“Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this” • Hacker News Board

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#331

Post by chronial » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 2:48 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #321

chronial wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that is not true. Look at the atomic bomb for example. The technology here is not just nuclear fission – the bomb itself has a lot of unique technology. There can be a lot inherently wrong with technology, and there quite often is.

But nukes are the reason there haven't been any direct wars between major powers since WWII. Isn't that a good thing?

That is way to utilitarian for my liking. I am also personally convinced that Hitler (sorry ) was good for the western world in the long run (I think the lesson learnt will have more impact in the long run than the damage done), but you won't ever see me defending anything like the third reich.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#332

Post by fxckgfw » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 2:50 PM UTC

leoc wrote: post #253

dujiulun2006 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure but I suspect that they got the technology (hardware and software) from China too. As a Chinese netizen I don't know if I should be proud that we have world-class advanced technology or be ashamed. Possibly ashamed.

Allegedly it's mostly or at least originally Cisco's technology: https://insidersurveillance.com/cisco-huawei-and-semptian-a-... .

At first China also used Cisco's stuff, but soon they could't keep up with the requirements of the Chinese govt. After that a man usually criticized to be "the father of GFW", FANG Binxing, came up and built more powerful censorship hardware and software for the govt at Beihang U. It is said that they now use supercomputers to parse, analyse and block (and even inject, remember GitHub?) all packages going through the Chinese network boundary.

Oh I just gave away so much secret. I'm so doomed. Everything above are just made up stories. Don't believe me. Don't track me down. Please.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#333

Post by IkmoIkmo » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 2:50 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #316

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) you're comparing the safest US cities to the 'murder capital' of Europe. That's a total joke. It's like comparing the standard of living of a European billionaire to an American homeless person and saying 'look!'. That's why he's saying it's dishonest. 2) Even if the comparison was reasonable, you completely fail to understand the cause of the numbers and what they say. And they say nothing about safety for ordina…

1) San Diego isn't the safest US city. The safest US cities are on par with the safest eg Scandinavian cities. There are US cities with 100k+ people that regularly have 1.x annual murder rates. If you want to live in a very safe city, the US has plenty to choose from. 2) Nothing you've said refutes or alters Amsterdam's murder rate. Nor is what you said very effective, watch: your statement says nothing about the ave…

sigh

http://cdn.sandiegouniontrib.com/img/photos/2015/03/07/Murde...

Oh my god, it's the LOWEST. Yes, the lowest of big cities. San diego has a population of a little over a million, quite comparable to Amsterdam (which has a smaller population, but roughly a million).

And what's the murder rate in 2014? 32. Amsterdam's murder rate in 2014? 20.

Alright so, the safest big city in the US, has a murder rate comparable with the most dangerous city in the Netherlands, or as you call it the murder capital of Europe.

(2) Yes I did refute your claims. Are you not listening?

1) Again, the 4.4 number includes abortions, dangerous driving and euthanasia. You can make a claim for dangerous driving (although it's mostly self-murder, so doesn't impact my safety), but euthanasia and abortion doesn't affect my safety AT ALL or anyone else's. Virtually every year the actual murder rate in Amsterdam is below 2, again comparable to the SAFEST city in the US, and this is supposedly the most dangerous city. So someone aborts a baby, or a 95 year old with a great life who went blind, bed ridden and in constant pain from a chronic disease wants to die and is requests euthanasia, makes my life less safe? It's a joke.

2) And those are murder rates of who? Organised crime. 90% of the murders in Amsterdam are assassinations of organised criminals, people who generated +$100m in drug money and get assassinated by a competitor. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with my safety. It doesn't affect me at all. Drug crime isn't like it is in the US, every month or so one or two people get assassinated in a targeted attack. I've never witnessed this or heard the gunshots or seen the blood or the bodies, despite living my entire childhood in neighborhoods in Amsterdam where this happened. (the richest neighbourhood by the way because these drug lords are all multi millionaires who live in expensive villas. The fact someone goes to their home and kills them and spikes the murder rate affects ordinary people in no way whatsoever. As opposed to gang violence in the US which takes the lives of many innocent people, and takes the lives of young small time petty criminals who have few opportunities, as opposed to 50 year old millionaires who've been in crime for decades). It's like saying if a police officer kills a dangerous criminal and the murder rate goes up by 1, that this makes your life less safe, it's a joke.

3) Actual crime (whether it's assault, rape, theft) is all much lower because Amsterdam is extremely safe and the murder rate is only high because virtually all victims are high level criminals. If you actually look at safety (whether it's from murder or any other crime) for ordinary civilians, it's nowhere near the safest US city. The comparison is a total joke.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#334

Post by nadams » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 2:50 PM UTC

seba_dos1 wrote: post #284

nadams wrote: post #282

This feels rather suspicious to me. Either the police are complete idiots (because people have forked his code and you can still get it from the forks) or there is more to the story. It would make more sense to just send a DMCA takedown for that plus all forks to ensure that the streisand effect doesn't come into play. Because now I gotta grab a fork and squirrel it away - even though I'm in the US I feel like this i…

And how would DMCA apply in this case?

You should sign up for notifications for the github repo where they post DMCA takedowns. People who release open source sending DMCA takedowns to people who create repos with that code.

I'm not saying it's right. I think there needs to be a stipulation in the DMCA to allow service providers to actually be able to research and think about the take down request. As it stands right now - you can send a DMCA takedown for any github repo and github MUST ASAP disable that repo - no questions asked. Of course - asking to take down a repo filled with material that isn't copyright to you could get you into legal trouble. However, I doubt people in China care about US laws - especially if they are the government themselves. Would you sue the Chinese government for wrongful DMCA takedown of your github repo?

