skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's a blatant overstatement of the situation, and is one of the worst bits of misrepresentation ever published by the ACLU (which is usually pretty contentious about this sort of thing).

The "100 miles" rule applies to searches at inland border checkpoints: http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/02/does-a-constituti.... DHS is not claiming that the 4th amendment "doesn't apply to anyone within 100 miles of an international border." It claims that:

"The DHS ruling from last Friday said its 'warrantless searches' applied to the U.S. “border and its functional equivalent,” with no mention of the extended 100-mile border."

The claim is that DHS doesn't need a warrant to search at border checkpoints or checkpoints which are the functional equivalent of border checkpoints. All the claim means is that searches don't have to be at the literal border (which might be in the middle of the desert), but can be slightly inland on major thoroughfares that host a lot of cross-border traffic. But it still has to be of the nature of a border search.

It is a totally common-sense policy--nobody ever conceived that the warrant requirement would apply to border searches. Searchers at the border were authorized by the very first Congress (which was full of framers who probably would have known if they had intended the 4th amendment to prevent border searches!) See: http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Border_search_exception#cite_not....
Just for you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5852146
What are you doing to make the world better? When's the last time you did anything that helped make things better? Yes, this might be a relatively easy, small thing to do, but at least it's something. Who knows? Maybe one of the representatives / senators actually notices and pauses for a moment and thinks. Stranger things have happened.

And it's "its".. "It's" is a conjunction. "Its" is possessive.
"silly valley" - That's not a bad name.

I problem I have found with using linux at work is interactivity with various VPN software...
And while we are at it what about the double standard that they get to drive over the speed limit and through red lights. Don't even get me started about the double standard that they can serve search warrants but you and I cannot.
It's odd, I hear people saying, "no big deal, nothing will change." But then I wonder, if you're saying it's no big deal, are you an American or not?"

There is a fear of having guns taken, but there is an even greater fear of using them against the regime.
Sure, simultaneously with his canonization.

It's perfectly possible for Snowden to have done what he did and still have negative qualities - for example, by going public he's making the entire conversation about him instead of the programs he leaked.
He clearly wasn't. There aren't that many Treo-mentions on DF pre-iPhone and almost all of those are about kicking the Windows Mobile 700w (which was justified to a point, but still...).
Anecdotally, we Americans are considerably less tolerant of violence that we were decades ago. What used to be a "pop in the nose" in now assault. What used to be a schoolyard scuffle is now a suspension, counseling, and possibly medication, possibly arrest.

Whether that has any bearing whatsoever on crime stats, I have no idea. It could even be a response to crime going down, or completely unrelated.

It would be really interesting to try to figure it out.
The goal here is presumably to create a news story, and raise awareness. So why not send books to journalists instead? If I'm a journalist, which do you think will have a larger effect on me: seeing some anonymous people online say they're sending copies of 1984 to congresspeople (who will quietly throw them out, presumably), or receiving several copies of 1984 myself?
> they cannot download source code

The Python app can download arbitrary data with nothing more than a simple urllib call. Feed it into eval, and you're done.
Sincerest form of flattery? My Twitter account has been impersonated
NSA Whistleblower, Edward Snowden, Interview video
>I think it's important to keep some perspective, and I feel like people on HN aren't doing that here when they direct all their blame to the government over this issue and hold Google, Facebook, etc, who created this surveillance apparatus, blameless.

Yes. The only reason the NSA/etc/all has this data is that people (probably a lot like you, dear reader) built these popular systems that make their money from tracking users. Worse still, they will always beat out a paid service because of friction and network effects.

We didn't just stand by and watch the creation of this situation, we actively participated.
Interesting -- I just came off a website that was calling them "paperweights" (This of course was a hardcore gaming website, so 700W power supplies everywhere).

And it's interesting to see how the recent spying scandals are actually affecting real people... I honestly have been kinda fed up with hearing about it in the news. I don't feel like government spying is anything new, I sort of almost take it as a cost of central government
Even "better", there are things which are highly correlated with "likely to be a security problem" which are NOT allowed to be included, or which get adjudicated away.

Generally IMO the security clearance process is not up to the task in a world with more than one threat. It worked ok against USSR when we largely could use full spectrum of information AND could assume most people without black marks were anti-USSR (due to existential threat from nuclear weapons and essentially an undeclared state of war).

Doesn't work so well now when 1) IC really had no mission in the 1990s and 2) IC today is grossly oversized and overresourced for the anti-Islamism mission. The "anti-China, anti-Russia" stuff is much more like a real peacetime intelligence service, i.e. the <<500 people we had before WW2.
To OP's point, if anybody at Apple at all were going to be asked by the government, I have to imagine Jobs would've been left out of the equation. That's one loudmouthed asshole you didn't want keeping secrets for you.
How might you unintentionally target someone for surveillance? Their careful wording -- "we don't intentionally target US citizens" -- necessarily means they believe it's possible to "accidentally" catch a US citizen in their surveillance dragnet.

