Hacker News Reader

uvdivon Snowden Leaves Hong Kong on Commercial Flight to Moscow

No. Nothing has been reported that claims it is definite.

uvdivon Snowden Leaves Hong Kong on Commercial Flight to Moscow

I edited my comment to include all of Moscow's airports, not only SVO. Although transferring airports, meaning going through Russia's border police and entering that country, seems an even stranger idea.

uvdivon Snowden Leaves Hong Kong on Commercial Flight to Moscow

This is strange, because there are no scheduled nonstop flights between Moscow (any airport) and Iceland. There are flights which make a connection in Europe, e.g. Helsinki, but then there are already nonstop flights to Helsinki from Hong Kong, so what does he gain from an additional landing in Moscow?

(Assuming Iceland is where he is trying to go).

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

http://flightaware.com

(Note that the hub in Iceland is Keflavík (KEF), not Reykjavík (RKV) which mostly does domestic).

uvdivon WikiLeaks' Assange urges support for Snowden

I'm amazed there's any expectation of ideological commonality with Cuba, a repressive state with near-totalitarian control over information, where connecting to the internet is functionally illegal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Cuba

uvdivon Disoriented, Man With ID Is Still a Puzzle

He gave a high-profile Q&A with Reddit this year:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/13rs46/i_am_benjaman_k...

One thing not mentioned in wikipedia is that he made a White House petition to replace his Social Security Number, which failed with somewhere over 7,500 signatures (but not enough). Kafkaesque.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/grant-benjaman-kyl...

uvdivon WikiLeaks' Assange urges support for Snowden

Iceland's Pirate Party lawmaker advised him to go to Cuba.

"If I was his legal counsel I would urge him to look at many countries, not just Iceland," [Jónsdottír] added. “Maybe New Zealand, Ecuador, Cuba—many countries."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/icelandic-lawmake...

uvdivon Climate change: A cooling consensus

Note that this was published in the Economist, which has a reputation for overusing puns. This edition also has articles titled "T Time" and [amyloid] "Beta testing" .

uvdivon NSA Disruption of Stock Exchange Bomb Plot Disputed

This isn't always the case [0], even with very neutral questions and no media priming.

[0] http://lesswrong.com/lw/hw/scope_insensitivity/

uvdivon E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress (2009)

To preempt confusion: the old title was

'NSA analyst "improperly accessed" Bill Clinton's email [2009]'

That's what the early comments are replying to.

uvdivon Czech PM resigns over illegal spying

"Mr Necas resigned days after prosecutors charged the head of his office, Jana Nagyova, with bribing members of parliament and ordering intelligence agents to spy on people. The scandal has a personal element for the prime minister: one of the surveillance targets, according to lawyers involved in the case, was his own wife, Radka. The two are filing for divorce."

uvdivon Edward Snowden: Classified US data shows Hong Kong hacking targets

The detailed records - which cannot be independently verified - show specific dates and the IP addresses of computers in Hong Kong and on the mainland hacked by the National Security Agency over a four-year period. [...] "I don't know what specific information they were looking for on these machines, only that using technical exploits to gain unauthorised access to civilian machines is a violation of law. It's ethically dubious," Snowden said in the interview on Wednesday.

So he has no idea what foreign entity the NSA is targeting or why, yet he decides to warn them about it? This is supposed to be ethical, responsible whistleblowing?

uvdivon Members of Congress Go Silent Over Prior False Testimony On Surveillance

Also, given the name "PRISM," isn't it pretty obvious how this program worked? Think about it... What does a prism do?

It's obvious a spy agency isn't trying to communicate how their program works to everyone who stumbles across their codename.

uvdivon The Solitary Leaker

This is... impressive:

He betrayed the privacy of us all. If federal security agencies can’t do vast data sweeps, they will inevitably revert to the older, more intrusive eavesdropping methods.

Wow.

uvdivon Hong Kong Baffled by Snowden’s Hideout

This is contradicted somewhat by a different source. This one says Hong Kong is a very good place to seek asylum right now, because there is a moratorium on deporting asylum-seekers:

But there is at least one reason it could be incredibly shrewd: Hong Kong's asylum system is currently stuck in a state of limbo that could allow Snowden to exploit a loophole and buy some valuable time.

Simon Young, director of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law at the University of Hong Kong, told GlobalPost that a decision delivered by Hong Kong's High Court in March of this year required the government to create a new procedure for reviewing asylum applications.

