A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dinofarmgames.com/a-pixel-artist-renounces-pixel-art/ <comment><USER3> I draw, I paint (more than draw), I animate. Daily. So, I have a bit of a different perspective on this. Pixel art is one of the hardest disciplines I've tried. It's ridiculous. I wouldn't do it again. I only spent with it a bit to see what it takes, and it takes A LOT. If it's not outstanding, it won't get noticed as well. So, it's really tough on psyche. Somewhat like animation.

There's another thing I want to mention. I have a broadcast-quality CRT with consoles of ye olde hooked up, and pixels you see on sprites, especially on the edges, aren't there on CRTs. Magical scanline blends them together and looking at the pixel art on CRT is different than on anything else. Almost like they are anti-aliased, but they're not (smudged). I think that's a key component today we are missing from enjoying pixel art. When it was dominant in game industry, you couldn't see actual pixels. Today, they are fetishised.

<comment><USER4> > When it was dominant in game industry, you couldn't see actual pixels.

Exactly! I didn't like the author's dig at rescaling algorithms, but he seems to be forgetting that pixels _never looked like that_! The pixel art he likes so much was never like what he does today. This article has good screenshots, although I think they're emulated:

[http://www.tested.com/tech/gaming/2982-a-link-to-the-past- ho...](http://www.tested.com/tech/gaming/2982-a-link-to-the-past-how-to-add- crt-filters-to-16-bit-games-on-pc/)

If you like pixel art, go ahead and make pixel art. Some of the artwork in the article is stunning, and I like the aesthetic a lot. However, don't romanticize it and claim that old games looked like that, because they just didn't.

I think better scalers and shaders that can reproduce the look of CRTs are a nice effort, since I want to play old games the way I _actually_ remember them, not with visible pixels that were completely alien the first time I played Zelda on an emulator.

<comment><USER5> To be fair, pc games running at 320*200 most certainly did look like that - big pixels with hard edges. But very few games ape the EGA palette, all the NES-looking pixel games look like tech thst never existed. EGA was a pretty short period between cga and VGA, much of PC gaming was blocky, but high color... and had a bigger focus on strategy and puzzle games because of the keyboard/mouse input, which isn't really reflected in the indie world's love for pixelly platformers.

<comment><USER6> Some of the big early 90s PC hits were games like Cmdr Keen and other Apogee platformers. They were hugely popular at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like pixel art, for many of the reasons mentioned in the article. In fact, for 2d games it is my favorite style.

With that said, I think the example art the article provides for their game is not very good. Specifically I think there's far too much dithering going on, making it look like it was originally drawn in 32-bit color but then had the number of colors reduced by the pixel editing software (as opposed to the beauty of manually placed pixels). This is especially glaring in the UI elements, and is not the only fault in my opinion.

I realize different people have different preferences, and I realize that pixel art is experiencing a surge in unpopularity, but I can't help but think they'd have better luck if their pixel art was better...

<comment> squeaky-clean I agree, when I first saw the splash image, I assumed that was the one being replaced! Because it doesn't look like pixel art, it looks like a high quality image was pixelated. By replicating reality so closely, you really easily see all the drawbacks of pixel art. Namely low resolution, and limited colors. Because it's not taking advantage of the medium of pixel art, but instead shoehorning realism into it.

They complain about the shape of someone's arms in Street Fighter? Who cares about realism, these characters can shoot fireballs from their hands. Look at Link in Link's Awakening! His head must weigh 3x more than his body. If you find a screenshot with his sword, it's even weirder. The sword is simultaneously smaller than his head, and yet larger than the entire rest of his body. And have you ever seen a tree or wall that looks like that? But it looks freaking fantastic at that resolution.

I don't care if the author's art was entirely hand-made, it _looks_ like a high quality image was pixelated by a computer. The art in King of Fighters' may have been done entirely by hand, but if the end results looks indistinguishable from a 3d render at low resolution with terrible aliasing, who cares what means was used to get the crappy look? The author restating things about "embracing the medium", but I don't believe they did.

<comment><USER8> > The art in King of Fighters' may have been done entirely by hand, but if the > end results looks indistinguishable from a 3d render at low resolution

The irony is the particular King of Fighters they reference had character models/animations that were originally produced as 3D renders [1] and then used as the basis for the artists to draw over/fine tune in order to save time during production (since the previous games took so long to finish the animations). So in the context of the article it's an interesting though overlooked detail that could have been a decent bridge into the point about transitioning to 3D.

> They complain about the shape of someone's arms in Street Fighter? Who cares > about realism, these characters can shoot fireballs from their hands

Animations and design are still important even when what's being representing isn't based in reality. It's the same reason CG was for a long time critiqued, and continues to be, for instances where there are 'floaty' characters or the animation/physics seem 'off'. 2D can often take more artistic liberties and isn't so stringently expected to be 'realistic' compared to CG. And while that comparison in the article was a bit out of place, considering the real difference is animator talent and visual style, it showed how mature the 2D animation scene was at the time, and it has to be said the animations of Street Fighter III Third Strike are among the best 2D animations in any commercial game.

[1] [http://kofaniv.snkplaymore.co.jp/english/info/15th_anniv/2d_...](http://kofaniv.snkplaymore.co.jp/english/info/15th_anniv/2d_dot/creation/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think his problem is that he is stuck in the uncanny valley of 90s 16 bit pixel art, half way between the classic 8 bit style and modern photorealistic style. If you release a game in current_year with 320x200 resolution or lower and 16 colors I think it's obvious you were aiming for that aesthetic. If you go 640x480 256 or more colors then people can mistake that for an attempt at photorealism that just was badly implemented.

<comment><USER10> Indeed. There's nothing wrong with _good_ pixel art, but literally no artist knows how to do it, even when they claim they're pixel artists.

The Diablo vs. FFTA example in the article demonstrates it well: Despite Diablo coming out earlier, while 2D art was very much a well-cultivated thing, the artists just didn't know how to get it right (too low contrasts, too much dithering, …). FFTA, meanwhile, just looks beautiful.

