11 ms·

The real answer? Because these people are just like us, geeks, nerds, techies, early adopters. They are just the same people we live and work with. The film En

The real answer? Because these people are just like us, geeks, nerds, techies, early adopters. They are just the same people we live and work with. The film Enemy of the State (1998) was science fiction except with the parts where the techy operators were just normal nerds like us. That what was most scary part of the film not the (at the time fantastic) surveillance.

einpoklum 5y ago
They are really quite unlike us. And our sets of norms is, shall we say, somewhat different to theirs.
- xyzal 5y ago
  You imply hacking human minds to be more acceptable than hacking computers?
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    Absolutely. It's the human mind's responsibility not to be "hacked", by which I assume you mean exploited to e.g. mindlessly scroll Facebook all day. If most people are weak enough to become matrix-like slaves to the machine, so be it. I don't believe in free will and I don't think we need to preserve human life in a certain way (e.g. the way our ancestors lived). Sure, a lot of people will fail this test, or maybe they prefer to live their life like that. I don't care, that's on them, that's their choice - or, better, the way DNA and the environment shaped this human shell. If instead you wiretap my device, you're attacking my privacy and I don't have a way to defend myself. You are committing violence.
    - batch12 5y ago
      If you don't believe in free will, why should anyone care about your will to preserve your privacy? Sounds like you only believe in your own free will.
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      If you don't accept that you have free will, than nothing you write or say has any meaning.
      - Saptarishi 5y ago
        To be fair, I too have ended up thinking that free will probably does not exist. Yet everyone else and I will always continue to behave and live as if it existed, that is my consolation.
      - hanche 5y ago
        It may be possible to believe you don’t have free will, yet act like you do and to find meaning in life. After all, given how hard it is to even define “free will”, how can we know for sure whether we have it? Now recent research seems to indicate (note the weasel words) that we have less of this “free will” stuff than we like to think. Yet hopefully, if you dig a little deeper, we find something that qualifies as free will, even if we live in a deterministic world. Which we don,t quite; see quantum mechanics. But a free will based on QM seems no better. Who wants a “free will” based on randomness? Please forgive my ramblings. I may have been reading Daniel Dennett too much, most likely with too little understanding.
        IncRnd 5y ago
        If you are capable of acting as if you have free will, that is the proof you have free will.
        hanche 5y ago
        I certainly would like to think so, but the argument seems circular. These things are so hard to reason about!
      - MichaelZuo 5y ago
        What someone says or writes could provide information useful for predicting the future. That by definition has meaning.
  - labster 5y ago
    There are several industries built around hacking human minds: advertising, pay-to-win mobile games, political consulting, user engagement services like Facebook, and of course literature.
    - tkgally 5y ago
      > and of course literature Of course. And education.
      - FeepingCreature 5y ago
        Eh, by that metric `sudo apt-get install` is hacking your system.
  - einpoklum 5y ago
    No, I'm suggesting people be a bit more critical in their choices of who are "us". They are both "us" in some senses and "not us" in others.
- mrguyorama 5y ago
  You are commenting on a forum full of people who build tools and technology for facebook and google and probably palintir and a thousand other facial recognition and thoughtcrime style systems.
  - abvdasker 5y ago
    There are probably some generalizable differences between software engineers who work for intelligence agencies vs private sector engineers. The most significant factor being that government engineers need to be able to get a security clearance and pass the attendant background checks and interviews. Most of the engineers I've worked with in the private sector probably couldn't pass these checks because of foreign nationality or recreational drug use. It's a virtual certainty that the need for a security clearance produces a strong selection effect. Not saying it makes the intelligence engineers better or worse just that I'm sure there are some significant differences.
    - restingrobot 5y ago
      I just wanted to point out that obtaining a security clearance is not nearly as hard as you make it sound. For most organizations prior recreational drug use does not preclude you from the clearance.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - scthrow 5y ago
        I have a clearance and a somewhat checkered past. A lot of what they look for is consistency in accounts of previous behaviors between you and any references / interviews they undertake, trying to assess if you're currently honest. Another big thing they are trying to decide is if you are blackmailable. (throwaway because I have the sort of clearance you are not supposed to advertise that you have)
        thrownblown 5y ago
- thinkingemote 5y ago
