skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> You insult people who have experienced a police state by calling what we are experiencing a police state.

Did you live in a police state? I have.

What police state calls itself "police state"? Hint: no state calls itself that. There is always a nice fluffy propaganda label slapped on top. "Freedom Loving Republic Of ..."

> Our legislation is currently investigating the president for:

Oh look, two investigations. Do you want a list of all the new developments that have been happening recently with leaks. I suspect you are familiar with them.

> I don't see a police state, and I think being cavalier with terminology

I see the beginning of one. Police states don't often turn police states overnight. There is a slow process of erosion going on.

> does a grave injustice to lessons of the past and the people who have experienced (and are experiencing) a totalitarian government with truly no checks and balances.

For one, it depends what you compare it to. You choose to compare against other states. Ok there are lot of fucked up states. So still doing well there. Now there is another way to compare and to compare a country by its own propaganda, that is what people want or believe that country to be. "We love freedom" (yet we imprison and assassinate people without a trial). "We love privacy" (yet we spy on everyone). "We respect human right" (yet we torture people). Should I continue? Another way to compare is historically, compare US against US say 15 years ago. I would say things got worse.

Again if Somalia did this, nobody would care. When US does this, it is very serious. People expect more from US and US has more power. So a 500 lb gorilla not behaving nicely is a lot worse than an angry dog.
It strikes me that the guy in Minnesota walked away with $86M free and clear from buying a Powerball ticket. :-)

Its a pretty nice retention package, always nice to hear when someone 'wins' like this. I hope he continues to innovate going forward.
Also written up on Arstechnica ( http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/08/hand-of-thief-bankin... )

It is not a real remote exploit due to any flaw in Linux, rather it is something the purveyors trick people into installing via "social engineering".
Oinksoft's comment that you replied to was making a point about money. It seemed like you were agreeing that the NRA bought influence.
USA v Lavabit LLC Email Account of Joey006
> Privacy advocates need to get their act together and form a single-issue organization. I need to be seeing teenagers coming to my house peddling privacy the way they do for churches and baby seals. The tech industry needs to sack up and realize that their business interests are at stake, and put some serious money in PACs behind the whole effort.

But privacy advocates are frequently at odds with tech companies over privacy issues. See CISPA for example, which pretty much every major tech company supported, but privacy advocates hated.

The NRA's issue aligns gun manufacturers, gun retailers, and gun enthusiasts, which makes fundraising a lot easier. I don't think privacy is like that, though. No one makes or sells privacy.

The labor or environmental movements might be better models for a privacy movement--both started out as grassroots campaigns without any substantial corporate support. The environmental movement in particular has done a good job of turning their issue into a popular cause, forcing companies to go along, at least publicly.

Edit to add:
What the environmental movement did so well was to create a personal sense of danger--YOUR kid might get sick from pollution. YOUR favorite animal might go extinct. Etc.

Privacy advocates have, IMO, done a terrible job of this so far. To many of them just take it for granted that awareness is enough--that everyone agrees with them that it is horrifying for personal information to get collected and aggregated. Most people don't care, though, because they don't have a reason to care.

What privacy advocates need are personal stories that demonstrate how impingements on privacy led to direct harm to innocent people--and they need to be the sort of thing that make John Q. Public think, "that could happen to me!" or "That could be my child!"
There are two orthogonal aspects, and you touch both of them.

1) All software has bugs. The problem with crypto software is that bugs are far more dangerous, even when they may appear to be insignificant. To use an utterly broken analogy: a faulty seal in a pressure cooker does not cause all the locks and hinges in your house to magically unscrew themselves. But even a slightly broken crypto implementation in software can cause a complete breach. (No pun intended.)

2) Developing good and intuitive UI's is hard. When the UI has to hide the complexity of secure key management, it's even harder. Humans are by nature lazy and inventive; if the UI allows any way to achieve convenience over security, conveniene will be what most of the users choose.

In my mind, there is one particular implementation where adding security allowed more convenience. The humble ssh-agent. When used properly, you don't need to know any of the passwords for remote systems. And unfortunately, the most convenient way to achieve this is, of course, to leave the private key either unencrypted or protected with an empty passphrase...
Censoring something is the lazy way of getting people to conform to your ideals. Imagine that instead of a censor campaign, the UK government had made an attempt to educate the public on the effects of porn. This could be done with adverts and studied in sex ed in school.
I often joke that I need to graduate so I can start working on my education. By that I mean to finish my formal education with degree and everything so I can start learning what is not provided by my program.
Future historians will look at stuff that isn't true to get an insight into our time? Can you spot the flaw there?
Instead of calling lysol out for spouting non-factual rhetoric, I'll address this point as well.

