diyorgasms

There is no need to bring reddit intra-site politics here. I doubt readers could care less about SJW vs anti-SJW factions on another site. Furthermore, the actions of certain moderators have nothing to do with this staffing announcement, so you are doubly off-topic. It would make me happy at least if we could contain reddit politics to reddit itself.

Perhaps the EFF is critical of the Republican party because by and large the Republican party has a far worse record on technological freedoms than the Democratic party, whose record is also abysmal.

And I think you must have a very short and selective memory if you think the EFF has not been taking Democrat leadership (especially Obama) to task over mass surveillance.

Additionally, I believe it is possible for individuals within organizations to hold personal opinions and not use those personal opinions to drive organizational policy. Thinking that everyone must subvert their own honest efforts with some sort of underlying agenda is cynical at best and paranoid at worst.

Except presumption of innocence is supposed to be a cornerstone of the american justice system. Until that he hired a killer is proven in a criminal court, we all ought to refrain from making the assumption that such accusations in any way reflect the truth of the matter.

You do realize that the crime of treason is codified in the United States Constitution, and that what Snowden did in no way meets the criteria enumerated there. Careful throwing the word "treason" around like that, it can make you appear ignorant.

My point is that they should at least try to compete with piracy as far as user experience goes. I can download a movie and play it on Linux. But apparently providing a legitimate means for me to do so isn't worth their time.

Hey, man, inconvenience through obscurity is a real problem causing suffering to literally dozens of people.

I don't see anything unreasonable about asking the studios to provide their product in a particular format. What if you wanted to purchase a movie, and the studios only offered it on Betamax?

Relying on Flash or Silverlight is similar. I use Linux, and Flash is officially unsupported on Linux. Silverlight has never been officially supported on Linux. If these are the options, then I cannot watch the movie out of the box, I have to find a flash installer (I had better hope one's in my package repositories), or I have to install wine and build Silverlight into my browser or some such.

I think it is totally reasonable that you would ask the studios to provide content in a manner that you can actually watch. Let's not even get in to the Blu-Ray encryption snafu and how that affected those of us who use non-commercial operating systems.

Someone accused of robbing a bank should not be able to use their own money to defend themselves against such an accusation?

You have a major problem with your presumption of guilt.

You make some very good points here, and I'm fairly convinced. However, I know for a fact that my local orchestra works on a full-time principal, part-time section basis. Just how common that is, I have no idea, but I have an anecdote to show that they do exist. Also the musician's union signed off on the arrangement.

You can only get windows updates if your network drivers work. With the Lenovos, Dells, and HPs I've been coming across early, Windows 7 and 8 are broken out of the box, usually with no network drivers.

Strangely enough, Linux often works flawlessly with these same computers.

I can't possibly imagine an instance in which the police arriving in an armored vehicle would deescalate a situation, and I believe deescalation ought to be the aim of police showing up at disturbances. Especially at protests and anti-police riots, like what happened in Baltimore this past week. Rolling around with military gear is antagonistic toward the people who already believe you exist only to oppress them. Perhaps that is not the best move to make.

As unreasonable as that sounds, do you think it is that unlikely? Consider that developers and systems administrators make up only a tiny fraction of all computer users. At the same time, we are the ones most likely to use tools like ssh. Very few run-of-the-mill computer users would have a call to do so.

Also consider that developers and systems administrators (and in general the sorts of people who use ssh) are far more likely to have the technical know-how to launch a sophisticated attack.

Putting all that together, it would not surprise me if the use of ssh were used as an identifying marker by the United States government to single individuals out for increased surveillance. Grant you, if this happens I think it is absolute bullshit, but I think there is some paranoid bureaucratic logic that leads to this conclusion.

Or, and here's a shocking concept, motorists could actually pay attention to their surroundings. Cyclists are not difficult to spot if you are paying proper attention while operating your vehicle.

That could be partly because it is illegal in many jurisdictions in the United States for a cyclist to ride on the sidewalks.

It is entirely possible that the low bike-on-pedestrian fatality rate is due in part to the law mandating that cyclists and pedestrians be segregated.

I agree with you there. Fortunately, in many jurisdictions in the United States, an electric rear light is mandatory.

