10 ms·

Antiprism

422 points by justincormack 13y ago

PavlovsCat 13y ago
I think this also answers the question wether the US needs a pirate party (or several).
- samsolomon 13y ago
  Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin on a lot of issues, including privacy. Having many parties, regardless of stance, would at least allow for more varied discussions.
  - famousactress 13y ago
    This is why I'm so glad this NSA dustup happened during Obama's presidency (note: I voted for him). I think if this had happened during a Republican administration, particularly the last one, even less would be made of it. I think there's a really good chance it would have been reduced to a partisan scuffle and people that identity Republican would have been less inclined to find it offensive. I think the hilariously consistent approach to our privacy and the Patriot Act by both administrations creates an opportunity for the public to react to the facts relatively independent of their party affiliations.
    - blisterpeanuts 13y ago
      Yes, but it also means that the party in power, currently the Democrats in the Senate and Executive Branch, have a stake in the status quo, as did the Republicans previously. Witness the contrast between candidate Obama in 2008, piously railing against privacy invasions and warrant-less wiretapping, and a defensive, contrite President Obama this month, smoothly reassuring us that NSA analysts won't monitor content without a warrant. By the time the 2014 elections roll around, this issue will be all but forgotten by the vast majority of the electorate. At least, that's what both parties are probably counting on.
      - redblacktree 13y ago
        > By the time the 2014 elections roll around, this issue will be all but forgotten by the vast majority of the electorate. I sure hope you're wrong about that one. It's only a little more than a year away.
        betterunix 13y ago
        Yeah, and politicians know how to deflect attention from this issue. A few months before the election, if people are still talking about the NSA, you can expect the media to suddenly start reporting on a scandal involving some politician, or how the economy is taking a new downturn, or how we gave Syrians some kind of deadly weapon. The people in charge of this country know how to deal with reporters: give the reporters a scoop, and they'll forget whatever it was that they were reporting on before that.
- famousactress 13y ago
  I also think this brings to light the fact that we have a rising fidelity stake in the politics of other nations and I'm left wondering if in the absence of a Pirate Party here in the US, maybe I ought to at least be contributing actively to these efforts overseas.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    Hey wait. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_(United_States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_(United_States) Seems like a stub in many ways (not the article, the party, considering the utter lack of any seats anywhere), but I think that is in line with the PP in other countries; they all learn by doing. Though in the US they might need extra love I think, to offset people being squeamish about the name :P we have a rising fidelity stake in the politics of other nations And vice versa. As glad as I am about some things in Europe, I would dread a world where the US actually "falls". I think it would be like the gulf stream stopping... The US could be more enlightened, sure, but it also could be much worse, and then I'd be (not) writing this from a Russian colony or something. So act local, too, you deserve it, and "we" want you to have it.
- znowi 13y ago
  Yes, it always felt a little weird that the "beacon of freedom" has only two parties to choose from :) And they're slowly converging.
- swombat 13y ago
  Looks like there is one already: http://uspirates.org/ http://uspirates.org/ Go support it?
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    Thanks, I realized shorty after. Yeah, it needs support and awarenesa, since a party that nobody knows exists might as well not. "Support our friends in the US" with a link the the US PP would make a nice footer for antiprism.eu... !
Yuioup 13y ago
While I agree with the sentiment, will this actually change anything? I have yet to see anybody anywhere making any difference ...
- phryk 13y ago
  If the respective pirate parties put in enough of an effort, informing the public, organizing protests, petitioning local and EU authorities and so forth they might get some of this through. I still think that even then it would be unlikely…
- jumblesale 13y ago
  It's disappointing that the reaction to PRISM outside the US has not been one of fury. Non-US citizens have been hit worse by this but nobody in the mainstream European political landscape is making any noise about it. Is it because they don't have the temerity to risk relations with the US by publicly criticising them? I suspect it has more to do with not wanting to draw scrutiny to their own programs for mass surveillance.
  - probably_wrong 13y ago
    I'm particularly surprised about Germany's reaction. Obama was scheduled to speak this week in Berlin, in the same spot where Kennedy gave once a famous speech (the Branderburg Gate). Now, I won't pretend that I'd expect the German government to cancel his speech, but I'd hope at least some hard questions would be asked. I mean, Germans know exactly what happens when surveillance gets out of control - the Wikipedia page about the Stasi [1] is pretty good, including lines such as "counting part-time informers, the Stasi had one informer per 6.5 people" and "As the GDR began to fall, the Stasi did as well. They began to destroy the extensive files that they had kept, both by hand and with the use of shredders. When these activities became known, a protest erupted in front of the Stasi headquarters". Can anyone imagine US citizens storming the NSA, or the FBI? Even today those files are being reassembled, because people wants to know what happened. And yet, what happened during the conference [2]? Angela Merkel essentially stepping in defense of Obama. She could have said she didn't agree. She could have remained quiet. And yet she speaks (mildly, though) in his favor, even while by her own admission "the questions have not yet been satisfactorily addressed". That was disappointing. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG0D3A8FkPo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG0D3A8FkPo
