
Reddit co-founder on NSA snooping [video] - kn0thing
http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/06/11/t-co-reddit-alexis-ohanian.cnnmoney
======
josh2600
Goddamn right.

Every now and then we have defining moments of global consciousness. This has
the potential to be one of those moments and we should never let a good crisis
go to waste.

The danger here is that if we do nothing, that will be seen as tacit
acceptance of the world's largest spying apparatus. While I acknowledge
there's some necessity globally, domestic spying through secret courts is more
synonymous with the Gulag than the American dream.

Stand up for what you believe in; this is one time you can.

~~~
theklub
It's time for a new political party. Forget the people who say it can't be
done. Now is the time. We are stuck in a rut and its time to get out. You have
a choice, be lazy and accept what is happening or step up and make change. Its
clear our current system is rotten.

~~~
pstuart
Please share your vision of that party's platform.

~~~
theklub
The vision that I have includes allowing web based voting on party issues for
party members. Complete financial transparency. Debate and decide what the
party should support from within. Decide what issues are most important and
attempt to tackle those first. I think the platform is that there is no real
platform and the members decide what is important. Forget about gay marriage
there are real problems in America. (education, war, privacy) I could go on
and on about what I think are the issues in America but the point is we need
to have a place to discuss these issues and have a group of people that can
decide what should be done and then do something about it. Leaving it to a
group of old men who are constantly lobbied is no longer an option.

~~~
pstuart
That's not a party, that's more about process (which I do agree with, btw).

A party _has_ to have a platform -- that's the whole point of a party: shared
core values. But those values have to be actionable otherwise they are just
platitudes.

It's all about money: who pays and how is it spent. Gods, Guns and Gays are
distractions, but they have to be addressed in some way or they will remain
distractions. The "right" uses those tactics because they are very effective.
It just needs reframing.

------
sp332
_What is to be done? The answer is easy. It has always been easy. Stop saying
"not in my name" and start saying "over my dead body". That's what we did. It
works. Do it._

\--Julian Assange, receiving the Global Exchange Human Rights Award
[http://wlcentral.org/node/2818](http://wlcentral.org/node/2818)

------
hawkharris
Alexis is a good speaker. It's refreshing to see a founder talk about his
startup in down-to-earth terms instead of being egotistical and speaking in
platitudes.

~~~
Nrsolis
He's actually improved over time. I saw him on a panel and he was rolled over
by a MPAA/RIAA shill. I'm glad he's grown more confident and poised on screen.

~~~
kn0thing
I've been doing public speaking for a while now (e.g., my TED talk was back in
'09
[http://www.ted.com/talks/alexis_ohanian_how_to_make_a_splash...](http://www.ted.com/talks/alexis_ohanian_how_to_make_a_splash_in_social_media.html))
but live TV 'debate' is a whole 'nother beast.

You're talking about my first 'debate' on MSNBC (it pains me to link to it
but....)
[http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.com/_news/2012/01/15/10161056-...](http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.com/_news/2012/01/15/10161056-debating-
sopa)

Yeah, I was totally unprepared for that format (my first 'debate') and it was
covered in failsauce. I just couldn't believe he'd so brazenly lie like that,
interrupt, etc. The feedback on reddit and HN was pretty helpful, though, and
the day of the blackout I was on literally every other network much better
armed.

(shameless plug: I write about all of this in great detail in my forthcoming
book, Without Their Permission)

[http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2012/01/18/exp-
poi...](http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2012/01/18/exp-point-
ohanian-sopa-pipa.cnn?iref=allsearch)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ol56z/reddit_found...](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ol56z/reddit_founder_alexis_ohanian_on_cnbc_why_is_it/)
(never do an interview on a cell phone)

[http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1400506693001/websites-go-
dar...](http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1400506693001/websites-go-dark-to-
protest-anti-piracy-bills)

