Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism • Hacker News Board

Re: Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism

#21

Post by aurelianito » Sun, May 27, 2012, 3:22 PM UTC

maayank wrote: post #16

daeken wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, Tor was originally sponsored by the US Naval Research Lab, and the US has always been a pretty bad player in this regard (though more so now than in the past).

whenever I discuss Tor with people who have just enough knowledge to be dangerous, I hear "yea, but it was funded by the US so it probably has a backdoor/wouldn't be funded if they couldn't read the data". I don't agree with that, but what can you say other than "it's open source so many eyeballs are auditing it"?

Besides that, I use to say that I would not put a backdoor in the system used by my spies to communicate. It would be really dangerous for me if it fallen in the wrong hands.

Re: Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism

#22

Post by berntb » Sun, May 27, 2012, 3:28 PM UTC

awidegreen wrote: post #19

forza wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden is outstanding if you ignore all the equally great countries in Europe and elsewhere. Sweden also used to be the standard-bearer for the Nordic model, this is not true anymore. There's plenty of reasons to avoid Sweden, but here are the top ones: * Everything is expensive. * Taxes are high. * Housing (more or less) can't be rented, buying is expensive. * Weather is cold and/or dark most of the year. * Culture…

and considering that everything is expensive, the wages are not that high either. Moreover buying in apartment in a appropriated size (>=55m^2) close to the city in Stockholm is always >3 million SEK (~330k €).

If you add in the non-visible salary taxes ("sociala avgifter") and other hidden costs, the salaries are quite high... you just don't get any of that money.

Re: Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism

#23

Post by bjelkeman-again » Sun, May 27, 2012, 3:29 PM UTC

T-A wrote: post #5

Yrlec wrote: post #4

Sweden is a really amazing country! In addition to being a well functioning democracy it also has these features: * A flourishing market economy that has created everything from IKEA and H&M to Spotify and Skype. * Free health-care * Free college education * Low corruption * A well functioning justice system (practically no patent trolls!) It certainly has it's problems but compared to other countries it is truly ama…

It also has the FRA law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law which lets it legally do what it wants to prevent other governments from doing. Because they are, you know, not the Swedish government. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy

Indeed, and we work on at rolling that back.

A whole lot of other governments have the same stuff, I would hazard to guess that they all do (Eschelon for example) and Sweden has actually been open about the fact that it has it, and has shown how the oversight is being done, whereas with other governments this is all a secret. Not justifying it, but just saying that because Sweden has said it does this, doesn't mean it is the worst or the only government spying on Internet traffic.

Indeed: I am a Swede.

Re: Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism

#24

Post by berntb » Sun, May 27, 2012, 3:31 PM UTC

forza wrote: post #17

maayank wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Housing (more or less) can't be rented, buying is expensive." Is it plain non-availability? If so, then why? If not, then why? (I'm genuinely interested)

Yes, non-availability. Basically high demand because of rapid urbanization, poor infrastructure, small and single city center. Low supply because of rent control on the first and second hand market, conversion of rentals and not enough new buildings. At least for the three large cities in Sweden.

A large factor is probably the oligopolies in the building industry, which earns lots of money with the present situation, despite little building going on.

Regulatory capture in Sweden is still not counted as corruption, for some strange reason...

Re: Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism

#25

Post by bjelkeman-again » Sun, May 27, 2012, 3:43 PM UTC

forza wrote: post #9

Yrlec wrote: post #4

Sweden is a really amazing country! In addition to being a well functioning democracy it also has these features: * A flourishing market economy that has created everything from IKEA and H&M to Spotify and Skype. * Free health-care * Free college education * Low corruption * A well functioning justice system (practically no patent trolls!) It certainly has it's problems but compared to other countries it is truly ama…

Sweden is outstanding if you ignore all the equally great countries in Europe and elsewhere. Sweden also used to be the standard-bearer for the Nordic model, this is not true anymore. There's plenty of reasons to avoid Sweden, but here are the top ones: * Everything is expensive. * Taxes are high. * Housing (more or less) can't be rented, buying is expensive. * Weather is cold and/or dark most of the year. * Culture…

Despite that "everything is expensive", "taxes are high" and "whether is cold" it is actually a very good place to live.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_Index

Cultural life in Stockholm is rather quite good for a town of its size, and you have plenty of nature around you to compensate for not having quite as many bars as London.

Racism is sadly on the rise, but not as bad as in many other societies. Anecdotally I have immigrant friends and visitor friends, from backgrounds that would invite racism, who say that they feel less discriminated in Sweden than in other Euopean countries. No place is perfect though, you just have to select the drawbacks you want to put up with.

