Quote of the day—Kim_Jung-Skill

It is bad for an imperfect government to be able to predict all crime. Some of the greatest steps forward in human history were only made possible by people being able to hide information from their government. If the church had access to Galileo’s research journals and notes we could be hundreds of years behind in our scientific growth. If the government had unlimited access to the networks of civil dissidents blacks may have never fought off Jim Crow. If King George had perfect information America would never have been a country. There is no government on earth that is perfect, and therefore there is no government on earth that can act responsibly with unlimited access to information. A government is unlikely to be able to distinguish between a negative and positive disruption to it’s social order and laws, and it therefore follows that an unlimited spying program can only hinder the next great social step forward. Don’t fear the surveillance state because you might have something illegal, fear the surveillance state because it is a tremendous institutional barrier to meaningful societal progress.

Kim_Jung-Skill
December 16, 2016
Reddit comment to Congress Slips CISA Into a Budget Bill That’s Sure to Pass
[Via email from Jaime.—Joe]


Those who need to know already know what this means:
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19 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Kim_Jung-Skill

  1. Not sure Galileo is the best example that guy could’ve picked.

    Galileo didn’t get in trouble for his views on orbital mechanics; several Jesuit astronomers had been working diligently to reproduce his findings with clear success. Indeed, Galileo also enjoyed a good friendship with the then-Pope, Urban VII.

    The problem was that Galileo was also an asshole. He slandered two of the Jesuits who were trying to reproduce his results. He insulted the Pope by putting all of his arguments into the mouth of a character named ‘Simplicus’. Yes, that character’s name translates as ‘idiot’.

    Even then, that probably wouldn’t have been enough, but Galileo was also being supported by the Medicis, and when he shot his mouth off, the Borgias saw their opportunity to stick it to their rivals. They had enough juice in the Inquisition to trump up a charge, get Galileo yelled at, and sent home under house arrest.

    Politics suck. Also, if you’re friends with the Pope in the 1600s, why the hell would you call him a moron?

    • “Politics suck. Also, if you’re friends with the Pope in the 1600s, why the hell would you call him a moron?” Because asshole, remember? Also, sometimes smart people do dumb things for very obtuse reasons known to only themselves or a select few. Like why did Clinton choose to start a fight with Pepe the cartoon frog? And then lose? I mean, that’s some world-class stupid unless there is more to it.

      • Maybe because the Pope told him that he had to represent the alternative viewpoint in his book, and Galileo didn’t like being told how to write his own work?

  2. Not going to take the time to try and break that encryption but the point is well made. I sure hope it says something along the lines of “People should never need to fear their governments and “Mohammed, the deliver is at 9”. Just to get the NSA’s and FBI’s panties in a twist.

  3. Shit. I ran that code through my code breaker and got:

    BeSureToDrinkYourOvaltine.

    A crummy commercial.

    I know I shouldn’t joke about these things, but I don’t have the background to break code and I feel especially dumb.

  4. Maybe you don’t, but it’s not tough to learn rubber hose cryptography. Which, other than hacking into my computer, is probably the easiest way.

    • How naive am I? I had to Bing, “Rubber hose cryptography.”

      I’m an idiot.

      • It’s the first time I’d ever heard it, but I was 99% sure I knew instantly what it meant. Yup. I was right.

          • I’ll show off: I strongly suspect y’all mean “rubber hose decryption” not encryption. Do I win something?
            ETA: well, crap, reading failure on my part; it is “cryptography” not “encryption”. Cancel my prize, dammit. This is what I get for intertube commenting before eating a healthy breakfast.
            2nd ETA: didn’t know the Galileo backstory other than as taught by the nuns. Thanks for the real story!

        • Pedantically, it’s “rubber hose cryptanalysis”.
          Cryptography = the science of ciphers and codes
          Encryption = turning a plain text message into a ciphered or encoded message
          Decryption = the inverse of encryption
          Cryptanalysis = the art and science of decrypting messages (often but not always by figuring out the key) if you’re not the intended recipients.

          Rubber hose cryptography is a semi-joke term, somewhat like “social engineering” in the world of security systems. I haven’t heard “social cryptanalysis” yet, but it’s another obvious term waiting to be put to work.

    • Rubber-hose cryptography has a high rate of success compared to the mathematical brute force model, but it also has a high false positive rate as well, as the various secret police agencies around the world have learned that when you slap people around they will admit to anything, so you’d better have a way to verify the truth. Beat me up and I’ll admit to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

      • Yes, but there are no false positives when getting an encryption key. Beat the encryption key out of them.

    • I’ve been seeing these encrypted messages as well, and since I’m naturally curious about these messages as well. I’d like to ask how I can become someone who needs to know, but I suspect one of at least a couple of things:

      (1) As a relative stranger, my desire become someone who needs to know may immediately disqualify me from someone who can be someone who needs to know (this especially applies to things that may be illegal, even if — or rather, particularly if — the illegal activity is necessary for preserving life and freedom);

      (2) If it involves Boomershoot logistics, or logistics of some similar, legal activity, I really don’t have time at the moment to be among people who know, so I’ll have to pass on becoming someone who “needs to know”.

      Having said that, I’m a mathematician, so I should be able to decrypt this, right? (Actually, as important as such luck may be, my luck may very well lead me to prove that there are *no* shortcuts for decoding certain coding methods, short of having the decoding key.) (And this is assuming that I’m that good of a mathematician, which I strongly suspect that I’m not, with the necessary preliminary knowledge in the field in question, which I almost certainly do not have…)

      • Meet me in person sometime and we’ll talk. Your IP address indicates it’s not entirely unreasonable to make a weekend trip to Orofino Idaho sometime. I’ll be there this weekend.

        I’m betting that you can’t decrypt it in the next few years (quantum computing may enable practical decryption) no matter how much time or computing power you spend on it.

        It’s probably less interesting than you think it is.

  5. We’re talking about an anti-constitutional movement which has infiltrated our government at all levels. Criminals.

    We’re too corrupt as a culture to be able to see this.

    Before we decide what it is we’re going to fear, we should be able to correctly identify it. Once correctly identified, no fear is necessary, nor at al desirable. All that is necessary or desirable is prosecution of the criminals (and in that light you now understand everything there ever was to know about gun restrictions).

    Fear does nothing but get in the way of such. In fact it is only obstacle, and once it is overcome we can have America as it was intended.

    • This didn’t happen because we weren’t looking, this happened because we were persuaded that the goals of liberty, freedom and the protection of the constitution would be assured “if we just made this one exception.” One exception has led to another, and another, and we have, depending on how you look at it, 80 years of exceptions, or over 100 years of exceptions, which as we have discovered, swallow the rule of law.
      Essentially we gave up our liberty for a little transitory security, or our birthright as Americans for a light snack with no satisfaction or nutritional value. We did this willingly, holding the coats of the people we elected as they beat up Liberty before our eyes.

      • At least a third of the population now think essentially like communists, without knowing it as such. Indoctrination is a significant factor.

        You are correct of course, but there is also, today, a huge ignorance, or unawareness, component. Several generations have been born into the Progressive States of America, and educated in Progressive schools. To see what you are saying then, the average American must overcome years of conditioning.

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