coopdog 13y ago
Specific desired actions that are realistic within the current legal frameworks. Go pirate party.
skwirl 13y ago
"We are appalled to learn of the unprecedented surveillance of Internet users worldwide through PRISM and similar programmes." There has not been a shred of evidence that PRISM gives the government any capability that it did not already have with FISA. All we learned was the name of the system that some companies use to respond to FISA requests, a name that they weren't even aware of. There is no practical difference between the U.S. companies listed on the PRISM slides and U.S. companies that are not; FISA covers them all. The initial claims by Glenn Greenwald that PRISM gave the NSA direct access to company servers have been refuted a hundred times over and walked back by Greenwald himself. If you were just now appalled to learn about the changes made to FISA with the PATRIOT act, you are 12 years behind the times.
- michaelfeathers 13y ago
  For me, the big takeaway is that information is being stored in advance of it being 'collected' (as they are [mis-]using the word). I don't think that is an interpretation that the lawmakers anticipated, and it is an incredible end-run with potentially cataclysmic effects for liberty. We all know that information can be leaked or misused. In fact, I think it is a truism: all 'secret' information is eventually leaked or misused. The old process, where the government had to go to court to even start to collect information about a suspect was a completely different thing with less horrific side-effects. And yes, we learned that the government may not have direct access to servers of the social media companies, but dispelling that claim brought the issue of internet backbone access to the fore.
  - skwirl 13y ago
    I don't follow. "Information is being stored in advance of it being 'collected'" - what exactly do you mean? Your GMail e-mail is stored with Google. The government can only get it with a FISA request targeted at you or someone yo e-mailed (via a request aimed at their account).
    - michaelfeathers 13y ago
      Fibre optic splitter: https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/presskit/ATT_onepager.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/presskit/ATT_onepager... And there's this story, also on the front page of HN now: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/06/20/the-nsa-can-retain-and-use-data-inadvertently-collected-from-communications-of-us-citizens/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/06/20/the-nsa-can-retain-...
swombat 13y ago
How do I support this? I'm a Swiss citizen living in the UK.
- Peroni 13y ago
  If you're on the electoral register then this should help: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/ http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/
  - swombat 13y ago
    I'm not allowed to vote in the UK unfortunately. :-(
    - Peroni 13y ago
      I keep forgetting that Switzerland isn't part of the EU. Apologies Dan!
      - swombat 13y ago
        I've actually registered with the pirate party in the UK already, but since I can't vote, I can't do all that much for them I think...
    - lake99 13y ago
      Voting with your wallet is an option. http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/donate http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/donate
      - swombat 13y ago
        Good call, I've just set up a £25 monthly donation. This is the first time I've ever set up a regular donation to anything.
      - supersystem 13y ago
        Or with your time and knowledge. http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=5 http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=5
robotic 13y ago
If they want to reach a bigger mainstream audience they'd do well to change their name and logo. The word "Pirate" isn't associated with doing good.
- Peroni 13y ago
  Pirate Parties throughout Europe have become increasingly more successful. In Iceland recently they gained 3 seats out of 63.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  I think that might be the point: http://uspirates.org/wiki_src/index.php/Pirate_National_Committee_(PNC)/Constitution http://uspirates.org/wiki_src/index.php/Pirate_National_Comm... For our values, we have been derided as “pirates”. For our hope that every person may be free to access all of human knowledge, we have been called “pirates”. For our belief that one need not ask permission to participate in governance, industry, culture, and other aspects of society, we have been called “pirates”. For our insistence that citizens should not be surveilled and distrusted as if they are criminals, we have been called “pirates”. For our rejection of authority and profit-seeking when it does not serve the common good of all people, we have been called “pirates”. We reclaim this label of “pirate” and abjure its derogatory, incendiary implication. We are Pirates. We stand for the liberty, equality, and solidarity of all human beings, and against all threats they may face. I myself am not sure if I would like "Freedom Party" or something like that better. When someone calls themselves "The Good Guys" without irony, I get nervous. So at least given the choice between those extremes (which of course is not the actual choice, the PP could have plenty of names that neither "offensive" nor meaningless), I would prefer irony and alienating those who don't get said irony.
  - hellcow 13y ago
    It isn't really the "Freedom Party" when they demand this: "For our rejection of authority and profit-seeking when it does not serve the common good of all people, we have been called 'pirates'." How can I pursue my own interests—how can I have freedom—if I have to serve some nebulous "common good," just as if I lived in a communist state? The philosophy you're looking for is libertarianism.
kintamanimatt 13y ago
How do we know there isn't a European equivalent of PRISM? The American one was kept secret for quite some time and it's not like European countries are any less technically advanced or motivated.
- swombat 13y ago
  We know that GCHQ in the UK is doing something similar. But unlike the US system, we may have a chance to make a difference here since the EU is already pretty strict on data protection laws.
  - kintamanimatt 13y ago
    I was under the impression that the data protection laws don't really say much about what the government can do internally, or even whether they play by the rules.
- malandrew 13y ago
