jflatow

What's the benefit of being 'completely decentralized', if the individual joining the network still needs to decide which network and set of rules to trust? Answer: none, you've just pushed the question of trust / centralization to that of choosing the particular fork you want to use.

I tend to bite my nails, especially when I'm programming or deep in thought. Last year I decided to start walking whenever I reach that point where I am fidgeting and can't sit still. It's totally changed the way I work for the better. I walk between 10-20 miles per day, and can get a lot of work done on those walks. Highly recommended, especially for people living in places with good weather and beautiful scenery.

No, it's far more than two devices, and it went on for 10 months. They placed surveillance all around the 2 courthouses: light fixtures, a bus stop, bushes, poles, the steps, and inside several vehicles. And there's another similar case from last year with >200 hours of recordings in San Mateo.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2016/05/11/...

No, they never stop. 21st century governments use secrecy to avoid having to deal with the public. And they use national security to justify secrecy. Sometimes they screw up, or there's a leak (like with TTIP), but for the most part we don't know about what's happening until its too late to do anything about it. That's why you need to study history to see the pattern of abuse. Once you see how it happens historically, you can see pieces of the puzzle indicating where its still happening today. Or, you look to the few journalists still doing investigative reporting (e.g. theintercept.com) to expose the man-behind-the-curtain.

The original point was that people should fear corporations more than the government, because the government is the instrument of the people, whereas corporations have other less savory motives.

But its not true - the government is not to be trusted. It has a monopoly on military / police force, which it abuses incessantly. Moreover, it is effectively controlled by a private duopoly (Democrats + Republicans), with the same motives as any corporate coalition. What's more, corporations effectively control the duopoly. Just look at what happened with TTIP (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/04/secrets...).

And it is not doing what most of the populace wants, if that's not clear from the current election, look at the Congress approval ratings (http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx). It's barely gone above 20% in the last 6 years. And has only once briefly gone above 50% in the past 30 years.

What Clinton tells her is not what Clinton actually does. Campaign promises are exactly that. The government lies to your mom to get her support and 'keep her in line'.

Perhaps you are mistaking the ideal government from the actual government. Governments are repeat offenders, and they lie to the public constantly. Its no secret - look it up. Yet they are so powerful, that it happens anyway.

Its also no secret that the people who control the government have interests in retaining power and accumulating wealth. Politicians don't even deny that they can be bought, money is free speech after all (http://www.amendmentgazette.com/how-spending-money-became-a-...). Congressmen spend more than half of their time fundraising for a reason.

The policies and actions of the government are not intended to protect you, even though sometimes your interests are aligned.

It's also eerily reminiscent of the Stasi era. Just take a trip to the Stasi museum next time you are Berlin and perhaps you'll freak out a little too.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/03/lessons-from-...

What makes you think you could do that?

Given your stance, I suppose you would be OK with censorship too, assuming it was monitored by a soft paternalistic AI intended only to 'protect' people?

Unfortunately we don't have any AI like what you described, and history has proven time and again that governments abuse powers like this to their own advantage.

The government is not your parent. The government lies to the public constantly, and has an agenda that is largely determined by financial interests.

Yes. We are told these measures are taken to protect our national security, but in reality they are meant to protect the government.

Take the ongoing incident with Hillary Clinton's email server, for example. Clinton was quick to support scrapping 4th amendment rights (Patriot Act) in the name of security, but when it came to state secrets, she played it fast and loose (at best). It took 15 years and a scandal before the Secretary of State's emails were finally secured. We started a mass surveillance program practically the day after 9/11.

We are starting to forget we are supposed to have things like civil liberties, and that the exceptions made for wartime only work if war is not permanent. The war on terror has no end. Before terror, it was drugs and communism. The government will never stop coming up with reasons it needs more power.

Secrecy is one of the government's greatest powers. Unchecked, they try to classify anything and everything.

