skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The ideal is for things that are clearly a "common business function" to be outsourced to contractors where possible. E.g. things like janitorial services, there's nothing inherently governmental about wiping the commodes down.

Then you have "inherently governmental functions" such as setting and determining policy, obligating expenditure of funds from the Treasury, supervising other civil servants, etc. That has to be done by a Federal employee.

Then you have stuff in-between, which typically was also done by a government employee, except perhaps for highly specialized skills where it made sense simply to pay someone smart to do it for you and then make decisions based on that. E.g. how the Pentagon paid think tanks to do geopolitical analyses, and then evaluated and used those inputs in the decision-making process.

Personally I was surprised to hear that contractors were as embedded as they were in the NSA. Sysadmin is a common-enough function, but has to be considered inherently governmental in the context of the NSA for crying out loud. But then we've been on a long slide toward more and more contractor entrenchment within the halls of government for awhile now, unfortunately.

I'm hoping that if nothing else happens, at least these leaks will arrest or even reverse that trend.
I agree with your point re: the odds of it happening. It puts things in perspective.

Entire books have been written about the legal standards required. It's difficult to summarize here. One short answer is that the Fourth Amendment is not viewed as applying to non-U.S. citizens abroad. Check out the NSA director's 2006 testimony on nsa.gov for more on this.
Ask PG: Accessing HN via Tor
It seems that Hacker News is inaccessible via Tor. Is this because of manual blocking of exit nodes, and if so can this blocking be lifted (at least for read access)?
Project Loon
It's hardly free/open source software if you need to get a license from the author for each specific usage. Even MS treats their customers better than that.
If you don't mind me asking, what level of law enforcement are you involved in? Are you a officer or are do you work more on the DA/attorney side?

Just curios, that's all.
The OP indicated he is colorblind. This very likely isn't the first or the last time he will need to break out the high-contrast option.
painfully cheesy
I consider myself unusually sensitive to slippery language and have called out--on HN--several fishy denials by tech companies that I thought were laughably weasely, including Facebook's previous statements. But I'm not seeing it here. A user data request is a request for users' data, and I don't see a way around that. Additionally, this is remarkably unambiguous:

...>this means that a tiny fraction of one percent of our user accounts were the subject of any kind of U.S. state, local, or federal U.S. government request

The only wiggle there is "subject to", and it's not much. So right, they could always be lying, but I don't see much room for interpretation.

More broadly, at some level, we're always going to be dependent on companies to be honest about what they do with our data. Not trusting them is fine, but that's not really a question of transparency or policy; it's just a question of corporate integrity. We should instead focus on what we can concretely hope to control:

- Transparency, which means a) we know exactly what the rules are governing what the government can ask for, b) a detailed accounting of what they actually do ask for, and c) the range of data that can be requested and a precise account of what the standard for requesting the various kinds of data.

- Reform, by which I mean changes to the rules about what can be accessed by whom and under what conditions, with an eye towards individualized requests for specific data, the way wiretaps have been handled (until recently) for a long time. The domestic/foreign distinction should also be removed as part of this point.

- Accountability, by which I mean that companies should never, ever get any form of immunity from law suits. Companies should be liable to their customers about privacy issues, and they should face real consequences if they lie about it. I think this might be the heart of the trust issue.

- Oversight, which is largely colinear with transparency, wherein there is a meaningful adversarial process for balancing the issues of privacy and security, as opposed to the lame, secretive rubber stamping we have now.

- Scale. Last but not least, the relative values of privacy and security are way out of wack, especially given how few people terrorism has really killed and how small of a threat thoughtful analysis reveals it to be (or even the extent to which "terrorism" is a coherent concept). So we just need to raise the bar on what constitutes a reasonable seizure of data.

All of that is stuff you could reasonably pass laws on, so some of the nihilism in this thread is unfortunate. Maybe we'll get all of those reforms, or some of them, or maybe none of them; I don't know. But if those are genuinely our aims as a people, we should see Facebook's release as a real step in the right direction on three of those fronts. If they're lying, of course that sucks, but I'm not sure what we hope to do here besides pushing for more accountability. But in meantime, kudos to Facebook.
Introducing Project Loon: Balloon-powered Internet access
Good idea. I was just thinking you could tie into people's workouts in a similar fashion.

My wife is big into crossfit and I was thinking of letting people order shirts with their personal score/time.
Scientist Figures Out How 'Sailing Stones' Move Themselves Across Death Valley
this looks great, i just have one question. How are you able to make a profit by selling 100,000 1 color shirts, plus shipping and handling, and blank for 2.60?

shipping along wold be 2.60, not to mention the cost of the shirt which is at least 3.00... i would love to use you guys, just not sure you have thought out your pricing
No. Pure democracies enable power elitists to run the show to the detriment of the minority; even when the minority view would otherwise have likely been that of the majority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#United_States
This looks like a great project. I hope it grows and gets widely adopted.
I don't trust Rassmussen even when his polls say what I want them to.
What point are you trying to make here? Are you just saying that Facebook's general counsel has ties to the Government? Because if so I fail to see how that relates to the current controversy. Many people have connections, and previously worked for the Government, and didn't have any knowledge or control over any of this.
Facebook says it got up to 10,000 requests for data in 6 months
I REALLY like the way you phrase this.