If you do a cursory search on the audit, you will find the discussion here about the second link. Generally, TrueCrypt seems to be trustworthy still. Forks generally seem permissible, but must not use the TrueCrypt name. While forks may not technically be allowed, making any sort of claim against a forked project would require the authors of TrueCrypt to de-anonymize themselves, which seems unlikely.

That being said, this article is about data in transit, and TrueCrypt protects data at rest. I'm sure there is a better place to be having this conversation about TrueCrypt.

Let's suppose for a minute that there is some legislation put forth forcing encryption to have back doors inserted, or some other sort of key escrow. Why would anyone with the know-how and a privacy concern not just write an implementation of a known crypto algorithm?

Essentially, how would this legislation do anything but compromise the security of law-abiding people while not at all reducing the capabilities of those the US government wishes to stop?

And the gopher mirror, too! I don't have a good reason, but I really like the gopher protocol. Cool to see someone go to the (minimal) effort it takes to make a gopher mirror.

Thanks, that's sort of the impression I had, too.

What CPS is asking is that the parents prove a negative. The burden of proof should be on CPS to make a claim and offer evidence. What are the parents supposed to say? "And on the thirtieth of November, we spent an hour not neglecting our children"?

If not enough evidence exists to determine that neglect was happening, then these parents should not have CPS retaining a file on their "unsubstantiated" neglect for the next 5 years.

The old adage is that perfect is the enemy of good enough, but the author is claiming that GPG isn't even good enough. I have to somewhat disagree. While the ideal product in this space would be as easy to use as clicking a 'Like' button, and just as ubiquitous, GPG works well enough for now.

The most sensitive use case for GPG has to be sending correspondence that, if decrypted, could put you in severe physical danger. If the choice is between life and death, relative freedom or torture in some black site dungeon, the choice is clear. Using GPG is preferable to death or torture.

This doesn't exactly seem like a ringing endorsement, but if these are the stakes, then you are probably willing to read the equivalent of 40% of Fahrenheit 451 to be secure. You are probably willing to learn to practice good opsec.

It would be fantastic if GPG were displaced by something equally trustworthy and secure, but more user-friendly, and I look forward to the day that happens. But I think that GPG is the best we have, and we should be appreciative of that.

Damn right. A grand jury can indict without the defendant present (in fact that's how it usually works). Then the US can work to extradite, or just arrest if any of the defendants ever try to enter the US.

Off topic, but I am curious. To any Russian readers, how does Yandex hold up to Google for Russian users? Does it provide an experience better than Google in some way? Do people use it simply because it is domestic? Is it similar to Baidu in that it is a means of controlling the flow of information?

I was specifically trying to avoid the whataboutisms that so frequently come up in these discussions. I find what Putin is doing to be deplorable, and the pro-Russia astroturfing is often blatantly obvious. I had a genuine curiosity, but obviously I did a poor job of expressing it.

I think when he says "we," he is probably from Europe, where hate speech laws are much stronger than in America, where they basically don't exist.

Yeah, but that's a really stupid attitude. In what way are images of a person inciting hatred or calling people to violence?

Denying the Holocaust is a hell of a lot different than saying, "Hey! Look! Here's a picture of a person!"

So, Litvinenko was allegedly working with MI6 after leaving the KGB (and Russia). This seems more like spycraft than a politically motivated assassination.

That being said, this case makes me wonder if political assassinations also occur in Western politics, or if the killing of dissidents is mostly an Eastern Bloc thing.

While this is true, I find the distinction between graphical fidelity and art style to be important in these matters.

While the graphics of Super Metroid might not be anything spectacular, the pixel art is phenomenal, and replaying it recently I gained a whole new appreciation for how future-proof the art direction in that game is. I think there are many more examples of this out there, too. For instance, people often bemoan early 3d games (Nintendo 64 games especially) for aging horribly. On the whole, that is true. But there are certainly exceptions, such as Majora's Mask, where (again) the art direction saved the game's graphics from the awkward low-polygon limitations of the system.

I remember playing this game when I was younger, and being impressed by the interactivity of the AI. Though honestly, I mostly just swore at them creatively.

I have to wonder, though, if the game did actually have especially good AI, or if I just wasn't familiar with text-based adventure games enough to recognize Starship Titanic as essentially being one.

While you should be allowed to express whatever viewpoint you have regarding gay marriage, I have yet to see an argument against which is not rooted in bigotry.

Is your argument that people should be allowed to spew bigoted and hateful nonsense without facing any social repercussion whatsoever?