
NSA Files Decoded: What the revelations mean for you - msantos
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/snowden-nsa-files-surveillance-revelations-decoded
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JonSkeptic
Woah. This is a pretty cool reactive article. It's the first one that I've
personally encountered which reacts like it's supposed to, engaging me as I
read.

Congratulations to whoever put this together, it was very well done.

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shmerl
Yeah, very well designed and with proper HTML video.

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mmcclure
This might be the coolest news article layout I've seen...It's awesome to see
HTML5 video used in an unobtrusive, classy way like this.

I was also excited to see they're using Video.js, with a super subtle theme
that matches the rest of the site (when controls are showing). Really well
done.

~~~
shmerl
Since most news and media sites are plagued by buggy Flash video players which
barely if ever work for me on Linux, this in contrast was really refreshing.

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abraxasz
This guy, Stewart Baker:

"You ask me proofs that it works, I can show you proofs that the lack of it
really fails"

That is so flawed from a logic point of view that I won't even bother.

"We can't be transparent .. we have to get comfortable with the idea that
we're delegating to somebody.."

There are two things here: 1) Most people agree that we can't talk about the
details of implementation of a strategy agreed to by the US people to defend
our country. The problem is that the mass surveillance that we've heard of in
the last 5 months is not exactly a "detail of implementation" is it? It's a
whole gods damn strategy that the US people didn't directly agree to. (Now
yes, it's a democracy, we elected representatives who agreed to this. So what?
Our constitution doesn't give full power to our representatives. If they
didn't think for a second that a question of that magnitude might require some
public debate, they are wrong, period).

2) He talks about trust. The problem is that trust is not something that you
just ask for. If you are corrupt, lie, cheat, and all around screw up for long
enough, people will stop trusting you.

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aaronem
> "You ask me proofs that it works, I can show you proofs that the lack of it
> really fails"

> That is so flawed from a logic point of view that I won't even bother.

Well, I don't blame you; trying to disprove _p ⇒ q ∴ ¬q ⇒ ¬p_ would probably
cost you some embarrassment.

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abraxasz
Please, do replace "p" and "q" with whatever you had in mind then meditate on
the meaning of "=>". If you still don't get it refer to doctoboggan's counter-
example.

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theoh
Maybe it's something along the lines of "an effective security mechanism
implies safety; if there is no safety then it follows that no effective
security mechanism is in place"

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devx
The description about Feinstein is wrong. She didn't backtrack about anything.
She's only pretending to do it, while passing Newspeak bills with backdoors
that codify and legalize NSA's mass spying.

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/sen-feinsteins-nsa-
bil...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/sen-feinsteins-nsa-bill-will-
codify-and-extend-mass-surveillance)

Feinstein has done nothing but help the NSA so far. She's not going to just
stop because she suddenly developed a conscience. I wish Californians would
just recall her, because otherwise we're stuck with her and her pro-
surveillance state bias until 2018. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, if she wasn't
also the head of the Intelligence Committee, and having tremendous power in
the Senate to continue things as they are.

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jcromartie
This is the same lawmaker who wanted to ban "the shoulder thing that goes up".
She should have been laughed out of office long ago, but for some reason
enough people love this authoritarian idiot enough to keep her in office since
1992. It boggles the mind.

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dragonwriter
In a two party system, being in office a long time isn't necessarily a sign of
being loved by your constituents, it can just be a sign of being disliked less
than the alternatives that get offered when elections come around.

And there's few political organizations in the country better at producing
candidates unacceptable to the the statewide constituency they are offered to
than the Republican Party of California.

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seehafer
Feinstein (and Pelosi, also pro-NSA and representing _San Francisco_ of all
places) could easily be removed from office via a primary challenge. Doesn't
necessarily need to be a Republican opponent.

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jcromartie
So, can CA do it? Doesn't Silicon Valley have enough clout to throw behind a
candidate who will stand for privacy, rights, innovation, etc.?

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seehafer
Dear God I hope so, but it's going to take politically-connected heavy hitters
to care about it and I don't see that happening.

For instance, it's baffling to me that Ron Conway doesn't care about this
issue, given his entire portfolio is internet startups. I think Arrington was
right to call him out on that.

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mrschwabe
With these NSA revelations, I feel like there is still an elephant in the room
