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Is that really so bad? The worst I've seen is "this is a picture of John" Yes, it is - when there are a bunch of "this is a picture of John" posts mostly by id

Is that really so bad? The worst I've seen is "this is a picture of John" Yes, it is - when there are a bunch of "this is a picture of John" posts mostly by identifiably pro-1st/2nd/4th/10th Amendment[1] types, facilitated by face recognition software confirming it's the same John, whereby data mining can determine that there is an un-tracked person named John who is most likely a pro-1st/2nd/4th/10th Amendment type and, because of his pointed absence from social media, likely rather hardcore about it and worth tracking with particular interest. Tom Brown (famous tracker) tells a story of his tutor telling him "go to the grandfather tree." He scoured the woods for the curious plant, and found nothing. Standing in a clearing wondering what was meant, he realized that the space he was standing in - an unusually empty space in an otherwise dense forest - must have been created by a very large and very old tree that had subsequently fallen and rotted away, leaving a space other trees had been unable to grow in. Moral: an apparent absence can, coupled with identifiable effects, be indicative of something very interesting; to wit if there's a lot of pictures of someone but nothing from that someone he's probably hiding something. [1] - terms for various passionately-defended civil rights here

MisterWebz 13y ago
It's really scary that we're at a point where not using social media can reveal something about you. If they somehow manage to get an IP address associated with the shadow profile, they can use XKeyScore to see which websites you've visited. If they see you've been reading a lot of articles about the NSA ordeal, browsing wikipedia a lot, visiting websites related to cryptography and visiting a website called hacker news, they'll target you as 'politically dangerous' and you'll be put in the 'nihilist, anarchist, hasn't talked to the opposite sex in 5 years'-list.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  It's the ones that, after such activity, post a final "oh shit" message and promptly fall off the 'net that may very well get special attention.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  You really think they have a special state-security list for nerds?
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    Of course they do! We nerds are the smartest people in society and frankly everything would fall apart if it wasn't for our intellectual heroism. Naturally this makes us the #1 threat to the Evil Overlords, with whom we shall soon have a final showdown on the fields of Nerdageddon.
    - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
      Well damn, nothing on my Bitbucket profile can be weaponized!
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    During their four years in power, the Khmer Rouge overworked and starved the population, at the same time executing selected groups who they believed to be enemies of the state or spies or to have the potential to undermine the new state. People who they perceived to be intellectuals or even those that had stereotypical signs of learning, such as glasses, would also be killed. - Wikipedia
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  'and visiting a website called hacker news' Right...because with all their super-surveillance powers, they're going to be blinded by that title and miss the fact that HN is a fairly pedestrian community consisting mostly of entrepreneurs, technologists on the make, and few artists and oddballs. This reading of things requires us to believe that government is both omnipotent and incompetent, neither of which are true to the extent that people like to imagine.
  - MisterWebz 13y ago
    It's a community where people regularly talk about ways to limit the NSA's power and who are actively encouraging people to use encryption to weaken their data mining capabilities. Do you think that doesn't raise any red flags? We already know they're more likely to target encrypted connections, so what does mean for those who enable encrypted communication? You can go ahead and make fun of this like you did a few comments below, but if you believe this couldn't happen then I think you've been living under a rock the past few weeks.
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      It's a community where people regularly talk about ways to limit the NSA's power and who are actively encouraging people to use encryption to weaken their data mining capabilities. Do you think that doesn't raise any red flags? To be frank I don't; Hacker News is a very tame community. There are lots and lots of internet communities ranging from fringe politics to neo-nazi groups that rank way higher in the 'potential domestic threat' category.

MisterWebz 13y ago

It's really scary that we're at a point where not using social media can reveal something about you. If they somehow manage to get an IP address associated with the shadow profile, they can use XKeyScore to see which websites you've visited. If they see you've been reading a lot of articles about the NSA ordeal, browsing wikipedia a lot, visiting websites related to cryptography and visiting a website called hacker news, they'll target you as 'politically dangerous' and you'll be put in the 'nihilist, anarchist, hasn't talked to the opposite sex in 5 years'-list.

ctdonath 13y ago
It's the ones that, after such activity, post a final "oh shit" message and promptly fall off the 'net that may very well get special attention.
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
You really think they have a special state-security list for nerds?
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Of course they do! We nerds are the smartest people in society and frankly everything would fall apart if it wasn't for our intellectual heroism. Naturally this makes us the #1 threat to the Evil Overlords, with whom we shall soon have a final showdown on the fields of Nerdageddon.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    Well damn, nothing on my Bitbucket profile can be weaponized!
- ctdonath 13y ago
  During their four years in power, the Khmer Rouge overworked and starved the population, at the same time executing selected groups who they believed to be enemies of the state or spies or to have the potential to undermine the new state. People who they perceived to be intellectuals or even those that had stereotypical signs of learning, such as glasses, would also be killed. - Wikipedia
anigbrowl 13y ago
'and visiting a website called hacker news' Right...because with all their super-surveillance powers, they're going to be blinded by that title and miss the fact that HN is a fairly pedestrian community consisting mostly of entrepreneurs, technologists on the make, and few artists and oddballs. This reading of things requires us to believe that government is both omnipotent and incompetent, neither of which are true to the extent that people like to imagine.
- MisterWebz 13y ago
  It's a community where people regularly talk about ways to limit the NSA's power and who are actively encouraging people to use encryption to weaken their data mining capabilities. Do you think that doesn't raise any red flags? We already know they're more likely to target encrypted connections, so what does mean for those who enable encrypted communication? You can go ahead and make fun of this like you did a few comments below, but if you believe this couldn't happen then I think you've been living under a rock the past few weeks.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    It's a community where people regularly talk about ways to limit the NSA's power and who are actively encouraging people to use encryption to weaken their data mining capabilities. Do you think that doesn't raise any red flags? To be frank I don't; Hacker News is a very tame community. There are lots and lots of internet communities ranging from fringe politics to neo-nazi groups that rank way higher in the 'potential domestic threat' category.