skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'd argue it doesn't really matter, as I assume the US government is fully capable of creating a fully-built exploit out of a major software company's early disclosure of a vulnerability... And yes, I also assume they are using it to their full potential for surveillance (or put another way, unless someone told them explicitly not to, why wouldn't they?). And indeed, this is what the article itself hints at: this type of early alert allowed the U.S. to exploit vulnerabilities in software sold to foreign governments.

I think that when "Microsoft doesn’t ask and can’t be told how the government uses such tip-offs" the problems begin. I'd really like to believe what we're told - that the exploits/vulnerabilities were only used for software sold to foreign governments - but I'd be hard pressed to actually believe that foregoing any concrete proof. Again, unless someone explicitly says "no", they seem hell-bent on using anything they can for their own increased surveillance; domestic or otherwise.

Lastly, regarding MAPP, I think this is something entirely different they're hinting at. I see several things on the MAPP criteria [1] I doubt any intelligence agencies align with (Are you willing to have your company name and URL displayed on our MAPP website?, Do you provide active protection technology for Microsoft products and is your product commercially available?, and Do you sell or create products used to attack or weaken the security posture of networks or applications? are my favourites).

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/security/msrc/collaboration/mapp/cr...
A New Way to Think About Analytics
I don't trust Chrome, DDG w/ Firefox is easy and at least they are open about their practices.
It's illegal to break into computers in all civilized countries. The director of the NSA should be extradited to China to face justice for his crimes (after being punished in the US for his crimes here, of course).
this is 2 years old
The vision that I have includes allowing web based voting on party issues for party members. Complete financial transparency. Debate and decide what the party should support from within. Decide what issues are most important and attempt to tackle those first. I think the platform is that there is no real platform and the members decide what is important. Forget about gay marriage there are real problems in America. (education, war, privacy) I could go on and on about what I think are the issues in America but the point is we need to have a place to discuss these issues and have a group of people that can decide what should be done and then do something about it. Leaving it to a group of old men who are constantly lobbied is no longer an option.
In a first past the post system, starting yet another fringe party is pointless. If technologists want to have a real impact on American politics, the solution is to take advantage of the current disorganization within the Republican party. If the tea partiers can do it, so can the technologists (so long as there are a few deep Silicon Valley pockets willing to bankroll the escapade).

"Obama's NSA is spying on your church groups and trying to figure out how many guns you own" would be a pretty powerful political platform that could get a few people elected.
Speaking to that, there is a tool called Penango at https://www.penango.com that is a browser plugin that supports GMail at least.

I haven't tried it but if anyone here has, now would be an awesome time to tell us how it went.
Yes, but really I don't care anymore, and heck if we all end up in internment camps at least we will have great company (well not me, as an non-us citizen I will likely go to gitmo).

Anyway the reason I can't get rilled up is that I was during the Bush years. In the first few years after 9/11 I was seriously concerned that he would round all the muslims up and intern them (ala the US citizens of Japanese orgion during WWII), but even back then when there might have been sufficient political will to do that it wasn't going to happen, why should it happen now?
At the end of the post:
Update (2013-01-24): Mega has now switched to using SHA-256. They get points for fixing it quickly, but I wonder what other subtle or not-so-subtle security problems remain.
I'm just using https://www.noteshred.com to send private messages. I can't be bothered with encrypted email software
I agree with the author's point. I'd like to add that the problem right now isn't that you'll be individually targeted. But a mechanism has been created that depends on benevolent rule. The loss of civil liberties tends to be looked at myopically.
>The time displayed to the user will seem correct

This gets into fuzzy definitions of "correct" here. If the phone is showing the right local time, but internally has the wrong UTC time, does it matter?
Note that this from 2011. But it's still pretty cool when discoveries occur that weren't predicted by the models.
Apologies for not responding on this. I am not aware of anything that does this right off... Would probably be pretty easy to script. If you are still interested, I could probably get the basics of this rolling.
Anyone know why it is that banks and the likes are not signing their emails? Seems like the perfect use-case.
I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also learn more about the game, Sky Fish Phonics, and its adaptive learning system at http://www.knowbilitygames.com
It wouldn't matter. You have no insight in whether Dotcom stores the keys to decrypt the data somewhere. Unless the entire mega fad is open sourced and we can verify the code in the repos runs on their webservers, you cannot justify using Dotcom his bussiness knowing what he has done in the past to obtain financial gain over the backs of others.
I read it as him stating that Rhapsody and Napster each had around 2M songs, and .5M of each were from CD Baby.
Since the head of the NSA is a senior military officer, they are likely to be the most qualified to head the military's computer offense capabilities.

Theoretically, there is presidential and congressional oversight to prevent them from overstepping their bounds. Unfortunately, we've largely squandered the threat of congressional inquiry on blue dresses and cigars.

