skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is incredibly unproductive. If you got 10 million people to sign this he still wouldn't resign. Millions of tea party activists have been calling for his resignation since he took office and it hasn't happened.

And really, at the end of the day, he is mostly just guilty of participating in the predominating obsession in Washington with combating terrorism -- a political culture that values finding potential terrorists more than it values basic human rights. The fact is, politicians and pundits would eviscerate him far more for letting a possible terrorist wander free then for taking a million peoples emails.

Even if he did resign, it wouldn't end this obsession. In fact, it would make could easily make things worse because by making it his fault, the narrative would become one where his removal from office cured us of this disease. But it is not his problem alone and removing him would simply kill any momentum to actually make things better.

What would work better is if you got the same 10 million people call their senators and demand legislation to protect people's phone and internet privacy, and provide a mandate to enforce this protection. Still would probably not work, but it is a hell of a lot more plausible to succeed because these efforts have actually occasionally succeeded in the past.
$200K as a contractor is pretty easy. It's $100/hr. Fifteen years ago every 19 year old contract sysadmin I knew was making that much in Chicago. It's more a factor of how long you can stomach being a sysadmin for a bank, insurance company or screwed up DoD project.
I would be very curious to see what google does with waze an integrating it to maps. I think it would have been much more interesting to see what Facebook would have done with it
There's a huge difference between large companies in regulated industries and startups in non-regulated industries (or even decent-sized companies in lightly regulated industries, like tech). And local/state governments vs. federal.
You don't share your private key with the CA.

A certificate is an attestation (signature) by a CA's private key that a given PUBLIC key is yours, that anyone with the CA's public key can verify.

The CSR does not contain your private key.

NONE OF THIS MATTERS. This is not about bulk-decrypting SSL, though I'm sure NSA does that when and where they can, too. This is about coordinated, automated, integrated methods of transmitting the plaintext.

Why should they bother getting a key and scraping gmail's payloads when they could just have Google give them an API? Furthermore, this method would continue working perfectly even ifwhen services switched to ephemeral key modes that provide PFS.
My (Apples) solution to beating the NSA
After the recent fallout over PRISM, I have a solution that is practical and simple for everyone to use:

The idea exists in an apple patent here:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8,205,265.PN.&OS=PN/8,205,265&RS=PN/8,205,265

And summarized here:
http://www.cultofmac.com/175422/apple-patents-lying-to-those-who-are-spying/

I roughly propose an open source application that can run when you are not using the computer, similar to the SETI program.

It may take a dictionary that randomises all user activity to a point that it is undetectable from real activity.

Search terms and habits may be shared randomly among users, and it would not only solve the NSA issue but also the big corporate issue too.

I would use a dictionary without the keywords relating to kiddy porn and terrorism.
I imagine that this would work like a democracy that would leave users exposed that are on the outside of what society deems acceptable.

Please provide some feedback.
He could easily do that once he has it - I think the point is that it's up to him : )
To all the people claiming this was solely as a result of insider trading: Have you ever dealt with the government in any capacity? Especially any of the 3 letter agencies?

They will lean on you and they will absolutely try to ruin your life because you inconvenienced them. Did you know lying to an FBI agent is a federal offense[1]? Did you know it's status quo to try to trick people they're interviewing into presenting a lie or obscuring the facts? They do this so they can present you with the option of either A. Doing everything they demand or B. Become a felon and face time in prison with rapists and murderers.

I can absolutely guarantee Nacchio went to prison over not helping the NSA.

[1]http://www.fbi.gov/stlouis/press-releases/2010/sl101210.htm
Oh man, interesting thought. Any people knowledgeable about the law that can comment on this?
so would I!
The article also says he was "appealing his conviction on the basis that the U.S. government retaliated against Qwest for his refusal to give customer data to the National Security Agency."
As I prefaced, I wrote this post to see how my sentiment changes as time moves on. I think it'll be interesting to look back on and see how I felt at this point in time.
So like we basically agree from the perspective of outsiders, but that's not really what I meant. If you have been radicalized to the extent of being willing to die for nonviolence, you still win if they kill you because you are dying for your beliefs.

As a radicalized person, there cannot even be futile resistance, because if the violent people were to kill all of their enemies, there wouldn't be any violence left to commit. If so, mission accomplished. It's very much a love thine enemy philosophy.

When I say that Gandhi's methods haven't been tested outside of India, I'm referring to people passively offering up their lives to the state. Did this really happen during the civil rights movement?

Personally I believe that this kind of self-sacrifice is not worth it, even if change is effected.
Good idea. Overwhelm the system with the keywords they're flagging.

i.e., bomb. pentagon. drop-point. fertilizer. sarah jessica parker.
What exactly happens if you just don't respond to a FISA warrant?
My sister is a writer[1] in her mid twenties and she is doing similar things to Banks.