  A loose federation would make it harder at the Europe-level, I would think. Don't national laws, or at least allegiance to laws at the national level, trump EU laws? Can the EU issue the equivalent of national security letters? In the US, it seems like the exploitation of obedience to authority (1963) and the fear of federal prison helped keep PRISM secret. I can't imagine the same thing happening in the EU. At the state level, I reckon it is possible that things are happening, but even in that case, how hard is it for an EU citizen to move across their nearest border and set up life their in order to whistleblow against their home country? Does the EU have whistle-blower protection laws where I could work in country away, move across the border to country B, blow the whistle on country A, and not fear extradition to country A since I'm protected under whistle blower laws?
  - kintamanimatt 13y ago
    > Don't national laws, or at least allegiance to laws at the national level, trump EU laws? No. The EU issues directives which EU countries have to turn into laws. The implementation details vary from country to country, but save a few exceptions, laws the meet the minimum requirements of these directives must be enacted. This doesn't always happen in practice but it's a violation of EU law. Sometimes the laws just aren't enforced, like the UK's implementation of the EU cookie directive. No idea about any of the rest of your comment. Perhaps someone better informed will chime in.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
piqufoh 13y ago
Sounds like a great idea - and sponsored by the pirate party I see. They seem to be the ones trying to plant cookies on my computer, to 'improve' my web browsing experience. http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/ http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/ Thanks guys.
pavanred 13y ago
This article mentions Funding of Privacy-Conscious Software, one thing that concerns me is, I am quoting from Wikipedia here, "..As of 2012, 80% of the Tor Project's $2M annual budget comes from the United States government..". So, the United States government funds programs that help secure the identity of the people and the government also spends money on surveillance programs such as PRISM. Can't the government just stop funding projects such as Tor any time they please? In such scenario, aren't we at the mercy of the very government to protect our identity that runs surveillance programs?
Tangaroa 13y ago
AJAX and REST sure are evil. The fact that 229 people have upvoted this is certainly proof that web-based UIs are something that we as hackers ought to oppose. We are all aware that PRISM has been exposed to be nothing more than a user interface to information provided by companies that receive a search warrant after the request has gone through courts and lawyers, right? Surely 229 users of Hacker News cannot be that uninformed about PRISM, after so many front-page articles on the subject giving so many opportunities to hash out the details of what it is and is not, that they imagine it to be something nefarious?
- pedrocr 13y ago
  Note the .EU domain name and the non-US/Europe focus of the content. As far as I've seen reported or stated by US representatives there's no going "through courts and lawyers" for non-citizens. PRISM may very well not have changed any of that but it was at least a wake up call outside the US for the fact that using US-based companies puts decisions about your data privacy in the hands of governments that view you, as a foreigner, as having absolutely no rights. This is particularly scary because people have so far been used to considering the Internet as a sort of borderless global place and when it comes to privacy from government snooping it definitely is not.
  - embolism 13y ago
    Right since we can be certain that only the US government does anything like this. Put your data anywhere outside the US and it will be safe.
    - pedrocr 13y ago
      Not my point at all. If I put my data in a European datacenter I'm in the same legal jurisdiction as the potential government snoop. If I put it in the US the USG may be more or less prone to snooping than my local government but what I'm sure of is that I will never have any legal standing to challenge it if it does snoop. I knew this before of course. And before I assumed the snooping was low enough that I didn't care that I didn't have any legal standing to challenge it. Now I'm not so sure.
johnvschmitt 13y ago
It's unlikely that the powerful institutions will give up their powerful tools. What I do think might work, though, is a system added to it where every human query is logged & their human peers can ask, "WTF Carl? Why are you looking at data on your ex wife? Or, Why are you looking at your political enemies?" I think the humans inside those institutions would not limit their power, but they would want to keep an eye on their peers to make sure their peers are not abusing their power. Those query & access logs can be periodically reviewed by their peers, and their superiors, and those logs should be kept as long as the data is, & queryable just the same as any other data.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Im 99.99% against this sort of thing, but even I have to reluctantly accept that wheels don't get un-invented. So, proper regulation and oversight is the only way to go.
volaski 13y ago
First thing that came to my mind: "Wow some device that gathers different spectrum of light to fuse into a single awesome ray?"
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Yeah, me too, ish. :(
  - mehrzad 13y ago
    Good example of why geometry education is flawed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiprism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiprism
swayvil 13y ago
Digging the graphics
cseelus 13y ago
There are times when it feels good to be european and at least have the realistic choice between more than two equally bad choices.
- embolism 13y ago
  Sadly, now isn't one of them: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-...
userabc 13y ago
No amount of begging to any government will solve this problem. If you believe that the government can or will help, you are the problem.
gesman 13y ago
buzzword-domain.com
blaeks 13y ago
Political egofagging at its best. Just ignore this.
manveru 13y ago
Looks like the link to the Austrian Pirate Party is going to the UK one.
Vu1c4n0 13y ago
http://antiprism.eu/sl http://antiprism.eu/sl

