Key, the way he talks and his body language, I see every marketing guy I ever worked with - their job is not to tell the truth it's to sell stuff. It's worse than that, on the GCSB thing I see that marketing guy who doesn't know his product, who keeps throwing out pitches to see if they'll stick
The way you can tell if these guys are lying is easy, you check to see if their lips are moving, it's their job
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
This isn't the first time it's come up - there seems to be a growing trend of petty nationalism (and racism, and sexism) across the majority of western democracies, at least since the GFC, and in direct reversal of what had seemed to be a trend away from nationalism in the decade prior. It's an interesting and depressing trend.
I could best think of it as a pale imitation of the Weimar effect, where a collapsed middle class becomes angry and confused enough to start voting in political extremists. The only big thing missing is the hyperinflation.
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Jake Starrow, in reply to
Morning Rich,
I have expanded on why I like Key, why he is good for you and me.
Page 4 of the PA topic "2014. The Meth Election"
Best you read that and that would have spared the need for any pompous lecturing....a la accusing me of making "bald-faced conclusions".
Do your homework. -
Jake Starrow, in reply to
Here we go again. Another bleater resorting to personal abuse. Likening engaging with me to "wrestling with a pig, getting dirty and running away."
Why do you adhere to Russell's plea to "keep it nice."
I have and never get snarky first. Lift your game nzlemming.
Again I say, even blind Freddie could see that what annoys my detractors the most is my unequivocal support for what John Key offers.
That's what irritates the likes of nzlemming and rich lock and cjm etc etc the most -
Should read "Why don't you adhere to Russell's plea to" etc......
[early morning fuzziness]
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You can go back and edit your posts on this site (within a 15-minute window), rather than multiplying them.
As you say -- do your homework...
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