skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There are so many levels of "TOP SECRET" (channels, SAPs and other restrictive markings). TOP SECRET is essentially the beginning of "actually important" (and I believe there is even plenty of SECRET stuff with restrictive markings which is thus more sensitive in practice than generic TS; some of the restricted markings are in US Code explicitly and pre-date the C/S/TS system). The "SI" part of TOP SECRET/SI was probably more significant. The presentation itself wasn't hugely sensitive (somewhat informed speculation -- at least based on the parts which were published, and a generally informed but not specifically informed review). No specific collection techniques, etc.
You are quite presumptuous in assuming that I have not done anything for others recently. I have in fact but I don't think that I have to justify myself to you. What sort of argument is it that "stranger things have happened"? If you got cancer, would you start jumping on one leg on the off chance that it would cure your cancer? Probably not. You'd probably want to concentrate your limited resources in a way that might actually have some results.

>> And it's "its".. "It's" is a conjunction. "Its" is possessive.

K
It's not just about what people think. It's also whether they think hosting stuff on US servers is even legal.

I can imagine the Pirate Party suing some EU groups (governments, companies, whatever) because they are using US providers, and the US is not safe enough to conform with EU privacy law. And there's money on the line too, lots of EU companies will want the contracts that are going to US ones. And keeping jobs onshore is always popular with the masses.
What do you think would be an appropriately harsh punishment for an 82 year old nun and couple other seniors breaking through a fence and putting up a banner at a nuclear facility, then wait to be arrested?
Everyone who supports Snowden should print out a gold star and wear it on their sleeves.
I think it will impact B2B e.g. big/sensitive projects will be much less inclined to use Skype.
You don't care. I don't care. The EU companies which are running systems on US-based SAS platforms care.
Revel - http://robfig.github.io/revel/
Gorest - https://code.google.com/p/gorest/
Google Music is available in Australia (as of last month or so), but the All Access streaming is not.
In all fairness, the Occupy movement didn't have direction, leaders, an agreed set of goals.. - in short any of the things needed to turn that energy into change.

There were things here and there that many seemed to agree on - but it was not nearly focused enough to matter. I think if it were accompanied by any kind of violent protests, the people in general would have completely turned on it - and without legitimate goals, I think rightly so.

Its not comparable to Civil Rights, imho. That was a moral imperative with clear, legitimate, practically implementable goals. There was moral high-ground, general sympathy among the people, and a roadmap (e.g. extend the rights to us that are extended to everyone else). I'd love to see something similar for the modern age of privacy violation or holding gov't officials accountable - but I haven't seen it yet.
I think the published numbers are 4.5mm clearance holders (mostly S or the DOE L; I've personally never met a C-holder); 900k TS+ (including TS/SSBI, etc.)

Essentially every military officer is S or better, I think, and virtually everyone in certain military units is S (IT, etc.) or in some cases TS (CI). That is a lot of people. A lot of 18 year olds :(
Yeah, though I can't give specifics we had an admin issue where I worked that got briefed to the level of a "Presidental appointee confirmed by the Senate" that was related to screening requirements (or rather, the lack thereof).
My Chinese-Indonesian wife says the same thing. There is a point where loyalty to one's country however and to the ideals we share must trump the risk of action by one's government.
There are different levels. Up to a point they take everything you declare as true in conjunction with some basic checks. At the highest levels they assume everything you say is false, until investigated and proven true.

I still think the article makes a good point though, you just don't know who the hell has access to your data unless you keep it on your own servers or host the data in a country with extremely transparent privacy and law enforcement governance.
Not surprising at all coming from Slate and this author.
One would expect hackers to be upset about massive dragnet surveillance.
As an Australian, that's what I found most interesting as well about all the commentary going on. From the perspective of the NSA it seems my data is fair game under any and all circumstances.

