skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'd suggest that if you know where these subjects can be found online, and since there are many who state that they don't have $1000, that you should post the links here. Those of us that wish to take the course by Cody will still do so.
I was under the impression that Google Maps already used crowdsourced data for its traffic?

I use it in the UK and it's incredibly accurate - scarily so!
This happens fairly frequently unfortunately, like this case of paranoia.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/04/30/baby-taken-from-par...
The trouble is, no-one knows whether this kind of concern is over-dramatised or not any more. The current situation is exactly what the term "chilling effect" was coined for. And the very fact that the risk is even considered plausible by normal, reasonable people demonstrates that there is a problem with the current situation.

This is actually bad news for elected representatives. Having an electorate who are apathetic about an issue is no problem for the politicians. Having an electorate who are vocal about an issue, but who are ultimately not going to do anything practical to back it up, is not much of a problem for the politicians. Having an electorate who are deliberately trying to look apathetic about a problem but who will in some cases change their vote because of it can put a politician out of a job, and because of the culture of silence they might not even see it coming.
I agree with you that the United States should not be engaging in mass surveillance, and there needs to be reform and checks on the power. And I agree with you that we'll repeat history if we're not wary.

But I don't think this is evidence of the United States "sliding" into a soviet state. I may be wrong in my interpretation of your comment, but that seems to be your overall warning.

I believe that the people of the United States are a good barometer of our democratic health. We might not vote as much as we (arguably) should, but the shock and outrage on such a nearly universal scale illustrates that the government still doesn't have absolute, corrupt power.

The fact that this was hidden and not designed as a deterrant also demonstrates to me that the United States is still, if not consciously, afraid of the power of its people. I can't say that it will last indefinitely, but at the moment, I believe the people are doing a good job of showing that this is not okay and we aren't moving towards people disappearing in the night and needing to be cleared for travel.
I think that's the point ^^
Well, you know, the military let other individual with probably much less technical abilities to get hundreds of thousands of classified material?

Man, and that is the MILITARY, don't you know? They risk their lives and perform covert operations day in day out!

And so an argument disappears.

Do you think the NSA has made no mistakes whatsoever?
As essential as this is for me, $1000 is a lot of money for an Indian freelancer. Seconding the request for a PDF download.
The direct response industry continues to use long sales letters and "ugly" design to great effect. It's the same kind of a/b testing that agile UX practitioners espouse that produced "Red gets read!" lore in direct marketing. Still gives me the heabie jeabies looking at that stuff though.
> As an outsider, to me it seems that the USA is not a "free" country and I honestly don't see any difference between what the US and Russian governments are doing to journalists and people who disagree with them.

You seem to describe at least five stark differences:

1. If you wanted to travel out of your town - you had to register that fact with the nearest police department.

2. Wanted to travel abroad - had to apply for a passport, which was only issued for a strict number of days and had to be returned upon return.

3. If you were placing a phone call, it would always start with a warning "This call is being monitored. This call is being monitored".

4. The post office would open your parcels and letters.

5. There was book censorship on a massive scale.

Comparing the US today to drastic Soviet republics doesn't really help the conversation - these far-off hypothetical comparisons make it easier for other people to dismiss your argument.
That is kind of my point. We know his name, but we always knew there was a person behind it. Snowdon could be captured and sent to some undisclosed location (or killed or your favorite theory, after all it isn't like we expect to hear from him in the public), or an anonymous whistleblower could have been captured and sent to some undisclosed location (or killed or your favorite theory). Having a name out there doesn't change the equation much while distracting from the contents of the leak.
Great list. Could you post your alternatives to each one once you're done?
And you have to be some kind of mindless sheep to be distracted by his character at the expense of his work.
"it is not a fallacy to bring in personal details which raise legitimate questions about the credibility of what's being said.
Snowden did have a difficult time in HS and he does not possess a formal CS/technical education."

Having worked decades in the IT industry, my experience shows that formal education rarely makes a positive contribution to a person's skills or credibility. I could be biased though, I'm self taught.
That's fine, irrelevant, and expected. At least free speech is still around.
> I agree my post was way over the top, but damn, you never hear anyone advocating for GM

Really? Who is doing all the advocating to prevent labeling of food with GM ingredients? It's completely one-sided in the industry.
The designer should have received all relevant context prior to starting the task. There will be exceptions, where a piece of context is missed, and in these cases where feedback is necessary the format of the feedback is important.

Rather than, "do it this way because businessReasons."

Instead, try, "We must not have properly conveyed this aspect of our business, here is the relevant context. Knowing this, how do we solve this design problem?"

