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As a Russian citizen, I used LinkedIn heavily to find jobs in Europe (along with stackoverflow.com/jobs). I keep a lot of contacts there (e.g. former colleagues

As a Russian citizen, I used LinkedIn heavily to find jobs in Europe (along with stackoverflow.com/jobs). I keep a lot of contacts there (e.g. former colleagues and European recruiters, some of them are very helpful). I found it's alarming that LinkedIn is blocked in Russia. Blocking LinkedIn significantly reduces chances to find a job in Europe. But I expected that since I watched closely on new laws restricting internet freedom in Russia. Official motivation behind this law is to prevent US spying on Russian citizens (this law was proposed after Snowden's scandal). Of course, this motivation was a lie as everything else which came out of dirty rotten mouths of nasty Kremlin bastards. The real motivation is that the Kremlin loves to spy on its own citizens. And they already did that for a long time. The problem is that these anti-freedom laws do bother only very small percentage of Russians. The rest of Russia won't even notice if Kremlin completely shuts down access to the global internet. Heck, the majority of Russians doesn't even bother to learn elementary English! Stupid people buy everything Kremlin tells them, including version about protecting Russian citizens from US NSA. The general principle is that any government is constantly trying to expand itself and limit citizen's freedoms. The only force which can prevent government from endlessly limiting citizen's freedoms is the majority of citizens (definitely not a minority of non-rich citizens). Every freedom above what masses asking for is only at mercy of the government's bueracrats. It means that in absolutely any country masses fully deserve their government. I wrote more details about this principle here: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-living-in-totalitarian-states-love-their-dictators-1/answer/Eldar-Gaynetdinov?srid=xsEM https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-living-in-totalitarian-s... So I consider myself as a part of absolute tiny minority of Russian citizens which has no voice at all (thanks to backward masses). That's why I left Russia and I hope forever! I think LinkedIn could be unblocked if LinkedIn agrees to meet these crazy requirements. Even if LinkedIn would be unblocked, it won't change sad state of freedoms in Russia. P.S. I hope to get rid of toxic Russian citizenship in the future.