<comment><USER11> So there exists good pixel art, but there does not exist any artist who can create good pixel art? FFTA was immaculately conceived I guess?

<comment><USER10> Well, almost no artist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm having trouble being convinced that this isn't more subjective than the author implies. I never liked how SFIV looked, either, but not because it works or doesn't work with the medium, I just think it looks awful.

It may be problematic if one has to do things that are not really compatible with the medium, such as trying to put high poly models on a low-poly screen, but a lot of games cannot really achieve the right feel by working with the medium. One of the issues I have with a lot of retro-style games is that they're almost automatically limited into certain genres and feels.

Diablo using properly pixelated art just wouldn't be Diablo anymore, and for all the muddy, I love how it looks to this day. I always liked the 2.5D style, really. But for me, this is subjective either way.

<comment><USER13> > I never liked how SFIV looked, either, but not because it works or doesn't > work with the medium, I just think it looks awful.

Isn't that what he's saying?

<comment><USER12> Perhaps I'm misinterpreting his point, but the impression I got is that he things people like how SFIV looks because it's not pixelated, and that people dislike how other pixelated things look because of the "pixel tax". But, I think lots of people genuinely like how SFIV looks and have not played neither KOF III nor SFIII. Even if they see the bad animations they don't have a problem with it because they think it's part of the style.

Just like, people like me genuinely like how Diablo looks and he things it's a muddy aliased mess.

<comment><USER13> They "genuinely" like it, sure, but not because of the quality of the animation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think the problem here is that there's a distinction between "pixel art" and "art created observing obsolete technical limitations". Additionally, just because a piece of art is _technically_ impressive, doesn't mean people should find it artistically impressive.

When we only had 16 colours, it was harder to make great-looking art, but that difficulty didn't make the art look better. The essence of pixel art is that (it seems that) every pixel is placed with care. An image which uses 45 colours but looks like a dithered version of a full-colour image does not look like every pixel is placed with care. Quite the opposite: it looks like the image you're looking at isn't even the image the artist wanted you to see.

Hyper Light Drifter has great "pixel art", but couldn't have been achieved on a 16-bit display (without either noticeable banding or dithering). But, the way it uses colour is clearly inspired by great 4-bit artistry. Although there are many more than 16 colors, neighbouring hues are contrasting, blending is used to indicate glows or shadows, and blurring is used to indicate depth.

</comment><comment><USER15> > what I intended doesn't matter at all

I think it is very sad to hear any artist saying this. I think he's being noble and he certainly has rationalized the situation very convincingly ("embracing the medium").

It's a very delicate balance. On the one hand, yes you do not deserve an audience. All too often contempt for the audience is merely the sign of a lazy artist. On the other hand sometimes you must bite the hand that feeds - <USER2> keep biting. The best I know have that mixture: they desire glory and at the same time they have a tyrannical disregard for what others think.

Ultimately, he's courting the high opinion of people whose opinions he doesn't respect, because they are influential.

<comment><USER16> I get that tone as well, but I think the author actually convinces himself by the end of the essay that his new outlook is actually a more mature one rather than the artistic compromise he initially describes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> previously, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9533678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9533678)

<comment><USER18> Was just about to state this. At the very least it should be prefixed with (2015).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> High-res pixel art is tough - to create, and sometimes to enjoy. When the goal of pixel art is to create something interesting when imposing resolution constraints, the significance of a single pixel is reduced when working with such a high resolution.

Further, if the viewer's display is _close_ to the art's native resolution, but not at least one integer multiple higher, the art is going to be smeared as no scaling technique will deal with such a small scaling transition well.

With that in mind, Auro looks like it'd have trouble looking good on any of the devices it was intended for, and indeed looking more like aliasing ("pixellation") to the average user. The author acknowledges this in the article: "Some devices blur Auro. Some devices stretch it. Some devices letterbox it. No matter how hard I worked to make the art in Auro as good as I could, there's no way a given person should be expected to see past all those roadblocks."

</comment><comment><USER20> "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."

\--Orson Welles

</comment><comment><USER21> IMO, a lot of people who say they like pixel art, don't actually want the pixellation or the low color count. What they want is the overall drawing style that it produces, with prominent contours and bright but soft colors. This all is also achievable with ultra-high resolutions and millions of colors - it just doesn't happen "automatically".

</comment><comment><USER22> If you like such games, play Radiant [0] I love that game, bought it years ago, keep returning to it. It's pixelated but it couldn't be more beautiful.

[0] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.hexage.rad...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.hexage.radiant)

<comment><USER23> I love Radiant. I love pretty much every game Hexage puts out. I don't think it's actually pixel art, though -- the impression I got is that it's mostly pixel-style vector graphics, they do a lot of stuff that you couldn't do if you imposed a pixel grid on the art that's consistent with the art assets. Look at the blue guy on the left here, for instance:

[https://lh5.ggpht.com/EyOXQmFzhQ8ie9AnQcq7mcYOaY_uiWY6M8Zis2...](https://lh5.ggpht.com/EyOXQmFzhQ8ie9AnQcq7mcYOaY_uiWY6M8Zis2ZlE4IriEX5ixq_TaPnf0NfKVZoexM=h900)

Yeah, he looks like a pixel art figure, but look at how he's canted. Look at the bloom on everything. Which may reinforce the author's point -- that there's tradeoffs to doing perfect pixel-by-pixel placement on modern devices, where everyone uses screens of different size and aspect-ratio, and that different techniques are needed to give people the best experience, even if you want to have a retro aesthetic.

<comment><USER22> You're right, it's not real pixel art. It just imitates that old look but the glows and the background is definitely smooth. Still, the simple graphics make the game imo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I used to hand anti-alias pixel fonts. There was a tool called Grasp that our shop used to create animated ads back in the early 90's. It only supported two color pixel fonts.

Wrote a tool to take a single font sheet bitmap and parse out each letter. Each letter had 4 shades of grey. So, would create 4 fonts that would render in 4 passes.

To make a master bitmap, we'd scan a font sheet into a PCX file hand it over to an artist with the instructions: "make it smooth". Hours upon hours of: zoom-in-click-click-click-zoom-out-review-repeat. Poor artist.

