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.
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.
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:
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
