An Apology and an Update • Hacker News Board

Re: An Apology and an Update

#171

Post by PavlovsCat » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 12:39 PM UTC

derf_ wrote: post #33

orthecreedence wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Going to go ahead and throw Matrix/Riot out there as a great alternative.

I pretty much gave up on Matrix after the following exchange: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8697151 Perhaps I am overreacting, but that sort of attitude on matters core to basic privacy in the post-Snowden era seems both problematic and incurable.

Anything I consider important that I post online is pretty much public. I also wrote private messages on Facebook, but I didn't upload photos or text posts that I didn't want the world to see. For that kind of stuff, encryption is just a giant waste of resources, in my case, so if I ran mastodon on my server, I would be glad that I can turn that off.

I still fell victim to apparently being reported as non-human (after 9 years of using FB with over a hundred RL friends and former class mates, many photos of me, real name from day one, and so on), and while I could send a photocopy of my ID to Facebook, as a matter of principle I didn't and won't, not without even having the right to confront my accusers. For all I know, they're bots, at best some people who didn't like a comment I made on some article -- and from the accounts of others, even showing your ID doesn't mean you won't get fucked over in a similar way again. There is just no real recourse, so why even start jumping through hoops, I'm not going to be party to normalizing that nonsense.

I also don't believe in technical solutions to social problems. Encryption gains me nothing in a world where my neighbours just shrug when I get carted off for having using encrypted communication -- or get booted off Facebook -- so that needs to be "fixed" anyway, and should it ever be, encryption would be something that protects you against criminals and assholes, not something that protects you against big brother. IMO it's lethal to assume it ever could or should. It's something we can and should use on our way to social solutions to social problems, but not something to rely on. I know that many people in other countries or very different circumstances NEED encryption, so they should have it, and I might use it out of solidarity and to give them cover even -- but that won't fix the problem anymore than Napster fixed the music industry.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#172

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 12:43 PM UTC

tbranyen wrote: post #77

hamandcheese wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“If you were sorry you wouldn’t have done it to begin with” has also come up on several occasions in my personal life. Haven’t figured out how best to respond to that one.

If you did something wrong more than once and gave the same apology that statement would make total sense. The first time though is unfair and kind of selfish minded.

I've spilt things on people more than once, AFAIK that's not unusual. Does that make me at fault morally?

I'd say no.

Your thesis needs work IMO.

Make sure you don't fail morally by ever presenting an incomplete/unsound thesis again!

Re: An Apology and an Update

#173

Post by Crosseye_Jack » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 12:49 PM UTC

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #48

sftwds wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use Mattermost at my company, which works well for us and is entirely self hosted.

Seconded. I like controlling things myself and hosting them myself. Nobody (um, but AWS, our ISP, our DNS registrar, ARIN, oh and heck tons of others) can shut me down now.

> Nobody (um, but AWS, our ISP, our DNS registrar, ARIN, oh and heck tons of others) can shut me down now.

But in theory all of those can be replaced, a site that was recently in the news for being kicked off Godaddy, Google, tucows, Cloudflare, the Russian media watchdog, namecheap, DreamHost and a ton of others. Today its online using a Chinese based provider.

But yeah, if SV takes a disliking to you, it can be a right PITA to find some where to get back online.

But you are right, Someone somewhere has to host you and/or provide you with services (even if you self host) you are still dependant on to be able to stay online.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#174

Post by aga98mtl » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 12:58 PM UTC

pyrophane wrote: post #11

This is yet another good reason to prefer decentralized networks. When Slack or Facebook or whomever agrees to block someone there is no resolution other than appealing to a company with a closed decision making process, something I don't think any of us really want.