I wonder what kind of lament a vector artist will have, decades from now. And what will take its place.

[edit] vector

<comment><USER25> I've been using Illustrator as my main medium[1] since 2000. Mostly I bitch about it doing terrible things when I open up older files, and the occasional update that's a crashfest for me even after I remove all plugins. (I'm currently running the last release because CC 2015.3 is one of those.)

I don't think anything is going to take the place of vector tools, especially as screen DPI continues to increase. I keep flirting with Affinity Designer[2], which does some very interesting things with integrating raster effects to create a very scalable but very painterly look. But I've got a decade and a half of sunk cost into Illustrator that keeps pulling me back.

1: [http://egypt.urnash.com](http://egypt.urnash.com) 2: [https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/](https://affinity.serif.com/en- us/designer/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> >It takes a lot effort to explain how this: >has much better art than this:

... Shitty dither. That didn't take long. Even in Bubsy, the things that weren't dithered weren't nearly as bad as the ones that were.

It has other problems, too, but they would become more apparent if the artist had refused to dither. Then they'd be a lot easier to talk about, such as the horrible shapes for everything except bubsy himself.

The problem with that background in bubsy wasn't the "pixel art", it was the art. I'm betting that artist couldn't draw well in any medium.

<comment><USER27> For me, it doesn't work because background is too vibrant and clashing with characters. If you would de-saturate the background (or use only cold colors), I suspect just that small change would make the art work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Have not read the article yet, but just wanted to say I'm really excited about Thimbleweed Park, the new adventure game from Ron Gilbert (maker of Manic Mansion and Monkey Island, among others). Pixel art and all.

[https://thimbleweedpark.com/](https://thimbleweedpark.com/)

<comment><USER29> It's a shame they didn't go all the way. The art will be low resolution but it will not limit itself and will use unlimited colours, transparency and high fidelity lighting effects. I hope they will at least avoid the grevious but surprisingly common sin of mixing sprites at different resolutions.

<comment><USER30> Yes, they will mix sprites at different resolutions. Ron has stated multiple times that it is possible to enable a "true" low resolution mode, to the point where he'll get quite grumpy if you bring it up on the comments. He's also said that he thinks it is tinted (or tainted) by nostalgia and not something you'd actually want to use for more than a few seconds just to try it out.

They have explicitly said that they're not going for an adventure game in the truly old style, but for something that feels like it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> 'Stop looking for happiness in the same place where you lost it.'

</comment><comment><USER32> The problem with pixel art games is they tend to emphasize style over content. Game designers should strive to make the best possible game and allow a style to emerge from that, not the other way around.

</comment><comment><USER33> lots of people (myself included) like pixel art. Hey, I'm going to this ([http://pixelartpark.com/](http://pixelartpark.com/))

I think one issue is that _most_ people don't appreciate or understand the limits. This comes up in the demoscene. The demoscene makes realtime demos. The fact that they are realtime (or 4k or 1k or 256b) makes them interesting to people who understand the limits. But to most people outside the scene they're just mediocre effects because they aren't aware of the limits and instead are used to Star Wars: the Force Awakens effects or Pixar or whatever.

The same is true for pixel art. Many people like pixel art because of nostalgia. Others like it for the creativity within limits. But, probably most people, aren't aware of the limits so to them it's just not latest AAA game level of art.

It kinda sucks but there's lots of things the masses don't like/don't get. Fortunately there seem to be enough who do like these types of things.

</comment><comment><USER34> I think this is simply what happens when you mix art and creating a commodity. It's Britney Spears vs (your favorite artist). They are both art of course but one targets a much larger demographic then the other. Seems like our author realizes he has more passion for creating a popular and understandable game then he does for art.

<comment><USER31> [https://sivers.org/starv](https://sivers.org/starv)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It reads like the artist was looking for an excuse to stop drawing pixel art rather than any sort of further introspection as to why Auro might be encountering issues. It's utterly ridiculous that he thinks that the retro- game market is somehow splintering on the issue of making the pixels go away as increasingly sprite filters are being viewed in a negative light versus getting the experience as it actually was at the time.

The whole 'But customers want HD!' era has long since ended, with many of the most popular hits on PC games being pixel-based. The issue was never fully the artwork, but the cutthroat nature of the mobile market.

That said, the artwork of Auro reeks of faux-retroism and unlike Shovel Knight which embraced it, it seems like they were only really willing to go half-way.

</comment><comment><USER25> IIRC this was the second time Reynolds has announced he was pretty much Done with pixel art. I seem to remember a post like this around the time they finished 100 Trials. And then they did Auro, with everything obsessively pixelled.

Looks like it stuck this time; [http://www.dinofarmgames.com/forum/index.php?threads/battle-...](http://www.dinofarmgames.com/forum/index.php?threads/battle- blast-lanes-of-death.2244/) is a thread on Dino Farms' forums with some bits from a game they're working on. Personally I'm not sure the comic booky ink outline style is working for him yet but hey, he's learning an entire new way of working, possibly an entirely new art toolchain, and that takes time.

</comment><comment><USER36> I really like the look of good, B&W pixel art. I think that games like Dark Castle and interfaces like HyperCard really benefited from it.

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned though …

</comment><comment><USER37> I am not a gamer, but when I play I go with indie games. I really enjoyed the visuals of "The Last Door" and "Fez" and "Superbrothers - Sword & Sworcery" much more so than any 3d game.

The sad truth is 3D games are now cheaper to produce and work at arbitrary resolution, so the big studios will just keep popping them out because it's just so easy.

</comment><comment><USER38> I love this article. Having invested myself into making a large pixel art game, it really inspires and resonates with me.

</comment><comment><USER39> Interesting article but very subjective. I don't really agree with his idea of what is "better".

</comment><comment><USER40> (2015)

</comment><comment><USER41> Pixel art is really treble, I just hurt looking at it in some cases.

So some people likes pixels and call it "art" and use such word combinations like "HD fetishism".

But I would say "Pixels fetishism" and "HD Art". Of course badly made HD content can be bad too.

