skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
My perspective on this is going to sound weird to you.

1. I am very irritated at inaccurate and sensationalized reporting.

2. I think the USG should have been much more open and forthcoming, at least in the aggregate, about how foreign signals intelligence was coming into contact with online services used mostly by citizens.

3. I think leaking details of signals intelligence programs should be a crime.

4. I hope Google picks a giant fight with the DoJ and wins it.
I don't use google, so yeah, that would stop me :)
Ok, so its a bit snarky, but I wish Google would invest as much cleverness in evading the letter of these non-disclosure rules as they do in evading the letter of the tax laws in their various jurisdictions. Perhaps they could create Google Panama Ltd which is the official entity to petition for all FISA and NSL requests which is an independently operating subsidiary based in Panama and outside the jurisdiction of the disclosure rules or something. There are a lot of smart people there, you can figure this out.
I am not exactly pro-gun or anti-gun. America is obviously founded to protect freedom of the individual and I believe everyone has the right to at least go to a local gun range and have fun shooting things, it's fun as fuck. At the same time I believe every gun that is sold should have background checks done and the owner to go through psychological tests as well as extensive safety courses.

Everything in moderation.
Recent disclosures on NSA data collection
Waze uses Bing maps on the backend.

Wanna bet that "look forward to working with them in our ongoing effort to make a comprehensive, accurate and useful map of the world." means converting to use Google maps?
No, I am talking about much less specific interests, as his use of the phrase is similarly broad.

Nor does his attempt to marginalize an interest imply that the interest is marginalized on HN. It concerns me that you are so eager to misread others' comments, and defend comments that contain no substance, only name-calling.
Because that worked so well for the Pontiac Aztek?
Oculus Rift is a peripheral, it's not a gaming platform. For all we know, the PS4 might get Oculus Rift support in an update.

And that aside, the Oculus Rift, if anything, would just bring a new part to the battle between PC vs console gaming. It's not really related to this at all.
there is an error here: Tasmanian devils are very much NOT extinct... I think the correct reference is Tasmanian Tiger
"Design is not just how something looks; it's about how it works." - Steve Jobs, Sir Jony Ive, Dieter Rams and every other half-decent designer worth a damn
To greatly simplify things, I think there are basically two types of people: Those who enjoy running, and those who don't. I am in the former group. (Now, obviously, there is a spectrum between the two ends but that's besides the point)

For me, and the runners I train with, it's not so much about the races but rather the experience of running itself. When I run, I am in one of two states: Either intense concentration (if it's a hard workout) or in a nice flow where my mind wanders and is occupied by interesting thoughts. I don't think I've ever had the cliched "Runner's High", but perhaps this is it. I always end up feeling less stressed and more relaxed. So this is probably why I run.

Those that don't enjoy running probably don't get this out of the act. It's probably mind-numbingly boring, which is why many people are forced to listen to music. The few times I've been injured and forced to use indoor cardiac equipment (like an elliptical), I've experience this sort of boredom.

Now, as to why the author was not informed of such delicate topics and "runners' trot", I can only chalk it up to runners not wanting to bore "normal" people with details of their personal activities. I can tell you that among runners, we're more than candid about such topics, and most runners can remember fairly exacting details of races they've run. They probably choose not to share such details with outsiders so that they don't bore or annoy them to death with something they might not be interested in. (As the author pointed out in the second paragraph - how they "hate people who are constantly posting about running over on Facebook")

As for preventing it, nothing's foolproof. Know when you usually have to "go", and structure you runs accordingly. Try to keep a log of what you've eaten and draw inferences from that. Oh, and good luck - keep up the running - if it's something you enjoy!
Same here. I trust Waze with my location information, to provide a service to me. I do not trust Google with that same information, because it will be used for far more than providing that navigation service to me. No thanks.
Why are people doing so much peer level file sharing anyway? Performance? Security? In a company it would be a lot better to have centralized servers with high availability, probably with some kind of web-based CMS to store files, something like Confluence or Sharepoint.
>So while Google can claim they do not allow the NSA direct access to it's servers

That is the entire story in this case, direct access to the servers.
Shown where? Mono's JIT is nowhere near as good as OpenJDK/Hotspot.
I'm sorry but it really does look very bad. This http://dribbble.com/shots/1109343-iOS-7-Redesign/attachments... redesign shows how much better it could be.
In terms of the public it will probably be forgotten quickly, politicians probably wont be so forgiving.
I used to work for AWS and currently work for another large cloud computing company, and the words NSA and PRISM haven't been mentioned once in any of our companywide meetings this week.

