bandushrew

if we say it is not ok, then it is not possible to have technology that looks at the content of email for delivery purposes. thus virus checkers, deep packet inspection and firewalls instantly become unavailable.

maybe, but whether or not their business model is good for mankind, is really not the topic of discussion here...

So the NSA will not be the specific people to decide to detain me based on my pissing and moaning? that doesn't sound like much comfort.

I dont know how you know what kinds of people are detained in Gitmo and other more secret locations? I believe that information is specifically kept secret?

EDIT: I am thinking you meant that you hope that Gitmo and other similar but more secret places do not contain people who piss and moan about government surveillance?

I dont know.

That is rather the point though, isn't?

There are many other countries whose authorities would absolutely care to detain foreign nationals over being smug.

What makes you believe that some individuals within the NSA are not of that type of person?

How do you know? or do you mean that you hope the NSA doesn't give a fuck?

what? no, almost everything I mentioned do it to further their own business interests.

Mostly by offering value to their customers in the form of added services.

Google do it to allow themselves to provide a free email service.

Without the scanning of email done by google, everyone would have to pay for their email services.

You may or may not like the trade off, but apparently MANY people would prefer to have a free email service that provides advertising over a paid for email service that does not.

it is absurd because every mail server and email virus checker, and firewall, and depp packet inspector ever also scans those emails.

That is a very old fashioned way to describing 'tribal' groups. One of the things that the internet has brought about is the aggregation of 'tribal' groups that cut across the old boundaries.

This is, IMO, one of the things that governments are having real problems dealing with.

its like walking into someone's home, that had signs up over a bunch of open doors along a wall saying 'come in, all visitors welcome'. After wandering around a bit, you notice another door in the same wall has been left open, but there is no sign. Curious - you look in.

BANG. Jail Time.

Responsive design isn't about desktop vs mobile, it is about the whole range of possible screen sizes from very small to very large.

I dont think so.

I was talking to a potential client 2 days ago, they provide SaaS to a number of clients, and up until now this has always included data storage.

One of the projects we discussed involved, for a specific customer, moving data storage off the current (US based) server and onto their customer's servers in their own country.

Anecdotal, but still I am really small fish on the far edge of the world, I cannot imagine the reaction where the bigger fish are swimming.

The difference between 'suspected that our confidential data may be compromised by a third party if you believe all the conspiracy theories' and 'know absolutely that our confidential data is being compromised by a third party as we speak' turns out to be pretty big, and worth a lot to international companies who value the commercial value of their private data.

man, that makes sense. nice call.

a month old? dude, Im not standing on either side of this particular fence, it seems perfectly sensible to me to think that either side might be doing it.

Having said that, what on earth is it about that account that makes you think it has any kind of authority?

To be frank, I just couldn't care less who it was. This action is utterly irrelevant to anything that is happening in the real world.

If I seriously believed I was under actual threat of invasion from the US, I am not sure I would piss away my resources getting monkeys to deface a brochure.

Aspects of that comment are true, but that is a pretty harsh indictment on someone who took a real risk and worked to make it happen. Its easy to call someone ignorant and stupid because they did not approach a problem the way you would. Dont do it.

There are a bunch of things, lets see whether I can summarize them:

(1) I dont want to be advertised to at all, if I want something - I will go looking.

(2) I dont want my browsing habits in the hands of third parties, they should be between me, the browser and the remote server. Its creepy.

(3) Targeted advertising doesn't work - having crossed the rubicon, invaded my privacy, tracked my habits and carefully curated the extensive data they have collected on me - they then advertise something to me that is almost, but not quite, exactly unlike anything I need or want to buy.

(BTW, 90% of the 'targeted' advertising isn't targeted at all, because limiting the number of people who see my ad based on my guess at their needs and preferences is just dumb. Its WAY better to advertise to everyone and let them sort it all out.)

You can take my online anonymity when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

With a few very carefully selected exceptions, there is absolutely no upside for me in being recognised online, and there is a lot of possible downside - from being 'targeted' for advertising, to having my habits tracked, to being hounded and hunted in real life by people who have nothing better to do.

