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If you think legislation is the answer, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Who do you think writes the legislation and hands it to X representative? How niave... H

If you think legislation is the answer, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Who do you think writes the legislation and hands it to X representative? How niave... HN crowd has fallen pretty far. Used to be WE build the things that make our lives better and now the top comment is calling for some ethemeral they to come up with legislation? That’s BS. And, antithetical to any builder/havker ethic. We build the world we want.

ben_w 5y ago
That was viable when computers were a tiny part of the world, but not when our power to change things became to great to be ignored. Even back in the day when you could convince a public payphone to work for free by whistling the right way, that kind of interference in a public communications channel was enough for the powers that be to get worried. Now? Now phones are effectively universal, and every government can afford to pay developers to insert obfuscated backdoors in open source code, while the richest could do the same with the hardware from the silicon wafer up to the finished product. And they do, because they want to keep their power. Just as you go to war with the army you have rather than the army you want, if you seek to improve our security and freedom you have to use the political power structures that exist rather than the ones you want to exist.
sp332 5y ago
This defeatist attitude toward legislating is self-perpetuating. We can at least hold our representatives accountable.
- pooper 5y ago
  > This defeatist attitude toward legislating is self-perpetuating. We can at least hold our representatives accountable. What can we do? I have no confidence that Congress will act in my best interest. Congress has some "partisan deadlock" but somehow I feel confident Intel's payday will go through without a bumpy ride > U.S. senators propose 25% tax credit for semiconductor manufacturing (reuters.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27561238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27561238 We can't even get a modest broadband Internet infrastructure bill passed. > Widespread fiber-to-the-home deployment would make a bigger difference for more Internet users than Starlink. President Joe Biden pledged to lower prices and deploy "future-proof" broadband to all Americans, but he's already scaled back his plan in the face of opposition from Republicans and incumbent ISPs. AT&T has been lobbying against nationwide fiber and funding for municipal networks, and AT&T CEO John Stankey expressed confidence last week that Congress will steer legislation in the direction that AT&T favors. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/06/starlink-dish-overheats-in-arizona-sun-knocking-user-offline-for-7-hours/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/06/starl... > Biden's pitch to build "future-proof" broadband technology is also facing opposition from broadband providers who don't want to build fiber-to-the-home networks in rural areas. Just before Biden announced his plan, AT&T said it opposes subsidizing fiber-to-the-home deployment across the US, arguing that rural people don't need fiber and should be satisfied with Internet service that provides only 10Mbps upload speeds. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/biden-cuts-35b-from-broadband-plan-amid-gop-opposition-deal-still-unlikely/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/biden-cuts-35b-f... I have not met a single programmer / computer scientist who seriously defends the CFAA and yet we cannot find the votes in Congress to repeal it.
  - sp332 5y ago
    I admit I got your comment a bit confused with another talking about local government. But the solution I think is in the same direction - start local. The few hundred people in congress aren't self-sufficient. They need support from the rest of the party machines to get campaign money and turn money into votes. Changing what the parties will support at the local level changes who gets the big money and who gets elected. Shorter version though: campaign finance reform, oppose voter suppression, and ranked-choice voting.
  - sp332 5y ago
    Ok those other things I mentioned were still pretty daunting I guess. But corporations are still not interested in having their actions called out. Relatively low-budget operations like https://popular.info/ https://popular.info/ get good results in shifting behavior of big companies. (Note you can skip the signup page, just click "Let me read it first").

ben_w 5y ago

That was viable when computers were a tiny part of the world, but not when our power to change things became to great to be ignored. Even back in the day when you could convince a public payphone to work for free by whistling the right way, that kind of interference in a public communications channel was enough for the powers that be to get worried. Now? Now phones are effectively universal, and every government can afford to pay developers to insert obfuscated backdoors in open source code, while the richest could do the same with the hardware from the silicon wafer up to the finished product. And they do, because they want to keep their power. Just as you go to war with the army you have rather than the army you want, if you seek to improve our security and freedom you have to use the political power structures that exist rather than the ones you want to exist.

sp332 5y ago

This defeatist attitude toward legislating is self-perpetuating. We can at least hold our representatives accountable.

pooper 5y ago
> This defeatist attitude toward legislating is self-perpetuating. We can at least hold our representatives accountable. What can we do? I have no confidence that Congress will act in my best interest. Congress has some "partisan deadlock" but somehow I feel confident Intel's payday will go through without a bumpy ride > U.S. senators propose 25% tax credit for semiconductor manufacturing (reuters.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27561238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27561238 We can't even get a modest broadband Internet infrastructure bill passed. > Widespread fiber-to-the-home deployment would make a bigger difference for more Internet users than Starlink. President Joe Biden pledged to lower prices and deploy "future-proof" broadband to all Americans, but he's already scaled back his plan in the face of opposition from Republicans and incumbent ISPs. AT&T has been lobbying against nationwide fiber and funding for municipal networks, and AT&T CEO John Stankey expressed confidence last week that Congress will steer legislation in the direction that AT&T favors. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/06/starlink-dish-overheats-in-arizona-sun-knocking-user-offline-for-7-hours/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/06/starl... > Biden's pitch to build "future-proof" broadband technology is also facing opposition from broadband providers who don't want to build fiber-to-the-home networks in rural areas. Just before Biden announced his plan, AT&T said it opposes subsidizing fiber-to-the-home deployment across the US, arguing that rural people don't need fiber and should be satisfied with Internet service that provides only 10Mbps upload speeds. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/biden-cuts-35b-from-broadband-plan-amid-gop-opposition-deal-still-unlikely/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/biden-cuts-35b-f... I have not met a single programmer / computer scientist who seriously defends the CFAA and yet we cannot find the votes in Congress to repeal it.
- sp332 5y ago
  I admit I got your comment a bit confused with another talking about local government. But the solution I think is in the same direction - start local. The few hundred people in congress aren't self-sufficient. They need support from the rest of the party machines to get campaign money and turn money into votes. Changing what the parties will support at the local level changes who gets the big money and who gets elected. Shorter version though: campaign finance reform, oppose voter suppression, and ranked-choice voting.
- sp332 5y ago
  Ok those other things I mentioned were still pretty daunting I guess. But corporations are still not interested in having their actions called out. Relatively low-budget operations like https://popular.info/ https://popular.info/ get good results in shifting behavior of big companies. (Note you can skip the signup page, just click "Let me read it first").