Edward Snowden: The Internet Is Broken • Hacker News Board

Re: Edward Snowden: The Internet Is Broken

#141

Post by lolidaisuki » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 10:13 AM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #6

lolidaisuki wrote: post #2

>hello, >You are receiving this error message because your ip (89.234.157.254) is listed in the StopForumSpam.com database. >You can check the status of your IP and have it removed by visiting http://www.stopforumspam.com/removal . Thank you. It's kind of ironical that they are quoting Snowden and their own site blocks Tor. E: didn't HN used to have markdown quoting?

There's only been https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

Hmm. I could have sworn there has been some way to make the quotes more distinguishable but maybe I was wrong...

Hacker news post limits for shadowbanned people really suck as well. Especially when the ban was for no good reason. Even worse is that HN only has perma bans. Oh wel...

Re: Edward Snowden: The Internet Is Broken

#142

Post by tmptmp » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 11:15 AM UTC

mercurial wrote: post #133

tmptmp wrote: post #117

I guess, the Snowden incidence is being used to hurl undue venom towards USA. But these people are ignoring or deliberately misleading other people to ignore the real dangers posed by extremists (including Islamists, communists, the far right Christians and so on). These ideologically driven criminals (called terrorists) live hidden in the general public. Their identification is a main problem. This "identification"…

> I guess, the Snowden incidence is being used to hurl undue venom towards USA. But these people are ignoring or deliberately misleading other people to ignore the real dangers posed by extremists (including Islamists, communists, the far right Christians and so on). Yeah, well, I don't think Cuban or North Korean spies are really at the forefront of anyone's concerns (apart from South Korea and Japan). > Thus terror…

>>You want a Donald Trump nominating one of his cronies at the head of the US intelligence services and starting to dig into untold amounts of already-recorded communications?

Still a Donald Trump in USA is far better and very less dangerous as compared to the tyrants like Mao or Stalin or Castro, because USA has many good checks and balances in place. I do appreciate people's fears about state becoming tyrannical but people in USA should not allow its enemies to use (exploit) such fear to push forward their agenda and make US a weak and vulnerable state.

The people of USA should recognize this. The important point to note here is that the intellectuals (Snowden and his supporters) who are targeting USA both at national and international level were silent about the extremely intrusive surveillance and other atrocities inflicted by the tyrants like Putin (at whose place Snowden may be currently enjoying his reward) and are still silent.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Internet Is Broken

#143

Post by shabble » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 11:50 AM UTC

ashitlerferad wrote: post #121

dcposch wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ve has lots of vis personas Are those typos? You touched on the cyperpunk fantasy: using multiple online identities, all kept carefully separate from each other and from your real identity. (There's an excellent short story called True Names that explores this idea.) For the majority of ordinary, nontechnical people, there are lots of simpler solutions. * Use cash. In Berlin, many ordinary people have an awareness…

Most cash is easily surveilled as it has serial numbers on it. Only coins are a safe form of cash but have a huge disadvantage of being exceptionally bulky.

That would assume a comprehensive system of serial number scanning at point-of-sale in order to track the movements and actually connect it with people/purchases.

The technology is probably available, and it's entirely possible that ATMs could be recording serial numbers of dispensed cash and tying them to the account used, but it's (presently) deeply unrealistic that every possible (or even most) places that accept paper money have the ability or desire to record serial numbers of incoming & outgoing bills.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Internet Is Broken

#144

Post by toomanythings2 » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 12:26 PM UTC

eggy wrote: post #102

toomanythings2 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess all he needs is to grow his hair long and a beard and HNers would genuflect at his picture in their hallway. Funny how this guy, at age 29 three years ago, is an expert in all worldly things nowadays.

I would say making a move like be did brought him into laser focus, and into more contact with like-minded individuals that only amplified his knowledge and commitment. We can all grow our minds if we apply ourselves.

First, understand that he did not make a movie. Someone else did.

Second, if someone makes a movie about you, that does not expand your knowledge into wide areas or into depths of world knowledge.

Third, no one individual can become an expert on all things based on knowing other like-minded individuals.