nobody has yet started talking about...

THIS DATA CAN BE USED TO UNDERMINE YOUR STARTUP.

It's not just privacy we should be concerned about. It's our economy.

Whether it is corporations willfully collaborating in secret with the
government or government secretly infiltrating corporations - either way, this
presents a serious opportunity for exploitation of the public marketplace.

Because with this amount of data, the NSA has a goldmine of business
intelligence that it can put to 'strategic use' via third-party 'partners' who
can actively participate in the market; ie- COMPETE WITH YOU.

This is unfair and a terrible flaw in an economic system.

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cracell
This is exactly what Brazil is so upset about [http://rt.com/news/us-spied-
brazil-oil-588/](http://rt.com/news/us-spied-brazil-oil-588/)

And really if you have the data, why not?

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jrochkind1
Totally aside from the content, this is a really good example of effective
design of long-form exposition in the medium of a web browser. Designed for
the affordances of the screen, without sacrificing in-depth textual content.

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hnha
I found myself only watching the videos while I am usually more attracted to
text than video. So I question the effectiveness of it. Maybe others noticed
the same behaviour?

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danabramov
It's very nicely made. I love how instead of hijacking scroll, it “plays with”
the scroll, turning the videos off and on.

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rejoinder
Only the first video played for me on Linux/Firefox nightly, and Readability
choked on it.

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keithpeter
Videos not auto-playing but can be started OK. The fibre optic graphic not
working. Other content apparently accessible.

gNewSense 3.0 / Iceweasel 3.5.16

Text can be captured using

    
    
        w3m http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/snowden-nsa-files-surveillance-revelations-decoded > nsa.txt
    

for those having problems with readability

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Jarred
This reminds me of newspapers in Harry Potter.

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csense
Why are so many people persuaded by arguments of the form, "It doesn't matter
what the government knows if you have nothing to hide?"

I'm not questioning why the NSA uses this argument -- clearly, they use it
because it works -- people are persuaded by it. What I'm asking is, why does
it work?

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johnbm
Just World fallacy: the belief that things happen for a reason, that bad
things happen to those who deserve it, and that the world is ultimately fair.

That is, they prefer to believe the government is a superhuman entity that has
everyone's best interests at heart, rather than facing the reality that it's
made up of fallible, selfish humans who are only interested in covering their
own asses.

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vermontdevil
The only thing I am disappointed is no subtitles/transcripts for the videos.
Unless I overlooked it?

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metastew
I concur. Accessibility takes a backseat yet again.

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JoseVigil
Not sure if I have seen such an elaborated article about a subject ever.
Remarkable.

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glitchdout
I really don't want to distract people from the matter at hand: NSA's massive
spying dragnet.

With that said, you haven't seen the Snow Fall article by the NYTimes? [1]

[1]: [http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-
fall/#/?part=tunne...](http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-
fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek)

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Edvik
Excellent! I'm excited about mixed media articles getting better and better!

One small tweak I would make is to have the video start playing not when it's
in the middle but closer to the top of the page.

Reason is, I find myself distracted by listening to the guys speak before I
finish reading the text.

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danudey
The problem I have is that on my smallish (13"? Not too small) monitor, the
top and bottom of the video are always very close to the top and bottom of the
viewport. On a 24" monitor it would be better, but I found watching the videos
to feel very claustrophobic.

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aaronem
> 13"? Not too small

It's 2013, and size matters. Thirteen inches, for an article like this one, is
too small.

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nimble
Can someone explain why, if I change the slider to indicate that I have only
one friend, the number of "friends of friends" is 163? Is my only friend
really so popular?

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dandandan
Because they say that each person has 190 friends on average based on a
Facebook data survey linked just below that vis.

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cLeEOGPw
Really liked the TOR visualization.

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singold
And the PGP one too, I think it is the clearest explanation I've seen of
public key encription.

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addandsubtract
There's also this easy to understand youtube video:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QnD2c4Xovk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QnD2c4Xovk)

