back to article 'The Google execs, the journalists, plus Brit and US spybosses in a cosy mansion confab'

A high-level private meeting between Silicon Valley execs, spies and others was held in the UK this month: on the agenda, the state of government surveillance, and what limits should be put on it. The attendee list is impressive. Key speakers apparently included former acting CIA boss John McLaughlin; former White House deputy …

  1. Tromos

    More likely Google and Apple are there in a training capacity. Question is - are they being trained by the spooks or is it the other way round?

  2. fruitoftheloon
    Thumb Up

    apple and google...

    'Asserting the rights of their shareholders.'

    Mftfy...

    'Tis a quagmire to be sure.

    J.

    1. GrumpyOldBloke

      Re: apple and google...

      Ironically in that meeting it is only the Apple and Google execs with their shareholders who can publicly disclose who they are actually working for.

  3. elDog

    So is Sir Snowden benighted?

    Understanding that term is more used for the Lord of Darkness.

    Since Mr. Ed Snowden has done more to promote openness and sharing and general bonhomie, can't we let him enjoy the freedom that is awaiting him? I'm sure all of the 5-Eyes group have festival cruises planned for him. Perhaps the Ecuadorian gent from Australia wanted by Sweden and holed up in Her Majesty's Kingdom would like to join.

    Come on people - there are some real criminals out there that need to pay the price for their crimes. And I'm thinking of LIBOR, FOREX, IRAQ, banksters, crooksters. Can we have a discussion about how to dispose of these crooks?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Black Helicopters

      Re: So is Sir Snowden benighted?

      "And I'm thinking of LIBOR, FOREX, IRAQ, banksters, crooksters. Can we have a discussion about how to dispose of these crooks?"

      Magic 8-ball says!....."Forget it, kid" (Especially considering who all these intel agencies at the meeting work for.)

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: So is Sir Snowden benighted?

        Marketing Hack/elDog/Magic 8-ball,

        Re all of those hooky, intellectually bankrupt crooks, what do you think the dark web with its dark pools of Alternative/Advanced/Alien Intelligence is for and all about? And do you not imagine that the smarter intelligence services cannot realise which side of the fence it is now safer to be on? Irregular unconventional versus establishment traditional? Novel dynamic versus stagnant terrified? And especially so nowadays that targeting is becoming ever more personalised and directed at systems figureheads rather than rank and file servants/lemming followers.

    2. Tail Up
      Holmes

      Re: So is Sir Snowden?

      Exactly, Mr. elDog, exactly "Ed". Used to hear his name about five or six times during probably a year before he bought the tickets. His name was never mentioned as Edward, but Ed. Tipping my invisible hat (-:

  4. Daggerchild Silver badge

    "Curious", said Alice.

    Who wrote the invite list, and what were the inclusion criteria? (And dang, that's some address book they have).

    Face value, if crystallised around need, it suggests the Powers want what they can no longer so easily Take, but also that everything important here's in the hands of only a handful of new Players. Mobile Information Access.

    Suprised Facebook's not there to be honest, or Microsoft.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmm... I'm sure the "Snowden newsletter, The Intercept" dig is entirely justified and I'm sure that the roll call of gagged journos will put everyone's minds at rest.

    Excuse me if this kind of closed door group of elites does nothing to make me feel more comfortable.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Black Helicopters

      I agree with Grizewald. I'm glad that some pro-civil liberties journalists were there, but I get twitchy when a bunch of the high-and-mighty get together in private to discuss my freedoms, and come away with something like "and we reached an agreement in principle". Especially when a bunch of the high-and-mighty are spooks who have a bad track record of being credible when they talk about what great supporters of privacy they are.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Dave 126 Silver badge

        It makes you feel uncomfortable? Surely one assumes that many of the attendees have already met in secret.

      3. Sisyphus
        IT Angle

        I.T. Role Reversals/New-Think.

        Our chief concern here seems to be that the blanket Internet personal computer privacy of our mole-like resident Chinese, Persian-Muslim and Arabic-Muslim speaking residents inside Western countries who're busily probing our grids and infrastructures should not be infringed. This of course includes the guarding of the privacy of those of us here who are quietly plotting bombings and throat slitting on our streets.

        But, rigid Internet access censorship procedures inside China, Iran, and Muslim controlled areas are really a non-"issue" for us, and are merely a domestic affaire of only those countries.

        So, I.T. Security-Subject conclaves held by industry experts at fora inside Bletchley-like country houses concerned about our being penetrated here on our Home soil raise eyebrows and are material for the next Dan Brown novel.

        Strange new world.

        1. Sisyphus
          Meh

          Re: I.T. Role Reversals/New-Think.

          Here's a further 'at large' question on this 'privacy' question:

          Go back to 1940 or so. Do readers here think that breaking the Enigma Code effort at Bletchley Park was an infringement of the Nazi Government's communications privacy?

          Am not intending to be snarky here, just trying to extend this scurrilous thinking that the Publik's 'right to privacy' trumps a nation's physical security.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Top of my list....

    Is that the boys from the spying apparatus club stop claiming that their cameras are only ever used to hunt 'T's.... Instead they must admit that the technology is also used for economic and industrial espionage and the tracking and monitoring of anyone remotely affecting elite American interests!

    Maybe Duncan feels this is progress.... But the first step 'the abusers' must take is to acknowledge past abuses and not just dismiss them away conveniently, by claiming that 'the victims tempted us with their data promiscuity'...

