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Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA

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Re: Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA

#41

Post by grey-area »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #39
dang wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There hasn't been any penalty on NSA/Snowden stories for a long time. I'm surprised to see this even come up, since I've commented on it quite a bit and thought the information had gotten around by now. "Minimize awareness"? Obviously we don't try to do that, nor would we want to, or even think that way. The reason there was a penalty—the mildest possible—was procedural. For several months after the Snowden news brok…

That doesn't appear to be the case: 7. Hacking Oklahoma State University's Student ID (snelling.io) 94 points by samsnelling 5 hours ago 9. Introduction to Facebook's Flux architecture (ryanclark.me) 204 points by wayfarer2s 8 hours ago 11. Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA (reddit.com) 376 points by ahamdy 4 hours ago Maybe there is some forgotten code in there somewhere?

It's probably just been flagged by users a few times as an unsuitable story (as they see it).

Re: Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA

#42

Post by dang »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #39
dang wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There hasn't been any penalty on NSA/Snowden stories for a long time. I'm surprised to see this even come up, since I've commented on it quite a bit and thought the information had gotten around by now. "Minimize awareness"? Obviously we don't try to do that, nor would we want to, or even think that way. The reason there was a penalty—the mildest possible—was procedural. For several months after the Snowden news brok…

That doesn't appear to be the case: 7. Hacking Oklahoma State University's Student ID (snelling.io) 94 points by samsnelling 5 hours ago 9. Introduction to Facebook's Flux architecture (ryanclark.me) 204 points by wayfarer2s 8 hours ago 11. Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA (reddit.com) 376 points by ahamdy 4 hours ago Maybe there is some forgotten code in there somewhere?

You can't compute story rank from just points and timestamps. The story is being weighted by user flags, by the fact that it comes from a source of a lot of flagged content in the past, and possibly by other factors. But none of that has anything to do with NSA, at least as far as the code is concerned.

Re: Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA

#43

Post by markcerqueira »

dang wrote: post #22
spcoll wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Snowden", "NSA", and similar keywords are auto-flagging triggers. The HN team has algorithms in place to minimize discussion and awareness of these topics. See: http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really... "It appears that any article with NSA in the title gets an automatic penalty of .4".

There hasn't been any penalty on NSA/Snowden stories for a long time. I'm surprised to see this even come up, since I've commented on it quite a bit and thought the information had gotten around by now. "Minimize awareness"? Obviously we don't try to do that, nor would we want to, or even think that way. The reason there was a penalty—the mildest possible—was procedural. For several months after the Snowden news brok…

Yo guys - FWIW, dang is only one letter away from NSAdg...

Re: Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA

#44

Post by dang »

TillE wrote: post #25
dang wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There hasn't been any penalty on NSA/Snowden stories for a long time. I'm surprised to see this even come up, since I've commented on it quite a bit and thought the information had gotten around by now. "Minimize awareness"? Obviously we don't try to do that, nor would we want to, or even think that way. The reason there was a penalty—the mildest possible—was procedural. For several months after the Snowden news brok…

The discussions got very redundant, but I don't recall many duplicate articles. Early on, there was a ton of information being released every few days, and of course a lot of drama with Snowden himself. I don't see how a blanket penalty works better than manually removing the small number of genuinely pointless articles.

This depends on how you define "duplicate". I said "copycat", meaning the plethora of follow-up stories that invariably appear when something big happens that don't include any new information, but either report on what has already been reported or are garden-variety commentary. Obviously, HN's front page doesn't have room for all of those. If you think that there aren't many of them, we must be working with different data.

It's true that during the initial period there were major revelations coming out every few days. But I was talking about later.

Re: Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA

#45

Post by elwin »

Sven7 wrote: post #34
nickysielicki wrote: post #20

>Much like physics post-Manhattan project, an entire field of research that was broadly apolitical realized that work intended to improve the human condition could also be subverted to degrade it. [1] What an incredible analogy. [1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2wwdep/we_are_edward_s...

At the end of the day is anyone arguing it was a bad thing that the Americans got to the bomb (and used it) before the Germans, Japanese or Russians did? I'd hand the button over to someone like Truman over Hitler or Stalin any day of the week. Do I like the tools the NSA has in its possession? No. But I am happy they got there (and have access to them) before the Chinese, Russians or Arabs did. Are there going to be…

That's an interesting analogy with nuclear weapons, but I think there's an important difference. Nuclear weapons have a deterrent effect. That's why the American first possession meant that nuclear weapons would never be used to their full potential.

