New surveillance technology can track everyone in an area for several hours | Hacker News Reader

New surveillance technology can track everyone in an area for several hours

washingtonpost.com

105 pointsoftenwrong70 comments

I grew up in communist Czechoslovakia. Maybe people will disagree my account, because I was quite young, but it's interesting. We didn't have gangs and certainly didn't have bad neighbourhoods (maybe 1 exception). It was a totalitarian state, and people were very afraid of police, but the surveillance was nowhere as pervasive as it is now in the U.S. (all the surveillance was done by people, not much technology).

After the Velvet revolution, it was always argued that the rise in the crime that followed was because it's now less surveillance and less totalitarian. Fair enough. Later I visited Western countries and saw they have bad neighbourhoods and gangs, and a lot of surveillance. I have trouble believing that argument now.

The point is, you don't need all this, and I want to get this out. History shows, there is probably a way how to structure society (I mean getting rid of gangs and bad neighbourhoods) without resorting to too much surveillance.

I think for a justice system to work, people need to have options. If they have option to have a good life, then they are less likely to commit a crime. I don't buy this will reduce crime or gangs or bad neighbourhoods, because these people don't have good options to begin with.

I think you're exactly right about the options. If you see blatant criminals living much more comfortably than you, you don't see any of your peers succeeding via other routes, and jail doesn't seem that much worse than your normal existence, then it actually seems pretty rational to try your hand at crime.

it's just a matter of defining what crime means.

It always perplexed me as to why economies - even prosperous ones with plenty of resources and manpower - always under-prosecuted hyper-violent mafias, drug cartels, international arms dealers and other crime rings that ran up body counts by the hundreds and thousands, each year.

Is it because, if ghastly criminals don't hit the headlines frequently enough and at regular intervals, the ruse for tighter criminal enforcement in the form of improved convict-prosecution machinery and technology[1], bigger police forces and larger prisons would go away?

In general, the case for a very vast and well-lobbied-for penal industrial complex would go away?

Is that why?

The people making fortunes out of these things, really can't be that base and venal. Can they?

[1] The armored vehicles used in the post-bombing manhunt of the

Tsarnaev brothers is but a trivial example. Surely there local

law enforcement forces across the nation have more substantial

technological wares at their disposal.

http://radioboston.wbur.org/2013/04/29/manhunt-2

http://media.wbur.org/wordpress/9/files/2013/04/AP1280555201...

[IMAGE]

Thinking more of white-collar crime than working-class crime, I feel that my parents were pretty careful to set my moral compass in the right direction when I was growing up, but that exposure to the financial industry, the advertising industry and (especially) the diplomatic community has made me a lot more cynical about the prevalence of self-serving amoral behaviour amongst the "professional" classes. I am saddened to witness a creeping corruption in my own sense of right and wrong, as I see that success and wealth seem to be more highly correlated with cynical manipulation and self-promotion than humility and careful moral decision-making.

>I think for a justice system to work, people need to have options.

This. One million times this. At a time when wealth disparity is accelerating and the top 85 people in the world have as much wealth as the bottom 2.5 billion, we need to invest in creating opportunity--this instead of implementing a surveillance state to supposedly hunt down those who have been marginalized and, thus, turned to crime.

And, here we are battling over increasing the minimum wage to allow full-time workers a chance to lift themselves out of poverty. At the same time, corporate profits are at a record high.

And let's not forget that our prison system is now largely for-profit. Spend more to catch them. Spend more to keep them.

It really is insane from society's point of view. But, for a few people, it's insanely profitable.

I've read about many game-changing surveillance technologies lately, and what's public is probably just the tip of the iceberg. I should be in dire fear of a 1984-style surveillance state thanks to the continuing revelations about the NSA's spying programs. However, I increasingly find myself numb to it all. I haven't acted on anything. I don't know what to do so I keep on living my life as if nothing had happened. If ever Toffler's term, "Future Shock" applied, it applies to me now. Technology has transformed the world I live in so fast that I don't know how to respond. Consequently, I do nothing. I used to think future shock was something that could only happen to my grandparents!