More importantly for Hacker News readers I consider that the startup and investment community to be fairly insular and limited in scope in Stockholm compared to other places I have worked, particular London, West/East coast US. But no surprises there, it is a lot smaller after all.

Indeed: I am a Swede.

Re: Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism

#26

Post by im3w1l » Sun, May 27, 2012, 4:05 PM UTC

aurelianito wrote: post #21

maayank wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whenever I discuss Tor with people who have just enough knowledge to be dangerous, I hear "yea, but it was funded by the US so it probably has a backdoor/wouldn't be funded if they couldn't read the data". I don't agree with that, but what can you say other than "it's open source so many eyeballs are auditing it"?

Besides that, I use to say that I would not put a backdoor in the system used by my spies to communicate. It would be really dangerous for me if it fallen in the wrong hands.

if messageSigned (msg, nsaPublicKey): obey

Re: Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism

#27

Post by [deleted] » Sun, May 27, 2012, 4:06 PM UTC

berntb wrote: post #22

awidegreen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and considering that everything is expensive, the wages are not that high either. Moreover buying in apartment in a appropriated size (>=55m^2) close to the city in Stockholm is always >3 million SEK (~330k €).

If you add in the non-visible salary taxes ("sociala avgifter") and other hidden costs, the salaries are quite high... you just don't get any of that money.

[deleted]

Re: Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism

#28

Post by jeltz » Sun, May 27, 2012, 4:11 PM UTC

awidegreen wrote: post #19

forza wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden is outstanding if you ignore all the equally great countries in Europe and elsewhere. Sweden also used to be the standard-bearer for the Nordic model, this is not true anymore. There's plenty of reasons to avoid Sweden, but here are the top ones: * Everything is expensive. * Taxes are high. * Housing (more or less) can't be rented, buying is expensive. * Weather is cold and/or dark most of the year. * Culture…

and considering that everything is expensive, the wages are not that high either. Moreover buying in apartment in a appropriated size (>=55m^2) close to the city in Stockholm is always >3 million SEK (~330k €).

That is an exaggeration. More correct is always >2 million SEK, and usually >2.5 million.

Re: Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism

#29

Post by probably_not_pc » Sun, May 27, 2012, 4:41 PM UTC

Yrlec wrote: post #4

Sweden is a really amazing country! In addition to being a well functioning democracy it also has these features: * A flourishing market economy that has created everything from IKEA and H&M to Spotify and Skype. * Free health-care * Free college education * Low corruption * A well functioning justice system (practically no patent trolls!) It certainly has it's problems but compared to other countries it is truly ama…

Yes and that will all change as you continue to embrace multiculturalism. These properties are only possible in a society with high cohesion. People are more than happy to support their own communities.

People are more trusting of those who are racially or ethnically similar to them.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/20/148946156/how-do-...

The sorts of things you list are not easily attainable in America because of our multiculturalism. When I pay taxes, I don't know how that money will be used by people who probably do not share the same value or aspirations as I do. Different racial and ethnic groups in aggregate put different values on different things.

Because of that, it's more dog-eat-dog here. People are less trusting of the government to promote the values they wish to see in their society. That's why Americans are wary of socialist programs.

But it's not all bad. It's that culture of independence and competition which breeds innovation. It's the melting pot, the mixing and meshing and synthesizing of view points which breeds progress. It's the reason America is a technological and economic superpower.

My point is: you have your thing, we have our thing. It's a trade off.

Re: Swedish aid money to Tor, online activism

#30

Post by forza » Sun, May 27, 2012, 5:10 PM UTC

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #25

forza wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden is outstanding if you ignore all the equally great countries in Europe and elsewhere. Sweden also used to be the standard-bearer for the Nordic model, this is not true anymore. There's plenty of reasons to avoid Sweden, but here are the top ones: * Everything is expensive. * Taxes are high. * Housing (more or less) can't be rented, buying is expensive. * Weather is cold and/or dark most of the year. * Culture…

Despite that "everything is expensive", "taxes are high" and "whether is cold" it is actually a very good place to live. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_Index Cultural life in Stockholm is rather quite good for a town of its size, and you have plenty of nature around you to compensate for not having quite as many bars as London. Racism is sadly on the rise, but not as bad as in many other societies. Anec…

That's quite an old ranking and it's hard to compare against any other ranking, but I can't imagine Ireland still being at the top of the list.

I do think the "IT-community" (and most people) are awesome. While somewhat underappreciated it's lot more enthusiast/hacker than academic/corporate, compared to other countries. People also generally don't care about hierarchies and titles in the workplaces. I mean getting to work is often more "troublesome" than getting things done at work. YMMV of course.