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

Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

newsweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 206 posts

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#51

Post by [deleted] »

lisper wrote: post #44
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DARPA point wasn't the only point of insanity. I just don't have the patience to sit and list out why his other points are equally silly for anyone versed in the space. The DARPA point was the easiest to explain and the most accessible for the Hacker News audience.

> I just don't have the patience to sit and list out why his other points are equally silly for anyone versed in the space. In other words, your argument is: if it isn't self-evident to you that I'm right and Assange is wrong then that can only be because you are so profoundly ignorant that it is not even worth making the effort to educate you, or even to point you to a reference. You'll have to pardon me if I don't…

[deleted]

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#52

Post by mpyne »

grecy wrote: post #27
lern_too_spel wrote: post #5

The last section reads like the ravings of a conspiracy nut. From associating the DARPA grants that fund many university computer science projects with nefarious spy collaboration to repeating PRISM is the long-debunked full take program of Greenwald's fantasy, it's straight lunacy.

> reads like the ravings of a conspiracy nut. As do all the articles about the information Snowden made available to us. Imagine it's somewhere in 2005-2010 while reading... you would be nuts if you didn't think they were conspiracy nuts.

The only things that has been surprising about Snowden's revelations have been, in some cases, the scale (MUSCULAR comes to mind) and the audacity (Dual EC DRBG, which is technically "strong crypto", unless your opponent is NSA).

Warrant/NLS compliance (PRISM) was never a conspiracy theory, nor was foreign intelligence interception on domestic networks (regulated since 1978 by the FISA, with explicit increases in scope by PATRIOT ACT, and very public debates about "warrantless wiretaps" in the middle of the last decade).

Moreover what's notable about Snowden's leaks is how many conspiracy theories they didn't substantiate. No black helicopters are mentioned. Even the super-sekrit slides stamped TOP SECRET and EYES ONLY (which were never supposed to be seen by the sheeple) make reference to having to comply with First Amendment rights, civil liberties oversight, court orders, etc.

But people crow about conspiracy theories here because they honestly believe that showing specifics of programs and authorities that were widely known in general is proof of conspiracy.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#53

Post by mpyne »

api wrote: post #16
runjake wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you address specifically which parts you are referring to? I speed-read through it and didn't notice anything that wasn't established fact, especially the DARPA bits.

We need an analogue of Godwin's law for the use of the phrase "conspiracy theory." It's a term used by naive establishmentarians to discredit any attempt to dig into the darker reaches of politics, even when the stuff being discussed is well documented and consistent with historical fact.

Is "establishmentarian" supposed to be the new "statist shill"?

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#54

Post by skyjacker »

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #37
incision wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The piece is 5800+ words, exactly one of which is DARPA. It's entirely possible that Assange is a nut, but nothing he says presents quite as nutty as extrapolating that single mention into a tale of innocent students being seeded with delusions of CIA double agents and elite shadow cabals by a scheming madman.

The DARPA point wasn't the only point of insanity. I just don't have the patience to sit and list out why his other points are equally silly for anyone versed in the space. The DARPA point was the easiest to explain and the most accessible for the Hacker News audience.

You're heavily invested in Google, aren't you. Or are they your employer?

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#55

Post by kps »

pedalpete wrote: post #41

Sadly, I found the following pieces gave Assange so little credibility that if he had just written about the last 3rd of the article, it would seem more credible to me. If a suspended employee was shopping around "the location of the encrypted file, paired with the password’s whereabouts" and in "two weeks most intelligence agencies, contractors and middlemen would have all the cables", wouldn't you just move the fil…

As someone who was once naïve, Assange's writing echos the folks hawking copies of Socialist Worker on the street corner. A wikileaks sounds like a good idea, but this WikiLeaks is a tool to attack the less-bad and protect the more-bad.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#56

Post by skyjacker »

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #19

I did not realize what a nut Assange has become. The more there is the danger that he might be forgotten, the more ridiculous his theories of the world. However, you have to think about his target audience. The audience doesn't consist of people who are familiar with things like DARPA grants, and think tanks. For people in the know, this writing will read like lunacy, because they will understand that Assange sees de…

Perhaps in 5-10 years, people are going to look back at your comment and think you are the nut.

I'm confident Assage knows what he's talking about more than you do.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#57

Post by rdtsc »

mturmon wrote: post #49
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DARPA point wasn't the only point of insanity. I just don't have the patience to sit and list out why his other points are equally silly for anyone versed in the space. The DARPA point was the easiest to explain and the most accessible for the Hacker News audience.

Here's another one: "In 2012, Google arrived on the list of top-spending Washington, D.C., lobbyists—a list typically stalked exclusively by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, military contractors, and the petro-carbon leviathans. Google entered the rankings above military aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, with a total of $18.2 million spent in 2012 to Lockheed’s $15.3 million. Boeing, the military contractor that absorbed…

> Are we to assume that they are even more cryptomilitaryindistrial than Google?

No. But those others haven't managed to convince too many that hey are "not Evil" or some like that bullshit.

