6 ms·

Bugged Planet

7777fps 7y ago
[OT] It's clearly a slow news day today but what's with almost all the submissions today being very content-lite? Very little actual news or explanation, just links to wikis or other content without any context. Perhaps it's often like this but there is fewer people to shape the front-page today. Perhaps submitter could explain the submission?
- nicehat 7y ago
  Why should submitter explain the submission? There's plenty of content in the link, and afaik we are all still being spied on by utterly unaccountable forces.
  - lucb1e 7y ago
    I don't think it's unreasonable to ask the author what they meant to convey with a random link.
- dqv 7y ago
  It's often like this. As an example, Wikipedia links[0] get posted frequently and, to me, it seems completely random when they will get a lot of votes. The pages that get votes don't seem to be any less interesting than the ones that do. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=wikipedia.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=wikipedia.org
- meatsock 7y ago
  the method of improving user submitted content that i prefer to use ends up being more enjoyable than asking for explanations when the material doesn't grab me.
- rmetzler 7y ago
  I didn't submit it to HN, but I saw this link on the last page of Andy Müller-Maguhns talk [0] at 36C3 - this years chaos commication congress in Leipzig, Germany. [0] Technical aspects of the surveillance in and around the Ecuadorian embassy in London - Details about the man hunt for Julian Assange and Wikileaks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoT4lPV96uw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoT4lPV96uw
nemophilist345 7y ago
As interesting as this wiki is, it doesn't appear to be actively maintained for a long time.
- rendx 7y ago
  A wiki is a wiki: Content is maintained by all its users! Seeing an older longer history makes me confident that it will be around for longer, and that potential additions by readers won't go to waste.
- upofadown 7y ago
  You mean since the 8th of March?
tpmx 7y ago
I've helped architect the LI/Lawful Interception solution/integration aspect on a product that's not listed. I don't feel bad about this. Should I? It's what's being used to catch murderers, kidnappers and terrorists. Its use is being controlled by very serious judges/courts.
- rendx 7y ago
  What's your argument against adding it then?
  - tpmx 7y ago
    (I see what you're doing.) This was about a decade ago. Not sure if it's still being used, but I think it may be, at least in one country. Obviously, what I worried about was: The same technical solution could then be sold by less scrupulous sales people to less democratic countries and then misused badly. I made sure there were a number of undocumented steps involved in setting up LI that couldn't be done without involving me or one trusted developer directly. It was also purposefully architected to handle a scale of wiretapping of about 1 in 10000 people nationwide. That 1:10000 ratio was the the ratio I got "off-the-record" from someone in the first western customer country. I was okay with that ratio, given that the country was democratic. To clarify: I took pains to make sure that the mechanism could only be used to extract a fraction of the traffic flowing through our hardware, and that the selectors had to be preselected in a pretty meticulous way. Basically I spent a bunch of time to make sure to deliver the exact minimum of that what the country's government requested. There was never any pushback. I think our counterpart in this case was legimitely just trying to solve crime, as opposed to performing passive mass surveillance/recording. My main point here is that LI can make sense, if it is done done at small scale. Manual work needs to be involved. It needs to be a little cumbersome.
    - nicehat 7y ago
      >I made sure there were a number of undocumented steps involved in setting up LI that couldn't be done without involving me or one trusted developer directly. So, countries need to bribe a single developer. >It was also purposefully architected to handle a scale of wiretapping of about 1 in 10000 people That's more than enough to target political opponents. By these numbers, you would be able to target 33,000 Americans. In a small country like Ireland, (4.9 mil) you would be able to target 490 people; lawyers, heads of political parties, journalists... >That was the the ratio I got off-the-record from someone in the first western customer country Sounds super legit, I can see why you are so confident it won't be abused /s.

[OT] It's clearly a slow news day today but what's with almost all the submissions today being very content-lite? Very little actual news or explanation, just links to wikis or other content without any context. Perhaps it's often like this but there is fewer people to shape the front-page today. Perhaps submitter could explain the submission?

nicehat 7y ago
Why should submitter explain the submission? There's plenty of content in the link, and afaik we are all still being spied on by utterly unaccountable forces.
- lucb1e 7y ago
  I don't think it's unreasonable to ask the author what they meant to convey with a random link.
dqv 7y ago
It's often like this. As an example, Wikipedia links[0] get posted frequently and, to me, it seems completely random when they will get a lot of votes. The pages that get votes don't seem to be any less interesting than the ones that do. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=wikipedia.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=wikipedia.org
meatsock 7y ago
the method of improving user submitted content that i prefer to use ends up being more enjoyable than asking for explanations when the material doesn't grab me.
rmetzler 7y ago
I didn't submit it to HN, but I saw this link on the last page of Andy Müller-Maguhns talk [0] at 36C3 - this years chaos commication congress in Leipzig, Germany. [0] Technical aspects of the surveillance in and around the Ecuadorian embassy in London - Details about the man hunt for Julian Assange and Wikileaks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoT4lPV96uw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoT4lPV96uw

nemophilist345 7y ago

As interesting as this wiki is, it doesn't appear to be actively maintained for a long time.

rendx 7y ago
A wiki is a wiki: Content is maintained by all its users! Seeing an older longer history makes me confident that it will be around for longer, and that potential additions by readers won't go to waste.
upofadown 7y ago
You mean since the 8th of March?

tpmx 7y ago

I've helped architect the LI/Lawful Interception solution/integration aspect on a product that's not listed. I don't feel bad about this. Should I? It's what's being used to catch murderers, kidnappers and terrorists. Its use is being controlled by very serious judges/courts.

rendx 7y ago
What's your argument against adding it then?
- tpmx 7y ago
  (I see what you're doing.) This was about a decade ago. Not sure if it's still being used, but I think it may be, at least in one country. Obviously, what I worried about was: The same technical solution could then be sold by less scrupulous sales people to less democratic countries and then misused badly. I made sure there were a number of undocumented steps involved in setting up LI that couldn't be done without involving me or one trusted developer directly. It was also purposefully architected to handle a scale of wiretapping of about 1 in 10000 people nationwide. That 1:10000 ratio was the the ratio I got "off-the-record" from someone in the first western customer country. I was okay with that ratio, given that the country was democratic. To clarify: I took pains to make sure that the mechanism could only be used to extract a fraction of the traffic flowing through our hardware, and that the selectors had to be preselected in a pretty meticulous way. Basically I spent a bunch of time to make sure to deliver the exact minimum of that what the country's government requested. There was never any pushback. I think our counterpart in this case was legimitely just trying to solve crime, as opposed to performing passive mass surveillance/recording. My main point here is that LI can make sense, if it is done done at small scale. Manual work needs to be involved. It needs to be a little cumbersome.
  - nicehat 7y ago
    >I made sure there were a number of undocumented steps involved in setting up LI that couldn't be done without involving me or one trusted developer directly. So, countries need to bribe a single developer. >It was also purposefully architected to handle a scale of wiretapping of about 1 in 10000 people That's more than enough to target political opponents. By these numbers, you would be able to target 33,000 Americans. In a small country like Ireland, (4.9 mil) you would be able to target 490 people; lawyers, heads of political parties, journalists... >That was the the ratio I got off-the-record from someone in the first western customer country Sounds super legit, I can see why you are so confident it won't be abused /s.