5 ms·

TL;DR - police in Denmark made a mistake that resulted in visitors to many sites being told that the site is blocked for possibly having child porn. --- EDIT:

TL;DR - police in Denmark made a mistake that resulted in visitors to many sites being told that the site is blocked for possibly having child porn. --- EDIT: Is there a guideline against 'TL;DR' comments? When I've written them in the past, they've been upvoted.

billybob 15y ago
Let's see, how much damage was done by this? Each blocked site lost: - $X directly in business missed during those hours - The trust of users who believed the warning If they lost these things by arson or slander, the perpetrator might be punished. But since it was the government, they'll probably get nothing but an apology. Any justice system will have some collateral damage: standing trial costs you time, money and reputation, even in a fair trial where you're declared innocent. But since the damage is so real and sometimes severe, we should REALLY force government to be careful how it applies itself. Warrants, oversight, auditing, judicial review, etc. No bureaucrat should have a "ruin this business" button.
- vidarh 15y ago
  According to the article, it's a voluntary scheme, so presumably the right target of a lawsuit would be the ISPs who chose to blindly trust this data, not the government... That's the way they're getting away with the lack of oversight: Make it "voluntary" ("or we'll tell the press you support child porn", nudge, nudge)
natep 15y ago
It could be that your TL;DR has exactly the same content as [the first paragraph of] TFA, so it adds nothing to the conversation, the way a good summary of a complex topic would. Edit: forgot some words
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  That's kind of the very definition to "TL;DR". Personally, I think they are an atrocity, because if everything useful in an article could be distiller to a tweet, it should have been a tweet and not an article that made it to the front page of HN. I don't downvoted them, though (unless highly inaccurate), because they may provide use to some people in deciding whether TFA is worth spending their time on.
  - dsr_ 15y ago
    A distilled TL;DR is, as you say, either useless or an indication that the article is unworthy. I prefer the commentary form of TL;DR which is a pithy remark that allows people who are already familiar with the subject to learn what biases or novel facts this article displays. For example, consider the fictitious article: Are Human Ears High Resolution Signal Detectors? which discusses a study of microphones, digital audio recordings and double-blind human subjects trying to distinguish signal in high-noise environments. A useful TL;DR might be: Human ears suck. which might be a useful indicator of whether you're going to learn anything new from reading it.
  - geoffw8 15y ago
    I have to tell you, I love TL;DR's, maybe I've got a form of digital ADHD but I just want to get the content in a quick, bitesize chunk. Especially when its something like this that I'm not particularly passionate about. Standing up for TL;DR's in general, not the OP's.
  - natep 15y ago
    Whoops, yes. The original wording of my comment was the definition of TL;DR. The point I was trying to make is that in this case, the first paragraph of TFA was its own TL;DR, so GGP was particularly redundant.

billybob 15y ago

Let's see, how much damage was done by this? Each blocked site lost: - $X directly in business missed during those hours - The trust of users who believed the warning If they lost these things by arson or slander, the perpetrator might be punished. But since it was the government, they'll probably get nothing but an apology. Any justice system will have some collateral damage: standing trial costs you time, money and reputation, even in a fair trial where you're declared innocent. But since the damage is so real and sometimes severe, we should REALLY force government to be careful how it applies itself. Warrants, oversight, auditing, judicial review, etc. No bureaucrat should have a "ruin this business" button.

vidarh 15y ago
According to the article, it's a voluntary scheme, so presumably the right target of a lawsuit would be the ISPs who chose to blindly trust this data, not the government... That's the way they're getting away with the lack of oversight: Make it "voluntary" ("or we'll tell the press you support child porn", nudge, nudge)

natep 15y ago

It could be that your TL;DR has exactly the same content as [the first paragraph of] TFA, so it adds nothing to the conversation, the way a good summary of a complex topic would. Edit: forgot some words

SoftwareMaven 15y ago
That's kind of the very definition to "TL;DR". Personally, I think they are an atrocity, because if everything useful in an article could be distiller to a tweet, it should have been a tweet and not an article that made it to the front page of HN. I don't downvoted them, though (unless highly inaccurate), because they may provide use to some people in deciding whether TFA is worth spending their time on.
- dsr_ 15y ago
  A distilled TL;DR is, as you say, either useless or an indication that the article is unworthy. I prefer the commentary form of TL;DR which is a pithy remark that allows people who are already familiar with the subject to learn what biases or novel facts this article displays. For example, consider the fictitious article: Are Human Ears High Resolution Signal Detectors? which discusses a study of microphones, digital audio recordings and double-blind human subjects trying to distinguish signal in high-noise environments. A useful TL;DR might be: Human ears suck. which might be a useful indicator of whether you're going to learn anything new from reading it.
- geoffw8 15y ago
  I have to tell you, I love TL;DR's, maybe I've got a form of digital ADHD but I just want to get the content in a quick, bitesize chunk. Especially when its something like this that I'm not particularly passionate about. Standing up for TL;DR's in general, not the OP's.
- natep 15y ago
  Whoops, yes. The original wording of my comment was the definition of TL;DR. The point I was trying to make is that in this case, the first paragraph of TFA was its own TL;DR, so GGP was particularly redundant.