I also remember Babylon 5 being engineered on 3 Amiga 3000s which had to be smuggled out of the US because there was a 'restriction' on 'powerful systems' being exported.

I went to a cyber security conference recently and the keynote was given by a Europrean expert about how software companies are going to ratchet up their privacy capabilities in response to U.S. spying activities. The general tone I got was most non-Americans, at least security experts, are opposed to government spying. I can totally see companies like Microsoft bending over and creating back doors. But if that happens you will start to see a huge surge of non-American competition that won't have the back doors. I almost welcome it.

Oh, mandatory 'back doors?  ummm to better sc*ew* you?

You got my six?

Is the US gov't so paranoid that it'll go to absolutely any ends to implement 'security' measures that generally screw over its own people?

Sadly, the Australian and other governments have gone down the same slippery slope, putting in place measures that harm or inconveience law abiding citizens more than the intended targets, and now, where communists were once the most distrusted form of government, all forms/types of government, democratic or otherwise, have quite rightfully earned the distrust and disrespect of their own peoples.

Put bluntly, governments need to consider their own people first, and what truly is in their best interests, and if/when everybody abides by that then there's no need to worry about who else may be doing what, because they too are worrying more about their own people than yours... what you may be doing.

Yeah, I know.... in a perfect world.  Fact is, the world is fucked up because we've given politicians too much free reign... and now we're all paying for it because the idiots continually fail to put the genie back in the bottle.

There is a 5th group!  Corporations!  Yes, the corporations that peddle hardware and software, arms and munitions to government.  They have a vested interest to keep sales flowing and growing, so perhaps corporations have ben in the ears of government with this and that 'potential' threat to drive up the need for 'counter' tech/equipment.

However, from this list of 5, I place the blame largely at the feet of politicians, the various government agencies and corporations.  They're the ones with the power and the means... and it was they who let the genie out of the bottle to begin with.  Thing is, it was never about security, national or otherwise to begin with, though that was the justification given.  No, it was about power and control, both governmental and corporate... by gaining the upper hand and subjugating those weaker, less capable nations. 

The only time it became about security was when various groups resorted to terrorism and struck at targets on US, British and Eurpean home soil.  Now I'm in no way condoning terrorism, nor violent protests, but I do sometimes wonder if we [the West] brought this upon ourselves through arrogance and a failure to understand the culture and beliefs of those we've aggrieved.  And let's not try to say we've aggrieved noone.  The West has a long history of sticking its nose where it wasn't invited, wanted or needed, imposing rules, laws and religious beliefs on those who had managed for thousands of years to manage their affairs without Western influences.... 'civilisation'.

Okay, so maybe I've digressed from the OT somewhat, but one needs to first understand the symptoms if a cure is to be found, and put simply, government, its agencies and corporations are not the parties to diagnose and implement recovery.  No, they are the cause and must be precludred if answers are to be found.  In other words, an independent commission must be given the authority to implement broad sweeping changes as to how government and its agencies behave with regard to privacy, spying and data collection, etc. 

Now I'm not singling out thr US, because the Brits and Australians have enough cock-ups to be ashamed of embarrassed about, but the US certainly has to address the political system that allows such corruption, graft and apathy to prevail... not to mention the greed and insatiable thirst for power that overrides whatever good there may have once been on Capitol Hill. Forget the Constitution... your elected officials have.  Worse still, you've all allowed them to.

It is curable, but it requires a true conscience vote on polling day and not just a tick for the incumbent,  who not only have betrayed everyone with his/her apathy, but also has a complete lack of respect for the office they hold.  In any event, things will not improve unless you throw the baby [read, illegitemate child] out with the bath water.

Yeah, I know, what the fech would I know, and maybe as a foreigner I should keep my mouth shut, but sometimes you can't see the smoke for the trees and it takes somebody from the outside looking in to call a spade a spade.

Orright, I'm done here... unless somebody has something compelling so say that demands/begs a reply.