Your reaction is normal for someone who didn't see this coming, or believe it was happening already. Remember how Toffler described how those who dealt with "Future Shock" successfully, they took control of aspects of their own life. That's what you have to act on, what you can control. So they question you should ask yourself is - what can you control? Anything you can control, you should be able to teach others how to control, be it their computer or their online behaviour.

That is unless you are happy with the present state of affairs and are comfortably numb.

Comfortably numb.

This is an excellent starting point, if it's something you would consider.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7216942

http://freedombone.uk.to/

The major problem with mass surveillance is asymmetry:

Whenever governments get additional power to track what citizens do (and ultimately think), citizens need to gain an additional degree of transparency regarding its government [0], so the system keeps its balance. If that does not happen - and obviously the opposite is the case for a very long time now - the degree of abuse of the new power imbalance will continue to increase, at the cost of the citizen.

[0] (This is something the President has emphasized, but his actions have, as we must expect from every politician, gone in the opposite direction - including the persecution of whistleblowers.)

Huge upvote. In many regards I'm anti-privacy. I think privacy probably causes more harm than good. But the reason privacy is bad is asymmetry. Not just citizen vs govt, but also individual vs individual.

I think if they did this camera surveillance and made the data public, that MIGHT be a step in the right direction.

> But the reason privacy is bad is asymmetry.

Asymmetry is used to dominate others. Asymmetry is generated via wealth imbalance (rich dominate poor) and now also via information imbalance (government/banks/tech companies dominate the consumer/citizen).

We are created equal and should therefor have the same rights. Asymmetry in wealth and information kills this principle.

> In many regards I'm anti-privacy. I think privacy probably causes more harm than good.

Privacy is necessary in order to feel free to express yourself, in your space, without fear. As long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others, such a private space is where you can retreat to be creative and to enjoy life without pressure. Not just people, but also businesses, lawyers, doctors and such need privacy in order to function. How would you run a company when your competition has direct access to your inbox?

A society under surveillance suffers from self censure and over time, a decrease in initiative and creativity - just check the communist block in Eastern Europe.

Privacy will be the hot topic of this decade, if not century. Now, when violent crime is at a historical low, is not the time to give law enforcement new and invasive capabilities.

Privacy is dead, has been for a decade policy-wise, it's just the implications are ramping up the last few years. Nobody except some fringe groups does anything more than pay lip service tot the concept. I say this as someone with an IRL reputation of rambling about the privacy implications of using electronic payments (well I used to, I gave up years ago when I realized and came to terms with the fact that privacy is dead). The cat is out of the bag people, and there's no putting it back in. Surveillance tech is just like mp3 to the music industry - except this time, 'we' are on the receiving end.

If organizations such as the NSA continue to be allowed to exist, then you are certainly right. But as long as you live in a democracy, you have the "obligation" to elect the people who will represent your will, that is your responsibility.

Are you living in a fantasy? It's not just the NSA - all governments do electronic surveillance. And even if USA didn't, there would still be surveillance on the American public by other powers.

Besides states, there is a growing number of companies that engage in surveillance - search engines, social sites, defense contractors, companies supplying MPAA IP addresses to sue, etc.

We are in a world where there are many parties doing surveillance. The cat is really out of the bag.

NSA can just say: ok, suppose we stop surveillance - then we can't defend you against other countries doing surveillance on us. It's an arms race and it doesn't matter who started it.

If you think the NSA is our biggest problem, you need to wake up and smell the roses. Literally hundreds of parties track various parts of your whole life, online and offline. 'Democracy' can't help us, it's uncontrollable, that's my point. It's emerging behavior, call it the social or political equivalent of Smith's invisible hand.