Perhaps that could even be a way to sell it to the populace so that it can't be immediately struck down as "worse than communism".
One could say it was encrypted to the 79DEBE35 key.
Russ Feingold Tried to Warn Us About Section 215 of the Patriot Act
It is remarkable that with all of today's technology and advances, there are still areas to be found where we have yet to match the engineering prowess of thousands of years old civilizations.
I.....I....I'm....I.....

I...I....

And that's your problem. Not a single thing about them. It should read something like this...

I noticed you've been working on innovating in X industry, and I've noticed recently that many folks are moving in X direction. Are you planning on moving in this direction to?

I've recently done a, b, and c. By leveraging b and c, I can help you achieve X. a is note worthy because, while not directly related to x, it shows I have skill f.

I'm looking for jr developer positions that allow me to grow, and projects a, b, and c will help you achieve x (faster, better, more completely, etc)....

Your pitches need to be about how you can help them and less about you. I've sent emails that basically said, "Your industry is heading in x direction, here's what I think about that. Oh, by the way I'm at least good enough to do fizz buzz" and gotten fairly positive responses out of that.
"Mass literacy is very much the result of concerted efforts by the state to provide universal education..."

This isn't necessarily accurate. The U.S. was a highly literate society before the advent of state sponsored, public education. State sponsored education did indeed increase the literacy rate because many states forced parents to send children to school.

http://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp#illiteracy
Demo: https://chat.echoplex.us/
Agreed. You stated them well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#United_States
'Please stop pointing out that our staffer is a dumb collaborator.'
Thwart NSA spying on your browsing with Raspberry Pi and Tor
I've been working on something like this with the printer I use at http://cheergram.com.

There are a few hurdles like dealing with large files and handling them when out of spec, but its definitely a good idea.
Thanks for this ^

Code @ https://github.com/qq99/echoplexus

Vision @ https://github.com/qq99/echoplexus/issues?labels=enhancement...
I just tried this myself to verify that I couldn't reach it through Tor and I couldn't either. I agree that there should be at least read access for people browsing with Tor.

Also, I would be curious to hear from PG (or others) what went into the decision making process to make this site (or others) not accessible from Tor.
Assuming he didn't leave it with his cousin Cletus who placed the phone call instead. NSA metadata does not help the accused in any way.
Recover deleted photos from iPhone
Can i recover deleted photos from iPhone? Sure, you can follow the guide in this article to recover deleted iPhone photos with few simple steps.
I wish I saw more people hammering home the point you made in the first paragraph. Too many people are looking for ways around discussing what is just as an important piece of this puzzle as the leak itself: The director of National Intelligence lied to the Senate. To their faces, through his teeth, on camera, in front of the American people.

I'm in the camp that Senator Wyden asked the question in such a way because he knew what the answer was going into the thing.

At this point, you need to start looking at everyone as a suspect. It's an uncomfortable notion, we might not like it, but it's a reality pill ya gotta swallow.
What? I didn't imply accepting a gift was stealing, I said that if you got a free gift, didn't like it, and wanted something better, the obvious next step is to buy something better. Yet joshstrange's _immediate_ next step is to steal the better thing. Not to even look for a price quote, but immediately to steal it.

Normal thought pattern: "I want something decent. I will see how much it costs and perhaps purchase it."

Abnormal thought pattern: "I want something decent. I will steal it."

Why does Microsoft owe us anything? If we want to do business on Windows, and support IE, the obvious and legal thing to do is buy a copy of Windows and use it. Not bitch because they're not giving us the best possible stuff for free.
I was hoping to find something in the EXIF data of the image of NSA HQ on the page, but I think I'm trying way too hard...
For anyone who isn't aware, you should read Vic Gundotra's story about Jobs insane level of perfectionism regarding the original iPhone icons:

https://plus.google.com/+VicGundotra/posts/gcSStkKxXTw

To me, at least, the original post is all about how that level of perfectionism is no longer being enforced at Apple.
Is it just me, or does it sound like they're glossing over the downsides?

“It could replace 40 percent of the world’s demand for Portland cement."

Why not 100%?

Sounds like the cure for cancer. I'll believe it when I see it =)
Realistically, the only things that matter that you mentioned are money (not the endowment, though, just the research budget, AKA grant money) and the facilities.