I think the HN echo chamber is hyping this up more than the rest of the real corporate world. Large companies who want to move to the cloud already know the risks/rewards of hosting their data via offsite 3rd party companies. They aren't worried about some threat that the NSA is sucking up all their data, they are concerned about people breaking into their instances and stealing their customer data.
Yes indeed - a more accurate translation, and with more relevant context.
What freedom is being protected by U.S. involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Yeah, I was actually thinking the same thing. The original is from this thread
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2342579/http-status-code-...
Wow, after 9/11, after the boston marathon, after ricin and anthrax to the president, after the first world trade center bombing, after OKC bombing? These were actual events with actual deaths. These are actual problems in every definition of the word. I understand very well that Israel and other places have more frequent attacks (though few/none have had attacks on the scale that we have) but that does not exclude the US from having a problem.
I hate reading 11px sized text.
Programming from the Ground Up - An intro to programming using assembly language
Ask HN: Is iOS 7 Beta reliable and stable enough to use on your primary phone?
I'm installing it now, but still curious what bugs and crashes people are experiencing.
Cody isn't offering a certification. But I know Cody and I know people that take his class are going to be working directly with him.
You can choose to put your data anywhere you want, as long as it's in the cloud, in plaintext and readable to the vendor.
En effet, ces noms brillent par leur absence.

But before jumping to conclusions, we'd have to be sure they were contacted for this? Maybe the authors of the letter assumed these companies wouldn't sign?

It would be telling if they refused to participate.
It's one thing to care about privacy issues, it's another to believe (and react to, and soapbox about) a distorted and inaccurate version of reality. A lot of the "nerd rage" has involved people assuming facts that may not in fact be true. People who do this marginalize themselves. In general we call them "conspiracy theorists."

For the facts that do indeed turn out to be true, soapbox away.
NSA will also know when, where and how you are driving. Fantastic.
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5861415
Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5861415
As someone learning the language, I'm not sure I care whether it's a syntax issue or a library issue. What I see is a language issue, and one that gets in the way of making learning it straightforward.
I would buy this but - like the hours on an AOL Free Trial CD - I would never have the time to extract value from each of the offered services.

These services have confusing end times (3 month, 6 month, 12 month, transactional?) At a bare minimum I'd have to keep a calendar of what expires when and that's just an extra hassle. Next time, please work out a deal where ALL offered products end on the same date so there's less complexity buyers have to keep in mind.

Another concern: this bundle seems to have a mish-mash of offerings with little rhyme or reason. It's like someone said "let's throw as many vaguely web development related SaaS products together and hope there'll be something for everyone!".

Finally, why SaaS? Sure, it's a great business model for a company, but as a consumer each time I sign up for a SaaS I have to make a calculated risk:

* Does the service have a good data export option?

* How likely this service will be around for a year or longer if I'm to sink my time learning it?

* Does this company have any exposure and does it look like it knows what it's doing?

If you decide to stick with SaaS, I hope you curate better and streamline the deal, but frankly I'm looking forward to a Bundle of installed apps instead.
So would I. However, humanbeings kill each other all the time. Given the choice between killing another human being, or having another human being kill me, I know which choice I would make.
I wish you wouldn't phrase your questions like that as it invites some to accuse you of implying that it's either the US spies on everybody or ends all foreign signals intelligence.

Also, the fellow you replied to didn't specify what sort of spying needs to be stopped. He could have no issue with foreign signals intelligence (which presumably means spying on non-US folks).
Minus a few apps, yes
Refresh the page and stop the pop-up in its pants before it dares to come up again.

Okay, Refresh the page and immediately click on the STOP or "X" button as soon as the text has loaded and there will be no pop-up.
I will say that the closer I get to Cleveland the better the jobs are. Also I target startups pretty hard when looking for jobs. It's just my preferred environment.
The US needs to close its tax loopholes and stop blaming people for taking advantage of its own terrible laws. As long as the loopholes exist its in everyones best interests to take advantage of everything they can.
I actually don't think it would be much different at all.
The campy NSA kids' website has nothing to do with recruitment; the Clinton administration required all Federal agencies to create websites for children in an April 18, 1997 memorandum [1]. This is clearly spelled out in the terms-of-use at nsa.gov [2].

[1]: https://www.cia.gov/kids-page/privacy-statement/whmemo.txt

[2]: http://www.nsa.gov/terms_of_use.shtml#kids
My Galaxy Nexus was riddled with terrible problems. I love Android and am not trolling. Android still has stability issues.

Unfortunately, my phone was stolen yesterday and now I'm back to using a dumbphone until I can find something better.
That is your interpretation of the law...

- NSA 2013
Congress unlikely to restrict snooping
"If you have zero physical security, that means that anyone can come up and just knock you down and take your things, your woman, whatever... Not my idea of "freedom"."

But that happens now. All the examples that are being given on why we need security are examples of things that are happening now WITH security.

"I think that it follows that you do need some security in order to live a free life. Does that justify secret government spying programs? Probably not!"