My point was, it seems too many of his worshipers now come to his altar asking for his opinion on all things ... and forgiveness.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Internet Is Broken

#145

Post by randommodnar » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 1:03 PM UTC

0xCMP wrote: post #71

deepnet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foresight has been essential in this. Without Stallman's foresight of the need for public domain open source software, there would only be proprietary software, all subject to PRISM. Without the foresight of potential Government's to come the US founding fathers would not have written in such protections as still exist today. Before Snowden there were many that suspected but now everyone knows. >Um. Who thought this?…

I kid you not. Stallman looked crazy in my eyes before Snowden. Even my "paranoid" perspective on all these things pre-snowden where never close to true Stallman "crazy" (or so I thought before..) Now I want to use Emacs. I want to use everything FSF if possible. I'm no where close. There is a lot for me to do to get there. But I'm hoping I will because soon that may be our only hope. > NSA's James Clapper lied to Ro…

> Now I want to use Emacs

Whoa, whoa, let's not go that far.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Internet Is Broken

#146

Post by randommodnar » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 1:06 PM UTC

roywiggins wrote: post #103

AckSyn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sigh more of that sjw crap. Hope it doesn't infest this place like it has a significant portion of the net. It's utterly detestable.

Languages do exist with gender-neutral pronouns. Is Hungarian full of "sjw" crap? Adding a gender neutral pronoun to English isn't a crazy idea- "sibling" is a gender-neutral 20th Century invention and it fits in fine. I'm partial to "they" as the easiest option (it has a long history of being used in the singular) but constructed pronouns would work too.

It's not crazy. English speakers tend to use "they" when they need a gender-neutral option. This just sounds like some edgy teenager... ooh look at me, I'm using some invented new pronouns because of the injustices I've never actually faced myself.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Internet Is Broken

#147

Post by randommodnar » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 1:09 PM UTC

Semiapies wrote: post #111

mirimir wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they're gender-neutral pronouns: ve = she/he ver = him/her vis = hers/his I encountered them in Greg Egan's Diaspora . And yes, True Names :) An inspiration. With a decent host machine, one can run numerous Whonix instances, each with one or more personas. They can be long-term or throwaway. I do nothing at all private on smartphones. Signal and WhatsApp are cool and all, but radios are untrustable black boxes. E…

Tangentially, I prefer the Spivak pronouns sets. They feel more "natural" to me than spiking the distributions of X and V.

It's definitely more natural. You'll never hear any significant number of English speakers saying bullshit like "ve, vis".

Re: Edward Snowden: The Internet Is Broken

#148

Post by randommodnar » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 1:15 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #15

Excellect! It's the most cogent analysis that I've seen from him. Damn, what a fucking hero! A few comments, however ... > ... we had to go to the dark side to be able to confront the threat posed by bad guys. We had to adopt their methods for ourselves. He's using "we" there in reference to the government. But it can also be read with "we" as you and me, and "bad guys" as the government ;) But then, I claim a broad…

What you have to realize is it's an arms race. When splitting and comparmentalizing is the norm, the government will be putting every effort into connecting the dots between your disparate personas.

It takes a special kind of persistent, all-encompassing paranoia and effort. And as we've seen in the past, it only takes a single fuck-up, logging into the wrong server with the wrong account once, mentioning the wrong anecdote with the wrong persona, and bam, you're fucked. Once two dots are connected, they cannot be unconnected.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Internet Is Broken

#149

Post by randommodnar » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 1:18 PM UTC

roywiggins wrote: post #103

AckSyn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sigh more of that sjw crap. Hope it doesn't infest this place like it has a significant portion of the net. It's utterly detestable.

Languages do exist with gender-neutral pronouns. Is Hungarian full of "sjw" crap? Adding a gender neutral pronoun to English isn't a crazy idea- "sibling" is a gender-neutral 20th Century invention and it fits in fine. I'm partial to "they" as the easiest option (it has a long history of being used in the singular) but constructed pronouns would work too.

Also, sibling is not a 20th century invention in gender neutrality. Sibling is an old English word meaning a kinsmen or relative. It simply saw a revival in the 20th century and had its meaning narrowed to mean only brother or sister.

Re: Edward Snowden: The Internet Is Broken

#150

Post by stevetrewick » Sat, Apr 23, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

>But at the same time, we technologists as a class knew academically that these capabilities could be abused, but nobody actually believed they would be abused. Because why would you do that? It seemed so antisocial as a basic concept.

What's with 'we?' The various classes of technologists that I've been a member of - from the teen hax0r BBS days thru the crypto lists and Usenet groups to actual working professionals have absolutely believed this. It takes a truly spectacular amount of naivety to believe the contrary.

I have a deep and profound respect for Snowden, who has certainly sacrificed any possible semblance of a normal life in his native culture and likely narrowly escaped a worse fate, something he must certainly have known was a risk. It is his very naivety that made him such a perfect whistleblower : he's in there looking around and he's like "Holy crap! These guys are into some profoundly bad shit! I have to tell everyone!"

There's probably a hiring policy moral for black ops shops in there somewhere.