What I find confusing is that, ultimately, you have to follow the money. How has MSFT been benefiting from a conspiracy to exploit their own software in overseas markets?

They know that embarrassing information will get out eventually. They also have a distant planning horizon regarding continued existence. Whatever they get in return has to have been perceived as worth the loss of any trust and goodwill as a result of the eventual disclosure.
In addition to oib pointing out that it was fixed same-day, that security flaw wasn't a big deal in the first place, only relevant if the CDN was compromised.
Well, apparently "polymorphism" in the Java world just means that subclasses can override the superclass's methods.
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/IandI/polymorphi...

Yes, the Java 1.5+ generic data structure classes that take parameterized types allow a sort of polymorphism, but only for objects (including wrapper classes), but it's not quite as powerful as functional polymorphism.

For example, in SML you can swap an ordered pair of any two datatypes with one line of code:

fun swap(x: 'a, y: 'b): 'b * 'a = (y,x)

And to illustrate my other point about type inference, this is also legal SML and does the same thing. You can leave the type annotations off and the compiler will figure them out for you:

fun swap(x,y)= (y,x)

where x and y can each be any datatype.

I don't really know Scala but from reading about it I get the impression that it also allows this.

Have fun doing it in Java though... you'll have to implement your own generic ordered pair class.
There is already a hot cyber war going on with China, it isn't even really 'classified', I am sure the full extent is classified, but its well known that china's cyber force have been relentlessly attacking US government and commercial assets on a large scale for years. That the US is doing the same thing, while not publicly stated, i would think is a pretty reasonable assumption.

He is literally committing espionage, I am glad the privacy related items came out, and frankly I hope the bulk of what he stockpiled eventually becomes public knowledge.

But he is without doubt releasing US government secrets to a 'friendemy' foreign nation with the express intent of personal benefit. thats spying, text book, thats not whistle blowing.
I fear a HN with more glenn greenwald articles is a HN with more political flamewars. I don't think this is desirable, even if he does good work.
Senator Sanders Introduces Bill to Limit Overbroad Surveillance Requests
Not with the ones I'm familiar with (Bose QC-15). You have to turn the headphones on to engage the 'active' noise cancellation, but you don't have to be listening to anything. In fact, you can unplug the cable from the ear piece completely and still hear (not hear?) the effect.
As a hardcore techie, software developer and tech entrepreneur, you would think that I'd be lining up to support the Pirate Party. But, alas, other than cyber-security and digital rights issues, I don't necessarily agree with them about anything else. I also don't necessarily disagree but since they don't appear to have much a published platform and planks, it's hard to say. But I've seen some Pirates describe them as a "progressive" party, and I'm pretty skeptical of "progressives" and their policy positions. Anyway, for my money, it's the Libertarian Party that represents the path forward, not the Pirate Party.

Unfortunately, the problem in the US isn't that we don't have enough parties. We have tons of political parties in the US, ranging from the Libertarian Party, to the Green Party, to the Pirate Party, to the Worker's World Party, to the Prohibition Party, to the Modern Whig Party. No, the problem is plurality / first-past-the-post voting. As Duverger's Law notes, a plurality / FPTP voting system almost always results in a two party dominated system (like we have).

Switch voting to Approval Voting, Range Voting, or a Condorcet method, and we might see some meaningful change.
As much as I'm glad NSA snooping came to light, I'm very uncomfortable with a rogue 20-something singlehandedly deciding issues of national defense. It is not enough simply that something be illegal. IMO, something must be highly unethical and capable of causing severe lasting harm in order to justify turning over classified information. Snowden is not a justice, an elected representative, or someone in general who we want deciding what we should and shouldn't know.
Most Screwed Local Public School Districts
It encrypts in the browser, you can check the source code just fine.
I don't have any stats, but anecdotal evidence suggests that education on the term "hacker" hasn't been very effective, yet.
747's are being phased out in passenger service, actually. The larger 777 variants can carry almost as many (~375 for a 777-300 vs 415 for a 747-400), while being more efficient. The current 747 fleet is rapidly being transitioned by most operators into freighter roles.
You don't see the sarcasm there?
You might consider making the Font Awesome link open in a new window. I just smashed the thing I was creating.
Productized in weeks ? even firmware ? that seems really hard.

How would you do it? Please share(if it's OK).
The term you're looking for is "quote mining". If you take only the most opinionated parts from a large enough corpus, you can make almost anyone seem like an obsessive radical. It's all the more dishonest for that it claims honesty on the basis of technical truth.

(I challenge anyone investigating my past to include this tidbit :)
That may be, but really... privacy is dead. It is pretty much impossible to not be outed out on every last forum you used to participate in when the whole world has an eye on you. If Ars hadn't done it, someone would have put the pieces together.