All the reasons for wanting to take my anonymity away come from people who have something to gain by doing so.

I do get it - you would rather not have anonymous people posting on your website, fine. You get paid more if you can provide identified 'consumers', thats awesome.

Nothing in it for me though.

Absolutely the same logic could be used to explain the actions he revealed, that is exactly the problem.

We are being forced to choose between realities. Either his action is a noble one born of patriotism, or those that he revealed are.

Both sides are claiming to be right, noble and patriotic, and both sides see themselves as acting appropriately.

The question is which reality do we want to be true? which side do we want to be associated with and to support?

Pick your side, and see where that decision takes you.

There are no objective realities here. Just a personal decision regarding the reality we wish to support, encourage and stand with.

I cannot speak for the OP, but it seems entirely clear to me that one of the government's secret tracking weapons is by acquiring access to data collected by facebook, google and every other US company out there.

Are you suggesting that this is not the case? that seems to me to be a remarkable conclusion to draw?

You cannot end terrorism at all.

Any plan with that as its stated goal, is a stupid one.

You could, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Learning a new language, say C++ -> Java is WAY more than just learning the syntax. There are best practices for solving certain kinds of problems in each language that differ between language.

Sure, there is a high level similarity between the solutions (hey, its just the observer pattern, right?), but there are also likely (IME) to be many critical differences in the details.

ARIA provides a solution for the problems caused by <table>.

Except for the secret laws, of course...

Hollywood by itself had absolutely no chance of reaching across to new zealand and persuading the NZ police to break NZ laws to arrest him.

Just to be clear, Kim Dotcom was a NZ resident, and had broken no NZ laws.

At this point it would be a bold man who made the claim that the NSA had nothing to do with investigating a foreign person and/or their company, tracking that company's international internet usage, monitoring their involvement in possible illegal activities and providing that information to US authorities who could use it to reach out across the world and attempt to have that person extradited to the US.

In fact, I cannot understand for a second why you are trying to make that claim?

yes, that is a generally correct statement.

heh. yes, I could setup a guest network to workaround the fact that google stores my network access passwords in plain text on their servers whenever I allow someone using their software on my network.

or they could stop betraying the trust of their users. I mean, seriously. It would be one thing if they were 'only' totally compromising the network security of people who chose to use their software. But they are compromising the security of anyone with a network who lets their friends and family on board.

My network isn't a problem one way or another, I am actually fairly comfortable with the protections it has. OTOH the networks of non-techy people and family across the entire world that have been compromised by google's astounding arrogance(?) and stupidity(?) kind of bother me.

Honestly, I do not understand how an entirely tech oriented organisation like Google could do something like this. I am Jacks bewildered confusion.

So long as google is storing the password to my network in plain text on its servers just because I let one of my friends access my network, they do not get to boast about innovation. I cannot clearly express the loss of respect that action has engendered.

doesn't that mean that if nobody owned the drug, drug companies would be free to work on a wider range of research?

I have 4 children.

I fear a world where my children cannot express themselves freely FAR more I do a world where I have to explain to my children that some people are just kind of weird...

Censorship of the internet is NOT ok.

You are absolutely correct.

There are a number of possible interpretations as to what thety are doing and some interpretation of what we have seen and read regarding the NSA data collection probably exists that would probably make most of us pretty happy.

The problems are: (a) we dont know what they are actually doing and (b) we cannot trust them not to lie to us about what they are doing, one way or another.

The other problem is that the NSA has made it clear that in its opinion collecting metadata on a call is fine at any time, for anyone/everyone.

Metadata on a cell phone clearly includes time and location of cellphone/receiver checkins.

It is absolutely reasonable to assume that, if they want, the NSA can track the location of any person carrying a cellphone; or - given that they are storing this data - reach into the past and know exactly where you were, and when.

that is a remarkable power, IMO.

Hook that data up to a computer display and holy cow, that is a powerful tool.

Frankly, it would be awesome. if it wasn't for the fact that you, specifically and personally, appear on that display.