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Do you have a secret?

doyouhaveasecret.org

61–70 of 107 posts

Re: Do you have a secret?

#61
post #6
post #3

Huh? What does any of this have to do with CISPA? There are good reasons to oppose CISPA. You shouldn't appreciate people trying to manipulate you into opposing it.

There are good reasons to oppose CISPA. You shouldn't appreciate people trying to manipulate you into opposing it. This is something that really annoys me. It's incredibly frustrating to see people argue "on my side", but using reasons that are based almost entirely on FUD and hyperbole. It undermines that entire side of the argument, because people who aren't already on your side assume that if you had valid reasons…

I had a similar problem with SOPA. I had lots of people telling me SOPA sucked, but very few were willing to tell me why it sucked. It seemed the bill was just a product of evil and I should oppose it. There was a lot more seeking to be understood than to understand. (Caveat: I wasn't really reading HN at the time, where maybe I could have gotten a decent discussion, including opponents to the bill who could have described why the proponents liked it without dumb sarcastic comments.)

Re: Do you have a secret?

#62
post #3

Huh? What does any of this have to do with CISPA? There are good reasons to oppose CISPA. You shouldn't appreciate people trying to manipulate you into opposing it.

For those of us trying to catch up, what are some good reasons to oppose CISPA?

It has clauses that intentionally ignore other laws protecting privacy, starting paragraphs with things like this:

"Notwithstanding any other provision of law..."

Beyond that, read sections (SEC. 701., 703. 704. etc http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s2105pcs/pdf/BILLS-112...) which are heavily couched in language like "safeguards" and "threats" but the effective result is more about authorizing full monitoring of personal communications and sharing all of that with other private companies in government "cybersecurity exchanges". The protections in this bill seem to only protect private companies from getting sued for sharing personal communications.

Why aren't our representatives writing laws that further protect our privacy? Instead we get bills that ignore or even override and nullify existing privacy law. I feel betrayed by our elected representatives in government. It seems they are working for someone else.

(edited to add link to PDF of the Bill)

Re: Do you have a secret?

#63
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telling lies and X is not equally as bad as telling lies and not X. EX: Where X is killing people. 'Smoking cigarettes makes you popular smoking cigarettes makes you unpopular.'

That's a particularly bad example, since the idea that cigarettes will make you unpopular will be a transparent falsehood to the target audience, and might cause them to doubt you when you say that cigarettes will kill them.

There was some recent anti smoking advertising that used that line, basically smoking = bad smell/yellow teeth = unpopular. Where a few years ago similar advertising used the smoking = cool = you become popular line of argument.

Granted this was sub textual, but the implications where clear enough.

Re: Do you have a secret?

#64
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes you can correct the ignorance, sometime you best ignore it. But in the end even Starfleet had Section 35. The world is dirty and sometimes it is better to play dirty than to lose. I am not sure if this is one of those times though.

did you mean section 31? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_31

Yes. I am hearing darkerprojects section 31 files (a really well done Star Trek audio series), but I missed up the numbers.

Sorry about that.

Re: Do you have a secret?

#66

Brandon Mayfield was arrested as a material witness, not as a suspect. The problem here is the increasing use of material witness warrants to arrest people suspected of a crime, rather than actually getting an arrest warrant. According to Wikipedia, "Ensuing lawsuits have resulted in a formal apology from the U.S. government and a $2 million settlement." I'll be honest: I feel like I'm being swindled by doyouhaveasec…

The sad part is that the people we have to convince that these laws are a bad idea will only be swayed by emotion. It's emotion that convinced them to support bills like this and it is going to take an appeal to emotion to convince them otherwise. It sucks to admit that, but it's how many humans work.

Physicians contended for a long time that they were too educated, thoughtful, and professional to be swayed by advertising and other promotional efforts that were not directly related to efficacy and cost of drugs:

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=192314

Nobody is immune to advertising, PR, or emotional appeals. Some of us are more/less impacted by specific types of advertising, but we are all susceptible. Including the people in this community.

Re: Do you have a secret?

#67

Brandon Mayfield was arrested as a material witness, not as a suspect. The problem here is the increasing use of material witness warrants to arrest people suspected of a crime, rather than actually getting an arrest warrant. According to Wikipedia, "Ensuing lawsuits have resulted in a formal apology from the U.S. government and a $2 million settlement." I'll be honest: I feel like I'm being swindled by doyouhaveasec…

The sad part is that the people we have to convince that these laws are a bad idea will only be swayed by emotion. It's emotion that convinced them to support bills like this and it is going to take an appeal to emotion to convince them otherwise. It sucks to admit that, but it's how many humans work.

I agree and upvoted you but at the same time, would you put references from your terms of service on your homepage to convince people to buy? Offhand, that was the best analogy I could think of for what is sure to be some obfuscated language in the bill. It's less sad than it is a fact of life that buying is an emotional decision. This is a sales page and while it would have been nice if they could have weaved some of the bill's language in there (w/ a link to read more), maybe that would have detracted from the "conversion" percentage.

Re: Do you have a secret?

#68
Wait a minute. We're supposed to be upset that the feds took a guy's computer after they matched his fingerprints to a bomb bag used in the Madrid train bombings that killed almost 200 people? And we're supposed to believe this was ethnic harassment because "he is a muslim"? If any police anywhere find near-conclusive proof that you killed 200 people, it doesn't matter if you believe in the flying spaghetti monster. They just might take your computer away from you.

It turns out the fingerprints belonged to somebody else. Blame it on faulty software and faultier human interpretation. This scaremongering about routine evidence-gathering is socially irresponsible.

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