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

Stellar Wind (code name)

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 175 posts

Re: Stellar Wind (code name)

#101

Post by LowKarmaAccount »

rayiner wrote: post #39
kunai wrote: post #28

What is truly a scary thought is if the vast, mindless mass of people easily swayed by consumerism, advertisement and buzz, talk about this for about two weeks and then forget the whole thing, screaming "We have NOTHING to hide!" as a logically flawed and incredibly poor excuse. The entire premise that democracy would work is flawed. Take Turkey. A ravaged, torn, depressed state, brought back to life by a fucking dic…

> What is truly a scary thought is if the vast, mindless mass of people... This is why privacy advocates (and libertarians more generally), can't get more popular traction: the incredibly derisive and arrogant tone with which they address their fellow citizens, and their flippant, dismissive attitude towards democracy. Why should I listen to the opinions of someone who calls my parents, most of my friends, my in-laws…

Privacy advocates are not a subset of libertarians. Libertarians may be privacy advocates, but there are many privacy advocates that are not libertarians.

Privacy advocacy is popular among the upper classes, because they really don't want anyone from the lower classes sticking their noses into their business.

Libertarians are unpopular because some of their policies are deeply unpopular. For example, many libertarians oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because they feel it violates their first amendment rights.

Re: Stellar Wind (code name)

#102

Post by leephillips »

isleyaardvark wrote: post #79
leephillips wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"wait, did people not think this was happening?" There is a very interesting book called The Puzzle Palace , about the early history of the NSA and its forerunners. The telegraph system had ATT cooperating with the government to let them have a copy of everything . This is before telephones. I always assumed this never stopped.

Project SHAMROCK. It ended in 1975 due to the scandals that came to light during Church committee hearings (and Watergate), hearings that resulted in things like FISA and the Congressional select committees on intelligence oversight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_SHAMROCK

I'm relying on my memory of the book from many years ago, and I don't have a copy any longer, but I think I recall that the telegraph eavesdropping began way before SHAMROCK, in the early days of the telegraph. In other words, as long as we have had electrical communications, our government has been listening in. Before that, of course, there was the post office....

Re: Stellar Wind (code name)

#103

Post by rayiner »

LowKarmaAccount wrote: post #101
rayiner wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is truly a scary thought is if the vast, mindless mass of people... This is why privacy advocates (and libertarians more generally), can't get more popular traction: the incredibly derisive and arrogant tone with which they address their fellow citizens, and their flippant, dismissive attitude towards democracy. Why should I listen to the opinions of someone who calls my parents, most of my friends, my in-laws…

Privacy advocates are not a subset of libertarians. Libertarians may be privacy advocates, but there are many privacy advocates that are not libertarians. Privacy advocacy is popular among the upper classes, because they really don't want anyone from the lower classes sticking their noses into their business. Libertarians are unpopular because some of their policies are deeply unpopular. For example, many libertarian…

> Privacy advocacy is popular among the upper classes, because they really don't want anyone from the lower classes sticking their noses into their business.

That is, in my experience, my friends' only real problem with the TSA (other than the hassle). They hate people with GED's bossing them around.

Re: Stellar Wind (code name)

#104

Post by mindcrime »

ihsw wrote: post #78
voxmatt wrote: post #4

I'm glad someone posted this. My immediate thought after reading the breaking news about the massive phone surveillance was, "wait, did people not think this was happening?" I'm really not a conspiracy nut, but that Wired article and the NYTimes reporting made it pretty clear that the Gov't is pretty much collecting everything they can get their hands on. Glad to finally see some outrage though. Legitimate question:…

> what's new about what is breaking in the news right now? That they no longer operate on a cloak-and-dagger basis, and that all three branches (judicial, executive, legislative) are demonstrating an unprecedented level of cooperation -- the "checks and balances" we so hold dear in democracy are now null and void. Previously, plausible deniability and "neither confirm nor deny" public relations policies dominated the…

the "checks and balances" we so hold dear in democracy are now null and void.

Well, there's one check / balance aspect that is still "in play" at least in theory: the 2nd Amendment.