[http://www.bloomberg.com/video/83688294-reddit-com-
oppositio...](http://www.bloomberg.com/video/83688294-reddit-com-opposition-
to-stop-online-piracy-act.html)

The next time I was invited for a debate (fast company conference in NY) it
was a different story, imho: [http://www.fastcompany.com/1834779/reddit-
cofounder-bands-ex...](http://www.fastcompany.com/1834779/reddit-cofounder-
bands-ex-tour-manager-debate-sopa-antipiracy-and-levon-helms-legacy-video)

~~~
bornhuetter
I was about to ask you a couple of questions about the book, but details are
on your website. For the lazy -

[http://withouttheirpermission.com/](http://withouttheirpermission.com/)

~~~
kn0thing
Oh silly me, forgot to link! Thanks. You can AMA here too :)

~~~
archivator
Will there be an eBook version outside Apple's walled garden (DRM-free,
preferably)? I dislike dead-tree books, with their fixed typography and
whatnot!

~~~
kn0thing
Right - Kindle and nook!

[http://www.amazon.com/Without-Their-Permission-Century-
ebook...](http://www.amazon.com/Without-Their-Permission-Century-
ebook/dp/B00BAXFJ16/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1362364308&sr=8-1)

[http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/without-their-permission-
ale...](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/without-their-permission-alexis-
ohanian/1114308524?ean=9781455520039)

Would that suffice?

~~~
archivator
Ah, not available on Amazon UK, that's why I couldn't find it :(

~~~
kn0thing
Yeah, sorry, it's US + Canada launch on Oct 1. We haven't yet sold the intl
rights, I think. BUT! I'm thinking of doing something w/o my publisher's
permission :) and doing events in London, Berlin, HK, and maybe Paris where I
just bring a giant suitcase or two full of US edition books for an event &
signing.

~~~
archivator
I love how appropriate this is, given the title (and I assume content) of the
book! :D

------
btipling
Nice ddg plug at the end there. Always be closing. :P

~~~
kn0thing
You'd think I were an investor! Just a superfan.

~~~
rexreed
That's great! Do you get down to Philly or Baltimore much? We've got a big fan
base here that would love to chat with you at a TechBreakfast in Philly or
Baltimore - let me know.

~~~
kn0thing
I was raised in Columbia, MD and my dad lives outside of Towson these days, so
yes. I'd love to stop by on the http:/withouttheirpermission.com book tour!
Details will be on the site soon, but I'm planning a legendary 100 stop tour
:) and will definitely be hitting both cities...

~~~
rexreed
Awesome - how can I reach you to schedule that? TechBreakfast is huge here and
glad to host you at our 200 person venue.

~~~
kn0thing
contact AT alexisohanian.com

------
robomartin
Perhaps the number one priority of those in tech should be to educate the
public about the potential intrusiveness of data surveillance.

Politicians and idiot TV hosts have made statements akin to "all they are
collecting are phone numbers, times and cell tower data".

Ha! Give me that and access to other sources such as LinkedIn, Facebook, your
email on Gmail, your Google docs, IRS and state tax filings, court documents,
vehicle registration, travel records, Amazon, Ebay, college and university
records and a myriad of other publicly and not-so-publicly available data and
those phone numbers become powerful unique identifiers through which I can
learn just about everything about you, your family, your friends, colleagues,
occupation, hobbies, history and more.

There's nothing innocent or insignificant about "just collecting phone
numbers".

------
xtc
Glossing over the data that you could glean from reddit was a mistake. Even if
there isn't that much valuable data directly from reddit's back-end it's
probably more useful to tie it to data from the same users extracted from
other websites. You shouldn't have down-played that.

------
omd
I think it's time we give up on the idea of communicating privately over a
centralized network. Wiretapping was invented only a few years after the
invention of the telephone[1]. It won't be stopped by technology and certainly
not by legislation. People need to get used treating the Internet as a public
space: cover your mouth when you cough, don't pick your nose in public and
don't communicate sensitive information over the Internet.