My problem is that this security is just a false sense of security. With all of the restrictions and all of the money poured into the DHS and other counter-intelligence, we still get things like Boston. I wish people would realize that bad things happen, and giving your rights away isn't going to stop them from happening.

"Except for minorities (at least for some things, like, say, being able to vote in Alabama), gays, people who consume marijuana in Washington and Colorado, and various others who have gained rights recently. It's not black and white."

They haven't gained anything. Nothing is stopping the feds from swooping down and arresting these individuals. They are still breaking a federal law. Also, in reference to the gay marriage thing, I feel it is kind of low to say they are gaining rights as there was no real legal reason (that I could think of) to prevent them from being able to marry.
I can't believe they finally have a remake of Killer Insinct, put it exclusively on xbox one and you have to buy all characters except one ..
Here's some background on what's actually going on:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57588752-38/google-to-feds...
That is a very valid point, but it is not the point that was brought up in this thread.
I'm not sure if you are offering this as a counterpoint; but "not just" seems to reaffirm the point that how it looks still matters.
He just referred a potential client (referred to him by a friend of a friend) to his colleague. It was the colleague's responsibility to vet the client, which they did a so-so job at. Of course everyone should be cautious of deals that are too good to be true, but I don't think James Altucher is at fault for referring a possible lead to a friend.
pg178

> Like most organizations, the CIA had its own stationery. Its official enveloeps had "Central Intelligence Agency" written on the return address. The Agency mistakenly used this stationery for a mailing on its new diversity policy - a mailing sent to officers, including Dave, who were working under deep cover in foreign countries. We hoped that no one had seen the return address on the envelopes. In any event, according to a friend at HQs, this incident led the Agency to destroy its entire stock of stationery.
AWS Free Usage Tier Adds Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Everytime I think about the S/MIME and PGP issue I can't get away from the fact that you need to give your private key to the client-side JS. I'm not sure we've found all the security flaws we'll find in the browser JS model so that just seems risky to me (especially for digital signature purposes).

And as you mention, you would still have to trust Google.
Unfortunately, the statements from everyone involved have made me skeptical to the point I feel I have to consistently read between the lines and pick a statement apart.

What does "unfettered access" mean? What are "valid legal requests"?

While there is an implication of spirit in their words, I know deep down that everyone involved is focused on the letter of their words.

This has nothing to do with my personal trust and confidence in Google, but in my trust and confidence in this entire charade. Google is part of it, whether they're on the right side or not. I simply cannot tell.
Self-publishing is the future — and great for writers
Irony: it only looks like it's slide up to unlock. It's actually slide sideways. My twitter stream right now is full of people pointing out how deeply confusing that little arrow at the bottom of the screen is.

See it in action:

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2013/06/slide-to-unlock-appadvice...
Hum, I already know most of this stuff. Maybe I should raise my rates.
JQuery Roundup: Go Flat
Apple’s iOS 7 was announced yesterday, with a divisive flat-design-inspired interface. Some have called it out for having inconsistent icons, and others have praised it for exploring the z-axis.
I like the theory, but you don't need to send an open letter for standing. The FISCOR already granted standing exists for providers.
Yes, me for example and I don't think there's anything wrong about it.
This designer gets the weather icon correct - the gradient should go in the same direction as the sunrise & sunset - lighter at the horizon, darker above.
yes, and there is nothing worse than presenting a really great solution to a client and they get hung up on the color of an icon.

there are whole blogs devoted to the stupidity of designer's clients - and now this can be witnessed on a global scale.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell
http://clientsfromhell.net/

compare to the typical criticism right now. the safari icon looks terrible - instant fail! man, i hope the iOS team gets shielded from this outbreak of retardation, lest they slit their wrists.
I can't see how. Having visited several communist counties, and being married to someone that grew up in one, the previous comment doesn't resemble any of them in the slightest.
UK Scrapping ID Cards (2010)
I would have to think that anyone wearing clothes made from an exotic or endangered animal knows they are breaking the law from some other country...
Awesome curriculum. Now if only the price was awesome...
The argument is that all meaningful communications (outside military tactical, and even there, a lot of it) is moving to the Internet. Without applying SIGINT to the Internet, you essentially can't have meaningful foreign SIGINT capability anymore. It's very difficult to distinguish between foreign and domestic parts of foreign-origin threats, and even more so on the Internet, at collection time.

(Even worse, as the transport security part gets better, you either need to add a bunch of active-attacker MITM or somehow compromise endpoints. At some point, even if you thought purely passive SIGINT collection was fine, the level of prior restraint on service providers/developers becomes absurd and probably no one would support it; witness the key escrow crypto wars of the 1990s.)