Antiprism

422 points by justincormack 13y ago

PavlovsCat 13y ago

I think this also answers the question wether the US needs a pirate party (or several).

samsolomon 13y ago
Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin on a lot of issues, including privacy. Having many parties, regardless of stance, would at least allow for more varied discussions.
- famousactress 13y ago
  This is why I'm so glad this NSA dustup happened during Obama's presidency (note: I voted for him). I think if this had happened during a Republican administration, particularly the last one, even less would be made of it. I think there's a really good chance it would have been reduced to a partisan scuffle and people that identity Republican would have been less inclined to find it offensive. I think the hilariously consistent approach to our privacy and the Patriot Act by both administrations creates an opportunity for the public to react to the facts relatively independent of their party affiliations.
  - blisterpeanuts 13y ago
    Yes, but it also means that the party in power, currently the Democrats in the Senate and Executive Branch, have a stake in the status quo, as did the Republicans previously. Witness the contrast between candidate Obama in 2008, piously railing against privacy invasions and warrant-less wiretapping, and a defensive, contrite President Obama this month, smoothly reassuring us that NSA analysts won't monitor content without a warrant. By the time the 2014 elections roll around, this issue will be all but forgotten by the vast majority of the electorate. At least, that's what both parties are probably counting on.
    - redblacktree 13y ago
      > By the time the 2014 elections roll around, this issue will be all but forgotten by the vast majority of the electorate. I sure hope you're wrong about that one. It's only a little more than a year away.
      - betterunix 13y ago
        Yeah, and politicians know how to deflect attention from this issue. A few months before the election, if people are still talking about the NSA, you can expect the media to suddenly start reporting on a scandal involving some politician, or how the economy is taking a new downturn, or how we gave Syrians some kind of deadly weapon. The people in charge of this country know how to deal with reporters: give the reporters a scoop, and they'll forget whatever it was that they were reporting on before that.
famousactress 13y ago
I also think this brings to light the fact that we have a rising fidelity stake in the politics of other nations and I'm left wondering if in the absence of a Pirate Party here in the US, maybe I ought to at least be contributing actively to these efforts overseas.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  Hey wait. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_(United_States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_(United_States) Seems like a stub in many ways (not the article, the party, considering the utter lack of any seats anywhere), but I think that is in line with the PP in other countries; they all learn by doing. Though in the US they might need extra love I think, to offset people being squeamish about the name :P we have a rising fidelity stake in the politics of other nations And vice versa. As glad as I am about some things in Europe, I would dread a world where the US actually "falls". I think it would be like the gulf stream stopping... The US could be more enlightened, sure, but it also could be much worse, and then I'd be (not) writing this from a Russian colony or something. So act local, too, you deserve it, and "we" want you to have it.
znowi 13y ago
Yes, it always felt a little weird that the "beacon of freedom" has only two parties to choose from :) And they're slowly converging.
swombat 13y ago
Looks like there is one already: http://uspirates.org/ http://uspirates.org/ Go support it?
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  Thanks, I realized shorty after. Yeah, it needs support and awarenesa, since a party that nobody knows exists might as well not. "Support our friends in the US" with a link the the US PP would make a nice footer for antiprism.eu... !