The next big thing (hopefully soon) will be communication through a
decentralized, infrastructure-less device.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_tapping#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_tapping#History)

~~~
electrograv
It seems like no matter what you do, it will always be possible for someone to
tap into a wire or node between point A and point B (unless some revolutionary
point-to-point information teleportation is invented). So isn't the next big
thing just the strengthening (or proper application) of encryption?

Otherwise, how can a "decentralized, infrastructure-less" system really
guarantee any privacy beyond simply making it more of a hassle to wiretap?

------
eggnet
Reddit has information that can be used to identify the author of a submission
or comment. I was a disappointed to hear the soft stance on protecting reddit
user data.

~~~
scarlson
Hanging out in /r/redditdev and /r/ideasfortheadmins, you'd be surprised how
often ideas come up that could potentially harm users that some admins will
either champion or agree with.

I guess it's the same as any small company in that everyone is going to have
an opinion, I just wish they had someone more anal about protecting users
first on their staff.

I do my best to speak out against anything that could compromise user
privacy/security, but in the end it's not up to me!

~~~
bornhuetter
Have you got any examples of this? There are plenty of terrible ideas on
/r/ideasfortheadmins, but I don't remember seeing Admins agree with them very
often.

------
gonvaled
This is all nice and good. Unfortunately, it means absolutely nothing. Since
we know that lying is (by law) part of what corporations are forced to do when
addressing questions of "national security", no amount of denies, press
releases, public outrage or congressional talk will restore trust. Even new
legislation specifically forbidding snooping will not help, since we can never
be sure that there is no "secret legislation" specifically allowing it - and
forcing companies to comply.

I am sure lots of people want to genuinely change the situation in the US.
Unfortunately, we can not believe it. For all the talk that the reddit co-
founder will, as a private person, make, the simple question to reddit-the-
company: "are you snooping on me" has no meaning whatsoever. Either the answer
will be a "no comment", or it will always be perceived to be lie.

~~~
jacobparker
> Since we know that lying is (by law) part of what corporations are forced to
> do when addressing questions of "national security", no amount of denies,
> press releases, public outrage or congressional talk will restore trust.

What law are you referring to? The FISA gag orders do not mandate lying.

~~~
gonvaled
Corporations have been denying participation for years because acknowledging
being part of the program was a crime.

~~~
jacobparker
What law are you talking about? Google has hardly been denying participation
with NSL gag orders; they've been pretty vocal about it. What they aren't
legally allowed to do is to disclose details about them or inform the subjects
of them.

They publish aggregate numbers of the non-secret ones here, by the way:
[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US/)

~~~
gonvaled
[http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/06/google-
wan...](http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/06/google-wants-come-
clean-about-fisa/66135/)

"The FISA requests don't already show up in Google's regular transparency
reports because they are top secret, according to the law. So now Google wants
to tell the world exactly how much they cooperate with the U.S. government."

So now that a whistle blower has tell us all about it, they want to come
clean. Of course we know that there is now a "FOSA" program, which is the new
top-secret program, which nobody will tell you about, until a whistle blower
tells us about it - in 13 years.

That I call lying.

------
CurtMonash
Good piece. His personal concern is for "chilling effect".

His public concern beyond that is for blackmail of national leaders. That
actually worries me less, as the public is becoming much more tolerant of
"vice" in its leaders. (For example -- President Obama is an admitted cocaine
and pot user; President Bush was an admitted drunkard and widely-suspected
cocaine user; President Clinton was a widely-suspected adulterer and pot
user.)

------
makerops
I think one of the ways this bullshit is solved is liquid democracy. Allow
people to transfer votes to people they feel are experts via a bitcoin like
system. 90% of people have only an interest in a very small subset of topics
that they vote on. They aren't qualified to cast a vote, why not allow them to
delegate to an expert? Of course buying votes would be highly illegal.