wruza 10y ago
And you buy everything various conspiracy theorists and layman politicians sell to you. We have some issues, right, but your generalizing 'stupid' attitude is really better off this land, no matter who's in power.
andreiw 10y ago
The great thing about guys like you is your astounding hypocrisy, the chutzpah with which you claim authority to represent Russians, and disdain for the "unwashed masses". If literally any other government introduced similar legislation to protect citizen data, it would be considered progressive and relevant to the times we live in. In Russia? "Nasty kremlin bastards". The sheer gall to consider that your own interpretation of anything must be absolute, and that everyone opposed are the "dumb masses". And your ridiculous pandering to the clearly superior western way of life...how could these untermenschen not want to learn English??! Yeah, do get rid of your citizenship indeed, and don't let the door hit you on the way out. Hopefully then you can fully embrace your new homeland and use the time constructively to gripe and moan about whatever future impedance mismatch between reality and your wishful thinking.
- theamk 10y ago
  The problem is, that legislation does not actually protect citizen data. All code is still controlled by LinkedIn, and Russian goverment still have no idea what it does. If FBI (or CIA or any other agency) comes to LinkedIn with an order, then does it matter if the technician serving the request pulls the data from Russian, European or US database? The data will be delivered anyway. Moreover, the law does not actually prevent the companies from storing data somewhere else -- Article 12 mentions many allowed reasons to send the data to other countries. What this law, however, allows is for government to apply pressure on the company by treating to seize their servers (such as this case: https://torrentfreak.com/police-shut-down-russian-rapidshare-100318/ https://torrentfreak.com/police-shut-down-russian-rapidshare... ). I see no other reason for the law.
  - PerfectDlite 10y ago
    > I see no other reason for the law. Petty attempt to force big companies to pay for Russian hosting.
- int_19h 10y ago
  As people point out in comments below, the law does no such thing. It doesn't prohibit storing user data outside of Russia, so it doesn't offer any privacy protections whatsoever. What it does is require that data to also be stored inside Russia, where it is subject to warrants (and warrantless wiretapping under SORM-2 and similar arrangements). Which is really everything you need to know about the purpose of the law. Speaking more broadly - yeah, Russia is an authoritarian populist regime with a known penchant for human rights abuses and suppression of political dissent. And so it's going to be judged as such when it does things, not equally to any other country. This is similar to how we judge people differently, and ascribe different motivations, based on their past actions that we know about.
jwtadvice 10y ago
> The real motivation is that the Kremlin loves to spy on its own citizens. And they already did that for a long time. This doesn't prevent or help Russia from spying on its own citizens. I get that you are anxious. But the traffic that travels from your computer to servers outside of Russia is just as easy to spy on for Russian intelligence services as the case where the servers are located inside the country. It does, however, make it more difficult for the US to spy on Russian citizens, which it has been caught trying to do.
- int_19h 10y ago
  No, it does make a huge difference, actually. If the traffic is travelling to outside servers, it can be encrypted, and there's no mitigation that they can do to get access. But if it ends up on the servers inside the country, they control the endpoint where it has to be decrypted to be processed. Then it becomes a kind of a reverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM#SORM-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM#SORM-2 set-up, with every prominent service provider having a preinstalled tap for the agencies.
  - soundwave106 10y ago
    I wonder what the Kremlin thinks of Livejournal.ru these days? Livejournal's a "back in the 2000s" memory for most of the English world, but as far as I know, Livejournal.ru is the top blogging-oriented network in Russia (http://blog.webcertain.com/targeting-russia-the-top-8-russian-social-networks-you-need-to-know/07/07/2014/ http://blog.webcertain.com/targeting-russia-the-top-8-russia...). Also as far as I know, LJ's servers are still in the USA.
  - jwtadvice 10y ago
    Mentioned this in another thread off the same converasion: Russia intelligence services can almost certainly break consumer grade encryption.
    - zzzcpan 10y ago
      There is no supporting infrastructure for this at the moment, even if you presume, that they stole secret keys from some CAs.
vladimir-y 10y ago
You can easily get VPN and continue to use Linkedin if you need to. > Kremlin loves to spy on its own citizens. And they already did that for a long time. Most of the governments do love to spy on its own citizens, for obvious reasons.
- hal9000xp 10y ago
  > You can easily get VPN and continue to use Linkedin if you need to. VPN is only temporary cure. I think soon or later Kremlin will try to crack down use of VPN when it becomes popular. > Most of the governments do love to spy on its own citizens, for obvious reasons. And I'm not fond of most governments and even notion of big intrusive government.
  - vladimir-y 10y ago
