I'm looking forward to some hot libertarian on libertarian action,
though I wish we could have worked the lovely Julian Sanchez into the mix:
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/882...9&out=00:02:04 Did Will say that Tim was his tech guru?

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Did Will say that Tim was his tech guru?

Maybe he said "TeX guru".

I don't claim to know what exactly the capabilities of our intelligence services are, and I'm sure that the whole echelon thing is overblown to some extent, but it seems to me that Will's rant about the overestimation of our intelligence capabilities is, well, wildly overestimated. The amount of collection of signal intelligence and our capability to process it are, most likely, pretty extensive. There's a difference between "hack the whole internet" cliches and more measured takes on what the NSA is (probably) capable of.

Quoting threep: I don't claim to know what exactly the capabilities of our intelligence services are, and I'm sure that the whole echelon thing is overblown to some extent, but it seems to me that Will's rant about the overestimation of our intelligence capabilities is, well, wildly overestimated. The amount of collection of signal intelligence and our capability to process it are, most likely, pretty extensive. There's a difference between "hack the whole internet" cliches and more measured takes on what the NSA is (probably) capable of.

My sense, from a fairly long career in signal processing, is that Will's estimation is less wildly off than yours. For one poignant example, consider 9/11. I think it's fairly well accepted that considerable intelligence had been gathered prior to that date, but had not been processed. More generally, the NSA faces numerous challenges: increased use of fiber optic and coaxial cables for transmission (as opposed to radiated data); cheap or free strong encryption for cell phones and Internet-based transactions; onion routers, zombie PCs, uncountable free email and hosting options, and other Web-based ways to mask one's location; the language barrier (especially Arabic and other Middle Eastern languages); the problem of signal detection in voice data

Before swinging the needle back too far toward "its no big problem", consider a few things. The expansion in "legalized" surveilance is consistent with a general pattern of behavior and activity, all of which has fairly greatly increased the power of the executive. Anything that enhances a ruler's power just might have attractive uses beyond finding the "terrorist needle in a haystack". Not that I would suggest that anyone or any group in our government would ever be attracted to such an idea, nor that they would ever manifest anything beyond the utmost respect for both the letter and spirit of the law, as well as for the principles underlying the Constitution and the idea of democracy. As is well known, we're special in that respect. Don't underestimate the resources that can be thrown at the surveilance problem. Throw in money by the billions year after year and you can get a pretty impressive amount of computing power and algorithm development. It will never stop each and every individual or small group, and it may well not stop nearly as much potential damage as other

cragger: Excellent response. I want to start off, in my own defense, by saying I consciously avoided mentioning the potential abuses of increased eavesdropping because I wanted to focus on the points I was trying to make without seeming like I was motivated purely by BDS. I am glad that you jumped in to point out the potential dangers of the government watching the citizenry too much, though. Some quibbles:

Don't underestimate the resources that can be thrown at the surveilance problem. Throw in money by the billions year after year and you can get a pretty impressive amount of computing power and algorithm development. It will never stop each and every individual or small group, and it may well not stop nearly as much potential damage as other means attainable with less societal risk and for less cost, but there are certainly things that the approach will yield. If these techniques did not give information and advantage, commercial firms with vastly smaller resources and who have to actually use their own $ rather than simply taking them from the population would not engage in data mining. Don't underestimate the power of

The big problem seems to me to be the chilling effect the technology can have on free speech. For example, just knowing what the government can do, in principle, already may be inhibiting a lot of people who are not necessarily paranoic. The IRS already inhibits some criticism of the government, and the Nixon administration's use of audits to go after political enemies was one of the major privacy abuses of the last few decades. Of course, a lot has been done to protect privacy and prevent abuses since Nixon, but that's all the more reason to be concerned about the Bush administration's domestic spying abuses. Cragger's observations seem reasonable to me. I don't think there's much we can do about vanishing privacy. We have to try, of course, but it's a losing battle. Cameras and recording devices are everywhere and may eventually become almost literally ubiquitous. Traces of our identity and behaviors are all over the Internet. It will be increasingly difficult to get off the grid in the future, and we will welcome invasion of privacy in a variety of ways, independent of our national security concerns. For example, people are

Wonderment: You'll get no disagreement from me on the modern age and its encroachment on our privacy. In response, I ask, so why do we need to give the government even more ability to intrude? I'm not sure I agree with the chilling effect completely. It's there, to be sure, especially among the well-paid members of the MSM. On the other hand, it's possible for an average individual to give vent to harsher criticism, and with potentially larger audiences and better chances at anonymity, than it was in any time before.

