Hacker News Reader

Comment by dev_jim | Hacker News Reader

Urgh. When do we get to the point where I can read HN without a snarky NSA comment being voted to the top?

Probably when the NSA stops illegally spying on the citizens it is supposed to serve.

More snark. This isn't helpful.

For those who want to believe it, I doubt there is any amount of information that could ever be released to convince them that the NSA isn't spying on people anymore.

I'm not snarking at all. I'm observing that comments about the NSA are entirely apropos given the current climate we live in. Yes, you're right, at this point, it would take something extremely radical to convince us that the NSA isn't spying on us anymore. Therefore, we should expect comments about the NSA and spying to become a part of the common dialog regarding technology and personal information. Asking them to go away is just asking people to stick their head in the sand and ignore it.

The comments will go away when the issue goes away. The issue isn't going to go away. Therefore, don't expect the comments to, either. Welcome to the world we now live in.

But you are accomplishing absolutely nothing here. Being annoying and ineffective doesn't help your cause. Do you know that Jesus loves you and he wants to save your soul?

You might as we'll be discussing religion or politics here. This is not the place. I heard your warning the first ten times.

We're talking about it, aren't we? We haven't forgotten this issue, distracted like children by the latest shiny toy. Even in the face of the things that traditionally kill news stories, we're talking about it.

Change starts by making enough people aware of and angry about the issue that the politicians can't afford to support these programs any more. If we're just distracted the next time $TECH_TOY or $NATURAL_DISASTER comes along, then nothing at all will change.

I don't particularly care if people find my anger at the NSA's systemic intrusion of our privacy annoying. I care more about that particular issue than I do what a random person on the internet whom I've never met might think of me. I care more about keeping you talking about the issue than I do about you liking me.

No, we aren't talking about anything. The original comment speculates that the NSA has a backdoor into every iPhone, and uses that as the foundation for a comment about whether it's a good idea to store a copy of your fingerprint locally on the device.

There is no new information about the NSA there. Just more speculation.

Look HN is not a US-only site.

For those of us in the other 200 odd countries it really is boring as hell to have to wade through your pointless, unsubstantiated paranoia.

We non-US citizens have even MORE to worry about, because there are no laws to protect us and our privacy. We are open season.

If you are in Europe then you may have better enforced laws protecting you. If you are in Africa your government might not have the expertise and resources to spy on you. If you are in China, well...

I think he means that it is even easier for the US government to spy on you if you're outside of America, not that your domestic government might.

Yes, that is indeed what I meant.

You have absolutely no protection from the U.S. government. Your European rights and protections meaning nothing in an American court.

Ok, I kinda misunderstood the GP's point, but even then, as Europeans our governments still have gone some lengths in protecting Europeans' privacy.

For instance, something in the safe-harbor blabla says citizen data handled by public angencies in Europe is not allowed to go through US nor, obviously, to be stored in the US. This rule is not new: in my previous job we had to ditch gmail and gapps in order to comply, and it was f*ing painful.

South African here - we have a lovely little bit of legislation known as RICA. Don't assume that African govts are backward in terms of technology.

You guys are outliers and you know it (some of you are even proud of it).

So the GP is right. African governements in general do not have the means to spy on your electronic life.

> For those of us in the other 200 odd countries it really is boring as hell to have to wade through your pointless, unsubstantiated paranoia.

Speak for yourself, not for the rest of us, please.

Oh brother. We care about legitimate privacy issues but now you are suggesting that becoming the equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church on these matters will somehow be effective.

It won't.

The adolescent libertarian smell combined with semi-hysterical, semi-supported outrage on this issue is rapidly beginning to stink.

Sigh. I'm not advocating in any way for being obnoxious douchecanoes for the sake of desperately screaming for airtime. I'm saying that this is an important issue related to the topic of discussion, and that I'm not going to let the fact that talking about it annoys some people dissuade me from talking about it.

We know that the NSA has their hooks into US hardware and software vendors. At this point, it's difficult to trust the promises that US-based companies make about security and privacy because we know that they're being compelled to lie. That's an extremely important variable in the discussion of a new piece of internet-connected hardware that collects biometrics. Dismissing discussion of it as "annoying" is juvenile and myopic.