~~~
greedo
I think that's what's known as a representative democracy...

~~~
makerops
Kind of, but not really. In a representative democracy, you are voting a
professional politician into office, who's sole existence is to stay in
office. They are beholden to money, and outside interests. With a liquid
democracy, it is essentially a direct democracy, without all the headaches.

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

------
iuguy
I have some ideas and some plans in mind for getting around this. If anyone in
particular would be interested in helping to set up or back a privacy-oriented
startup aimed at defeating a lot of what's been going on, then please get in
touch via my profile.

------
g8oz
Tangentially ontopic: I remember an offhand comment from someone in the intel
community a few years ago that went along the lines of "you can't really have
privacy unless you run your own DNS servers". Can they really store all dns
lookups?

------
brador
The entire conecept of pre-crime is everyone is a suspect, and you can never
be proven innocent because you haven't yet committed the crime you are alleged
to eventually commit.

It's scary stuff yet surprisingly innevitable given the direction of AI.

------
rkuester
Thank you, Alexis. Well done.

~~~
kn0thing
You're quite welcome! Thanks!

------
Kiro
Off-topic but I wish there was a way to filter out all these NSA stories. It
has really destroyed Hacker News for me and I hope it doesn't go on for too
long.

~~~
gzavitz
So you're cool with what the NSA is doing?

~~~
maxerickson
I don't think discussion here is particularly going to contribute to the voice
of the public that would actually do something to change it.

Sorry for the fuzzy expression there, nothing better jumped to mind.

~~~
michaelwww
If you know of a place where a more informed and intelligent response is being
crafted I'd like to know about it. The type of people who frequent HN are the
same people who work in Silicon Valley and other high tech areas where much of
this technology was created and promoted. Most regular folks I know don't know
what to think about it and are waiting for leaders to come up with a rational
and measured response that offers some push back.

~~~
maxerickson
In that context, I'm more pessimistic than that. I expect some push back
against what I would certainly label overreach, but I don't expect any sort of
long term memory or change to come of it.

~~~
michaelwww
I'm more optimistic because the norm for Americans through out history was for
independence from government intrusions. The last decade has been an anomaly
because of 9/11, when everyone decided to that safety trumped those concerns.
The pendulum could very easily swing back the other way.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I'm more optimistic because the norm for Americans through out history was
> for independence from government intrusions. The last decade has been an
> anomaly because of 9/11

Sure, just like the decade before that was an "anomaly" because of the threat
of terrorism that became a concern with the first Gulf War made safety trump
those concerns, and the 5 decades prior to that were an "anomaly" because of
the threats associated, first, the second World War, and immediately following
that Second Red Scare the Cold War, made safety trump those concerns.

And just a couple decades before that there was the "anomaly" produced by the
First Red Scare. (The increasing intrusion of which, based on safety concerns,
wasn't actually _reversed_ when the immediate impetus faded, just as the vast
majority of the increasing intrusion motivated by the Cold War, the First Gulf
War, or 9/11 wasn't -- as well as some of that motivated by the Second World
War, though some of the biggest intrusions motivated by the Second World War
were, and you can probably view the continuation of the rest as a 'silent
reenactment' motivated by the Cold War.)

Or, maybe the intrusion-ratcheting-upward thing isn't a temporary anomaly, but
the norm.

~~~
michaelwww
Sure, these anomalies have occurred before after a major threat and in the
shock over it, such as Japanese internment camps or the suspension of
suspension of habeas corpus during the civil war, but the pendulum always
swings back against govt over reach. You write as if the American Civil
Liberties Union has done no good at all and it a hopeless cause.

~~~
dragonwriter
> but the pendulum always swings back against govt over reach.

I don't think there is much evidence of that. Its true that over time _some_
of the expansions of power are clawed back, but the overall trend isn't
neutral with a pendulum swinging back and forth with a stationary midpoint of
degree of government intrusion.

> You write as if the American Civil Liberties Union has done no good at all
> and it a hopeless cause.

The ACLU has certainly done some good, and I've never said anything about
hopelessness (or even about what is desirable). What I've pointed to is the
facts that call into question your presentation of a norm of non-intrusive
government that is subject only to occasional "anomalies" followed by
reversion to the pre-anomaly "normal" state.

Hope, in terms of realizing political objectives -- whether that's non-
intrusive government or something else -- starts with recognizing the
realities of the status quo, because without that, you can't tell what the
problems are you need to address.