There won't be any deterrent effect with tools that remain secret and unattributable after they are used. We've already seen that NSA dominance isn't going to lead to a truce in the style of the Cold War. For example, see the Chinese NSA counterparts who were recently indicted in the US, or the suspected Russians who can't be rooted out of the State Department network. The fact that the NSA is (probably) better at that kind of mayhem didn't stop them.

I fear the invention of electronic warfare will be more like the introduction of firearms than of nuclear weapons.

Re: Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA

#46

Post by frostmatthew »

krapp wrote: post #40
oceanstone wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Minimize awareness"? Obviously we don't try to do that, nor would we ever want to, or even think that way. The higher up on Hacker News an article is, the more awareness will typically be allocated to the story. If a story drops from the front page, significantly less attention will be allocated to it. While the penalties might not have been intended to minimize awareness of these stories in the greater scheme of…

It's not exactly difficult to move past the first page or to use the search bar, and any comments about those stories are going to appear on /newcomments anyway. If there is an effect of 'minimizing awareness' at work, I don't think the effect is very large.

> If there is an effect of 'minimizing awareness' at work, I don't think the effect is very large.

You're assuming most HNers a) move past the first page b) search for submissions, or c) frequent /newcomments. My counter-assumption would be that is not true for a majority of users.

Re: Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA

#47

Post by nickysielicki »

Sven7 wrote: post #34
nickysielicki wrote: post #20

>Much like physics post-Manhattan project, an entire field of research that was broadly apolitical realized that work intended to improve the human condition could also be subverted to degrade it. [1] What an incredible analogy. [1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2wwdep/we_are_edward_s...

At the end of the day is anyone arguing it was a bad thing that the Americans got to the bomb (and used it) before the Germans, Japanese or Russians did? I'd hand the button over to someone like Truman over Hitler or Stalin any day of the week. Do I like the tools the NSA has in its possession? No. But I am happy they got there (and have access to them) before the Chinese, Russians or Arabs did. Are there going to be…

>But these tools aren't going anywhere until all the embarrassingly smart technologists around here stop wasting their time pretending to be lawyers (the law and lawmakers aren't going to get us out of this hole) and design better tech to stop the next Boston bombing, Charlie Hedbo style attack or ISIS recruitment drives.

You're wrong on two counts.

1.) It's American foreign policy that created anti-american Islamic extremism. It's American foreign policy that must fix it. You cannot expect tech to fix the problems of that. Technologies are tools, nothing more. Terrorists and tax payers are technology users alike, and that will always be the case. (Sidenote: anyone who is intelligent should hate the word 'terrorism', it is blatantly doublespeak.)

2.) These spy tools are going to die, because we can make technology that makes them infeasible. Indeed, we already have. Tor is reportedly unstoppable by the NSA. GPG exists and falls under the same category. The way things are headed, the only thing that will change with time is that tech companies will embrace encryption and help the general population of innocents to stop being tracked.

Those that care enough (eg: terrorists, libertarians, anarchists, and nerds) have already taken back their freedom... And will continue to do so. And there's nothing those 3 letter agencies can do to prevent it, because they've shown their hand. Anyone who has taken a cryptography class / a theory class knows that it's an unwinnable battle to try to fight RSA... It's just a matter of time before someone persuasive enough gets the message through to policy makers.

Re: Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA

#48

Post by krapp »

frostmatthew wrote: post #46
krapp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not exactly difficult to move past the first page or to use the search bar, and any comments about those stories are going to appear on /newcomments anyway. If there is an effect of 'minimizing awareness' at work, I don't think the effect is very large.

> If there is an effect of 'minimizing awareness' at work, I don't think the effect is very large. You're assuming most HNers a) move past the first page b) search for submissions, or c) frequent /newcomments. My counter-assumption would be that is not true for a majority of users.

Fair enough, but it shouldn't be HN's fault if people are lazy about viewing the site.

Re: Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald: AUAA

#49

Post by rhizome »

Sven7 wrote: post #34
nickysielicki wrote: post #20

>Much like physics post-Manhattan project, an entire field of research that was broadly apolitical realized that work intended to improve the human condition could also be subverted to degrade it. [1] What an incredible analogy. [1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2wwdep/we_are_edward_s...

At the end of the day is anyone arguing it was a bad thing that the Americans got to the bomb (and used it) before the Germans, Japanese or Russians did? I'd hand the button over to someone like Truman over Hitler or Stalin any day of the week. Do I like the tools the NSA has in its possession? No. But I am happy they got there (and have access to them) before the Chinese, Russians or Arabs did. Are there going to be…

I'd hand the button over to someone like Truman over Hitler or Stalin any day of the week.

Isn't this Godwin's non-sequitur? Snowden was talking about physics as a whole, not bringing nationalism into it.

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