9 ms·

It’s only too late when we stop fighting back and accept it as a given. Don’t underestimate civil disobedience and the hacker spirit.

catlifeonmars 7mo ago
This. Fatigue and despair are by far the most effective way to control a population. You don’t need to convince people you’re doing the right thing, you just have to convince them that it’s too late.
bigyabai 7mo ago
I do underestimate the hacker spirit. HN's response to Client Side Scanning was disheartening, barely anyone could condemn Apple despite the obvious red-line being crossed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068741 And once you step outside HN, forget it. You can save yourself, but there are thousands of people that do respond to the "think of the children!" nonsense and will call you a creep for objecting to it. It's game over now, you will fight against this for the rest of your life.
- gzread 7mo ago
  HN is mostly for people with entrepreneur spirit, not hacker spirit - entrepreneurs who want to be known as hackers. The difference is vast.
  - chinabot 7mo ago
    big opportunity here for therealhackernews.com
    - gzread 7mo ago
      Not really. You couldn't get the network effect. Real hackers hang out on IRC.
- Cider9986 7mo ago
  That was almost 5 years ago. Lately, though, I see more people have stopped tolerating these attacks on freedom. See pewdiepie, louis rossman, deflock, piracy ressurection. Uk petition against digital ID becomes one of the largest petitions in history. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194
bilekas 7mo ago
While I agree with you, my worry is that younger generations have been conditioned to just expect privacy invasions, and I hear the same "Well I have nothing to hide" more and more with my younger family at least.
- girvo 7mo ago
  > and I hear the same "Well I have nothing to hide" more and more with my younger family at least. Which is funny as thats what I heard from my older family growing up. Except it's a lie and they have plenty to hide!
- ori_b 7mo ago
  "Pass me your phone, I want to screenshot a few things and post on social media".
drnick1 7mo ago
Absolutely, but this can only happen if we refuse to run nonfree software on our machines. Even if the maintainers of a Linux distro decided to somehow implement some anti user feature like age attestation, it would be trivial to patch that out from the source or to remove it from a running system with root access. The real danger here is devices that are not fully owned by the user, such as iPhones.
- nandomrumber 7mo ago
  And the overwhelming majority of anything running Android.
GeoAtreides 7mo ago
UK showed how to deal with civil disobedience (fast tracked judicial process). Hardware attestation will deal with the hacker spirit. Above all, the LLM panopticon will watch us all. Technology will not save us. Nothing will save us but ourselves and we're busy making rent and doomscrolling.
- Velocifyer 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 7mo ago
    Hey, could you please review the site guidelines and stick to them when posting here? We'd appreciate it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nclin_ 7mo ago
  We won't save ourselves. We might slow the process, but the information environment is permanently altered and we can't put it back. The information asymmetry between individuals and the powerful is permanently reversed. Thinking about it in terms of the monopoly of violence being the root of power negotiations; typically a resistance movement has more information about the state/colonizer than vice versa, because power has to be visible - guerilla warfare thrives on this. That's gone. The powerful will have complete detailed information and automatic analysis. The medium is the message.
- int_19h 7mo ago
  There will always be some form of underground. What's different is that, for a while, the early Internet age (and a little bit earlier - Usenet etc) made that underground very accessible. Now we're reverting back to the original situation where it was very much shunned and criminalized.
- Nursie 7mo ago
  > UK showed how to deal with civil disobedience (fast tracked judicial process) What is it you mean by this? I see so many offhand comments about the dystopian UK here but AFAICT there’s a lot of noise and very little meat. The only thing I can think you mean is the UK is currently debating a bill to limit jury trials to more serious offences. While I do find that pretty offensive, there’s nothing fast track about any of its justice system at the moment. On the contrary, people are waiting years for trial, which is bad for the accused because they have it hanging over them, and bad for victims who get no swift resolution.

catlifeonmars 7mo ago

This. Fatigue and despair are by far the most effective way to control a population. You don’t need to convince people you’re doing the right thing, you just have to convince them that it’s too late.

bigyabai 7mo ago

I do underestimate the hacker spirit. HN's response to Client Side Scanning was disheartening, barely anyone could condemn Apple despite the obvious red-line being crossed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068741 And once you step outside HN, forget it. You can save yourself, but there are thousands of people that do respond to the "think of the children!" nonsense and will call you a creep for objecting to it. It's game over now, you will fight against this for the rest of your life.

gzread 7mo ago
HN is mostly for people with entrepreneur spirit, not hacker spirit - entrepreneurs who want to be known as hackers. The difference is vast.
- chinabot 7mo ago
  big opportunity here for therealhackernews.com
  - gzread 7mo ago
    Not really. You couldn't get the network effect. Real hackers hang out on IRC.
Cider9986 7mo ago
That was almost 5 years ago. Lately, though, I see more people have stopped tolerating these attacks on freedom. See pewdiepie, louis rossman, deflock, piracy ressurection. Uk petition against digital ID becomes one of the largest petitions in history. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194

bilekas 7mo ago

While I agree with you, my worry is that younger generations have been conditioned to just expect privacy invasions, and I hear the same "Well I have nothing to hide" more and more with my younger family at least.

girvo 7mo ago
> and I hear the same "Well I have nothing to hide" more and more with my younger family at least. Which is funny as thats what I heard from my older family growing up. Except it's a lie and they have plenty to hide!
ori_b 7mo ago
"Pass me your phone, I want to screenshot a few things and post on social media".

drnick1 7mo ago

Absolutely, but this can only happen if we refuse to run nonfree software on our machines. Even if the maintainers of a Linux distro decided to somehow implement some anti user feature like age attestation, it would be trivial to patch that out from the source or to remove it from a running system with root access. The real danger here is devices that are not fully owned by the user, such as iPhones.

nandomrumber 7mo ago
And the overwhelming majority of anything running Android.

GeoAtreides 7mo ago

UK showed how to deal with civil disobedience (fast tracked judicial process). Hardware attestation will deal with the hacker spirit. Above all, the LLM panopticon will watch us all. Technology will not save us. Nothing will save us but ourselves and we're busy making rent and doomscrolling.

Velocifyer 7mo ago
[flagged]
- dang 7mo ago
  Hey, could you please review the site guidelines and stick to them when posting here? We'd appreciate it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
nclin_ 7mo ago
We won't save ourselves. We might slow the process, but the information environment is permanently altered and we can't put it back. The information asymmetry between individuals and the powerful is permanently reversed. Thinking about it in terms of the monopoly of violence being the root of power negotiations; typically a resistance movement has more information about the state/colonizer than vice versa, because power has to be visible - guerilla warfare thrives on this. That's gone. The powerful will have complete detailed information and automatic analysis. The medium is the message.
int_19h 7mo ago
There will always be some form of underground. What's different is that, for a while, the early Internet age (and a little bit earlier - Usenet etc) made that underground very accessible. Now we're reverting back to the original situation where it was very much shunned and criminalized.
Nursie 7mo ago
> UK showed how to deal with civil disobedience (fast tracked judicial process) What is it you mean by this? I see so many offhand comments about the dystopian UK here but AFAICT there’s a lot of noise and very little meat. The only thing I can think you mean is the UK is currently debating a bill to limit jury trials to more serious offences. While I do find that pretty offensive, there’s nothing fast track about any of its justice system at the moment. On the contrary, people are waiting years for trial, which is bad for the accused because they have it hanging over them, and bad for victims who get no swift resolution.