    > VPN is only temporary cure. I think soon or later Kremlin will try to crack down use of VPN when it becomes popular. Correct, but VPN would allow you to use Linkedin until you have not managed to get rid of the Russian citizenship > P.S. I hope to get rid of toxic Russian citizenship in the future.
  - prodmerc 10y ago
    (I don't know what kind of) news for you: US and UK are both such governments. With less action between the surveillance and the police I guess, for now.
  - vittore 10y ago
    Well, afaik VPN is so widely used in Russia and even bimbo girls know how to use it. When you are going to Turkey for vacation, VK.com ( Russian Facebook) is blocked there because of porno content and you have to use VPN. Then there are resources as bbc news and netflix that didnt allow to watch video from Russia due to copyright reasons, and that again always was worked around with VPN.
kovrik 10y ago
I am a Russian too, moved to New Zealand. I was talking to my colleague from Russia via Linkedin, he was asking me about moving to NZ, getting the visa and so on. But now he can't read my response...sigh
- kovrik 10y ago
  Update: no, he has just responded, says that LinkedIn still works fine, probably they are negotiating or something.
  - hal9000xp 10y ago
    Some small russian ISP just do not synchronize their database of blacklisted sites with Roskomnadzor central database. Also, LinkedIn seems to have several IP addresses, some of them may not be blacklisted yet. The main problem is in tendency itself: the government writes crazy laws and trying to enforce these laws in real life. It's good that these laws still are not very effective (I mean it's still possible to bypass them) but looking over last 4 years, I see how significantly internet freedom is deteriorated in Russia (i.e. before 2012, there was no such thing is Russian firewall which maintained at federal level by the government).
    - bayesian_horse 10y ago
      This law isn't crazy. They are just not meant for the purpose the government tells everybody.
- yankoff 10y ago
  get a VPN
SanFranManDan 10y ago
> That's why I left Russia and I hope forever! > dirty rotten mouths of nasty Kremlin bastards > Heck, the majority of Russians doesn't even bother to learn elementary English! > Stupid people buy everything Kremlin tells them, including version about protecting Russian citizens from US NSA. > thanks to backward masses > P.S. I hope to get rid of toxic Russian citizenship in the future. I think the only thing toxic here is how you write and view other humans and your fellow countrymen as inferior beings. I have no Russian heritage, but I lived in rural cities around Russia for a year and was there another 6 months in Moscow after Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia is definitely much different from the Western world and there are a lot of things I disagree with, but I would never call anyone stupid for supporting Putin or the government. Calling folks stupid and backward for supporting stuff you dont support is just you thinking you are better than everyone else when you are not. Don't be a dick because some people are less fortunate than you and didn't have an opportunity to learn critical thinking. Even people much smarter than you might support what you don't like. The world isn't black and white. You are in for a rude awakening if you believe that other governments don't lie to their citizens. Whatever government you currently support and get your new citizenship from, you are a pawn and part of the "backward masses" for whatever fucked up scheme that government is cooking up to screw you over.
- hal9000xp 10y ago
  This majority is totally fine to imprison unwanted minorities. This majority is totally fine to restrict my freedoms. This majority thinks they are right because they are majority. So in short, the majority asks me to sacrifice myself for their sake because I'm in minority and they are in majority. If so, f##k them! P.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged
  - kovrik 10y ago
    I have left my parents and many friends and colleagues in Russia. They all are kind and smart and good people. They just can't leave the country as I did: they don't want to, they are bound to their family, they have business there, they don't work in IT, they don't know English etc. The fact that you've left Russia is not making you `special` or `elite`. There are bad and stupid people everywhere, as well as good and smart and awesome people. World is not black and white.
magic_quotes 10y ago
> Heck, the majority of Russians doesn't even bother to learn elementary English! I'm not necessary disagreeing, but why should they? I mean, it is obviously useful, but it doesn't directly translate to quality of life improvement.
- kovrik 10y ago
  You are right, English is almost useless in Russia. It IS useful if you work in IT and have to read docs, but basic English is enough for that.
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    Knowing more languages allows you to get perspective and info from more people. English has the most diverse perspectives because it is the de facto language of business around the world. Russian is spoken in... Russia. Knowing only Russian limits you to Russian information sources and perspectives.
    - simongray 10y ago
      While English is indeed very useful, Russian is spoken in quite a bit of countries as a first or second language (mainly in the former USSR).
  - catuscoti 10y ago
    "Basic English is enough for that" ? I am amazed at the simplicity of the work you are referring to. Do they still pay a salary for that, or are these people supposed to work for free? Maybe they get paid through something like a Russian fiverr?