Taking them completely at their word, that this is a good faith operation, under what circumstances might an unintentional targeting occur? What would it look like? What does it say about the data they've collected and the analysis they're performing against it? What would the reconciliation process look like for a US citizen who was unintentionally surveilled without a warrant? Would the government still bring charges? Or are the secret courts allowed to issue ex post facto authorizations? If they're not allowed to issue such authorizations, how would we know if they did so illegally?

I don't normally buy into these big hype stories but there is just so much here that is very wrong. The phrase "secret court" just sounds totalitarian.
Well, the proposition was that Democrats and Republicans are the same side of the coin. In terms of state surveillance, that certainly is appearing to be true. On social issues, it's clearly opposite, because I got my gay rights 9 years earlier than your proposition argues.

> I have a difficult time getting excited that one party changes their mind when 51% of voters support something, while the other party waits until 60% support it.

Okay, don't get excited then, that's your right. I just can't buy the argument that a McCain or Romney administration would have been no different than the Obama Administration on all the issues. That's painting with a broad brush.
Steganography - Camouflage for your encryption
s/confusing/easily misread and could probably be written more clearly/
Should be "Brave New World", not 1984. Read Snowden's interview with New Yorker that's been posted here.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/06/edwa...
How is it secure if you are using shared hosting with a Bluehost owned SSL cert?

Are you a crypto expert?

What happens to "destroyed" emails? Are they deleted from the "secure" database or are they just flagged as deleted? Data is valuable, and it's very tempting for individuals with zero oversight to archive data.

In my opinion, there is more of a need for a secure SMS type service, but it's very hard to trust a random private company or individual.
"trackpad is so good you won't need a mouse" - This is the most drastic claim made to date in this thread... It must really be something. I've had a love affair with Logitech for the last 10 years of my life at least.

As far as virus impregnability, I think it's just a market share thing, why write for less-used nix platforms (which often have more informed users on average)?
Cryptographers have a saying. Encryption is like a single fence post which is a thousand miles high. You're not likely to break the encryption, but it doesn't do you any good if the attacker can just go around it. Find a weaker link in the chain: Poor passwords, social engineering, bribery, good ol' fashion espionage, etc.
Treaty gives Hong Kong option to reject Snowden extradition to the US
Actually, the fact that Android uses a virtual machine for it's code has pretty good security benefits over running native code as on iOS.

Howso? I'm trying to think of what a VM could guard against aside from illegal memory accesses, which of course iOS hardware (like any other modern hardware) guards against for native code.
NSA whistleblower grew up in Elizabeth City
I realize the consequence of throwing support behind Rand Paul, because as an Obama supporter, there's clearly a lot I would disagree with him on. But, enough with the cult of personalities; if he's going to make waves on this issue in Congress, then I support him on it. That does not mean I suddenly agree with all of his policy positions. This is politics, not football. I care about the issues, not the teams.
What looks like a related paper can be found here: http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/494.pdf

(I don't see this linked in the repo.)
Your edit just reminds me of all of the people screaming that all of the companies wrote their stories using a "template" because each press release they put out sounded similar and used similar words. Heh...
I think it will change things; I'm an American. Having your customers trust is important for business---now data stored offshore has just become a feature.
I like the premise and the simplicity, well done. But what if the app picks a MUST task that isn't actionable at a given time?
I thought this was hacker news not nsa news.
As a past ACLU donor, this is the one bit of agita they sponsor that drives me nuts. There are cases, from decades ago, that establish that the USG cannot conduct warrantless searches under the border search exemption simply because the search occurs within 100 miles of a border.

Half the country (well, half the part of the country that pays attention to this stuff) really believes that they're in a "4th Amendment Free Zone" so long as they're 100 miles of Canada, or an ocean. One worries that some of these people will therefore decide not to refuse searches.
Aaand there's the unicorn I was looking for. Thanks for the input.

1) You prefer the Air's trackpad+keyboard? Or is it more lack of use on the Zenbook's side?

2)I did notice this after sitting through some videos/spec sheets -- the increased resolution seems like it would be a plus when connecting to an external monitor especially, however.

3)How is gaming working out for you? Do you do that at all much?
Edward Snowden is a criminal, not a hero, and should be extradited & prosecuted.
Claims he doesn't want public attention or the story to be about him. Then, by going public, he gets the public's attention and makes the story about him.

When I read this article, I cringed. Now everything gets to be the Edward Snowden show - his background, how he's being treated, his future plans, what happens to him, etc etc etc. The more important issues will get completely eclipsed by 'oh, what should or shouldn't the government do with this guy?'