Undergrads are basically worthless (in fact, they may be a detriment because they drain resources from the professors and the grad students).
Ah, thanks. Didn't know it was the first hit.

If you, the recipient, want to challenge the order as invalid, you're free to do so, and there's an appeal process. I was the first to disclose two weeks ago that Google is fighting two national security orders in two different federal courts (SF and NYC). There have been other similar cases. A facial challenge to FISAA 702 (by Amnesty, not the provider) went all the way to the Supreme Court.

You really need to read the applicable laws. My articles link to them. Otherwise it's like talking about the details of mobile app development without knowing how to program.
There is no trial for contempt of court. The judge can throw you in the slammer for disobeying a lawful order issued under valid authority of the Court.

Sounds kind of tyrannical to me, but what do I know?
There is some more indepth info on problems with trusting Tor (or any off the shelf "anonymity" solution) here: http://grugq.github.io/blog/2013/06/14/you-cant-get-there-fr...

Also there's a more secure version of the RaspberryPi Tor router here: https://github.com/grugq/PORTALofPi

It was submitted by someone last night under a terrible title, so it died a sad death in the "new" page.
Excellent performance. Can anyone please write on infrastructure and backend? My guess is node & redis :p
Edward Snowden PGP Pubkey Wired Used
Part of HN's deal with the NSA ;-)
Yes, but you're missing something. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo also offered blanket denials. So the fact that FB has a former CSO with some FBI background has nothing to do with the other companies.

Put another way, DNI lying != FB|Google|Apple|MSFT|Yahoo lying.
>>I know that many Democrats want to cling to the belief that, in Perlstein's words, "the powers that be will find it very easy to seize on this one error to discredit [my] NSA revelation, even the ones he nailed dead to rights". Perlstein cleverly writes that "such distraction campaigns are how power does its dirtiest work" as he promotes exactly that campaign.

How in the world could he make this mistake? Are the five slides the only ones he has out of the 40,000 documents that refer to PRISM? Why hasn't Snowden directly commented on this issue, or even better; why didn't Greenwald contact him when this issue came up?

I do think he jumped to conclusions based ont the slide; but the truth is, it isn't a closed issue. Intelligence sources and company executives sources continue to give somewhat differing answers about exactly what PRISM is or does. Some suggest that Greenwald got it about right the first time and it really is capable of pulling data on demand from company servers. Simply saying that PRISM is just a GUI interface doesn't rule out the possibility that such an 'active' data source is closely associated with the program.
change you can believe in.
Well, except that the risk of Facebook handing over my data is uncorrelated with how often I swim at beaches or stand under a tree in an electrical storm.

It's not like someone goes around with a random number generator deciding whether you'll have horrible things happen to you. They depend on your specific circumstance.
I'm sorry you've found yourself in the crossfire. How do you feel about Snowden?
If character assassination is wrong when they do it to Snowden, why is it right when you do it to Ullyot? Did he lie or did he not?
World's First Floating Super-Zeppelin
Amazon builds a section for 3D printing supplies
their acquisition[1] of Makani and their "airborne wind turbine" tech suddenly makes more sense to me.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/22/google-x-acquires-makani-po...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5864439
The source is on GitHub: https://github.com/m242/maildrop
More than that, they vigorously oppose such requests in court, as my article here revealed:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57518086-38/facebook-fight...
>I find it hard to believe that so many people have jumped out of their wits over this NSA news.

I've been waiting for years for this discussion to take place. I opposed PATRIOT as an irrational overreaction from the beginning. It's taken this long for the opposition to get any traction. Don't be so surprised that it has support now that people who oppose the surveillance state don't have to endure being called crazy unpatriotic paranoid loons.
Exactly.

On a funny side note, a few years ago hitler memes were very popular here in Poland, and even a few clubs advertised saturday parties with them. It was hilarious, but shit hit the fan when butthurts reported it to mainstream media and the topic got up to the evening news, lawyers argued if it's promoting ideology, etc. Borderline humor problems, lol. Recently a newly opened restaurant owner had his business shut down and evicted, all because of the name - Fritzl's Basement.
Serial killers that are caught or discovered, you mean.

Women are also a lot more likely to kill through more covert means (poison in particular), which means they are almost certainly statistically less likely to be caught.
Remarkable camouflage in birds
Yes, it's pretty clear that the DNI lied to Congress. But it is untrue that FedGov can force companies to lie. Neither AT&T nor Verizon lied:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589012-38/nsa-surveillan...
Very good point. Shows more confidence and direction. Even my responses in this thread are inward. Kind of self-involved.

