Reddit co-founder on NSA snooping [video]

http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/06/11/t-co-reddit-alexis-ohanian.cnnmoney

by kn0thing • 13 years ago

370 174 13 years ago

money.cnn.com

josh26009• 13 years ago

Goddamn right.

Every now and then we have defining moments of global consciousness. This has the potential to be one of those moments and we should never let a good crisis go to waste.

The danger here is that if we do nothing, that will be seen as tacit acceptance of the world's largest spying apparatus. While I acknowledge there's some necessity globally, domestic spying through secret courts is more synonymous with the Gulag than the American dream.

Stand up for what you believe in; this is one time you can.

twoodfin4• 13 years ago

Specifically, what "domestic spying" are you talking about?

I'm curious where the line is you're trying to draw.

grey-area3• 13 years ago

Specifically, what "domestic spying" are you talking about?

Since you ask:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-n...

In particular see the 3rd slide down for the type of information the NSA claims it can collect.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-record...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-in...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/snowden-...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/nsa-part...

I'm curious where the line is you're trying to draw.

Can't speak for the OP, but I imagine for most people that line is somewhere well before the mass surveillance of phone records etc which the US is currently engaging in. Are you genuinely confused about why people might oppose that or care about it?

ihsw2• 13 years ago

The danger here is that if we do nothing, that will be seen as tacit acceptance of the world's largest spying apparatus.

Your acceptance is not required for the spying programs to continue operating. The sooner you realize that is the sooner you'll realize that your choices are currently very limited.

einhverfr• 13 years ago

There are two issues that I think that are important to keep in mind though.

The first big story here is the extent to which the US government has been (and continues to) compel big internet businesses and telco's to do their spying for them. This is an important thing to keep in mind, and I think that it is important when we look at what products we as founders develop. One of the huge threats that Google poses is the degree to which disparate sources of tracking information are tied together. With Android, for example, your cell phone is connected to an email address.

The second is the degree to which companies are being forced to make things intelligence-friendly. Here I think another point here is to build products which are intelligence-unfriendly as a way of pushing back. I have some ideas for start-ups I would be interested in participating in, in this area. My time availability is less than I would like but....

The first would be a verifiable secure telephony platform, resistant to in the middle eavesdropping, ideally incorporated in a country with strong protections for such things (Switzerland sounds nice).

The second would be decentralized cryptography services of some sort.

All projects I think would have to be open source because this would help put pressure on governments not to interfere.

famousactress• 13 years ago

I disagree, they work for us. The sooner you realize that is the sooner we get this fixed.

davidw5• 13 years ago

One of the biggest problems with the political situation here in Italy is the level of cynicism and "oh poor us, we can't do anything". That attitude is a very sure way of not being able to do anything, and it's absolutely poisonous.

belorn2• 13 years ago

Actually, it is. If we use services that do not keep logs or has real name policies, or if we favor companies that takes an active stance against surveillance rather than just buying from what ever is cheapest, we pushes society into a place where the spying is not socially accepted practices for for-profit organizations.

This event is already having that effect in EU. Governments is already creating policy/laws that favors national services over Google. If they go a step further and make a law that forbids moving privileged information to a US data cloud to be picked and prodded by spies and advertisers, that will have a real effect on Google, Microsoft, amazon and Apple. Suddenly, doctors can not use iphones connected with icloud for their practice. Lawyers can't use Microsoft 360 with mails going through Microsoft servers or store their mail in the cloud. Government can't purchase amazon cloud for developing. Even schools can't use Google docs when working with student records.

I have no doubt in me that the us government would listen to Google, Microsoft, amazon and Apple if such law was ever created.

kiba• 13 years ago

We always have a choice to elect the people we want. The problem is that all the people who we want to elects are all lizards. If we elect a politician who actually have integrity and wisdom, he would be very unpopular and voted out of office.

The politicians that the people want in office is not the same person that you want to work under or believe in.

daywalker2• 13 years ago

You've just been added to the "List".

josh26009• 13 years ago

I work for 2600hz, which is literally the number 1 keyword on the CyberTerrorism watch list. I guarantee I'm already on every list.

theklub4• 13 years ago

It's time for a new political party. Forget the people who say it can't be done. Now is the time. We are stuck in a rut and its time to get out. You have a choice, be lazy and accept what is happening or step up and make change. Its clear our current system is rotten.

pstuart3• 13 years ago

Please share your vision of that party's platform.

tim_hutton• 13 years ago

This.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2013/05/0...