I'm a Constitutionalist. I'm (very slowly) studying for the bar (without college or a law degree) so that I can understand the Constitution better.

The Constitution is a living, breathing document. It lives and breathes through ratification, and through amendments. The problems we're facing in our day is that people are violating its tenets without bothering to ratify, especially where they know that such a ratification would be futile.

I'm a gun owner, and a Constitutionalist, and I've long said, that if it were truly the will of the people enough that the second amendment were ratified out of the Constitution, I'd abide it. Until then, almost every act against the second amendment is an attempt to circumvent the Constitution, and should cost politicians their jobs.

I don't care if a politician supports or does not support the second amendment, but I damn well care whether or not they're upholding their oaths of office, the first of which is to defend the Constitution. Very few of them do.

Edit: Re-reading that, I come off emotional, which isn't intended. I was put off by lysol's rhetoric, which is why I deliberately didn't respond to it, but I meant to basically agree with you, sans one point of clarification, and got carried away. Regards.
nah the work is getting outsourced to booze allen and of course outsourcing national security work always works
The classy way to shut down your startup
Silent Circle preemptively discontinues mail service to prevent spying
You need to be a responsible adult and talk to your children about pornography. If you don't trust them then you need to install a porn filter. But if you don't trust your kids, you're going to have a lot of bigger problems then porn.
Regression Analysis 101
Groupthink: The brainstorming myth
I've loved Curtis's work, but I parted ways from him slightly with Machines of Loving Grace. While technological transhumanism certainly opens up new vistas for potential abuses of human (or sentient?) rights, I have a hard time seeing it as intrinsically negative, rather than the natural progression of the evolutionary process.
The main problem is that somewhere some database will hold the information about citizens and a "likesPorn" flag. That information is personal. Alcohol and cigarettes both have age limits, but there is no database that people need to register into ("wantsBooz = TRUE") before being able to purchase their first drink.
agreed. how about "what is a PGP public key? click here for a brief tutorial"
When will this law be put into place? What are the chances of it passing?

Each time I see a patent trolling thread it makes me so mad.
The answer is easy.

I like money, I like job security, I like playing for a winner, I like being on the bleeding edge.

Were I crypto guy, I would snatch up a vacated-on-principle spot at the NSA in a heartbeat.
Just look at their website. It feels like they just made the transition from having been a newsgroup.
> You guys should really have a QA test bed with _all_ supported OS's and browsers and with _every_ releasable change regression test it through all of these OS's and browsers meticulously.

You and what army? They could be doing that or they could be adding features...

P.S. I accidentally downvoted you whilst copy-pasting your comment and can't undo it, sorry about that. Feel free to downvote me back.
Created a second account because HN says I was submitting too fast (no wonder there are no interesting AMAs on here).

I am all for a generic "Link to your code" field on a job application form but also provide an alternative like "Is your code not public? Send us an invite to your repository or send us a zip of some work that you are proud of". I am okay with that, I did this for a job application that required a Codility test which I didn't do. I am not saying that I am unwilling to give you my code, but for the sake of a job application it does not have to be open to the world. I agree that Github still has benefits for recruiters but they should not become blinded by it thinking it is the only platform where developers can showcase their code.
These are great if you understand and accept the risks.

If one of your risks is a well-funded agency of the US / UK government then these probably aren't a suitable option. Also, you'll want to change your OS to something hardened; and also your computer; and also put better locks on the doors; and also move to a building with no ground floor windows and some nice high fences with CCTV and good access controls.
No, they aren't. I agree with @criley wholeheartedly: stop calling the US a police state. There's plenty to criticize without having to resort to blatant falsehoods.
Most countries don't have a 21+ year old age limit on alcohol. It's actually a rather poor idea and harms 18/19/20 year olds who attend college and get busted drinking. It's pretty silly to draw parallels between porn and alcohol. You've said you're a /r/nofap reader. You obviously have a bias against porn.
This is theology, not science.
I wonder how many are agents to help further NSA penetration of civilian systems and networks. That's a lot of talent going on the labour market but I don't think I'd be prepared to knowingly hire anyone with this kind of experience and connections.
Ubuntu Phone Will Be A Big Success, Even If It Never Happens
The whole system is collapsing under it's own weight. There is no simple solution, we simply need to accept that the current power structure in place and anything resembling it will always cling to power for it's own sake.

It's up to us to decide if we want to continue having our cake and eating it too. What I mean is that we cannot continue incensing our shiny techno-gadgets based system, and then also be surprised that the same system tries to keep itself 'on top' by whatever mean necessary.

We need to change our attitudes and actions within the current system, anything else is simply a band-aid on an open wound.
It's called the EFF, and please don't compare it to the NRA :P
Honestly what is going on in America any more you guys are all crazy?
> A police state has no distinction between legislation and executive.

