Hacker News Reader

glitchdouton Python idioms I wish I'd learned earlier

Sorry for the offtopic but why did you add `&noredirect=1` to the end of that youtube url?

glitchdouton New Search Strategy for Firefox

What about the move from Talk to Hangouts? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/google-abandons-open-s...

glitchdouton What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

> Our job is to learn from the past and try to prevent it from happening again in the future.

Doesn't seem to be working with Guantanamo. Or invading other countries.

glitchdouton Lawrence Lessig Interviews Edward Snowden [video]

You still believe the system isn't broken? You've got to be pretty naive, my friend. Or a damn great optimist.

Obama was supposed to reverse Bush's policies. Instead he enhanced them. It doesn't matter who you vote for. The gerrymandering, the first past the post voting system, the electoral college, the two-party system, the two-party media, all the special interest groups, the corporations, the bribing, I mean, the campaign contributions... The system is fundamentally broken.

Democracy doesn't scale. I doubt a country as big as the United States will ever be truly democratic.

glitchdouton Lawrence Lessig Interviews Edward Snowden [video]

> what the NSA was up to

Correction. What the NSA is up to. So far nothing has changed. The Utah data center is still up. Another massive data center is being built in Maryland. May I remind you, these are for content, not metadata [1]. There are no limits to their spying.

Everybody's looking for technology solutions but so far nothing has changed politically. And with the way things are going, it never will because the power and blackmail potential of these agencies are just too great.

[1]: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs-july-dec1... (skip to 3:50)

glitchdouton Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

This is straight out of NSA's manual to manipulate online discourse. You can read more about it here:

* Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media [1]

* How Covert Agents Infiltrate The Internet To Manipulate, Deceive, And Destroy Reputations [2]

Poul-Henning Kamp, in a hypothetical talk about his work at the NSA, talks about just this. [3] Here's a quote:

> The idea is to steer discussions in these forums to or from particular topics (...) and disrupt consensus building against our purposes

[1]: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-ope...

[2]: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...

[3]: http://youtu.be/fwcl17Q0bpk?t=14m36s

glitchdouton John Carmack on Inlined Code

> I also feel that people conflate duplicating code with duplicating behaviour, which is what DRY is really about.

Indeed. The definition of the DRY principle [1] is:

Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system.

and not:

Don't type the same characters into the keyboard multiple times.

People often forget that.

[1]: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DontRepeatYourself

glitchdouton How a new HTML element will make the Web faster

What do you read nowadays?

glitchdouton The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

They do record and store (foreign and domestic) phone calls. Your comment proves you're simply an ignorant or a shill.

Proof:

* NSA Collects ‘Word for Word’ Every Domestic Communication, Says Former Analyst http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs-july-dec1...

* NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-recor...

* NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-su...

* NSA spying flap extends to contents of U.S. phone calls http://www.cnet.com/news/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents...

glitchdouton Russia extends Snowden residency by three years

Don't mean to troll but for your information his name is spelled as SnowdEn.

glitchdouton 3% use IE9 and 14% have a disability. Why do we only cater for the former?

On my desktop browser, I can only browse Hacker News with zoom at 150%.

glitchdouton Vodafone reveals direct government wiretaps

I'd say the BBC report is wrong.

Vodafone's report says:

> Under s.5 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (“ISA”) the Secretary of State may, on an application made by the Security Service, the Intelligence Services or GCHQ, issue a warrant in respect of any property so specified or in respect of wireless telegraphy. There is the possibility that this power is broad enough to permit government direct access to Vodafone’s network by the Security Services in some instances.

If the possibility exists then you bet GCHQ is using it. Sorry, your own country can listen into your calls :(

glitchdouton Vodafone reveals direct government wiretaps

And then search for "direct access".

Five of the six countries with direct access appear to be Qatar, Greece, Hungary, Ireland and, not surprisingly, the UK.

glitchdouton The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas

No, it wasn't.

Today's revelation is that the NSA records and stores 100% of the phone calls made in the Bahamas.

The Post's revelation was that the NSA records and stores 100% of the phone calls made in an unnamed country.

These two countries are distinct. Read the actual article we're discussing.

