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

Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 237 posts

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#151

Post by typon »

anologwintermut wrote: post #98
alan_cx wrote: post #30

I hope those who treated me with scorn for suggesting the politicians and business people are effectively blackmailed by the mere existence of NSA type spying can now see it for real. No direct threat, not conversation, no deals. Just the fear of the knowledge that one is being comprehensively watched, and what "they" might have. This fear is enough to alter behavior, to conform. Again, at what stage can we describe…

While the NSA stuff is really bad, what Groklaw is doing is absurd and should be called such.HN seems happy to point out that more people die from furniture than terrorism, but yet unwilling to correct people with similarly misguided opinions when it comes to this. 1)Groklaw doesnt' depend on anonymous tips. The site could simply put up a huge disclosure statement on a web form that THE NSA might get what you say. Or…

> Of course, that wouldn't get them publicity

So they're shutting down to get publicity for...what?

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#152

Post by bostonpete »

samstave wrote: post #139
anologwintermut wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the NSA stuff is really bad, what Groklaw is doing is absurd and should be called such.HN seems happy to point out that more people die from furniture than terrorism, but yet unwilling to correct people with similarly misguided opinions when it comes to this. 1)Groklaw doesnt' depend on anonymous tips. The site could simply put up a huge disclosure statement on a web form that THE NSA might get what you say. Or…

> HN seems happy to point out that more people die from furniture than terrorism, but yet unwilling to correct people with similarly misguided opinions when it comes to this. This logic is broken. While more people may die from furniture than terrorism, what the NSA is doing is ensure that ZERO people are free. Period. You are not free when you simpl cannot communicate with another human being via electronic means wi…

Comments like "We are 100% completely corrupt", "Every single thing that the US stood for has literally been murdered", and "America is dead" are so absurdly over the top that they undercut your message and turn off people who might otherwise be receptive to your comments.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#153

Post by dragonwriter »

Joeri wrote: post #112
anologwintermut wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the NSA stuff is really bad, what Groklaw is doing is absurd and should be called such.HN seems happy to point out that more people die from furniture than terrorism, but yet unwilling to correct people with similarly misguided opinions when it comes to this. 1)Groklaw doesnt' depend on anonymous tips. The site could simply put up a huge disclosure statement on a web form that THE NSA might get what you say. Or…

Maybe you should not so easily judge an operation you know nothing about. I will assume until proven otherwise by sufficient insight into the groklaw project that pj is an honest agent who sincerely feels that what groklaw does cannot be done with the nsa snooping in place.

> I will assume until proven otherwise by sufficient insight into the groklaw project that pj is an honest agent who sincerely feels that what groklaw does cannot be done with the nsa snooping in place

That's not what PJ said.

What PJ said is that she doesn't feel comfortable with using the internet with the NSA surveillance in place, and given her decision to minimize internet exposure, it is impossible for Groklaw to continue.

Its not about what Groklaw does particularly, its about her own comfort level with use of the internet at all given the surveillance situation.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#154

Post by bmmayer1 »

itsallbs wrote: post #4

We are at an interesting juncture of history. It seems like Snowden has accomplished what he set out do to: raise awareness of government abuse and bring about positive change. Initial fears after the NSA leaks seemed to be that the public would become outraged and then forget about it. Clearly, this is not happening. A more secure Internet is needed, and instances like this highlight that necessity.

> A more secure Internet is needed

By using the passive voice, who are you suggesting comes along to "Secure" the internet? Surely not the same government that brought us the NSA?

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#155

Post by dobbsbob »

jlgreco wrote: post #136
cLeEOGPw wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's not the value of data should be reduced, it's the cost of access to the data should be increased. If it would be too expensive to watch everyone, they would naturally stop doing that.

They would just find more contractors eager to bill the increased expenses.

