

Whistleblower Edward Snowden is tech person of year - ekm2
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2013/12/28/edward-snowden-is-tech-figure-of-the-year-new-tech-economy/4213953/

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drdaeman
Tech? I don't want to diminish Snowden's doings a single bit, but I think what
he did was only remotely tech-related. It's somehow like nominating a great
journalist, who writes about modern research in physics, as a scientist of the
year.

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endergen
Seems like you want more of a coder of the year. What's more interesting in
tech than Snowden right now?

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chc
I don't think that's right. I'm sure people would be willing to accept, for
example, Elon Musk as tech person of the year — because what Musk's companies
are doing is actually interesting technically. What Snowden did is copy a
bunch of files that contain information which is interesting politically and
societally.

The fact that technology is somewhat involved in the story doesn't make it a
technical advancement. There was technology involved in Watergate too (e.g.
tape recorders), but I don't think anyone looks back at 1972 and sees Carl
Bernstein as a good candidate for tech man of the year.

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rdl
He's completely changed how people in the non-elite-security world view
computers.

Certainly his influence isn't _limited_ to tech, but I think his impact on
tech, at least IT and communications (god I hate the term "ICT"...) and
startups and software and hardware... has been beyond any other single person
this year. Or any company (2013 didn't see a lot of interesting products,
IMO).

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derefr
I guess a better way to put it is that Snowden _released_ the tech _story_ of
the year. But the story _of_ releasing a story is a story of journalism and
politics, not itself technical.

Maybe if we had a figurehead in the NSA to point to who approved PRISM et al.,
it would make sense to call _them_ the "tech person of the year", because of
their being _in_ the tech story of the year.

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judk
Goes to show that the people who popularize get more recognition than the
people who produce.

Snowden was a publisher of the technical work of thousands of NSA staff.

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garrettgrimsley
The recognition Snowden is receiving is for the revelations about the NSA
programs, not the creation of said programs.

He isn't being lauded as a creator, but as a whistleblower.

Would it not be absurd to thank McNamara for the work of Ellsberg?

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eru
judk is just a mildly amusing troll.

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kunai
The comments on that article make me very sad.

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smtddr
Heh, well usatoday is mainstream media. If you're going to find anyone who
thinks all this NSA stuff should have stayed secret for "the good of the
nation", that's where you'll find 'em.

I'm just glad that a mainstream site like usatoday is bold enough to give this
award to him.

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cJ0th
Perhaps it is mainstream media but that university student who thinks today's
Russia is a communist country is taking the cake.