(Local discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5880156 )

Lawrence Lessig for President?

podperson3• 13 years ago

An insurgency within one of the two big political parties is probably more likely to work than a third (or nth) party given how broken the US electoral system is. And of course it's the super-low-turnout primaries where we can really make a difference.

ctdonath3• 13 years ago

The two viable dominant parties have very similar voter counts. Starting a new political party requires taking voters away from the one dominant party closest to the new party's position, rendering both impotent and handing control to the party you least want to have it.

The political equilibrium keeps things as they are. Those in power can't do what needs doing because they'll get thrown out for it (ex.: total spending must be cut in half, but nobody is going to make such draconian across-the-board cuts and survive). Something has to break to disrupt that equilibrium, something like defaulting on debt maintenance or onset of hyperinflation.

Yes, we're stuck in a rut. There comes a point where you have to get out of the car and start walking, leaving the driving paradigm behind.

genwin• 13 years ago

ctdonath has it right. Because of a flaw in our system there can be only two viable political parties. Congress must agree to fix the flaw to get it done within our system, and Congress has the incentive to never fix.

The fix is instant run-off voting, like Australia has.

parasubvert2• 13 years ago

I grew up in the Bush v1- Clinton era with Operation Sundevil, the Steve Jackson Games raid, NSA clipper chip, DMCA, Communications Decency Act, PGP legal battles, etc. The movie Sneakers from 1992 was a great example of the NSA paranoia that existed at the time.

The result? Won some, lost some, and the world moved on.

What's different now is that this surveillance is legal at scale because the majority of the populace wants it to be. They're more afraid of terrorists than having privacy. Look at the polls: Hacker News (and techies in general) seem to be in quite a bubble in this regard.

We have more clout than we did in the 90s, but the difference now is that there's a big Terrorism counter argument to anything we say. A majority of the USA prefers to have the electric eye of Sauron to watch over them, because the alternative -- more freedom that might lead to more terror attacks -- is too scary for them to accept. In that sense, the terrorists have won.

There are two viable paths going forward, in my view: (a) Work to convince people they want privacy, and don't want Brin's transparent society - this slows what appears to be the inevitable; (b) Work to ensure accountable oversight of surveillance. No more FISA secret courts, but real public courts and judges and warrants.

What's not likely viable is (a) encouraging people to stop using social networks -- they won't, we broadly LIKE being noticed by others, it gives meaning to our otherwise alienated capitalistic existence; (b) encouraging government to stop tracking people -- they're just getting into the game that Google and Facebook is in.

If a company can track people, so will the government. The key is that government can and must be held accountable to a degree that companies don't have to be. The US public has chosen not to exercise this power to date out of ignorance, laziness, and/or lack of desire.

The likely outcome of all of this is a resurrection and growth in the "darknet", where younger techies go to hide.

corin_• 13 years ago

They're more afraid of terrorists than having privacy. Look at the polls: Hacker News seems to be in quite a bubble in this regard.

Debatable. See polling at http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/12/us-usa-security-po... as discussed on HN at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5871423

Of course, the people who support him may still think that the spying is a good thing, just shouldn't be secretive... and maybe the 46% undecided will end up against him. But certainly doesn't seem as clear-cut as you suggest - do you have any examples of the polls you reference?

paganel• 13 years ago

the majority of the USA prefers to have the electric eye of Sauron to watch over them, because the alternative -- more freedom that might lead to more terror attacks -- is too scary for them to accept.

As a guy who has never set foot in the States I found it strange when I first heard Dakota Fanning asking Tom Cruise "Is that the terrorists?" in Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" (when an airplane falls over the house they're in), I was asking to myself "why does the Americans' first instinct in case of unknown danger focus on terrorists?".

And talking about "the eye of Sauron", there is of course this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kytDzjuBGJI , which still gives me the chills. An under-estimated movie, IMHO.

leot• 13 years ago

A crucial problem is that we're not, or we shouldn't be, particularly afraid of "terrorism" -- a slippery word that tends to be applied arbitrarily and politically.