Hopefully this can help someone else in a similar situation. Working on a rewrite now I will share soon.
Instead of just saying it's abysmal, could you be a little more specific? I've been using Firefox inspector for few months and still don't found the new WebKit Inspector to be lacking at all (except the lack of Responsive Mode).
Bare-Metal Multicore Performance in a General-Purpose Operating System
Does anyone have a link the the congressional hearing that was mentioned? I haven't seen it and would be curious to watch it, in particular the part that was referenced here.
I think that the Director of National Intelligence flat out lied in a congressional hearing is one of the scariest aspects to all of this. Obviously he/the NSA isn't scared to lie to us and to the government while under oath. (At least I presume he was under oath.)
This LSD-Inspired Oculus Game is The Most Intense Thing I Saw at E3 [video]
Incorrect. Google disclosed NSL summary stats months ago. As you say, FISA stats are next. I'd expect them this evening.
AVS[1] doesn't even look at the city/state. It only checks the ZIP (5 or 9 digit) and the numbers in the street address.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Verification_System
Fascism has a particular meaning that most people misuse. While presidents like FDR took a lot of inspiration from the fascists, it's tough to say that the US is authentically fascistic. First of all, it's mistaken to proclaim that a government is something that it claims that it's not. Second, the US is too pluralistic in terms of policy towards culture to be considered fascist.

You can say that a system is bad or dysfunctional without likening it to the Italian and German/Austrian governments under Mussolini and Hitler. If you read Mussolini's speeches + books or Hitler's books + speeches (not that they're terribly interesting except as historical documents), you learn that most people using 'fascist' as a pejorative don't really understand what it means.

The US is just as it claims it is: a democracy. There are good reasons as to why thinkers ranging from the founding fathers of the US to Aristotle were skeptical about the long term viability of democracy as a system of government. All these brutal, freedom-sacrificing policies are absolutely necessary to maintain democratic government. This is something most modern Westerners are unwilling to acknowledge. Spooks in the NSA and elsewhere at least comprehend that what they do is necessary to maintain their government, as reprehensible as their actions are.

What do you get when you give 300m+ people political power? The same disaster that many of the founders predicted would happen: tyranny, social dissolution, and foul policies motivated by envy.
I saw http://www.otherinbox.com take care of this a few years ago, was nice in theory, but I never kept up with my account. Bigger issue, your splash page has an enormous amount of text.
Exactly. This is the kind of thing that completely undermines the free market.

And particularly detrimental to our economy, is not only PRISM - but any secret deal carried out between a corporation & a government agency.

Google has had secret deals with the NSA for years [1] the scope of this relationship is now being revealed, but I'd also love to know if and exactly how much money has been transacted between these two 'partners'. Even if it's $1 that transaction signifies Google's participation in undermining the free market. Because how do we know that the NSA isn't funneling money to Google? If the deals are secret, we have to assume the worst.

Best case scenario there is no money changing hands. Worst case scenario, Google is being funded by the NSA to A) carry out tactics & strategies on behalf of the NSA and B) to gain market-share and competitive advantage so these operations can perpetuate. Highly immoral, deceptive, and completely unfair to any business, startup entrepreneur, or hacker trying to make a living in this industry.

[1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/217550/google_watchdog_white_...
Potential new, more literal meaning for blue screen of death...
This is an awesome idea.

However, in my mind, there is a potential issue that the article doesn't seem to mention.

How do they keep the balloons up for a long period of time, fighting all of the different variables of weather, gas leakage, temperature variances, material degradation due to being outdoors?

Fiber and copper stays in the ground undisturbed for decades, because it's cheap & low maintenance, barring from breaks.

While this seems cheap and easy to deploy, keeping it running is another thing entirely
What about timing (side channel) attacks? What about key generation?
There's a lot that I don't like about Google, but I do like that they're fucking insane.
I stand corrected. They do indeed have the NSL stats, in the somewhat useless 0 – 999 range, here:

https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/U...
Gmail’s Organized Inbox is a life changer
I'll be honest, I did double-check the date...
I'm assuming there's some sort of monitoring onboard system and when they need new parts, they'd just land at one of these predetermined stations and be refitted. There weren't a lot of details in that video but it seemed to me like they implied they were inexpensive and easy to swap parts from.
That's odd, I'm looking at my calendar and it doesn't say April 1st.
Previous discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5775324

The amazing thing is this has been a rumor[0] tossed around for years (2008).

[0] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080220/123009308.shtml
Can someone explain why this is more cost effective than other alternatives? The need for specialized antenna's on the ground seems to be a negative.

Also, does Google just subsidize the entire thing? How is this paid for long term? How is it so much cheaper than the alternatives that not only can they roll it out to 5-6 billion people, but also allow people living on cents a day to purchase the service?
"Project Loon balloons float in the stratosphere, twice as high as airplanes and the weather."
Project Loon to bring NSA Spying to Everyone :)
Google unveils 'Project Loon,' an experiment to bring ballon-powered internet
You should look through my comment history too then. I clearly have a financial interest in BlackBerry and Instacart based on your logic.