I don't understand his actions at all. Why couldn't he just quietly switch careers and go about his business, instead of the obvious famewhoring?
I've not dealt with BAH personally but they were also on my "Least Favored Government Contractors" list. A friend of mine left the service and ended up with a job there, which is where I first heard of them.

SAIC was the one that leaked a bunch of PII, and in stupendously stupid fashion, so they're also on my crap list.

At least Electric Boat (part of General Dynamics) and Newport News Shipbuilding actually builds stuff right the first time. Bath Iron Works I've heard good things about as well.

I wish I could think of very good tech contractors that help the government, but that would imply the government has very good tech systems...
What is the Price of Freedom?
I dont think its the kind of thing that affects things commercially in a visible or predictable way. One of my first impression is that its humbling. Web companies are the ones that brag the msot about "building a better world" and this time there was collaboration to make it worse. I think the best or biggest change that could happen is better Whistleblower laws and protection (or high level of exposure to produce more).
Haha, nice, this gets my funny comment of the day award. =)
Yeah, wonderful idea, let's remind them that we're 30 years behind schedule.
And Citrix, Rackspace and Oracle are using Puppet ("leveraging knowledge"? pls no).

Appeals to authority don't tell us anything about the technology except that somebody we've heard of is using it.
China and Hong Kong Hold Edward Snowden's Fate
Oh man, that's definitely one thing Apple got right. The little "VPN" icon "just works" once you set it up.
Reducing Gandhi's tactics to noncompliance and noncooperation is a great mistake. I think it is better to view them through what is in essence a key commonality between upper caste Hinduism and ancient Greek Stoicism, namely that all we can control are our own actions and responses, and therefore the greatest form of heroism is to lead the life we choose and to make that choice heroically, the rest of the world be damned.

The struggle then becomes one about respect and cooperation, without which no government can last, for even the greatest tyranny is executed not by one man giving orders but by everyone cooperating. The underdog struggles to inspire others. The state struggles to keep the facade of legitimacy. Sometimes the words "you are no longer our legitimate government" are stronger than all the guns in the world.

Imagine if half the country suddenly decided to no longer respect American law. They refused to pay taxes, obey traffic law, etc. What would the government do? In the end, they wouldn't be able to do anything. Once you understand that proposition, Gandhi's methods start looking a lot less gentle and a lot more dangerous.
mega.co.nz At least, thats why ive heard.
http://paulgraham.com/credentials.html

It seems unlikely Snowden was in a high-paid and important position without having demonstrated some kind of aptitude. I have the impression he was highly skilled.
Wanted to add this to the main post, but I guess a comment will do -

Does the lack of repairability/augmentation of Macs not bother you?

A friend of mine who I just remembered has a Zenbook said he literally took off the back plate (maybe 6-8 screws), and everything was right there for the upgrading/moving/modifying. Though I don't own one, I know enough about the macbook air to know that is not the case (unless something has drastically changed).

And I don't make this point for no reason -- the friend I mentioned doubled his RAM trivially, upgraded HDDs, etc, so this is a real thing that might be important
Since the phone story isn't news, how do they manage to make a such a big deal out of it?
Easy - you search for second-order links. Anyone who's ever made a phone call to someone who's made a phone call to a foreigner or a foreign country.

Whoops, that's everyone! We'll just keep this information forever in case we need it.

It's completely disingenuous.
Re point 2: The PowerPoint that was leaked has TOP SECRET on it. That is one of the highest levels of access imaginable.
Really, terrorism?

exactly. people are making unsupportable claims.
This is a huge deal. I live in Australia and I have been running businesses on the cloud for the last 3 years or so. I have rarely heard the issue of the PATRIOT Act raised and in spite of there being laws banning the transfer of personal data outside Australia, most people are quite lax about the issue and take the view that the risks are too small to be counted.

Those days are most certainly over. This stuff will affect companies like AWS and Rackspace the most, given that they are competing for contracts with companies who are seriously concerned about who can get at their data. I imagine nobody will flaunt the laws in Australia regarding international data transfers in future, and that countries where no such laws exist will enact some very quickly.

Any cloud based software company in the US which holds large amounts of data that could in any way be deemed to be sensitive is going to have a much harder time pitching to clients overseas who will increasingly opt for a decent local alternative over a foreign one should the option exist. The only thing that American companies can hope for otherwise is that there is no foreign alternative.