Talking about privacy implications of a new device in a discussion about said new device is now the equivalent of picketing the funerals of soldiers because you don't like gay people?

I am a fan of hyperbole, but at least keep it coherent... At the very least, cheald is on topic while they are notoriously not.

You called discussing the NSA spying on everyone, subverting the American system as well as the faith in the constitution similar to evangelising that Jesus loves you?

Wow - that has to be hands down the absolute most ignorant, ridiculous and bullshit comment I have ever read on HN.

This is The Best place to be talking about the National Security Agency Technologically spying on everyone, building in parallel infra and forcing the biggest tech companies in the world via court gags and threats to providing them with access to encrypted user data.

Your comment is mind-boggling, to me, how you could even think this is not the place!

Edit: Toned it down a notch.

He did no such thing. Making a passing reference to the NSA whenever remotely possible is not discussion, let alone action. Perhaps we could leave such talk to the submissions that are actually about the NSA? Believe it or not, many of us are already familliar with the topic; as we are of Jesus.

I don't think that this was a passing reference - a passing reference would have been him saying "I wonder if the NSA can read my text messages on this phone" when texting is an expected feature on any modern phone.

Fingerprint scanners are not yet prevalent in modern smartphones, and fingerprints are one of the primary ways that law enforcement can trace / track individuals. If the NSA, which has already been shown to have backdoors into Apple's systems, was able to access fingerprint data on a massive scale, this would be a massive affront to privacy for millions of users around the world.

pilif's comment was absolutely relevant to discussion of the iPhone 5S launch, as one of the phone's primary new features has the potential to be a massive security and privacy breach given information we've recently learned regarding Apple's close relationship with the NSA.

>But you are accomplishing absolutely nothing here. Being annoying and ineffective doesn't help your cause. Do you know that Jesus loves you and he wants to save your soul?

To quote him. Please explain how he "did no such thing"

He's talking about this submission, not this site. There are dozens and dozens of other submissions where NSA discussion is more on-topic, and anybody here is free to submit their own article on the topic for discussion. That way, people that want to discuss the NSA at that moment can do so, and people that want to talk about something else can do so, too.

To put it another way: the problem is not the topic. It's the tactic of derailing every other topic that people want to talk about just because you think something else is too important to be ignored. That tactic, as well-intended as it might be, has a history of driving good users away from once-good fora precisely because it's so annoying to not be able to talk about anything else.

How is it not on-topic to discuss NSA surveillance in a discussion about one of the world's most popular internet-connected devices collecting biometric data under the control of a large American corporation?

It is becoming crystal clear that people really do not understand how important this issue is, the degree to which it permeates this industry and how farked we are if we cannot begin to understand the foundational position we require in order to change it.

Thank you for your succinct statement, I have very little faith we will get through this any time soon given the reaction I see on HN, Reddit and other sites where the most seemingly qualified among us to do anything cannot even comprehend how pernicious this problem is.

You should edit your comment to remove the capital letters. It's against the rules.

Your comment makes a good point, but it's too hysterical.

With all due respect, howling "snark" is at least as annoying and creating at least as much noise. Think about that for a while. There are up and down arrows for expressing your discontent. Everything else--including this--is noise, not signal.

Changes in the political tide happen at the grass roots level (one reason why having all the data helps to stop change).

I'd say HN is one of the most important grass roots forums for this today.

Technology - aka OUR industry - is going to rapidly change in response. I think it's critical that there is discussion.

I'm actually really interested in your view. Do you think everyone questioning NSA surveillance of iPhones is wearing tinfoil hats?

I had not considered the privacy implications of fingerprint readers before. So I, for one, got a little benefit from the ancestor post.

> Do you know that Jesus loves you and he wants to save your soul?

Do you that the NSA loves us all and is just, y'know, kinda watching out for us?

We all need a big brother to save us, right?

"Asking them to go away is just asking people to stick their head in the sand and ignore it."

I think what's happening here is that you are being asked to go away. Your comments aren't adding anything to this discussion about a new iPhone.

And yet, the OP's comment is the top-voted comment in the thread, which would indicate the the democratic consensus of the HN readership is that this is worth talking about.

let it go.