In this day and age, to ensure 100% privacy you have to _really_ go out of your way. It's difficult for cypherpunks to pull it off, let alone normal users.
Is Sheryl Sandberg Leaning Out at Facebook?
I have to say, it would renew my faith in the competency of government if this was all some elaborate scheme to get an agent close to other countries to plant targeted, specific misinformation, and Snowden is actually some super-spy.

Alas, there are easier ways to accomplish that, an operation this big would never remain secret, and acting in the open like this has to have a hundred other downsides.
Does this mean tractor beams can be made real? :)
Woah, thought nobody was going to catch this, glad to see some people did, thanks for the replies!
I never really got into Eve, but this is an interesting podcast.

Thanks for sharing cdmwebs.
China Could Supplant U.S. as the Supercomputing Superpower
It would seem the lyrics would be hard to enforce copyright on, because you change the lyrics for each person you sing to. Happy Birthday Dear (your name here), etc.

Yes, I'm being overly technical. :)
I would say it depends what is behind these IP, let's say it is Siemens, or Samsung offices in HK, it would look bad, I assume even in the eye of the American public, and far worse in the rest of the world.
Fair enough and thanks for outlining your views in this and your other post - it's very interesting to hear them, and I'm sure many Americans will be feeling ambivalent about Snowden and what he has done.

I accept it might sound idealistic but it seems impossible to me to draw distinctions (particularly of rights) with borders any more, given that data flows so extensively across them, and the American distinction between citizens and others with no rights starts to sound particularly callous if the country's institutions arrogate the right to decide on global issues.
Broken is a strong word. I studied comparative politics in college include a variety of different election system. It turns out that each system has it's own pros and cons. For example, proportional representation systems end up giving smaller parties a disproportionate amount of power because of the 50+% vote requirement to pass a bill. The smaller party can throw its weight around and create a coalition with one of the bigger parties, thus getting more of their agenda passed than they should be able to.

So, rather than say that it's broken, just admit that the way the system is structured (first past the post) is what causes a two-party system.
The issue with browser-based encryption, is that you would have to check the source code every time that it's served to you.
"The neatest outcome would be that restaurants will . . . stop singing . . . songs."

IANAL, but I believe that particular practice is prohibited under the auspices of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, while not legaly binding as such, forms the linguistic basis of legal constructs within binding covenants and treaties to which the United States is a signatory.

The fact that this practice continues should surely be pursued with the utmost priority by all those concerned with probity and justice among civilized peoples.
I grew up in the Bush v1- Clinton era with Operation Sundevil, the Steve Jackson Games raid, NSA clipper chip, DMCA, Communications Decency Act, PGP legal battles, etc. The movie Sneakers from 1992 was a great example of the NSA paranoia that existed at the time.

The result? Won some, lost some, and the world moved on.

What's different now is that this surveillance is legal at scale because the majority of the populace wants it to be. They're more afraid of terrorists than having privacy. Look at the polls: Hacker News (and techies in general) seem to be in quite a bubble in this regard.

We have more clout than we did in the 90s, but the difference now is that there's a big Terrorism counter argument to anything we say. A majority of the USA prefers to have the electric eye of Sauron to watch over them, because the alternative -- more freedom that might lead to more terror attacks -- is too scary for them to accept. In that sense, the terrorists have won.

There are two viable paths going forward, in my view:
(a) Work to convince people they want privacy, and don't want Brin's transparent society - this slows what appears to be the inevitable; (b) Work to ensure accountable oversight of surveillance. No more FISA secret courts, but real public courts and judges and warrants.

What's not likely viable is
(a) encouraging people to stop using social networks -- they won't, we broadly LIKE being noticed by others, it gives meaning to our otherwise alienated capitalistic existence; (b) encouraging government to stop tracking people -- they're just getting into the game that Google and Facebook is in.

If a company can track people, so will the government. The key is that government can and must be held accountable to a degree that companies don't have to be. The US public has chosen not to exercise this power to date out of ignorance, laziness, and/or lack of desire.

The likely outcome of all of this is a resurrection and growth in the "darknet", where younger techies go to hide.
Ask HN: What if Open Source Licenses Forbade Broad Surveillance?
Volunteer work engineered the surveillance apparatus (HDFS, GNU/Linux, etc). If such terms were added to even a fraction of the software likely in use, it might have a large impact.

This could also make surveillance illegal if it violated licenses, and would give at least some legal basis for fighting its use. Further, if terms forbidding this use were suddenly dropped from GPL, say, it's like it's own warrant canary.
I wish I had more time to talk with her. I think CCP is doing some amazing things and I'd like to know more about how
Read 'The Wealthy Barber'

I'll give you a spoiler: compounding interest.
>I think most people respond to their mails pretty much as they come in

Maybe when at work, but at home most people (Especially of the older generation) seem to check their email a few times a day.