- vacri 10y ago
  It certainly indirectly translates to it though. English + internet = tons more information. English + travel = far more destinations. English + business = far more international opportunities. For example, want to open up some business in Germany? You're going to have an easier time speaking either German or English than if you just speak Russian. Swap in Chinese/French/Spanish/Arabic if you like, but all of these still take a back seat to English (at the moment).
prodmerc 10y ago
> It means that in absolutely any country masses fully deserve their government. Pretty much.
DominikR 10y ago
Why should Russia allow a US company to mine private data about its citizens on a large scale when it is known that the US government basically can force any US company to hand over any data it desires. That's why they have passed a law whereby private data from social networks about its citizens has to be stored within Russia and must not be transmitted to any other country. Linkedin knew that but they ignored it, probably because it didn't make economic sense for them You can argue if it is acceptable or not for a government to step in and prevent foreign governments from acquiring such data about its population, but calling people stupid like you did frankly makes _you_ look stupid.
- tibu 10y ago
  The question here is whether the government should deal with personal data access rights or the people themselves.
  - DominikR 10y ago
    That was my point. As a libertarian I would in general tend towards not having the government involved with this stuff, but Russia and the US are two countries which have bad relations at the moment and there's uncertainty if they might have a military conflict in the near future. Here it's hard to say if it is justified as I do not know what the US secret services and the US military might be able to do with this kind of data in a conflict. (having the passwords of XX million Russians could be devastating in a cyberattack as many will do the stupid thing and reuse the same password everywhere)
    - zzzcpan 10y ago
      They already have the passwords. Also, Russia doesn't and won't force any company to store users' data exclusively under their jurisdiction, as this would not allow any foreign company to operate in Russia, making your arguments incorrect.
      - DominikR 10y ago
Kepler-327b 10y ago
It sounds like you have the Curse of Knowledge. Take a look at this experiment, it shows that what is self-evident to you may not be as self-evident to others. http://lesswrong.com/lw/83l/overcoming_the_curse_of_knowledge/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/83l/overcoming_the_curse_of_knowledg... "In 1990, Elizabeth Newton did a fascinating psychology experiment: She paired participants into teams of two: one tapper and one listener. The tappers picked one of 25 well-known songs and would tap out the rhythm on a table. Their partner - the designated listener - was asked to guess the song. How do you think they did? Not well. Of the 120 songs tapped out on the table, the listeners only guessed 3 of them correctly - a measly 2.5 percent. But get this: before the listeners gave their answer, the tappers were asked to predict how likely their partner was to get it right. Their guess? Tappers thought their partners would get the song 50 percent of the time. You know, only overconfident by a factor of 20. What made the tappers so far off? They lost perspective because they were "cursed" with the additional knowledge of the song title.Chip and Dan Heath use the story in their book Made to Stick to introduce the term: "The problem is that tappers have been given knowledge (the song title) that makes it impossible for them to imagine what it's like to lack that knowledge. When they're tapping, they can't imagine what it's like for the listeners to hear isolated taps rather than a song. This is the Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has "cursed" us. And it becomes difficult or us to share our knowledge with others, because we can't readily re-create our listeners' state of mind.""
abandonliberty 10y ago
>The general principle is that any government is constantly trying to expand itself and limit citizen's freedoms. The only force which can prevent government from endlessly limiting citizen's freedoms is the majority of citizens (definitely not a minority of non-rich citizens). Every freedom above what masses asking for is only at mercy of the government's bueracrats. The fundamental issue affecting all governments and organizations is that they select for Machiavellian or power-growing behaviours. An individual not maximizing power would lose to one who does, as greater power can buy more allies and followers. There is a reason we see these outcomes in almost every country. It is emergent behaviour. Blaming the people - or even the politicians - will not help. It is our structures that are inherently flawed; you can't expect people to act against their own interests. If you would like to know more I'd recommend starting with CGPGrey's video, rules for rulers, or visiting my prior comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12880180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12880180 This is a fundamental force that affects the entire world. Its impact on our lives is greater than any new technology. All the 'bad actions' by governments are understandable in this framework. Actions on climate change, freedom, privacy, etc. We need to solve this.