I'll quote:

> In March, The Washington Post revealed that the NSA had developed the capability to record and store an entire nation’s phone traffic for 30 days.

(...)

> The Intercept has confirmed that as of 2013, the NSA was actively using MYSTIC to gather cell-phone metadata in five countries, and was intercepting voice data in two of them. Documents show that the NSA has been generating intelligence reports from MYSTIC surveillance in the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, the Philippines, and one other country, which The Intercept is not naming in response to specific, credible concerns that doing so could lead to increased violence.

glitchdouton The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas

Is it the NSA's job to record every single phone call made in every foreign country? Is that what you're saying? I can't call my mother without my conversation being stored?

glitchdouton The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas

This is THE list: http://www.reddit.com/r/NSALeaks/wiki/stuff

Still missing today's revelation though.

glitchdouton The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas

He left The Guardian.

Here's a quote from a recent interview he gave to the Guardian:

> The move [to create his own journalistic enterprise] was audacious and bold, but when I raise it with him he's in a surprisingly reflective mood. He's had some feelings, if not of regret, then perhaps of a little guilt at having left the Guardian at a time when the NSA disclosures were still blazing. "I don't want to say betrayal, that's too strong, but a lack of loyalty ..."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwald...

That's beside the point though. What matters are the disclosures. Not who makes them and not the newspaper where they appear. The disclosures are all that matter.

glitchdouton Octotree: the missing GitHub tree view (Chrome extension)

A "search for files/folders named ..." feature already exists on GitHub. Just press "t".

glitchdouton RSS: What Not Dying Looks Like

Me too. Loving it so far. A bit too white, maybe.

I just wish they fixed a bug where pressing "j" does not mark as read the first post. Kind of annoying. I have to press "k" first, then "j".

glitchdouton RSS: What Not Dying Looks Like

Have you tried The Old Reader (whose blog post you just read)?

I absolutely love it. Unfortunately, I had to give up on using it last week since I had too many feeds to stay on the free version.

I'm now using Digg's Reader and I'm happy so far. Updates more often than (the free version of) The Old Reader too!

glitchdouton Ask HN: Is UML still relevant today?

And I'd like to add js-sequence-diagrams: http://bramp.github.io/js-sequence-diagrams/

glitchdouton Ask HN: Your favorite YouTube channels?

Art of the Problem has the best explanation I've ever seen of the Diffie-Hellman key exchange (the basis for TSL/SSL). I wish this video was shown in my Crypto class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NcDVERzMGw&list=PLB4D701646...

The whole playlist is also worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB4D701646DAF0817

glitchdouton GitHub Cheat Sheet

Yep. The long form of that command is `git add --patch` and so I have it aliased as `git pa`.

glitchdouton NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

I already linked you the evidence in my previous post. Stop being purposely obtuse. At this point you just seem to be part of another NSA program. [1]

I'll just quote the lead:

> The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

And more recently, GCHQ's JTRIG program. [2]

Again, I'll quote:

> (The core self-identified purposes of JTRIG is to) use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable

[1]: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-ope...

[2]: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...

glitchdouton NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

How does that that give the FBI legitimacy to record phone calls of US citizens?

glitchdouton NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

Here's your fucking evidence:

The FBI had access to the Boston bombers phone calls.

* http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs-july-dec1... (important part at 2:10)

* http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/04/telepho...

I'll quote the slip up of Tim Clemente, a former FBI agent:

> All digital communications are uh uh... There's a way to look at digital communications in the past. And I can't go into detail of how that's done or what's done but I can tell you that no digital communication is secure.

glitchdouton GCHQ Used Fake LinkedIn Pages to Target Engineers (2013)

Really interesting (if a bit disturbing, to be honest). Thanks for sharing.

glitchdouton GCHQ Used Fake LinkedIn Pages to Target Engineers (2013)

Why do the NSA and GCHQ want this much access? Everyone's location in real time? This is ludicrous. Terrorists don't use mobile phones anyway.

I'm still waiting for the blackmail revelations. Though I doubt NSA & friends would be that stupid to make slides about that little objective.

glitchdouton Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

> The entire team (and many commenters here need this too) get coached on why its rude to stare at people, even if they are hula hooping or different.

You can't possibly be serious.