

Ask HN: Anyone Else Tired of All The Leak and 'PRISM' Stories? - jkuria

We get that civil liberties and privacy are important but for three days straight that&#x27;s all there is on HN.
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flexie
No, not really. Right now I don't care about the usual stories about someone
launching a photo sharing app or creating a javascript framwwork. The thing I
take away from it these days is that if it succeeds it's going to be used to
spy on us.

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hga
My old friend Zigurd, who's Latvian parents, grandparents, etc. know a thing
or two about totalitarian regimes (in WWII the country was first invaded by
the Soviet Union, then Nazi Germany, then recaptured by the Soviets; his
parents met in a displaced persons camp post-WWII), and who is now heavily
into the Android ecosystem, made what I think is a wise comment in the
Stallman prediction thread,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5840210](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5840210):

" _Until the early 80 's there was no widespread use of mobile telephony and
internet. It's not crazy to think that the surveillance state has ruined the
internet and that there is more value in avoiding it than in using it. Maybe
it's over.

[...]

The car industry is facing a generation of buyer who find cars a burden. It's
crazy to think that we can't screw this up._"

He may well be right, it could be that these wonderful toys are so subject to
government abuse that we'll realize we would have been better off without the
rush to adopt them.

Perhaps we need to develop proper institutions, methods and control over their
abuse, but that process is going to be painful. The story of the West's
adaptation of the printing press and government controls over them is not a
pretty one, after all.

Anyway, if he's even somewhat right, it's hard to imagine there's a more
important topic for HN to discuss right now, it impacts _everything_ , from
our daily lives to the things we build and expose to the Internet.

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gyardley
I'm certainly tired of the Edward Snowden stories. "Hi, I don't want the
conversation to be about me but here I am going public, revealing I have a
healthy fantasy life by saying utterly ridiculous things about 'triads' and
such, and making the conversation all about me instead of the actually
important issues I claim to want to do something about."

On the other hand, I'd happily see the public go back to actually talking
about surveillance instead of Mr. I-Read-Too-Many-Spy-Novels-And-Want-To-Be-
Famous.

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venomsnake
Yes. I am also tired of weightlifting trying to lose weight. Doesn't mean I
should stop. The problem is unless there is steady stream of leaks in the next
few days it will all be forgotten.

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cynwoody
Yeah, at least some good theories on how a yottabyte storage system (10^24
bytes, or a trillion of your stinkin' external Time Machine drive) might
actually be implemented would be welcome (particularly within the physical
confines of the Bluffdale site). That would for sure be a good hack! With
civilian uses, even.

As of 2011, the internet's monthly traffic[1] amounted to about 27.5 petabytes
per month, or about 2.6e-5 yottabytes. A yottabyte would be about 3300 years
of 2011 traffic.

What we are seeing is the recurrence of Admiral Poindexter's vision of Total
Information Awareness[2]. It got shot down last time around, but not with
sufficient finality. That's what the "three days straight" is about.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_traffic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_traffic)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office)

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Suitov
Yes. "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." I don't know
what US telly news covers, but this is by no means a niche story.

HN is being swamped here and IMO it's degrading the impact of the story. I'd
appreciate fewer, but more detailed/technical/analytical links.

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cstross
HN folk should be out on the streets, protesting. Or the equivalent, on the
internet. Seriously, this is _important_.

Civil rights: use 'em or lose 'em.

~~~
waterphone
Agreed, let's start organizing public protests. Even regardless of PRISM, the
Verizon (and undoubtedly other phone companies) dragnet surveillance of
everyone, which is absolutely confirmed, is unacceptable! Now that everyone is
aware of it, this story needs to not go away and slowly become accepted as the
way things are.

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mtgx
I feel so sick about this, I'm really not in the mood for any other kind of
piece of news right now. I just want us to get to the bottom of this, and for
the spying to end, and until everything is uncovered. We shouldn't just start
our Mondays as if none of this ever happened, and just go back to our daily
routines. I sure hope Americans are better than that.

Plus, I bet Greenwald has a lot more to show us next week. He's probably just
letting the administration stumble over their own lies, and then uncover more
stuff to contradict them, which would be pretty brilliant if he did that.

Don't expect this to end too soon, and I sure hope it won't.

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danmaz74
Yes. But ironically you just created a new first-page piece related to
PRISM...

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GregorStocks
yes

