The US government has betrayed the Internet. We need to take it back

Fri Sep 6 16:02:44 UTC 2013

On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 6:55 AM, Royce Williams <royce at techsolvency.com> wrote:

> Daniel Ellsberg's attempt to explain this to Kissinger is insightful.  It's a pretty quick read, with many layers of important observations. (It's Mother Jones, but this content is apolitical):
>
>     http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsberg-limitations-knowledge

Er ... I forgot to include the part of the Ellsberg quote that was
most relevant to the discussion, with the last sentence here being the
icing on the cake:

"You will deal with a person who doesn't have those clearances only
from the point of view of what you want him to believe and what
impression you want him to go away with, since you'll have to lie
carefully to him about what you know. In effect, you will have to
manipulate him. You'll give up trying to assess what he has to say.
The danger is, you'll become something like a moron. You'll become
incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how
much experience they may have in their particular areas that may be
much greater than yours."

In other words: the very politicians with the clearances necessary to
strike the best balance are the ones that we cannot expect to hear us,
even in our areas of expertise.

Security engineering must take this fact as a constraint.

Royce