[1] http://www.randomhouse.com.au/authors/rhiannon-hart.aspx
Leighton is selling 3 CD's of them on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dap...
All I want is a new Mac Pro that doesn't suck. Yes, I'll pay Mac tax for the hardware.
Well here's the thing, the SCOTUS can say "Hey, that's illegal!" but they have no enforcement powers. Public Safety (read: police / military) is under the purview of the executive and legislature, which is the only real way to enforce things[1]. If they want, both other branches can effectively ignore anything that comes out of the judiciary. In this case, this particular activity was ruled unconstitutional (Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections) back in 2011.

_____

1: See desegregation in Little Rock.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine
On timeline: "After he consulted with Legal, he refused. As a result, NSA canceled a bunch of unrelated billion dollar contracts that QWest was the top bidder for. And then the DoJ targeted him and prosecuted him and put him in prison for insider trading "

If that's a legit summary, the retaliatory removal of contracts his company was in-line for --- doesn't seem very far stretched.
There's a lot of big names they have funded:

https://www.iqt.org/portfolio/alphabetical.html
Oh, I don't mean to get the job, I mean to get the visa itself. I heard the Brazilian authorities required applicants to speak (some) Portuguese.
Bitcoin, of course.

I'm only half joking.
ATTN: BZCareer Search Engine added more hospital jobs
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptable. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted. - Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune, Missionaria Protectiva
From their perspective they're not "talking shop", they're just discussing current affairs. Their position as intel people is incidental to the matter, as they presumably don't work in that area.
From Coffeescript's website: The golden rule of CoffeeScript is: "It's just JavaScript". There was nothing at all coffeescript specific about his examples, other than the syntax. The issues he pointed out were javascript issues discussed using coffeescript syntax.
If the NSA Trusted Edward Snowden With Our Data, Why Should We Trust the NSA?
It's amazing how often government seems to act like a vengeful ex.
> You say that, but having switched to DuckDuckGo[1] for the past few weeks I'm slowly but surely losing my reliance on Google for personal stuff.

Everyone you converse with via email still uses Gmail.

Game over.
There's not anything else worth doing in Sunnyvale besides working. Being in a part of the country that seems super nice, but is actually very dull, is part of the Silicon Valley economic miracle.
How lucrative are second screen companion apps for TV broadcasters?
Ha, no. Save possibly Rand Paul, I still think the Republicans are way worse.
A petition not to prosecute, even if it was granted, would be worthless. If someone's pardoned, then they can't be prosecuted again. If they're just not-prosecuted, they can easily be prosecuted later.
how about for the west coast?
Some context, taken from the other story currently on the front page [1]:

"We know what happened in the case of QWest before 9/11. They
contacted the CEO/Chairman asking to wiretap all the customers. After
he consulted with Legal, he refused. As a result, NSA canceled a
bunch of unrelated billion dollar contracts that QWest was the top
bidder for. And then the DoJ targeted him and prosecuted him and put
him in prison for insider trading -- on the theory that he knew of
anticipated income from secret programs that QWest was planning for
the government, while the public didn't because it was classified and
he couldn't legally tell them, and then he bought or sold QWest stock
knowing those things.

This CEO's name is Joseph P. Nacchio and TODAY he's still serving a
trumped-up 6-year federal prison sentence today for quietly refusing
an NSA demand to massively wiretap his customers."

[1] https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/2013-J...
If you read the entire article, this seems to be the timeline:

1) He is tried for insider trading, and convicted.

2) He appeals this because the trial excluded a key witness that supported his innocence .

3) He WINS this appeal, and is granted another trial.

4) He is tried again, this time not in front of a jury. The circuit court of appeals, where this is tried (stressing: without a jury this time) convicts him 5-4.

This isn't nearly as clear cut as some of the people in this thread are making it, and it does arouse some suspicion.
Well it's a real (if secret) court, so I assume it would be what normally happens for contempt of court.
Some would probably argue that contributing to this is treason. Providing material aid to an enemy of the United States.
My guess is that if he hadn't filibustered the drone program a few weeks ago, he would of used a filibuster here. Seems like he did the math, and two filibusters this close would make him look like an obstructionist.

Not blaming the man, political capital is not free.
Eh, there could be good reason for that. Using a fake identity could arouse suspicion, even if it is advantageous once the rendition is discovered.
How do the animations work?
Less fuss? I remember plenty of talk going on about this -- it hit the front page of many newspapers including the NYT and the Washington Post. The administration even acknowledged it to a degree. People have just forgotten.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html

Structure of this thread:

MOC: I spent a year in graduate school. Life-wise, graduate school is a pretty negative experience.

