Poll: Are there too many NSA stories on HN, or not enough?
A few examples:
- A Guardian post today [1] about the NSA sharing unfiltered intelligence data with Israel languished on the second/third page for hours (despite 50 upvotes in three hours). It then jumped up to the first page after the flagging was removed.
- Another Guardian post today [2] containing a "memorandum of understanding" between NSA and Israeli intelligence forces is on the fourth page despite 6 upvotes in 2 hours.
- A post yesterday [3] I made about DNI releasing hundreds of pages of FISA court decisions as a result of an EFF received 17 upvotes but never made it to the front page (despite lesser-upvoted posts making it on)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6367465 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6368388 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6364053
The NSA stories haven't gone away, and leaks from Snowden seem likely continue for the next few months. I've personally taken a break from entrepreneurship to be involved in anti-surveillance activism as a result of the leaks, but it seems based on comments on previous posts, a significant number of users want fewer NSA stories.
I'm curious as to whether it is a vocal minority who are flagging NSA stories and pushing them off the homepage, or whether the Hacker News community at large wants fewer NSA stories to rank.
208 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 241 ms ] threadI think, if HN is actually filtering content based on NSA tagging - then that is censorship regardless in my book. I don't care about the iPhone news, but I acknowledge the fact that on a release it's going to bubble up. If there's real and relevant NSA content - then let it, if you don't like it I say ignore it. While I don't agree that I want "more or less" NSA related content the reality is I want to know when good and interesting content is out that I may have otherwise missed.
For those who have the ideal and perspective that the NSA related stories are getting "annoying" keep in mind that's your opinion and perspective. Mine would be that that particular view of this topic suits those who don't care how much control the government has over the industry that we all seem to live and play in. I, personally, care and would like to see these articles, if worthy, given the same level of treatment as a product release.
Flagging has its place, and HN isn't Reddit; reactionary stories aren't the same as reasoned discussion. Algorithmically preventing activist flags while effectively suppressing true garbage from reaching the front page is hard.
I'd love to be able to tune the decay time constant for articles on HN. All scales, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years would offer new insights.
Abuse of the flagging feature seems to be a big part of the problem here.
That's clearly one viewpoint - rightly upvoted submissions are being wrongly flagged.
But some people would say that wrongly upvoted submissions are being rightly flagged.
I'd be really interested to see a breakdown by age of account for different viewpoints.
IMO, if people are flagging articles to get rid of them, just because they don't like them - rather than just downvoting, then this seems like an abuse of the flagging system and there should be some sort of repercussion (flags/day? lower?)
There are repercussions for too much flagging - you (so I've been told) lose the ability to flag anything.
This is my problem. It's fine to cover the NSA, but I'm tired of seeing 5 stories a day. Worse it's usually the same story discussed from 4 different outlets, so it's not even new information.
I'm also exhausted with NSA comments. I know they're out there, but I feel like the almost reactionary sounding 'but the NSA can see the cloud' or 'Apple may be working with the NSA' comments are drowning out real discussion on security issues.
At this point most of it doesn't feel like discussion, but simple noise. That's generally the sign that things have been over-discussed and need a little cool down time.It's an important topic, but it shouldn't be only one. I would have liked to be able to read some nice analysis of Apple's new fingerprint sensor without 2/3rs of the discussion being about if they are stealing your fingerprints for the government. Maybe just 1/4.
Damn it... now I've done it. My bad.
And now, we've found out about the extreme invasions of privacy. The relentless, secretive gathering of information, of which we aren't even allowed to know what information is being gathered. Something clearly went wrong somewhere, which poses a drastic and invasive problem to every single Hacker News reader, regardless of country.
In my honest opinion, I think the backlash against the NSA has been losing steam. So let's throw some more coals into the boiler ladies and gentlemen, because this is something that we not only have a fundamental obligation to discuss, but something we have to fix. Let's keep the steam up.
You are unlikely to find a technological solution which prevents a sovereign government from doing something it is entitled to do. If you find one, its use will be criminalized.
