john_b

43 ms·

331.
by john_b 13y ago
> "Don't want ads? Don't use the service. Go pay for a service that will use your money to build a site without the ads that bug you so much." Where possible, I do exactly that. For example, I have a Netflix subscri
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by john_b 13y ago
If you want to make the case that using ad blockers is akin to theft, you have to explain what the advertiser is deprived of when a person chooses not to view their ad. Sure, the advertiser is paying a website to put an ad on their page, bu
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by john_b 13y ago
I agree it's ridiculous. However, given what happened to Chelsea Manning, and given that the Guardian, NYT, etc can't always know in advance what could be construed as "aiding the enemy" it's sensible (in a self-pre
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by john_b 13y ago
The catch-22 here is that revealing specific details might both "aid the enemy" and aid ordinary people to protect their privacy. Because the government only cares about the former, any appeal to the merits of the latter will fall
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by john_b 13y ago
> "We cannot and should not be living in digital fortresses any more than we are living in physical fortresses at home. Our homes are safe from thieves and from government not because they couldn’t get in if they wanted to but beca
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by john_b 13y ago
From the article: > "Intelligence officials asked The Times and ProPublica not to publish this article, saying that it might prompt foreign targets to switch to new forms of encryption or communications that would be harder to coll
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by john_b 13y ago
"Cheating" only exists in a system where tests are treated as sacred. An educational system that minimizes or eliminates tests doesn't need to punish cheating or collaboration at all.
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by john_b 13y ago
> "You should expect that everything you put anywhere is going to be read by spies." I assume this is hyperbole, but even if it is, the whole point is that we shouldn't have to live in a world where this assumption is
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by john_b 13y ago
No, we've always been at war with Eastasia.
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by john_b 13y ago
That may work in theory, but it's not always possible to know who's on your side. For an especially control-obsessed agency like the NSA that wants to know everything, this approach is completely unpalatable. Large institutions wi
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by john_b 13y ago
> "You can argue about the techniques; religious questions, not giving him water, but it's all a well-documented psychological game that they're trying to play. If they make the suspect mad, the suspect is more likely to
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by john_b 13y ago
Even if you ignore the fact that the US government considers airports and a 100 mile border zone around the US to be a "constitution-free zone" [1] and assume that the TSA, FBI, NYPD, and Homeland Security officers would have resp
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by john_b 13y ago
Reading between the lines of various NSA statements, it seems like they interpret the relevant sections of the Patriot Act and FISA Amendments Act to only apply to "collected" data, and "collected" data they consider onl
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by john_b 13y ago
Interesting, thanks for the link. There are very likely some hometown bias effects as well, but my speculation is that Congress as a whole is judged by different standards than a person's congressional representative. The former, I wou
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by john_b 13y ago
I think that language (at least English) fails us here. The word "creative" can be used to mean both "relating to or involving the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work" [1] or &
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by john_b 13y ago
The problem is that "(officer) safety first" is fundamentally in conflict with the "serve and protect" mantra that gets peddled by every PD in the country. Sometimes the police can have both, but when they can't and
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by john_b 13y ago
The difference here is that they aren't perceived to be wealthy now, but perceived to have the means to generate significant wealth quickly in the future.
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by john_b 13y ago
> "702 is focused outside the United States at non-citizens," said Adam Schiff, a member of the House intelligence committee. "The evidence of the effectiveness of 702 is much more substantial than 215 [the bulk phone rec
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by john_b 13y ago
Regarding #1, if you've looked at Americans' confidence in Congress lately [1] it seems exceedingly unlikely that Americans perceive their elected officials as incorruptible. In fact, that has mostly been the case post-Watergate.
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by john_b 13y ago
In the short term, they'll probably be replaced by a legion of contractors who will be tasked with automating the work formerly performed by the sysadmins. It's not like a NSA contractor has ever leaked sensitive material before t
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by john_b 13y ago
If you are inspired by him, you should realize that he would want you to focus on the message, not the man himself. He's done a lot to initiate change, but others have in the past too. If we don't follow it up with appropriate pol
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by john_b 13y ago
I have been wondering the same thing. They very clearly abridge on one's freedom of speech, so if they have been tested in the courts at all (?) then some mental & legal gymnastics were no doubt required to justify them, probably i
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by john_b 13y ago
There was a HN discussion about this two months ago [1]. The general consensus seemed to be that a court would not take the same kind of philosophical and logical approach that most HN types use, and would classify a failure to update the c
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by john_b 13y ago
No, this is the difference between being employed by a company that values bottom-up input and being a corporate drone. If you're going to be treated like a drone you might as well get the stability and steady (as well as possibly bigg
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by john_b 13y ago
It is curious that Bezos didn't also acquire WaPo labs when he released this statement right after the purchase was announced: > "There will, of course, be change at The Post over the coming years. That’s essential and would h
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by john_b 13y ago
Unfortunately, that is still an apt observation, and I imagine that most government agencies are well aware of this. People in general just don't protest when intangible, abstract things are stolen from them. Most people who are up in
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by john_b 13y ago
> "Were there any drugs in the car? When Henderson and Boatright said no, the officer asked if he and his partner could search the car. The officers found the couple’s cash and a marbled-glass pipe that Boatright said was a gift fo
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by john_b 13y ago
> "As a practical matter, law enforcement agents said they usually don't worry that SOD's involvement will be exposed in court. That's because most drug-trafficking defendants plead guilty before trial and therefore
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by john_b 13y ago
If your point is that the nature of the state as an institution with a monopoly on violence is the core issue here, then you've overgeneralized the problem. That is the source of many ills in the world. This situation is unique because
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by john_b 13y ago
> "it explains why I haven't "lost faith in the system" when it comes to the U.S. government. As bad as these programs might be, I think it is important to recognize that there is a lack of tangibly bad consequences

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