Once they made that proclamation they get a nice PR boost, but when they are perceived to not abide by it, they should accept the corresponding criticism.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#58

Post by alexqgb »

programmarchy wrote: post #43
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #19

I did not realize what a nut Assange has become. The more there is the danger that he might be forgotten, the more ridiculous his theories of the world. However, you have to think about his target audience. The audience doesn't consist of people who are familiar with things like DARPA grants, and think tanks. For people in the know, this writing will read like lunacy, because they will understand that Assange sees de…

Calling someone a conspiracy "nut" is not an argument, and doesn't add anything to the conversation besides an ad hominem fallacy. I do agree with your one point that DARPA funding is given out in a seemingly haphazard manner. However, giving companies money is an effective way of exerting influence over them in the future.

Simply calling somebody a nut instead of pointing out the flaws in their argument is a proper example of the ad hominem fallacy. However, taking aim at the argument itself, successfully demonstrating its nuttiness, and concluding that one would have to be a nut to try making such a case is not a failure of reason. Quite the opposite.

After all, the ad hominem rule is not some generalized prohibition against personal attacks. It is merely a prohibition against baseless or irrelevant personal attacks – especially when used to deflect a justified charge, skirt a legitimate issue, or evade a properly vexing question.

This is a very important limit, and one that serves a valuable social function. Specifically, it's what allows us to derive positive utility from clear and direct condemnation of dubious personal characteristics in cases where those traits are producing or defending overt violations of reasonable and openly defensible social norms – like not gleefully spreading baseless FUD, for whatever reason.

I'll be the first to agree that killing messengers is bad policy. That said, I'm also a big fan of marginalizing unreliable narrators. In that regard, knocking Assange down a few pegs seems like a major boon to the mass surveillance conversation, which could really benefit from cooler, clearer heads prevailing.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#59

Post by lern_too_spel »

dismal2 wrote: post #36
lern_too_spel wrote: post #5

The last section reads like the ravings of a conspiracy nut. From associating the DARPA grants that fund many university computer science projects with nefarious spy collaboration to repeating PRISM is the long-debunked full take program of Greenwald's fantasy, it's straight lunacy.

Please read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore It actually does what you claim was Greenwald's fantasy/lunacy

I know all about Xkeyscore: https://medium.com/state-of-play/getting-xkeyscore-right-f49...

It's a database that has nothing to do with a full-take of Google data with Google's cooperation as claimed by Greenwald and repeated by Assange to support his thesis. Greenwald's PRISM fantasy is just that.

Re: Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

#60

Post by nickff »

chiaro wrote: post #46
nickff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "That's alright though, when you can trust the state to properly monitor and regulate ethical conduct, though it doesn't look like we'll be quite so lucky here." Please provide an example of an industry whose regulator has performed this task well (or a list of regulators if you can find more than one), as I am not familiar with any in North America (my area of residence and familiarity). > "Regulatory capture is o…

1. That's kind of the catch, isn't it? All the government agencies that do their job with efficacy wouldn't be the ones you'd be made aware of. Only when something goes wrong do you become aware that your local water board performs useful work. To the point though, regulation ensures our planes crash at a rate of less than one per 21,000 years of flight time. Food safety regulations have dropped e.coli poisoning by h…

1. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is actually used on Wikipedia as an example on the regulatory capture page; saying that "[i]n a June 2010 article on regulatory capture, the FAA was cited as an example of "old-style" regulatory capture, "in which the airline industry openly dictates to its regulators its governing rules, arranging for not only beneficial regulation but placing key people to head these regulators".[1] If you believe that regulations have improved food safety, I suppose that would be attributable to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where there is substantial evidence that it has caused more deaths than it has prevented, as well as evidence that it has gone out of its way for the benefit of some corporations; I have too many citations to provide for easy reading here, but the Wikipedia page is a good start.[2] It is possible that seatbelt laws sped up adoption, but the government has continued to ratchet up safety requirements without regard to the cost/benefit ratio to consumers, and the regulations have prevented further innovation in many area of automotive design and construction.[3][4]

2. a) Although the 'ingredients list' is a frequently cited example, the court system is sufficient to police this, as product descriptions are legally binding; the judicial system serves well in areas without 'consumer protection' agencies, such as electronic component performance specifications.

b) Is the problem that consumer action is ineffective, or that the majority of consumers don't agree with you, and engage in the same boycotts you do? Boycotts by individuals and corporations were effective in pressuring South Africa to stop apartheid, and have worked against many companies including Nike. I for one cannot manage to persuade my fellow citizens to boycott "The Simpsons" (which I don't find funny), or "Lululemon" (which far too many people wear outside of yoga classes), but that does not mean that I should be given the coercive power of the state. Perhaps the onus is on you to be more persuasive, and regulators are unnecessary here as well.

c) Maybe codifying standards into law is a possible solution, but the real problem is that there is no way to prevent the standards which are codified from being crafted in such a manner as to benefit special interests more than the general public (for public choice, and political ignorance reasons).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Food_and_Drug_...

[3] http://econlog.econlib.org/2014/10/09/mueller2.jpg

[4] http://www.autonews.com/article/20140331/OEM11/140339975/tes...

Post reply on HN