Corporate users should never be using webmail on their work computer...If they're MS Exchange based, they should be using Outlook and their exchange policy should allow (and prefer) S/MIME. There are a variety of plugins for Outlook that support GPG and S/MIME is already signed and encrypted.

Pubkey's should always be make available through the existing online PKI services. I personally send all my keys through pgp.mit.edu to be mirrored world-wide. Key-exchange (For High to Ultimate trust scenarios) is simple and easy. Send someone your pubkey by signing it with their pubkey and email it in a signed email (with signed attachments) to them. Have them do the reverse.
My Pet conspiracy theory is Snowden's is a US operative, and the whole goal of this operation is to get the US populous to accept this whole surveillance state, and to get congress to fully legitimize these surveillance operations...
And you were wondering how the spooks that targeted the Iranian nuclear facilities were somehow able to get their hands on no less than 4 different zero-day exploits.
It didnt work for ron paul. although i guess you could argue that privacy has more people up in arms than our monetary system. either way, i dont see the entrenched powers letting that happen from within.
Why do you even want to keep the NSA away? I am more worried about companies such as Intelius than the NSA.

Private companies such as Intelius are posting my personal information on the internet.

Anyone who knows my real name can search the internet and find out where I work, my home address, my spouse's name, my home phone number and my age. I didn't put any of this information on the internet, in fact I don't even have a facebook account. Private companies collected and aggregated this information and put it on the internet. Some of the information came from public records (for example, home address from property ownership records), but some was very private (such as my home phone number, which is not even in my name and rarely given out). This is a huge violation of privacy and I have no way of stopping it. Anyone that wants to harm me can find out where I live with a few clicks of the mouse.

I am not worried about the government spying on me. I am very worried about these for-profit businesses spying on me and outing my information on the internet. Why isn't arstechnica writing stories about that instead?
Does anyone know what happened with this? I googled "magnetic effects of light new type of solar cell" but I only got press from 2011 in the results.
Google Doodles 2013
You're quite welcome! Thanks!
They can. But the odds are vastly, provably, lower.
I think about this constantly, but the inverse as well. There are thousands of people that are "internet famous" in their early years, way more than there were 10 years ago. The next 20+ will be interesting!
Rot13 may not be, but a randomized numerical substitution cipher along with good encryption should be enough to throw off anyone snooping.

It is complicated to explain to your family that they should make their emails a jumbled mess, however...
Congressman requests subpoena of NSA’s White House, IRS phone logs
I would be shocked to learn there's a "civilized country" anywhere in the world that doesn't have its own similar efforts.
Why not move over to thunderbird? It supports GPG through enigmail
> EDIT: Less insulting.

I can't even imagine what this looked like before the edit.
"You're Too Cheap to Fly Faster"

https://medium.com/we-live-in-the-future/7885a299bca2
They could release an api that let you upload with your own client (maybe they have already?)

edit: Apparently there is an API, problem solved.
Seems like everyone thinks they are geniuses in the CBS comments.

Stop worrying or thinking you are a genius. Just do what interests you, and start getting interested in everything.
The two viable dominant parties have very similar voter counts. Starting a new political party requires taking voters away from the one dominant party closest to the new party's position, rendering both impotent and handing control to the party you least want to have it.

The political equilibrium keeps things as they are. Those in power can't do what needs doing because they'll get thrown out for it (ex.: total spending must be cut in half, but nobody is going to make such draconian across-the-board cuts and survive). Something has to break to disrupt that equilibrium, something like defaulting on debt maintenance or onset of hyperinflation.

Yes, we're stuck in a rut. There comes a point where you have to get out of the car and start walking, leaving the driving paradigm behind.
Then the NSA only has to save these searches somewhere in place of DDG - we end up with the same result.
They used publicly available quotes. Are we not allowed to post any negative coverage of Snowden now?
What you should have been doing (hindsight 20-20 and all that) was quietly going around to the other hundred or so people and getting together on this. Come through with one legal team representing the newly founded consortium and then negotiate from a position of strength.

Sign the deal, get cash up front, and then begin the drudgery of complying with Apple's byzantine requirements as a group.
Oracle also has a commercial license for MySQL, which customers can buy to enable them to embed MySQL into their closed-source product. The Monty Program cannot license MariaDB as anything other than the GPL.
Foolproof System for Pasive Income Generation
You contribute as a member of a civilized society that makes it all possible. The reason A350's aren't being built in Bangladesh isn't just the lack of monetary capital. It's the lack of social capital, in the form of functional institutions that enable some people to concentrate on things like next-generation airplanes.
Back in 2001/2002 I argued with friends that Microsoft must have made a deal with the government in its antitrust case [1]

Basically divulging or intentionally leaving holes or backdoors in the system accessible to the government in exchange for practically dropping their antitrust case.

[1]-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...