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Deliberate Internet Shutdowns

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Re: Deliberate Internet Shutdowns

#91

Post by dcuthbertson »

rconti wrote: post #10
stego-tech wrote: post #6

The post is mainly just a CTA against further internet centralization and government control of core infrastructure, which is fine. We need more of these, and we need more examples of their harms for folks to draw on. HN often gets distilled down to a singular cause - EU's Chat Control, Elon's shutdown of Starlink over Ukraine, a regional outage of a public cloud provider - but generalized topics like these aren't re…

== Call To Action

Thank you. There are so many TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) that they overlap significantly. Maybe the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, but I didn't know what CTA meant in this context. I thought it might be related to PSA (Public Service Announcement), so I searched "CTA announcement" and got Chicago Transit Authority and California Teacher's Association - obviously not helpful.

Re: Deliberate Internet Shutdowns

#92

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

gmdrigipo wrote: post #90
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a fascinating thought. War being against TOS. And enforced thusly. As an abstract idea that is not connected to reality on the ground it offers a.. view into today's mind and what it can be compelled with.

If Starlink does not enforce its TOS, it is a weapon used in the war (guidance system for drones), and its satellites are legitimate targets for air defence. West uses the same logic to bomb neutral tankers, because they may carry weapon or stuff!

My relatively mild amusement comes from war being against TOS, where war is effectively ultimate break of local level TOS. The only reason it is even discussed in this way is because, as war goes, it is contained. 'Real wars have no terms of service' is my subtle point.

edit: I accept I am a somewhat horrible person to even be able to articulate those thoughts.

Re: Deliberate Internet Shutdowns

#93

Post by xp84 »

matsz wrote: post #52
tchalla wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I don’t know why people use obscure abbreviations and acronyms.

Arguably CTA isn't exactly an obscure acronym. It's multi-disciplinary - quite common in UI/UX design and marketing; and also decently common in any branched of software engineering that interact with these topics, like... web development.

I’ve worked with marketer types for over a decade and had them use the initialism “CTA” hundreds of times, understood it, and yet still in this comment I had no idea that they were referencing that term. If this was a UI diagram I’d have had no problem. This seems to me like a case where using an initialism in a different context than it usually appears confuses readers. It would kind of be like saying “I plan to GTM for a few things after work today.” You may recognize that as Go-To-Market if I said “the GTM team” at work, but it is strange outside that context. Outside a marketing or UI context I don’t think people usually initialize “CTA.”

Re: Deliberate Internet Shutdowns

#94

Post by knorker »

fragmede wrote: post #76
knorker wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could also write the comment in French, and by the same argument people should need to go out of their way to copy-paste that into google translate. Thousands of people are going to read this thing. The writer could spare thousands of people spending tens of seconds (totaling days of human life), by simply spending less than a second spelling out the obscure term.

Who's going all the way to Google translate to copy and paste? You just select the text and right click/long press and select translate.

I'm not sure what you are attempting to add by being pedantic while not affecting the conclusion in any what whatsoever.

Re: Deliberate Internet Shutdowns

#95

Post by hannukahharry »

This is concerning in the comments:

> I suspect most can guess where this mess will end up, and it’s not good.

What I read from this is going to sound conspiratorial, but I think it’s a valid “read between the lines” of an insider. I think they’re saying that they’re alarmed that Silicon Valley is supporting the current U.S. administration assuming he’s doing what’s best for their welfare, while it’s clear based on the activities of Iran and others that are practicing working without internet that they are planning on losing internet, which could either be because Iran, Russia, China, or the U.S. itself may plan to sever or disable internet connections (while unsure what would be isolated or disabled) as an act of war or extreme and dangerously naive nationalism.

Re: Deliberate Internet Shutdowns

#96

Post by jedimastert »

onethumb wrote: post #78
jedimastert wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Starlink-style connectivity Note that one of the higher-profile deliberate internet shutdowns was Starlink itself shutting down internet connectivity in Ukraine.

Is that true? This comment suggests otherwise, with citations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46351511

That particular section I have to Wikipedia article seems to have gone through a bunch of anonymous edits back and forth around the content of this citation

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/07/elon-musk...

Re: Deliberate Internet Shutdowns

#98

Post by mschuster91 »

Roark66 wrote: post #83
mschuster91 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From my specific perspective in IT, the increasing centralization across every vendor category (three major x86 server manufacturers, two CPU vendors, two GPU makers, three global-scale public clouds, ISP mono- and duopolies, a handful of commercial operating systems, a near-monopoly EUVL supplier - the list goes on) is a dire threat to not just the open internet, but open technology in general. Part of the reason…

Exactly... In fact this realisation has been the main reason why I shifted my views (in my teenage years) from libertarian to more centrist. Having grown up in a falling communist state full of state sanctioned monopolies I thought free market will sort it out. Later I realised you need a balance between free market and interventionism, but for the latter to work you need a way to prevent corruption and a good justic…

It didn't help that the fall of Yugoslavia and the USSR coincided with Thatcherism/neoliberalism. People widely mistook correlation for causation, although particularly in former pseudo-communist nations that was understandable given how fast progress came in...

But the nasty awakening? That came crashing hard and painful, once the dust settled, a lot of assets got looted and progress mostly stopped.

Re: Deliberate Internet Shutdowns

#99

Post by mc32 »

matsz wrote: post #52
tchalla wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I don’t know why people use obscure abbreviations and acronyms.

Arguably CTA isn't exactly an obscure acronym. It's multi-disciplinary - quite common in UI/UX design and marketing; and also decently common in any branched of software engineering that interact with these topics, like... web development.

“Call to Action” is common. CTA instead of call to action is not common.

Re: Deliberate Internet Shutdowns

#100

Post by immibis »

matsz wrote: post #52
tchalla wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I don’t know why people use obscure abbreviations and acronyms.

Arguably CTA isn't exactly an obscure acronym. It's multi-disciplinary - quite common in UI/UX design and marketing; and also decently common in any branched of software engineering that interact with these topics, like... web development.

It's specific to marketing and it's a term I've only seen used when you are trying to sell a product. In my mind, CTA means "the button we are trying to make you click on by any means necessary because we make money when you click on it"
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