  7. V 3

    singular....

    >All participants were bound by Chatham House rules;

    >an agreement not to publicly attribute comments to particular participants.

    I know it is often referred to in the plural, but there is only one rule. The Chatham House Rule.

    http://www.chathamhouse.org/about/chatham-house-rule

    1. Mark 85

      Re: singular....

      True, but the context for "rules" would be:

      1) Chatham-House-Rule

      2) Never forget rule #1.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "... it's not that sinister" ??

    I dunno about that. You don't have to be a tinfoil-hatter to find something disturbing in a cosy chat between spooks and representatives of the tech companies that know so much about the rest of us.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "... it's not that sinister" ??

      That Google, Apple, and others are taking part isn't necessarily bad news, but a sign that they might be asserting the rights of their users

      ...or asserting their rights to profit from their users?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    I see...

    "Closed-door meetings like this make some people nervous, but they do serve a useful purpose since all parties can speak frankly without getting dragged over the hot coals of the media."

    Public scrutiny it's a bitch uh?

    1. emmanuel goldstein

      Re: I see...

      If yu nu go unda fowl coob, fowl cyaa shit pan yu.

  10. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    I guess it depends who'se being convinced of who's viewpoint.

    The corps.

    "If you steal all the data for free, how will we be able to mine it for profit?"

    The organs (of state security)

    If you're encryption and privacy are too good how will we ever catch terrorists/paedophiles/paedo-terrorists/drug barons/terrifying threat group de joure.

  11. Chris G

    How do we know

    That the Duncan Campbell that went in is the same one that came out?

    Lizard in a Campbell suit for all we know!

    Still, if you are not doing anything wrong;

    Encrypt and VPN it anyway

  12. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    The Bigger Picture

    That Google, Apple, and others are taking part isn't necessarily bad news, but a sign that they might be asserting the rights of their users.

    That Google and Apple users are exercising remote command and virtual control with devices in SCADA systems of administration/silent private executive orders/shadowy global governance circles is something else which they will be unable to share freely with y'all.

    Such is the cross that they choose to bear though in service to the altar of secrecy which would presume to protect and maintain status quo elites as the only leading revolutionary force for power and energy delivery .... future intellectual property supply which be both explosively creative and disruptively destructive in and/or for perverse and corrupt organisations/conspiring cabals/bankrupt organisations.

  13. Stretch

    Cold day in hell when Apple or Google give a fuck about their users apart from what can be fleeced from them.

  14. Tail Up
    Facepalm

    Teaching His Master's Voice

    It was funny seeing Russia's PM Dima Medvedev sitting at the meeting at Putin's office quietly with a brand new Apple "I Watch" on his wrist. Bloggers spotted him - http://www.iphones.ru/iNotes/dmitry-medvedev-premier-russia-apple-watch

  15. Sisyphus
    Meh

    Gasp! Could This Be For Our Benefit?

    Why is there no mention here of the presumed subject of those closed meetings: Muslim and Chinese cyber-warfare infiltration and subversion of our national grids and infrastructures?

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: Gasp! Could This Be For Our Benefit?

      Why is there no mention here of the presumed subject of those closed meetings: Muslim and Chinese cyber-warfare infiltration and subversion of our national grids and infrastructures? .... Sisyphus

      One might assume that be such here, because it be recognised here as just being but one small piece of the jigsaw which spooked services are pimping/pumping/sub-priming, Sisyphus.

    2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Gasp! Could This Be For Our Benefit?

      Why is there no mention here of the presumed subject of those closed meetings: Muslim and Chinese cyber-warfare infiltration and subversion of our national grids and infrastructures?

      Because that emphatically isn't what is being discussed. Without question, what is being discussed is how to control us, the everyday citizens of western nations. Regardless of whether or not those citizens belong to an ethnic, religious and cultural group that has you terrified. And yes, that means they are discussing how to control you Sisyphus. They are not discussing how to keep you safe.

      They don't give a rat's ass about keeping you safe, and they never, ever have.

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: Gasp! Could This Be For Our Benefit? @ Trevor_Pott

        Quite so, T_P. And here is one old and remarkably simple way in which it can be done for many/most folk ........

        It is true, though, that in the Middle East, American domination took a different form. When American oil companies wanted Middle Eastern oil, they didn’t seize it; they bought it from the rulers of the peoples who live on top of it.

        And, if there weren’t rulers willing or able to sell, the Americans created them.

        The House of Saud made out like bandits. For the oil companies, it was a small price to pay.

        The U.S. got control of the oil without having to administer rebellious colonies. Meanwhile, local elites got rich. All they had to do for the money was give the Americans free rein and enforce the order that made American domination possible – with American help, of course, and with arms purchased from American corporations. ..... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-25/how-saudis-wag-washington-dog

        That is the magical power of virtually worthless paper money. It buys/sells dreams to dreamers and nightmares to schemers. And with IT and efficient enough global mainstream media control, is it a sticky sweet gem of a cyber command and control operation which is doomed to failure and bound to implode spectacularly and explode catastrophically in too big to fail alternative narrative joint ventures/dark web enterprises, should such missionary explorers so choose to wish and doggedly explore with magically empowered exploits.

        ….. but some other folk realise it is an inherent systemic vulnerability which is an ab fab fabless attack vector which if attacked itself leads to quicker failure and systems defeat.

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