wruza 10y ago

And you buy everything various conspiracy theorists and layman politicians sell to you. We have some issues, right, but your generalizing 'stupid' attitude is really better off this land, no matter who's in power.

andreiw 10y ago

The great thing about guys like you is your astounding hypocrisy, the chutzpah with which you claim authority to represent Russians, and disdain for the "unwashed masses". If literally any other government introduced similar legislation to protect citizen data, it would be considered progressive and relevant to the times we live in. In Russia? "Nasty kremlin bastards". The sheer gall to consider that your own interpretation of anything must be absolute, and that everyone opposed are the "dumb masses". And your ridiculous pandering to the clearly superior western way of life...how could these untermenschen not want to learn English??! Yeah, do get rid of your citizenship indeed, and don't let the door hit you on the way out. Hopefully then you can fully embrace your new homeland and use the time constructively to gripe and moan about whatever future impedance mismatch between reality and your wishful thinking.

theamk 10y ago
The problem is, that legislation does not actually protect citizen data. All code is still controlled by LinkedIn, and Russian goverment still have no idea what it does. If FBI (or CIA or any other agency) comes to LinkedIn with an order, then does it matter if the technician serving the request pulls the data from Russian, European or US database? The data will be delivered anyway. Moreover, the law does not actually prevent the companies from storing data somewhere else -- Article 12 mentions many allowed reasons to send the data to other countries. What this law, however, allows is for government to apply pressure on the company by treating to seize their servers (such as this case: https://torrentfreak.com/police-shut-down-russian-rapidshare-100318/ https://torrentfreak.com/police-shut-down-russian-rapidshare... ). I see no other reason for the law.
- PerfectDlite 10y ago
  > I see no other reason for the law. Petty attempt to force big companies to pay for Russian hosting.
int_19h 10y ago
As people point out in comments below, the law does no such thing. It doesn't prohibit storing user data outside of Russia, so it doesn't offer any privacy protections whatsoever. What it does is require that data to also be stored inside Russia, where it is subject to warrants (and warrantless wiretapping under SORM-2 and similar arrangements). Which is really everything you need to know about the purpose of the law. Speaking more broadly - yeah, Russia is an authoritarian populist regime with a known penchant for human rights abuses and suppression of political dissent. And so it's going to be judged as such when it does things, not equally to any other country. This is similar to how we judge people differently, and ascribe different motivations, based on their past actions that we know about.

jwtadvice 10y ago

> The real motivation is that the Kremlin loves to spy on its own citizens. And they already did that for a long time. This doesn't prevent or help Russia from spying on its own citizens. I get that you are anxious. But the traffic that travels from your computer to servers outside of Russia is just as easy to spy on for Russian intelligence services as the case where the servers are located inside the country. It does, however, make it more difficult for the US to spy on Russian citizens, which it has been caught trying to do.

int_19h 10y ago
No, it does make a huge difference, actually. If the traffic is travelling to outside servers, it can be encrypted, and there's no mitigation that they can do to get access. But if it ends up on the servers inside the country, they control the endpoint where it has to be decrypted to be processed. Then it becomes a kind of a reverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM#SORM-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM#SORM-2 set-up, with every prominent service provider having a preinstalled tap for the agencies.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  I wonder what the Kremlin thinks of Livejournal.ru these days? Livejournal's a "back in the 2000s" memory for most of the English world, but as far as I know, Livejournal.ru is the top blogging-oriented network in Russia (http://blog.webcertain.com/targeting-russia-the-top-8-russian-social-networks-you-need-to-know/07/07/2014/ http://blog.webcertain.com/targeting-russia-the-top-8-russia...). Also as far as I know, LJ's servers are still in the USA.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  Mentioned this in another thread off the same converasion: Russia intelligence services can almost certainly break consumer grade encryption.
  - zzzcpan 10y ago
    There is no supporting infrastructure for this at the moment, even if you presume, that they stole secret keys from some CAs.

vladimir-y 10y ago

You can easily get VPN and continue to use Linkedin if you need to. > Kremlin loves to spy on its own citizens. And they already did that for a long time. Most of the governments do love to spy on its own citizens, for obvious reasons.

hal9000xp 10y ago
> You can easily get VPN and continue to use Linkedin if you need to. VPN is only temporary cure. I think soon or later Kremlin will try to crack down use of VPN when it becomes popular. > Most of the governments do love to spy on its own citizens, for obvious reasons. And I'm not fond of most governments and even notion of big intrusive government.
- vladimir-y 10y ago
  > VPN is only temporary cure. I think soon or later Kremlin will try to crack down use of VPN when it becomes popular. Correct, but VPN would allow you to use Linkedin until you have not managed to get rid of the Russian citizenship > P.S. I hope to get rid of toxic Russian citizenship in the future.
- prodmerc 10y ago
  (I don't know what kind of) news for you: US and UK are both such governments. With less action between the surveillance and the police I guess, for now.
- vittore 10y ago
  Well, afaik VPN is so widely used in Russia and even bimbo girls know how to use it. When you are going to Turkey for vacation, VK.com ( Russian Facebook) is blocked there because of porno content and you have to use VPN. Then there are resources as bbc news and netflix that didnt allow to watch video from Russia due to copyright reasons, and that again always was worked around with VPN.

