
Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job. - teawithcarl
http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/05/technology/social/snowden-vkontakte/
======
D9u
_" In such moments one feels pride with our country and regret over the course
taken by United States -- a country betraying the principles it was once built
on,"_

Even Russians get it... Why don't more Americans get it?

~~~
melling
I really don't get how people can be so naive on HN. Let's talk about Snowden
all day and wish we were more like Russia, where it's perfectly ok to say
anything you want.

Sorry guys, but not every one really believes the NSA should be disbanded.
They have a real job to do. Certainly there needs to be limits, which we could
of course discuss for years on end, but I don't see the point of doing it in a
forum that really isn't suitable for the topic.

Ok, back to the echo chamber. 4 downvotes and this message disappears. Well, I
do need to try occasionally. HN used to be a great site.

~~~
olalonde
> Ok, back to the echo chamber. 4 downvotes and this message disappears. Well,
> I do need to try occasionally. HN used to be a great site.

I'm sorry but this kind of comment is what makes HN worse. From the HN
guidelines: "Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downmod you."

~~~
adestefan
Except they're correct. HN has always been an echo chamber and the groupthink
here is thicker than most places.

~~~
simias
It's been worse lately, I wish all political debates were banned in this
place. IMO HN should be a technical forum first and foremost.

There are plenty of places on the internet do discuss politics, this doesn't
need to be one of them.

~~~
hboon
Let's just flag those posts that we think don't belong here.

~~~
twoodfin
Careful, if you do this too often you'll lose flag privileges.

Besides, since pg has commented on a few of these posts approvingly, and since
stories that would be [dead] within minutes previously now regularly top the
front page, we have to assume he is OK with "Snowden News" at least for now.

------
Gonzih
I know that VKontakte is giving information and even messaging history about
people to authorities on the first request. That what was happening in Belarus
after election and protests related to "fair" election. People where requested
to go to the KGB/Police. In "nice" conversation with "pleasant" people they
saw messaging logs from VKontakte, movements history based on mobile phone
data and etc. Requests from different country and VKontakte was still giving
that information for free.

Good job, Pavel. Talk more about Privacy now.

~~~
acqq
Wouldn't Pavel then rather not offer job to Snowden, knowing that every word
from Snowden would be listened by the whole world, and that the whole world
would then learn about such actions too?

~~~
Gonzih
As far as I remember that kind of actions once was officially admitted by
Vkontakte. They said something about helping in crimes investigation and etc.

------
huhtenberg
It's the same douchebag that was making paper airplanes out of real money,
throwing them from his office window and then going all ecstatic over people
on the ground fighting each other for these planes.

Yeah, it's once in a lifetime opportunity for Snowden. Woo. Hoo.

~~~
oleganza
I worked with Durov in 2007 and 2008 (making everything for the VK video
service; I moved to Paris after getting bored managing 200+ servers in 3
datacenters). He is a brilliant guy, however he's also eccentric. And his
brother's
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Durov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Durov))
sysadmin/system programmers team is one of the best in the world as far as I
can say.

Unlike Facebook, VK guys are still capable to work in a very small team
without hundreds of mediocre outsourced developers.

~~~
huhtenberg
I don't doubt he is not a usual person, but taking glee at people fighting
over money that you throw out of the window is hardly "eccentric". But then
2008 was 5 years ago and people change fast.

~~~
oleganza
Opinion about someone throwing money out of the window works both ways: the
more you dislike how one guy caused others to fight over paper, the more you
should dislike fighters for what they do.

Unlike ancient times when a king throwing money around would be the same
person who robs his citizens, Durov did not steal from anyone. Everyone who
was fighting for money are responsible for their free choice. Durov is
responsible only for throwing paper bills out of the window. Anyone who was
harmed during that voluntary gathering, was harmed by greedy dudes, not by
pieces of paper.

PS. Imagine if Durov set up a charity organization that gave away money to
people based on some criteria. This would have some competition among people.
Some of them will attempt to eliminate competition by defaming them, or
blackmailing, or brutally fighting. Would Durov be responsible for all this
fight around "free" money, or would actual fighters be responsible?

~~~
huhtenberg
Yeah, sure, big words.

