Epic quote. The one problem I see with this (presuming it works) is that if the "college kids" don't "line up to buy one", deploying such a gadget will be the equivalent of firing a flare on a stormy sea. Just like encryption, nothing advertises "I have something you should look at" quite so much as saying "don't look at me.""Marijuana is a drug of illusion -- it creates the illusion that you're doing great things when all you're doing is sitting on the sofa growing a beard."
Yeah, that's true. I mean, he outright admitted that it would be used for nefarious purposes. I am curious to see how these things will operate in the wild. It says it'll have a range of 3 blocks in cities, so maybe he's envisioning some kind of piecemeal cloak that will hide more people than those that bought it? I'm also curious about this: So, it's a privacy device that also monitors?Commuters will also find it useful, he said. Neighborhoods will be better able to fight crime because Decentral will include an option that sends an alert if there is a burglary or other crime.
Oh, no doubt. Still, I think it would be interesting to see how far this goes. If it's not all "just fluff", will it start a back and forth between privacy companies and the government, or anything at all? Anyway, the NSA programs are a huge expenditure of resources and personnel and at the end of the day, are we better for it? I'm not saying that McAffee will answer that question, but it may lead the American public to think more about what is and is not an acceptable allocation of resources. It'll be interesting to see how privacy affects elections at any rate.
I'll grant that there is some non-zero chance that his involvement will bring the darknet more into the mainstream conversation. But the conversation has been going on for along time before the Snowden releases began. By no means do I intend to communicate any sort of approval of the NSA and its tactics. But I have to wonder if having a person like McAfee involved with darknet tech will only serve to discredit.
I definitely see your point, but I think that targeting college students is a good marketing tactic. Yes, there has been a lot of discussion and talk of using VPNs and Tor and whatever, but to market something to a specific portion of the public that can be used with minimal knowledge of technology might be cause for worry. McAfee is a shit-starter and maybe he's just shit-talking, but who knows? He might actually be out to start some shit this time. All of this is in the realm of the unlikely but if it isn't all shit, then it stands to reason that someone will want to get in on the action and produce a competing product, no?
I doubt this would work. How could one create something that could thwart a government agency with a budget as large as it is? I'm sure they have the funding to bypass anything a private company or individual creates. The only sure way to escape the NSA would be to permanently go off the grid. You would have to live in seclusion somewhere where they couldn't track you. The best thing would be to live in a cave, and become a hunter-gatherer.
Well, don't forget that McAfee was basically making a sales pitch. If it does indeed work, we'll see how long it takes to break it. Who knows, it could be something that changes everything (unlikely). As far as the hunter gathered thing goes: looking for food is not like looking for apps for one's phone. Given the jiggliness and paleness of the majority of Americans, I doubt that it will ever come to that. Besides, that's part of the pitch: "buy my doodad that does that thing you want, conveniently!"