Not just BAE.<p>Facebook only a few months ago began helping Pakistan "fight blasphemy", sending a team to the country.<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39300270" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39300270</a><p>Only for a man to be sentenced to death for committing blasphemy on Facebook a little while later.<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40246754" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40246754</a><p>Facebook say they are not responsible for this but it's obvious they have blood on their hands.
All of you programmers working on "cool" technology understand that this is going to be turned against your own children? Doesn't matter, does it? We all had a good time!<p>Its really amazing to watch iron chains form from digital crystals. Did we learn nothing about history while our young people studied algorithms? Did taking "Computer Science" classes seclude us from the reality of how all of this would be used?<p>We should feel some shame and remorse. If you're in this industry, start telling us here everyday what you've done so that some can have a chance to deal with the coming digital dictatorship. It will be worldwide, it will be unjust, and people will not be able to run away from it because it will cross borders.<p>They lied to you when they told you they "needed" it for safety reasons, or for the children, or other soundless reasons to deceive you into building invisible prisons.
In other news: West funds oppressive Arab states. Really, if we didn't want them spying on people, we shouldn't be giving them all that oil money. Funding terrorists is illegal, why is funding oppressive governments OK and then it's suddenly not OK when they spend that money to oppress people?
2014 while working in US federal info sec, one of my coworkers had a boyfriend employed by BAE working on surveillance software. I was surprised to learn that BAE produced such software. She explained to me that while certain laws prohibited US citizens from spying on each other, foriegn countries are exempt from those laws, so it is apparently common for surveillance software developed in the US to be deployed targeting the US by US allies who work with the US government.
Rather than just whine about lax security practices, here is an nginx config file that will get you a pretty high score on scanners like Mozilla's Observatory.<p><a href="https://gist.github.com/zachaysan/89d40b3214160ce9d59a2b913645a012" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/zachaysan/89d40b3214160ce9d59a2b9136...</a><p>If you work on things that involve sexuality, health, or finance and you don't enable these types of protections you're risking lives or financial ruin.<p>Also if you see a shortcoming please let me know, I created this in a bit of a rush and I'm always happy to learn more.
"While the sales are legal, human rights campaigners and cyber-security experts have expressed serious concerns these powerful tools could be used to spy on millions of people and thwart any signs of dissent."<p>Whilst true, why does this point seem to matter for other countries governments than our own?
If you have time, watch Bitter Lake by Adam Curtis: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gyz6b" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gyz6b</a> (also available on youtube if you are outside the UK - though seems mildly edited)<p>Shows the tangled complicity in each others affairs that exists between UK, US and the Arab countries, and some of the background behind them and the leverage that we have over each over.
The Danish media is less gentle with their wording. The customers aren't talked about as "repressive governments" but is straight up called dictatorships.
Western democracies should impose a domestic procurement ban on companies which sell to foreign governments without civilian control over their militaries. This would not require new export controls or restrictions on international trade, only voluntary divestment when awarding domestic procurement contracts on the public's behalf. Problem solved.
It sucks when nationstates have real security they work that the citizens want done, but are also relatively evil. You have to guess whether they'll be doing more evil or more real useful law enforcement. We only hear about the evil.