The world is not going to come to an end but for a lot of people, their jobs are about to get much harder and the government should be worried about this.
Parsing old BBS directories to visualize the St. Louis BBS scene
More contest from the tor-dev announcement. Not sure why they don't have the paper in the repo:

The latest version of our paper is available on the Cryptology ePrint
Archive [4]. In the paper we describe our framework and provide a
comprehensive security evaluation of FTE's success in evading six DPI
systems --- including using regular expressions from open-source DPI
systems to evade detection by a closed-source black-box commercial DPI
system. By "evade" we mean that it's easy for FTE to tunnel arbitrary
TCP streams (e.g., Tor) such that they are (mis)classified by DPI
systems as a configurable target protocol (e.g., HTTP, SMB, RTSP,
etc.) of one's choosing.

We release FTE in its alpha stage because we believe it is well
positioned to evade the suspected protocol white-listing [5] recently
reported in Iran. More generally, we're optimistic FTE has long-term
potential as a tool to enable users to control how their traffic is
classified by passive DPI systems. As one example, over the last
month, we've successfully tunneled Tor through the Great Firewall of
China, using FTE to make our traffic "look like" HTTP.

We're eager for feedback on this alpha release, so please do not
hesitate to contact us with questions.

-Kevin P Dyer (and his co-authors)

[4] http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/494
[5] https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2013-May/0047...
Explanation with graphs and pictures http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/march12012/index.html
Cloudera Search
Collusion among private corporations is scary, but it's not as scary as totalitarianism, mass imprisonment, and genocide. The precedents set for what governments end up doing once they get their hands on this level of social control are very bleak.
That is brilliant.

I still think headlines with question marks are cowardly writing. Be bold! Take a stand! Come right out and say Betteridge's law is bullshit.

I kinda get the socratic effect the author is going for, but i still think it's a cheap trick. I didn't ask that question, the author did.
I concur with your correct solution. The military has been the normal source of reliable labor, even for support tasks.

The problem is that it's expensive and much more difficult to administer, but hopefully NSA and DoD in general will realize why mere difficulty of administration should not hold them back now.

Honestly the NSA is lucky that the first (known?) insider leak of this type came from a do-gooder instead of something more sinister.

I will say that civil servants tend to despise the contractors. I can't say I blame them either, it's literally a case of "dey turk our jeerrbs!". But fixing the rise of contractors would require both a decoupling of the military-industrial complex and possibly an overhaul of the civil service benefits/retirement scheme (as the whole point to hiring a contractor is that their staff are cheaper overall).
There's something to be said for it, but it shouldn't be news to anyone that the NSA was doing it...
Obviously the slides didn't come from Booz Allen, they have many jobs requiring PowerPoint experience:

http://careers.boozallen.com/mobile/job/Herndon-System-Integ...
Most Americans probably worked some minimum wage job at a food or retail establishment too as their first job too. I don't know where the shock comes from.
‘Anti-Gravity’ 3d Printer Uses Strands To Sculpt Shapes On Any Surface
You're funding someone who the government most likely has labelled a terrorist

huh? how do you get 'terrorist' from revealing secret information?
I never noticed till someone pointed the law out on HN this year. IMHO the trailing question mark is almost always lazy writing.
Unless OS X implements a different cp and mv than the standard FreeBSD ones, …

It does (though it didn't before 10.4). There's still lots of code out there that doesn't respect them, no doubt, but to my knowledge you can use the built-ins without worrying about losing your resource forks.
He had no choice but to go public. His only shot at not being disappeared, killed, tortured, etc was to go public.

By going public, he's also encouraging others to do the same. Even if it's just the smallest amount, it matters.
Search for Big Data: Cloudera and Lucene get hitched
Notice how everything suddenly went from being about the surveillance itself to being about this guy?

For someone who doesn't want public attention and wants people to focus on the NSA surveillance programs he exposed, he certainly screwed the pooch by outing himself - now, instead of talking about the surveillance, the media's all just sitting around talking about him. He might as well have sent the administration a gift basket.

Since his actions just set back his stated goals more than anything the government could've done, I'm not so certain his stated goals are his actual ones. Are you sure he's not just looking to be famous? Do you really want to give money to someone if it turns out they're just looking for attention?
eeeehhhhh... not really. A surprisingly large number of people have TS clearances, otherwise he'd have been making even more money.
This is total fantasy. The government has and follows an established procedure for dealing with whistleblowers, including anonymous ones they manage to uncover - they'll conduct an investigation, file a complaint, arrest him, and then get an indictment.
> The fact that all of these companies have been sitting on boilerplate denial statements speaks volumes.

Can you show your work on this? How would we know this?
I know you have been ridiculed for saying this by someone who was fortunately downvoted, but I want to point out that even saying the words in a post may have an impact. In context, who knows who it will inspire?
Introducing Cloudera Search
How do you plan on telling everyone you communicate with, "I'm sorry, this channel is unencrypted, this conversation cannot continue."

Why aren't companies scrambling to provide a plug-in encryption product? Forget Google's default https, I want easy end user encryption.
There's a reason this is blowing up on "Hacker" News ;-).