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Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job.

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Re: Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job.

#31

Post by precisioncoder »

Gonzih wrote: post #26
praptak wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No contradiction to the point that GP made. Nobody said that Putin's Russia is more free than US. They just did the right thing in this particular case and made the "land of the free" look hypocritical as a result. This doesn't imply anything about how Russia citizens are treated by their own state.

I just don't understand how someone can be proud about modern Russia in any way.

Bad doesn't cancel out good, they exist side by side. I admire the US for it's amazing alternative culture (steampunk, goth, robots, anime, comic books, oh my). I admire it for it's incredible technological innovation. I have often weighed those things against the lack of support for it's citizens (No free healthcare, little to no vacation, often mandatory overtime, rich wins legal system, etc). I don't know as much about Russia and the US but I'm sure that it has a tremendous amount of good and bad living side by side. There's plenty to be proud of as well as ashamed of.

Re: Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job.

#33

Post by k__ »

bazillion wrote: post #29
melling wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get how people can be so naive on HN. Let's talk about Snowden all day and wish we were more like Russia, where it's perfectly ok to say anything you want. Sorry guys, but not every one really believes the NSA should be disbanded. They have a real job to do. Certainly there needs to be limits, which we could of course discuss for years on end, but I don't see the point of doing it in a forum that reall…

Seeing this post made me very happy, actually. I've commented before about my perspective in the NSA and doing government work, but immediately get showered with downvotes because I have a point of view that differs from what other people have been rallying towards. I don't understand the motivation behind preventing discussion of actual facts or interesting points of view. If 11 year old BBS-hacking NSA-conspiracy-f…

What's the deal with everybody always taking sides?!

NSA AND Russia are bad.

There is nothing good in spying on people OR outlawing gays...

Re: Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job.

#34

Post by sspiff »

melling wrote: post #27
D9u wrote: post #10

"In such moments one feels pride with our country and regret over the course taken by United States -- a country betraying the principles it was once built on," Even Russians get it... Why don't more Americans get it?

I really don't get how people can be so naive on HN. Let's talk about Snowden all day and wish we were more like Russia, where it's perfectly ok to say anything you want. Sorry guys, but not every one really believes the NSA should be disbanded. They have a real job to do. Certainly there needs to be limits, which we could of course discuss for years on end, but I don't see the point of doing it in a forum that reall…

D9u said "even Russians get it", not "the Russians get it", "Russia gets it", or "the Russian government gets it", so I don't think D9u meant to say that the political and social climate in Russia is what we should aspire to.

Clearly, if he/she did, he would be poorly informed. Russia's crackdown on LGBT rights, their out-of-proportion prosecution of Pussy Riot and the oppression of opposition are recent markers of how free speech does not rule in Russia.

Re: Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job.

#35

Post by pathy »

praptak wrote: post #23
Gonzih wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe me, Russian government is doing the same thing as NSA did. There are rumors about spying hardware installed in Russian ISPs. There are rumors about Russian organization that produces hardware for logging all internet traffic, decrypting on the fly encrypted data, filtering it and etc. Difference between this and NSA is than information about NSA is now public.

No contradiction to the point that GP made. Nobody said that Putin's Russia is more free than US. They just did the right thing in this particular case and made the "land of the free" look hypocritical as a result. This doesn't imply anything about how Russia citizens are treated by their own state.

Snowden is nothing more than a political pawn for Russia. Once he landed in Moscow he had little power over his own destiny.

Snowden didn't get asylum in Russia out of the goodness of their hearts but rather Putin wanting to annoy USA and score anti-USA points on home turf. It has nothing to do with "doing the right thing" It is a political game, nothing else.

It is naive to believe anything else. It did, however, benefit Snowden, it is probably better to sit in a Russian quasi-house-arrest than a trip to an American prison.

Re: Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job.