Well fuck that. Google, Amazon, et al. - I'm out
Here's a justification for Snapchat's valuation: Pets.com and Webvan aren't around anymore, looking to do post-mortem rounds from the grave. If they were, that's where the pattern-matching money would go.
I don't see a downside for Hong Kong/China in rejecting an extradition request.

Cynically, it's leverage and they'll have the moral high ground in the eyes of the world.
I haven't tried Workflowy but from the AppStore description it looks like a clone of TaskPaper or FoldingText (free form text with to dos / outlining / tagging). Isn't the main point of the poster's app that it chooses the next task for you?
> how many people use macbooks instead of laptops loaded with nix.

Minor nitpick: OS X is certified as UNIX, and has been for many years.
I agree with the other posters, that this quiz tests edge cases more than anything.

That said, I think it is pretty rude to tell me after showing my score that the quiz would, and I quote, "not buy [me] on DVD."
And, yes - we're Capuling! Who is not against creeping authoritarianism and attempts to wipe out diversity?
What about his morals? What about his courage?

I don't think the NSA would be using the same words you are.

The more legitimate point is that he was a contractor- just how much clearance do contractors get? That seems like the bigger worry to me.
What distinguishes the original post from workflowy is cost.

Workflowy is not free. As a free user your limited to creating 500 items a month.
Taking Action
The amount you should reasonably be worried about something happening is the probability of the event multiplied by how bad that event would be. Government gone totally off the rails would be much worse, of course, but corporations going off the rails is much more likely.

How many liberal democracies can you point to that have gone the way of totalitarianism, mass imprisonment, and genocide? I don't see a lot of examples around. Yet I can look around and see tons of examples of corporations doing evil things with your information (health insurance companies dropping coverage when you get sick, credit card companies sharing credit history for any purpose other than setting interest rates, etc).

I think things you can see examples of every day are generally much more worthy of your worry. Or at the very least, it's not rational to be so worried about government surveillance while giving a free pass to the companies creating a surveillance apparatus that can be abused by corporations.
I'm pretty sure if you were involved with terrorist groups, you became aware of this sort of thing well before it made the front page of the New York Times. The idea that keeping it out of the press prevents the targets from knowing is naive.
Ehh... this is all relevant, but indirect. How about:

22. What is your credit card number, expiry date and security code?

And on the subject of "nothing to hide from the government": the government in United States is - still - pretty good. But the trend, the trend is a worry!
Just spitballin' here:

- You might want to throw a little more flair on the front page, and pictures say a lot more than words, and the food space is a great place for pictures

- Could I ask about your backend? I think this would be a great project for a graph (neo4j?) database, I wonder if it would fit your models well
I don't think "contractor staff are cheaper overall" applies to IT or other specialty services staff. A Boozer getting $200k/yr is probably billed at...$350k? Assuming you need the position for 10y, that's 3.5mm.

You could keep a civil servant for $80k/yr and give him a $60k/yr pension for (say, $120k/yr for his working life) for an entire career of 30 years for that. Spend the first 5-10 on training (much of which is OJT, so he's still doing useful work), and you're still 10-15 years ahead, even today.
I don't like that nsa news takes 80% from HN recently, but I assume it's in our long term best interest.
Mark Zuckerberg should apologize for calling the press reports stemming from Snowden's actions "outrageous".
Windows 8 on the desktop does no such thing by default. If you're talking about SkyDrive, it works just like DropBox or Google Drive. You have to move your files in to a specific folder for it to sync to the cloud. Everything else, like "My Documents" and all the other stuff is still very much local.

Having never used a Surface RT, I have no idea how it works there, but on the desktop Windows 8 does not force you to store anything in the cloud.
There are broadly two types of innocent victims. Those who feel violated if they found someone had broken into their house and gone through their underwear and those who would be dismissive because their underwear was all clean and no real harm was done. Rather than trying to decide which victim reaction is correct by trying to assess if any real harm was done or not perhaps we could ask what possible justification there was for a stranger to be in their underwear drawer in the first place.
So, would a second-order link be the launching pad for a legal surveillance of a US citizen?