  Morality is the difference. That's not exactly "norms" but somewhat on an adjacent path. But in terms of interest and participation in our club, *they are us*. That's the true terrible reality. A more accessible idea which is quite different but allows some truth to shine in similarly is to consider how many of us are utterly dependent on advertising in our careers but we all adblock personally.
  - Teknoman117 5y ago
    I would say it's that the set of morals or beliefs are different. Believing that someone is without morals or immoral is just the perspective of the observer. Some of us don't agree with the intelligence gathering behaviors of our governments, but they certainly might not view it as an issue.
  - schoen 5y ago
    > That's not exactly "norms" but somewhat on an adjacent path. But in terms of interest and participation in our club, they are us. That's the true terrible reality. I remember "Spot the Fed" at DEF CON where I thought it was reflecting this deep and kind of intractable antagonism between the hackers and the government. It turned out that the government was regularly recruiting people there and at other hacker conferences, fairly successfully, and still does. (First I thought that all computer nerds would be at least somewhat anti-military or anti-surveillance, and then I thought that at least those who actively associate themselves with computer culture and counterculture would be, and now I don't really think either of those.) The social distance between people working for spy agencies and people who vocally criticize and oppose the spy agencies is tiny. I worked at EFF and I've known socially, or kind-of-socially, four people I can immediately think of who worked directly for NSA at some point in their careers, and those are, of course, just the ones who chose to mention it. I've also seen someone unsuccessfully try to recruit someone for NSA face-to-face right in front of me, and had a boss whose next job was alongside an NSA alum. I also think that NSA alums are more likely to mention it because they're less likely to have worked under false pretenses in other countries (compared to, say, CIA alums). I had a relative who was a super-huge computer nerd (the biggest computer nerd in my whole family, possibly more than myself, and taught me a lot of my early Unix knowledge) who had previously held a clearance and worked in aerospace engineering (I think on radars or something). He didn't work for a spy agency, but did work on military projects. And nobody could hold a candle to his Unix expertise. It's pretty striking how diverse in our beliefs we all are (not just about surveillance and espionage, but kind of on every issue and question). Maybe we don't notice it because of social pressures to act like we agree more than we do. Being fascinated with surveillance and secrecy is a common trait in our circles, but it seems that might translate into trying to fight it, or into trying to do it.
- AYBABTME 5y ago
  I for one don't necessarily disagree with government having a monopoly on violence and all that jazz. But I guess that what makes me HN crowd is that I'm also easily convinced to change my mind if someone brings up a convincing argument.
- metamet 5y ago
  Pretty confidant that the odds of someone who works for a three letter agency responding to you here is much higher than most forums.
- fortran77 5y ago
  I, for one, want to protect my Nation against terrorists.
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    Not exactly, you, have been convinced that protecting your Nation against terrorism was an important priority, so you endorse the budget going into it and the infringements on your liberties, in exchange for the feeling of safety.
mlang23 5y ago
Maybe they are like you, but they are definitely not like me.
- jeffrallen 5y ago
  Amen, brother. The spooks recruited at my university, but I skipped that session. Hard pass.
6177c40f 5y ago
And let's not forget that many of them are probably browsing HN at this very moment. They could be you, they could be me!
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > They could be you, they could be me! Couldn't be me: the private sector pays me waaaaaaaay more. Also, you can't work for the feds if you ever touch the ganja, which is ridiculous. Everyone I personally know in infosec leads a very... alternative west-coast lifestyle which is not conducive to career progression in an east-coast, button-down-shirt environment.
  - nanidin 5y ago
    > Also, you can't work for the feds if you ever touch the ganja, which is ridiculous I believe it is possible to get security clearance after cessation of drugs for multiple years, even drugs like Heroin. I found the full rules[0] while reading an AMA on /r/SecurityClearance. [0] https://www.dni.gov/files/NCSC/documents/Regulations/SEAD-4-Adjudicative-Guidelines-U.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/NCSC/documents/Regulations/SEAD-4-...
  - loxias 5y ago
    This. I entertained the idea of working in the public sector a while ago, for a brief time, until I learned that pot is fine in my past, but not in my present. "How the heck do you expect me to get the code written?" Also, I've been told that getting a clearance is more burden than blessing. You have restrictions that an "ordinary person" doesn't have, along with criminal penalties for violating them. Whereas, without a clearance, if they really need you for something, they'll bring you in anyway.
    - jdironman 5y ago
      Not sure I understand those last two sentences. Could you clarify?
      - 5y ago

einpoklum 5y ago

They are really quite unlike us. And our sets of norms is, shall we say, somewhat different to theirs.