No disagreements. Unfortunately our public schools and media have turn the average citizen into content sheep. The only chance of a wakeup call is if the government turns truly tyrannical, i.e. killing classes of people, and I think politicians aren't dumb enough or insane enough to try it. Alas, who is John Galt?

Regardless of whether it's being used nefariously or not(it exists, so odds are it is), the reason things such as WOL exist are purely economical.  If you boot up a thousand machines each morning when people you're sure are too stupid to turn their own on show up for work, you don't want to do it manually a machine at a time.

One could argue that people can turn their own damned machines on and it's a superfluous exercise in stupidity by management, but it still has efficiency savings, and efficiency is what gets the corporate world wet.  Intel designs architecture first and foremost, for corporations.  The typical consumer purchaser buys a Dell or something, has no idea of it's actual capabilities, what it ships with, etc.  A fortune 500 company has a team of engineers telling them whether the hundred thousand units they're going to order are actually going to be worth it.

They may not actually be accurate in their assessments all of the time, if ever, but they still do things based on the perception that this or that feature will save them money in the form of efficiency gains. 

I learned something while at a solicitor's office yesterday!  I don't know about other Australian states/territories, but Queensland drivers licences are encoded with a chip that allows authorities to know where a particular Queensland license holder is at any time, and that's not just within the state but Australia wide..... if the person has the license on their person, that is. 

State law, though, does require license holders to carry it upon the at all times, particularly when driving, so should a driver or wanted person with a drivers license be picked up without it in their immediate possession it is an offence which carries large fines and even imprisonment, depending on the circumstances... eg, deliberate evasion, etc.

Hmmm, it seems that Australia, well more Queensland in this case, has been infected by the 'big brother is watching' bug [pun intended] more than I first thought.  Now it might not alarm those with 'nothing to hide, but I find it somewhat disturbing that more and more aspects of our lives are coming under greater surveillance and/or scrutiny by the powers that be.  I mean, where does it stop... with CCTV in our homes watching out every move... being 'chipped' like pets so government and its agents know all about our heritage, where we come from, what we're doing and where we're going?

I have no idea what reads it or how, I was just told by a lawyer in converstation that a client of his was located 2 states away via his drivers license, and that the gov't issued photo ID I'm seeking will likely have the same chip implemented, according to legislation just passed in the parliament.  I really don't like the idea, but I currently have no acceptable photo ID and I really need it since the new 'security' measures of late.... not that it's really about beefing up security.  That's the excuse but it's more about beefing up government coffers at 60 bucks a hit.

When it comes to tracking chips, it's not GPS, it's an RFID.  GPS tracking is a battery burner, it can't be done passively like you need for a credit card size application.

Oz isn't using any yet though, they have a biometrics chip in Queensland, which would fit the lawyer's commentary.  You go into a gas station or something, scan your license to buy some booze, and they've got your position.  Any place you'd end up verifying your ID at gives them a data point when they go looking to see where you've been.  It is not, however, transmitting.  If you're using credit/debit to make a purchase, you're not even giving any new tracking data to be had.

There was a front page article in the New York Times yesterday (5/30/15) about new laws in China focused on restoring 'rule of law' - read homeland security - that requires mandatory backdoors just like these on all foreign software introduced into their market.

I disapprove of the FBI inserting backdoors, simply on civil liberty grounds. Yet the one reason for surveillance/engineered vulnerabilities that rarely comes up in media, and actually seems like it MIGHT be a good one, is that we are in a Cyber War with China. And it seems absolutely in China's interest to destabilize our economy through cyber harassment.

So the FBI thinks that these backdoors allow them to catch Chinese hackers during industrial espionage/sabotage. I might actually support that goal. But as mentioned above, introducing security vulnerabilities will makes ALL systems LESS secure in the long run. The Chinese just need to get their hands on the backdoor keys!

Are the FBI turning to backdoors because they are completely out of ideas?