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#335

Post by gonehome » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

mrb wrote: post #54

I was visiting China recently (my first time there). I thought bypassing The Great Firewall was going to be as simple as an "ssh -D" SOCKS setup, or a "ssh -w" tunnel. Oh boy, I was wrong. If you try this, or even a basic OpenVPN setup, you will quickly find out your VPN works fine for about 5 minutes, but then latency increases to 5sec, 10sec, 30sec(!), and then everything times out. After some research I read onlin…

This is a great talk about some of the methods China and other governments use to block the Tor network: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwMr8Xl7JMQ

It's a pretty sophisticated arms race that's lead to some cool stuff, notably pluggable transports (like the obfsproxy you mentioned): https://www.torproject.org/docs/pluggable-transports.html.en

Unfortunately the companies that enable this deep packet inspection are often American companies working overseas. My friend who used to work at Cisco said they had internal slide decks about the improvements they could make to the Chinese firewall. Then there's Bluecoat in Sunnyvale (https://www.bluecoat.com/) building the censorship systems for the middle east.

Why do American companies sell this kind of stuff to China and non-democracies in the middle east? They must rationalize it in someway, but I think it's wrong.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#336

Post by njloof » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 2:56 PM UTC

fyolnish wrote: post #158

mrb wrote: post #54

I was visiting China recently (my first time there). I thought bypassing The Great Firewall was going to be as simple as an "ssh -D" SOCKS setup, or a "ssh -w" tunnel. Oh boy, I was wrong. If you try this, or even a basic OpenVPN setup, you will quickly find out your VPN works fine for about 5 minutes, but then latency increases to 5sec, 10sec, 30sec(!), and then everything times out. After some research I read onlin…

When I was in China last year I had no problems using OpenVPN on my Holland based server.

Hotel WiFi may not be as restricted as the average citizen's connection. Local 3G/4G service may be more restricted than your home provider's roaming service. It's a bit of a crapshoot, but the GFW is definitely targeted more towards locals than visitors.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#337

Post by nadams » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 2:56 PM UTC

Intermernet wrote: post #294

nadams wrote: post #282

This feels rather suspicious to me. Either the police are complete idiots (because people have forked his code and you can still get it from the forks) or there is more to the story. It would make more sense to just send a DMCA takedown for that plus all forks to ensure that the streisand effect doesn't come into play. Because now I gotta grab a fork and squirrel it away - even though I'm in the US I feel like this i…

If you were a US developer hit by something similar, you may have been sent an NSL, and would therefore be unable to discuss it at all. The DMCA would only apply if you had been accused of copying, or creating a derivative work. I find it interesting that the Chinese police have told him to shut it down, but have not put any restrictions on telling people he's been told to shut it down. Who has the greater freedom in…

> The DMCA would only apply if you had been accused of copying, or creating a derivative work.

See my reply here [1].

> I find it interesting that the Chinese police have told him to shut it down, but have not put any restrictions on telling people he's been told to shut it down.

Don't you think that signals there is more to the story? I doubt some friendly people knocked on his door and asked him nicely to remove the code. Then after he did it - they told him to have a nice day and left him with some tea and biscuits.

My gut feeling is there is more to the story than what is in the one line comment in the issue tracker.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10102631

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#338

Post by andrepd » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 2:58 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #217

radmuzom wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leave to where? To a country where 1. a few rich people control the entire political process by buying out politicians. 2. where there are frequent shootings and you are never safe due to some idiotic Constitutional amendment. 3. where regularly unarmed minorities are shot dead by the police and the majority jury allow them to go unpunished. 4. where there is no mandate to give workers paid leave include those with a…

No, to the country that is: 1) A leader in freedom of speech, press freedom, property rights protections, general freedom of movement, and is low on the corruption index. One of the few countries with extraordinarily well protected freedom of speech rights enshrined at the core of the nation. 2) Has a rapidly adaptive culture, able to implement changes at a fast pace despite its immense scale. That includes things li…

You are missing a few sources. 14 to be exact.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#339

Post by IkmoIkmo » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 2:58 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #320

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good list and I agree on many points. (4) is total bs though. If you look into the better life index, it's a total joke. Here's one quick tidbit, it rates the bottom 10% in Poland as having a better standard of living than the bottom 10% of France or Japan. You think that's a joke? It gets better! It rates the TOP 10% of Poland as better than the top 10% of France or Japan, too! If you know anything about these count…

> You can find an equivalent population in Western Europe (e.g. UK, France, Germany, Benelux, Scandinavia) the size of the US population If we're going to compare the top 25% of Europe versus the US, then let's use the top 25% of the US for the comparison, and use the bottom 25% of Europe to compare against the bottom 25% of the US. Given the population numbers are a lot closer for that comparison, it makes drastical…

I think you missed my point. I'm talking about bundling all those countries so you can get an equivalent population and then make comparisons. I wasn't comparing Norway to the US, I mentioned it as part of a bundle of countries that get to an equivalent size of the US population. If you take the countries I mentioned you get something close to 300 million. The US population is a little less than 320m. Western Europe has a population of 400 million for example.

Re: “Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this”

#340

Post by kjs3 » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 3:00 PM UTC

chronial wrote: post #328

kjs3 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop enriching before it gets to weapons grade purity and it's fuel for a reactor. Fail.

I'm no expert on the topic, but I think you need essentially different tools and technology to reach the purity necessary for weapons. So using these way more expensive tools to create fuel would be just stupid.

They use exactly the same process and technology (these days either gas diffusion or gas centrifuge). These are iterative processes; you keep running them until you get the level of enrichment you want (80% for weapons). Quit speculating on how you can get the answer you want and try the facts.