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

Cowards

uncrunched.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 240 posts

Re: Cowards

#131

Post by twoodfin »

wavefunction wrote: post #121
Aqueous wrote: post #81

There are cowards and then there are people who willfully exaggerate. A backdoor implies unfettered access to data for batch collection and processing. That's what this story was about at the beginning - the government was indiscriminately collecting and possibly analyzing your private data using some sort of massive, sinister Big Data operation, the scale of which we can not even conceive, and these big web companie…

It's more about seizing the moment of widespread outrage to effect change, rather than ho-humming like a jaded hipster.

"Fake but accurate!"

Re: Cowards

#132

Post by AnthonyMouse »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #84
scythe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y'know, I'd like to believe I'd do that in this situation, too. But people are more generous in theory than in practice. You have to realize: Mark Zuckerberg isn't just looking out for Mark Zuckerberg by posting what he did. He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him. To whom, perhaps, it would not be fair for Zuck to martyr himself on the great gallows of the United State…

Or they simply know more than we do. Maybe they've gotten the answers to "Why?" that we want and that convinced them? That's the "conspiracy" that almost worries me more. Not that I hold any real faith in such a thought.

That conclusion requires three things to be true simultaneously:

1) The government has some actual legitimate reason to do all of this which outweighs the danger of excessive government power.

2) Disclosing the reason to the public would eviscerate its effectiveness.

3) Allowing the government to say "trust us, we're the government" about anything from now on and get a free pass, because it could be this situation, will not result in the outrageous atrocities that governments have been known to commit when government accountability to the public is literally prohibited by law.

I don't even buy the first two as being especially plausible, but the third is why this cannot stand.

Re: Cowards

#133

Post by einhverfr »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #127
peterjancelis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government would go after Facebook as an entity when Zukerberg speaks out. This means other FB directors could be held liable, shareholders could sue him for breaching his fiduciary duty, his life could be made hell even if PR wise it's impossible to arrest him, etc. We are talking about the most powerful monopoly on force humanity has even seen here, a group of people who consider it their right to kill people o…

>The government would go after Facebook as an entity when Zukerberg speaks out. You honestly think the government is going to go after a multibillion dollar international corporation? Doing that is what gets the government into trouble, because the corporation has the resources to defend itself. And they're clearly not going to destroy Facebook and Google in any event -- can you imagine the public outrage, to say not…

More likely though they'd go after corporate officers for real or alleged criminal behavior (think of the "honest services fraud" charges against Jeff Skilling, reversed by the Supreme Court on the basis that the law was being stretched well beyond breaking point) and refer to the SEC for investigations....

The government has in the past gone after some extremely powerful corporations and when they had the endurance patience, and care, they have succeeded. We should remember that the government spent 50 years trying to destroy AT&T's monopoly on long distance telephone calls and eventually they succeeded.

Re: Cowards

#134

Post by einhverfr »

gingerjoos wrote: post #113
scythe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y'know, I'd like to believe I'd do that in this situation, too. But people are more generous in theory than in practice. You have to realize: Mark Zuckerberg isn't just looking out for Mark Zuckerberg by posting what he did. He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him. To whom, perhaps, it would not be fair for Zuck to martyr himself on the great gallows of the United State…

Just FYI : Oppenheimer was quoting the Bhagavad Gita. see http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer#Quotes

Not a bad quote in context considering how things go for the Pandavas after the great battle that follows the Gita. That really is the sort of turning point from the harsh but adventurous world of the virtuous heros to the fallen world when the Pandavas fall from Dharma. Even Yudhisthira cannot stand by his principles to win the battle, and they suffer greatly as a result.

Re: Cowards

#135

Post by einhverfr »

peterjancelis wrote: post #87
Qz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole reason we even know about all this is because someone did have that courage.

Yes, but do we really think that person will lead a long and untroubled life now?

Which makes the action more heroic, even moreso in that they do not ask for fame in doing so.

What more can one ask for than for the opportunity to live life on one's own terms?

