My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post • Hacker News Board

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#261

Post by lowkey_ » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

kolmogorov wrote: post #255

dboreham wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would FB sending messages that are sent encrypted (not e2e) and stored on US servers allow China to read messages? Not parent, but I think the idea is that if BigCo does business in CountryA , then CountryA's government invariably forces BigCo to spy on their users who are residents. Obviously compromising the user's device is a workaround open to governments but hard to achieve in bulk.

FB does not do business in China. This is rather a risk for Apple given they store keys in the cloud and do business there fwiw. I agree it’s a risk for almost all other countries.

I think you're missing the context of what this is about:

> Strangely, the example she gave suggested that Facebook needs to have looser encryption in order to somehow protect Uyghurs in China from government attempts to implant spyware onto their phones. [1]

And Facebook responded, sticking up for e2e encryption:

> A Facebook spokesperson responded to The Telegraph with what we all should realize at this point is the responsible approach to encryption: "The reason we believe in end-to-end encryption is precisely so that we can keep people safe, including from foreign interference and surveillance as well as hackers and criminals." There is no such thing as encryption back doors that only the "right" people can access. If they exist, they can eventually be found or accessed by others. [1]

[1] https://reason.com/2021/10/25/whistleblower-absurdly-attacks...

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#262

Post by foobarbecue » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 3:14 PM UTC

gnabgib wrote: post #230

foobarbecue wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are conflating schizophrenia with multiple personality disorder. This is a common, but harmful, mistake.

Perhaps you could provide some insight into why? I don't see how multiple personality disorder is a very useful characterization when you're describing a community made up of multiple personalities.

yodsanklai said HN is "schizophrenic" when accusing HN of being one body with two conflicting personalities: one that wants FB to emphasize freedom and the other that wants FB to police content. He said "Hopefully these aren't the same people expressing these contradictory points of view." (In my opinion, what's really happening is that there's some diversity of opinion among HNers, which is how it should be. As you point out, and yadsanklai implicitly admits, HN is not a single person so there is no self-contradiction or multiple personality disorder. Beyond that, it's a mark of intelligence for people to be able to change their minds, but I digress.)

Schizophrenia would have been appropriate if he was accusing HN of being paranoid, hearing voices, etc.

Schizophrenia is not multiple personality disorder (actually called Disassociative Identity Disorder, I just learned). I am really curious to know why people started misusing the word schizophrenia in common parlance like this.

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#263

Post by wanderer2323 » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 10:05 PM UTC

rhcom2 wrote: post #153

AlexB138 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it amusing how your government treats a whistleblower who is promoting government control over social media, vs the way your government treats a whistleblower who leaks evidence of government spying and abuse. That is because e.g. Snowden is actually a whistleblower, warning the people against the powers that be, and Haugen is an activist pushing for an agenda which aligns with what the powers that be want,…

Snowden is an activist pushing for an agenda too. Sure, one we agree with and seems ethical but it's still an agenda. Side note, when did "activist" become a dirty word?

When it became so vague that one does not have to really do anything to call themselves an 'activist'.

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#264

Post by yawnr » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

dilippkumar wrote: post #228

yawnr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question is what constitutes a public post? I feel like that definition is evolving. Is a WhatsApp group with 1k members spreading disinformation still a private message?

> Is a WhatsApp group with 1k members spreading disinformation still a private message? Yes it is. A “public post” is when the message was directed towards anyone who cares to listen. A “private post” is when the message was directed to a specific group of recipients. The length of the list of recipients doesn’t grant a non-recipient access rights to the message. This is easy stuff.

Lol sure, very easy stuff. Problem solved. You did it!

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#265

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

dls2016 wrote: post #93

WillPostForFood wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She isn’t just a neutral presenter of data, she is a spokesperson and advocate. She is positioning herself to be a decision maker, or help decision makers.

Isn’t a whistleblower by definition not neutral? I’m not even sure what a neutral whistleblower would look like. Should her motivations be questioned? Absolutely! But if you don’t like her stance, just say so instead labelling her an “activist” or “advocate” like there’s something inherently bad about those things.

I didn't intent to imply anything bad about being labeled an activist or an advocate. Whistleblower carries something of a neutral veneer. A whistleblower are often seen as exposing something objectively wrong, a broken law or crime. That's not really what is happening here (though it wouldn't be surprising to see laws have been broken). The main thrust here is Facebook is bad for society, which, IMO is more activism than whistleblowing. No objective answer here! Just how I read the nuance of the language.

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#266

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #224

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone is going to Congress and lobbying against end-to-end encryption of private communications, how are they an ally? Because they're also lobbying for other things you care about. And those things are more likely to be passed into law than the E2E encryption pieces. Taking a puritanical view on an issue is a high-risk high-reward gambit. Nine out of ten times, it ejects you from the room. One out of ten time…

There's a gambler's fallacy at work here, though. Our Fourth Amendment right to encrypted private communications is so important that if we lose it (or give it up), any future wins in areas like corporate transparency, monopoly regulation, and net neutrality won't ultimately matter. We won't have the freedom needed to benefit from them. To the extent Haugen disagrees, she's not on "our side."

[deleted]

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#267

Post by torstenvl » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #224

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone is going to Congress and lobbying against end-to-end encryption of private communications, how are they an ally? Because they're also lobbying for other things you care about. And those things are more likely to be passed into law than the E2E encryption pieces. Taking a puritanical view on an issue is a high-risk high-reward gambit. Nine out of ten times, it ejects you from the room. One out of ten time…

There's a gambler's fallacy at work here, though. Our Fourth Amendment right to encrypted private communications is so important that if we lose it (or give it up), any future wins in areas like corporate transparency, monopoly regulation, and net neutrality won't ultimately matter. We won't have the freedom needed to benefit from them. To the extent Haugen disagrees, she's not on "our side."

Sorry, what clause in the Fourth Amendment talks about encryption? Thanks in advance.

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#268

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

torstenvl wrote: post #267

CamperBob2 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a gambler's fallacy at work here, though. Our Fourth Amendment right to encrypted private communications is so important that if we lose it (or give it up), any future wins in areas like corporate transparency, monopoly regulation, and net neutrality won't ultimately matter. We won't have the freedom needed to benefit from them. To the extent Haugen disagrees, she's not on "our side."

Sorry, what clause in the Fourth Amendment talks about encryption? Thanks in advance.

The plain text reads, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."

It's not reasonable to outlaw the tools needed to exercise a fundamental right. Not OK for the 1st, not OK for the 2nd, and not OK for the 4th. Encryption was already an old technology at the time of the Constitution's authorship. If they had wanted to regulate or outlaw it, they were free to say so. They didn't.

Re: My interview with Steven Levy re. leaking of my Facebook Goodbye post

#269

Post by torstenvl » Thu, Oct 28, 2021, 7:54 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #268

torstenvl wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, what clause in the Fourth Amendment talks about encryption? Thanks in advance.

The plain text reads, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." It's not reasonable to outlaw the tools needed to exercise a fundamental right. Not OK for the 1st, not OK for the 2nd, and not OK for the 4th. Encryption was already an old technology at the time of the Constitution's authorship. If they had wa…

> Encryption was already an old technology at the time of the Constitution's authorship...

...so if they had wanted to guarantee a right to it, they were free to say so.

But they didn't.

Despite clearly contemplating privacy.