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

Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

ag.ny.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 316 posts

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#261

Post by hamilyon2 »

M95D wrote: post #226
throw101010 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this will come off as cynical, but aren't the customers of these 3 companies doing what you suggest here? "Putting their money where their mouth is", and since they have a lot of money their voice gets heard over the ones of individuals with no money. I don't think it's your goal. So your second intuition about proof of identity is better, but the minute you invent a foolproof identity system and it gets widly…

No. Public/private keys can be under the control of the individual. You only need the public key to be signed by a trusted 3rd party. That only gives them the power to revoke it, but even the revoking can't cancel what you already signed while the key was valid.

Sorry, but public-private key pair sais nothing about birth or death of individual. Which is an occurrence as common as you would guess. Being living person in some country is the relevant information, holding some cryptographic keys is not.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#262

Post by lmeyerov »

eega wrote: post #190
Jupe wrote: post #98

> LCX and Lead ID were responsible for many of these fake comments, letters, and petition signatures. Across four advocacy campaigns in 2017 and 2018, LCX fabricated consumer responses used in approximately 900,000 public comments submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Similarly, in advocacy campaigns between 2017…

Not only no jail, but the fine is laughable as well …

Yeah this, setting the price to $100k to guide core laws around $B businesses in a way to override public feedback is cheap. Sounds like it is now officially open season.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#263

Post by yosito »

damg- wrote: post #133
yosito wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's always that expat camp in Russia if you just can't take oppressive Western democracy anymore.

[flagged]

Just out of curiosity, what is this account? "damg-" created a few hours ago? Seems like an attempt to impersonate dang?

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#264

Post by RunSet »

throw101010 wrote: post #223
nine_k wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why, I think, the future is either putting your money (or at least provable identity) where your mouth is, or not being heard (e.g. because everyone will assume a petition without hard proofs of identity fake). Yes, this is disenfranchising. But not being heard while some company pretends to speak for you is even more disenfranchising.

Maybe this will come off as cynical, but aren't the customers of these 3 companies doing what you suggest here? "Putting their money where their mouth is", and since they have a lot of money their voice gets heard over the ones of individuals with no money. I don't think it's your goal. So your second intuition about proof of identity is better, but the minute you invent a foolproof identity system and it gets widly…

> our second intuition about proof of identity is better, but the minute you invent a foolproof identity system and it gets widly used (by fiat or even voluntarily), you give a tremendous amount of power to the issuer/manager of it, as they basically hold the power of also removing/altering your public identity at their whims.

A decentralized way to issue and authenticate private keys, so as to eliminate the trust requirement- not just transferring it to a certificate issuer- seems needful.

Not only could it help eliminate the manufacture of consensus in OP, such a technology would have broad implications for trust and might lend itself to anti-counterfeiting measures.

Although such a development would also amount to solving the problem of Byzantine consensus so I would feel most fortunate to see it happen in my lifetime.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#265

Post by ArekDymalski »

williamcotton wrote: post #252
throw101010 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this will come off as cynical, but aren't the customers of these 3 companies doing what you suggest here? "Putting their money where their mouth is", and since they have a lot of money their voice gets heard over the ones of individuals with no money. I don't think it's your goal. So your second intuition about proof of identity is better, but the minute you invent a foolproof identity system and it gets widly…

Anonymity, in the age of cryptography, is not going anywhere. Between astroturfing, AIs, trolls, and foreign involvement, we are increasingly in need of a countering force. We are currently suffering under the tyranny of the anonymous! It is astonishing that so many people are still swayed by such outdated cyberpunk ideologies! The arguments of the 1990s do not make sense given the realities of the 2020s.

Don't you think that security-guaranteed-by-strong-goverment model is outdated too? Governments all around the world seem to be incompetent to solve the emerging issues.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#266

Post by throw101010 »

williamcotton wrote: post #252
throw101010 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this will come off as cynical, but aren't the customers of these 3 companies doing what you suggest here? "Putting their money where their mouth is", and since they have a lot of money their voice gets heard over the ones of individuals with no money. I don't think it's your goal. So your second intuition about proof of identity is better, but the minute you invent a foolproof identity system and it gets widly…

Anonymity, in the age of cryptography, is not going anywhere. Between astroturfing, AIs, trolls, and foreign involvement, we are increasingly in need of a countering force. We are currently suffering under the tyranny of the anonymous! It is astonishing that so many people are still swayed by such outdated cyberpunk ideologies! The arguments of the 1990s do not make sense given the realities of the 2020s.

> we are increasingly in need of a countering force. We are currently suffering under the tyranny of the anonymous!

Are you? What happens if this "need" isn't filled? Just because you can't probe popular opinion with an open comment system, it doesn't mean it is a requirement for society to work. We have systems to vote that work and don't have these issues. Simple paper ballots work really well.

> It is astonishing that so many people are still swayed by such outdated cyberpunk ideologies

Private companies and governments have never collected as much data as they do now, mostly without real consent, and they are getting the means to exploit this data very efficiently now with AI. The cypherpunk ideology (cyberpunk is a fictional sci-fi genre, although it's kinda related with its themes) applies more than ever in this context, it actually predicted the situation we are living, so I can't agree with you when you claim it is "outdated". Individuals should value their ability to be anonymous if they intend to remain somewhat free, this is the "counter" to mass surveillance.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#267

Post by euroderf »

ummonk wrote: post #6

"An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent." $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.

Viewed as an investment, it probably had a quite good ROI.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#268

Post by tootie »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #152
tootie wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/technology/internet-provi... Says a bunch of companies received millions in fines a few years ago and it names AT&T, Charter, Comcast and some lobbying group.

Imagine if your water pipe decided to only serve you water occasionally, and when it did threw some random bull-crap in there? Who would vote for that system?

In reality we haven't seen the worst case at all. In fact, we have companies like cloudflare arguing that they are obligated as an infrastructure provider to serve neonazi websites.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#270

Post by williamcotton »

throw101010 wrote: post #266
williamcotton wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anonymity, in the age of cryptography, is not going anywhere. Between astroturfing, AIs, trolls, and foreign involvement, we are increasingly in need of a countering force. We are currently suffering under the tyranny of the anonymous! It is astonishing that so many people are still swayed by such outdated cyberpunk ideologies! The arguments of the 1990s do not make sense given the realities of the 2020s.

> we are increasingly in need of a countering force. We are currently suffering under the tyranny of the anonymous! Are you? What happens if this "need" isn't filled? Just because you can't probe popular opinion with an open comment system, it doesn't mean it is a requirement for society to work. We have systems to vote that work and don't have these issues. Simple paper ballots work really well. > It is astonishing…

What happens if this need isn’t filled? Well, the focus of this article for one, more and more astroturfing and fraud. How about riling up another country’s voting public with lies? Various forms of harassment and bullying? And do you think AIs are going to make this better or worse? Should we ignore all of this because we’re worried about the outcome matching the plot of a Gibson or Stephenson story?

I can’t come up with a better argument than I’ve made in these two articles:

https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/the-tyranny-of-the-an...

https://www.williamcotton.com/articles/authentically-human-i...

They are both short reads.

Post reply on HN