xyzal 5y ago
You imply hacking human minds to be more acceptable than hacking computers?
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  Absolutely. It's the human mind's responsibility not to be "hacked", by which I assume you mean exploited to e.g. mindlessly scroll Facebook all day. If most people are weak enough to become matrix-like slaves to the machine, so be it. I don't believe in free will and I don't think we need to preserve human life in a certain way (e.g. the way our ancestors lived). Sure, a lot of people will fail this test, or maybe they prefer to live their life like that. I don't care, that's on them, that's their choice - or, better, the way DNA and the environment shaped this human shell. If instead you wiretap my device, you're attacking my privacy and I don't have a way to defend myself. You are committing violence.
  - batch12 5y ago
    If you don't believe in free will, why should anyone care about your will to preserve your privacy? Sounds like you only believe in your own free will.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    If you don't accept that you have free will, than nothing you write or say has any meaning.
    - Saptarishi 5y ago
      To be fair, I too have ended up thinking that free will probably does not exist. Yet everyone else and I will always continue to behave and live as if it existed, that is my consolation.
    - hanche 5y ago
      It may be possible to believe you don’t have free will, yet act like you do and to find meaning in life. After all, given how hard it is to even define “free will”, how can we know for sure whether we have it? Now recent research seems to indicate (note the weasel words) that we have less of this “free will” stuff than we like to think. Yet hopefully, if you dig a little deeper, we find something that qualifies as free will, even if we live in a deterministic world. Which we don,t quite; see quantum mechanics. But a free will based on QM seems no better. Who wants a “free will” based on randomness? Please forgive my ramblings. I may have been reading Daniel Dennett too much, most likely with too little understanding.
      - IncRnd 5y ago
        If you are capable of acting as if you have free will, that is the proof you have free will.
        hanche 5y ago
        I certainly would like to think so, but the argument seems circular. These things are so hard to reason about!
    - MichaelZuo 5y ago
      What someone says or writes could provide information useful for predicting the future. That by definition has meaning.
- labster 5y ago
  There are several industries built around hacking human minds: advertising, pay-to-win mobile games, political consulting, user engagement services like Facebook, and of course literature.
  - tkgally 5y ago
    > and of course literature Of course. And education.
    - FeepingCreature 5y ago
      Eh, by that metric `sudo apt-get install` is hacking your system.
- einpoklum 5y ago
  No, I'm suggesting people be a bit more critical in their choices of who are "us". They are both "us" in some senses and "not us" in others.
mrguyorama 5y ago
You are commenting on a forum full of people who build tools and technology for facebook and google and probably palintir and a thousand other facial recognition and thoughtcrime style systems.
- abvdasker 5y ago
  There are probably some generalizable differences between software engineers who work for intelligence agencies vs private sector engineers. The most significant factor being that government engineers need to be able to get a security clearance and pass the attendant background checks and interviews. Most of the engineers I've worked with in the private sector probably couldn't pass these checks because of foreign nationality or recreational drug use. It's a virtual certainty that the need for a security clearance produces a strong selection effect. Not saying it makes the intelligence engineers better or worse just that I'm sure there are some significant differences.
  - restingrobot 5y ago
    I just wanted to point out that obtaining a security clearance is not nearly as hard as you make it sound. For most organizations prior recreational drug use does not preclude you from the clearance.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - scthrow 5y ago
      I have a clearance and a somewhat checkered past. A lot of what they look for is consistency in accounts of previous behaviors between you and any references / interviews they undertake, trying to assess if you're currently honest. Another big thing they are trying to decide is if you are blackmailable. (throwaway because I have the sort of clearance you are not supposed to advertise that you have)
      - thrownblown 5y ago
thinkingemote 5y ago
Morality is the difference. That's not exactly "norms" but somewhat on an adjacent path. But in terms of interest and participation in our club, *they are us*. That's the true terrible reality. A more accessible idea which is quite different but allows some truth to shine in similarly is to consider how many of us are utterly dependent on advertising in our careers but we all adblock personally.
- Teknoman117 5y ago
  I would say it's that the set of morals or beliefs are different. Believing that someone is without morals or immoral is just the perspective of the observer. Some of us don't agree with the intelligence gathering behaviors of our governments, but they certainly might not view it as an issue.
- schoen 5y ago
  > That's not exactly "norms" but somewhat on an adjacent path. But in terms of interest and participation in our club, they are us. That's the true terrible reality. I remember "Spot the Fed" at DEF CON where I thought it was reflecting this deep and kind of intractable antagonism between the hackers and the government. It turned out that the government was regularly recruiting people there and at other hacker conferences, fairly successfully, and still does. (First I thought that all computer nerds would be at least somewhat anti-military or anti-surveillance, and then I thought that at least those who actively associate themselves with computer culture and counterculture would be, and now I don't really think either of those.) The social distance between people working for spy agencies and people who vocally criticize and oppose the spy agencies is tiny. I worked at EFF and I've known socially, or kind-of-socially, four people I can immediately think of who worked directly for NSA at some point in their careers, and those are, of course, just the ones who chose to mention it. I've also seen someone unsuccessfully try to recruit someone for NSA face-to-face right in front of me, and had a boss whose next job was alongside an NSA alum. I also think that NSA alums are more likely to mention it because they're less likely to have worked under false pretenses in other countries (compared to, say, CIA alums). I had a relative who was a super-huge computer nerd (the biggest computer nerd in my whole family, possibly more than myself, and taught me a lot of my early Unix knowledge) who had previously held a clearance and worked in aerospace engineering (I think on radars or something). He didn't work for a spy agency, but did work on military projects. And nobody could hold a candle to his Unix expertise. It's pretty striking how diverse in our beliefs we all are (not just about surveillance and espionage, but kind of on every issue and question). Maybe we don't notice it because of social pressures to act like we agree more than we do. Being fascinated with surveillance and secrecy is a common trait in our circles, but it seems that might translate into trying to fight it, or into trying to do it.
AYBABTME 5y ago
I for one don't necessarily disagree with government having a monopoly on violence and all that jazz. But I guess that what makes me HN crowd is that I'm also easily convinced to change my mind if someone brings up a convincing argument.
metamet 5y ago
Pretty confidant that the odds of someone who works for a three letter agency responding to you here is much higher than most forums.
fortran77 5y ago
I, for one, want to protect my Nation against terrorists.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  Not exactly, you, have been convinced that protecting your Nation against terrorism was an important priority, so you endorse the budget going into it and the infringements on your liberties, in exchange for the feeling of safety.

