The director of then dutch intelligence agency AIVD (nsa/gchq equivalent) said, because the new mass surveillance law is getting loads of heat/criticism, that before the Dutch citizens should worry about the new surveillance law, they should look into which online companies they trust with their online data and why they trust those companies.

Nice try, sir. You're (probably deliberately) missing the entire point.

@irene I entirely agree with you but it's the context in this case.

If we leave the invisible tracking from those companies out of the picture for now, we're talking about the services and companies which sell data etc which is his point. That's a very genuine/valid point in general context.

Only this context is that he is comparing services you can CHOOSE to use or not use to mass surveillance which you can't really opt out from.

He's basically comparing something you can choose for yourself with something which citizens can't choose for/opt out of.

Luckily, 30 cyber security specialists have sent an open letter to the government explaining how this entire law and the mass surveillance will make our country more vulnerable instead of safer :)

@linuxxx What your describing leads to another risk were facing. The popularity of these "free-to-choose" service can result in them becoming effectively mandatory as it happened before (imagine to try to explain to a potential employer that you don't have a phone number).

We can only defend ourselves against mandatory surveillance by companies which provide our technology standards, when we define restrictions (laws) to what this software is allowed to do. That's why the GDPR is such an important step.

Concerns about networked computing being used for mass surveillance were being raised since 1975

https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/197...

Intelligence agencies were very heavily involved in the aether (Internet). The infrastructure for mass surveillance is already in place and has been refined extensively (ever since Licklider gave his talk about networked computing at the NSA). I do not have any expectations of privacy on the aether. I treat it like any public place.

@linuxxx hence, trust none on world wild web! So, different organizations (legal and illegal) can (and do) try to get your data, map you, but you protect yourself from everyone...

For some reason I'm allowed to vote in that referendum but I don't know Dutch yet... And my attempts to translate the information around it have been miserable. So just to be clear, a "No" is a vote against the mass surveillance, right @linuxxx?

@PRein That is correct! Please vote no 😅

@linuxxx sure will.
Btw.. just wanted to share a fun statistic from Wikipedia. The top two parties in the parliament have "freedom" in their names and are For having more surveillance. Oh the irony.

GDPR

@PRein Yeah the irony is fucking real haha.

The president was asked if he didn't think that the law would be too intrusive and might be seen as the bad guys to which he answered:

No it's the terrorists which are the bad guys!! The fucking terrorists!! Can we leave the privacy out for once? (something like this)