shaggyfrog

I’m not sure what argument you are asserting I’m making; it sounds like you’re saying I’m suggesting this site should be banned. I’m not. I’m merely stating my reasons for not reading the article, and why there are negative consequences of HN boosting the profile of sites like this. And that the “prefer article quality over site quality” rule is idealistic because it pays insufficient (if any) consideration to consequences of using this platform to boost theirs.

You frame this in terms of optimization, but I’m framing this in terms of acknowledging there are negative consequences are of boosting problematic platforms (and perhaps having a discussion in terms of what negative consequences we as a community will accept).

I hear you, dang, but I’d rather not spend my time on a site that also hosts those kinds of articles. I don’t want to support them. I don’t want them to gain credence because they happen to have an article that’s not filled with harmful paranoid delusions. I don’t want my pageview to give them credibility capital.

In other words, I don’t think it’s possible to completely separate an article from its site, and so why I understand the spirit of that rule, I think it’s idealistic and naive, and it doesn’t consider the consequences of promoting a problematic site like this.

The threat was regarding emulation. Rosetta 2 isn't emulation, it's translation.

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." -- Desmond Tutu

> Are so many unscrupulous people now members of HN?

Probably the same people who recently suggested re-colonization of Africa and downvoted my horrified responses to oblivion (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23893411)

Is this just a recent spike in abject immortality or is this an Eternal September?

This is not a discussion looking back 250 years at someone. It's looking back on the behaviour of someone living 1 year ago. Or yesterday. Or today.

Sexism for sure. Like when someone named John Sonmez went on a sexist tirade on Twitter last year, Martin went to his support: https://dev.to/awwsmm/can-we-separate-the-artist-from-their-...

And now when he was told he had said some things that make people uncomfortable, his public reaction was threatening to sue. He'd rather attack, than stop and understand why he is becoming persona non grata.

Co-opting the language of victimhood (in the blog post, but also for Sonmez https://twitter.com/unclebobmartin/status/118636551396805017... ) to support and perpetuate toxic behaviour in himself and other people in the software industry is just one reason why "Uncle" Bob Martin shouldn't be given a platform by any conference. There are plenty more deserving people who can talk instead.

I’m glad that the Canada COVID-19 contact tracing app is open source and available on GitHub, and I’m glad people can push fixes to it, but this kind of bug exists because it’s using React Native unnecessarily, and dragging in a zillion dependencies.

I don’t see why both the iOS and the Android versions can’t be fully native, besides a desire to have a single codebase. The apps aren’t doing anything fancy, UI-wise. They are basically just integrating with the native contract tracing system framework on each platform.

Dragging in React Native and its giant web of dependencies makes the codebase harder to audit and manage from a security perspective. It’s also a product of Facebook, which is greatly concerning from a privacy point of view.

I still have this app installed on my iPhone and I keep it up to date, but I really wish it was built differently.

You are suggesting a form of corporate neo-colonialism, which is an abhorrent position for anyone to have in good faith in the year 2020.

That other people agree with you with downvoting my comment makes me extremely disappointed in the level of discourse here on HN.

As you can see by the reply, and the downvotes, it was a genuine statement.

This is an incredibly racist and supremely ignorant comment, displaying the same justifications that fuelled the colonialism in Africa hundreds of years ago that is still at the root of deeply systemic problems in that continent.

You answered your own question.

When the “business side” can claim a N% increase in conversion/daily usage/whatever having FB login, a developer will be tasked with implementing it uncritically, because if they speak up, they’ll be punished.

The “business side” doesn’t give a crap about privacy or performance or any of that stuff. They just see the numbers, especially their potential bonuses.

Late-stage capitalism, Baby.

I can trust their motivations because... why? They want to make more money?

No love for these spying apps, but pretty sure PIA should not be throwing stones after climbing into bed with Kape. Or maybe this is part of a PR strategy?

Not unless you think PrivacyInvasionFramework should be a thing.

I use an NTI: https://nationaldentex.com/products/headache-therapy/nti-tss...

Well, two actually; one of the top and one on the bottom. It prevents the jaw from clenching at night.

Consider the user experience of an email app that only works when you have a network connection — so you can’t even see your mail when you’re offline. Pretty lousy.