Re: Stellar Wind (code name)

#105

Post by harryh »

rayiner wrote: post #103
LowKarmaAccount wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy advocates are not a subset of libertarians. Libertarians may be privacy advocates, but there are many privacy advocates that are not libertarians. Privacy advocacy is popular among the upper classes, because they really don't want anyone from the lower classes sticking their noses into their business. Libertarians are unpopular because some of their policies are deeply unpopular. For example, many libertarian…

> Privacy advocacy is popular among the upper classes, because they really don't want anyone from the lower classes sticking their noses into their business. That is, in my experience, my friends' only real problem with the TSA (other than the hassle). They hate people with GED's bossing them around.

I think it's also the stupidity. You know you're going through this ordeal that could be easily circumvented by even a moderately clever attacker. It just seems like such a waste.

Re: Stellar Wind (code name)

#106

Post by lostlogin »

tjoff wrote: post #11

You do know that the internet exists outside of the US, right?

Yeah, but they've got their claws in down here with their ping-pong ball monitoring centre in Waihopai. Echelon, we in whether we like it or not - New Zealand is the lapdog I'm part of. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Re: Stellar Wind (code name)

#107

Post by austenallred »

JPKab wrote: post #19

My brother worked for years in the intelligence community. One of the common stereotypes within the IC regards the fact that Mormons are heavily overrepresented, for various reasons that involve foreign language skills from mission trips, a reputation for respecting authority, abstinence from drugs/alcohol, family connections, ease of gaining security clearances, etc. The stereotype in the IC regarding Mormons is the…

I'll go ahead and contribute to this discussion, since, well, I'm a Mormon. I was a little bit shocked to see this be the top comment.

I served a mission in eastern Ukraine (Донецк, Харьков) from 2008-2010 and there learned to speak Russian fluently. Since returning home I've had probably a half dozen offers to work for the FBI or other government offices. Every now and then the highest level Russian classes at BYU will get an announcement from some government agency trying to recruit us, and a lot of them are rumored to actually be the CIA.

It's more than just the language fluency (not all return missionaries speak the same level of Russian,) it's also having lived in the culture and living very conservative lifestyles (no smoking/drinking, emphasis on families, etc.) and fierce loyalty. It's the overall perfect stereotype for what government agencies want.

Combine that with how cheap everything is ($80K/year is a pretty solid job here and $500K bought my parents a 3-story 3,000 square foot house). That's the reason Adobe, Microsoft, Novell, eBay, Overstock.com, Goldman Sachs etc. have all started to put up shop in Utah - it's ideal if you want people who are content to do a good job with their 8-5 and go home to their families.

The new data center in utah is probably a mixture of all of these things; everything is uber-cheap including workforce, so why not put a data center there? (Bluehost is here as well).

Re: Stellar Wind (code name)

#108

Post by leephillips »

kunai wrote: post #28

What is truly a scary thought is if the vast, mindless mass of people easily swayed by consumerism, advertisement and buzz, talk about this for about two weeks and then forget the whole thing, screaming "We have NOTHING to hide!" as a logically flawed and incredibly poor excuse. The entire premise that democracy would work is flawed. Take Turkey. A ravaged, torn, depressed state, brought back to life by a fucking dic…

It all depends on the quality of your dictator.

Re: Stellar Wind (code name)

#109

Post by jdale27 »

austenallred wrote: post #107
JPKab wrote: post #19

My brother worked for years in the intelligence community. One of the common stereotypes within the IC regards the fact that Mormons are heavily overrepresented, for various reasons that involve foreign language skills from mission trips, a reputation for respecting authority, abstinence from drugs/alcohol, family connections, ease of gaining security clearances, etc. The stereotype in the IC regarding Mormons is the…

I'll go ahead and contribute to this discussion, since, well, I'm a Mormon. I was a little bit shocked to see this be the top comment. I served a mission in eastern Ukraine (Донецк, Харьков) from 2008-2010 and there learned to speak Russian fluently. Since returning home I've had probably a half dozen offers to work for the FBI or other government offices. Every now and then the highest level Russian classes at BYU w…

That's the reason Adobe, Microsoft, Novell, eBay, Overstock.com, Goldman Sachs etc. have all started to put up shop in Utah

Off topic, but one of those things is not like the others... Novell was founded in Utah more than 30 years ago.

Re: Stellar Wind (code name)

#110

Post by Sharlin »

I'm eerily reminded of Deus Ex and the Aquinas Router. The main difference is that it was located in Nevada, not Utah... And that the NSA probably does not have a human-level general artificial intelligence developet yet. Although one never knows.
Post reply on HN