This event made me realize I needed a good independent backup solution for Slack. I bought some tool to do it daily locally. I'll be able to move on to an alternative like Mattermost if the need arise.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#175

Post by wpietri » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 1:01 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #147

mabbo wrote: post #40

I'm a big fan and critic of apologies. This one is pretty good. They admit the mistake was theirs and they take responsibility for it. They say sorry. They explain what they're going to do to fix the situation. They say they're going to learn from this and not have similar mistakes in the future. Pretty solid. The only thing that is missing, in my view, is personalization. Tell me who you are, speaking for the organi…

>They admit the mistake was theirs and they take responsibility for it. They say sorry. They explain what they're going to do to fix the situation. They say they're going to learn from this and not have similar mistakes in the future. Pretty solid. This doesn’t really mean much by itself. These are elements of the BP apology for the gulf spill as well. The only thing that matters is actions taken. Anything else is fl…

What apology are you thinking of? The thing I find when I search for that is CEO Tony Hayward's statement of 17 June 2010: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/jun/17/bp-tony-hay...

That specifically doesn't admit the mistake or take responsibility.

You can find further discussion of their apologies here, and they get a 3/10 rating for apologizing well: https://www.perfectapology.com/BP-oil-spill-apology.html

Re: An Apology and an Update

#176

Post by wpietri » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 1:09 PM UTC

dogecoinbase wrote: post #128

mabbo wrote: post #40

I'm a big fan and critic of apologies. This one is pretty good. They admit the mistake was theirs and they take responsibility for it. They say sorry. They explain what they're going to do to fix the situation. They say they're going to learn from this and not have similar mistakes in the future. Pretty solid. The only thing that is missing, in my view, is personalization. Tell me who you are, speaking for the organi…

Are you joking? It provides no specific action they're taking to prevent this type of thing in the future, and it's internally inconsistent (who are "the people whose accounts we intended to disable" who they "will not deactivate their account and they will be able to access Slack when they return to countries or regions for which no blocking is required"?). I've spent the day messaging and talking with friends who w…

What in the world makes you think they will "cheerfully give that information up for the pleasure of the US Government without it even being required of them"?

They're required by law not to do business in certain countries. They were over-broad and over-aggressive in how they tried to follow that law, unnecessarily shutting down accounts, which was certainly a fuckup. But I don't see any indication that they gave information to the US government.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#177

Post by _19qg » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 1:16 PM UTC

> In fact, we also apologize to the people whose accounts we intended to disable in order to comply with these regulations

Misguided politics of the Trump 'administration'. This stuff is highly unpopular outside the US.

For me a reason to avoid US services which actually enforce these politics. Slack can do whatever they want, but these actions make sure that I never want to be a customer of theirs and I would never recommend to use their services.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#178

Post by filleduchaos » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 1:38 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #149

drawkbox wrote: post #146

Sanctions and embargos are getting out of hand. Blanket, rather than targeted individual sanctions/actions, truly only harm the people of a country that have little to no say in what their government or country does. As seen here, sanctions turn companies that provide services into poor customer service scenarios through forced compliance for what reason ultimately? All that does is make it harder to track since we n…

>Truly they only harm the people of a country that have little to no say in what their government or country does. That’s the whole point. It’s not an unintended side effect. You’re targeting an entire country’s economy to pressure the government regardless of whether or not it’s elected. Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement of embargoes.

It takes a special kind of naivete to think that a country worth placing this sort of embargo on is a country where "pressuring the government" would lead to any tangible results.

That or a special kind of callousness, because most often the only way the citizenry can effect change is through violent revolt after reaching the boiling point of poverty and/or oppression.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#179

Post by pygy_ » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 1:47 PM UTC

n_e wrote: post #170

bad_user wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 days for people being locked out of their account, through no fault of their own, is a long time. Slack is only apologizing due to the public uproar, as apparently many people were affected. Our cofounder was also locked of his account. He's Irish and living in Romania, with nothing to do with the embargoed countries. To make matters worse, he tried contacting support to prove his nationality and country of residen…

> 2 days for people being locked out of their account, through no fault of their own, is a long time. In absolute terms yes. Compared to how for example google handles this it’s outstanding.

That's true, but you set the bar very low.

Regarding user support, Google ranks on par with an anvil.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#180

Post by googamooga » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

I wonder why Slack so cares about blocking poor Crimeans from its service and at the same time Visa and MasterCard are accepted freely in any town of Crimea. Why these payment schemes are allowed to work there despite the embargo?