Until the government does this, he said, asylum seekers are allowed to stay in Hong Kong indefinitely.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific...

uvdivon Hong Kong Baffled by Snowden’s Hideout

The OP explains that the Hong Kong judicial system would handle an extradition, but Beijing would be able to veto it.

"Lawyers said Monday that any extradition request would also need to go through the city’s legal system before Beijing could intercede, a process that would likely be drawn out."

uvdivon Hong Kong Baffled by Snowden’s Hideout

Why not? They're both in the sovereign territory of China.

uvdivon Hong Kong Baffled by Snowden’s Hideout

Then again, if Snowden were hypothetically spying for the PRC, Hong Kong would be the most logical place to seek protection. In this scenario the PRC would credibly protect him from the US, and European liberal democracies would not.

uvdivon Python Flask NSA Backdoor

This isn't about a backdoor in NSA's Flask (SELinux). This title will be misunderstood. Add [python] or [parody] or something.

uvdivon I'm Ready To Help NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Seek Asylum

I haven't found any interesting information. Apparently this theory is being speculated on CNN (as I said, neither interesting, nor information...)

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/former-cia-officer-officials-cons...

uvdivon Treaty gives Hong Kong option to reject Snowden extradition to the US

The article is confusing. More clearly: both Hong Kong and the PRC (mainland) can deny extraditions from HK to the US.

Beijing, which gave its consent for Hong Kong to sign the agreement, also has a right of veto if it believes the surrender of a fugitive would harm the "defence, foreign affairs or essential public interest or policy'' of the People's Republic of China. In short, the treaty makes Snowden's fate a matter of political expediency not just in Hong Kong but in Beijing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-h...

uvdivon I'm Ready To Help NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Seek Asylum

A competing theory is that he is actually spying for the PRC. Hong Kong would be an obvious choice for a wealthy, Western spy seeking Chinese protection. They're semi-autonomous, but military affairs are run by the PRC, and in particular the PRC has control over foreign extradition:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-h...

If this wasn't a priori the best theory, surely the HK part adds some Bayesian weight.

uvdivon EasyPost (YC S13) Response to PRISM Accusations

It must be "A, NSA Notify".

    $ grep 'nsanotify' /etc/services
    ansanotify      116/udp     # ANSA REX Notify
    ansanotify      116/tcp     # ANSA REX Notify

uvdivon Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

Can't you straighforwardly strike the "Fourth Amendment... construed" part and leave the core "no agency of the US government... [shall]"? Because that's be solidly in the purview of Congress. And my flimsy understanding of law is that, if SCOTUS were to look at this, they would do something like what I said -- respecting the intent of the legislature as closely as possible -- rather than throwing out the whole thing.

I think this bill isn't expected to pass anyway, so it makes sense if it's been optimized for rhetorical, not legal, power.

uvdivon Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

So why haven't any members of Congress spoken up about this program? Rand and Ron, where were you?

Some did speak up, pretty loudly. Did you read this story (Wyden & Udall) when it came it out in 2012? I did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/us/politics/democratic-sen...

Here's follow-ups from this week, linking their warnings to the current stories:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/us/politics/senators-wyden...

http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_23406958/sen-mark-udal...

Rand and Ron? I'm reasonably confident they've been against this from the start (it's part of their core ideology), but Rand Paul was never on the secret Senate committee that was allowed to know about this, nor Ron on its House counterpart:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Select_Co...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Permanent_...

Wyden and Udall were (on the Senate side), and they did inform the public. Sort of. The public doesn't really care that much.

uvdivon Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

Yes, the entire rulemaking part.

It's true the Verizon spying had a secret-court FISA warrant, but was that warrant required to have "probable cause"?

uvdivon Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

'waterphone' -- your comment history appears benign and helpful, I think you deserve to know you've been hellbanned. The automated filter on HN will hide your comments from most users. It is a waste of your time to comment if this is not fixed.

(reply to invisible comment): You're welcome!

uvdivon Rand Paul Bill Would Curb NSA on Phone Records

Text of the proposed law:

"The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution shall not be construed to allow any agency of the United States Government to search the phone records of Americans without a warrant based on probable cause."

http://www.paul.senate.gov/files/documents/EAS13699.pdf

("Fourth Amendment Restoration Act of 2013")

uvdivon California Nuclear Power Plant Decides to Close

http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/electric_generation_...

Time-averaged outputs are 1,045 MW wind, 175 MW solar. (2nd table, in units of gigawatt-hours per year. The 1st table shows peak capacities: 4,967 MW wind, 855 MW solar).