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Thousands of Turks accused of using Bylock app despite never having used it

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Re: Thousands of Turks accused of using Bylock app despite never having used it

#171

Post by bitL »

makmanalp wrote: post #159
danso wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the government policy is ultimately what causes people to be jailed, you don’t think it’s important to focus on how technology uniquely exacerbates the problem by making it scalable? This is one of the few tech headlines that mention number of LOC that is basically and technically accurate. It does seem that a single — and trivial — line of code has led to the tragicomical punishment of thousands of innocent ci…

> the targeted group used a very simple hack to frustrate the government’s idiotic tactics It's just a tracking pixel - what gives me pause here is that the government either doesn't know or doesn't care that "any IPs that every talked to our list of bad IPs" is a really inaccurate way to conclude that people are criminals - this should be obvious to anyone who claims knowledge in digital forensics. So the story is t…

> the government either doesn't know or doesn't care

Read on how governments use random arrests to instill fear and terror to control its populace. Do you really want to give them the benefit of the doubt just because you consider those thoughts to be abominations, whereas some high ranked officials to be their way of doing things?

Re: Thousands of Turks accused of using Bylock app despite never having used it

#172

Post by dsfyu404ed »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #167
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ballistics matter more than caliber Assuming center of mass you've really gotta pepper someone with .22lr before they're as good as dead. .223 (aka 5.56 NATO) is still .22 but a lot more effective at putting holes in people. At sufficient range a blast of 12ga birdshot won't even kill an old lawyer. At short range the question would be what lawyer?

You are making a huge confusion if you thing .223 is still .22; the mass of the bullet is bigger, the energy is way bigger (disclosure: I am a shooting range instructor when I am not an IT guy)

But it's still a .22 caliber though. That caliber by itself isn't a very good indicator of ballistics is exactly the point.

Are you going to tell me that .30-06 isn't a "30 cal" because it's way hotter than .30 carbine?

Re: Thousands of Turks accused of using Bylock app despite never having used it

#173

Post by Quarrelsome »

nasredin wrote: post #161
Quarrelsome wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to bring all of your moral judgement into everything. Would you treat a wounded criminal or would their criminality effect your ability to treat them? One problem at a time.

I don't follow your analogy. IMHO, a better one: Your friend (used loosely in this case) is doing criminal acts. Would you tell him to stop doing criminal acts while you treat him? --- Sometimes journalist take this "ALLWAYS two sides to every story" and "each side is equal" crap too far. See the success of Wolf's book on Trump.

there are two problems here:

1. Turkey's government is brutally suppressing opposition

2. The means Turkey is using to identify its opposition is flawed.

You don't have to talk 1. to talk 2.

Case in point is that you can legally talk 2. in Turkey but if you talk 1. you get fucked. If you try to fight 2. you help a bunch of people if you try to fight both 1. and 2. at the same time the chance of you solving 2. is diminished because Turkey's government will be suspicious that it is propaganda against them because you included 1.

Thus: one problem at a time.

Also remember that your attitude leads to shit like Iraq. Its perfectly "legitimate" for a government to be autocratic. Russia is a government, Iran is a government, China is a government. They wield the power, is that not legitimate? You seem to be suggesting that only "legitimate" governments are democracies and that sort of attitude leads us back to Iraq where we go on a liberation war and heroically give people a democracy that they didn't fight for themselves. Reality is messy and complicated and "nice" ideas like making everyone have the good government are well intentioned but naive.

I will celebrate the day Turkey gets its democracy back but it has to do that itself and its not the problem of anyone who isn't Turkish as their "help" may well hinder.

Re: Thousands of Turks accused of using Bylock app despite never having used it

#175

Post by soared »

danso wrote: post #8

Strange...the "bad" chat app is named Bylock, and downloading/installing it is apparently evidence that you are part of an treasonous political group. But the "single line" of code that the headline appears to refer to is code that causes you to access Bylock.net, kind of like an email image ping: > Beşikçi said it was due to a single line of code, which created a window "one pixel high, one pixel wide" — essentially…

I was wondering if the pixel is just a relatively innocuous advertising pixels. Advertisers/publishers place random pixels from vendors/etc on their website all the time and rarely vet anything. I wouldn't be surprised is bylock was advertising in those apps and asked each app to place a pixel to track conversions/clicks/etc.