If the designer is incapable of translating business requirements into design solutions then perhaps they're not a product/ux designer, maybe just a visual/graphic designer.
Don't think of Orwell as just the guy who wrote 1984 and Animal Farm, either. His other stuff is great, too.
TED Global: R.D’Andrea and team demo amazing quadrotor “athletes”
So, to clarify, it's only called 'smearing someone' if that someone is someone we're on the same side of, right? Otherwise, its called activism or journalism or some other, vaguely more pleasant verb?

If you don't think that the fact that Snowden's claims are tempered slightly by the fact that he doesn't have a formal high school or computer science education; hell, why not?

I'm not saying that Snowden won't be dragged through the mud, but that's irrespective of what he did, besides the fact that he did anything at all. It's 2013, and 24-hour cable news channels need content: they will say and find anything and everything if it means finding or saying something new.

(Also, Brooks and Toobin are both respected journalists and academics. They've both spoken vocally against the current administration, against the PATRIOT Act, and other things.)
I don't jive with your analogy on TSA screening/NSA blanket spying on all citizens. Flying is a choice, in one form or another. We volunteer to be subjected to TSA when we buy a plane ticket. We don't agree to give up our rights as a citizen when we vote people into office, even if we support that candidate's views on fighting terror.

Let's vote this gal/guy into office so we can have our rights suppressed in the name of freedom, said no one ever.
You're absolutely right about this. I vastly prefer reading a technical book rather than piecing together information from online sources. I like just sitting back and being immersed in a subject. I enjoy that I get a complete and logical tour of a subject from a book. The length of a book is signal with regards to this (on any technical subject worth reading a book about at least).
Doesn't Google already incorporate user's data for traffic information[1]? I try to have my maps/ navigation running during my commute home to feed that data.

The Google Now traffic feature saves me at least an hour a week on the return leg of my commute (14 miles.) I'm glad they are trying to make it more accurate.

[1](2009) http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/bright-side-of-sittin...
Where's the outrage over private snooping?
US spy scandal widens as MEPs and MPs seek answers
Thats true, in fact I love their sense of UI design. Thanks a lot for pointing it out.

Thanks again!
I saw Swift talk at DjangoCon and it is great - really thoughtful and inspiring, thanks for summarising this!
How much is the question.
Its not about blame. Its about the diplomatic message of the whole story. And the diplomatic message is that Russia can still pressure Poland, with weapons, if it deems necessary. So Poland better behaves accordingly. This show of power and bullying was typical for the cold war, and this story went down in that same manner. Nobody would fire missiles today there, but the possibility/capability is what matters, not the will. If you look at it his way, then the US's role in this is the least important.
Sure, but the point is Assange should be a side dish to the Wikileak related issues (like civilian casualties, privacy, transparency), and Assange's personality a side dish to their actions and writings/ideas (which I find interesting/fun).

"We always expect tremendous criticism. It is my role to be the lightning rod ... to attract the attacks against the organization for our work, and that is a difficult role. On the other hand, I get undue credit."
Julian Assange
Ok. Now that "Open Terminal" thing is awesome. Nice job.
This reaction is actually scarier to me than the initial surveillance. NPR and NYT are usually sources of very solid journalism, the fact that they would drop the real story for some gossip about Snowden implies that someone is able to successfully exert pressure on these organizations.

The surveillance alone leaves the possibility that one agency has started to go to far, but this more systematic reaction indicates that the trouble is deeper and more wide-spread.
iOS7 – Why Is Everyone Suddenly A Design Critic?
Great post! Not the usual programming talk, with a bit of humour.

This cracked me up.

"I look up and at this moment realize that the entire time this was happening, I never started running."
I presume you have heard of McCarthyism? There are many, many examples of American abuses on American citizens, where innocent people lost their jobs, friends, families and even lives because of what they believed, or even what the
American Government thought they believed.

Imagine the McCarthyism mindset combined with today's surveillance culture and the disaster that would be.
This is an interesting point but I doubt any court would prevent the NSA from spying on foreign communications based on this argument.

Immigration and nationality are exclusively "guilty until proven innocent." The burden on proof is on YOU to prove that you are a US citizen, whether you're stopped by some police department or the border patrol. This is why you're supposed to always have your Green Card on your person.
When I read this I thought "no waze.."
How do you go from "morals are defined by the obligatory feeling they give rise to" to "for someone to not act to prevent an immoral situation is immoral itself"?

By that definition everyone is acting immorally at all times when they're not attempting to remedy the most immoral thing they are aware of occurring at any given time. Such a definition fails the "usefulness" test.
Thanks! The conference was great, one of my all time favorites!
RollerShoot - Episode #11 06/11 by MichaelPorter | Blog Talk Radio
There is probably truth on both sides. Intelligence work is well funded by the government. Most government contracting companies hire at salary, but pay by the hour. So, if he was working a lot of overtime, he could have expected to bring in 200K for the coming year.
I'm not sure who handles it now, but Jamie Hurst[1] handled it up until quite recently.

