Alasdair Roberts Quotes

There are two kinds of cryptography in this world: cryptography that will stop your kid sister from reading your files, and cryptography that will stop major governments from reading your files.

One can doubt the sincerity of the technology community’s outrage over the NSA’s surveillance practices—doubt, for example, that the Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose company reportedly stores petabytes’ worth of data about its billion-plus active monthly users, was shocked at the thought of mass data collection.

As all of our lives become digital, the logic of encryption is all of our lives will be covered by strong encryption, and therefore all of our lives - including the lives of criminals and terrorists and spies - will be in a place that is utterly unavailable to court-ordered process. And that, I think, to a democracy should be very, very concerning.

Snowden was extremely good at digital self-defense. When he was employed by the C.I.A. and N.S.A., one of his jobs was to teach U.S. national security officials and C.I.A. employees how to protect their data in high-threat digital environments.

The National Security Agency plays so highly specialized a role in the defense and security of the United States that an outsider can actually describe its activities. They are guarded not only from the public but from other government agencies as well. The Civil Service Commission, which audits all government positions, is not allowed to know what NSA employees do.

The public must know about the general outlines of surveillance activities in order to evaluate whether the government is achieving the appropriate balance between privacy and security.

There are two kinds of cryptography in this world: cryptography that will stop your kid sister from reading your files, and cryptography that will stop major governments from reading your files.

In circumstances involving dramatic technological change, the best solution to privacy concerns may be legislative. A legislative body is well situated to gauge changing public attitudes, to draw detailed lines, and to balance privacy and public safety in a comprehensive way.

Venture capitalists are pouring billions of dollars into commercial surveillance satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles, social media analytics, biometric technologies, and cyberdefenses to meet surging market demand. Heavy competition is driving down the cost of and improving the information available to individuals, businesses, and governments.

It would be a matter of concern for government if intrusive data capture has been deployed against Indian citizens or government infrastructure.

The political solutions proposed against encryption are not going to work against terrorism.

If 300 million people were to offer up the details of their private lives, you would need to hire another 300 million people just to keep up.

In the Internet age, it is inevitable that corporations and government agencies will have access to detailed information about people's lives.

I really believe that we don't have to make a trade-off between security and privacy. I think technology gives us the ability to have both.

Man, I don't want to have nothing to do with computers. I don't want the government in my business.

The director of the FBI has been visiting Silicon Valley companies asking them to build back doors so that it can spy on what is being said online. The Department of Commerce is going after piracy. At home, the American government wants anything but Internet freedom.

We have never really had absolute privacy with our records or our electronic communications - government agencies have always been able to gain access with appropriate court orders.

Nobody - myself included - believes that we could ever achieve total information awareness. But the government needs to set goals and long-range objectives. Total information awareness is a good goal.

Virginia is the absolute leader in homeland security and defense and information technology.

We are all victims of data mining…. We are in a data mining culture…. Americans do not place a high value on the privacy of their communications and will give up that right for modest benefit.

People are just beginning to learn how much their own personal privacy is being invaded and that they’re losing control over their own information.

As much as possible, you simply don't give out information to the public, that is the first principle.

An obsession with secrecy persists in leading industrial countries.

We live in the most wide open society the world has ever known….We need to have fewer secrets and a rational classification policy.

The only truly secure system is one that is powered off, cast in a block of concrete and sealed in a lead-lined room with armed guards -- and even then I have my doubts.