Well now you are backtracking into a semi-legitimate interpretation of your comment as not snarky. If you didn't mean to snark you could have just originally said

"We should expect comments about the NSA and spying to become a part of the common dialog regarding technology and personal information. Asking them to go away is just asking people to stick their head in the sand and ignore it."

That is a useful comment that would further the discussion. So I will now respond to that, since I don't want to debate what snark means.

I don't mind useful or constructive comments about technology and the NSA, but most of the comments I see are very reactionary and misinformed and painfully naiive. They are similar to all the old comments on stories about Microsoft where people would say things like "Micro$oft is obviously evil" and such.

So if a comment is interesting and useful, and happens to be about the NSA, then great. I haven't seen many of those.

I chose brevity, and can see how it would be interpreted as snark. I wasn't aiming for that, but it was a simple question that deserved a simple answer, IMO.

> I don't mind useful or constructive comments about technology and the NSA, but most of the comments I see are very reactionary and misinformed and painfully naiive.

Perhaps our energy would be better spent pointing out why these comments are naiive and misinformed, rather than discussing whether they're worth saying at all, then?

Totally agree that we should discuss why these comments are naiive rather than further engage in the meta-discussion. Perhaps we can start over?

(Meta-meta-point: I wish I could collapse comment threads on HN.)

The security and related technological implications of the device seem relevant to any potential user and completely on topic to me. Agree it's unfortunate that battery life, form factor etc are overshadowed by recent revelations, and regrettable that Apple chose such a tasteless feature in the circumstances.

Are the comments that will never go away helpful?

Comments about the virtue of weight and thinness never go away, are they helpful? Comments about the importance of good UI design never go away, are they helpful? Comments about IT security never go away, are they helpful? Comments about performance never go away, are they helpful? Comments about the importance of battery life never go away, are they helpful? Comments about privacy never go away, are they helpful?

The answer to all of the above, if we assume that talking about a product is 'helpful' to begin with, is "Yes." Privacy is simply something that people are going to consider and discuss from now on. There is no reason we should treat it differently from the other things we consider.

Most of those topics are not sidelined by "everything they tell us is a lie and should be replaced by uninformed speculation." If we're discussing the importance of battery life, a comment such as "How do we know they aren't lying? Maybe the new iPhone doesn't even have a battery and requires you to turn a hand crank." is not helpful.

Yeah, you have a good point there. Speculation in discussions about smartphones is rather unprecedented isn't it?

Can we talk about the price of tea in the colonies without the discussion always being about King George and the Tea Act?

You know what I like? Talking about tech stuff on tech sites. You know what I don't like? Random NSA comments on anything that has to do with some device which operates on electricity.

Now you're making a suggestion that somehow people simply "want to believe it," as if we're wandering around with tinfoil hats muttering on street corners.

At this point, the overwhelming evidence is that we are being spied upon at a scale never seen before in history. Legal checks and balances such as search warrants are consider inconveniences to be routed around with border confiscations.

I would begin to believe things are changing when I see officials on both sides of the Canada-US border going to jail--yes, jail--for things like spying on their ex-spouses or for routing around search warrants.

But they are! And this is a very important issue to be dealt with. I'm very disappointed by all the companies and all governments involved, and I earn money writing iOS and cloud-applications. And I understand it's bad for business, but the issue is too important to be ignored.

So yes, by all means, keep talking about it.

Do keep talking about it. In threads which actually have something to do with it. Not every single thread about anything.

The new iPhone will have an option to store your fingerprint. This has EVERYTHING to do with the NSA. It is highly relevant. How can you be so blind and not see it?

Sarcastic or not, it's an important point. You are giving up a significant attribute of your identity to the protection of a US technology company. Whether that bothers you (or not) depends on how much you value your privacy.

If they don't already have your fingerprints on file, which depending on where you live happens as a kid in case you go missing, get a drivers license, etc.

If the NSA wants to target you specifically, you're fucked no matter what unless you move to a cave. No point in being needlessly worried. I'm more worried about this causing someone to cut off my finger while stealing my phone than I am the NSA coming after me.

