Edward Snowden's inability to physically appear in public settings is suggestive, along with the headaches his actions have given to the internet power structure.
Edward Snowden is the single most influential person in the entire history of information security and it's not even close. The data he revealed changed the direction of the evolution of the internet rapidly and completely. HTTPS websites, E2E encrypted communications, VPN providers, metadata reduction, etc. All of these things gained traction because of Snowden and are integral to the modern internet.
Aside from the very real gains in privacy and security, I would also like to make the argument that we would currently be living in a fragmented hellscape of an internet if the net had not turned (mostly) opaque after 2013. Imagine the same AI spam filters currently operating on your email but for all network traffic. We would be suffocating under the weight of (sometimes) well-meaning, but ill-conceived security solutions. Fortunately, we took a different path.
I was joking (could I say deadpanning?), the serious part being that Snowden showed a need for freedom from US-made software (regardless of citizens' freedoms), and that the rest of the world tries hard to look so bad that it makes Russia look better than it deserves.
This is a database of potential Snowdens. The "intelligence community" is a strange, puritanical, paranoid sort of place. It wouldn't be so bad if it hadn't grown so preposterously large.
We're on the verge of losing the some very key values the internet provides here. We have to take our heroes as we can get them. Snowden has his flaws, but compared to the beast he's fighting it's clear who's worse.
Snowden steered the conversation towards the US political establishment's _massive_ hypocrisy. At the time, the US was wagging their finger hard at Chinese tech companies, as if to say US tech companies would never stoop to the level of backdooring consumer hardware or spying on their users and handing that data over wholesale to government spies.
In addition to embarassing the American political establishment, Snowden revealed JTRIG; he revealed acts of industrial and political espionage; and he revealed the undermining of public cryptographic standards by government henchmen. This to me is the big one, and it's why it's so unlikely for Snowden to be a limited hangout.
Prior to Snowden, if you weren't being paranoid, you were just sticking your head in the sand. You would be exposing yourself to the risks of parallel construction, backdoors in hardware, sabotage of public cryptographic standards, and the manipulation of online discourse if Snowden hadn't given people like me the power to credibly parry critics who are all too quick to discredit with terms like "troll" and "conspiracy theorist".
Snowden showed James Clapper to be a criminal, too. And the IRS claiming its own electronic paper trail of criminality could be somehow "lost" in this age of pervasive surveillance lends credibility to the idea of there being a clear divide between those who are above the law, and the rest of us. The Rulers and the Ruled.
Maybe it's just because I don't frequent social networks all that much, but I've never been exposed to this sort of depiction of Edward Snowden. The only coverage I've come across of him focused solely on what he did or his current predicament, not his image.
Even calling that Wired cover "sexualized" seems a little farfetched to me.
Much love for Snowden. He is a personal hero of mine. I think he should be a personal hero of yours. I think we should have statues of the guy.
Just as Snowden didn't want the story to be about him, to be a personality piece, when he released the trove of information which shook the privacy world to its core, I think he'd agree that any response to this new information should not be focused on or directed toward what he personally endorses by virtue of him as a 'personality'.
Unfortunately, the conversation has largely focused on the technical/technology dimension, while the policy and political dimensions have not seen the same engagement by their respective members. In fact, Snowden has been used by political parties as a proxy piece in disagreements regarding East-West relations. And if technology is the answer, then the general public, almost by definition, does not have a place in the discussion.
I've encountered very little ignorance of the irony; rather, I thought it was generally understood that Snowden's presence is tolerated out of political expedience (and as a bargaining chip) rather than any lofty ideals.
I've thought about Snowden that he did more of a service for people in other countries. I mean people should assume that big US internet companies are sharing data, but to have it that obvious is useful information and not healthy for those companies.
With my tin-foil hat on, I'm wondering if this whole Snowden thing isn't just to make people numb to the idea that they are being watched 24/7. And it seems that people don't care about privacy we can only expect things to get worse.
If Snowden had been less clever or resourceful he'd be stuck in solitary confinement right now instead of giving interviews. Playing chicken with the mightiest organizations on the planet and getting away with it is extremely impressive and in many ways it shows the dangers to powerful organizations like these: individuals, acting on impulse or because of convictions.
And that's precisely why all that data collection is so scary, such individuals will be shunted onto dead-end tracks long before they even realize they are such individuals in the future.
I'm kidding, of course.
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