What does that have to do with anything? There are any number of democracies in the world where that is true; google "responsible government" to learn more. The head of each executive agency in Westminster parliamentary systems is an elected legislator...

The essential characteristics of a "police state" involve excessive police supervision of the day-to-day activities of the citizenry, generally with the goal of disrupting and discouraging activism against the government.
You're nitpicking, and doing it wrong.

Inserting ads on your mail client is not the problem, it's how they target the advertise. Of course they inserted it into the mail to make it clearer, but obviously it's not literal.

Keeping a copy for the user to see is different from keeping a copy so that they can do data analysis later so they can target the ads even more.

And he didn't even mention how they just show the NSA all your mail whenever they ask for it.

Not sure what's dubious about the analogy. Seems like you just read what you wanted to read.
Sure. If you can live the "Kirkland Life", you are Costco's perfect customer. But as the parent comment pointed out, their strategy puts them in a somewhat awkward position. As a rule, you want your customers to love your products. But then your business model requires that you take away products whether they're loved or not. Indeed, if they're loved so much that your supplier thinks they're entitled to a higher premium than an un-loved competitor, it's the more popular product that goes! Even the Kirkland products are doubtlessly farmed out to varying suppliers (with varying results).

You're probably right that there's a big market for consumers of "good enough, consistency be damned". But I think a lot of Costco's market is after convenience and "low enough" prices. If Amazon can hit "low enough" prices and a wider, more consistent selection, Costco could be in trouble. Zero trips to the store is better than one, especially when you don't need to supplement Costco with other retailers to cover their gaps.
The company started with stolen data and stolen clients. Salesmen wanted to steal clients and data again. It was life on a pirate ship. I'm tempted to say it had to end badly, but I suppose there are some companies which do rise above bad beginnings ...
IANAL, but my understanding is yes.
The primary qualification is now ideological purity.
Huh... I figured they'd need twice as many sysadmins with the new "two-man rule."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57594486/officials-say-n...
Including "friends and family". (Except for OSS and local user group training...)

Family? Yes, family. I only do free computer work for my spouse and her mom. No one else. Any siblings, aunt's, uncles, neighbors, etc... get the standard look of stupidity and are referred to my cousin who will charge them, but does good work.
Browsers support &lt;image&gt; because 0.2% of pages use it (and it has quirks)
I live in Belarus, so I think I can imagine what Russia is like (we have less issues in country, but most of negative aspects are same).
First, let me start by saying that I understand your position, and I can see how you arrived at it, but that I disagree with your assessment.

Using your own argument, you primarily rely on the distinction between legislative and executive branches as the determining factor on if police state = true. While I think it a bad argument in the first place (as it ignores all the nuances of what can constitute a police state, and ignores the various definitions of the word), I will allow for the time being that it is an argument worth having, and will simply assert that we currently have almost no distinction between the legislative branch and executive branches (I would also argue the judicial as well).

Here is why.

All three branches are compromised from multiple angles.

Angle 1. K Street (massive corporations and regulatory capture) Mostly affects congress, but has reaching effects in the other two branches. (elections/nominations in the exec, etc)

Angle 2. Dirty info. When the executive starts to gobble up everything on everyone, everyone becomes manipulatable. I think there is good academic standing to be had on the argument that many of our congresspeople are being blackmailed or manipulated in some other way by the executive.

Lack of use of tradition checks. We have a very specific checks and balances system, but because of the merging of the three branches that I propose is true, a simple test would be to see how often any of the checks systems have actually been utilized.

How often have any of the following occurred? Veto's, impeachment, removal of persons from office, declaration of an act as unconstitutional...etc.

In short, the three branches are in the process of merging (if they haven't already for all intents and purposes) All the things that you claim congress is pursuing against the president are part of the media based Hegelian dialectic. They are essentially none issues.

For example, on Benghazi, the congressional intel committee probably was more involved or at least more aware of what happened that the POTUS was. But they are investigating? They are the controlled opposition.

It is you, not anyone else, who is being cavalier with your terminology, and the implied assertion that because it's not as bad as X example in the past or present is a dangerous road, as it essentially encourages the "it's not so bad, so why are you complaining?" attitude. Also, who fucking cares if someone who has once experienced a "real police state" is "offended" by someone else's assertion of a police state. This is a slimy tactic used by people like the JDF...
The investment managers and governing bodies at such institutions often don't have strong feelings about things like limiting executive compensation.

Probably because it doesn't have much effect on their returns.