P.S.: This is my purely subjective and personal taste. Other will disagree with this because they have other taste.

<comment><USER42> Pixel art is really treble but it can't help it- the relative lack of shading and gradients means it will always have more high-frequency content than higher-resolution alternatives.</comment></comment>


Most popular and best paid programming languages – Chart - <AUTHOR> https://jobsquery.it/stats/language/group <comment><USER2> Working with niche technology pays well. Go Haskell!

<comment><AUTHOR> First five best paid:

        Haskell
        Erlang
        MATLAB
        Scala
        Clojure

<comment><USER3> And first five most popular programming language:

        SQL
        Javascript
        Java
        C#
        Python

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Where do the data come from?

<comment><AUTHOR> It comes from skills listed in job offers.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: My Netflix got hacked – I found out who sold my credentials. What now? - <AUTHOR> So, my Netflix account got hacked. Some of the profiles in my account were removed so I lost quite a bit of information on where I was with certain series. Anyway, with a bit of 'research' I managed to track down who sold my login information (Name & address). What's the best thing to do with this information?<p>Ps. I live in The Netherlands. Person who sold my credentails lives in The Netherlands too. <comment><USER4> I apologize if this is a stupid suggestion, but have you tried the Dutch police? Very probably they have a cybercrime division, and (perhaps less probably) your thief may be part of a wider ring, or a prolific offender who's currently under investigation.

Other than losing your place in your various series, have you suffered any other loss or harm as a result of your account breach?

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely not a stupid suggestion - I haven't contacted the police yet, no. I was stuck between contacting this person directly to give him a good scare (maybe he'd reconsider what he's doing) or contacting the police, or passing on the info directly to Netflix.

<comment><USER5> If it was me I'd contact both the police and Netflix. Let them give this person a good scare. Doing that yourself might have unintended consequences such as acts of violence against you or your property.

<comment><USER6> I am not sure Netflix would give a crap...

They'd want you to change your password to prevent it... but you're supplying them with a random name and address... pretty sure they aren't interested taking it on faith that that person is responsible and then attempting any intervention.

I would also be fearful of living in any city where Netflix theft is handled with any serious police resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hacking a netflix account just seems odd... to what end?

And if you do get credentials, why are you then deleting accounts? Locking the person out is no use... they'll just cancel. Presumably you don't have 8 bucks a month to have your own... so you're better off not making any changes and just enjoying.

So confused.

<comment><USER7> _Hacking a netflix account just seems odd... to what end?_

They're sold to people at a discount relative to Netflix's standard pricing -- e.g. $20 (or BTC equivalent) for 1 year of service. The customers don't always understand that they're paying a thief/fence for stolen goods.

<comment><USER8> Not even that.. You can buy netflix logins for $2 a piece

<comment><USER6> Looked into this because I have never heard of it.

Based on some forums it appears that often stolen credit cards are used to buy redeemable codes. Those codes are then sold for far less... Basically washing the stolen CCs.

Hacking individual accounts seems much more difficult / less rewarding financially.

<comment><USER8> People sell accounts that are from phishers and botnets. Which is mostly less work than using stolen CCs

You can buy the accounts for $2 or you can pay $20 for unlimited accounts. They sell programs that you click a button and it just gives you another hacked account from their database.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> dutchbrit - Just before things blow up ; it might be useful to recollect what other services use the same username / password ( and fix them all as well ). Mails / Banking / Wealth Management ( like personal capital , wealth front , Mint etc ) and Money Transfer ( Western Union etc) , online shopping accounts that have saved information of your credit card - And Change the password for all of those too.

If you are a programmer - make sure no one logged into any of your AWS ( or any such public cloud accounts) and generated another pair of keys. You might not realize anything now , but the attack might come when you totally dont expect it. They might spin up instances and have a few 1000 $ swiped on your card. ( Amazon will still charge you in these scenarios )

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - it was a password I stopped using a while ago and never used for anything important - only billable thing it was linked to was Netflix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I disagree with every commenter here. At most, notify Netflix. Why make a mountain out of a mole hill? You lost some viewing history and having your personal account invaded is quite unsettling. But it's just a movie watching service. Nothing was stolen and no one was hurt.

This reminds me of a joke in a Simpson's episode, "I thumb through your magazines" [https://www.tumblr.com/search/i%20thumb%20through%20your%20m...](https://www.tumblr.com/search/i%20thumb%20through%20your%20magazines)

</comment><comment><USER11> The "research" was completely legal, right. Not involving accessing or using computers you didn't have explicit access to access? If not then you'll probably be considered as guilty as the cracker you were chasing if Netherlands has something akin to the UK Computer Misuse Act.

I'd hold off contacting the EC3 if I were you.

<comment><AUTHOR> My research was perfectly legal, yes. I have passed on the information to Netflix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Go to his house and punch him in his goddamn face.

</comment><comment><USER9> You mentioned that they got rid of a lot of profile information ( for all we know, that person might simply be interested in having you Memento'ed ) (ie) Just delete all you stuff ( mails , foursquare checkins , instagram pics , facebook posts , last.fm scrobbles , open table reservations , evernote saved articles , pocket saved articles ).

This is not just a loss of your netflix password . It probably leaked a ton of information about you , your password pattern ! I bet you have the same password for atleast a few more services. You have to protect them .

<comment><AUTHOR> I have 5 profiles on netflix - only the 2 last ones were changed - not sure if they were renamed or if they were deleted and2 new ones were added - my own profile was left alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Reset your password an move on. What's the point of pursuing this?

<comment><USER9> I think , he is now a potential subject for a larger "identity theft" \- depending on how meticulous he has been with respect to passwords for other services.

The password could have probably been used for Dropbox , Evernote , and even mail(work and personal) - now making him completely vulnerable to a slew of attacks !

This is not as simple as changing password for netflix and walking away.

<comment><USER13> If you use the same passwords for all online accounts in 2015, you should probably have the keys to the interweb taken away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not going to be very satisfying, but report it to [http://www.fbi.gov/report-threats-and-crime](http://www.fbi.gov/report- threats-and-crime)

If there are a series of incidents connected to the same event/person, it may get prioritized. You can also reach out to your local FBI field office [http://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field](http://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field)

It sucks, but it's a juice worth the squeeze problem.