kovrik 10y ago

I am a Russian too, moved to New Zealand. I was talking to my colleague from Russia via Linkedin, he was asking me about moving to NZ, getting the visa and so on. But now he can't read my response...sigh

kovrik 10y ago
Update: no, he has just responded, says that LinkedIn still works fine, probably they are negotiating or something.
- hal9000xp 10y ago
  Some small russian ISP just do not synchronize their database of blacklisted sites with Roskomnadzor central database. Also, LinkedIn seems to have several IP addresses, some of them may not be blacklisted yet. The main problem is in tendency itself: the government writes crazy laws and trying to enforce these laws in real life. It's good that these laws still are not very effective (I mean it's still possible to bypass them) but looking over last 4 years, I see how significantly internet freedom is deteriorated in Russia (i.e. before 2012, there was no such thing is Russian firewall which maintained at federal level by the government).
  - bayesian_horse 10y ago
    This law isn't crazy. They are just not meant for the purpose the government tells everybody.
yankoff 10y ago
get a VPN

SanFranManDan 10y ago

> That's why I left Russia and I hope forever! > dirty rotten mouths of nasty Kremlin bastards > Heck, the majority of Russians doesn't even bother to learn elementary English! > Stupid people buy everything Kremlin tells them, including version about protecting Russian citizens from US NSA. > thanks to backward masses > P.S. I hope to get rid of toxic Russian citizenship in the future. I think the only thing toxic here is how you write and view other humans and your fellow countrymen as inferior beings. I have no Russian heritage, but I lived in rural cities around Russia for a year and was there another 6 months in Moscow after Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia is definitely much different from the Western world and there are a lot of things I disagree with, but I would never call anyone stupid for supporting Putin or the government. Calling folks stupid and backward for supporting stuff you dont support is just you thinking you are better than everyone else when you are not. Don't be a dick because some people are less fortunate than you and didn't have an opportunity to learn critical thinking. Even people much smarter than you might support what you don't like. The world isn't black and white. You are in for a rude awakening if you believe that other governments don't lie to their citizens. Whatever government you currently support and get your new citizenship from, you are a pawn and part of the "backward masses" for whatever fucked up scheme that government is cooking up to screw you over.

hal9000xp 10y ago
This majority is totally fine to imprison unwanted minorities. This majority is totally fine to restrict my freedoms. This majority thinks they are right because they are majority. So in short, the majority asks me to sacrifice myself for their sake because I'm in minority and they are in majority. If so, f##k them! P.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged
- kovrik 10y ago
  I have left my parents and many friends and colleagues in Russia. They all are kind and smart and good people. They just can't leave the country as I did: they don't want to, they are bound to their family, they have business there, they don't work in IT, they don't know English etc. The fact that you've left Russia is not making you `special` or `elite`. There are bad and stupid people everywhere, as well as good and smart and awesome people. World is not black and white.

magic_quotes 10y ago

> Heck, the majority of Russians doesn't even bother to learn elementary English! I'm not necessary disagreeing, but why should they? I mean, it is obviously useful, but it doesn't directly translate to quality of life improvement.

kovrik 10y ago
You are right, English is almost useless in Russia. It IS useful if you work in IT and have to read docs, but basic English is enough for that.
- sqeaky 10y ago
  Knowing more languages allows you to get perspective and info from more people. English has the most diverse perspectives because it is the de facto language of business around the world. Russian is spoken in... Russia. Knowing only Russian limits you to Russian information sources and perspectives.
  - simongray 10y ago
    While English is indeed very useful, Russian is spoken in quite a bit of countries as a first or second language (mainly in the former USSR).
- catuscoti 10y ago
  "Basic English is enough for that" ? I am amazed at the simplicity of the work you are referring to. Do they still pay a salary for that, or are these people supposed to work for free? Maybe they get paid through something like a Russian fiverr?
vacri 10y ago
It certainly indirectly translates to it though. English + internet = tons more information. English + travel = far more destinations. English + business = far more international opportunities. For example, want to open up some business in Germany? You're going to have an easier time speaking either German or English than if you just speak Russian. Swap in Chinese/French/Spanish/Arabic if you like, but all of these still take a back seat to English (at the moment).

prodmerc 10y ago

> It means that in absolutely any country masses fully deserve their government. Pretty much.