Yuioup 13y ago

While I agree with the sentiment, will this actually change anything? I have yet to see anybody anywhere making any difference ...

phryk 13y ago
If the respective pirate parties put in enough of an effort, informing the public, organizing protests, petitioning local and EU authorities and so forth they might get some of this through. I still think that even then it would be unlikely…
jumblesale 13y ago
It's disappointing that the reaction to PRISM outside the US has not been one of fury. Non-US citizens have been hit worse by this but nobody in the mainstream European political landscape is making any noise about it. Is it because they don't have the temerity to risk relations with the US by publicly criticising them? I suspect it has more to do with not wanting to draw scrutiny to their own programs for mass surveillance.
- probably_wrong 13y ago
  I'm particularly surprised about Germany's reaction. Obama was scheduled to speak this week in Berlin, in the same spot where Kennedy gave once a famous speech (the Branderburg Gate). Now, I won't pretend that I'd expect the German government to cancel his speech, but I'd hope at least some hard questions would be asked. I mean, Germans know exactly what happens when surveillance gets out of control - the Wikipedia page about the Stasi [1] is pretty good, including lines such as "counting part-time informers, the Stasi had one informer per 6.5 people" and "As the GDR began to fall, the Stasi did as well. They began to destroy the extensive files that they had kept, both by hand and with the use of shredders. When these activities became known, a protest erupted in front of the Stasi headquarters". Can anyone imagine US citizens storming the NSA, or the FBI? Even today those files are being reassembled, because people wants to know what happened. And yet, what happened during the conference [2]? Angela Merkel essentially stepping in defense of Obama. She could have said she didn't agree. She could have remained quiet. And yet she speaks (mildly, though) in his favor, even while by her own admission "the questions have not yet been satisfactorily addressed". That was disappointing. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG0D3A8FkPo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG0D3A8FkPo

coopdog 13y ago

Specific desired actions that are realistic within the current legal frameworks. Go pirate party.

skwirl 13y ago

"We are appalled to learn of the unprecedented surveillance of Internet users worldwide through PRISM and similar programmes." There has not been a shred of evidence that PRISM gives the government any capability that it did not already have with FISA. All we learned was the name of the system that some companies use to respond to FISA requests, a name that they weren't even aware of. There is no practical difference between the U.S. companies listed on the PRISM slides and U.S. companies that are not; FISA covers them all. The initial claims by Glenn Greenwald that PRISM gave the NSA direct access to company servers have been refuted a hundred times over and walked back by Greenwald himself. If you were just now appalled to learn about the changes made to FISA with the PATRIOT act, you are 12 years behind the times.

michaelfeathers 13y ago
For me, the big takeaway is that information is being stored in advance of it being 'collected' (as they are [mis-]using the word). I don't think that is an interpretation that the lawmakers anticipated, and it is an incredible end-run with potentially cataclysmic effects for liberty. We all know that information can be leaked or misused. In fact, I think it is a truism: all 'secret' information is eventually leaked or misused. The old process, where the government had to go to court to even start to collect information about a suspect was a completely different thing with less horrific side-effects. And yes, we learned that the government may not have direct access to servers of the social media companies, but dispelling that claim brought the issue of internet backbone access to the fore.
- skwirl 13y ago
  I don't follow. "Information is being stored in advance of it being 'collected'" - what exactly do you mean? Your GMail e-mail is stored with Google. The government can only get it with a FISA request targeted at you or someone yo e-mailed (via a request aimed at their account).
  - michaelfeathers 13y ago
    Fibre optic splitter: https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/presskit/ATT_onepager.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/presskit/ATT_onepager... And there's this story, also on the front page of HN now: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/06/20/the-nsa-can-retain-and-use-data-inadvertently-collected-from-communications-of-us-citizens/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/06/20/the-nsa-can-retain-...

swombat 13y ago

How do I support this? I'm a Swiss citizen living in the UK.