<comment><USER15> I don't think the FBI will do much in the Netherlands.

<comment><USER16> The FBI have a permanent liaison with the dutch cybercrime division. Nice guy and quite competent.

<comment><USER11> ... and he handles Netflix account fraud?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For those that don't understand why someone would hack a netflix account, search "netflix" at fiverr.com and you'd get an idea why!

[https://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_in=...](https://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_in=everywhere&query=netflix&page=1&layout=auto)

<comment><USER18> That search... shows up nothing?

<comment><USER19> I found NoScript was interfering with it. You've got to let their site and their site's CDN through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Have you contacted his ISP? It probably won't result in anything more than a sternly worded letter, but you could get lucky and get him dropped from his ISP (and maybe effectively cut off from home internet service unless he moves? Dunno if most ISPs in the Netherlands are effectively local monopolies like they are in the US).

</comment><comment><USER21> Could this be an isolated case and is this someone you know? Sorry to ask but could it be someone with a grudge? How did you find out who sold it etc - <USER3> think a bit more information would be useful

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know him and there are 1000+ accounts affected. I notified Netflix - <USER3> even have all the other credentials. I passed them all emails + passwords and told them to email all the affected customers. This was 5 hours ago, and I'm yet to receive an email. I will email these people myself within 48 hours if Netflix hasn't done so themselves.

<comment><USER21> I'd wait before emailing everyone. You've done the right thing approaching Netflix. Much like banks, I'm sure they will not want the publicity so hopefully they will work with you and the affected accounts. I'm hoping that the passwords are not in plain text though?

<comment><AUTHOR> These passwords are in plaintext.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How did they get your account information?

<comment><AUTHOR> I really don't know. The only thing I know is that my email account connected to my Netflix was not compromised. There was a big list (1000+ accounts) that was for sale - I have this list in my possession and have passed it on to Netflix. Waiting for them to notify customers but yet to receive an email (notified Netflix 5 hours ago).

<comment><USER23> I wonder if my account is in that list. I got my account taken over by a hacker close to a year ago. I had to call and get it reset. The only way I knew for sure it was hacked was because the devices they listed contained 1 that I did not own.

I have been a 'victim' a few times ever since the LinkedIn and Adobe brecaches awhile ago. It even happened as early as 2 weeks back. It's becuause I'm a fool and use the same password multiple times. Now, I don't going forward.

<comment><AUTHOR> Email me - email@example.com and I will check for you.

<comment><USER24> Might be a better idea suggesting users search for their email address, rather than contacting you personally.. I'm able to find the site with yours..

The information has been indexed as of 5 days ago. Credited to "@LulZSecSecurity"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Contacting the police might be your best move here.

Out of curiosity, how did you track him/her down?

<comment><AUTHOR> By Googling his username (and I'm 100% sure I have the correct person) :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> maybe

[http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/reporting.html](http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/reporting.html)

and also your local police department.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I should of mentioned, I live in The Netherlands - the person that sold my credentials does too.

<comment><USER27> Well, I'm sure there are law enforcement offices that address cybercrime in the Netherlands -- though _Netflix_ is in the US, and that might be sufficient nexus for the US government to investigate, even if they might end up turning over the information they gather to local authorities where the perpetrators are for prosecution.</comment></comment></comment>


Washington Post Is First Paper to Call for Prosecution of Its Own Source - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/09/18/washpost-makes-history-first-paper-to-call-for-prosecution-of-its-own-source-after-accepting-pulitzer/ <comment><USER3> This is an important article and adds some real context to Washington Post's editorial. This quote sums it up.

      But still, if the Post editorial page editors now want to
      denounce these revelations, and even call for the
      imprisonment of their paper's own source on this ground,
      then they should at least have the courage to acknowledge
      that it was The Washington Post — not Edward Snowden — who
      made the editorial and institutional choice to expose those
      programs to the public.

The Washington Post's editors decided these stories were in the public interest and should be published, not Snowden.

<comment><USER4> Indeed, it must be emphasized that Snowden deliberately did _not_ disclose _any_ of the information he had collected publicly. He specifically wanted _someone else_ to make the decision about what (if anything) should be disclosed, and he specifically wanted _journalists_ to make that decision.

For the Post to stab Snowden in the back this way is the worst treachery, cowardice, and hypocrisy that I have ever witnessed.

<comment><USER5> I worked at Amazon, I interacted with Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post doing this does not surprise me. It is effectively his political blog, where he gets to push his agenda while being abstracted away from responsibility. (EG: Amazon PR can continue its campaign of BS propaganda without WashPo articles hurting them or Bezos.)

<comment><USER6> What does Amazon gain from an anti-Snowden article? Should we be worried about the privacy of our purchase history and AWS instances even more than we already were?

<comment> my-cowardly-alt Not Amazon, but Bezos' startup Blue Origin is a defense contractor, currently bidding to supply the rocket engines for US national security launches (Air Force, NRO). He's one of two finalists (with Aerojet Rocketdyne), with a decision expected in 2016 or 2017.

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-lockheed-venture- developi...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-lockheed-venture-developing- reusable-engine-for-satellite-launches-1428958267)

I think it's reasonable to say it's a conflict of interest, trying to be both a newspaper reporting on the intelligence industry, and a major contractor for that industry at the same time.

(I apologize for creating a throwaway to post this; I'd prefer not to annoy AWS).

<comment><USER7> Years ago I reserved this kind of level of paranoia for the tin foil hat types, but to me now, it seems not only reasonable, but prudent.

<comment><USER8> It's a sobering thought that we are still thinking about some as 'tin foil hat types', which makes you wonder what we'll think of them years from now.

<comment><USER6> I realize this is an old thread, but it occurs to me that one of the problems is that implausible conspiracies are lumped together with plausible, likely operations and dismissed as a group with a single label.

<comment><USER7> I agree wholeheartedly.