Re: Thousands of Turks accused of using Bylock app despite never having used it

#176

Post by soared »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #148
hi41 wrote: post #112

>Beşikçi said it was due to a single line of code, which created a window "one pixel high, one pixel wide" — essentially invisible to the human eye — to Bylock.net. Kindly, could someone please explain what kind of hacking attack this is and how it works? Did this window create a browser cookie for Bylock?

It's not a "hacking attack", it's an element on a website: or This code, if it was a part of a page you browse, would cause your browser to load the linked site, almost exactly like clicking on this link: http://bylock.net . This iframe was present in various websites and apps. The nefarious component of the attack is that the Turkish government surveils all Internet traffic within its borders and thought that the we…

Just replied to someone else: I was wondering if the pixel is just a relatively innocuous advertising pixels. Advertisers/publishers place random pixels from vendors/etc on their website all the time and rarely vet anything. I wouldn't be surprised is bylock was advertising in those apps and asked each app to place a pixel to track conversions/clicks/etc.

Re: Thousands of Turks accused of using Bylock app despite never having used it

#177

Post by nasredin »

lovelearning wrote: post #27
integricho wrote: post #5

I find it very frustrating to read about such oppressive regimes. It fills me with anger, I cannot help myself, I just hate injustice.

Me too. I find it inexplicable that while our species has progressed so much after 6000 years of civilization, one thing that doesn't seem to have changed is the desire of large sections of people to be led by oppressive maniacs. It's almost like many of us just love handing away our freedoms. Have sociologists studied this phenomenon?

>Have sociologists studied this phenomenon?

There's research into authoritarianism (think Germans in WWII) and RWA personality type (Right Wing Authoritarian). Most of it is not very "accessible" to the average person.

From what I understand, RWA are just born this way, i.e. some people are naturally critical thinkers, others will say "how high" if a man in an uniform says "jump". Sad.

This is one of the few decent "explainers" that Vox did:

https://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism

Re: Thousands of Turks accused of using Bylock app despite never having used it

#178

Post by dang »

smnscu wrote: post #158
candiodari wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many things about Turkey are incredulous. Turkey used to be a bastion of secularism, in fact the only bastion of secularism among muslims (and it still is, at least in terms of mindshare). And yet turkey now has a president ... that obviously gained the better part of his power through a false-flag attack (the "coup d'etat" that "somehow" managed to fail to capture even a single government official or building). And…

I love how Americans immediately forgot the time when Erdogan's goons beat the shit out of their own people with the tacit and satisfied approval of the orange shitstain. http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/22/erdogans-goons-beat-up-som...

Please do not post political flamebait to Hacker News. From the site guidelines: "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

When the topic itself is already politicized, this of course is a matter of degree. But however we draw the line, a comment like yours here is well on the wrong side of it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Thousands of Turks accused of using Bylock app despite never having used it

#179

Post by dang »

reallymental wrote: post #4

Everybody hears the echos of this behavior throughout history. I wonder if Erdogan thinks he'll be the one who escapes the universal fate of tyrants. As Turkey becomes increasingly alienated from the EU, Putin looks to gain another monster.

Please don't post generic political rhetoric to Hacker News. When the topic is politicized, as it is here, it's important for comments to stay grounded in the specifics of the article and not take off into garden-variety politics. That kind of discussion is unable to be substantive, which HN is for, and it leads to flamewars, which is HN is not for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Thousands of Turks accused of using Bylock app despite never having used it

#180

Post by AdrianB1 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #149
pc86 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of firearms whose only purpose is to put tiny holes in paper at varying distances.

Do you mean non-gunpowder based "firearms"? My understanding was something even as small as a .22 is significantly deadly

22LR is deadly to small rodents or a cat, not allowed for hunting of anything larger (and I am not suggesting anyone hunts cats, it is just to give an example of size).
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