I'd happily settle for a situation where national intelligence agencies try to collect everything they can about everybody. But it's not just that, it's dozens of government agencies at various levels and with various levels of competence, plus hundreds of private actors who have some way of tracking something about you.

NSA shmaNSA - I'm much more concerned about the traffic cams in my city, installed by I-get-paid-by-the-hour consultants or barely competent public servants, who are supposed to follow all the so-called 'laws' and 'procedures' when it comes to storage time frames, access control etc.; let alone the fact that we're being watched 24/7 by itself. In 5 years time, HD cams will be so cheap that it becomes feasible for a private party to plaster a whole city with them (and many parties will do this). Slap on some facial recognition, boom we have untrackable private parties keeping logs of where every single person walks in all public spaces. And hey, storage space is cheap, let's keep all that data.

That is the real, practically relevant threat, not a government agency stepping out of its bounds. And the scary thing is that there is no realistic way to avoid that situation. Some legislation can keep it at bay for a decade maybe, but long term - we'll have to adapt to the fact that 'privacy' as it existed in the past is gone.

It's forbidden to walk on the street with 10 grands. It should be forbidden to put more than X records of data in a database without a third-party certification for every order of magnitude your database size is.

And that power has to raise aside from the governments agencies. I know it might affect startups too, but the people who have gathered data until now haven't stuck to enough ethics. The danger that data collection represents is proportional to the square of the size of the db, or of the compatible systems the data can be bound to.

Right, it's gonna be the theme of the decade.

I'm no tinfoil theorist, so I wonder. If a city is plastered with HD Cams (solar power, etc), would it make sense to go places at night then if you don't want to be seen? Or is infared really easy to add and would defeat those efforts?

More importantly, wait until these HD cams and other video cameras are hacked so that someone else besides the consultants, government, and myriad other actors has complete control. Straight out of a dystopia trope.

Electronic payments? Banknotes have a number and in France they are probably renewed after 2 payments in average. If you take cash from an ATM and use it to pay a criminal, but the number will be traced.

I'm not sure what your point is? Are you saying electronic payments are less anonymous, and the tracking of them less privacy-invading, than cash?

I mean any kind of payment is traceable (except at HSBC), so nothing to focus on about 'electronic'. If you want privacy, you need laws to prevent data collection and use, and you need that law to come from an alternative power from governments. Hard problem.

Are you seriously going to claim that electronic payments are just as anonymous as cash?

"If you want privacy, you need laws to prevent data collection and use"

No. You need to create a situation where it's exceedingly hard to track things you want privacy about. 'Laws' can't stop a societal tidal wave.

"and you need that law to come from an alternative power from governments."

Then it's not a law, is it? I'm not even sure what direction you're thinking in, what sort of power could enforce something like that? Are you saying the checks and balances in the trias politica aren't strong enough?

> Banknotes have a number and in France they are probably renewed after 2 payments in average

France is a Euro area country, and only withdraws notes after they are too dirty or damaged to be usable, in line with ECB policy.

> If you take cash from an ATM and use it to pay a criminal [...] the number will be traced.

I very much doubt this.

But they loop back through the bank in between. They usually go from the ATM to the bakery, who gives them back to the bank. It's only after many cycles that they're retired.

It's not a matter of "not giving" them access to surveillance - they can apply technology like anyone else.

> Privacy will be the hot topic of this decade

... in the First World.

'“I want them to be worried that we’re watching,” Biehl said. “I want them to be worried that they never know when we’re overhead.”'

He means criminals. But it applies to citizens too. This is the chilling effect. Right here.

You nailed it. I copied that quote to paste in a comment as well.

Can't upvote this enough.

This is agenda setting for the next generation: "As Americans have grown increasingly comfortable with traditional surveillance cameras, far more powerful generation is being quietly deployed...".

