Re: <nettime> Hacked Team

[Jaromil <jaromil@dyne.org>]

On Fri, 17 Jul 2015, morlockelloi@yahoo.com wrote:

> The cause of confusion may be that this (the last few decades) is
> probably the first time that power apparatus' enforcement model is
> making a big shift from thugs with guns to thugs with compilers.
> 
> These are two completely different demographics, and while societies
> had thousands years to learn about and deal with thugs with guns [...]
> it is hard to project the same notion at the bright middle-class kids
> that get stock options and catered food. It will take some time.

I disagree on two points here, the first indirect (just to make sure)
and the second more specific to your approach.

1) cryptography is not a weapon

I dare to say this at the cost of causing dismay among Schneider's
followers and anyone else who finds it so sexy to think they are dealing
with Death by clicking on a keyboard.

Cryptography is to software what solid walls are to architecture.

The raise of its use in consumer-grade software products can be compared
to that of cement in the building industry. Of course cement is also
used in illegal ways, but mostly when the industry adopting it scales up
to insane levels and sells the production means to the wrong people.


2) it is *not only* up to individual responsibility

I do not believe bright kids are the only ones to blame for their
choices in life. There will always be bright kids making unethical
choices, so this won't solve anything really. But yes, good luck keeping
an eye on those and thanks btw, we feel much safer now.

The systemic problem is the military-industrial complex and the way it
creates such jobs. It is the way the cyber-crime big-bucks rethoric is
unfolding, void of any critical thinking and basically in the hands of
sociopats, politicians and venture capitals who are good at surfing
multi-billion waves of funding without even thinking which shore they
are going to land on. They are the ones loading the boat with bright
kids and telling them the fun stories about their future. They are the
ones who have the real power to make things happen on a large scale (as
HT was) and they are the rotten node in the network of trust. A network
which won't change in Italy, believe me, not even after this scandal.



Now the HT case is very specific and deals not just with crypto
software, but with actual intrusion tools for targeted breach. I don't
believe we can exonerate the researchers who participated in deploying
such tools, but I do believe that the money that fueled and scaled up
this sort of cyber-sadist practices is the real systemic problem.

It is not the guns, nor the gun makers, but the gun industry.
This was the sort of message Cody Wilson tried to vehicle with his
3dprinting gun project.

And security research is not even about making guns or mines, it is
about studying how walls work and I believe everyone should be free to
study, develop and try, even the back orifice and such. If activists
will surf this blame-wave keeping their focus on individual researchers
they will hit a dangerous shore, where there is no more freedom of
independent research and where, paradoxically, the only ones who will be
able to learn or peer-review the tools will be embedded in the mil/ind
complex.  Perhaps just a US certified one, as it seems Italy is ruled
out by now, let's see who is next.

ciao



-- 
Denis "Jaromil" Roio, Dyne.org Think (& Do) Tank
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