What we should, and can justifiably, be afraid of is "black swan" security events (such as 9/11). The Boston Bombers were horrible people, but they weren't threats to national security, and the bombing wasn't a "black swan" event. If (and these are big "ifs") the NSA is meaningfully restricted to defending the U.S. against foreign governments, and meaningfully restricted to uncovering plots to kill thousands, then I don't see where the privacy concern is.

jivatmanx2• 13 years ago

I think that the 'transparent society' idea is that all communication is fully public, rather than just to the nsa. The difference is drastic when considering the balance of power in society.

marquis• 13 years ago

This discussion has propelled us internally to completely review all our networking infrastructure, both of us and for our customers. We will definitely be letting everyone one know when we feel 'compliant' for privacy, and where we can't be, and allow for users to opt-out or permanently delete any history we may keep. I think it's been great for us to make this happen and I hope other businesses also look to this as an opportunity.

On that note - it should also be an opportunity for any experts here who do security reviews to get some exposure.

sp332• 13 years ago

What is to be done? The answer is easy. It has always been easy. Stop saying "not in my name" and start saying "over my dead body". That's what we did. It works. Do it.

--Julian Assange, receiving the Global Exchange Human Rights Award http://wlcentral.org/node/2818

gonvaled3• 13 years ago

This is all nice and good. Unfortunately, it means absolutely nothing. Since we know that lying is (by law) part of what corporations are forced to do when addressing questions of "national security", no amount of denies, press releases, public outrage or congressional talk will restore trust. Even new legislation specifically forbidding snooping will not help, since we can never be sure that there is no "secret legislation" specifically allowing it - and forcing companies to comply.

I am sure lots of people want to genuinely change the situation in the US. Unfortunately, we can not believe it. For all the talk that the reddit co-founder will, as a private person, make, the simple question to reddit-the-company: "are you snooping on me" has no meaning whatsoever. Either the answer will be a "no comment", or it will always be perceived to be lie.

jacobparker2• 13 years ago

Since we know that lying is (by law) part of what corporations are forced to do when addressing questions of "national security", no amount of denies, press releases, public outrage or congressional talk will restore trust.

What law are you referring to? The FISA gag orders do not mandate lying.

gonvaled3• 13 years ago

Corporations have been denying participation for years because acknowledging being part of the program was a crime.

ctdonath3• 13 years ago

Sometimes lack of response is quite telling. Sometimes telling garners severe consequences. That doesn't leave alternatives.

"Honey, are you cheating on me?"

Zigurd3• 13 years ago

There is an answer that will restore confidence: Open systems for endpoints, including firmware, and zero knowledge in the cloud. That may require you to pay where ad supported services had been free. But every piece of it could be productized in weeks.

Funny that none of the cloud service providers has put that forward as a way to restore their credibility.

ippisl2• 13 years ago

Productized in weeks ? even firmware ? that seems really hard.

How would you do it? Please share(if it's OK).

dllthomas5• 13 years ago

Open isn't necessarily verifiable.

btipling• 13 years ago

Nice ddg plug at the end there. Always be closing. :P

kn0thing14• 13 years ago

You'd think I were an investor! Just a superfan.

rexreed2• 13 years ago

That's great! Do you get down to Philly or Baltimore much? We've got a big fan base here that would love to chat with you at a TechBreakfast in Philly or Baltimore - let me know.

a3n• 13 years ago

I try to promote ddg without being annoying.

One thing I do is send a ddg search result link in email when it's relevant to the conversation. No one link will cause anyone to switch, but continued familiarity might help whatever makes the final nudge.

hawkharris• 13 years ago

Alexis is a good speaker. It's refreshing to see a founder talk about his startup in down-to-earth terms instead of being egotistical and speaking in platitudes.

Nrsolis2• 13 years ago

He's actually improved over time. I saw him on a panel and he was rolled over by a MPAA/RIAA shill. I'm glad he's grown more confident and poised on screen.

kn0thing14• 13 years ago

I've been doing public speaking for a while now (e.g., my TED talk was back in '09 http://www.ted.com/talks/alexis_ohanian_how_to_make_a_splash...) but live TV 'debate' is a whole 'nother beast.

You're talking about my first 'debate' on MSNBC (it pains me to link to it but....) http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.com/_news/2012/01/15/10161056-...

Yeah, I was totally unprepared for that format (my first 'debate') and it was covered in failsauce. I just couldn't believe he'd so brazenly lie like that, interrupt, etc. The feedback on reddit and HN was pretty helpful, though, and the day of the blackout I was on literally every other network much better armed.

(shameless plug: I write about all of this in great detail in my forthcoming book, Without Their Permission)

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2012/01/18/exp-poi...

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ol56z/reddit_found... (never do an interview on a cell phone)

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1400506693001/websites-go-dar...

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/83688294-reddit-com-oppositio...