Why quietly? What's the problem being upfront if the people are "comfortable"? People are not comfortable. They will probably confuse the drones with target practice flying tin cans.

and if you're in range to shoot at it.. You're probably in range if its camera... I can see people who try this being charged with all sorts of crimes! I don't think there's any doubt that shooting at someone else's property is a crime.. Even if that property is, potentially, involved in illegal surveillance..

Worse though, what if they confuse a manned aircraft for one of these and succeed in shooting it down?

I would describe it more as a numb apathy.

The thing these companies never mention is that video surveillance doesn't deter criminals from committing acts of crime, nor does it stop a crime in progress.

The best result we can hope for from these systems is a record of the event. And I'm not of the opinion that what we gain from using these systems is worth the cost we pay.

The thing these companies never mention is that video surveillance doesn't deter criminals from committing acts of crime

Well that's not as clear as you make it seem. Likelihood of getting caught is a very strong factor people consider when making to choice to commit a crime or not; much stronger than e.g. the severity of the punishment. What video surveillance does, is increase the solve rates, in other words the chance of getting caught. When this is internalized by criminals, it's not unlikely that crime rates will go down, i.e. that surveillance will have a deterring effect.

So it's true that putting up a camera doesn't deter by the fact of being there. What does deter is the pervasive cognition that you're always being watched. Whether that's a worthwhile trade-off is another question, but one for which the debate is much harder to win.

Would you mind citing a source for the somewhat counterintuitive claim that likelihood of getting caught weighs more heavily than severity of punishment?

Well I have to cop out from this one a bit, it was one of the central points of the course on criminal psychology I took as part of my law degree but I don't have references at hand. My books from that time are in storage because I'm moving.

Of course one can't quantify exactly how much several factors come into play when making a decision, but basically the overall conclusion from experiments was: as long as the severity of the punishment outweighs the benefits of the crime (e.g. a fine of at least 11$ for stealing 10$), that severity doesn't matter very much any more. So punishing all theft by death is only a marginal deterrent. The policy focus should be on increasing the chance of getting caught. (death penalty is an exaggerated and probably silly and untrue example, but the fact that people still steal in places with Shariah law which punishes theft by loss of a hand shows that extreme punishment is not an absolute deterrent).

But yeah - I can't point you to the literature. Coincidentally I read in the news paper a few days ago that my prof from that course is caught up in a scandal about a book on an unsolved murder and hasn't been heard from for 2 weeks, so I can't really expect he'll answer an email about it either ;)

Well, this is a source directly from the UK, which features (as far as I know) the most extensive CCTV surveillance system in the world in London.

http://library.college.police.uk/docs/what-works/What-works-...

This source claims "CCTV is more effective when directed against specific types of crime; it is effective at reducing theft of and from vehicles, but has no impact on levels of violent crime."

So I should amend my statement where I claimed CCTV doesn't deter criminals from committing acts of crime. Apparently there are some ameliorative effects for property crimes but not for violent crimes.

> Likelihood of getting caught is a very strong factor people consider when making to choice to commit a crime or not;

close.... but it's not a binary decision. The likelihood of getting caught will herd people away from one type of crime to another, but if they're desperate, mainly immoral people, or ideologically-driven, they'll commit the crime anyway.

This array of cameras in the sky will likely usher people toward committing crimes indoors, in cloudy weather, in tents, in subways, etc.

“We can’t even see what they are doing in their backyard. And, by the way, we don’t care.”

No, but you can see where those who attended the demonstration lives.

This is where it starts getting scary. It's not the surveillance with people behind the computer I'm worried about. It's the surveillance with computers tracking everything, cross-referencing everything, and then being used to dig up dirt on anyone in order to put them away at any time.

Yeah agreed. Let's not forget drones where deployed to Middle East first. I guess a lot of American people disagreed, but it wasn't enough. This time maybe?

  Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into 
  everything. Trusted to run it all. 

  They say it got smart... A new order of intelligence. 
  Then it saw ALL people as a threat, not just the ones on 
  the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: 

  Extermination. 

