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Comment by mytailorisrich | Hacker News Reader

I got onto the internet in the second half of the 90s and as a rebellious teenager I, of course, started by downloading the various 'cookbooks' (anarchist, phreaking, etc) that were very easy to find through Alta Vista just to play cool and boast to my friends.

I would not ask Google about those stuff today and I would certainly not dare downloading them for fear of triggering so many alerts and red flags. Today it would probably be possible to be jailed (in the UK) just for having this material on your computer.

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Why is the UK full of so many weak nannies and wannabe tyrants that your state can tell you what you can and cannot read over there?

The baffling thing is how it’s defended.

The ones who defend it are the ones who believe they would benefit from remaining in control once systems of enslavement and thought control are built and deployed.

The US response to terrorism was directed overseas, while the UK one has for a longer time been directed at "enemies within". The UK press is entirely behind all these restrictions, sadly.

Pretty sure if you download the anarchists cookbook i the usa, it'll probably get flagged.

why would anybody do that? To flag every nerdy 15 year old? What would you possible achieve?

Intelligence.

It puts them on your radar, so when you're later investigating a pipe-bomb mailing spree and come across them again, you know better than to believe the "he would never / but he's such a good boy" you always hear from the parents.

Really? Is it that bad? You cannot google what you like. I ask obscene questions all time. Just out of interest. Whats wrong with that?

At least in the UK I believe that your search history over the last 12 months is accessible by the police. So if for whatever reason you become under investigation it is sensible to ask yourself what the police would think about what you searched...

That’s sad

They are subjects, not citizens

Not sure what you're aiming to imply without saying there.

But you're mostly wrong. The majority of people you would call British are classed as citizens, not subjects:

https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality

Subjects not as in the formal status, just as in "subjects of the crown", as a ruled class.

No, it isn't. You can ask google whatever you want, and no "red flags" are being raised, this isn't the Bourne Identity. Police barely have capacity to arrest criminals these days, nobody is checking if you download the anarchist cookook ffs.

If you get arrested for child porn, will police get your google search history and check you haven't googled bad things? Sure.

> Police barely have capacity to arrest criminals these days,

Unless you piss off the wrong people that is. Selective enforcement is very much a thing.

One Rumour I heard is that the ones about making bombs was actually written and published by the CIA and intentionally wrong.

Well, I was sensible enough not to try so I cannot say!

Given they did this with terrorist literature, it wouldn't be surprising.

I always assumed it wasn’t that hard to figure out how to make a bomb. That’s not to say it would necessarily be efficient or easy.

As I recall the anarchist cookbooks aren’t that bad. Stuff like how to make napalm (gasoline and styrofoam as I recall).

As I recall, there were quite a few about how to mix poisons and improvise explosives.

Arguably "tame" but not something you want to be associated with today.

Also that recipe for napalm didn’t actually work.

Or so I’ve heard from, ahem, some people during the early 00s.

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