What makes you think that kind of Malicious Compliance update gets accepted at all?

The problem with a hypocritical stance is that its existence defies logic to begin with.

While I agree with your sentiment that this is clearly overblown, and perhaps the usage of “AI” these days to describe simple systems in general, your stance is too strong. Markov chains/models have always been considered traditional AI tools. At least it was taught to me when I did my degree in AI twenty years ago, using the first edition of AIMA.

(There’s a whole topic called Hidden Markov Models, and algorithms for learning them using only observed events, like Baum-Welch.)

There are plenty of people doing fun things using texts to build fun predictive models (look at Botnik Studios), but that also doesn’t mean it’s not AI.

They have more users, but so what? They suddenly found (privacy) religion, so now they can be trusted? That certainly sounds like a leap of faith. A blind one.

Stop looking at the empty words they say, and start looking at their very intentional and malignant actions over the last few months/years.

Updated their priors? Review their history. Their "real intentions" have been "revealed" multiple times over the past several months (or years). It's a litany of privacy-related blunders. This is pure PR; words to distract you from their many misdeeds.

Trust, but verify, yes? Well, they're verifiably full of crapola.

So why would you trust?

Why trust any company that put out the initial policy in the first place?

Have they had a fundamental turnover in management, indicating a new pro-privacy culture? Did they move their development out from under the thumb of the CCP?

No and no?

So what’s changed?

If they weren’t trustworthy before, they certainly aren’t now.

Nice work!

A passphrase, as opposed to a password, has spaces between each word.

If you added those it would be easier to read, especially for mobile, if you used a multiline textarea, because the generated content isn’t fully readable at a glance. (Or don’t use a form input field at all — just put the passphrase in a div so the word breaks flow normally.)

A few things:

There are many ways how his tenure can come to an end. I am expressing a hope that he figures it out while he is still in a position to change things with his power as CEO.

As for people who lose their job for doing the wrong thing, the media is currently awash in those stories.

Even he if loses his job, he’ll still be quite privileged given his wealth and status.

It’s sine qua non. You are arguing against the very essence of something having that essence.

Please don’t insult me and then call me “friend”. It’s passive-aggressive and not suitable for this site.

Politics is the process of making a decision, so my point is that decision-making is inherently political.

Your comment — and subtle trailing insult — is not constructive and non-sequitur.

It’s understandable to give up on a worthwhile cause because you’ve lost the energy for it, but it doesn’t make sense to actively encourage others to give up on it, if the cause was ever important to you at all.

Every decision made at the executive level is inherently a political decision, because someone will benefit.

But not just affirmative actions: not cancelling a contract with an organization that builds concentration camps is making a strong political statement in itself.

They “waded into the waters” the moment they accepted the contract with ICE. What they are seeing now is that their actions have consequences. And while you don’t necessarily intend the consequences of your actions, you must accept them.

Only children have trouble doing so.

There are a few comments in here already decrying “politicization”.

Guess what? Politics are interwoven in every aspect of our lives. You cannot choose to “avoid” them; even suggesting you can be politically neutral is a political stance that comes from a place of privilege, because only the privileged can avoid experiencing negative political consequences inside their bubble.

Collaboration with ICE is collaboration with ICE, whether it’s “just hosting code” or actually contracted by them to develop their systems. It’s the same deal with Amazon or Facebook or whoever. If you work for them you need to admit to yourself that you are an enabler. Most people can’t admit that to themselves, so they maintain an unhealthy cognitive dissonance to keep going.

And it hurts when that dissonance is shattered.

Comparing supporting ICE to a marriage is nonsense, and thinking you can somehow help them be better by keeping them as a customer? A totally naive concept that has been shown not to work in practice since the US 2016 election. (In fact, supporting the monster makes them stronger; if it made them weaker, why would they keep using your product?)

The reckoning we are seeing in tech is long overdue. As developers we are no longer seeing our actions as “politically neutral” and are starting to understand the power we yield collectively to make positive change to our industry.

Nat Friedman is on the wrong side of history here. These empty words are no longer sufficient. Hopefully he figures that out before his tenure at GitHub comes to an end.