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Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

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311–320 of 417 posts

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#311
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why, again, attack the man instead of the argument? It's especially grating when the entire thread is about ad hominems. Saying that Scott Adams has been known to be irrational is at best tangential to the example he gives to qualify whether the Trump and Clinton campaigns are using emotional manipulation, especially ad hominem attacks, to achieve their respective goals. It's an appeal to emotion built upon an ad hom…

I suspect sooner or later you're going to try to find a way to claim that anything which merely mentions someone's argument is an ad hominem , and your entire style is close to the fallacy fallacy ("I can name an informal fallacy, therefore your argument is invalid"), but... It is perfectly fair to say "Scott Adams makes claims about himself which cannot charitably be interpreted as rational or reasonable, therefore…

But I did not appeal to authority. I gave an example of both the Trump and Clinton campaigns using manipulation to illustrate my point. Why do you disagree?

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#312
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whilst I appreciate the recommendation, I do not understand its relevance in the context of this thread. What I am reading in your comment is an implication: - that by attacking the use of a quote to ridicule those who have read Ayn Rand and attempt to present her ideas, I am myself promoting Ayn Rand's ideas, - and that the other ideas of Ayn Rand's (beyond those illustrated by the metaphors used in Atlas Shrugged t…

Ah, yes. You are in fallacy fallacy territory.

"Don't listen to this man's arguments, he's in fallacy fallacy territory."

Examples?

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#313
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes. You are in fallacy fallacy territory.

"Don't listen to this man's arguments, he's in fallacy fallacy territory." Examples?

Shorn of their excess verbiage, your arguments boil down in their entirety to "here's the name of an informal fallacy, therefore you are wrong".

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#314
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't listen to this man's arguments, he's in fallacy fallacy territory." Examples?

Shorn of their excess verbiage, your arguments boil down in their entirety to "here's the name of an informal fallacy, therefore you are wrong".

Then demonstrate how they are wrong, with examples.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#315
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't listen to this man's arguments, he's in fallacy fallacy territory." Examples?

Shorn of their excess verbiage, your arguments boil down in their entirety to "here's the name of an informal fallacy, therefore you are wrong".

You were just so excited to use "fallacy fallacy" that you missed that their post is actually well reasoned.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#317
post #79
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But as a user, I would never use a service run by Marissa Mayer again. She lost that trust for good. Realistically, this is every American company. Why trust anyone?

It is impossible to live functionally in society without trusting someone on some level.

Yes, but they said every _American_ company, not every company in general.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which reminds me of this great passage in Atlas Shrugged : “Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough…

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

Does anyone know if there's a name for this form of humour? (That is: forcing a split between two things, then describing the second one first in a manner that is ambiguous until the punchline confirms the order.)

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#319
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is definitely in cahoots with the government and probably way deeper than Yahoo. Why would you even assume otherwise, given how much ties to the government they expose to the public these days?

As a European I have to I assume all major US companies in this area are either infiltrated or willingly participating in pervasive surveillance. It's still interesting to know which companies have been actually exposed for this kind abuse of their customers' trust.

Quite - and the European Court of Justice basically agrees with you too. Hence why Safe Harbor was anulled.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add it to the spam filter? The security team probably reviews the spam filter code, but perhaps not the particular weights and measures it uses on a daily basis. So you set up a parallel filter for "arabic spam" that generally looks like regular filter, just tuned a little differently.

The feds had an API that allowed them to download the mail caught in the "Arabic spam filter". How do you hide that?

Perhaps the ssh connection running 'tail -f spamlog' is what tipped off the security team.
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