Irish politician calls for crack down on "open source Internet browsers" | Hacker News Reader

Irish politician calls for crack down on "open source Internet browsers"

finegael.ie

24 pointsrmc12 comments

Well, I'm glad Ireland's politicians have such grasp of the subject.

Someone should mention (in monosyllabic terms obviously) that most Tor nodes runs Linux, an open source operating system, also in serious need of a good cracking down.

  “Law enforcement agencies in the United States have recently taken 
  action to address this issue, however it appears the solution was
  temporary as replacement browsers quickly appeared to ensure the 
  continuance of the illegal trade."

I can't quite decide whether this is genius level satire, or serious.

It's genius level stupidity.

I don't know if you have ever had the experience of trying to explain something to someone so deeply committed to paranoid stupidity that they are actively resistant to new knowledge. You could try monosyllables, or even 'Quest for Fire' style grunts and grimaces, but the results will be the same. They tend to pick a few striking keywords from what you are saying (just the words, not any actual concepts), and they will run with those. Someone probably did try to explain to O'Donovan, but all he heard was "blah, blah, open source, blah, blah, blah".

I suspect that O'Donovan is not the originator of the initiative that he is championing here, but that he has been made privy to some insider information about an impending EU crackdown on internet anonymity (which politicians and bureaucrats hate as a matter of course) and he hopes to make political capital by taking credit for it.

> I don't know if you have ever had the experience of trying to explain something to someone so deeply committed to paranoid stupidity that they are actively resistant to new knowledge.

I have actually, but I rather naively assumed that politicians would have researchers or similar to make sure they can at least articulate the talking points they adopt.

> or even 'Quest for Fire' style grunts and grimaces

PMSL :)

Don't worry everyone. As the article says, O'Donovan has written to the Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Communications, John O’Mahony TD, who is well-qualified to see through this nonsense -- he was elected because of his fame as the manager of the 1998 and 2001 All-Ireland winning Galway Gaelic football team.

So much here that is wrong...

But what does he mean with "Law enforcement agencies in the United States have recently taken action to address this issue (open source browsers)" in the last paragraph?

I assume the FBI exploiting Firefox in a previous version of Tor Browser Bundle (on Windows only!).

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/09/freedom-hosting-fbi...

It's a attempt to sound legitimate. He's saying "Look the USA, with a Real Big Police Force™ that deals with Serious Issues™, is also doing this".

It's like someone in small company saying "Look Google use this technology" as a way to convice their boss, but on a country scale.

He probably has the Tor network in mind.

He doesn't know what browsers are, I think. The only way it makes any sense is if you read "open source browser" as "Tor site".

I figure this is in response to the Silk Road extradition trial that's coming up (January 21).

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/man-faces-extrad...

Wait -- I've heard that most of the drug trade is conducted in US dollars. Let's crack down on those!

I'm sooooooooooooooooooooo sorry

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