Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ0NkT6gbP0
the jurgen experience there's like fundamentally there's two ways to think about uh security one is like computer security uh this idea that will somehow make computers secure we'll put information on the computers and then we'll prevent other people from accessing those computers and that is like a losing strategy that people have been losing for 30 years you know uh you information ends up on a computer somewhere and it ends up compromised in the end the other way to think about security is information security where you secure the information itself that you don't have to worry about the security of the computers you could have some computers in the cloud somewhere information's flowing through them and people can compromise compromise those things and it doesn't really matter because the information itself is encrypted um and so you know things like sms you know the imessage cloud backups um most other messengers facebook messenger all that stuff you know um they're relying on this computer security model um and that uh ends up disappointing people in the end and so you why did you guys create it like what what was unsatisfactory about the other options that were available well because the way the internet works today is like insane uh you know that uh you know fundamentally i feel like um private communication is important because i think that change happens in private um everything that is fundamentally decent today uh started out as something that was a socially unacceptable idea at the time you look at things like you know obvious things abolition of slavery legalization of marijuana legalization of same-sex marriage uh even you know constructing the declaration of independence those are all things that required a space for people to process ideas outside the context of everyday life and um those spaces don't exist on the internet today and i think it's kind of crazy the
way the internet works today you know that like if you imagined um you know every moment that you were talking to somebody in real life there was somebody there just with a clipboard a stranger taking notes about what you said that would change the character of your conversations uh and i think that in some ways like we're living through a shortage of brave or bold or courageous ideas in part because people don't have the space to process what's happening in their lives outside of the context of everyday interactions that's a really good way to put it because you've got to give people a chance to think things through but if you do that publicly they're not going to they're going to sort of like like basically what you see on twitter you know if you stray from what is considered to be the acceptable norm or the current ideology or whatever whatever you're supposed to whatever opinions you're supposed to have on a certain subject you get attacked ruthlessly so so you see a lot of self-censorship and you also see a lot of virtue signaling where people sort of pretend that they espouse a certain series of ideas because that'll get them some you know some social cred yeah exactly i think that communication in those environments is performative you know you're either performing for an angry mob you're performing for advertisers you're performing for you know the governments that are watching yeah and i think also the ideas that make it through are kind of tainted as a result you know that like uh did you watch any of the like the online hearing stuff that was happening over covet uh you know where like uh city councils and stuff were having their hearings online no i did not uh it was kind of interesting to me because it's like um you know they can't meet in person so they're doing it online and uh that means that the public comment period was also online you know
and so it used to be that like you know if you go to city council meeting uh they have a period of public comment where you know people can just stand up and say what you think you know and like ordinarily it's like oh you gotta go to city hall you gotta like wait in line you gotta sit there you know but then when it's on zoom it's just sort of like anyone can just show up right on the zoom you know they just dial in and they're just like here's what i think you know and uh you know it was kind of interesting because particularly uh when a lot of the police brutality still was happening in los angeles i was i was watching those city council hearings and you know people were just like you know you know they were just calling you to be like [ __ ] you i yield the rest of my time [ __ ] you you know like it was just like uh really brutal and uh not undeservingly so and uh you know what was interesting to me was just watching the politicians basically you know who just had to sit there and just they were just like take it you know and it was just like you know you get three minutes and then there's someone else you get you know they're just like okay and now we'll hear from you know like and you know watching that you sort of realize that it's like um to be a politician you have to just sort of fundamentally not really care what people think of you you know uh you have to fundamentally uh just be comfortable sitting you know and having people yell at you you know for three minutes in three minute increments for an hour whatever you know and so it seems like what we've sort of done is like bred these people who are willing to do that you know and in some ways that's like a useful characteristic but in other ways that's the characteristic of a psychopath you know yes yes and i think you know what we're seeing is that that also extends outside of those environments that like
