The Merry Pranksters Who Hacked the Afghan War | Hacker News Reader

The Merry Pranksters Who Hacked the Afghan War

psmag.com

55 pointssamclemens11 comments

World is small. I spent a winter there, working with the Synergy Strike Force. One thing led to another and I ended up coaching the regional basketball team:

https://nplusonemag.com/basketball-diaries-afghanistan/

Here are some photos of home base:

https://www.flickr.com/search?user_id=68877611%40N00&text=ta...

One of my best basketball players, an Afghan, and SSF member, is now a Fulbright in the US:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ifl/13007763495

@rdl don't believe we've met but nods to you.

Hey, he received military funding to ultimately try and do good in a crappy situation, hats off to him.

Directly taking funding from an occupying army to manipulate popular behaviour in to a centralized intelligence gathering system, then claiming some form of moral outcome for the greater good? Somehow I missed the connection.

Antz: http://sourceforge.net/projects/openantz/

I also saw this on https://tinyletter.com/intriguingthings 5 Intriguing Things, a daily email by Alexis Madrigal I would highly recommend.

Loved the "Beer for data" approach. It could work in a lot of other settings. Very novel idea to mine data from otherwise hostile environments. Does he publish this data online?

Wow, what a guy.

So this dude siphons off of the military industrial complex to feed both his addictions and his narcissism? Count me out.

I visited/helped out a tiny bit with these guys.

It really wasn't about ego on the part of the people I encountered, so much as frustration and genuinely wanting to see things happen.

They actually had a hard time raising money because they needed/wanted to stay under the radar. After Mehrab's death as far as I can tell things shut down.

Fair enough. Sorry to be so harsh. I think it was the tone of the article that made me upset yesterday. I definitely realize the need for accurate information in that part of the world!

For me it was less about the data for beer (which in and of itself was brilliant) and more about them using government (and their own) money to set up small positive projects for local people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com