Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry? • Hacker News Board

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#191

Post by troels » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 8:24 AM UTC

goblin89 wrote: post #159

DannyBee wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in most countries, this is just not the way it works, legally. Every country has different rights for citizens and non-citizens. For example, the US has held the 4th amendment does not apply to non-citizens who are not "part of the national community" (IE if a bunch of canadians came down and fished every weekend, you could search them however without violating the 4th amendment. If they lived here illegally…

Is it possible, then, that my government can get hold of my private data without technically spying if another country (which could've been spying on me legally, as I'm not its citizen) would provide it?

Oh yes, and what I understand it is par for the course that intelligence agencies do trades with each other for that exact reason. Either explicitly or implicitly (As in - We know you operate in our country, but we'll turn the blind eye. Just remember to alert us, if you happen to find anything suspicious.)

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#192

Post by DominikR » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 8:25 AM UTC

It is sad for me to see the course that the US and the European governments have taken in the recent years.

My company (a small european provider of mobile telephony and chat) has to store all traffic that is going over our service during the last six months for the government, which may request that data. They didn't yet try to get that data in bulk, but I am pretty sure that we will see that happen in the near future. And there will be nothing that we can do about it as a small company if we want to stay in business and out of prison.

I believe that at some point this will harm IT business, which hopefully will also cause the government to rethink their strategy, but I am afraid of how far they will have to go before they come to this realization.

In 1998 (as a 17 year old boy) I was able to board a plane in London to Vienna without passport. (because I've lost it during my trip) Today I have to give fingerprints and other biometric data like a criminal just to get a new passport. Tomorrow maybe it will be a standard procedure that robots do a body cavity search on me before boarding a plane.

It is funny that I, as a tech enthusiast, am hoping that I wont see the kind of progress in robotics during my lifespan, that enables them to do anal probing at scale in airports.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#193

Post by flyinRyan » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 8:27 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #146

zmmmmm wrote: post #104

One of the rather interesting side issues in this whole debate has been how casually the rights of foreigners are tossed aside as secondary to those of american citizens. There is intense debate about whether US citizens rights are being violated, but almost nobody questions whether there's any moral or ethical issue with completely unrestrained spying on everybody else. While I understand that this is largely becaus…

There is intense debate about whether US citizens rights are being violated, but almost nobody questions whether there's any moral or ethical issue with completely unrestrained spying on everybody else. Almost nobody in the US, perhaps, but this whole mess isn't doing the US any favours at all with the international community, certainly not here in Europe. I'd say there's a fair chance the cavalier attitude towards t…

Let's hope so. The sooner the US gets marginalized and put on the shelf internationally, the sooner the world will become a safer place to live.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#194

Post by flyinRyan » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 8:28 AM UTC

kaichanvong wrote: post #168

zmmmmm wrote: post #104

One of the rather interesting side issues in this whole debate has been how casually the rights of foreigners are tossed aside as secondary to those of american citizens. There is intense debate about whether US citizens rights are being violated, but almost nobody questions whether there's any moral or ethical issue with completely unrestrained spying on everybody else. While I understand that this is largely becaus…

Looking at some of the bigger selling newspapers in the UK, I don't think people get it or the writers believe people wouldn't get it. On the whole most people in the UK who are not technical appear to know pretty much nothing about it and do not understand why it might be bad for them. The whole, "I have nothing to fear" point of view. It's the bigger picture they need to think about :(

I would imagine the UK expected this was the case all along. I mean, you guys arrest people for tweets, after all.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#195

Post by denis1 » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 8:31 AM UTC

joering2 wrote: post #150

siculars wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website.

> Does anyone know how these companies, et al., actually differentiate US Citizens from Non-US Citizens? I don't remember clicking the "I'm a US Citizen box" on any website. I think you were just trolling but if not then one of hundreds possible ways to find that: 1. get a hold of your your email (or name and then facebook / gmail snoop) 2. your email leads to your paypal account 3. your paypal account leads to your…

Doesn't this mean that they are spying on you without actually knowing if you are a US citizen? By your logic, only after step 4 they actually know if you are a citizen, but they have collected a lot of data about you in steps 1-3.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#196

Post by sergiosgc » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 8:33 AM UTC

softbuilder wrote: post #180

flexie wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. I remember how in 2001 when the US as the first country ever invoked article 5 of the NATO treaty, within hours all NATO members had followed through with support. And the minute of silence that was held all over Europe for the 9/11 victims. Then we joined them in two wars. We bought their cell phones, their operating systems and productivity suites, their internet adds, hosting and email services and mov…

>We bought their cell phones To be fair, folks in the US bought a LOT of European cell phones first. :)

And to complete the circle (triangle?), nowadays we all but Korean/Taiwanese phones :-)

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#197

Post by nacho2sweet » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 8:34 AM UTC

I worked at a University in Canada, and we had a no USA hosted services policy from day one of that Patriot Act. Not everyone knew about it or followed it but if an IT department was involved in development we had to enforce it. It was really frustrating for me a lot of times because I couldn't design new useful solutions or suggest products like SurveyMonkey for example that would save everyone huge amounts of time.

This is totally the kind of thing that is going to happen to a lot of businesses now that less technical people that are higher up are aware of these issues. They are going to get a little fearful and mandate certain services are a no go.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#198

Post by SagelyGuru » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 8:36 AM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #104

One of the rather interesting side issues in this whole debate has been how casually the rights of foreigners are tossed aside as secondary to those of american citizens. There is intense debate about whether US citizens rights are being violated, but almost nobody questions whether there's any moral or ethical issue with completely unrestrained spying on everybody else. While I understand that this is largely becaus…

'Foreigners' are customers too. They are expected to abide by the terms of service agreements (TOS) issued by these companies, which all include statements about protecting customers' data and privacy. As far as I can see, all these companies broke their contracts (their own TOS).

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#199

Post by Vivtek » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 8:36 AM UTC

No, because none of these laws have been enacted in the Obama administration.

And yes, because Candidate Obama said he was going to fix things, then discovered other priorities once in office.

Re: Did Obama Just Destroy the U.S. Internet Industry?

#200

Post by flyinRyan » Mon, Jun 10, 2013, 8:38 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #73

raganwald wrote: post #9

It'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…

Europeans tend to have higher standards for protecting the privacy of the personal data of their citizens from access and use by private corporations. But what the U.S. NSA is doing is sifting data for connections to foreigners who are suspected of being terrorists. I would be shocked if Euro intelligence agencies are not doing the same thing.

>But what the U.S. NSA is doing is sifting data for connections to foreigners who are suspected of being terrorists.

Demonstrably false. All of the terrorist laws are mostly used for drug enforcement and the like. They get nearly no terrorist usage because there are nearly no terrorists.