We can talk all day ever day about how disappointed we are in our technology companies for obeying the law, but realistically we can't stop them. We can push for more awareness and respect for privacy issues and try to push Congress to give electronic communications the protection we think they deserve. But that's not what we're doing here.
I like it when we get new information, but I can't stand that we spend all day talking about how cloud computing is idiotic, sharing I-told-you-so blog posts, and rehashing our displeasure with Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft ad nasuem for their cooperation with binding court orders. Badmouthing manufacturers every time they make a new product that dares to touch the network in any way, shape, or form.
This site used to be about making; now it's about impotent rage against government. I miss the days when the first comment on everything someone created wasn't "You shouldn't have made this because it makes it easier for the NSA."
For example, questions like "Was this Snowden release timed to get Putin's Syria victory out of the headlines?" or "What is the social context for Power Point slide 15? Were they actually trying to subvert Petrobras or is it just a convention where you have to put on your war face to express your personal commitment to the program?".
I have been repeatedly censored for trying to discuss the context, so now I have given up and flag most of the NSA stories. As usual democracy has served its purpose and made the scariest storyteller the winner. All we lack now is how defeating the NSA is for the children—when those stories show up you'll know the evil anti-liberty NSA bogeyman is about to fall of the radar.
So, the best thing that could be provided, IMHO, would be a list describing CONFIRMED NSA practices that have been revealed. This would aid by filtering out the noise of continued speculation (will the NSA have info from iphone fingerprint scanners, etc. etc.) such that readers may be sure that what they are reading is relevant and factual, and may make better informed decisions based on it.
What I hate seeing are articles from blogspam institutions like forbes and businessinsider, or others, that digest the primary source with a snazzier headline.
As far as frequency of NSA stories, this is obviously the strategy of the sources: leak bits and pieces over a long period of time. And, I don't mind that as long as there is just one copy of the information being voted up.
Beyond all that, the subject rises to a level of fundamental importance to a degree few others do. Certainly more than 99% of topics that find their way to the front page of HN (feel free to quibble with that percentage).
I've said it before on here. I don't think the conversation on this issue has gotten loud enough, or lasted long enough, and HN is one of the few communities on the net where it is not only happening, but happening with a greater degree of insight, acumen, and creativity with regards to solutions and future actions.
I say carry on, upvote, comment, and ignore those unconcerned people with short attention spans.
Edit: And most importantly for the Americans here, call your representatives and tell them, in your own voice, exactly what you think. This has to happen at a minimum.
And wake up and smell the coffee here. Nobody cares what you, me or the rest of the "tech scene" thinks about politics. It's the pathetic arrogance of people in the "tech scene" who walk around acting like they are the only enlightened ones and they are somehow uniquely qualified to educate people on the subject.
And remind me again why they should ? What because there is money in technology ?
Great. Next time I am looking for help fixing my car I will ask a florist.
Currently? You're right, they don't. That is the problem. A problem that is not solved by saying "shut-up about politics and go back to your programming caves you nerds."
Why is it important that they care? Well, here is rayiner's comment that I am thinking of:
""Wahh wahh we're too busy running a business to make our voice heard in Congress, wahh wahh."
The cost of a successful lobbying presence is measured in the tens of millions of dollars a year, which is chump change for an industry as big and influential as the tech industry. Heck, construction companies have a much more organized and effective lobby, and they basically make no money at all (see the article on the front page about their 1% margins). Really, it's not that much money. Raise it on Kickstarter or whatever.
There is a bizarre mental block/persecution complex/"I'm going to take my balls and go home" phenomenon at play in the tech industry that's makes no sense to me. Silicon Valley isn't a special snowflake and Congress isn't going to divine its needs and tend to them. You've got one side telling Congress that absolutely everything needs to be patentable to keep the Chinese from stealing all our technology, and nothing but deafening silence in response. What exactly do you expect to happen in that circumstance?"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5935469
Until nerds produce something that changes the political game.
PGP, Bit Torrent and Bitcoin are three examples.
There is nothing inherent in being a maker that gives said maker any special understanding or say over political aspects of the tools that maker creates.
