Comment by VonLipwig | Hacker News Reader

Comment by VonLipwig | Hacker News Reader

This is golden. I think I might be a terrorist.

I...

1) Shield my screen in public places ( I don't want snoopers reading my emails....) 2) I pay cash most of the time (Helps me save money as the change goes into a change jar never to be spent again) 3) I have multiple cell phones. (One for business, one for personal)

4) I use a proxy to shield my IP address 5) I encrypt my computer and files, I send password protected compressed files. 6) I communicate with people I have never met in video games

7) I sometimes keep track of hackers and learn of vulnerable websites and infrastructures

Seriously though I am not keen on the flier. I think terrorism and extremists work best in fragmented societies. If you live in a small village where everyone knows everyone then the oddball or outcast will naturally be viewed with curiosity and suspicion. However, in towns and cities where you sometimes don't know your neighbor.. this is where a suspicious person can thrive.

Fliers like this encourage you not to trust to your neighbor. It screams. "The guy next to you might be a terrorist!" and encourages you to be distrustful. Its not healthy. It helps propagate the climate of fear. You expect messages like this in a police state not in a supposedly free country.

> I sometimes keep track of hackers and learn of vulnerable websites and infrastructures

You're on a website called "Hacker News", for starters. Am I the only one who's had to deal with related idiocy when on a public computer? (Also, using PuTTY with the default black screen can get you kicked out of places for "hacking".)

>(Also, using PuTTY with the default black screen can get you kicked out of places for "hacking".)

Has this happened to you or anyone you know?

A long time ago, in a public school, the librarian reported me for using a "hacking program" called "FTP".

It's happened to me as stated.

Back in public school, I had a friend who got banned from using the computers for several months for VNC'ing into his home computer. Because it was "hacking" - no other rationale, no complicating factors.

To use the car analogy: it's like getting arrested for using a remote to unlock your car instead of a physical key. (Or, more accurately, like getting your license taken away for several months. Which may make even less sense.)

Me. I actually have an apple script to turn all of my terminal sessions black on white for public spaces because it looks more "friendly(1)" that way.

A bunch of terminals tailing logs in color looks like hacker scenes in movies to the uninitiated. People have asked me, most impolitely, what the hell I was doing.

1) Like Microsoft Word.

I'm going to put together a brochure, its called "You might be a fucking idiot if don't do these things when accessing the internet from a public terminal."

I do easily 80% of that list on a regular basis.

Feeling terroristy this morning.

To that point, I'd venture so far to say that 80% of the points on this list are sound security practices that good businesses and freelancers should be doing.

I carry a bulletproof pendrive with Tails (0.10.1 is out BTW https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html) on it. I guess I should at least stop bragging. Never had a problem though, same with a screen full of terminals -- it's usually met with curious interest rather than suspicion or hostility, if noticed at all.

> If you live in a small village where everyone knows everyone then the oddball or outcast will naturally be viewed with curiosity and suspicion.

On the other hand, they're a known oddball which seems to put people at ease most of the time.

Anonymous cities are also wellsprings of progress because of their tolerance of eccentrics who were stifled by the judgmental conformity of villages and tribes.

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