Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?
1–10 of 291 posts
Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?
#2No.
Because most people don't care about privacy that much. See TSA scanners, foursquare, hell GMail scans your data everytime you read mails, Facebook doesn't even pretend there is a privacy. Damn, first thing any Apple computer do is taking your picture, getting your details and sending it all to Cupertino, before you even load the OS. Android tries to track all your phones under one account you have to add before starting up.
People don't really care about privacy. (Disclaimer: I am no better.)
There will be some anti NSA rallies, sure. Photos of those rallies will be geotagged with EXIF data and posted on tumblr, facebook and twitter from iphones and androids.
Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?
#3No, because only those who were on the fence were swayed either way. As of right now, the Poll on how the HN community will respond ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5846564 ) is at :
No, I'm ok with it 66
I'd like to do something but it's too difficult to avoid using cloud services 195
I'm going to try to use services from non-US companies hosted outside the US 99
I'm only going to use services that allow client side encryption. 37
I'm going to host all my own services. 47
I'm not changing anything because I already assumed all of my data was being
monitored anyway. 151
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2013/0609/How-do-Ame...
Summary: People think in terms of "Privacy is a bit like oil. It's getting pricey, but I still like my SUV."
If anything, it may give a much needed boost to an existing sector of internet industry, privacy and security. I see several companies springing up (some already have) that delivery end-to-end encrypted communication and storage over different media (of course, there would be plenty of Snake Oil as well).
The real frontier of communication is the transmission of anonymized and encrypted data with services bought and paid for anonymously as well with no repercussions for the service providers.
Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?
#4No I don't think Obama did anything.
Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?
#5No. Because most people don't care about privacy that much. See TSA scanners, foursquare, hell GMail scans your data everytime you read mails, Facebook doesn't even pretend there is a privacy. Damn, first thing any Apple computer do is taking your picture, getting your details and sending it all to Cupertino, before you even load the OS. Android tries to track all your phones under one account you have to add before…
So true. The real danger here is that it's now easier for foreign governments to justify censoring the web, to "protect us against US invasion of privacy" or something.
Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?
#6I don't think it will have that big an impact.
The thing is that the grassroots organizers in other countries who care most about government spying tend to live in countries with much more meddling than that which the US government has demonstrated through PRISM. So compared to a locally-run service, keeping data in the US cloud is likely still much safer. I don't see Google handing over an activist's email logs to the Turkish government, whereas an email service based in Turkey could be strongarmed into it.
A legitimate, non-rhetorical question: does an activist in Turkey care whether the US government reads his/her emails, as long as they don't share them with Turkey?
Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?
#7No, because only those who were on the fence were swayed either way. As of right now, the Poll on how the HN community will respond ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5846564 ) is at : No, I'm ok with it 66 I'd like to do something but it's too difficult to avoid using cloud services 195 I'm going to try to use services from non-US companies hosted outside the US 99 I'm only going to use services that allow clien…
I doubt it will have much of an impact, but I'd be reluctant to make a prediction about international growth based on an HN survey and a CS Monitor article that references American polling data.
Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?
#8Betteridge's law in action
Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?
#9It's odd, I hear people saying, "no big deal, nothing will change." But then I wonder, if you're saying it's no big deal, are you an American or not?
The point of this pst is that foreign business will be affected, AFAICT, Europeans have always held the Internet to a stricter standard than Americans and have passed stricter laws around everything from what data can be retained to the behaviour of tracking cookies.
If you've posted a "no big deal" comment, can you please go back and tell us whether you are an American or not.
Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?
#10The biggest problem with this article is that the only competitors the author can find who might supplant the US ones are located in China. Don't see US tech hegemony fading anytime soon, Prism or no Prism.