I'd love to someone to try to prove me wrong, though. Start up a Vanguard-like fund that only invests in companies that pay their CEOs below average, or some similar metric. It just might turn out that there's a bunch of ten-dollar bills on the street we are all missing and the economy as a whole would be better off if they turn out to be right.

Either way, it would be valuable data.
It's not so much the microprocessor, it's all the trappings of the Arduino, and not using sleep mode. If your project is large and runs on limited battery power, you might want to choose another solution and work on power management. The Arduino is an excellent prototyping tool, though.
There are different levels of duress. Nobody pointed a gun at Google. They could have refused if they truly wanted to.

Can the US serve a warrant to a server in Europe run by Europeans? I was assuming the answer was no, in which case you don't need violate any laws or worry about repercussions.
Think about it: you spent years upon years building a blogging platform, which I guess pretty much anyone would agree is not that much captivating, and you finally got an exit. And we're talking about Yahoo, with that scale you can be sure that whatever the future needs of the company might be those will be satisfied. Basically you brought the company/platform where you wanted it to be, so $81MM or not I think anyone would be about done with the whole thing. Retire, find some hobby, move on to better things. Yet he remained, so I guess he must be very driven and passionate about blogging, that's all I'm saying.
Impressive Entrepreneurs
You are making an even more fundamental mistake: knowing that you're addressing people asking how to act in their day-to-day lives--and yet talking about morality and how other people "should" be treating them, instead of talking about actions and consequences, and what they must do to protect themselves.

To parallel your "blaming the victims" rhetoric: walking down the street late at night, will a sense of injustice protect me from a rapist? No; kickboxing classes and a gun will protect me from a rapist. The sense of injustice is for when I'm safe at home and can write a letter to my congressman.

In the moment where you are actually trying to protect a real secret, a sense of injustice that there are corporations and governments willing to pilfer your secrets will not keep your privacy. Encryption and anonymity will keep your privacy.
So, in your scheme, existing websites are deprived of their domains if someone in government decides they belong in .xxx? And new sites are forced to the likely-to-be-blocked tld if someone deems them pornographic? What definition do you propose should be used? Can you imagine any conflicts over definitions of "adult material"? How would you imagine them being resolved? Would you have have site owners forced to self-apply labels they disagree with? What about foreign sites not subject to the law?

Try reading up on the many criticisms made of the .xxx concept when it was proposed.
I have not used GoDaddy in years, and will never do so again. However, in a world where the governments seem to be in a war against their electronic citizens rights and privacy, then there is no better countermeasure than to train an entire generation to circumvent security from the age of 13.
I don't agree with Stallman's level of zealotry, but I understood his stance a lot better when I discovered that one of the core motivators for a full open-source stack is the ability to audit whether you are being spied on. I don't believe propietary software is evil, but neither can I argue with that logic.
This is one topic I didn't touch on that I would have liked to but my post would have been even longer and it's already a fairly long read. I have another post planned that addresses this. Over the last year or so I gave a lot to employers and stopped coding things I enjoyed coding for fun. My Github profile probably makes it seem that I don't work hard because of this. For some weird reason though, I have worked on some open source projects on Github yet it doesn't say I contributed to them but you'll find my commits in the history on master.
In my experience even if the retainee is fired they get the whole thing, the retaining company seems to often end up with a clause that says is parting ways is the retainee's idea they forfeit their retention package.
I agree completely with your sentiment, but I'd like to point out that there are still "multi-megaton hydrogen bombs" aimed at our cities.
Upvotes, Downvotes, and the Science of the Reddit Hivemind
The movement to undermine US freedom and privacy has been focussed and well-funded since 9/11, under both Bush and Obama and involving more than just the NSA. If it's the work of idiots, they are very hard-working, successful idiots as they've managed to wrest considerable power from a nation of hundreds of millions, assuming control of the world's foremost superpower.
"ctrl+a, ctrl+c.. ctrl+v.... send myself to prison for 90 years"
Crap, I accidentally fat-fingered my vote into a downvoted. I meant to upvote you.
I have to admit to have been cynical in my comment. The point being that it always take two to tango. You were in that professional relationship looking for something, not necessarily money. He must have been offering something, but definitely not money. Maybe you were looking for a father figure or a way to get yourself bootstrapped professionally.
I am glad to see that it didn't knock you down. Cool.
First they came for the... well, you know.
JavaScript Type Checking 101
Yes, Webkit is originally based on KDE's KHTML, and thus written in C++. It was heavily modified by Apple and later by Google. The core is platform independent C++, and then there are platform specific parts for the various environments it runs in (C/C++ for Gtk, C++ for Qt, ObjC for OSX, ...).

With the clang or gcc compilers, you can easily link ObjC and C++ together. To some extent you can even mix them in one file (ObjC++), though I don't have experience with that.