The next time I was invited for a debate (fast company conference in NY) it was a different story, imho: http://www.fastcompany.com/1834779/reddit-cofounder-bands-ex...

kn0thing14• 13 years ago

Thanks btw! I wonder if it has something to do with not being in the Valley bubble...

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130219190155-44...

xtc• 13 years ago

Glossing over the data that you could glean from reddit was a mistake. Even if there isn't that much valuable data directly from reddit's back-end it's probably more useful to tie it to data from the same users extracted from other websites. You shouldn't have down-played that.

Kiro• 13 years ago

Off-topic but I wish there was a way to filter out all these NSA stories. It has really destroyed Hacker News for me and I hope it doesn't go on for too long.

gzavitz• 13 years ago

So you're cool with what the NSA is doing?

jpreiland• 13 years ago

He probably just wants to read about development without 70% of the front page being about NSA stuff. I'm pretty new here, but as far as I know this isn't National Security News, it's Hacker News. Not wanting to see it on HN specifically doesn't mean you're okay with it. I know it's a big deal, but it's getting annoying to me too.

maxerickson2• 13 years ago

I don't think discussion here is particularly going to contribute to the voice of the public that would actually do something to change it.

Sorry for the fuzzy expression there, nothing better jumped to mind.

tommoor• 13 years ago

Try this chrome extension: http://bit.ly/13sD6TY

daywalker2• 13 years ago

This is the biggest story in tech, period.

This is about the revealing of a surveillance state that the Stasi and Gestapo would have wet the bed over.

I'm glad that people on Hacker News have their priorities straight and these NSA stories are rising to the top rather than some banal discussion over the color of iOS 7 icons.

aaronsnoswell• 13 years ago

Why the hell does CNN's video player play on load?

driverdan• 13 years ago

Use click to play for all plugins. Problem (and many other problems) solved.

omd• 13 years ago

I think it's time we give up on the idea of communicating privately over a centralized network. Wiretapping was invented only a few years after the invention of the telephone[1]. It won't be stopped by technology and certainly not by legislation. People need to get used treating the Internet as a public space: cover your mouth when you cough, don't pick your nose in public and don't communicate sensitive information over the Internet.

The next big thing (hopefully soon) will be communication through a decentralized, infrastructure-less device.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_tapping#History

draggnar• 13 years ago

The outgoing chairman of the FCC was interviewed recently [1] and alluded to new ad hoc networks created by cell phone users, to be used in times of emergencies where networks get overloaded.

[1] http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12968

electrograv• 13 years ago

It seems like no matter what you do, it will always be possible for someone to tap into a wire or node between point A and point B (unless some revolutionary point-to-point information teleportation is invented). So isn't the next big thing just the strengthening (or proper application) of encryption?

Otherwise, how can a "decentralized, infrastructure-less" system really guarantee any privacy beyond simply making it more of a hassle to wiretap?

rkuester• 13 years ago

Thank you, Alexis. Well done.

kn0thing14• 13 years ago

You're quite welcome! Thanks!

brador• 13 years ago

The entire conecept of pre-crime is everyone is a suspect, and you can never be proven innocent because you haven't yet committed the crime you are alleged to eventually commit.

It's scary stuff yet surprisingly innevitable given the direction of AI.

_b8r02• 13 years ago

I have some ideas and some plans in mind for getting around this. If anyone in particular would be interested in helping to set up or back a privacy-oriented startup aimed at defeating a lot of what's been going on, then please get in touch via my profile.

robomartin2• 13 years ago

Perhaps the number one priority of those in tech should be to educate the public about the potential intrusiveness of data surveillance.

Politicians and idiot TV hosts have made statements akin to "all they are collecting are phone numbers, times and cell tower data".

Ha! Give me that and access to other sources such as LinkedIn, Facebook, your email on Gmail, your Google docs, IRS and state tax filings, court documents, vehicle registration, travel records, Amazon, Ebay, college and university records and a myriad of other publicly and not-so-publicly available data and those phone numbers become powerful unique identifiers through which I can learn just about everything about you, your family, your friends, colleagues, occupation, hobbies, history and more.