  There was a nuclear war... A few years from now... All 
  this... this whole place... everything... it's gone... 

  Just gone. 

  There were survivors... Here... there... Nobody even knew 
  who started it. 

  It was The Machines, Sarah.

Could be worse. We could have Collossus

Sounds a lot like the DARPA 'ARGUS', a drone with a 1.8 gigapixel sensor that "can observe and record an area half the size of Manhattan":

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/1/3940898/darpa-gigapixel-dro...

I'm afraid this Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) is a real thing in the industry now, and not going away.

It's even covered by the OGC [1], see their primer on the topic [2]

DARPA ARGIS-IS is already deployed to UAVs[3] and actually gives you video, not jaggy-looking stitched DOP slideshows [4]. it looks like DARPA is way ahead of Northrop Grumman which tries to get into that market with more traditional expensive optical hardware, compared to DARPA's cheap phone camera array, yet with inferior results.

[1] http://www.opengeospatial.org/node/1759

[2] https://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=50485 [pdf]

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5129332

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA#t=120 [video]

Every time I read about the rise of the American surveillance state I always ask myself this, "would our founding forefathers actually agree to this?"

I cannot see how they would allow for persistent surveillance as proposed in this article. I would even go so far as to say the same about all of the NSA revelations.

The problem I think is that the general public is disinterested and ignorant of our nation's roots. Until such a time that Joe and Jane Average get angry and active our America will continue down this evil path of no return.

This technology seems not too bad at first - "each person appears as a single pixel indistinguishable" - but after thinking about this, it's really a big deal for three reasons.

First, it would be trivial to tie this in to the network of surveillance cameras, so you can see a person in detail when they walk past a camera. You're now not an anonymous pixel but HD video.

Second, by correlating the "pixels" with even coarse celltower location over time, you should be able to match a cellphone with every person. In other words, you now know their identity and track almost everyone's location to within a foot. No GPS needed.

Third, this information could be stored for all time and easily accessed.

I think this really is a "game-changing" technology as far as privacy goes. It ties together location, identity, and images very tightly in a way they haven't been connected before.

This article casts McNutt (the retired Air Force officer with the PhD from MIT) in an exemplary light with his actions of engaging with the ACLU. However, despite the serious nature of the article, this particular quote stood out in a humourous manner:

“And by the way, after people commit crimes, they drive like idiots.”

I don't think this[0] is really new technology. It seems to be a PR/marketing piece for Persistent Surveillance. Similar systems have been used w/ UAV's in battle-zones for a while now. [1] [2] [3]

This may be a new implementation in civil uses, but it would surprise me. The border patrol was using something similar a year or two ago [4]. They've since abandoned it for towers, if I understand correctly [5].

[0] - http://www.persistentsurveillance.com/hawkeye.html

[1] - http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/psds2/

[2] - http://www.aeronautics-sys.com/?CategoryID=260&ArticleID=284

[3] - http://www.afcea.org/content/?q=2012/08/10/19089

[4] - http://www.blimpinfo.com/uncategorized/border-patrol-blimp-n...

[5] - http://www.fedagent.com/16-general-news/833-border-patrol-ab...

I think surveillance and piracy have a lot in common. They are both technological phenomenons at core. Morality, laws and norms come into play, but they are secondary. Data being recorded and stored forever is the default way our technology works just like making digital copies is the default way technology works.

The level of political & moral intervention required to make any impact on whatever the future holds for surveillance is massive. I'm not pessimistic, but I am scared/worried. I think avoiding the "natural" progression towards more surveillance will require as much political force as is/was needed to go from non democratic to democratic. To use a slightly dated and naive term: free societies. It's a big task.

I'm not American & US politics dominates on HN (and everywhere else). But, I am looking to Americans to make a stand on this and draw a line in the sand. The US has a liberalism deeply embedded in its political identity. It was there when homesteads could be claimed based on improving land and it exists today (often in slightly lunatic forms) in many ways. It's harder to get American to accept speed cameras and inner city police cameras than Europeans. I hope and think they have it in them. Come on Americans!

