Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 244 posts

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#231

Post by cookie_monsta »

Fnoord wrote: post #226
cookie_monsta wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under what circumstances can you imagine being given a vote on mass surveillance?

In The Netherlands, we had a non-binding referendum on this [1] (complete with misinformation, or downright propaganda, on TV). The vote against had a minor but significant win on the for . Result? 1) The law got active a few months later 2) A few minor changes were applied 3) The right for a non-binding referendum got removed from The Netherlands, citing we should either have a binding referendum or none at all. [1]…

Interesting, but I guess that considering that the govt. announced their intention to pass the law regardless of the result of the referendum my question should have been "under what circumstances can you imagine being given a _meaningful_ vote on mass surveillance?"

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#232

Post by Fnoord »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #231
Fnoord wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In The Netherlands, we had a non-binding referendum on this [1] (complete with misinformation, or downright propaganda, on TV). The vote against had a minor but significant win on the for . Result? 1) The law got active a few months later 2) A few minor changes were applied 3) The right for a non-binding referendum got removed from The Netherlands, citing we should either have a binding referendum or none at all. [1]…

Interesting, but I guess that considering that the govt. announced their intention to pass the law regardless of the result of the referendum my question should have been "under what circumstances can you imagine being given a _meaningful_ vote on mass surveillance?"

You can't. A democracy, and a binding referendum, stands on the shoulder of the public being informed and interested about matters. The public does not know enough about the topic. They can't, because the enemy listens as well in this global world. Hence, the proponents can pull FUD and appeal to authority at will.

I'm a proponent of binding referendum, but I don't see how it would solve the problem in this case.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#233

Post by lostjohnny »

cameronbrown wrote: post #156
lostjohnny wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he intended that unadulterated free speech is not necessarily the most important of the rights. I think freedom of the press and freedom of association come before that. In fact the first thing Mussolini did when he won the election (not without the help of violence, verbal but more importantly physical, like Hitler also did after him) was to abolish the free press and make all the other parties illegal.

1) Freedom of the press is a subset of freedom of speech. 2) Verbal 'violence' is a fallacy. It doesn't exist.

1) nope. yo could say whatever you wanted in Rome when the ruler was the pope, but you could not write it freely.

Example: Pasquino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasquino

2) I'm a polite Italian using ancient words: it's what we call hate speech today.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#234

Post by lostjohnny »

dang wrote: post #218
lostjohnny wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Europeans are too weak for freedom that is their perogative We can legally drink before the age of 21 because we are able to control ourselves. We can have sex between 14 and 16 years, because we are able to control ourselves. We don't shoot other people in school when we are upset, because we are able to control ourselves. Tell me more about your strength... https://i.imgur.com/pmQWG4F.jpg

Please don't break the site guidelines by taking a thread further into flamewar and by replying to an egregious comment instead of flagging it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I've been called weak as European and you tell me I'm the one making a flame war by just stating what's obvious?

You've a weird sens of humor my friend.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#235

Post by lostjohnny »

concordDance wrote: post #173
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your legal name is: $name Your Address is: $address Your phone is: #ph You work at: $employer You did X abhorrent thing (fakes picture or video with deepfakes). It would be a shame if something happened to you. ------------------------------- That right there is indeed verbal violence, AND a call to arms to enact violence against you.

That's just libel and an incitement to violence (though you could have rephrased the same information so it wouldn't be). Only the incitement to violence could possibly be considered violence, though I personally would say it is NOT violence, but a separate offence.

"I'll kill your family" after they killed many other people's families is verbal violence.

Believe me, my grangrandfather and my grandfather were jailed many times in the 20 years of fascist regime because they refused to swear as fascists.

They were two gentle men who worked as tailors.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#236

Post by lostjohnny »

jigglesniggle wrote: post #147
lostjohnny wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it incitement of racial hatred to post a joke video of your dog performing a Nazi salute? Why did you post it? Because you know it's controversial and would create engagement. If the nazi salute wasn't controversial (and rightfully considered hate crime) you would have ignored it. BTW the first amendment does not condone hate speech. Because even USA understands that there is a limit on everything.

The original statement by a justice implying restriction on freedom of expression was later recanted (note it was not directly a precedent setting ruling either). There are people in the US that see any restriction, even for hate speech or incitement of violence, as against the first amendment. You might think they are extreme in their views but rulings restricting speech are very, very rare.

> You might think they are extreme in their views but rulings restricting speech are very, very rare.

And that has severe consequences as you see.

Popper said it many years ago.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#237

Post by fit2rule »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #62
fit2rule wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Did the NSA give aid & comfort to the enemies of the US? The US suffered a cyberattack that was only possible due to NSA's subversion of Juniper Systems. This could well and truly be considered 'giving aid / comfort to enemies of the USA' ..

That could not "well and truly" be considered that. There is a very clear legal definition of what "enemies of the US" means: countries that the Congress of the United States has declared war on. I don't know why people are so hung up on trying to come up with bizarre explanations for why "treason" must be the right word here. It isn't and the explanations aren't even especially arcane. Just pick a different word alr…

Afghani hackers can easily exploit Juniper systems.

As can Iraq, Iran, and North Korean hackers.

So, whatever your particular issue is with 'treason', the fact that the NSA has subverted our - the publics - technology, and in so doing allowed us to be susceptible to real and true danger from 'our enemies', means that yes: the NSA IS FUCKING TREASONOUS.

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#238

Post by 693471 »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #207
693471 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the UI/UX is terrible, and XMPP is not mobile friendly at all

That is a big fat lie right here.

No it's not, setting up proper push notifications (Google/Apple) with XMPP is a nightmare and the XEP is not well supported anyway

Re: Looking Back at the Snowden Revelations

#240

Post by ncmncm »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #224
ncmncm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course that is not to say that any number of people employed by or contracted to the NSA are not committing treason or any of myriad other felonies under cover of NSA-provided secrecy. The only check on that is their higher-ups' jealousy of their income, provided they know of it.

The FBI runs counter-espionage, and a whole host of regulations make sure that it is quite hard to abuse a security clearance. Of course it still happens, but nowhere near as much as if those systems weren't in place.

Which of course stopped Snowden from collecting gigabytes of random stuff and writing it to NAND flash cards, thus we don't know any of this.

The people in counter-espionage are not subject to such regulations, nor are generals, and the evidence is that the only people they are used against are those who make any kind of fuss about rule-breaking or, you know, felonies.

Post reply on HN