Apparently the CIA popularized the term 'conspiracy theory,' in the 60s, though I don't have knowledge on the veracity of that claim. It's clear that at least a non-pejorative term would be useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady It's pretty despicable to profit from printing the information and then argue that the person who provided it shouldn't have done so. Surely if you think Snowden should be prosecuted for providing you with the information you should equally be prosecuted from printing illegally obtained information that you don't think was in the public interest. And to make matters worse that information (specifically PRISM which they call out) is still being published by WaPo [1]. Talk about hypocrisy.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/special/politics/prism-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/)

<comment><USER9> It could be honest, but only if they recommend themselves for prosecution as well. Somehow I don't think they'll be doing that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a good thing for future whistleblowers to know who should get their stories. WP just took themselves out of that list.

<comment><USER11> Indeed. The newspaper of Woodward and Bernstein is dead. All that remains is the name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> To play the devil's advocate here: this entire article rests on the assumption that the only way public interest could be served by exposing a government program is if that secret program is criminal. But this isn't true - <USER2> public's interest could be served even if the program is not criminal. So in my view, Washington Post is not being inconsistent - it is taking the view that while it PriSM was not criminal program, it was in the public's interest to know that it exists.

A lot of times we seem to confuse 'is illegal' with 'should be illegal' \- these are very different concepts. Washington Post did not necessarily take the position that PriSM was illegal in their articles, they merely supposed it was in the public's interest to know about it. Presumably to have a public debate about whether it _should_ be illegal.

(Watches karma points tick downwards.)

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "it is taking the view that while it PriSM was not criminal program, it was in the public's interest to know that it exists"

How did you get to that conclusion? To me it reads that they thought PRISM was not criminal AND not in the public's interest.

"...the Post suggests, there was no public interest whatsoever in revealing any of the other programs. In fact, they say, real harm was done by their exposure. That includes PRISM"

So essentially the public did not need to know about PRISM and Snowden should not have made information about it public - when it wasn't Snowden, it was WaPo that made it public. They're shifting the blame. Initially they thought it was in the public interest so they printed it. Now they're saying it was not in the public interest.

<comment><USER13> Was in the process of typing this exact response. Aqueous, I think you misread a bit. WaPo is trying to claim that exposing PRISM served no public interest while simultaneously publishing the information about PRISM. Whether the program is illegal or not is irrelevant -- that's grossly hypocritical behavior.

<comment><USER12> You are correct. I should have read more carefully. They do seem to have changed their minds. I do feel that WaPo should address the inconsistency

I think my point about the difference between 'is illegal' and 'should be illegal' still stands though. A lot of the debate was confused about whether or not this program was illegal with a lot of people not caring very much about the very specific ways in which the program avoided skirting the law. Nobody examined the specifics, and everybody assumed it was illegal and unconstitutional. This public reaction may have impeded ongoing investigations, and so it could be that Washington Post ultimately saw that it was _not_ in the public interest to reveal the program.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As Greenwald himself says, the editorial board does not speak for the reporting staff. Usually, few if any of the news editors are on the board. That's why you'll sometimes see the editorial board of a newspaper endorsing a candidate that their investigative reporting team just ransacked.

That said, this is probably a first.

</comment><comment><USER15> The title is a bit clickbaity, and I think Greenwald sometimes lets his politics get the better of him, but I think he makes a perfectly valid point here: it is not only difficult, but also impossible, to reconcile Washington Post's past reporting, together with their own claims of that reporting being in the public interest, with that editorial.

That said, I'm not sure I buy the explanation that it's about "protecting access". There are many cases where groupthink developed on its own just fine (like maybe the support for the Iraq war way back when), so it could be narrow self-serving interest, but it could also be incompetence. And don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity, and so on.

<comment><USER16> > Greenwald sometimes lets his politics get the better of him

Sometimes? That's his whole raison d'etre. He's a political campaigner in all but name. One may or may not like his politics, but let's not pretend that he's a dispassionate observer.

<comment><USER17> There's nothing wrong with that. I'll let Will McAvoy of Newsroom (Aaron Sorkin) answer that for you. Take a look at one of the first season's episodes.

<comment><USER16> I didn't say there was anything wrong with it. I'm just expressing surprise that someone seemed to think that Greenwald wasn't always extremely political.

<comment><USER18> "Let's not pretend" implies it's a purposeful deceit, not a mistake.

<comment><USER16> Why does it need to be deceit? People can be a bit short sighted when it comes to proponents of their own particular ideology.

I neither suggested that conistonwater was lying, nor that there's anything wrong with Greenwald being an activist, just that we should openly acknowledge the latter.

<comment><USER18> I'm just saying what your wording implies. "Pretend" means they are trying to "make it appear that something is the case when in fact it is not."

<comment><USER19> When my kids _pretend_ to do things, they are under no illusions that anyone believes it to be true.

When we say that people _pretend_ something is true, we're usually implying that they're choosing to believe in their own myth, not that they're trying to deceive others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Greenwald makes an important point and then sabotages it with over-the-top emotional appeals.

He's right that the Editorial Page editors should acknowledge the Post's own role in publicizing NSA foreign ops. He's probably right that Marty Baron would disagree with the Editorial. It is hypocritical for the Post to campaign against clemency for Snowden without acknowledging their (prominent) role in the leaks.

But it's not enough for Greenwald to make an interesting point. Anything interesting Greenwald has to say must be deployed in the service of his own campaign against the Post and the New York Times, against the journalistic establishment, and, ultimately, the US Government. So, interleaved among all the grafs establishing the Post's hypocrisy we have a parallel story of cowardice and betrayal, of the Post somehow setting new precedents in how papers handle sources. _quelle horreur_.

The Post can be hypocritical and still, potentially, correct in opining about clemency for Snowden.

The Post can be cowardly and still correct.

Criminals have been sources for newspapers for as long as there's been newspapers. A reporter takes on some obligations --- created by norms and barely if at all recognized by law --- when engaging a reluctant or vulnerable source. But none of those obligations include full-throated support for the sources interests moving forward. How would that even make sense?