So what's the "new technology" here? Looks to me like hi-res videos stitched together? Not saying that that isn't useful to law enforcement, just curious if I am missing something interesting.

I actually think the potential value of this technology to commercial businesses far exceeds the value to law enforcement. Walmart could see who is shopping at Safeway, and send those people targeted mailers. Businesses that don't have loyalty programs could also see who comes to their store most often, and offer them special deals. Data about who goes to sporting events, concerts, etc. would also be quite valuable.

There are just a ton of commercial applications for this that would be incredibly useful for businesses.

Great for companies, but when it comes down to it I only care about people. Why in the hell do I want to become some sort of surveillance pawn to be quibbled and harassed by Walmart and Target so they can squeeze a few marginal dollars out of me.

One is not even a business, since they don't pay a living wage to their employees and rely on US taxpayers to prop up the Walton fortune.

The other (actual) business has apparently never heard of PCI compliance or decided it was a hassle.

Sounds awesome.

Nice, but just lotsa cameras....

Make something that could have detected HSBC's drug money laundering with the same level of detail and I'll be impressed.

"Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl, a supporter of McNutt’s efforts, has proposed inviting the public to visit the operations center to get a glimpse of the technology in action.

“I want them to be worried that we’re watching,” Biehl said. “I want them to be worried that they never know when we’re overhead.”"

These folks want nothing short of terror in everyone, a panopticon.

Imagine a boot stomping on a human face, forever.

9/11 was the catalyst for all of this. We've been on a slippery slope ever since.

I believe it goes much further back and is much more deeper than 911.

In 1975 Senator Frank Church said the following:

"In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.

If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return." (For verified sources of this quote visit the Wikipedia page on the Church Committee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee.)

These words almost exactly cover the situation now as they did nearly 40 years ago!!!

If anyone thinks the conduct of the Government in the next 40 years will be different they are dreaming. The United Surveillance Sates of America is an entrenched practice.

My conclusion is that technologists hold the key to hope in what would otherwise be a hopeless situation. The hackers here can create technology that can subvert the Government's tyranny.

Civilian counterintelligence starts with counter-technology.

Interesting quote, but I have to completely disagree with your conclusion that it's about technology. In fact, even your quote itself from Mr. Church is clearly stating that only our laws can restrain our technology and maintain our freedom. You've missed his point entirely.

There have always been examples of government overreach, whether by technological means or otherwise. But, what we are witnessing today is a near complete rewriting and reinterpretation of the laws that protect us from such overreach. The pace of technological innovation has simply served as the vehicle for implementing this overreach.

Starting with the PATRIOT act and Bush's legal team's loose interpretation of existing protections, we have seen this country veer dangerously into dissolution of fundamental rights, torture, extra-judicial killings, wars of choice, a vastly expanded surveillance state and more. It is not the technology that has enabled this. It is the laws. And only behind the shock of 9/11 could the collective psyche of the American public be rendered so unbalanced and so fearful as to allow such fundamental and drastic change to our country's beliefs, ethos, and laws.

>...technologists hold the key to hope in what would otherwise be a hopeless situation. The hackers here can create technology that can subvert the Government's tyranny"

That is a dangerous fantasy and a technologists' pipe dream. It is completely misguided and follows from the common belief that you have articulated above. As I mentioned, it is the laws, not the technology that pose the foundational threat. From a technology standpoint, we control nothing. Engaging in a game of cat-and-mouse with a government whose resources are effectively limitless and one who is unbounded by any laws would be disastrous. We will lose. We are losing. Again, from Mr. Church's quote above, "the most careful effort to resist...is within the reach of the government to know".

So, as much as we like to dream about freedom-fighting hackers saving the day, it's utter nonsense. If not for whistle-blowers like Snowden, we wouldn't even know where the battlefield was, let alone how to fight.