mlang23 5y ago

Maybe they are like you, but they are definitely not like me.

jeffrallen 5y ago
Amen, brother. The spooks recruited at my university, but I skipped that session. Hard pass.

6177c40f 5y ago

And let's not forget that many of them are probably browsing HN at this very moment. They could be you, they could be me!

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> They could be you, they could be me! Couldn't be me: the private sector pays me waaaaaaaay more. Also, you can't work for the feds if you ever touch the ganja, which is ridiculous. Everyone I personally know in infosec leads a very... alternative west-coast lifestyle which is not conducive to career progression in an east-coast, button-down-shirt environment.
- nanidin 5y ago
  > Also, you can't work for the feds if you ever touch the ganja, which is ridiculous I believe it is possible to get security clearance after cessation of drugs for multiple years, even drugs like Heroin. I found the full rules[0] while reading an AMA on /r/SecurityClearance. [0] https://www.dni.gov/files/NCSC/documents/Regulations/SEAD-4-Adjudicative-Guidelines-U.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/NCSC/documents/Regulations/SEAD-4-...
- loxias 5y ago
  This. I entertained the idea of working in the public sector a while ago, for a brief time, until I learned that pot is fine in my past, but not in my present. "How the heck do you expect me to get the code written?" Also, I've been told that getting a clearance is more burden than blessing. You have restrictions that an "ordinary person" doesn't have, along with criminal penalties for violating them. Whereas, without a clearance, if they really need you for something, they'll bring you in anyway.
  - jdironman 5y ago
    Not sure I understand those last two sentences. Could you clarify?
    - 5y ago