If Joe in NYC called Pavel, a Chechen activist who the NSACIAFBIODNI is monitoring, is that sufficient basis for obtaining a warrant for monitoring all of Joe's communications?

This is the sort of information we need.
Entrepreneurial Personalities of Specific Places
A bunch of people compared ~9 of the companies' statements in a past thread. They are all identical in structure, form, and style, with only minor differences like differing adjectives and emphases. They all also beat the exact same terminology to death. Namely, "direct access".
Immediately what came to mind. Glad I'm not the only numberphile on HN (in fact, I bet we all are).
That was kind of my point. I wasn't the one who said "he might not even be in Hong Kong."
Oh fuck coffeescript. Go back to ruby please
Spying powers revealed in the US and how NZ’s GCSB Bill could be far worse
Lots of people build cryptographic tools that are much more dangerous to the surveillance state than "Cryptocat". Have we heard a lot of stories about the GPGMail developers being detained? What about the Truecrypt team? Are we just accepting on faith the idea that building crypto tools will get you harassed?
Very original indy game: Storyteller
Why NZers need to make a submission on the GCSB Bill
I live in the UK and for me this is a big deal. While this issue was always in the back of my mind, I never had concrete proof that this was happening.

Now that my fears have been answered, I shall think twice before buying any cloud space on US companies servers. I will be speaking to my colleagues on the effects this will on our existing data and how will this effect the trust with our customers.

I think this is a huge deal.
I'm assuming both criminal/terrorist organizations (well, and hacker groups, etc.) and tech startups actually surpass USG for a lot of personnel screening, mainly because they're small. If you only hire people you've personally known for a long time, that goes a long way. Hiring 20 trusted people is a lot easier than hiring 20k.

(Obviously USG does a better job in certain areas; generally I'd say most military facilities do a decent job on most physical security.)
Paradoxically, yes?
I don't think there is any more information about it because circumstantial evidence is the only connection.

Not to say that it isn't true, but at this point a whole wide range of things could be.
This same concept happens in sales copywriting as well. You don't want to ask a question that your potential customer can just reply "No!" to and skip over.
I'm, also in Australia.

NB: It's a real struggle to not make this sound paranoid.

Just at an individual level, I'm questioning whether it's wise to store my data in a US service that won't afford me the same protection as US citizens.

I've already started reducing my reliance on Google, and I barely use facebook, but things like Amazon and Linode are much harder for me to quickly divorce myself from.
> in spite of there being laws banning the transfer of personal data outside Australia, most people are quite lax about the issue and take the view that the risks are too small to be counted.

I can tell you from working in the finance industry in Australia and APEA, larger companies/banks take this very seriously due to compliance obligations with regulators (APRA, MAS, HKMA, etc).
Yes, that's exactly what I was going for.
I think journalists are already quite aware of this story. It's been top news in every major news outlet since it broke.
IOS Dev Doing Android, Best Device to Dev For?
I'm an iOS developer with an app about to launch in the iTunes App Store. Going to be building an Android version of the same app next, but I have no experience using or dev'ing Android at all.

I plan to get a used no-contract device in order to start understanding the platform.

What would HN'ers suggest as a good representative device that a typical 25-45 yr old Android user might have?
OK, why is everyone taking Mr. Snowden at his word? I mean, not about the NSA stuff, but about what he's doing post-whistleblowing? If he had the healthy paranoia and savvy of the kind of intelligence professional who would dare perform such a leak, why would he give any clue about where he was? Even if he went to HK because it was one of the few busy foreign places where he had some close friends...well, I would hope the g-men, if they can track anything down, it'd be close friends of Snowden's...so why would Snowden risk bringing in associates into the chase? I hope he's actually planted in Arlington and enjoying a 5 Guys Burger and reading the newspapers.