Greenwald makes this critique even easier to write when he drags Frad Kaplan into his litany of cowardice. Kaplan wasn't one of the Post's Snowden-sourced journalists, and the piece that has Greenwald outraged is criticism of Oliver Stone's Snowden movie --- criticism that we can quibble with, but that is overall well-founded and seemingly absent from the discussion about the movie. Seemingly for the sole offense of having an opinion that differs from Greenwald's (and for being a member of the evil journalistic establishment), Kaplan too must join the league of cowardice.

What's most maddening to me is the narrative (because everything about Snowden needs to be a narrative, with an arc and a resolution that we all collectively evaluate to derive the Metacritic score for this part of American history) that Snowden has through bravery somehow transcended accountability, and that entities like the Post through cowardice have surrendered any future claim to reason or judgement.

We can argue all day about Snowden's bravery (the other side of the Snowden debate has another side of the bravery argument, too, and just as unproductive). But stipulate that he was unimpeachably courageous. So what? Lots of brave people do counterproductive things. Abortion clinic bombers are brave. Bank robbers are brave. The dude who phished all those celebrity iCloud accounts and published the photos --- I don't know if he knew how "brave" that was, but that took some stones. Firefighters are brave and so were the medics on the beaches of Normandy. In evaluating someone's actions, we need more data than "courage" _or even best intentions_ to come to a conclusion.

There are no doubt many good arguments for total clemency for Snowden. I probably don't agree with them (cards on the table: in my own fictional narrative of the Snowden story, he's convicted of something meaningful and has his sentence immediately suspended). But none of those arguments should have much to do with "bravery".

<comment><USER11> > What's most maddening to me is the narrative [...] that Snowden has through > bravery somehow transcended accountability

I don't know where you're getting that. It's certainly not what _Greenwald_ is saying. He's saying (and I agree) that Snowden acted responsibly by leaving to journalists the decision of what, of all the leaked material, to publish. He didn't just throw the whole pile on Wikileaks. Does that not make a difference to you? Does the _Post_ bear no responsibility whatsoever for the decisions of their own news editors?

<comment><USER20> The fact that Snowden didn't do the worst possible thing and just dump everything onto BitTorrent does not for me suggest that Snowden's actions are unimpeachable.

But I also have grave problems with the manner in which the Snowden cache was handled. I don't think the Washington Post, the New York Times, or the Guardian have the OPSEC chops to protect the data. But more than that, I don't think The Washington Post, Glenn Greenwald, The New York Times, and The Guardian can generate the right set of expertise to evaluate all these documents. I wonder, for instance, how much sooner we'd have discovered the Juniper backdoor --- possibly the most catastrophic backdoor in the history of the Internet --- if a larger collection of experts was somehow allowed to review the cache.

The whole thing, to me, seems like a giant clusterfuck animated more by egos and clique dynamics than by a coherent public policy goal.

So I have no trouble understanding people who put forward arguments that, despite his bravery, Snowden should be accountable for the totality of his actions, and not just the ones that produced outcomes we're all pleased with.

<comment><USER11> > I have no trouble understanding people who put forward arguments that, > despite his bravery, Snowden should be accountable for the totality of his > actions, and not just the ones that produced outcomes we're all pleased > with.

I have no problem with that either, _as long as we don 't forget the accountability of the other people involved_. That would include those who initiated and furthered the unconstitutional NSA programs; those who kept them hidden even from Congress; those to whom Snowden gave the documents; and, to some extent, all the rest of us looking on, at whatever distance, and commenting (or not).

> The whole thing, to me, seems like a giant clusterfuck animated more by egos > and clique dynamics than by a coherent public policy goal.

Any more than, say, the American Revolution?

I suspect the creation of history is always a bit messy when it involves human beings.

<comment><USER20> It is just not the case that the state is obligated to withhold prosecution until everyone who could possibly be culpable is also charged. This is logic that is deployed constantly on HN --- most commonly in the form of "none of the banksters went to prison so why are we prosecuting XXX" \--- and it's just not valid. No state works that way.

I would be really happy to see NSA employees charged for (provable) abuse of laws governing their operations. I totally believe that a lot of what NSA has done has been abusive. I mean that in the sense of: I would feel better about our country if that happened.

But the fact that it hasn't happened or even that it won't happen doesn't change my feelings about whether Snowden should be accountable for his actions.

<comment><USER21> What would be a reasonable punishment for him, by your standards? And what would be a reasonable punishment for the Post staff, by your standards?

<comment><USER20> Based solely on what I personally know, which is terribly incomplete, I wouldn't be alarmed by a felony conviction but no custodial sentence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The Post is in dissonance. Their comments are in conflict. They are speaking for the public's right to reasonable privacy that is not susceptible to what occurs when you exploit technology to gain an upper hand.

The game theory around government is that it thinks it has the right to "protect us" at some X% cost to trustworthiness between them and the public. Driven by that value, they will continue to rationalize higher levels of untrustworthiness.

</comment><comment><USER23> There's a difference between the freedom to publish what is already leaked, and leaking in the first place. The former is protected by the First Amendment. The latter is not.

</comment><comment><USER24> In its defense, it has _Washington_ in its name. I.e. what's "in the box" is what the label says.

</comment><comment><USER25> Even as a vehemently anti-Trump person, I find the Washington Post has become insufferably partisan to the point of making the left look bad. This is the final nail in the coffin of their legitimacy, to me.

<comment><USER26> The Post is not now not has it ever been "the left"

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Besos is a shithead. Tell us something we don't know already.

</comment><comment><USER28> Guys, we all know that Bezos is a micromanaging maniac. Because of this, he must have known (and approved) the stance that the Washington Post was taking on Snowden, right? What do you think?

I must say that I'm disappointed with Bezos...

(Separate point, I've recently been discovering that The Intercept is an outstanding paper. They have some real investigative journalism)

<comment><USER29> Snowden's revelations cost Amazon billions of dollars in AWS fees. In fact, it cost tens of billions of dollars to Silicon Valley companies over the past 3 years. This is why all these SV companies hate him so much.