" More snark. This isn't helpful."

You know what? Neither are derisive comments that imply the NSA is not, in fact, violating our privacy. You'd have to be out of your goddamned mind to actually think they've stopped.

> For those who want to believe it, I doubt there is any amount of information that could ever be released to convince them that the NSA isn't spying on people anymore.

The NSA is a spy agency, of course they are spying on people. Unless the NSA ceases to exist it will spy on people. They are not actively trying to claim otherwise (only that they try really hard to only spy on people who are in someway connected to someone who is not an American or has been designated dangerous).

The difference is, they're now spying on everyone. I struggle to find a credible justification for that.

I guess the fanboys now have to defend the NSA, pathetic.

Please stop using snark. Use snide, sarcastic, or cynical instead. Snark is a word that's better off being forgotten in some dictionary of colloquial terms.

Why? Snark seems like a perfectly cromulent word.

"Snark" is one of those words that people first learned on HN and now reuse whenever there is a comment they don't like.

"Snark" means "snide remark" and is absolutely not an HNism. Hell, I think I learned it from my mother (who no doubt used it at me). Despite heavy use, the word retains clear meaning, even as used by stanleydrew above in his otherwise foolish comment.

It is a perfectly cromulent word.

What do you mean it's not helpful? It is a plain and factual answer to the question.

Well, whose fault is that?

Scheier's special prosecutor plus truth and reconciliation commission seems reasonable. But we're getting way off topic.

MORE snark? I think a case could be made that the comment you responded to was snarky, but just barely. The comment several levels up that was the first labeled as snarky is one I just can't see being such.

We take for gospel that the NSA is spying on everyone in the world via every hardware device that has been created in the USA because of a few powerpoint slides. Interesting.

Wow. Sounds like somebody isn't paying enough attention.

> In one case, after the government learned that a foreign intelligence target had ordered new computer hardware, the American manufacturer agreed to insert a back door into the product before it was shipped, someone familiar with the request told The Times.

> At Microsoft, as The Guardian has reported, the N.S.A. worked with company officials to get pre-encryption access to Microsoft’s most popular services, including Outlook e-mail, Skype Internet phone calls and chats, and SkyDrive, the company’s cloud storage service.

Please do your duty as a human being and read more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet...

Note that neither of your quotes even begin to imply that the NSA is spying on "everyone".

They obviously have broad powers to spy on individuals through a variety of channels, which isn't, or shouldn't be, news.

What should we be using for our information, instead?

Clapper's testimony to congress?

Did you see this recent news? http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/privacy-scandal-ns... It isn't just one slide pack. Glen greenwald et all were given 50000 documents

When the NSA themselves is calling Apple "Big Brother" and the consumers "Zombies" -- then its damn hard to not be pretty worried about their capabilities.

http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-iphone-slides-in-der-spie...

(Sorry for the BI link, but the relevant slides are shown immediately)

You are still going with that "it's just a powerpoint, it means nothing" line? I thought we dispensed with that notion months ago.

Yes. There is zero evidence of any type of NSA backdooring your iPhone nonsense. It would be great to read HN (where I thought we were more technically inclined than the rest of the net) for a day without unfounded nonsensical claims.

Yes, it is simply inconceivable that hard evidence of the activities of a spy agency might not be forthcoming...

We are dealing with the realm of speculation, but it is not speculation fueled by some sort of tinfoil hatted lunacy. With the role that smartphones fill in peoples' lives today, you are just going to have to come to grips with the fact that, going forward, some people are going to consider the privacy of new devices to be very relevant, and well worth discussing. Don't be surprised when people error on the side of caution.

You want to talk about battery life and color? Well I want to talk about display DPI and privacy. Learn to cope.

Wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet...

"Someone" testified that an American manufacturer planted a back door into "a" product "somewhere".

Compelling.

So from that you extrapolate all devices made by US companies are secretly under the control of the NSA? Pretty big logical leap there.

I know that you already dismiss the global surveillance from the NSA and other agencies because of your earlier comment "of a few powerpoint slides."

That leads me to believe that you're either part of an organization that's subverting the internet and assisting the NSA or you're willfully ignorant.

