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

The Day We Fight Back

thedaywefightback.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 192 posts

Re: The Day We Fight Back

#101

Post by pron »

This is a worthy cause, but I find it ironic that the page has so many links to social networks that engage in spying on a scale comparable to that of the NSA. And while the NSA was probably just collecting the information we know that Google and Facebook actually use it.

Saying that those services give you a choice not to use them is throwing sand in our face. We know that Facebook and maybe Google, too, collect information about people not using their services. They also track their users' behavior when they're not expecting it. Worst of all is the fact that most people don't fully grasp the deal those companies offer: they give you free services in exchange for your private information.

This reminds me of that recent South Park episode where Cartman goes to investigate the NSA while tweeting his every thought[1]. This kind of fight requires serious thinking about privacy in this day and age. Sure, it's bad that a government spies on people, but it isn't any better that some of the world's most powerful corporations trick people into being spied on and into becoming unknowing informants on their friends. This is a very serious and very broad issue. Let's not make it just about the NSA.

[1]: http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s17e01-let-go-...

Re: The Day We Fight Back

#103

Post by vidarh »

terabytest wrote: post #87
themodelplumber wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think the NSA, or whoever else for that matter, would actually care What made you think that's the point of this? This isn't about convincing the NSA of anything.

This sentence from the page pretty much hints at that: > Today we face a different threat, one that undermines the Internet, and the notion that any of us live in a genuinely free society: mass surveillance. Let's not forget that the NSA revelations are at the base of the mass surveillance outrage.

Clearly part of addressing mass surveillance would be to get changes at the NSA, but they are not the ones we need to make listen. Politicians are. US politicians who support and fund the NSA or doesn't voice their opposition. Politicians all over the world who allow their own surveillance organizations to be complicit, or who are not putting enough pressure on the US government to make it a foreign policy problem instead of merely a small nuisance.

And the large parts of the public who are not yet aware, or not aware enough to care.

The NSA is at the very end of a very long list of targets, each one of which may help put pressure on and/or have some power over the next target on the list.

Re: The Day We Fight Back

#104

Post by jcfrei »

jlgaddis wrote: post #16

Yay, slacktivism! ----- edit: I wrote the above because there was no clear "call to action" other than changing one's Facebook profile picture (seriously?) but, according to the "Open Letter" [0], I guess we're all supposed to call our legislators that day. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7037532

My first thought was that it is a prank by 4chan to collect email addresses.

Re: The Day We Fight Back

#105

Post by systematical »

return0 wrote: post #21

Yeah, let's fight online surveillance through facebook, google and the other NSA-approved social media. How about instead we save some energy and invest it in better encryption and security?

So facebook and google are now "NSA-approved" how can I get my products and services NSA approved?

Re: The Day We Fight Back

#106

Post by niuzeta »

boyaka wrote: post #89
niuzeta wrote: post #13

No, it's not fighting back. Making clever memes online to earn a chuckle or two might help spreading awareness , but in reality changing an online avatar and posting memes online won't affect much in real life. What I find strange is that(Please correct me on this one) there just doesn't seem to be a political group of technologist who lobby(the original meaning) against politicians. In truth, technology-related poli…

Yeah, did you even click on the link and try to understand before you made your original post? Aaron Swartz, the face being used for this movement who fought back, was behind the creation of reddit. He is much more involved with these technology-related policies than 99% of those Google, Verizon, etc. policy makers.

Please tell me again how this call to action has to do with Aaron Swartz other than the fact that the front page has his picture of him.

Re: The Day We Fight Back

#108

Post by aaronem »

herbig wrote: post #18

"If Aaron were alive, he'd be on the front lines, fighting against a world in which governments observe, collect, and analyze our every digital action." While government surveillance and open access are both information issues, we definitely should not be construing what he would or wouldn't believe about revelations that were made after his death. If we're taking a literal interpretation of his Guerilla Open Access…

Not related in particular, and maybe a little selfish, but as someone who is also named Aaron, I sure would like it if people would, when referring to Aaron Swartz without honorific or qualifier, do so by last name, as is done with pretty much everyone else on the planet.

Not only would it be more specific to do so, it would be more respectful as well. Referring to someone by his first name, who has not given you that name himself, arrogates an degree of familiarity which I strongly suspect never existed between Swartz and most of those who, in the last year, have been talking about "Aaron" this and "Aaron" that like they were the best of friends. It's just rude, and jarringly so, given the apparently ubiquitious degree of respect extended to Swartz, especially in the wake of his regrettable suicide.

Re: The Day We Fight Back

#109

Post by fleitz »

vidarh wrote: post #97
gaius wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, it muddies the issue. I am anti-NSA-spying but I am also anti-stealing-IP... I should point out that I don't think Aaron should have been hounded to his death (tho' equally if he were mentally ill, anything could have pushed him over the edge). But that doesn't make what he did right. It has for 20 years baffled me that people can demand respect for the GPL et al but be happy to ride roughshod over anyone els…

The reason Aaron gets so much sympathy (EDIT: for what he did as well as for how he was treated) is that 1) a substantial portion of the JSTOR data is public domain , 2) a substantial portion of the rest is work funded with public money where it is controversial that it is only available under copyright. But even disregarding that, I don't get why you are baffled: The GPL is a hack intended to spread freedoms. Many w…

If GPL people are concerned about restrictive licenses why not use BSD or MIT which contain fewer restrictions?

Re: The Day We Fight Back

#110

Post by PavlovsCat »

rmc wrote: post #59
pinaceae wrote: post #22

as a non-US citizen this won't change anything for me. "free society" here should be really re-worded to "free US society". as long as there is a intelligence apparatus in the US at all, spying on the rest of the world will continue. by definition. the NSA is monitoring all internet traffic as it would be really hard to know beforehand if it only pertains to US citizens. not sure what exactly you're trying to achieve…

The US Constitual protection for privacy only applies to US citizens. Would US citizens be willing to amend it to make it apply to everyone.

Some things in the constitution apply only to citizens, most don't. When it says person, it means person, not citizen. Educating people that this prevalent view is false would already go a long way.
Post reply on HN