to do anything ambitious today requires that you just are comfortable with that kind of um feedback like trump's tweets if you watch you know if you look at twitter and look at any of trump's tweets when he tweets watch what people say it's ruthless they go crazy they go so hard on him so i'm assuming he doesn't read them i'm assuming he just or maybe he does and just doesn't say anything but he knows he doesn't go back and forth with people at least no but and i'm i i think you know trump is perfectly capable of just not caring you know just like people like you know grazing is just like yo whatever what you know i'm the best they don't you know yeah and like that's um you know that's politics but i think you know the danger is when that uh you know to do anything ambitious you know outside of politics or whatever you know requires that you're capable of just not caring you know what people think whatever because everything is happening in public i think you made a really good point in that change comes from people discussing things privately because you have to it's a you have to be able to take a chance you have to be daring and you have to be able to confide in people and you have to be able to say hey um this is not right and we're going to do something about it if you do that publicly the powers that be that do not want change in any way shape or form they'll they'll come down on you i mean this is essentially what edward snowden was warning everyone about when he decided to go public with all this nsa information he was saying look this is not what we signed up for you like someone's constantly monitoring your emails constantly listening to phone calls like this is not this mass surveillance thing it's very bad for just the culture of free expression just our ability to have ideas and to be able to share them back and forth and vet them out
it's very bad yeah yeah i mean i think when you look at the the history of that kind of surveillance there are a few interesting inflection points you know like at the beginning of um you know the internet as we know it in like the early to mid 90s um there were these like dod efforts to do mass surveillance you know um and um they were sort of open about what they were doing uh uh and you know one of them was this program called total information awareness and uh it was they were trying to start this office i think called the total awareness office or something within the dod and the idea was like they're just going to like collect information uh on all americans and everyone's communication and just stockpile it into these uh databases and then they would use that to you know mine those things for information uh it was sort of like you know their their uh effort to get in on this at the beginning of the information age uh and you know it was ridiculous you know it's like they called it total information awareness they had a logo that was like um you know the pyramid with the eye on top of it oh yeah this is this is their logo god it's like the pyramid with the eye like casting a beam on the earth that bit of latin there means knowledge is power oh wow and interesting this this program was actually started by uh john poindexter of all people who was involved in the iran contra stuff i think really yeah yeah and he like went to jail for a second and then was pardoned or something but uh so anyway you know they're like that's so [ __ ] up these people are in charge of anything i know but what's also i just kind of comical is that like they were like this is what we're going to do look at how crazy this is like this this is our plan you know and people were like uh i don't think so you know like what year was this this is like early mid 90s look at this authentication
biometric data face fingerprints gate iris your gate so they're going to identify people based on the way they walk i guess your gate is that specific um then automated virtual data repositories privacy and security this is fascinating because if you look at i mean obviously no one thought of cell phones back then exactly right this is so this is like kind of amateurish right so it's like they're like this is what we're gonna do you know and people were like uh i don't think you know even like congress was like ah guys i don't think we can like approve this you know uh like you need a better logo you know i can't for sure but it's just this whole flow chart is that what this would be what do you what do you call something like this what it's called flowchart i guess sort of designed to dazzle you and yeah approving their fun it's like baffling to figure out what it is like first of all what are all those little color tubes those little ones those little cylinders these are data silos oh that's the universal they're all different colors there's purple ones what's in the purple data well that's prince yeah it's all prince's information but so okay so that you know this this stuff all sort of got shut down right yeah like they're like okay we can't do this you know uh and then instead what ended up happening was like data naturally accumulated in different places you know that um you know like back then if you had been you know what they were trying to do is be like our proposal is that everyone carry a government mandated tracking device at all times like what do you guys think you know it'll make us safer you know and people are like no i don't think so you know but instead everyone ended up just carrying cell phones at all times which are tracking your location and reporting them into centralized repositories that
government has access to you know and so uh you know this this sort of like oblique surveillance infrastructure ended up emerging and that was what you know people sort of knew about but you know we didn't really know and that's what uh snowden um revealed was like uh you know instead we don't have this instead it's like all of that all of those things are happening naturally you know your you know gate detection fingerprint you know like all the stuff's happening naturally it's ending up in these places and then you know governments are just going to those places and getting the information catch new episodes of the joe rogan experience for free only on spotify watch back catalog jre videos on spotify including clips easily seamlessly switch between video and audio experience on spotify you can listen to the jre in the background while using other apps and can download episodes to save on data cost all for free spotify is absolutely free you don't have to have a premium account to watch new jre episodes you just need to search for the jre on your spotify app go to spotify now to get this full episode of the joe rogan experience