Parler is back online now by routing 100% traffic through servers in Russia | Hacker News Reader

Parler is back online now by routing 100% traffic through servers in Russia

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16 pointsSubiculumCode10 comments

As I understand it, servers in the US are protected by American law. American security services are not allowed to aggressively surveil or break in to them, without a FISA or other warrant. IANAL.

But, foreign servers are wide open to anything our security services are capable of. No warrants or other disclosure required.

As these servers are in Russia, it will be Americans spying on Russians spying on Americans. Two for one!

Is America obsessed with Russia? I hear them brought up a lot, but I imagine the flip-side isn’t true in Russian households.

e.g. it reminds of me of what I have heard from Indians: Indian households obsessed with China and their relationship/relative importance, but almost no discussion of India in China (who is more obsessed with America and how they stack up).

From the end of the cold war until 2014, I don't think Americans thought much about Russia.

Then when Putin invaded Ukraine and then hacked the 2016 US election, his interference in the West and specifically our democratic institutions (which were considered somewhat sacred to many Americans), the threat of a Russia became much more present in Americans' consciousness.

Thus, I don't think it is without cause. Also, the Mueller investigation and then Ukraine extortion impeachment trial both brought Russia into our daily thoughts.

That being said, this news isn't anything specific to being Russophobic. Instead, it is more about how it would be naive to think that the website being hosted outside America makes it inherent that the NSA will hack it. Parler being hosted in Russia means Russian intelligence will certainly have an easier time surveiling a site that was certainly already a target. Both of these intelligence agencies hacking and surveiling Americans without any due process is concerning regardless of which political party you belong to. Russia will certainly use any information it learns to aid its agents in the US in further manipulating the Republican party. And the NSA, even if it has less nefarious motives, still will be conducting such surveillance without any judicial oversight. Thus, I don't think this amounts to an obsession with Russia as much as a valid concern and topic of discussion.

Ideas have consequences. Who could have foreseen.

The same people demanding a Patriot Act 2.0 are now apparently chastising Parler for treating US IT as a potential point-of-failure? Maybe this is the market reaction to deplatformning? Russia-as-a-data-haven. Tell me how thats worse than US-based infra, where your business can be turned off on the whims of new grads on a company internal mailing list.

You're being downvoted but it's worth considering the advantage of using services/hosts that are 'immune' from Bay Area progressive pressure.

perhaps, but there are also odd circumstances surrounding the rise of Parler and Russia influence. Now these are twitter posts, but from fairly serious individuals.

https://mobile.twitter.com/davetroy/status/13272539919364546... https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1327271037847867395?s=20

Not that odd.

It’s disappointing to see a similar style of vague/hand-wavy conspiracy theories from both ends of the political spectrum.

Well to be clear, I think a certain pattern of circumstances, while not particularly suspect on their own, may warrant followup investigation. Or put it another way, given the kind of place Parler is, the various already established links between factions of the American right wing extremes and Russia, it would not surprise me if the FBI were to open a counter-intelligence investigation into Parler. The difference here is that its not being put out on twitter for consumption, to metastasize in the wilds of our communal membranes. Sometimes twitter-ers need a good edtior that would say: "I need more before I publish this thing."

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