Fact is, your other comments point that you have not well-researched the situation.

Every week there's a new revelation of just how deep the surveillance really is-- not just "metadata" but ALL data is being collected. The NSA hacks into companies, pays off others for cooperation. Backdoors. Broken encryption. It's all there out in the open thanks to the documents that have been leaked.

You do harm to the liberty of others by dismissing these facts.

> because of your earlier comment "of a few powerpoint slides."

> It's all there out in the open thanks to the documents that have been leaked.

You dismiss his point that unsubstantiated documents is largely the source of all this speculation and then you remake a bunch of unsubstantiated claims, saying they are all proved by the aforementioned documents.

Nope sorry, nothing from the documents is 'unsubstantiated.'

Even Obama and the NSA itself has backed this up.

They'd been trying to extradite Snowden ffs, get your head out of the sand.

I think the point is that not everything people say is supported by the available documents, not that the documents aren't real. Moreover, not everything reported by the press is backed up by a document that we can go and read. Even your quote sites "someone familiar with the request", not a document leaked by Snowden.

That is to say: there are some things that we know and are verified (e.g. that there is a program, called PRISM, etc.) but other things where there's a lot of speculation, but less or no verification (e.g. that the iPhone is backdoored.)

Some of us like to distinguish between these things. Some of us don't. It doesn't help to call people names over it, though.

Backdooring iPhones does sound fantasical but that is not the only means your fingerprint data could conceivably make its way beyond your iPhone. I like that my fingerprint data is on precisely no computer anywhere. You don't have to be a massive conspiracy theory nut to feel slightly uneasy recording your fingerprint on anything.

> feel slightly uneasy recording your fingerprint on anything.

I assume you mean digitally record, unless you're wearing gloves. ;)

This isn't just some random tinfoilhat idea that came out of nowhere. Remember CarrierIQ on Android? The NSA is real, the tinfoil-hats have been validated whether you believe it or not. From the NSA's point of view, having everyone's fingerprint on file would be fantastic and we know they have the power to force Apple to cooperate. In fact, I'm just assuming that's what will happen so now I'll be careful about borrowing anyone's iPhone. Everything about tech is going to be cross-examined with potential(read: definite future) data gathering usage by the NSA.

It might be slightly more comforting if anyone, including the NSA, was denying it.

This is a vast oversimplification of the facts.

So is the parent comment. A few PowerPoint slides doesn't warrant any ridiculous comments about the NSA backdooring your phone. It would be great if HN could stop with the NSA is everywhere-all-the-time-in-everything meme for a while, it would make reading the comments here much more relevant.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6364315

> Probably when the NSA stops illegally spying...

Who said what they're doing is illegal? The whole problem is that the entire surveillance regime is completely secret and completely legal.

Since Bush and Obama have gone to extraordinary to block all lawsuits we do not know if the courts would determine that the programs are illegal.

I guess if you want to constantly complain about the NSA spying on you, you are entitled. However, some of us have had enough of the complaining. After all, you're probably going to be doing it for the rest of your life. I'd rather not spend mine listening to it. So, can we clearly tag a thread as NSA rant, so those of us who don't want to hear it ad nauseam, we can skip the rehash.

This is the exact sort of attitude that has permitted us to get to the point where we even have to have a conversation about the government being engaged in massively intrusive spying programs. "I don't want to hear your whining about it" is a means of condoning these actions through silence. You are a part of the problem.

If you can comprehend what is going on here, you should be loud and obnoxious about it. Get people talking. Make it the focus and refuse to give up that focus. The only way this is going to change is to get so many people angry about it that it becomes more politically advantageous to oppose than support it. If you get angry about hearing about it, then I'll take that - you now have an incentive to help get it changed so people will shut up about it.

Essentially, you are asking me to discuss my politics here, where I draw the line, etc in a thread about the iPhone 5s. I know where you stand. I heard you the first ten times.

I'm not trying to stop you from having the discussion. Can you just label the thread "NSA can get your fingerprints off that iPhone 5S" and have at it. There is a time and a place for everything. Everyone here has heard about the NSA situation by now. The word is out.

> Essentially, you are asking me to discuss my politics here, where I draw the line, etc in a thread about the iPhone 5s.