[1]http://uk.linkedin.com/in/jamiehurst88
I'm in, got a site?
Would you consider doing a reduced price for people who just want access to the videos after the session and logs of irc. This way you won't have to grade their homework, answer their questions, nor give them a certificate. I'd love to learn all that stuff at my own pace, but I don't have 1k to spend on it. On the flip side I don't expect you to do work for free.
I am also a daily NPR listener and have noticed the exact same bias. I honestly expected better from NPR and it saddens me to observe such a clear agenda to push a specific narrative.
GlassDoor says that BAH pays IT consultant bonuses up to $75k for some: http://www.glassdoor.com/Bonuses/Booz-Allen-Hamilton-Bonuses...

Plus the base salary won't include COLA allowances. Both pieces of data could be correct.
You don't think something like this, if known to the government, would make it harder to get security clearance? That's necessary for a lot of government positions, as well as private sector jobs that contract to the government.

Additionally, if you run for office against me and I'm a law-and-order conservative, you can bet your ass I'll be running "djim doesn't want to give law enforcement the tools it needs to stop terrorists" ads if I find out about it.
This will allow more specific user information, like which lane is blocked up or " eople can report accidents, traffic jams, speed traps, police and can update roads, landmarks, house numbers, etc."

From the Waze wikipedia page.
A pedometer without the hardware
Who, other than Google, is a respectable entrant in this space? Did they just consume their only competition?
And this all presumes that the NSA's systems are so poorly configured that a contractor in HI could access all this.

I have two words for you: Bradley Manning.

It only takes a single bottleneck, a console, a server, a VNC login or what have you where a sufficient stream of classified data to pass through and someone with enough motivation to get at it. You're giving the NSA an awful lot of credit, but in the end these are people who do the same dumb things other intel folks do.

E.G. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/693011.stm
>And how do most of these "personal details" actually have anything to do with his credibility?

The parent's second paragraph addresses that. He may have misinterpreted or not have understood what he was looking at. As the above noted, some of his remarks already seem questionable.

>rubber-stamping by the FISA courts

Sorry to go slightly off-topic, but what is the evidence that the FISA courts are rubber stamps rather than really doing their job? I'm not being snarky, I just haven't seen any (but I have heard FISA called that a lot)
> But it's safe already!

Didn't they say the same thing about DDT?
Well, reasonable people will have to agree to disagree about whether the concept of arrogance is relevant or not to to the wikileaks project. I'd say it's far from a distraction, and in fact it's the key problem with the whole endeavor.
One in ten new HN submissions get killed by mods.
yeah... but were not most people here are we..

if HN isnt looking after the internet... who is ?

Maybe its up to us to do our part [ along with reddit, 4chan, Anons, RMS/EFF ] so normal people can feel like the internet is their space ?
Exactly my thought. Funny how things can change their meaning - it used to be something to be shown with pride and now it's more like a warning.
Glad you found the post useful!
Email Intro Tip: Keep it Concise
Yep, it's much speedier than iOS 6 on my Verizon iPhone 5, and I'm coming from the bias "WTF are you doing Apple?!". Like I said, the only performance issues I've noticed are with the parallax scrolling background, it's still a bit stuttery.
Often times, designers have to get feedback from the business guys because we do have a tendency to go with the flow. Especially if its not a full time job.
As a noob developer and someone who cares about online privacy, what tangible things can I do to actually change the system/ make a dent in it?

1. Cash. Cold, hard, cash. Donate it to the EFF, and/or whatever other organizations you think stand to move public policy in a better direction, or otherwise contribute to improving the situation. Maybe also consider the Free Software Foundation, EPIC, the Libertarian Party, the American Civil Liberties Union, etc.

2. Organize people and educate them. Start a "Digital Privacy Meetup" in your town, and invite speakers to talk about using Tor, I2P, GPG, SSL/TLS, etc. Get some people educated on these issues and then send them out to speak at other events.

3. Join Toastmasters, practice giving speeches and presentations. Get really good at it. Run for public office. Get elected (or not). In either case, your campaign is a platform to promote a message and spread the word about something you believe in.

4. Give cash to the campaigns of candidates who you believe actually reflect your values. Don't limit yourself to Democrats and Republicans either. If the Libertarian Party candidate, or the Green Party candidate, or the Constitution Party candidate, or the Pirate Party candidate are best in your opinion, throw some support their way. 3rd party candidates can influence the debate, and influence the election, even when they aren't the eventual winner. Don't ignore the nth order effects.
actually, I think you are incorrect. Comparisons of today versus yesterday with a thought about where we want to be tomorrow.

Velvet glove or iron fist, both are the controlling hand; but it is good to acknowledge that we are not completely in a locked down police state- yet. However, these are the exact canaries we should look for in our own society.

