Oppose the Earn IT Act • Hacker News Board

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#231

Post by grawprog » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

apeace wrote: post #208

If you want to convince your friends they should support encryption, here's how I like to get past the "nothing to hide" argument. Imagine we're sitting at a bar, chatting. None of us have anything to hide. Then the government passes a law that all conversations must be streamed on Youtube Live, so an agent comes in, sets up a camera at our table, and starts streaming. We still don't "have anything to hide". We're ju…

>here's how I like to get past the "nothing to hide" argument.

Personally I like to just remind people if we had nothing to hide, nobody would wear clothing, own curtains, or care about peeping toms.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#232

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

thayne wrote: post #72

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, nsa mass surveillance and legalized torture were never repelled by any side. In fact, the patriot act has been prolongued 5 times, no matter the administration, and is still in effect. As a european, I don't see any party that actually have american people's interest in mind. Fighting for either seems so futile from here. Of course, we have similar problems as well so I'm not going to pretend I have a solution.

> As a european, I don't see any party that actually have american people's interest in mind. As an American, I don't see any party that has my interests in mind. Elections always seem to be having to choose the lesser of two evils.

The two major American parties have more in common than not. They agree on most political issues, particularly defense and economics, and make a big show of arguing over a tiny corner of issues in order to desperately try to differentiate themselves.

The two parties do not significantly differ on indefinite detention of American citizens on US soil.

The two parties do not significantly differ on domestic spying, dragnet-style data collection and warrantless wiretapping.

The two parties do not differ on their support for backdoors in encryption.

The two parties do not significantly differ on allowing extra-judicial targeted killings.

The two parties do not significantly differ on the use of unmanned drones, either for combat or domestic surveillance.

The two parties both support pre-emptive "cyber" war and non-defensive hacking.

The two parties do not significantly differ on their support for continuing the War On Terror and War On Drugs.

The two parties both support maintaining US military bases around the world.

The two parties do not significantly differ on favoring Keynesian economics.

The two parties support delegating monetary policy decisions to the Federal Reserve, including support for quantitative easing.

The two parties do not significantly differ on their use of earmarks and pork barrel spending.

Neither of the two parties have (recently) proposed plans for balancing the budget.

Neither of the two parties plans to significantly cut defense spending.

The two parties both favor taxpayer-funded foreign aid.

The two parties are largely backed by the same corporate sponsors and special interest groups, with a few key differences.

The two parties both backed TARP and in general favor bailing out companies too big to fail.

The two parties do not significantly differ on their general support of "economic stimulus" as a tool to prop up the economy.

The two parties do not significantly differ on their support for and allegiance to Israel.

The two parties both favor and continue sanctions on Iran.

The two parties do not significantly differ on their use of super PAC funding and their support of unlimited spending from corporations and special interest groups.

The two parties do not significantly differ on their use of gerrymandering to gain political advantage.

The two parties oppose any measures that would strengthen the viability of a third party.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#233

Post by apeace » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

newfeatureok wrote: post #224

apeace wrote: post #208

If you want to convince your friends they should support encryption, here's how I like to get past the "nothing to hide" argument. Imagine we're sitting at a bar, chatting. None of us have anything to hide. Then the government passes a law that all conversations must be streamed on Youtube Live, so an agent comes in, sets up a camera at our table, and starts streaming. We still don't "have anything to hide". We're ju…

I'm not really sure this is a good argument at all. In your scenario, if the two people have nothing to hide why would they care? You're better of appealing to things that they normally might want to hide, like an embarrassing act or things that are said that are questionable out of context, etc. A person who truly has nothing to hide, by definition, would not care about privacy. The entire point of privacy is that t…

People tend to feel attacked when you argue that they do, in fact, have something to hide. Even when you come from the perspective that everyone has something to hide, mostly small things.

I've had the best success with the argument I posted. It helps people understand that privacy isn't "hiding", it's normal. What's not normal is guaranteeing your government can see everything you do all the time, and we should think about whether that's what we want.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#234

Post by nuclear_eclipse » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #106

granitDev wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's got money and power and a D in front of her name, she'll get voted in every time in California. Vote Blue no matter who, remember?

> Vote Blue no matter who, remember? I mean, yes. Feinstein is better than the alternative in the General. The Primaries are the way to get rid of her, I can't believe no one has booted her out yet.

The most recent general election was Dem vs Dem (due to the unique way that CA primaries work). Feinstein still won a strong majority of the statewide vote. :|

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#235

Post by manuelabeledo » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #221

manuelabeledo wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't address my question though: is it true that a significant percentage of Google's Adsense revenue comes from such ads? I'm not denying that Google profits from these, that would be silly. My point is that broadcast companies run morally questionable ads all the time, yet it seems that we should be holding Google for a higher level of accountability. Take for example drug commercials. If you are concerned…

> This doesn't address my question though I did address it, though the answer is disappointing: Only Google (or someone with Google's private business data) could give you that number. But it's absolutely much higher than they'd like you to believe. I just can't tell you if it's 30%, 60%, or 90% of their revenue, the public doesn't have access to that information. I'm confident that how ever much you believe it is, i…

> I did address it, though the answer is disappointing: Only Google (or someone with Google's private business data) could give you that number. But it's absolutely much higher than they'd like you to believe.

Well, that's pretty much wishful thinking.