Nope. I'm just asking you to not ask others to not discuss their politics. You're more than welcome to not participate in the conversation if it's not useful to you.

The stuff about the backdoor capabilities came out in the last week so it's not exactly old news.

Sorry, you aren't going to change anyone's political opinions by yelling louder. There are plenty of people who are comfortable with the NSA, as well as plenty of people are not.

We really can't discuss the finer points here because no matter how polite I am, I will simply get voted down for not agreeing with the HN politics. By the way, recently I heard a few tech heavy-weights come out in favor of the NSA (e.g. Larry Ellison, Max Levchin).

Sorry, you aren't going to change anyone's willingness to talk about the NSA spying be complaining louder.

If you are comfortable with the current NSA behaviour, you are part of the problem.

Clearly other people feel the same way, since it is being upvoted. And if you don't care for reading NSA-related comments, either moderate his posts (outside of your jurisdiction, I'm guessing) or I suppose you'll have to deal with it by collapsing his threads with any number of HN plugins that exist.

So you want to label concern for privacy as 'whining'? If anything, I'd call THAT snark.

Fwd frev ip scan circdb.

Never. The claim that the NSA has infiltrated everything has the right amount of truthiness, and pushes all the right buttons, to give the HN/nerd crowd such a sense of unified culture, justness of cause, and "us v. them"-ness that it literally can never be replaced now. It's like asking when Christianity will finally get over this Jesus fellow and his crucifixion. That is the cause that transformed a bunch of heretical Jews into Christians.

HN, similarly, is just going to be the place where a bunch of libertarian-leaning programmers became, from my perspective, conspiracy theorists. But more charitably, maybe, we can say they are now radically opposed to government invasion of privacy.

The Snowden revelation, whatever you think of it, has been one of those events which divides time into before and after for this crowd.

I don't see how this is snarky. We know that data is being scooped up in an opportunistic manner. It would be foolish to not consider the security implications when deciding which devices/technology to adopt.

Urgh. When do we get to the point where I can read HN without comments complaining about very relevant NSA discussions being voted to the top?

It's foolish not to speculate on reasons why giving your thumbprint to a vendor may not be in your best interest. I'd much rather see the OP comment on the top of this discussion rather than some inane debate about whether the new phone is an incremental upgrade or an exciting evolution.

What was snarky about it? I hadn't properly considered that my fingerprint would likely end up with spy agencies if I used the new fingerprint service.

But if Apple Computer, other countries and anyone who cracks a system containing the same data has your fingerprints - that's A-OK, obviously.

It's obviously not an either-or. I reserve the right to distrust CSIS/NSA and distrust Apple :-)

Where is the snark? This seems like a perfectly legitimate concern.

"Everyone let's ignore current events and treat this announcement in a bubble"

When we have more transparency around the NSA's operations.

Hunch: it's got to do with the fact that anyone can upvote, not anyone can downvote, and there's a large enough audience that thinks every topic posted is fodder for the surveillance discussion (which isn't a stretch) and thinks that's the most important thing to upvote (IMO it's probably not, but welcome to democracy).

It is more than the NSA. Now I have to worry that other apps, services, and overall weak security on the iPhone will have my fingertips all over the place. If my phone is stolen, fingerprints gone. No thanks.

Probably a little while after the "Days since the last major NSA revelation about how deeply they are tracking everything we do and say even in 'private': __" sign has had a chance to increment to a significant time period. Right now it's more than a little distressing to have not seen the sign above single digits for what seems like a very long time.

To quote yet another snarky saying, "It's only paranoia if they're not out to get you."

> snarky NSA comment

Nope. This is called critical thinking especially given our current global surveillance state.

I agree with you. I came here for some insight on the new tech/software, got a mega long NSA rant thread instead.

It's like any new product/app created will now get some NSA snark unless its a link to a github repo. And even then I'm sure there are ways...

I love how your comment about how noisey and pointless it is to mention the NSA on this post caused the entire comments section to become noise. I can't even find a non-NSA relevant post in this list.

I detect 0 snark.

i'm so sry bb, nobody meant to hurt you

Reply on news.ycombinator.com