I do find the need to call and notify Fraud Detection in order to have resources while traveling a bit congruous to the Soviet style travel restrictions.
5 Startups Apple Ripped Off at WWDC 2013
Does it matter if you know that you have been infringing a patent? People get software patents enforced on them all of the time that didn't know the algorithm was patented.
Yes, and about Aspirin, too.
I think the second paragraph of my comment makes it clear enough that I wasn't trying to make a complete comparison. The goal was more to establish that just dismissing spending on things like traffic safety is a bad argument.
From Node.js to paying your taxes: interview with an effective freelancer
It's something I may consider for future runs, but I'm not planning that for the first iteration. I think the real value in this is being able to work through this material and have hands-on instruction when you need it, much as if you were being trained inside a security consultancy.
A personal friend of mine, Darren Hickey, was kidnapped by Chechen rebels. As a result of a bungled Chechen attempt to rescue him and his 3 fellow captives, he was beheaded by a road side.

Have a read:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/230215.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1215350.stm

So, yeah, I am fairly familiar with it.

And let me tell you, you are not even slightly comparing the same things.
122k is probably the salary. Firms like this often pay discretionary bonuses that can range from 30-60% of base rate pay, often based on company profit sharing. If Booz had a good year and it was toward the upper end of that range, 200k is not far off. For reference I knew several people at various management consulting companies a few years ago who would start off with base pay of 60-70k but had annual bonuses of 30k+.

I am not familiar with BAH's actual compensation scheme though.
Well, and prisons, where felons go. And most Americans could be convicted of a felony.
You are cleverly trying to shrink the domain of known and relevant information down to only that set of things which boost Snowden's credibility. We also know about the NSA's operations from their open source projects like selinux and Accumulo. And given that context, it absolutely damaged his credibility when he suggests that there is some list of assets that he could read.

What, like 'cat /home/dirnsa/undercover_agents.txt'?

As for the question of how did he get a slideshow? I don't know, but it's not difficult to imagine that an attachment on an email is easier to access than a wiretapping database.

His lack of education is relevant because when you have at least some understanding of the depth of complex systems, it becomes very hard to imagine that a self-taught person has enough knowledge to speak competently about multiple such systems.

EDIT: let me amend this last statement, since so many people seem to want to focus on an extreme interpretation of it. Yes, very brilliant people do sometimes have no papers or letters backing up their knowledge. I think you have to admit, if you've dealt with enough such people, that they are the exception -- the mean and floor of that population's technical capacity is lower than of the educated population, in my experience.

Now your argument has to be that Snowden was exceptional -- where is the evidence for that? His pay? Who honestly believes salary is highly correlated with ability?
David Brooks is a "respected journalist" in the same sense that USA Today is a "respected newspaper"...
Macs No More: After Edward Snowden, Time to Come to the Penguin
The Accept Header: A Quick Primer
In my experience they really hate to pay overtime, instead, you must put down exactly 40 hours per week. Any less and they can't bill the government the full normal maximum, any more and they have to pay time and a half or more, which the government generally doesn't go for.
Why should it matter whether he has a high school diploma?

That type of attack is precisely the definition of an ad-hominem. The truth of his claims does not depend on whether he has obtained a high school diploma. It depends on whether or not his claims are true. Someone with no high school diploma can tell the truth just as well as someone with a PhD.

And it's not like his claims require an advanced education to understand. If he was claiming to have built a cold fusion reactor, that would be one thing; it would be pretty hard to believe that someone without formal education and with no prior results in the area had made such an advance. But all he's claiming is that the systems he administered had the ability to wiretap any given American at his whim. That just takes some basic technical knowledge and being in the right place at the right time.
Recent DOJ opinion (that a court gave warrant for) that an AP author was party to a crime while (/because of) trying to avoid surveillance.
I think you misread "can't" and "can".
Installed it but didn't use it. I don't want to go through the hassle of looking for the configuration info of my GMail (one of the most popular email services) account. So 2003.
It's open source, you can go and implement this "novel stuff" yourself.
You're right, we shouldn't talk about the contents of those leaks when we can bicker about whether or not someone is arrogant. We'll put 2 guys on TV, one will take the 'arrogant' side, the other will take the 'non-arrogant' side, and any fair-minded listener can conclude that they're both half-right, the dude is sort of arrogant (or whichever insult), and we'll all just forget about the contents of those cables or the fact that we're being monitored.

Brave New World was indeed scarier than 1984. But hey, why not have both?
I don't mind CAPTCHA per se but this one seems to be surprisingly difficult. Other that that - nice idea.
US Commercial Prisons
Here’s why Vooza employees have the most secure passwords in the world
Anything remotely political has been transformed by the media into this name-calling garbage. Elections turn on people's impression of the character of the candidates, much of the time fueled by irresponsible rumor-reporting by the media.

It seems that all you have to do to win the public opinion battle is to resort to schoolyard bully tactics. Maybe it won't work this time...