Shardling: Probably worth pointing out that MOC has an extremely negative view of many of their life experiences.

That's exactly the form of an ad-hominem argument: Person A makes a statement, person B brings up some fact about person A that would lead them to make that statement, ergo person A's statement is invalid. The problem here is logical, not personal: just because MOC has made negative statements about other things does not mean this negative statement is without basis.

I read no such personal opinion into your post: I'm attacking your logic, not your tone.
This will be cute until donors start being investigated for funding terrorism.
Animation and additive printing marketing solutions
Hacker Faces More Jail Time Than The Convicted Steubenville Rapists He Exposed
I'm Ready To Help NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Seek Asylum
Well I think the point is that when the 4th Amendment was written seizure actually did mean that they took your crap. You had your papers, then you didn't.

Even if they were going to copy your work that would be a "search" as some government agent would have to copy that paperwork.

Things are different now, so that's one of the things we as a society need to figure out is how much the 4th Amendment is different to match.
> Anyhow, as other have pointed out, it's not hard to draft a specific warrant for the narrow group of 'every US user 13 years or older' which is what I'd presume PRISM involved.

Can you really get a warrant that broad? I assumed PRISM still entailed warrants issued on a user-by-user basis.
What about the opposite, are you outcasted like a freak if you abuse the free services and eat all your meals there?
> [DuckDuckGo] not as good as Google in terms of finding relevant results or having the rest of the ecosystem, but it's no worse than using the web a few years ago

About a year or so ago I was using DuckDuckGo for every search, but after a couple months switched back after falling into the habit of following almost every DDG search with another one on Google to make sure I was getting the real results.

Frustratingly, where DDG failed most was on the generic stuff where I expected to find results on the bigger sites. Esoteric searches are harder to judge, as neither engine reliably presented what I'd consider high-confidence results on first query.
These are CIA officers, engaged in a major crime. They have non-official cover identities that are supposed to be used for operations. What possible reason would justify using your real identity when committing serious crimes rather than your agency provided non-official cover identity? Do you think the CIA doesn't know how to make decent cover identities by now? That they're so bad at it that United Airlines or Hilton Hotels will be able to see through them?
Still, this must be very disturbing for H1B workers and other legal non-citizen residents.

And hugely disappointing.
Out of curiosity, why does the equipment matter?
What sort of consequences can they impose without revealing the existence of the secret court?
TomTom includes carpool lanes in their planning for routes in the United States. I've seen it in California and Connecticut. A big red screen shows up and asks "Route uses carpool lanes -- is this ok?". If I am driving alone, then I just hit "No".
Wow, I would tread incredibly lightly here. In the eyes of the US government, this person could be considered an enemy of the state...and you're literally giving them aid.

That's probably a pretty serious crime. I support this person as well, but there is something to be said about living to fight another day. Directly giving money to [possible] enemies of the state might not be the greatest idea.
U.S. Helps Allies Trying to Battle Iranian Hackers
There are several valid reasons why they didn't blow the whistle:

1. As the NYTimes article leaks[1], the leaders of these tech companies may not actually know the extent of FISA and PRISM within their servers - employees cooperating with the NSA would be forbidden from sharing this even with the CEOs.

2. What are they blowing the whistle on? There are a flurry of competing facts and fragmented stories. It came out afterwards that the NSA may not actually have as incredible access as they originally claimed. All they had to go on was the original Guardian article, which merely states "direct access" - everything else is, as the CEOs stated, covered under FISA laws.

3. Speaking of FISA laws, it's a violation of national security to even acknowledge the existence of FISA requests. PRISM is justified through section 702 of FISA. They wouldn't risk treason. This is reasonable. Are you on such a high horse as to say you would do differently?

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies-...
The US spends 2.5x as much on the military as does Poland, as a % of GDP.

It's a lot, but not exactly extraordinary.
> Dart VM will never be in IE , Firefox or Safari.

Same deal with CoffeeScript or TypeScript. But that shouldn't stop anyone since you can just compile to JavaScript. Minifying Dart and compiling Dart to JavaScript is almost the same thing. In both cases it's a single line which calls the compiler. If you already doing one of those things, adding the other one to your build script won't hurt one bit.

You can also use the Dart executable like Node. You can use it to write command line applications or web servers.

You can also embed the VM into other applications. Like V8, the VM itself is just a library.

There will be also a Dart VM for ARM CPUs a bit later this year.

> i would chose haxe instead of Dart , since it is compatible with some parts of javascript and one can use the DOM api directly

You can also interact with JS stuff if you use Dart. DOM stuff is done via 'dart:html', which provides a very idiomatic API. For example, all list-like things are actual Lists, which is very convenient. It's similar to jQuery, I'd say.

