6 ms·
"punishing a mere guy who turned idea into reality, but who doesn't run the operations himself, won't be a feasible option" This is dangerously naive. This is
by Jgrubb 13y ago
"punishing a mere guy who turned idea into reality, but who doesn't run the operations himself, won't be a feasible option"
This is dangerously naive. This is exactly what "they" do, if only to brutally discourage anyone else from trying it.
- doorty 13y agoLive free. Don't let "them" scare you into acting out of fear.
- Jgrubb 13y agoI agree with you 100%. I just also think that to claim "oh, I just wrote this software, I can't get in trouble for anything" doesn't take into account either the technological illiteracy of most of the justice system, nor the current environment of what can qualify on the evening news as being a win for the War on Terror.
- JulianMorrison 13y agoName one example, please. Said example must include: * open source implementation released to the public * author did not directly do anything obviously illegal, or profit by anyone else doing it * overwhelming force under colour of law
- ephemeralgomi 13y agoYou weren't around for DeCSS, I guess?
- ChrisClark 13y agoThere was this guy: http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/programmer-sentenced-to-death-in-iran-for-upload-software-55430 http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/programmer-sentenced-to... * He built some software to upload images to a web site. * A porn site then used it without his knowledge. * He was sentenced to death.
- JulianMorrison 13y ago* in Iran. Miss a detail, change the story.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoProtip: Don't live in Iran. /s
- pavel_lishin 13y agoIs your point that all of us live in the United States?
- xnxn 13y agoMore like change the goalposts. The example meets your criteria.
- andrewflnr 13y agoGP is trying to make decisions, or help others make them. Granted, they should have specified the US or something, but don't act like an incident in Iran should be relevant to their own risk assessment, or to anyone else not living in Iran.
- forgingahead 13y agoAbsence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And in these cases, when risk is unbounded, it is better to be cautious. Simple antifragility heuristic. [1] [1] http://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Gain-Disorder/dp/1400067820/ http://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Gain-Disorder/...
- JulianMorrison 13y agoNear-complete absence is strong Bayesian evidence against an assertion whose grammar implies universality: «This is exactly what "they" do». You would expect it to be common if the assertion were true.
- VMG 13y agoPlease don't drag Taleb into this. His philosophy clearly does not encourage paranoia like this. Otherwise all crypto projects are off limits, including Tor and Bitcoin
- kybernetikos 13y agoI've heard that there are magic pan-dimensional pixies that will destroy the universe and potentially other universes if you post another link to a book on amazon today. It might not be true, but remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and this is a case where risk really is unbounded, so you better be cautious.
- smoyer 13y agoHe didn't even include an affiliate link ... what is this world coming to?
- mistercow 13y ago>Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Man, I really wish people would stop saying this. It's just completely false. It's a basic result of probability theory that if A is evidence of B, ¬A is evidence of ¬B.
- 13y ago
- alexkus 13y agoCryptocat?
- donpark 13y agoIsamu Kaneko who wrote Winny [1], a popular Japanese P2P program, while working as a research assistant at University of Tokyo was persecuted and harassed until he died of heart attack this year. He did not profit at all from Winny. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winny http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winny
- stef25 13y agoThe rules that tomorrow's government abides by will surely be much worse (for "us") than those of today. Imagine the future being much, much shittier than it is today.
- ballard 13y agoI think you're on the right track: there's a large gap between releasing a tool and running a service. The difference between offering BackTrack isos for download and running live, free Backtrack VMs. A traditional, non-distributed service is often backed by centralized entity (corporation, nonprofit or private person), so many of the consequences are directed at them. Whereas with a diffused individuals running their own, it would be harder to as easily control.
- dublinben 13y agoPutting your ridiculous stipulations aside, writing legal software can get you in trouble. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/coder-charged-for-gambling-software/all/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/coder-charged-for-g...
- ehsanu1 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum
- trevelyan 13y agoJacob Appelbaum works on TOR and is routinely harrassed.
- dobbsbob 13y agoSatoshi - creator of bitcoin Purposely remained anonymous because he knew they would target him. Bitcoin foundation claims that as creator of Bitcoin, he is liable for every transaction under new FinCen laws being considered. https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=163 https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=163 It would help if the author of this software doesn't call it 'Silk Rd 2.0' or reference online narcotics trade in any way. It should be called 'P2P open marketplace' which makes a huge difference during your trial when they claim you purposely set it up to violate US law instead of being able to argue you are an innocent software developer. Just look at weev's trial how they manipulated everything he said on IRC to make him look as criminal as possible. Stephen Watt (the_uT) also merely wrote a piece of software he didn't use himself, nor did he profit from and he went to prison after Albert Gonzales used it to steal a ton of money with. It was sort of released to the public, dumped in an IRC room
- VMG 13y agoForce them to declare war against crypto then.
- mahyarm 13y agoSo the Tor, Bitcoin, libOTR, pidgin/adium, encfs, luks, openssl, openssh, openvpn, truecrypt & recent PGP devs (not counting the crypto-as-muntions early days) fear this too? The ones that have been harassed in my memory is the Cryptocat dev and Winny. Don't mark your software as having a political purpose and more of a general tool and I think you'll have less harassment in your future.
- boi_v2 13y agoThere is nothing wrong with this, I guess government propaganda is really scaring some people. If it were like this arms manufacturing should be a crime and the billionaires behind those factories should be in jail, you still live under democracy so government should fear you and not the other way round.
- saraid216 13y ago> you still live under democracy so government should fear you and not the other way round. Believe it or not, V for Vendetta is not actually a handbook on how to run a democracy.
- thenomad 13y agoOne could, however, argue that Thomas Jefferson had some valid points on democracies and the running therof. And it's him that V for Vendetta was riffing off: “A government afraid of its citizens is a Democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny!”
- goblin89 13y agoOn the other hand, a point could be made that it's totalitarian regimes where governments are afraid of their citizens (those in fear of losing their powers, especially illegitimately obtained, start suppressing freedoms and surveilling everyone).
- baddox 13y agoDemocracy is "rule by the people." You are not "the people," so you should fear democracy.
- saraid216 13y agoWhy is it that most HN politicos have nothing useful to say besides, "Be afraid"?
- 13y ago