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Urgh. When do we get to the point where I can read HN without a snarky NSA comment being voted to the top?
by dev_jim 13y ago
Urgh. When do we get to the point where I can read HN without a snarky NSA comment being voted to the top?
- mcphilip 13y agoUrgh. When do we get to the point where I can read HN without comments complaining about very relevant NSA discussions being voted to the top? It's foolish not to speculate on reasons why giving your thumbprint to a vendor may not be in your best interest. I'd much rather see the OP comment on the top of this discussion rather than some inane debate about whether the new phone is an incremental upgrade or an exciting evolution.
- cheald 13y agoProbably when the NSA stops illegally spying on the citizens it is supposed to serve.
- luscious 13y agoFwd frev ip scan circdb.
- res0nat0r 13y agoWe take for gospel that the NSA is spying on everyone in the world via every hardware device that has been created in the USA because of a few powerpoint slides. Interesting.
- drcode 13y agoWhat should we be using for our information, instead? Clapper's testimony to congress?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- TrevorJ 13y agoThis is a vast oversimplification of the facts.
- res0nat0r 13y agoSo is the parent comment. A few PowerPoint slides doesn't warrant any ridiculous comments about the NSA backdooring your phone. It would be great if HN could stop with the NSA is everywhere-all-the-time-in-everything meme for a while, it would make reading the comments here much more relevant.
- brymaster 13y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6364315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6364315
- baddox 13y agoIt might be slightly more comforting if anyone, including the NSA, was denying it.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jlgreco 13y agoYou are still going with that "it's just a powerpoint, it means nothing" line? I thought we dispensed with that notion months ago.
- res0nat0r 13y agoYes. There is zero evidence of any type of NSA backdooring your iPhone nonsense. It would be great to read HN (where I thought we were more technically inclined than the rest of the net) for a day without unfounded nonsensical claims.
- jlgreco 13y agoYes, it is simply inconceivable that hard evidence of the activities of a spy agency might not be forthcoming... We are dealing with the realm of speculation, but it is not speculation fueled by some sort of tinfoil hatted lunacy. With the role that smartphones fill in peoples' lives today, you are just going to have to come to grips with the fact that, going forward, some people are going to consider the privacy of new devices to be very relevant, and well worth discussing. Don't be surprised when people error on the side of caution. You want to talk about battery life and color? Well I want to talk about display DPI and privacy. Learn to cope.
- smtddr 13y agoThis isn't just some random tinfoilhat idea that came out of nowhere. Remember CarrierIQ on Android? The NSA is real, the tinfoil-hats have been validated whether you believe it or not. From the NSA's point of view, having everyone's fingerprint on file would be fantastic and we know they have the power to force Apple to cooperate. In fact, I'm just assuming that's what will happen so now I'll be careful about borrowing anyone's iPhone. Everything about tech is going to be cross-examined with potential(read: definite future) data gathering usage by the NSA.
- nilliams 13y agoBackdooring iPhones does sound fantasical but that is not the only means your fingerprint data could conceivably make its way beyond your iPhone. I like that my fingerprint data is on precisely no computer anywhere. You don't have to be a massive conspiracy theory nut to feel slightly uneasy recording your fingerprint on anything.
- wintersFright 13y agoDid you see this recent news? http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/privacy-scandal-nsa-can-spy-on-smart-phone-data-a-920971.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/privacy-scandal-ns... It isn't just one slide pack. Glen greenwald et all were given 50000 documents
- samstave 13y agoWhen the NSA themselves is calling Apple "Big Brother" and the consumers "Zombies" -- then its damn hard to not be pretty worried about their capabilities. http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-iphone-slides-in-der-spiegel-2013-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-iphone-slides-in-der-spie... (Sorry for the BI link, but the relevant slides are shown immediately)
- brymaster 13y agoWow. Sounds like somebody isn't paying enough attention. > In one case, after the government learned that a foreign intelligence target had ordered new computer hardware, the American manufacturer agreed to insert a back door into the product before it was shipped, someone familiar with the request told The Times. > At Microsoft, as The Guardian has reported, the N.S.A. worked with company officials to get pre-encryption access to Microsoft’s most popular services, including Outlook e-mail, Skype Internet phone calls and chats, and SkyDrive, the company’s cloud storage service. Please do your duty as a human being and read more. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet...
- twoodfin 13y agoNote that neither of your quotes even begin to imply that the NSA is spying on "everyone". They obviously have broad powers to spy on individuals through a variety of channels, which isn't, or shouldn't be, news.
- stanleydrew 13y agoMore snark. This isn't helpful. For those who want to believe it, I doubt there is any amount of information that could ever be released to convince them that the NSA isn't spying on people anymore.
- jonknee 13y ago> For those who want to believe it, I doubt there is any amount of information that could ever be released to convince them that the NSA isn't spying on people anymore. The NSA is a spy agency, of course they are spying on people. Unless the NSA ceases to exist it will spy on people. They are not actively trying to claim otherwise (only that they try really hard to only spy on people who are in someway connected to someone who is not an American or has been designated dangerous).
- hhandoko 13y agoThe difference is, they're now spying on everyone. I struggle to find a credible justification for that.
- abecedarius 13y agoWell, whose fault is that? Scheier's special prosecutor plus truth and reconciliation commission seems reasonable. But we're getting way off topic.