There's nothing innocent or insignificant about "just collecting phone numbers".

g8oz• 13 years ago

Tangentially ontopic: I remember an offhand comment from someone in the intel community a few years ago that went along the lines of "you can't really have privacy unless you run your own DNS servers". Can they really store all dns lookups?

notdrunkatall• 13 years ago

Kind of surprised this isn't on the front page of reddit right now.

kn0thing14• 13 years ago

Hmm, yeah, it did so-so on /r/politics, maybe it'll have more luck on /r/technology -- most of the time I'm happy there isn't a Kevin Rose <-> digg relationship between me <-> reddit, but every now and then it'd be helpful.

octatone2• 13 years ago

Well it's not a .gif ... so...

makerops2• 13 years ago

I think one of the ways this bullshit is solved is liquid democracy. Allow people to transfer votes to people they feel are experts via a bitcoin like system. 90% of people have only an interest in a very small subset of topics that they vote on. They aren't qualified to cast a vote, why not allow them to delegate to an expert? Of course buying votes would be highly illegal.

greedo• 13 years ago

I think that's what's known as a representative democracy...

makerops2• 13 years ago

Kind of, but not really. In a representative democracy, you are voting a professional politician into office, who's sole existence is to stay in office. They are beholden to money, and outside interests. With a liquid democracy, it is essentially a direct democracy, without all the headaches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy

eggnet• 13 years ago

Reddit has information that can be used to identify the author of a submission or comment. I was a disappointed to hear the soft stance on protecting reddit user data.

scarlson• 13 years ago

Hanging out in /r/redditdev and /r/ideasfortheadmins, you'd be surprised how often ideas come up that could potentially harm users that some admins will either champion or agree with.

I guess it's the same as any small company in that everyone is going to have an opinion, I just wish they had someone more anal about protecting users first on their staff.

I do my best to speak out against anything that could compromise user privacy/security, but in the end it's not up to me!

bornhuetter5• 13 years ago

Have you got any examples of this? There are plenty of terrible ideas on /r/ideasfortheadmins, but I don't remember seeing Admins agree with them very often.

payomdousti• 13 years ago

Couldn't get past the fact that the interviewer probably did 0 prep work for this.

stevetursi• 13 years ago

Hastily-transcribed transcript for those who can't watch the video:

Q "NSA and PRISM - what's the sentiment in the valley?"

A "Maybe this is indicative of the fact that I live in New York; that I've never really been part of that herd. We are as citizens I think really upset, really frustrated because we have an expectation that whether it is our private property offline or online, that it will be respected, and that's what the Fourth Amendment protects. And needless to say it was rather disappointing to see all this news come out and apparently much more on the way."

Q "You're building a startup that could become the next Reddit or Facebook: At what point do you say, 'I think I got to get a Lawyer?'"

A "Yeah it will certainly come up a lot sooner for founders and founders who were maybe thinking, 'move fast and break things' will now think 'move fast and break things but don't break the constitution.' And this is an opportunity for us as citizens to start to draw a line in the sand for what is off-limits and private in the digital age."

Q "If the government asked you for information, what information could you give them?"

A "Well there really isn't any. When people use reddit as a platform to publicly share links and publicly have discussions. So the primary use of the site is that is in public so there really isn't a ton of useful data there."

Q "What advice do you give these young folks who are building these companies and this is becoming a reality?"

A "There's my investor hat, my founder hat, and my citizen hat - and that citizen hat trumps everything else. And I want to make sure that the environment we are starting companies in has a government that respects the our right to privacy so that these kinds of discussions going forward aren't even a factor or an issue and I think the ability for us to use this technology has sort of outpaced - unfortunately - some of our legislator's understanding of what kind of laws they should be writing. Whether it's making sure our elected officials understand the internet and understand technology is just as important though as making sure we get more of these people who inherently and innately understand this technology into office. I think the other interesting thing is more and more founders are really rallying behind companies now that are themselves built on a model of respecting privacy. One that I know rather well is called duckdduckgo and it's a venture backed by USV here in New York - a search engine competitor to google and their core business proposition is 'we don't track anything you search for on our site.' And so I imagine more startups to kind of take that lead."

kn0thing14• 13 years ago

Thanks! I've already got a few offers from vendors who want to make "Citizen" hats... all proceeds to EFF of course.

CurtMonash• 13 years ago

Good piece. His personal concern is for "chilling effect".

His public concern beyond that is for blackmail of national leaders. That actually worries me less, as the public is becoming much more tolerant of "vice" in its leaders. (For example -- President Obama is an admitted cocaine and pot user; President Bush was an admitted drunkard and widely-suspected cocaine user; President Clinton was a widely-suspected adulterer and pot user.)

Reddit co-founder on NSA snooping [video]

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