Also, among the few post-evacuation details he listed, why did he conspicuously mention that he left his girlfriend in Honolulu? Because obviously, such a person would be first in line for questioning about Mr. Snowden's whereabouts. If he didn't break up on bad terms with her, then there's no point in drawing attention to her. But a non-existent girlfriend would be a good wild-goose-chase to set his chasers onto.
The article is confusing. More clearly: both Hong Kong and the PRC (mainland) can deny extraditions from HK to the US.

Beijing, which gave its consent for Hong Kong to sign the agreement, also has a right of veto if it believes the surrender of a fugitive would harm the "defence, foreign affairs or essential public interest or policy'' of the People's Republic of China. In short, the treaty makes Snowden's fate a matter of political expediency not just in Hong Kong but in Beijing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-h...
I'm an American, and I think things will change - for the worse. I'd like to think that if morality or the Constitution didn't stop this shit, at least bidness would.

But I think what will really happen is that the administration, and the bureaucrats, and the security "services" in general will double down, be much more secretive about what they do, be much better at what they do (grants coming soon to a computer science department near you), be much more aggressive to prosecute and intimidate whistle blowers, and put more layers on the stonewall of denial.

The government has become self aware.
I really concur and like to add there are now one or two generations of young adults and their kids out there, who have never even considered privacy (as in non-exhibitionism).
Agreed.

I am surprised that Amazon, Rackspace et. al. aren't coming out and letting their customers know where they stand in all of this.
That's a great point, but unfortunately there's a real political cost to having civil servant headcount. People already complain all the time about how many people work for the Federal government alone, but if they knew how many civil servants there would be if we limited contractors to actual common business functions I think they'd be stunned.
It's on the list, too, but I (possibly incorrectly) see Chef and Ansible having a more similar philosophy and workflow to each other than to Puppet so I am hoping to eliminate one of them.
Pleading the fifth apparently...
I don't think he's capable of destroying it, but he's certainly set things back quite a ways. We've known about domestic internet spying for quite some time, but its definately gotten bigger and badder under the current administration.

I hope people finally will stop with the "oh but nobody is looking at my stuff" attitude, because now they know BigBrother(tm) is watching.
As far as I have seen, HN always has the latest news of mostly all fields. I have questions this in the past but I I told that hackers hackers interested in in this. And rightly so. There seems to be a lot of discussion on these topics
That would nullify the only acceptable reason to use it in the first place, I think I'll stay with vi ~/TODO :)
IMO it should be a much bigger deal for totally commodity services (IMAP/SMTP, file storage, etc.) vs. "unique" services (it's not like you could run your own Facebook server in Iceland...)
If you're willing to pay a bit more, there are companies like Ninefold

But then again, that is just talk. I still use AWS and Linode religiously. The prices are really hard to beat
Sell value, not matter
Quick note on Oracle Java SE Time Zone Updates #tzupdater
There's no question that it's not the most tender, but like hanger steak, it's prized for flavor rather than tenderness. It's great grilled so long as it's cut properly.

Out of curiosity, what country are you from? I'm shocked to hear that they turn skirt steak into ground beef. That seems like a waste to me (and seems like a job for something like chuck roast).

I think "eye of round" is the center part of the round/rump, as opposed to top or bottom round, but I'm not certain. And yes, it's a poor cut for steak. Probably okay for roasting if done properly, but I've never tried.
Just sayin', at the operational level it pretty much always has to be a secret, at least while the monitoring is going on.
Tomorrow is WWDC and, with the latest Apple news, the tech community rally will likely fall to 2-3 page in a week or so and then disappear altogether.

Perhaps use that to gain more attention. Picket the WWDC.
"chose Hong Kong in part because 'they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent.' There's some truth to that, certainly in the context of China"

I spent two years in Hong Kong and from everything I saw and heard, free speech is more than real only "in the context of China". It was something I noticed early and often...even compared to Canada (my home country). In particular, respect was two-ways...protesters weren't hellbent on wanton destruction and the police wasn't violent at all.