DominikR 10y ago

Why should Russia allow a US company to mine private data about its citizens on a large scale when it is known that the US government basically can force any US company to hand over any data it desires. That's why they have passed a law whereby private data from social networks about its citizens has to be stored within Russia and must not be transmitted to any other country. Linkedin knew that but they ignored it, probably because it didn't make economic sense for them You can argue if it is acceptable or not for a government to step in and prevent foreign governments from acquiring such data about its population, but calling people stupid like you did frankly makes _you_ look stupid.

tibu 10y ago
The question here is whether the government should deal with personal data access rights or the people themselves.
- DominikR 10y ago
  That was my point. As a libertarian I would in general tend towards not having the government involved with this stuff, but Russia and the US are two countries which have bad relations at the moment and there's uncertainty if they might have a military conflict in the near future. Here it's hard to say if it is justified as I do not know what the US secret services and the US military might be able to do with this kind of data in a conflict. (having the passwords of XX million Russians could be devastating in a cyberattack as many will do the stupid thing and reuse the same password everywhere)
  - zzzcpan 10y ago
    They already have the passwords. Also, Russia doesn't and won't force any company to store users' data exclusively under their jurisdiction, as this would not allow any foreign company to operate in Russia, making your arguments incorrect.
    - DominikR 10y ago

Kepler-327b 10y ago

It sounds like you have the Curse of Knowledge. Take a look at this experiment, it shows that what is self-evident to you may not be as self-evident to others. http://lesswrong.com/lw/83l/overcoming_the_curse_of_knowledge/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/83l/overcoming_the_curse_of_knowledg... "In 1990, Elizabeth Newton did a fascinating psychology experiment: She paired participants into teams of two: one tapper and one listener. The tappers picked one of 25 well-known songs and would tap out the rhythm on a table. Their partner - the designated listener - was asked to guess the song. How do you think they did? Not well. Of the 120 songs tapped out on the table, the listeners only guessed 3 of them correctly - a measly 2.5 percent. But get this: before the listeners gave their answer, the tappers were asked to predict how likely their partner was to get it right. Their guess? Tappers thought their partners would get the song 50 percent of the time. You know, only overconfident by a factor of 20. What made the tappers so far off? They lost perspective because they were "cursed" with the additional knowledge of the song title.Chip and Dan Heath use the story in their book Made to Stick to introduce the term: "The problem is that tappers have been given knowledge (the song title) that makes it impossible for them to imagine what it's like to lack that knowledge. When they're tapping, they can't imagine what it's like for the listeners to hear isolated taps rather than a song. This is the Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has "cursed" us. And it becomes difficult or us to share our knowledge with others, because we can't readily re-create our listeners' state of mind.""

abandonliberty 10y ago

>The general principle is that any government is constantly trying to expand itself and limit citizen's freedoms. The only force which can prevent government from endlessly limiting citizen's freedoms is the majority of citizens (definitely not a minority of non-rich citizens). Every freedom above what masses asking for is only at mercy of the government's bueracrats. The fundamental issue affecting all governments and organizations is that they select for Machiavellian or power-growing behaviours. An individual not maximizing power would lose to one who does, as greater power can buy more allies and followers. There is a reason we see these outcomes in almost every country. It is emergent behaviour. Blaming the people - or even the politicians - will not help. It is our structures that are inherently flawed; you can't expect people to act against their own interests. If you would like to know more I'd recommend starting with CGPGrey's video, rules for rulers, or visiting my prior comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12880180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12880180 This is a fundamental force that affects the entire world. Its impact on our lives is greater than any new technology. All the 'bad actions' by governments are understandable in this framework. Actions on climate change, freedom, privacy, etc. We need to solve this.