Generally NSA seems to put a good amount of effort into minimization post-collection. But, that only works if you trust them to be 1) forever competent and 2) forever equally ethical.
Hacker News has officially jumped the shark when not only do we have 300 stories about the same (political) topic on the front page, we have a top rated comment following Godwin's law.

Can I get an email or something when this site decides it wants to return to technology and not be r/Politics?
Using Minecraft to study human behavior
...says a guy entirely reliant on his influence in the Apple marketspace up to and including his newly released software application only available on the Apple App Store?
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Appsec_Tutorial_Series
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/owasp
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Testing_Project
https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_LiveCD_Education_Project
I'd be interested in it, but the challenge would be getting enough people involved (on both the answering side and asking side).
> I take it you're completely unfamiliar with human trafficking and the sex trade.

Or the prison system, which the 13th specifically makes an exception for..
Of course, blame the education system for your own poor skill as a writer.

Sarcasm remains, as it always has, difficult to pull in written language.

Always funny to see bad writers blame their readers though.
> It is a low view of the NSA to think that they do not have the ability to real-time decrypt SSL certs from every major SSL cert authority.

No it isn't.
David Brooks is among the most disgustingly boot-licking, power-worshiping authoritarians I've ever read in print, so his reaction here was not surprising at all. As always, here he is whining that people won't just shut up and trust the existing institutions and power structures without stopping to question whether they have earned that trust.

Another typical example: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/opinion/brooks-the-followe...
Dutch press reported very well... on Merkel's reaction.

Our own prime minister however pretends nothing is wrong, despite subsequent leaking from his own intelligence service.

And with a wonderful sense of irony he showed up few hours ago next door to our offices at a Google event focused on, wait for it: convincing the government to make better use of the internet...

But seriously, it is mainstream news here. Looking at the biggest prime time news show as I type this, major item.
The New Mac Pro Design Theme is Eerily Familiar. But How?
I agree with your perspective, with the exception of a slight modification to #3. I believe that leaking should be a crime, but I also believe that if the court of public opinion judges the original secret worse than the leak, that it should become politically out-of-bounds to actually prosecute the case.

I think there's a world of difference between Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. And while I think Manning's treatment has been harsh, I do think he should be prosecuted because he was reckless and untargeted. Snowden clearly has a much more focused goal and surgical approach.
Joanne Wilson: VCs not funding women founders is a subconscious decision
...and the $20m budget. ;)
The Dangers of Shared Links
I fear the next boogeyman will be MANPADs, based on a story I just read of French discoveries in Mali. I'm hoping that won't come to pass, or that we'll track down the missing MANPADs in time.
It could really damage the long term viability of the __US__ tech industry dealing irreparable damage to one of the major assets of the US economy has. I would expect companies that need a strong international security reputation to begin closing up shop and moving away.

The NSA just killed the goose that lays the golden egg and not much is going change that.
I think parent^ poster was referring to this:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/700577-051413-letter...

A reporter was being investigated for having access to classified information, and the toll records (what number called or was called, and for how long the call lasted) were subpoenaed.

[Via http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/14/4331108/attorney-general-d... ]
Introducing Path Stories
> 3. I think leaking details of signals intelligence programs should be a crime.

This one surprised me. Wouldn't the strongest signals intelligence program be one that doesn't need to depend on obfuscation?
What after the screen sharing session? Framebench makes sure that all your comments, files etc stay here. Also allows for asynchronous feedback so you could check the comments left at your convenience. This is why we say Framebench has the good parts of email and screensharing. And we have a fully functional asset management with versioning system built in..

Btw, did I mention...much lower bandwidth costs. :)
"All of the freedoms that we enjoy in Western democracies were hard-won and continue to be backed up by guns, bombs, codes, and secrets"

I'm going to single out the US in the "western democracies" and state that while this may be true, it certainly isn't true for just about anybody alive in this country today. The last time we actually fought for OUR freedoms, in my mind, is the War of 1812. Other than that, it was fighting for our interests, which are not the same. But, those in power need to keep up the idea that the war machine always needs to be at the ready because those darn communists/socialists/terrorists are after our freedoms and we need to be proactive.
How Original is iOS 7?
UMAD?
W3C webcrypto, done in a smart way, is probably one of the most critical pieces of security infrastructure to be built today.

I'm not talking about giving the real PGP or S/MIME to Google; just a UI flag saying "this message has special content, click here to download". And some kind of low-assurance S/MIME signature which just says "was downloaded from gmail" to protect from local modification. I'm not sure how mail clients deal with multiple s/mime signatures (or s/mime + PGP inside).
Bitcoin is more useful, because by using it you're not actually sponsoring NSA and you're doing it not in some hypothetical utopian future where politicians actually serve their people, but right here right now.
It's not hard to have switch somewhere in the settings, enabling/disabling auto-updates over cellular.