The laws need to be clear and they need to protect whistleblowers, so there is no doubt that they are heroes. We need to restore our protections and return to our principles. That is what will save us, if anything will.

next step, mount some tranquilizers on them to stop crimes while they happen

next step after that..

This is the opposite of a new frontier for privacy.

This is fantastic. Safety in public places will increase and increase over time. I cannot wait.

Surveillance is the new fear of nuclear weapons. In both cases, new technology generates a huge frothy paranoia among the public which does not, in the end, amount to anything.

This is because the public feeds on fear and discounts reassuring information. The net effect of nuclear weapons has been, instead, quite positive--bringing about a cessation of world wars.

Very true. One of the things I love about Dr. Strangelove is how it's increasingly relevant today. Soon: "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Surveillance"

not-sure-if-troll-or-just-really-really-stupid.jpg

Here's some excerpts from his recent comments that suggest sincerity by someone who has a very different worldview than many of the participants here.

Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel peace prize: "Given that Snowden has undermined Pax Americana, I find this nomination surprising."

Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft: "Sure, I'll take cheaper parts for my car, and I love getting something for nothing, but on the list of humanity's problems, non-GPL software is very, very low."

Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End: "They're not committing crimes against the American people. Not one American has been found who has been demonstrably harmed by any NSA program. Without harm, there no criminal act."

Startup failure post-mortems: "If you can't create a successful company, what makes you think you know why a company was unsuccessful? It's just more mental masturbation."

Ask PG: Is HN Expired Link Eventual Fix Planned?: "I suspect the fix will result in a large change to the code base and you want to always own/understand the code for some reason. So if you can't fix it yourself, nobody is allowed to, either."

NSA statement does not deny 'spying' on members of Congress: "The real question is: has an human looked at Congressional metadata, or are they likely to do so? This question was not asked because, given the data protections in place, the answer is likely no."

Bzr is dying; Emacs needs to move: "If Emacs moves to git, can we call it by its proper name: git/Emacs?"

It's not a worldview I understand at all, but it's good to have diversity. And I'll admit, the last one is genuinely funny.

nkurz, you are hellbanned. Can't see why, given that your account is clearly legitimate.

Oof. Have you read the accounts of the Cuban Missile Crisis? The cases where people were ordered to fire their missiles by faulty warning systems but refused and got canned, or where 2/3 keyholders on a boomer wanted to fire their payloads and it was down to the last man who refused? I don't think you should be so blasé about our history with nukes as though it was always a paper tiger. Human civilization came extremely close to destruction at least a few times, and it came down to a few individuals that talked others down. It could have very easily gone the other way.

I highly recommend you read Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert F. Kennedy for a largely first hand account, parts of it are chilling.

After you read Thirteen Days, you should probably read The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality by Sheldon Stern[1], former historian at the JFK Library.

He argues convincingly that Thirteen Days perpetuated a number of (largely RFK-serving) myths about the crisis that are readily disprovable by listening to the tapes JFK made of ExComm meetings. These were only available to the public within the last decade or so.

TL;DR: RFK was far more hawkish and pro-air strikes/invasion than he later portrayed himself. There was no brilliant gambit to "accept" Khrushchev's earlier offer in place of his later one: The trade of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey was viewed as an acceptable way out by JFK essentially as soon as it was proposed. President Kennedy actually comes off rather well, without over-committing to military engagement early in the crisis and by managing the post-blockade diplomatic dance while avoiding avenues of potential escalation.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Cuban-Missile-Crisis-American-Memory/d...

Thanks for the recc, I'll take a look. Based on the reviews, though, it seems like they don't disagree that it looked pretty bleak at certain points, regardless of how much whitewashing RFK did of his own part in the crisis. Maybe it was just gamesmanship and negotiation in the case of the missile crisis, but it seems as though it could have escalated beyond their control very quickly.

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