The bottom line is that he _enjoyed_ seeing people fight over his money. I
have no empathy for the guy, he's an asshole.

~~~
oleganza
I guess people fighting for money were enjoying that too. Why don't you call
them assholes? Were they from a different moral category? In fact, Durov
wasn't hurting anyone, others did. And he stopped immediately when people got
violent. If anything, Durov only exposed greedy violent assholes for everyone
to take a note. It may count as a service to the public.

And many people around were not even trying to get into this, proving that no
one was forced to participate. But you prefer to not look at that fact.

------
beloch
Realistically, I don't think Snowden needs a job. Not for income at any rate.
There's no shortage of very wealthy people willing to support him for opposing
the U.S. government.

~~~
simgidacav
Yeah, but there's nothing worse than boredom for a computer guy. And besides,
protecting the user privacy is probably something he cares about.

~~~
Semaphor
> Yeah, but there's nothing worse than boredom for a computer guy.

If he has no problems getting money, the boredom is easily alleviated by
having access to a computer and internet. He could just work for himself.

~~~
simgidacav
True that. I would do the same after all... there's plenty of interesting
stuff to work on.

------
Andrenid
If I were him, a full-time job at a reputable company would be the last thing
I'd want. Then everyone knows where you are, when you're there, etc.

A huge number of people would love to see him disappear (permanently)...

I'd be laying low, maybe writing a book about the whole thing and releasing it
via a third party, if it was a matter of making income while staying off-grid.

~~~
simgidacav
You don't need to be working in a specific place if you run computer-related
activities. Also TOR.

------
nakedrobot2
Is Putin Russia's Obama, as well?

~~~
precisioncoder
Sure I guess, after all it's basically just who runs the largest social
network in the country. I guess Putin is the Obama of Russia in that he's the
man in charge there.

~~~
oleganza
Excuse me for anarchistic correction here.

None of them is a man in charge. Both of them _think_ of themselves as being
"in charge". And maybe some "voters" even support that idea. But that does not
change matters for those who didn't vote for or support them (including all
foreign citizens). For them, Putin/Obama are just bullies from high school.
Most of the time they don't have to do anything with your life, but sometimes
their associates in form of judges/cops/army/etc are coming to you and forcing
you to do things you don't approve. E.g. sponsoring a war, or "national
project", or having your money diluted by inflation or something else.

~~~
precisioncoder
Sorry, I didn't mean to necessarily endorse either of them. I just mean if you
check the fact sheets there's normally a field for "leader" which has their
name listed after. Wiktionary gave me the following: "in charge (not
comparable) Having the responsibility of leading or overseeing. He left his
daughter in charge of watching her younger sisters. Having the power of
command or control. This internet browser puts you in charge of your personal
settings. "

Both of these men have a great deal of the power of command and control in
their respective countries. The recent leaks have made it also very clear that
they are "overseeing" heh. As for leadership that's a sticky subject that is
way too philosophical for me to touch right now.

------
beshrkayali
The title of this article is typical Americanism...

~~~
kome
So true. Americans (from US) deserve a better and less provincial mainstream
media. "Russia's Mark Zuckerberg" is a ridiculous title.

~~~
gyardley
'Owner of Russian social network offers Edward Snowden a job' is pretty
clunky, and if you titled the article 'Pavel Durov offers Edward Snowden a
job', it would be meaningless for 99.99% of its American readers. The title as
it is does a decent job conveying the contents.

Or are Americans to be blamed for not knowing the owner of a social service
hardly anyone here uses?

~~~
beshrkayali
"Pavel Durov, founder of Russia's biggest social networking site, offers
Snowden a job" could've worked. Of course "Americans" aren't to be blamed for
this. I'm merely suggesting that they deserve better from media that is giving
them a false culturally-superior image.

------
kshatrea
> On the same day, Pavel Durov, CEO of the social network VKontakte, offered
> Snowden a job as a security software developer.

In his career, hasn't Snowden been more of a sys admin type?[1]. Putting all
the hoopla/outrage over his leaks aside, from a career perspective, would
Snowden be qualified for a developer role? I guess my question is whether
Durov's motivation is to get PR points or to get a suitable engineer for that
role.

[1][http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/us/job-title-key-to-
inner-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/us/job-title-key-to-inner-access-
held-by-snowden.html?_r=0)

~~~
nicholassmith
I'd imagine both potentially, he could always work in a security system
administrator role alongside the main development team.

Definitely good PR though.

------
krrrh
Aside: the CNN mobile site made it almost impossible to get the address bar to
show in Safari or Chrome on iPhone. I've never seen this antipattern on a
mobile site before.