And no one knows why Bitcoin was created. No one's sure who created it, and that person certainly hasn't provided any concrete motive. I don't know enough about PGP to say the same, but don't try to shoehorn a tool into your argument just because you don't think I'll notice.
If guns can have lobbies, surely PGP can as well.
A tool does not care why it was created. A hammer won't refuse to bash in a skull because "that's not what it was built for".
[1] http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg099...
As for PGP, Phil Zimmerman was even clearer in his intentions [2]:
[2] http://www.pgpi.org/doc/whypgp/en/
Technology is a response to politics as well as a catalyst for political change. To attempt to "de-politify" technology as a matter of course is like castrating a prize bull.
That's how this should be decided - would/does the ensuing conversation stick to the technical or entrepreneurial aspects of this submission? In particular, does the discussion devolve into an, "Everybody's got a valid opinion" kind of discussion? If so, drop it, and drop it fast. [0]
There's this mistaken notion that, just because a person works with computers for a living, or owns a computer related business, that their opinion on ANY political topic related to computers is a valid or even privileged one, when that's absolutely and demonstrably false. This crowd is a technical crowd, not a politically savvy crowd.
People talking out of their wheelhouses should not be promoted.
Edit:
[0] - http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
Wanted to cite where I got this idea. This essay informs heavily on what I believe HN should be about.
Incorrect. See the HN FAQ. Political discussions are allowed (saying only that most are discouraged implies that certain ones are. If there ever was one, this is it).
I hope you can see the distinction.
Perhaps one submission should contain the sum of political discourse on the topic, and all other submissions should contain the technical discourses.
Hang on - there's a big difference between saying "not all political stories are off topic" and saying "this political topic is on-topic".
Many of the NSA submissions are clearly off topic and have no purpose for HN.
I'm saying both.
I do, however, enjoy coming here very day and reading the opinions of that subset of the population. That's why I continue to upvote NSA-related threads and voted "I wanted more."
I don't think it's wise to do that, but I understand why one might think it a good idea.
Not in the slightest.
I checked the definition of "privilege" - a special right, immunity - and I have no idea why you think I communicated that at all.
All I said was that I enjoy reading the opinions of the Hacker News population on topics that go beyond startups/technology.
They are equally relevant to worldwide "hackers" as US-only politics.
One of the most interesting articles I've read from HN was about citrus fruit and polar exploration. Real enlightening stuff. If you've got good kite-surfing articles, submit them.
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1174912)
There is a ton of content here that is non-technical and relevant. Steve Jobs death covered the entire front page, there is policy and regulation, general startup stories, stories of developers in need, etc. Those all get an equal opportunity - so why is there a technical requirement now and only within the context of stories that are related to, dare I say it, the NSA?
The thing is - the very foundational components of everything posted here, technical or not, can/could be impacted by news around this topic. Like I've stated before, it's not that I want more, but I don't want the stories to be buried. I want the good stories with good content and relevancy to have a fair shot.
Your comment around people talking out of their wheelhouses is highly subjective and seems to me, personally, to be rather ignorant. If you constantly stated things about iPhone hardware, but were not a hardware engineer for Apple then you shouldn't be able to comment with that line of thinking. People can talk about whatever they want and people who don't have foundational expertise on a topic can, and do, contribute positively to topics outside their wheelhouse. In some cases those people bring new and interesting perspectives.
Unfortunately the political perspective has irrevocably been tied to the technical one for now. Take what you can from it instead of touting on a soap box that you know better what other people should be talking about and what content should be on HN than the next guy.
HOWEVER, this is not the only website on the Internet. There's nothing special or novel gained from posting these stories to HN. No one here has any extra or particular insight into these stories.
Please read the essay I linked to. In a conversation about iPhone hardware, a person making a comment will be stating facts, with conclusions and verifiable information. That person is either wrong or right, with little grounds for confusion or grey-area. It's not up to how I feel how many hours of battery life the iPhone is going to grant a user.