I'd walk by some Chinese government building every day. The security was tight. Once or twice a month there'd be decent sized protests...The police was there in large numbers, but I never saw a single incident of violence or force. People were allowed to express themselves without any fear.
Yui Pure or Skeleton?
Pure: http://purecss.io/
Skeleton: http://www.getskeleton.com/

Or which boilerplate or framework to create mobile web project do you prefer?
I read Brave New World a long time ago, but my memory of it does not include widespread surveillance; I am not sure it really fits this story well. Neither does 1984, of course; the leaker in this case is relatively low in the hierarchy of the government, and he is well-paid and lives in a beautiful place.

If anything, Minority Report is what we should send. The entire purpose of this program is to find terrorists before they commit their crimes. The surveillance is widespread (as it is in Minority Report). People live comfortable lives until they become targets, and becoming a target occurs without warning and can happen to anyone.
Bradley Manning Trial: Is Our Future an Orwellian Nightmare Or Info Anarchy?
How many opportunities should I give my co-founder?
So, my co-founder and I started building our web/mobile consumer app nearly 3 months ago, and while we did have a few slight pivots over that time, he has told me each and every week that he would have a working prototype working "by Monday", and he never does.

He always says he's one step closer, or he's been reading the documentation of the API we're using, or he's researching more scalable server options, and so forth, and he never actually executes on the game plan, which means he's never actually meeting his development goals.

Because I'm not a developer, it makes it difficult to me to know when to call bullshit, or when to really start thinking about calling it quits with him and focus on finding another co-founder with the same hustle mentality. Lately, that is where my head is going. I'm definitely all about trying to understand why something is taking longer than expected, but when it's the same excuses week in and week out, I feel like there is something wrong with the team, and not my higher than normal expectations.

What experiences do you all have in these situations, and what advice might you give for me? This is the most frustrating and debilitating things I've ever experienced in business, and I need it fixed as soon as I can. Please help hacker community!
KeyboardJS - An easy to use JavaScript keyboard wrapper
I'm trying to see how managing a todo list on a server would ever be an issue. Sensitive information like that would never be stored in a todo list.
Yeah, I'm loving the title chosen for the submission here. :)
That's partially the point :) If we had to account for headcount, we'd scale back our missions to things which were essential to national security.
Edward Snowden - Conscientious Objector.
Another data point, I have used a ton of cloud services from US companies in the past with an attitude of not really being comfortable with it based on a belief that something like what was discovered was probably happening but it was just too damned convenient and easy to ignore.

I still made efforts to secure what mattered, like truecrypt containers on dropbox et al, but at the end of the day I just shouldn't have played the game at all. Lending economic support to this kind of behaviour is not acceptable.

I'm conflicted about this because I'm convinced that generally speaking, Dropbox and Google and various other companies that have no other choice than to behave in this way are otherwise really worth supporting.

I am as we speak setting up dedicated hosting with encrypted storage and obfuscated service paths to migrate all my existing services onto something I can reliably control, starting with gmail and dropbox.

I really should have just done this a long time ago, but it becoming abundantly clear that my suspicions were completely justified pushed me over the edge.
Australia isn't exactly a safe haven. There are only a handful of pipes in and out of the country, each of them probably well within the deep packet inspection capability of serious spy gear. I'd be amazed if one of the AFP, ACC, ASIS, ASIO or DSD didn't have their own rooms in selected Telstra and Optus facilities.

And not to mention that Conroy wants to do something like what the NSA are supposedly doing; he's just going to outsource it to the ISPs.

I've seen an AFP server in a certain government datacentre. Its security was a square of black and yellow tape and the assurance that I would be detained without charge under anti-terrorism legislation if I crossed the tape to take a closer look.
Science Fiction Author Ray Bradbury Dead at 91