Posts by mark taslov
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OnPoint: "Project SPEARGUN underway", in reply to David Hood,
But even later, once Judith resigned and Cam Slater took out the injunction, is it not a little strange that not once has there been any mention of an investigation into Rawshark? SImply to reassure Kiwis that if this happens then they can expect action?
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Sorry, to be clear about that, by progress, I’m referring to technology; cellphones, the net, you can redefine your relationship to it. Most importantly New Zealand and these other 4 nations are allies, and therefore terms can be negotiated to an extent, as David Lange did so beautifully on March 1st 1985. And as New Zealand has been doing with diminishing returns for many decades.
A poignant question to ask yourself is do you believe that humans are essentially good or evil?
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Hard News: Time to Vote, in reply to Russell Brown,
Russell, Thanks for sourcing the non geoblocked coverage and cheers to Steven. I’ve been Enjoying the Twitter. I can’t get enough of this event. 15 hours sleep since Sunday and not by choice. From this distance the last week of the campaign has been like watching one of those super slow mo clips of a balloon exploding, yet to climax.
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OnPoint: "Project SPEARGUN underway", in reply to David Hood,
Nothing about this leaves any lingering whiff that this whole shebang is the greatest staged event since the Gulf of Tonkin incident?
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to andin,
Andin, look I know the context of the phrase, and if anyone he *may* even have been one of the last hopes of resisting this. But I’m not an ostrich, China has had this kind of technology and been engaging in this kind of mass surveillance since before I arrived here in 2003. It’s just the way things went. They weren't world tech leaders.
My opinion of course, because it’s futile to resist the vast industrial military complex. It’s futile to reap the benefits of all this wonderful technology while maintaining belief that you can resist those who developed this technology from using it for exactly the ends it was designed. Once you come to grips with just how much info is being gathered it stops being about you anymore. and become a fact of life, life having a link to the public library in your living room. But most importantly, I’m not worried about being spied on because I know I’m not that important, bank my emails as you do.
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to nzlemming,
As a pacifist with an ideal vision of New Zealand as an independent nation I’d dispute myself there to. I’m trying to placate people, Some of the commentators on Toby Manhire’s masterpiece appear incredibly distraught. But relative to the first and second world war our losses have been marginal. Has New Zealand ever been Autonomous? Who is our official Head of State? We dreamt of coming to these distant shore to escape the empire but here we are in a country that was "founded" by the empire, and not without much ado.
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OnPoint: "Project SPEARGUN underway", in reply to David Hood,
But why didn’t John Key lead with that? Why did he put the focus on Hager for writing the book, left wing conspiracy theorists, the left, why not paint Slater as the victim of a far more serious crime and lead with:
"Look this black hat hacker, has violated the rights of a New Zealand citizen in a very serious way and we will not stop until he is brought to justice, this is why we changed the GCSB law, this is why New Zealand needs gold standard cyber-security.
This is not about the security of just one individual this is about the security of our families and our children. This criminal is showing absolutely no remorse in ripping apart the life of Mr Slater, a hardworking Kiwi, with a family, with kids, effectively terrorising them. How would anyone of us feel if this happened to us? Duncan, how would you feel if this was your emails in this book? Claire? Patrick?
This vigilante has abused the greatest right we possess in a democracy; the right to privacy. At the end of the day, this is a wake up call for New Zealand, a sea change in the cyber-security world. This is not what we as New Zealanders stand for. Pretty shortly the police commissioner will be issuing a statement with terms offering a $10 million reward to anyone who can provide information leading to the capture of this so called Whaledump."
- Mr Key, what about the allegations contained in Dirty Politics?
Look our priority right now is on justice and ensuring mums and dads across the country can feel safe in their homes from these new threats facing our country. We will be holding a press statement on the any allegations, but right now our focus is on catching the guy who did this, and making sure Kiwis can feel safe on their own computers and that something like this never happens again
-But Prime Mini….
Sorry no further questions at this time, the Police Commissioner will be issuing his statement shortly. We will be issuing statements as any updates occur
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OnPoint: "Project SPEARGUN underway", in reply to BenWilson,
I’m guessing he/she is an insider. There is no organization that can possibly get big or powerful enough to stop that kind of person. Quite the opposite, the bigger and more powerful they get, the more damaging that kind of person can be.
If it is the work of a lone gun. are there alternatives? and does all power corrupt?
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Which is perfectly true, up to a point but not as far as some people seem determined to push it. There is such a thing as keeping the State in its place, and I would strenuously argue that place is reading my mail only under extreme, specific and strictly circumscribed conditions. .
Exactly Craig, and yet even if some irresponsible operative at the NSA or the GCSB did take a fondness to your acerbic sweetness, he may not be alone, there may also be a guy at Google as well as a hacker from Boardman Oregon, all digging your prose, and you know that you’re taking that risk by sending an email. That's human nature. 1000 years ago it may have been man on donkey who steamed open the scroll for a gander. Mainly we know that there’s nothing we can do to rewind the progress that brought us here. Resistance just makes a mess:
In April 2008 three Ploughshares Aotearoa or Anzac Ploughshares activists breached three security fences to enter the base and then used a sickle to deflate the kevlar covering over one of the two satellite dishes.Prime Minister Helen Clark condemned the attack on the spy base as a “senseless act of criminal vandalism”. They waited there until they were arrested and charged with intentional damage and unlawful entry. They were tried in March 2010 where they readily admitted their actions in court but defended it as a “claim of right” to save human lives. The jury agreed and the three activists were acquitted on all charges. One of the protesters said “we broke a law to protect plastic to uphold a law to protect human life."
I think Helen Clark has the money quote there.
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to Angela Hart,
You could probably say that it's still the country the British negotiated the treaty for. Nothing changed dramatically this week or even last year beneath the hype, and I honestly believe that the only thing to fear is fear itself. Perhaps I drank the koolaid but following things vaguely I recognize a gradual liberal agenda worldwide, in terms of human rights. the only exception being the surveillance, but the most important thing about the surveillance is that we have the freedom to turn it off at any time in our homes, in our pockets (If you're particular take out the sim card?), it's invasive but benign. and so our loss of privacy can be more personally defined as our addiction to technology.
These machines, we love so much, that we could only dream of as children, they are not appendages. No one is standing in our homes. I guess It's just a case of accepting that the computer and the phone are nodes. If you want some privacy unplug your computer from the net, etc.
For me over here watching New Zealand this week has been a trip. Unfuckingprecedented. And now finally today I've gone over the edge, a bit like when Y2k never happened. Our IT education left a lot to be desired.
Privacy is a conditioned human response. Our cat 警长 licks his ass in front of me all the time. Little kids run around naked, Not an issue at all. In Hollywood movies the spy guys are always Doctor evils, but that's just a narrative. Our membership of the 5eyes alliance has kept New Zealand free from serious conflict since inception. People's lives are better materially. The problems New Zealand faces are still, despite everything, just first world problems. Which doesn't diminish the importance of the election. but hopefully does provide some weighted perspective.
On their website the NSA are very transparent about their agenda. The only potential impediment to the NSA/5eyes achieving their goals would be problematic politicians, but looking about the place. Just because it's 'John Key's country' doesn't mean he has everyone's best interests at heart. And just because he doesn't appear to have everyone's best interests at heart doesn't mean he doesn't have everyone's interests at heart. There is a long game here, being played beneath the short game of democratic politics.
the assumption that the external force, 'the foreigner', has motives worse than our own """""""""""""indigenous"""""""""" motives, ignores the rich and varied history of AotearoaNZ.