Peroni 13y ago
If you're on the electoral register then this should help: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/ http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/
- swombat 13y ago
  I'm not allowed to vote in the UK unfortunately. :-(
  - Peroni 13y ago
    I keep forgetting that Switzerland isn't part of the EU. Apologies Dan!
    - swombat 13y ago
      I've actually registered with the pirate party in the UK already, but since I can't vote, I can't do all that much for them I think...
  - lake99 13y ago
    Voting with your wallet is an option. http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/donate http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/donate
    - swombat 13y ago
      Good call, I've just set up a £25 monthly donation. This is the first time I've ever set up a regular donation to anything.
    - supersystem 13y ago
      Or with your time and knowledge. http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=5 http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=5

robotic 13y ago

If they want to reach a bigger mainstream audience they'd do well to change their name and logo. The word "Pirate" isn't associated with doing good.

Peroni 13y ago
Pirate Parties throughout Europe have become increasingly more successful. In Iceland recently they gained 3 seats out of 63.
PavlovsCat 13y ago
I think that might be the point: http://uspirates.org/wiki_src/index.php/Pirate_National_Committee_(PNC)/Constitution http://uspirates.org/wiki_src/index.php/Pirate_National_Comm... For our values, we have been derided as “pirates”. For our hope that every person may be free to access all of human knowledge, we have been called “pirates”. For our belief that one need not ask permission to participate in governance, industry, culture, and other aspects of society, we have been called “pirates”. For our insistence that citizens should not be surveilled and distrusted as if they are criminals, we have been called “pirates”. For our rejection of authority and profit-seeking when it does not serve the common good of all people, we have been called “pirates”. We reclaim this label of “pirate” and abjure its derogatory, incendiary implication. We are Pirates. We stand for the liberty, equality, and solidarity of all human beings, and against all threats they may face. I myself am not sure if I would like "Freedom Party" or something like that better. When someone calls themselves "The Good Guys" without irony, I get nervous. So at least given the choice between those extremes (which of course is not the actual choice, the PP could have plenty of names that neither "offensive" nor meaningless), I would prefer irony and alienating those who don't get said irony.
- hellcow 13y ago
  It isn't really the "Freedom Party" when they demand this: "For our rejection of authority and profit-seeking when it does not serve the common good of all people, we have been called 'pirates'." How can I pursue my own interests—how can I have freedom—if I have to serve some nebulous "common good," just as if I lived in a communist state? The philosophy you're looking for is libertarianism.

kintamanimatt 13y ago

How do we know there isn't a European equivalent of PRISM? The American one was kept secret for quite some time and it's not like European countries are any less technically advanced or motivated.

swombat 13y ago
We know that GCHQ in the UK is doing something similar. But unlike the US system, we may have a chance to make a difference here since the EU is already pretty strict on data protection laws.
- kintamanimatt 13y ago
  I was under the impression that the data protection laws don't really say much about what the government can do internally, or even whether they play by the rules.
malandrew 13y ago
A loose federation would make it harder at the Europe-level, I would think. Don't national laws, or at least allegiance to laws at the national level, trump EU laws? Can the EU issue the equivalent of national security letters? In the US, it seems like the exploitation of obedience to authority (1963) and the fear of federal prison helped keep PRISM secret. I can't imagine the same thing happening in the EU. At the state level, I reckon it is possible that things are happening, but even in that case, how hard is it for an EU citizen to move across their nearest border and set up life their in order to whistleblow against their home country? Does the EU have whistle-blower protection laws where I could work in country away, move across the border to country B, blow the whistle on country A, and not fear extradition to country A since I'm protected under whistle blower laws?
- kintamanimatt 13y ago
  > Don't national laws, or at least allegiance to laws at the national level, trump EU laws? No. The EU issues directives which EU countries have to turn into laws. The implementation details vary from country to country, but save a few exceptions, laws the meet the minimum requirements of these directives must be enacted. This doesn't always happen in practice but it's a violation of EU law. Sometimes the laws just aren't enforced, like the UK's implementation of the EU cookie directive. No idea about any of the rest of your comment. Perhaps someone better informed will chime in.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

piqufoh 13y ago

Sounds like a great idea - and sponsored by the pirate party I see. They seem to be the ones trying to plant cookies on my computer, to 'improve' my web browsing experience. http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/ http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/ Thanks guys.