~~~
michaelwww
I wasn't speaking literally of a stationary midpoint. I'm speaking of the
American character over history, which has been to throw off the shackles of
Kings and oppressive religious control. I think that character is alive and
well, although advances in technology may have finally have given those in
control the upper hand. We may be waking up to that fact now. I'll concede
that it may be too late for remedies, but as an optimist I don't think so. I
think we'll be seeing a big uptick in interest in encryption, the TOR network,
online personality obfuscation, etc... For a good example, look at how people
are concerned about their health information and how HIPAA was born. Having
worked in health care I can attest that organizations and the govt are dead
serious about it, which those who wish to develop mobile medical apps are now
discovering.

------
aaronsnoswell
Why the hell does CNN's video player play on load?

~~~
driverdan
Use click to play for all plugins. Problem (and many other problems) solved.

------
payomdousti
Couldn't get past the fact that the interviewer probably did 0 prep work for
this.

------
stevetursi
Hastily-transcribed transcript for those who can't watch the video:

Q "NSA and PRISM - what's the sentiment in the valley?"

A "Maybe this is indicative of the fact that I live in New York; that I've
never really been part of that herd. We are as citizens I think really upset,
really frustrated because we have an expectation that whether it is our
private property offline or online, that it will be respected, and that's what
the Fourth Amendment protects. And needless to say it was rather disappointing
to see all this news come out and apparently much more on the way."

Q "You're building a startup that could become the next Reddit or Facebook: At
what point do you say, 'I think I got to get a Lawyer?'"

A "Yeah it will certainly come up a lot sooner for founders and founders who
were maybe thinking, 'move fast and break things' will now think 'move fast
and break things but don't break the constitution.' And this is an opportunity
for us as citizens to start to draw a line in the sand for what is off-limits
and private in the digital age."

Q "If the government asked you for information, what information could you
give them?"

A "Well there really isn't any. When people use reddit as a platform to
publicly share links and publicly have discussions. So the primary use of the
site is that is in public so there really isn't a ton of useful data there."

Q "What advice do you give these young folks who are building these companies
and this is becoming a reality?"

A "There's my investor hat, my founder hat, and my citizen hat - and that
citizen hat trumps everything else. And I want to make sure that the
environment we are starting companies in has a government that respects the
our right to privacy so that these kinds of discussions going forward aren't
even a factor or an issue and I think the ability for us to use this
technology has sort of outpaced - unfortunately - some of our legislator's
understanding of what kind of laws they should be writing. Whether it's making
sure our elected officials understand the internet and understand technology
is just as important though as making sure we get more of these people who
inherently and innately understand this technology into office. I think the
other interesting thing is more and more founders are really rallying behind
companies now that are themselves built on a model of respecting privacy. One
that I know rather well is called duckdduckgo and it's a venture backed by USV
here in New York - a search engine competitor to google and their core
business proposition is 'we don't track anything you search for on our site.'
And so I imagine more startups to kind of take that lead."

~~~
kn0thing
Thanks! I've already got a few offers from vendors who want to make "Citizen"
hats... all proceeds to EFF of course.

------
notdrunkatall
Kind of surprised this isn't on the front page of reddit right now.

~~~
kn0thing
Hmm, yeah, it did so-so on /r/politics, maybe it'll have more luck on
/r/technology -- most of the time I'm happy there isn't a Kevin Rose <-> digg
relationship between me <-> reddit, but every now and then it'd be helpful.