Political discussions and religious discussions do not have the benefit of this rigor. Everyone's opinions end up being treated equally, even when they're absolutely not equal. It's a terrible place to try to conduct an intellectual discussion, and I'd like to see this place maintain its reputation for a high level of discourse.
This is currently the first comment on the latest Snowden development (nontechnical), here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6369472
Compare this to another submission comment (technical), here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6367943
The nontechnial comment provides me nothing but an individual's viewpoint. I can't take that anywhere, I learned nothing except that one individual thinks something, and I'm in no way a better engineer or entrepreneur for having read it. The technical comment, however? Now I have a better understanding of the submission as I've gotten an alternative (slightly different use-case) implementation. That's what HN is here for.
I want things I can walk away from HN with, as I'm here to learn. Nontechnical Snowden stories, as it turns out, aren't stories which provoke any kind of interesting comments on HN, and are therefore interfering with a person's ability to use HN to learn and grow effectively. Therefore, they should go.
I agree that HN is useful when you can take something away from it, learn from it. However, in all fairness, the essay you linked to says nothing about a strict guideline about "technical" discussions. It's also not addressing this grey area where technical problems, that are not verifiable, and are tied to government all intersect. To me that makes this topic not a closed case of binary true or false regarding it's place on HN.
That's why I like HN though, there are a lot of smart people to discuss these sort of issues - technical or technically related.
If you're just arguing a level of degree, then that's a non-starter; the HN admins are the arbiters of degree, and will decide which discussions to keep around and which not to. That's how it's always been. In fact, this whole discussion is at least partially moot, given the fact that this very poll was created by a user. There is no indication that the people in charge of HN care about this issue, at all.
HN is useful because the commenters are highly knowledgable in their technical field, and the comments these people leave and the discussions these people foster are unlike anywhere else on the Internet. These technical people are not useful for political commentary. Politics is hard, and HN turns into an echo chamber very quickly. It's useless, and should therefore be stopped.
Good luck in your quest for a binary reality and acceptance of the current state of affairs based solely in the fact that an ideal should be preserved for reasons of technical merit alone. Unfortunately for you political commentary will continue, especially along the lines of this topic, and if it is pushed into submission I would gather the majority would call it out for what it is.
This isn't about my life outlook or my political views or if my daddy loved me when I was a kid, it's about the flood of nontechnical stories being submitted, and the worthlessness of the subsequent comments sections.
What you don't seem to understand is that nothing on HN is going to change as a result of this poll. HN admins are holden to no one, they act independently of HN users.
This is what I would like to see less of... the pointless name calling. Saying this is no better than someone else saying "ignore those paranoid people with tinfoil hats." Not everyone is at DEFCON 1 over this. Some people are just as informed/intelligent as the others yet make the decision that they are not concerned (or just less concerned). It doesn't mean they are simpletons with short attention spans.
There's a population of maybe 50-100 people on here who are obsessed with the subject, and they're spamming every thread with off-topic NSA posts on the theory that they know better than everyone else what people should be talking about. It's no different than any other form of trolling, and it should be managed accordingly.
Certainly some of the discussion on other threads should be filtered. But the moderation on stories themselves appears to be heavy-handed right now. Many significant new stories aren't making it to the home page (see above).
A proposed solution: If the reason for this in fact flagging, and not moderation by admins, then perhaps showing the guidelines and possibly requiring users to give a reason for flagging might reduce the number of wayward flags. The official guidelines for flagging are: "If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6361558
A news headline about the Apple iPhone event, completely overshadowed by NSA speculation. The first threads spans 1/2 a page to 3/4 a page and is entirely argumentative speculation with no real benefit to the discussion.
I for one, just wanted some discussion about the phone moving over to 64-bit architecture. But, no, NSA speculation (read: not even new information, rehash) took over.
EDIT: Also, in before -- yes, I know I can scroll down the page. But the point is that in principle, you shouldn't have to scroll down half a page just to find the meat that's actually relevant to the discussion. It's not like we're saying the NSA news is unimportant -- just don't hijack threads that are about other things with obsessive privacy speculation when there isn't any empirical evidence or information to offer. For example, Apple's fingerprint scanning TouchID could be compromised...or maybe not. We don't know. But let's not destroy entire threads speculating about it.