> Broadcast companies are already held to all of the laws and risks that Section 230 is protecting Google and Facebook from.

Are they now.

Let's put it this way: section 230 protects Facebook from being held accountable for the anachronistic opinion about Jewish people, and violent tendencies derived from it, of a random user. Such random user, as a TV show guest, could spout a call to arms to an audience of 2,5 million spectators, and the broadcaster would not suffer any legal consequences.

Repealing section 230 _without_ a reasonable alternative would indeed held Google for a higher level of accountability than, say, Fox News.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#236

Post by rammy1234 » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

"Earn IT" is going to help someone. Dont ask why, but ask who. Who is going to benefit out of this? Ask more Why's. What was the missing piece that they are trying to put together by passing this ACT. How we were at disadvantage so long that now passing this ACT is going to empower us.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#237

Post by jcranmer » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

lukifer wrote: post #183

dllthomas wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lesser evils aren't inevitable; they're a product of a bad voting system. It's made much worse by the bad voting system, but it's perfectly possible that I simply disagree with enough of my fellow citizens that any compromise we can reach will be some "lesser evil".

I think that's probably the case. Nonetheless, I would claim "lesser evilism" would be greatly reduced due to RCV (and Approval) being better at capturing preferences: you get to vote for your favorite option, and against your least favorite option. I think there's a strong argument that RCV/Approval would shift the incentives and game-theoretic landscape away from polarization and turnout, and towards big-tent coali…

> I think there's a strong argument that RCV/Approval would shift the incentives and game-theoretic landscape away from polarization and turnout, and towards big-tent coalition building, to appeal to the greatest quantity of left, right, center, and independent.

I think most people wildly overestimate the popular appeal for compromise. Only about 20% of the population would support an opposite-side moderate over a near-side extremist. A true centrist party is doomed to lose in any system that knocks out unviable candidates, since it's the first choice of almost nobody.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#238

Post by godelski » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

apeace wrote: post #208

If you want to convince your friends they should support encryption, here's how I like to get past the "nothing to hide" argument. Imagine we're sitting at a bar, chatting. None of us have anything to hide. Then the government passes a law that all conversations must be streamed on Youtube Live, so an agent comes in, sets up a camera at our table, and starts streaming. We still don't "have anything to hide". We're ju…

I mentioned something about this yesterday in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23693298

Basically it isn't about having anything to hide but the instability of democracy and what power bad actors have.

Do I have anything to hide from Google? Not really. But do I want that same data that Google has to be in the hands of someone like Putin? No. I don't even want it in the hands of the NSA. The issue is that if we say that ads can manipulate people to buy things, why can't they manipulate people to do things like vote or divide. Russia's strategy since the Cold War has been to divide and prod The West, to sow disruption. That disruption has caused consolidation of power but also makes it difficult for coalitions to get things done.

It is clear that anger generates more clicks, so why is it unrealistic to think bad actors can use that data to better divide us and sow discontent?

The next factor is that democracy relies on a distribution of power. Data collection is a means to consolidate power. There's the term "turnkey tyranny" that's thrown around. The reason isn't because we think a tyrant is going to come to power and destroy our way of life, but rather that we recognize that such a thing is possible and want to ensure that such actions would be infeasible if a malicious actor gained power. In democracy power is distributed. This has pros and cons. But the point of distribution is so that consolidation is difficult and we can never have a monarch or tyrant.

So it has never been about having something to hide (which btw, do people know they are referencing Goebbels?), but about stability in democracy. Distribution of power that was inherent to the system in the past is no longer built in. Technology has changed and enabled things we never previously imagined.

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#239

Post by slavik81 » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #162

ypcx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worse than just crazy. Government is made of people, and people are corruptible. If the encryption backdoor key leaks from the government to a bad actor, it will create a "national security" issue of magnitude never seen before. If this line of reasoning is correct, then proposing an encryption backdoor is akin to committing an act of treason in itself, because it is purposely weakening the technological infras…

They don't even have to be corruptible. People are fallible . Someone could just make a mistake. No bad actors needed. (Bad actors exist, and make the problem worse. But the problem exists even without bad actors.)

The TSA used essentially this system for luggage locks. You could have a lock on your luggage, but the TSA had a master key that could open any luggage lock.

The master keys became available on 3D printing sites after the TSA allowed a photo of them to be published in a news article: https://www.wired.com/2015/09/lockpickers-3-d-print-tsa-lugg...

Re: Oppose the Earn IT Act

#240

Post by carapace » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #128

krapp wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But pedophiles and terrorists are 'bad people' and 'the people' are overwhelmingly in favor of stopping them. It's only in libertarian/ancap bubbles of places like HN where pedos and terrorists are treated like noble antiheroes in the eternal war against fascism and political correctness. If you're going to talk about government "for the people" you need to remember who "the people" actually are and what the majority…

Of course everyone wants those bad people stopped. But every law that claims to be "to stop the bad people and save the children" end up not actually getting used to that end, but instead to further harm the people. They all have far more collateral damage. I used to investigate computer crime. You know what would have made my job really easy? Unlimited access to all computers worldwide. Luckily I had to learn altern…

> Unlimited access to all computers worldwide.

Isn't that more-or-less what the NSA have already?

What I mean is, Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA already have most criminals' dirty laundry. The only thing keeping the law from rolling 'em up wholesale is the Overton window around parallel construction.