<story><title>Spy agency ducks questions about &apos;back doors&apos; in tech products</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-congress-insight/spy-agency-ducks-questions-about-back-doors-in-tech-products-idUSKBN27D1CS</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dancemethis</author><text>They totally still call you paranoid. Snowden unfortunately meant nothing to the general technology consumer mass. They&amp;#x27;re more than happy to defend tooth and nail their jails. See Discord or Zoom as prime current examples.&lt;p&gt;It is ridiculous that he had to go through this just for people to shake their shoulders and keep on, except for the few that already were inclined to care.</text></item><item><author>pulse7</author><text>&amp;quot;The tactics drew widespread attention starting in 2013, when Snowden leaked documents referencing these practices.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;So this is what Snowden has done: he &amp;quot;drew widespread attention to these tactics&amp;quot;. Before Snowden they would call you &amp;quot;paranoid&amp;quot; if you would allow yourself to mention it. Today they can not call you paranoid anymore.&lt;p&gt;And yes, it has hurt US industry reputation. Many don&amp;#x27;t trust Intel processors and Cisco routers anymore (among other products). They actually destroyed computers and internet as we knew them in the 1990&amp;#x27;ies. It is not fun anymore to own a computer or a phone if you know that NSA can get access to it anytime they want... and you will never know if they accessed it...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>slg</author><text>It is a relatively common belief among non-technical people in my friend group that Facebook listens to everything you say within earshot of your phone and later displays ads to you based on what it hears. That belief still isn&amp;#x27;t enough to get those people to stop using Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.  It isn&amp;#x27;t that people don&amp;#x27;t think they are being spied on.  It is that people don&amp;#x27;t really care that they are being spied on.&lt;p&gt;Snowden didn&amp;#x27;t fail to change things because people didn&amp;#x27;t believe him.  He failed to change things because he didn&amp;#x27;t articulate a compelling enough reason for people to be fearful of what he revealed.&lt;p&gt;If people reading this want to see this changed, we need to do a better job of showing the real world consequences of this lost privacy.  Talking about theoretical concepts like lost freedom and privacy isn&amp;#x27;t enough.  You need tangible examples of how people&amp;#x27;s lives are made worse by this spying.</text></comment>
<story><title>Spy agency ducks questions about &apos;back doors&apos; in tech products</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-congress-insight/spy-agency-ducks-questions-about-back-doors-in-tech-products-idUSKBN27D1CS</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dancemethis</author><text>They totally still call you paranoid. Snowden unfortunately meant nothing to the general technology consumer mass. They&amp;#x27;re more than happy to defend tooth and nail their jails. See Discord or Zoom as prime current examples.&lt;p&gt;It is ridiculous that he had to go through this just for people to shake their shoulders and keep on, except for the few that already were inclined to care.</text></item><item><author>pulse7</author><text>&amp;quot;The tactics drew widespread attention starting in 2013, when Snowden leaked documents referencing these practices.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;So this is what Snowden has done: he &amp;quot;drew widespread attention to these tactics&amp;quot;. Before Snowden they would call you &amp;quot;paranoid&amp;quot; if you would allow yourself to mention it. Today they can not call you paranoid anymore.&lt;p&gt;And yes, it has hurt US industry reputation. Many don&amp;#x27;t trust Intel processors and Cisco routers anymore (among other products). They actually destroyed computers and internet as we knew them in the 1990&amp;#x27;ies. It is not fun anymore to own a computer or a phone if you know that NSA can get access to it anytime they want... and you will never know if they accessed it...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>abvdasker</author><text>Look, my estimation of &amp;quot;general technology consumer mass&amp;quot; is incredibly low, but I promise you nearly every American adult knows who Edward Snowden is and probably has at least a vague idea of what he was trying to communicate. I agree that many — maybe even most — people don&amp;#x27;t understand the issue very well, but I think it did have a pretty large impact at the time and since.</text></comment>