You may be right. In some ways we have more freedom of expression than we ever did. It's hard to predict though. The other day I decided I needed to give some money to help Iraqi refugees. I started searching on the Internet, but I immediately felt a little rush of paranoia: what if I donate through a Muslim charity? What will that trigger? I ended up donating through http://www.unhcr.org/ but my point is that the "chill" is subtle. However, the chilling effect may have peaked in regard to public figures. A minor scandal like renting porn movies, smoking weed or hiring an undocumented nanny is no longer enough to ruin a supreme court or attorney general nomination. Nowadays you may need a serious secret narrative like the one Mickey Kaus maliciously spread about John Edwards or the Larry Craig affair: anti-gay Senator turns out to be cruising airport bathrooms. Gulliani's candidacy may have been the first of the post-privacy era. His position seemed to be "Yes, I've done all kinds of shady, embarrassing shit that's contrary to your/our values, and more may come out, but this shouldn't matter to voters because I will perform like an automaton in office. Whatever

Wonderment: There's another example in support of your later points: There actually is a bit of a meme floating around that wants to criticize Obama for not doing enough drugs. And not from the stoners, either. Sorry for the lack of link -- I did not think until now that such hilarity merited a bookmark. But it definitely is out there.

Will- It's time for a haircut; you're getting a little bushy on the sides there.

One thought on advertising as "spinach." Isn't that how television advertisement has worked for decades?

This was a terrific episode of Free Will. It may not have been more informative than Will's other, terrific interviews, but it was Will's wittiest performance yet (apart from his first appearance on BHtv with Ezra). Libertarian-on-libertarian action, despite my initial hopes, appears not to be very steamy. But it does seem effervescent. I personally would welcome advertising on BHtv if it would free Will and the other amazing diavloggers on BHtv from their "slave labor". I don't want to see a rebellion and a mass exodus of all this talent. Can't Mickey get a small fee for his Coke product placement? And Will's Kindle product placement made at least one sale of $399 for Amazon.

I think we are in violent agreement overall. A couple of points though, since we are almost certainly going down this road of ever-increasing government power and intrusiveness. On encryption, yes there are some "pretty good" as they say, available methods that so far as we know aren't compromised by the "three letter agencies". They are in general breakable only through brute force techniques beyond the capacity of individuals or even modest corporations. Of course, the thing about brute force is that if it isn't working, you just aren't using enough. US govt. with multi-trillion dollar budget = heap big brute force. Thats about 99% beside the point of course. The catch with encryption is you need to use it. At both ends. How much of your communication involves a strong encryption? What percentage of that in the US? Since most folks don't use it, a communication from an individual, or between individuals, that has strong encryption might be part of a signature that triggers increased scrutiny. To use your analogy, it all depends on what sort of signature, or correlation function, can be developed for "subjects of interest". The false alarm rate will then depend on how many "signals" you can

Quoting cragger: The catch with encryption is you need to use it. At both ends. How much of your communication involves a strong encryption? What percentage of that in the US? Since most folks don't use it, a communication from an individual, or between individuals, that has strong encryption might be part of a signature that triggers increased scrutiny.

[...]

Yeah, the process will never detect every valid signal, and the false detection rate will be significant, but those building and operating the receiver seem quite happy to accept that.

Two good points. I keep thinking about moving to all encrypted email, all the time, and urging my friends to do the same, just to protest the increasing surveillance. And, sadly, I agree even more strongly that those in power won't care about a high rate of false alarms, or at least, won't care enough to realize the idiocy of trying to listen in on everybody.

On Patents. All of them. I suspect they only make sense as an incentive where the barriers to entry are high and the cost of a copy is cheap and fast to produce. Pharmaceuticals makes sense partially due to (not unreasonable) government regulation. It is an untestable hypothesis, but I figure if patents never happened our civilization would be further advanced.

I realize this is a non-legal discussion of patents, but patents are not simply, as Tim says, "for physical objects or physical processes." State Street Bank, a case from the 90s, allows the patenting of business processes so long as those processes yield concrete results (however fleetingly). That's why you could patent a non-physical process like a business process - 1-click. In addition, is the test for non-obviousness really " Also, most software is actually copyrighted, and not patented.

I realize this is a non-legal discussion of patents, but patents are not simply, as Tim says, "for physical objects or physical processes." State Street Bank, a case from the 90s, allows the patenting of business processes so long as those processes yield concrete results (however fleetingly). That's why you could patent a non-physical process like a business process - 1-click. Also, most software is actually copyrighted, and not patented.