[zmgsabst]

Having been in Seattle, I’m not sure there was a time the NSA wasn’t involved with technology — eg, UW hosted meetups between researchers, criminals, and the government at least that long.

Who built the Echelon follow-up, proto-dragnet system that provided the framework for the spying you bemoan? — the one extended and taken live in the early 2000s? Those same 90s hackers you glorify.

[user3939382]

> provided the framework for the spying you bemoan

The community I’m talking about definitely weren’t like secretly building tools for these agencies. I mean this sincerely I have no idea what point you’re making. The agencies existed and made tech so by logical necessity people worked there. I didn’t say all people in computing.

There was a prevalent community of programmers and hackers who understood what these organizations represented and would never be on a forum blithely talking about some tool they made as if it was acceptable. Shame on anyone using these tools and the lack of objection to this post is a metric of how disgusting computing culture and really this forum are.

[zmgsabst]

> The community I’m talking about definitely weren’t like secretly building tools for these agencies. I mean this sincerely I have no idea what point you’re making.

You knew exactly what point I’m making, because it’s the first thing you responded to. And indeed, what you responsed to throughout your question. So no, you’re not being sincere.

Those groups always interacted and your bald assertion of their morality is directly contradicted by my experience of their interactions (eg, criminals and government corresponding at UW) and the change in Boomer and Gen X hackers following 9/11.

> There was a prevalent community of programmers and hackers who understood what these organizations represented and would never be on a forum blithely talking about some tool they made as if it was acceptable.

From their computers that originated in a US Navy lab?

Again, my experience from Seattle is that the idealism was always more show than reality — and government technologies were not only consumed, but built on contract when interests aligned (eg, stopping cyber warfare or dismantling terrorist networks).

What you’re describing — ineffective moral absolutism — wasn’t what I recall from the 90s hacker ethos that always existed in a liminal zone, but rather the 2010s era co-opting of existing groups (eg, Anyonymous) for moral crusading.