Since when does the tech community NOT discuss security and privacy aspects of new developments?
Finally, has there EVER been a more important time to discuss/speculate on security and privacy aspects?
Let me remind you that in the past months we've learned that in some format, these gov agencies have required companies (including APPLE) to provide some interface curated specifically for the agency, into the highly sensitive data said companies (again, including apple (who btw is the manufacturer of this machine changing architecture in this article)) possess.
Personally, I don't care if the article is about apple changing their logo to have the bite on the left versus the right side- if I'm participating in a discussion that includes a company aiding in the complete ruin and violation of a free person's life, I'm going to bring it up.
The fact that a news headline about the Apple iPhone event got overshadowed by NSA speculation should tell you something. It should tell you that the NSA is fucking everywhere now, in everyone's life, and knows - or can learn - virtually everything.
This should worry you. It should worry you SO MUCH that you should be thinking about it all the time, and you should also be talking about it in every single context that is even remotely relevant to NSA's perpetual and eternal spying efforts.
I don't know about you, but when the true extent of the scandal was revealed, my modus operandi changed completely, including the way I live my life and the way I communicate with people. I moved all my data overseas. I encrypted as much as I can. I stopped posting jokes on Facebook that could even remotely be construed as suspicious by an over-zealous NSA agent. At work we use Microsoft Office Communicator, and even there I am censoring myself when it comes to non-work talk with co-workers because I have no idea what kinds of backdoors could be installed on its server software.
Right now when I evaluate new technology, the first and foremost question on my mind is this: can the NSA use this to spy on me? Therefore it made me very happy that the top comment in the iPhone 5S story was about the NSA. That is the way it should be.
edit: "[dead]"? Clearly, someone is a little butthurt.
The fact is, a lot of stuff we talk about is being influenced by the NSA, in a very negative way. The solution isn't to ignore it and go back to talking about the cool shiny color of the new iPhone.
</suddenly realizes humor helps prove Tom's point>
One question: where does it end? I cede the point that Apple and the iPhone are part of tech news. So is the NSA. So they could conceivably be on topic together, especially with regards to privacy concerns.
My friends and I have a fantasy football league running through Yahoo. Yahoo could have backdoors from the NSA! I could be putting my entire online identity at risk by participating in fantasy football.
That's all speculation. I have no proof, just like the fingerprint TouchID theories had no real proof yesterday. Do I tell my friends this?
Instead of enjoying fantasy football, do I interrupt my friends' trade and persistently warn them about the NSA? When they tell me I'm being annoying, that they know already, that they heard me the first ten times, and that I am not offering any evidence or proof, just paranoid speculation, do I begin afresh in my spiel, like some crazed zealot touting Jesus on the street who can't let his friends just enjoy fantasy football? Do I make the sole decision that they need to hear this because I know what's best for them?
Like I said, I get your point. I understand that this is an important, sensitive topic. But again, some of us like Hacker News to aggregate tech news without NSA news necessarily being in front of our faces.
The perspective that I have to read about the NSA instead of the iPhone moving to 64-bit architecture because you know what's best for me is dictatorial. I understand if the democratic system of Hacker News demonstrates this is what the majority cares about, but at least you'll understand our perspective as well. Believe me, we get yours.
I would say that the reasonableness of that discussion would depend on the sort of otherwise private information your participation in fantasy football compromises.
Does this fantasy football program encourage you to install a phone application that requires far more permissions then a fantasy football program has any business requiring? Then perhaps a discussion about privacy is warranted (I mean, assuming we were discussing Yahoo's fantasy football program in the first place).
Does this fantasy football program just let you use a psuedo-anonymous handle and doesn't ask you for anything personal anyway? Then the discussion is probably a distraction.
Smartphones have a unique/unprecedented amount of access to our personal lives. Discussions about smartphones and privacy should be considered natural because of the properties that smartphones have. If other things share similar properties, they'll get that discussion too.