EDIT: What I failed to realize is that unlike other content, in the case of DRM, publishers do not even trust the user.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11680863

That would be consistent, and relates to the main question I have: Why does the CDM need to be a blackbox? Couldn't the decryption be standardized with all proprietary information boiling down to secret license keys?

We know that this is something the publisher's want. That doesn't mean CDM functionality can't be standardized. It doesn't need to be a black box, and you don't need to trust the client any more than you trust the user.

The point EFF is making is that its up to the W3C to maintain the balance between the power of publishers and the freedom of users.

Well, historically all those mechanisms have been problems for the open web. To me, the question is why you couldn't achieve the same thing without making the CDM a blackbox, e.g. just by issuing license keys and standardizing the encryption/decryption of content. It seems like the only benefit to making CDMs blackboxes is that it gives publishers more control over the user's environment.

Yes I think it works like this: publisher decides CDM, and EME describes a standard interface for all CDMs.

The trick, which EFF points out, is that CDMs are allowed to be blackboxes, and publishers can create their own and distribute them any way they see fit, which effectively lets them determine which browsers may consume their content.

I'm afraid I don't know the history of it well enough to give a good answer, but IIUC what the EFF is claiming here is that CDMs are (potentially proprietary) blackboxes and that EME treats them as such. Therefore, publishers are able to decide which browsers are even allowed to use the CDM which they designate.

As far as CDMs being blackboxes in the standard - you can verify that yourself: https://w3c.github.io/encrypted-media/

It would be good to have an EFF expert explain some of the nuance here though.

I think the point is that to consume any particular piece of content, the publisher decides which CDM is appropriate, which effectively lets them decide who (which browser) can consume their content.

The parties which provide the content, often the one's who create it but not always. As opposed to the browser vendor, or the consumer (browser user).

I think I agree with you, but the EFF raises some good questions. If content producers have this kind of control, how do you ever create a new browser? And can users really choose their browser if the major publishers have that much control?

In other words, if I want to create a new browser, I then have to convince every single publisher whose content I want to display that they should add me to some list of approved providers. This does seem like it's just going to reenforce any initial power dynamics. I'm not sure what a better solution is though.

> This system, "Encrypted Media Extensions" (EME) uses standards-defined code to funnel video into a proprietary container called a "Content Decryption Module." For a new browser to support this new video streaming standard -- which major studios and cable operators are pushing for -- it would have to convince those entertainment companies or one of their partners to let them have a CDM, or this part of the "open" Web would not display in their new browser.

This is the crux of the issue. The W3C is creating a standard which gives control to the publishers over which browsers can display their content.

Whether that's "right" or "wrong" is worth debating, but sometimes the real issue at stake gets obscured in these discussions.

Perhaps it just means you are 40% aligned with the nexus of Cruz, Rubio, Trump and Conservatism

Yeah, the ellipsis is clearer but has a hard time standing on its own. I had no idea this was making waves in the design community. And while I don't necessarily agree with the complaints, I recall that when I first started seeing hamburger menus I was somehow viscerally opposed.

I plan to use this too. It's weirdly inspiring to see how quickly this came together, how much support its getting, and how the bitter HN community energy can be harnessed towards a constructive solution to a problem.

AFAICT it's been rigged since the beginning. I'm just glad someone took the time to finally understand / document what's actually happening.

In my experience, most people have good intentions when it comes down to it. I think the place for you to start is trying to engage people who you think totally disagree with you, or you think are too stupid / low EQ to know any better. I mean, really try to understand where they are coming from. You might find your own opinions change, or you might change theirs. You may not get anywhere but its worth a shot, there's only one or two people I've met in my life that are really just terrible people.

I mean, try to fix the underlying problem. Why are people acting in this way you don't like, what's causing that? Answer that and you'll either get more sympathy for people, or discover something great to help them.

1. Start

2. Don't stop

What are you doing about it besides complaining? If the answer is nothing, that might be a good place to start. Trying to fix the problem usually either results in a) fixing the problem b) a deeper understanding of the problem.