Or they would force even more backdoors into proprietary hardware than they do already. For all we know Intel and AMD could have microcode to sabotage RNG and they can already decrypt anything with ease using a skeleton key to predict the randomness.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#156

Post by samstave »

bostonpete wrote: post #152
samstave wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN seems happy to point out that more people die from furniture than terrorism, but yet unwilling to correct people with similarly misguided opinions when it comes to this. This logic is broken. While more people may die from furniture than terrorism, what the NSA is doing is ensure that ZERO people are free. Period. You are not free when you simpl cannot communicate with another human being via electronic means wi…

Comments like "We are 100% completely corrupt", "Every single thing that the US stood for has literally been murdered", and "America is dead" are so absurdly over the top that they undercut your message and turn off people who might otherwise be receptive to your comments.

While I am sure you are correct, I can't help that this is how I actually feel.

The entire concept of "America", for me, has completely dissolved.

The sad part is I now even have difficulty with the term "legal". All meaning from these terms has been removed.

We live in an illusion. The actual reality we live in is a simple binary relationship: The haves. The have-nots.

Those who have power (money) do literally anything they want in any situation. Legality is a tool to oppress the have-nots.

So, take my upvote for calling me out on being emotional - but also know that I am actually having difficulty with the reality of the world we live in.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#157

Post by gradys »

bostonpete wrote: post #152
samstave wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN seems happy to point out that more people die from furniture than terrorism, but yet unwilling to correct people with similarly misguided opinions when it comes to this. This logic is broken. While more people may die from furniture than terrorism, what the NSA is doing is ensure that ZERO people are free. Period. You are not free when you simpl cannot communicate with another human being via electronic means wi…

Comments like "We are 100% completely corrupt", "Every single thing that the US stood for has literally been murdered", and "America is dead" are so absurdly over the top that they undercut your message and turn off people who might otherwise be receptive to your comments.

I do agree with your point from the perspective that it will turn people off and marginalize the argument that bad things really are happening. At the same time, a place where 10% of communications are read by the government is not 90% free. The liberty of a place declines exponentially with the violations of that liberty.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#158

Post by superuser2 »

saalweachter wrote: post #114
superuser2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically speaking, the US Government is pretty damn good at winning wars of attrition. Don't think you're going to find any amount of money that Congress won't happily hand to the military-industrial complex. They'll spend whatever it takes.

Honestly I'm not sure who would win. One estimate I found was that there 150 million iPhone 5's shipped in the first year, and each one was about 25 GFlops. If 1% of that CPU was spent encrypting & decrypting communications to and from the iPhones, that is about 37,500 TFlops, which is just over the Rmax listed for the top supercomputer, Tianhe-2. Some numbers for the cost of that supercomputer are around $100 millio…

Current estimated total cost for just one of many fighter jet programs (F-35 joint strike fighter): $397 billion. That's when we're barely making noise about something that unequivocally provides no national security benefit unless we're planning on aerial dogfighting like it's WWI. There are dozens of similarly useless or near-useless defense spending programs, like the tanks the Army keeps saying it doesn't want.

Imagine what we could spend on an actual threat.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#160

Post by talmand »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #65
talmand wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't new, this was why Hoover stayed in power for so long. He had files on everyone. Remember, information is power.

Great point, and this is a big reason why the "I have nothing to hide" argument comes from a position of childlike naivety. Even if you have nothing to hide, what about your members of parliament? CEOs? Mayors? President or Prime Minister? Judges? Police chiefs? Is there a single one that has never written an email or made a phone call that could destroy their career? What lengths would they go to in order to keep it…

People who say they have nothing to hide feel that way because they think they've done nothing wrong. They fail to realize how easy it is to take something you've done that was considered legal and suddenly make it illegal. Once the now illegal activity has become a social stigma then the information that you once participated in those activities can be used against you.

Example? Once upon a time sending an email to a person in a foreign country wasn't suspect. Now it is. Sending it to someone in a certain country can likely make you a target of the government. Whatever label is attached to the person you are corresponding to will then be attached to you. This was how it was done during the Communism scare in the US after World War II. You spoke with a known Communist? Then you must be a Communist.

Never mind easy blackmail material that people in positions of power tend to get themselves into.

Post reply on HN