Re: Cowards

#136

Post by AnthonyMouse »

primitur wrote: post #107
yaix wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should Mark Zuckerberg, et al., know things about you that the government shouldn't? 1. Because the user decided to give their own info to FB, but not to the gov. 2. The gov has many more powers than FB. If FB knows something about you that "may be suspicious" they can't put you in jail for it, maybe even without a trial. 3. If some FB employee is able to steal data, it would have bad consecuences for the FB st…

1. You also chooose your participation in government. 2. Right, so because Mr. Z. et al., don't have a 'license to kill', there is a difference. This is the only difference. 3. Which do you trust more, McDonalds or Congress?

>Which do you trust more, McDonalds or Congress?

The question is, trust more to do what? Not kill or imprison innocent people on a mass scale? I'm going to go with McDonalds on that one. But I wouldn't eat their food -- and notice that I have the choice not to.

Re: Cowards

#137

Post by kabdib »

scythe wrote: post #51
dylangs1030 wrote: post #23

An article that waxes poetic, yet is so very hollow and devoid of realism. What would you have these companies do? Band together in a mighty ring of technological resources and begin a Privacy Revolution? This is unrealistic. As an American, I am saddened and angered by the recent news of the past two days. I am disgusted with what our government has done - what it has hidden from us, to take advantage of us unawares…

If there's anyone to go after, it's the ranking members of the Special Committee on Intelligence, who wrote FISA and greenlighted this policy. Sadly, the ranking members are the near-80 Dianne Feinstein and lame-duck Saxby Chambliss; their successors are probably Jay Rockefeller and Susan Collins. While I don't think single-issue voting is a good political strategy, in this particular case it seems prudent to conside…

Dear Outraged California: Please stop re-electing Feinstein, for starters. She's bad for you.

Re: Cowards

#138

Post by Ygg2 »

scythe wrote: post #41
sage_joch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What the hell does this even mean? It means that if telling the truth is illegal, they should have the courage to break the law.

Y'know, I'd like to believe I'd do that in this situation, too. But people are more generous in theory than in practice. You have to realize: Mark Zuckerberg isn't just looking out for Mark Zuckerberg by posting what he did. He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him. To whom, perhaps, it would not be fair for Zuck to martyr himself on the great gallows of the United State…

If a man of such power and influence can't speak up, then what hope is there for others? Guess only those that have nothing to lose can speak.

Re: Cowards

#139

Post by lazyjones »

scythe wrote: post #41
sage_joch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What the hell does this even mean? It means that if telling the truth is illegal, they should have the courage to break the law.

Y'know, I'd like to believe I'd do that in this situation, too. But people are more generous in theory than in practice. You have to realize: Mark Zuckerberg isn't just looking out for Mark Zuckerberg by posting what he did. He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him. To whom, perhaps, it would not be fair for Zuck to martyr himself on the great gallows of the United State…

> He has a family, a social life, and a whole lot of people at Facebook who depend on him.

He also has more means to defend himself, move out of harm's way, get active support from other people.

> Bradley Manning had a different kind of freedom, the kind that comes with nobody around you who can get hurt.

This is just nonsense. Manning has a family too (parents).

Re: Cowards

#140

Post by e_w »

vadiml wrote: post #118
dasil003 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoah, hold on, I don't think anyone is saying this is easy or there aren't risks for Zuckerberg. However to say he shouldn't stand up against tyranny and abuse of government power because he has responsibility to parties x, y and z is exactly the line of thinking that allows totalitarian governments to thrive. Government power is not absolute, that power is derived from the people. No one person can stand up to the…

Risking one’s own well being to help the community is basically a definition of an altruistic behaviour. Nobody and i mean NOBODY can reach and keep the position of CEO of big international corporation by exhibiting altruistic tendencies. The environment is too competitive and it promotes egoism and punishes altruism. (BTW, The same reasoning stand for political leadership too). So, I don’t think we can really expect…

Sorry, but this is a textbook example of oversimplification.
Post reply on HN