(As a non-smartphone example, I recall some discussion about privacy and the Xbox One and its (at the time) 'required' kinect sensor.)
pilif has an average karma score of 7 and that post got a ton of replies and obviously a lot of upvotes. Those three factors are what led to the top spot on the comment page. If you're going to try and convince "us" not to hijack threads with baseless NSA speculation, then you've got to persuade the users with high average karma scores to not make such comments.
Edit: for the record, I welcome NSA related comments on any and all posts. Very, very few of my friends are willing to discuss anything other than the details of Snowden fleeing the U.S -- it'd be sad to see the 'ignore it until it goes away' mindset also happen here on HN. I'm willing to trade an inane iPhone incremental vs revolutionary argument for speculation of potential NSA abuse of a phone feature any day, and I'm willing to bet a large amount of other HN users do too.
Given how the NSA has turned the table on conspiracy theories--proven many wild theories actually or plausibly true--those of us who would like to cast conspiracies with a healthy dose of doubt need to keep an open mind to even those theories that strike us as outlandish.
I am personally strongly opposed to flagging submissions. I have written elsewhere [1] that I find flagging a measure of last resort. It bothers me that so many people flag submissions as if it were equivalent to a downvote. It's not.
However, with all of that in mind, some NSA threads cause my brain fatigue. They generally make me sad about the deeply immoral state of the US government and the undermining and impotence of technology. I can only take so much NSA-caused despair. I don't have a short attention span, but honestly, fully comprehending how much we have been hurt by the NSA is a deep emotional burden. Sometimes I need a break.
So for those times when you too need a break and want to just think about technology, I'd recommend installing a collapsible comment user script [2] to allow you to just hide the NSA sub-threads until you're in the mood to dig into that fray.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6293034
[2] http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/138037
> and is entirely argumentative speculation with no real benefit to the discussion.
Like a chat by the water-cooler you mean. I would love more Snowdens and leaked documents to come out. Unfortunately there aren't at the moment, so we are left discussing what is there. Talking about the future, the implication to US businesses, implication to what it means for this country, the Constitution, privacy, and so on.
I understand that is not interesting for most people, especially non-Americans. Well c'est la vie, a good majority of HNers are Americans.
The rage and indignation about this is quite strong (and it should be so). These revelations, have shattered the perceptions many have been brought up and believed in for most part of their lives. It is hard to deal with that so well you get lots of discussion.
You have the downvote button, click it if you don't like the topic. But stomping your feet about hoping maybe moderators will notice and will start pushing Apple related stories higher might not work.
Discussion on articles of one topic being completely overshadowed by tangential other topics is a problem with the way HN's commenting system works (Reddit does this much better, folding certain comments away, based on votes and nesting level), not at all specific to the NSA discussions.
It happens for every topic on HN that receives a lot of mindshare over a longer period of time. It annoys me there too. Thankfully I have a bookmarklet that allows me to collapse threads on HN :)
[1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/hn-utility-su...
I'm saying the subject itself is technical, but I think it's worth pointing out two things:
1) The conversation surrounding it is still more technical here on HN than almost any other community on or off the web.
2) The subject and/or conversation surrounding it need not be technical in the first place to qualify as a legitimate HN post (though we know this will greatly increase the number of people that don't wish to view the content).
>and they're spamming every thread with off-topic NSA posts,
This is a perfect example of where you should flag comments, as opposed to just flagging links to NSA stories on the front page. No argument there.
>but most of the discussion on HN is Frist Post and Natalie Portman/Hot Grits with a veil of legitimacy.
Getting back to point #2 above, this is OK. There plenty of users on here that are not experts enough to comment on the technical intricacies of some of the information, and it runs the full range from slightly out of the loop to ignorant of the technical details. But there are intellectual (and yes, political per the HN FAQ) responses that are valid to voice here. Some of the technical users on here may find it low value, but I'd argue it is extremely important nonetheless, but most importantly, squarely on-topic per the HN FAQ.
My two cents anyway...