- cheald 13y agoI'm not snarking at all. I'm observing that comments about the NSA are entirely apropos given the current climate we live in. Yes, you're right, at this point, it would take something extremely radical to convince us that the NSA isn't spying on us anymore. Therefore, we should expect comments about the NSA and spying to become a part of the common dialog regarding technology and personal information. Asking them to go away is just asking people to stick their head in the sand and ignore it. The comments will go away when the issue goes away. The issue isn't going to go away. Therefore, don't expect the comments to, either. Welcome to the world we now live in.
- jad 13y ago> Probably when the NSA stops illegally spying... Who said what they're doing is illegal? The whole problem is that the entire surveillance regime is completely secret and completely legal.
- guelo 13y agoSince Bush and Obama have gone to extraordinary to block all lawsuits we do not know if the courts would determine that the programs are illegal.
- melling 13y agoI guess if you want to constantly complain about the NSA spying on you, you are entitled. However, some of us have had enough of the complaining. After all, you're probably going to be doing it for the rest of your life. I'd rather not spend mine listening to it. So, can we clearly tag a thread as NSA rant, so those of us who don't want to hear it ad nauseam, we can skip the rehash.
- cheald 13y agoThis is the exact sort of attitude that has permitted us to get to the point where we even have to have a conversation about the government being engaged in massively intrusive spying programs. "I don't want to hear your whining about it" is a means of condoning these actions through silence. You are a part of the problem. If you can comprehend what is going on here, you should be loud and obnoxious about it. Get people talking. Make it the focus and refuse to give up that focus. The only way this is going to change is to get so many people angry about it that it becomes more politically advantageous to oppose than support it. If you get angry about hearing about it, then I'll take that - you now have an incentive to help get it changed so people will shut up about it.
- melling 13y agoEssentially, you are asking me to discuss my politics here, where I draw the line, etc in a thread about the iPhone 5s. I know where you stand. I heard you the first ten times. I'm not trying to stop you from having the discussion. Can you just label the thread "NSA can get your fingerprints off that iPhone 5S" and have at it. There is a time and a place for everything. Everyone here has heard about the NSA situation by now. The word is out.
- cheald 13y ago> Essentially, you are asking me to discuss my politics here, where I draw the line, etc in a thread about the iPhone 5s. Nope. I'm just asking you to not ask others to not discuss their politics. You're more than welcome to not participate in the conversation if it's not useful to you.
- bradgessler 13y agoWhen we have more transparency around the NSA's operations.
- typon 13y ago"Everyone let's ignore current events and treat this announcement in a bubble"
- EdwardCoffin 13y agoWhere is the snark? This seems like a perfectly legitimate concern.
- graeme 13y agoWhat was snarky about it? I hadn't properly considered that my fingerprint would likely end up with spy agencies if I used the new fingerprint service.
- TrevorJ 13y agoI don't see how this is snarky. We know that data is being scooped up in an opportunistic manner. It would be foolish to not consider the security implications when deciding which devices/technology to adopt.
- pavel_lishin 13y agoTo quote yet another snarky saying, "It's only paranoia if they're not out to get you."
- electic 13y agoIt is more than the NSA. Now I have to worry that other apps, services, and overall weak security on the iPhone will have my fingertips all over the place. If my phone is stolen, fingerprints gone. No thanks.
- rozap 13y agoi'm so sry bb, nobody meant to hurt you
- slipperyp 13y agoHunch: it's got to do with the fact that anyone can upvote, not anyone can downvote, and there's a large enough audience that thinks every topic posted is fodder for the surveillance discussion (which isn't a stretch) and thinks that's the most important thing to upvote (IMO it's probably not, but welcome to democracy).
- jessedhillon 13y agoNever. The claim that the NSA has infiltrated everything has the right amount of truthiness, and pushes all the right buttons, to give the HN/nerd crowd such a sense of unified culture, justness of cause, and "us v. them"-ness that it literally can never be replaced now. It's like asking when Christianity will finally get over this Jesus fellow and his crucifixion. That is the cause that transformed a bunch of heretical Jews into Christians. HN, similarly, is just going to be the place where a bunch of libertarian-leaning programmers became, from my perspective, conspiracy theorists. But more charitably, maybe, we can say they are now radically opposed to government invasion of privacy. The Snowden revelation, whatever you think of it, has been one of those events which divides time into before and after for this crowd.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- brymaster 13y ago> snarky NSA comment Nope. This is called critical thinking especially given our current global surveillance state.
- mattermill 13y agoI detect 0 snark.
- rschmitty 13y agoI agree with you. I came here for some insight on the new tech/software, got a mega long NSA rant thread instead. It's like any new product/app created will now get some NSA snark unless its a link to a github repo. And even then I'm sure there are ways...
- InclinedPlane 13y agoProbably a little while after the "Days since the last major NSA revelation about how deeply they are tracking everything we do and say even in 'private': __" sign has had a chance to increment to a significant time period. Right now it's more than a little distressing to have not seen the sign above single digits for what seems like a very long time.
- jhoffner 13y agoI love how your comment about how noisey and pointless it is to mention the NSA on this post caused the entire comments section to become noise. I can't even find a non-NSA relevant post in this list.