------
iliaznk
Don't believe everything you read, first, that guy ('Russian zuckerberg') is a
douche known for his freaky escapades like throwing money out of the office's
window and watching people fight for them, second.

What is he proud about? That Snowden became a pawn in Putin's game while our
own Russian protesters get prosecuted in fake cases? He's just one dumb
motherfucker who got rich by stealing the facebook idea.

~~~
litemn
Or you don't know little more about VK and Durov, or you just envy.

------
dylangs1030
How about instead of stumbling about intellectually like a mob intent on
hating the NSA, we set a few things straight:

* This is not indicative of Russia as a collective endorsing or supporting Snowden. One man residing in Russia, a Russian national, offered Snowden a job relevant to his experience. This article says nothing about the public perception of Snowden in Russia. Anything else is supposition. All he has is asylum and a job. Both things can be granted by a huge minority of people in government, of which we do not yet understand their obscured motivations and agendas.

* I don't think we should be praising Russia for this - let's remember Russia is the place where homosexuality is almost scathingly rejected, human rights violations are normal, and freedom of the press is in effect...except when it's not. Yes, they gave Snowden asylum. I wonder _what_ they could gain from that aside from just being a bunch of good guys...come on. This says nothing about the Russian people understanding America's problems, and they are certainly not an ideal to strive towards (nothing against Russians as a people, but a lot of their laws are deplorable by modern standards).

* I wouldn't trust the job, and I wouldn't take it. I wouldn't want any solid association with anyone, high-roller or not, who could be leveraged against me. This is paranoid, but whatever is uncertain about the NSA scandal, it's certain the government (or members thereof) is probably desperate to retrieve Snowden.

* Again, as I have said _repeatedly_ since this all came out - don't let your outrage at the (vastly exaggerated) NSA scandal prevent you from seeing the truth - as a government agency, the NSA is largely beneficial to our country, and we shouldn't seek to disband it. Rather, we should correct its abuses and continue forward. I clearly see the black and white "us and them" mentality being tosses around with the NSA, Russia, Snowden and the U.S. government in the comment threads here and it's misinformed.

~~~
insuffi
Please note:

1) U.S. is 32nd in the world when it comes to freedom of the press. 2) U.S. is
also pro-torture and quite clearly anti-human rights, with their judicial
system being just as corrupt as Russia's, if not more(See:
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-judge-
re...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-judge-
receives-28year-jail-term-for-his-role-in--kidsforcash-
kickbacks-8598147.html)). I can go on and on about Gitmo, overthrowing foreign
governments(Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Gaza strip) et cetera et
cetera. U.S. doesn't really have a clean record when it comes to human rights
abuses.

The only difference is that the U.S. hides behind "Justice!" propaganda and
americans believe it, but everybody in eastern europe knows that Putin is
quite clearly against democracy, and he doesn't try to hide it.

I'm not saying that Russia is better, I'm just saying that it's naive to think
that U.S. is much better, with its imperialist politics (Assange/Sweden case
and forcing a president's plane to land).

~~~
jbooth
We didn't throw the Dixie chicks in jail.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Riot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Riot)

I mean, the US has tons of problems and what's really disturbing are the trend
lines -- seems like liberty peaked somewhere in the mid 70s with the CIA
hearings.

But Russia being nicer than the US to US dissidents means nothing -- how do
they act towards their own dissidents?

~~~
insuffi
Agreed. Jailing Pussy Riot was/is definitely a pursuit of political
persecution.

Well, technically, Russia acted very lawfully in this case - they did not have
an extradition treaty with the U.S., and Snowden sought political asylum.

I'd like to think that behind the scenes, Putin just enjoyed poking a stick in
Obama's eye, but I'm sure he had more rational reasons for resisting the U.S.
than just personal pleasure.

------
kayoone
Just a publicity stunt.

------
nish1500
How does a job offer help him, or anyone else, for that matter? I'm not sure
job hunting is his first priority right now.

There must be hundreds of businesses out there who would offer him a job for
novelty's sake.

~~~
TsiCClawOfLight
I think computer guys hate boredom ;)

------
guard-of-terra
Old news, it's been a week since.

~~~
chalst
We had the story (via Gigaom) posted here

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140948](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140948)

but nobody picked up on it and that post is practically unresurrectable.
Reposting is legitimate, I think.

------
l33tbro
dang ... i posted this article here 5 days ago. enjoy my karma teawithcarl xD

------
bur4k
Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Adversiting managent debug bug, açık