It also distracts from good technical discussion. For example, when the new iPhone was announced, instead of an interesting technical discussion of the merits and problems with biometric authentication we get "OMG the spooks are going to steal your fingerprint"
I see this community as being uniquely qualified and positioned to discuss the technical aspects of these issues.
When knowledgeable people have a discussion in public about an important topic, there is opportunity to educate or be a resource to, people who have the power to effect change. Creating that opportunity is a good thing.
The people who have the power or opportunity to effect change in the U.S. government are probably not here among us today, but they're a Google search away from finding the thoughts and opinions of a large collection of thoughtful and well educated technologists.
I'm happier knowing that.
Improbable you say? Welcome to the magic of software, big data, and billions of dollars worth of computers.
Essentially, whenever you snap a photo with that new shiny iPhone, you have no way to know that a US, Canadian, British, Australian, or Israeli agent isn't going to look at that photo in the future. And if they, why not also other-state agents, such as the Russians, the Chinese, or, God forbid, the French!
The NSA is tasked with protecting us, no? Not endangering us. And we fund it with our tax dollars.
Granted, what is said about the iPhone is also quite applicable to other technologies such as Android and the other remnants.
Now, in light of the recent revelations and since we don't know what we don't know, these comments probably can't be labelled as complete garbage like your regular conspiracy theories. But instead of idly speculating about the same things in every single comment thread it'd be far more useful, both for this cause and for the people who want a saner Hacker News, to do some actual technical analysis. Which in this case isn't that hard.
If you're really concerned about your smartphone spying on you, just hook it up to a packet sniffer and analyze the data it transfers over the internet. Since image and audio files will have to be of considerable size in order to be useful they should be fairly easy to spot, especially in the upload direction.
I'm sure nobody here would mind a submission or comment with any kind of technical analysis. Actually I don't even mind speculation, but the constant repeating of the same points, without any technical basis, in almost every single comment thread is what gets annoying for me.
In the end, if you really believe something malicious is happening in this regard, you can either prove (if said data is actually transferred over WiFi) or prevent (if it's only transferred over mobile data) it, rendering mere speculation about this issue useless.
You are not going to be killed by Mossad or even the FSB. Your iPhone killer will be a garden variety serial killer or spurned lover.
So when do we stop being outraged yet complacent? We should try to promote stories that focus on some sort of activism, even meager ones, to try to address the problem. That doesn't just apply to NSA surveillance, but any challenge.
That's just how I feel about NSA. Don't wanna waste time even thinking about something I can't change.
So, less stories, I ignore them all, anyway.
First, there's a finite amount of actual news here. When there's a new revelation, I want to see it. "More NSA news" sounds to me like exactly what I don't want: every programmer's personal outrage, every major news outlet's take on the latest revelation, and so forth. I don't want to see every story's comments degenerate into NSA discussion. Having a story about the NSA on the front page in perpetuity puts it in the back of everyone's mind.
The level of discourse has, mostly, been high and valuable, but I worry that we're inviting in people who only want to talk about politics, and that's going to drive me and every other technically-minded person with limited energy away.
Too late I think, unfortunately. I'm pretty much here out of habit now (and was one of the earliest users so kinda feel attached) but I know so many friends and peers on Twitter who've basically jumped ship (or claim to have) because it's so often "US Politics News" around here nowadays.
The validation of all those tinfoil-hats out there is big news and it should be continually covered as long as there are leaks & snowden isn't dead & the NSA hasn't changed their ways... even though I don't see how I'd believe them anyway, so...
C'mon people, this is HUGE. One of the biggest scandals in the history of ever.
Poor you, are your rights getting in the way of browsing HN?
No it's not. It's big, sure, and terrible, but history is long and nations have done much, much worse than this. At least, it would need to be at the bottom of a pretty long list of atrocities, scandals and war crimes to even be included (yes, including by the US.)
Personally, I think that concentration camp we're running in Cuba is still a bigger deal.
I do get bored with the number of comments about NSA that are shoe-horned into comments on submissions that have zero connection to NSA / GCHQ spying. And it's frustrating to see those comments with upvotes or no downvotes.