> Dart is great in theory but has little future.

It's great in practice, too. If you don't care about IE8, that is.

Also, Google is committed to Dart. They are also already using it for a bunch of new projects.
> My apartment's sole purpose has become a place for me to sleep.

Not for long, hopefully! There is clearly a need for on-campus dormitories so that employees don't have to worry about maintaining their own spaces and finding things to do on their own time.

I can see it now...

Google employee: "I live in the Adwords Apartments. Pretty ritzy. Where do you live?"
Yahoo employee: "I'm in Flickr House. It was recently renovated."
Facebook employee: "You should apply for a job at Facebook. If you're really lucky, you might be able to get a room at Poke Place. We have the best co-ed hackathons on Saturday nights."
I did that five years ago after coming to the conclusion that the US didn't care about any of these abuses and that decades of surveillance state would go by without any improvement. I implored everyone that would listen to leave; I thought that was the end of it.

After Snowden proved me absolutely and indelibly wrong, I decided this week to come back.

These people operate in secret because they can't justify their actions in a free and open debate. The secrecy has now been lifted.

There's a war coming. It's time to fight.
I'm reading through this and I see bootstrap has became like Foundation a lot :

* You have mandatory #container div

* you can nest rows by default (previously you had to use fluid-row)

* they got rid of "span" and use the more natural "col".

* offsets

* push & pulls

Foundation still have more : "ending cols" for number of cols not reaching 12 and centered "cols".

I'm liking it. I would have gone for Foundation 4 but I'm wondering if I should try this new Bootstrap for my next project.
What do you find preferable?

In scenario A, a group of senators learn of a widespread domestic surveillance program. They all think it's a good idea, or at least a good enough idea that there's no reason to protest, gum up the works, or raise an alarm. When the program is accidentally disclosed to the public, they all greet widespread popular outrage with the message "we've considered this, and we want to keep it going".

In scenario B, a group of senators learn of a widespread domestic surveillance program. They all think it's a good idea, or at least a good enough idea that there's no reason to protest, gum up the works, or raise an alarm. When the program is accidentally disclosed to the public, they all respond to widespread popular outrage by sounding even more outraged than the public. There is much senatorial roaring and gnashing of teeth. Investigations are opened. All this despite the fact that the senators don't really see what the big deal is.

The highest function of an American politician is to reflect the views of the public. When the facts change, their minds must not change; that would betray the base. But when public sentiment changes (if, for example, the public were to come into possession of information that was new to it), their minds change with it.
But...but they're helping us secure our home networks!

"The Information Assurance Directorate (IAD) at NSA recently released a new technical guide entitled Best Practices for Securing a Home Network." - http://www.nsa.gov/ia/index.shtml
PRISM: Does the NSA Really Get Direct Access to Your Data?
For the post linked in the headline, those seem like shocking accusations, but the kind I'm now accustomed to taking with a grain of salt. It seems perfectly plausible that the guy legitimately deserves a 6 year sentence for reasons unrelated to any of this.

As for the subject/headline, which I'm not sure is related to the particular post linked, it seems pretty simple. Tech companies would probably see PRISM with much more perspective than the internet's knee-jerk reaction. After all, these are companies who have that information at their finger tips 24/7, who can invade all kinds of privacy without any oversight or checks and balances and nobody would even know to get outraged. The media companies, particularly Google, are companies that regularly collect and profile that information anyway for the expressed purpose of profiling people in order to maximize their ability to manipulate the public. As far as tech leaders are concerned, the NSA is the first party to suggest doing something non-evil or selfish with all that data.

So for things like listening to phone conversations, there's still an argument and some outrage to be had. But I think for a lot of the companies, the leaders would have to sooner blow the whistle on themselves than the NSA. The whistle blowing would have to come from where it apparently did--an ideologue who has a fetish-ized view of the public sector as something evil and invasive even as the private sector pours over all the same information unimpeded for selfish ends.
If you sign the petition, your name goes on another list, too. ;)
> I wake up, shower, and drive to work early to have breakfast. I spend all day at work, go to the gym and have dinner, do a little bit more work and don't get home until 9 or 10 every night. My apartment's sole purpose has become a place for me to sleep.

I'm glad he's happy (right now), but this is exactly why I will never work for a company like Yahoo. I absolutely love what I do. And I protect it by ensuring I have healthy boundaries. No, Yahoo isn't "taking care" of you Ben. They're taking advantage.
It's more complex than that.
C'mon now. Sunnyvale isn't Las Vegas, but most of the time, "there's nothing else worth doing here besides working" is simply an excuse. And not a very convincing one at that.