#36

Post by lotsofcows »

bazillion wrote: post #29
melling wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get how people can be so naive on HN. Let's talk about Snowden all day and wish we were more like Russia, where it's perfectly ok to say anything you want. Sorry guys, but not every one really believes the NSA should be disbanded. They have a real job to do. Certainly there needs to be limits, which we could of course discuss for years on end, but I don't see the point of doing it in a forum that reall…

Seeing this post made me very happy, actually. I've commented before about my perspective in the NSA and doing government work, but immediately get showered with downvotes because I have a point of view that differs from what other people have been rallying towards. I don't understand the motivation behind preventing discussion of actual facts or interesting points of view. If 11 year old BBS-hacking NSA-conspiracy-f…

Have a different opinion to you is not close-minded. Being unwilling to discuss ones opinion sensibly, eg labelling those whose opinions differ to yours as "close-minded", is close-minded.

Re: Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job.

#37

Post by olalonde »

melling wrote: post #27
D9u wrote: post #10

"In such moments one feels pride with our country and regret over the course taken by United States -- a country betraying the principles it was once built on," Even Russians get it... Why don't more Americans get it?

I really don't get how people can be so naive on HN. Let's talk about Snowden all day and wish we were more like Russia, where it's perfectly ok to say anything you want. Sorry guys, but not every one really believes the NSA should be disbanded. They have a real job to do. Certainly there needs to be limits, which we could of course discuss for years on end, but I don't see the point of doing it in a forum that reall…

> Ok, back to the echo chamber. 4 downvotes and this message disappears. Well, I do need to try occasionally. HN used to be a great site.

I'm sorry but this kind of comment is what makes HN worse. From the HN guidelines: "Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downmod you."

Re: Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job.

#38

Post by userulluipeste »

k__ wrote: post #33
bazillion wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing this post made me very happy, actually. I've commented before about my perspective in the NSA and doing government work, but immediately get showered with downvotes because I have a point of view that differs from what other people have been rallying towards. I don't understand the motivation behind preventing discussion of actual facts or interesting points of view. If 11 year old BBS-hacking NSA-conspiracy-f…

What's the deal with everybody always taking sides?! NSA AND Russia are bad. There is nothing good in spying on people OR outlawing gays...

Not only individual people take sides, organizations and governments take too. For how I see it, NSA is bashed because it took a side against the most of us. Russia on the other hand, gets its "hurray" because it opposes the one that is against us right now. It's not necessarily taking a side and sticking with it as a partisan, it is just condemning or recognizing one's merit when it's the case, simple.

Re: Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job.

#39

Post by Gonzih »

acqq wrote: post #30
Gonzih wrote: post #24

I know that VKontakte is giving information and even messaging history about people to authorities on the first request. That what was happening in Belarus after election and protests related to "fair" election. People where requested to go to the KGB/Police. In "nice" conversation with "pleasant" people they saw messaging logs from VKontakte, movements history based on mobile phone data and etc. Requests from differ…

Wouldn't Pavel then rather not offer job to Snowden, knowing that every word from Snowden would be listened by the whole world, and that the whole world would then learn about such actions too?

As far as I remember that kind of actions once was officially admitted by Vkontakte. They said something about helping in crimes investigation and etc.

Re: Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job.

#40

Post by hermaj »

melling wrote: post #27
D9u wrote: post #10

"In such moments one feels pride with our country and regret over the course taken by United States -- a country betraying the principles it was once built on," Even Russians get it... Why don't more Americans get it?

I really don't get how people can be so naive on HN. Let's talk about Snowden all day and wish we were more like Russia, where it's perfectly ok to say anything you want. Sorry guys, but not every one really believes the NSA should be disbanded. They have a real job to do. Certainly there needs to be limits, which we could of course discuss for years on end, but I don't see the point of doing it in a forum that reall…

Although I agree with you on many points I think you might be projecting onto D9u's comment. Nothing in the quote he posted suggests it is necessary to disband the NSA, nothing suggests Americans should wish they lived in a country like Russia. A 'course taken' implies a general direction, not a revolutionary change.

In the current situation Russians should be allowed to feel pride that it was their decrepit mafia state that opposed the United States on Snowden. That doesn't mean Russia did it for the right reasons, or that Russia is now a better place than it was before. A lot of Russians who feel pride in this action would probably still take the opportunity to live and work in the USA, the two are not mutually exclusive.

The problem I have with posts like yours is that they imply that because other places are a mess that exonerates the USA heading in that direction too.

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