pavanred 13y ago

This article mentions Funding of Privacy-Conscious Software, one thing that concerns me is, I am quoting from Wikipedia here, "..As of 2012, 80% of the Tor Project's $2M annual budget comes from the United States government..". So, the United States government funds programs that help secure the identity of the people and the government also spends money on surveillance programs such as PRISM. Can't the government just stop funding projects such as Tor any time they please? In such scenario, aren't we at the mercy of the very government to protect our identity that runs surveillance programs?

Tangaroa 13y ago

AJAX and REST sure are evil. The fact that 229 people have upvoted this is certainly proof that web-based UIs are something that we as hackers ought to oppose. We are all aware that PRISM has been exposed to be nothing more than a user interface to information provided by companies that receive a search warrant after the request has gone through courts and lawyers, right? Surely 229 users of Hacker News cannot be that uninformed about PRISM, after so many front-page articles on the subject giving so many opportunities to hash out the details of what it is and is not, that they imagine it to be something nefarious?

pedrocr 13y ago
Note the .EU domain name and the non-US/Europe focus of the content. As far as I've seen reported or stated by US representatives there's no going "through courts and lawyers" for non-citizens. PRISM may very well not have changed any of that but it was at least a wake up call outside the US for the fact that using US-based companies puts decisions about your data privacy in the hands of governments that view you, as a foreigner, as having absolutely no rights. This is particularly scary because people have so far been used to considering the Internet as a sort of borderless global place and when it comes to privacy from government snooping it definitely is not.
- embolism 13y ago
  Right since we can be certain that only the US government does anything like this. Put your data anywhere outside the US and it will be safe.
  - pedrocr 13y ago
    Not my point at all. If I put my data in a European datacenter I'm in the same legal jurisdiction as the potential government snoop. If I put it in the US the USG may be more or less prone to snooping than my local government but what I'm sure of is that I will never have any legal standing to challenge it if it does snoop. I knew this before of course. And before I assumed the snooping was low enough that I didn't care that I didn't have any legal standing to challenge it. Now I'm not so sure.

johnvschmitt 13y ago

It's unlikely that the powerful institutions will give up their powerful tools. What I do think might work, though, is a system added to it where every human query is logged & their human peers can ask, "WTF Carl? Why are you looking at data on your ex wife? Or, Why are you looking at your political enemies?" I think the humans inside those institutions would not limit their power, but they would want to keep an eye on their peers to make sure their peers are not abusing their power. Those query & access logs can be periodically reviewed by their peers, and their superiors, and those logs should be kept as long as the data is, & queryable just the same as any other data.

alan_cx 13y ago
Im 99.99% against this sort of thing, but even I have to reluctantly accept that wheels don't get un-invented. So, proper regulation and oversight is the only way to go.

volaski 13y ago

First thing that came to my mind: "Wow some device that gathers different spectrum of light to fuse into a single awesome ray?"

alan_cx 13y ago
Yeah, me too, ish. :(
- mehrzad 13y ago
  Good example of why geometry education is flawed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiprism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiprism

swayvil 13y ago

Digging the graphics

cseelus 13y ago

There are times when it feels good to be european and at least have the realistic choice between more than two equally bad choices.

embolism 13y ago
Sadly, now isn't one of them: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-...

userabc 13y ago

No amount of begging to any government will solve this problem. If you believe that the government can or will help, you are the problem.

gesman 13y ago

buzzword-domain.com

blaeks 13y ago

Political egofagging at its best. Just ignore this.

manveru 13y ago

Looks like the link to the Austrian Pirate Party is going to the UK one.

Vu1c4n0 13y ago

http://antiprism.eu/sl http://antiprism.eu/sl