<comment><USER30> Source on these claims? I don't doubt it, but i'd be interested in seeing the data

<comment><USER31> I can say with first hand knowledge, yes, US businesses have lost out on international contracts immediately following the leaks. There are plenty of industries (legal ones), in which the realization of government monitoring caused them to change course and keep business local (or at least, significantly shift the amount of information they would trust to a US-hosted business). Doesn't matter if it's irrational or not, real money was lost to US businesses, and I'm sure Amazon would have been party to that (whether they could even distinguish it in their monsterous growth or not, who knows).

<comment><USER32> It seems oddly short-sighted for SV companies to place blame on the messenger and not, say, the espionage system that created an ecosystem where it's perfectly sensible for people to ask whether their data is actually secure when stored on the servers of companies headquartered in a nation that spies on its own people.

The US could easily have ruled the world in terms of technological sophistication in the cloud services space if the government had been able to keep its sticky fingers off of data that it didn't own. The fact that it couldn't is really the government's fault, not the man that exposed it. A secret this big doesn't stay secret.

<comment><USER33> > It seems oddly short-sighted for SV companies to place blame on the > messenger and not, say, the espionage system that created an ecosystem where > it's perfectly sensible for people to ask whether their data is actually > secure when stored on the servers of companies headquartered in a nation > that spies on its own people.

I don't think it's about blame, it's just that you can't trust US companies with your data anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> PULITZER: "Hey WaPo you did a great service to the public with those Snowden articles. Take this Pulitzer Price for Public Service!"

WAPO: "Sure!"

[few months later]

WAPO: "Edward Snowden didn't do this country a public service. He should be prosecuted!"

</comment><comment><USER35> I'll agree with "ignominious".

</comment><comment><USER36> .

<comment><USER37> I agree. And I should add that Amazon is positioned to become the one global infrastructure layer in multiple areas. And despite Walmart's questionable labor practices, it remains the only viable opposition to Amazon's dominance in ecommerce. We don't know yet what Amazon would do if it achieves world domination and becomes the one button for everything but it's equally questionable labor practices don't leave me with much hope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> WashPost has definitely been on a visible decline since Jeff Bezos bought it. Extremely partisan and it tends to argue _for_ the government (infamous "golden key" editorial, etc), rather than against it (in case we've all forgotten by now, that was _supposed to be_ the job of the press). A lot of its articles are also Buzzfeedy and factfree.

<comment><USER39> > (in case we've all forgotten by now, that was supposed to be the job of the > press)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the job of the press was merely to bring relevant information to the masses?

<comment><USER40> The information and narratives governments want you to hear will be freely given in press releases.

All other information has to be found via investigation and possibly won't support or at least add complications and caveats to the official narrative.

So the press giving the complete picture to the masses does have a adversarial component to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Glenn Greenwald clearly doesn't understand the difference between journalism and editorialising. Does he seriously believe that the WaPo should have ignored the Snowden revelations about legitimate overseas intelligence operations, despite the fact that they knew that other news outlets were going to publish them? Does he not understand that the newspaper's job is to report the _news?_

What a douchenozzle.

<comment><USER42> They published the documents snowden gave them. They could have chosen not to and in fact they did in many other cases, only a small portion of the documents were ever published. None were published by snowden himself. He specifically wanted wapo to make the determination about what is actually in the public interest. They decided to publish the prism documents themselves.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do people respond to your .io domain name? - <AUTHOR>

For those of you with .io domain names, how do people in the "real world" (i.e., people who aren't very tech-savvy) respond to them? Have you gotten any positive or negative feedback? Any misunderstandings or confusion? <comment><USER2> This is just one data point: I was planning to use a .io domain for an online fashion store. I talked to several customers and asked how they felt about a domain ending in .io. ~30% of them thought it looked weird or plain "fishy".

If you're trying to sell something directly to people (especially physical good or stuff where you don't get a trial) I'd try to stay away from them. They seem handy for URL shorteners and techie stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use it for hosting my resume, a personal link shortener, and shortcut to my GitHub page. I've handed it out to recruiters and other people in tech, and more broadly, to some clients who are less than tech-savvy. Generally it's been well-received, but it helps that it's wicked short and much easier to recall than my old domain.

</comment><comment><USER4> I originally thought you actually needed to be situated in the Indian Ocean in order to get a .io domain. It might lead to some confusion (although I assume the tech savvy generally look at the TLD).

<comment><USER5> It appears that you must be a resident to have a domain like foo.com.io, but there are no restrictions on foo.io.

That is no extra restrictions. They do have this in their terms (most notably, for any purpose against the laws of any nation):

No .IO domain may be used, directly or indirectly, for any purpose that is sexual or pornographic or that is against the statutory laws of any Nation. In the event of NIC.IO being advised by any party that a specific site breaches this condition then NIC.IO reserves the right to immediately deactivate the offending registration. The applicant may seek the reinstatement of any suspended domain name by seeking a determination by an Arbitrator appointed by the World Intellectual Property organisation.</comment></comment>


How I got GaryVee to reply to my cold email. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.yobenlee.com/strategy/cold-email-growth-hack-used-get-reply-vaynermedia/ <comment><USER2> This sounds like a really good way to burn bridges that haven't even been built yet. Maybe I'm alone in feeling this way, but if somebody pulls this shit with me and I realize it (and chances are I will) then you're going to get a reply alright... one that says "go fuck yourself".

That said, maybe some people would be more amenable to something like this. Vaynerchuk might just be one of the people that would get one of these, realize what was going on, laugh about it, and reply and say "good job, kid". But then again, he's a Jets fan, so whaddaya expect...

<comment><USER3> You aren't alone. Anyone that says "I respect the hustle, kiddo!!" in response to this is probably going to add negative value to your life long term.

Imagine having someone this unethical as a business partner or investor. How can you trust a word out of their mouth?

Just go get legit warm introductions through hard work and merit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > _Some may be upset if they find out [you fraudulently created a warm- > introduction email to entice Vayner to respond]_

Do we need any more proof that if this works, marketing and networking is an illogical and unethical world?

What happened to the days of teams making cool innovative stuff and the guys with money reach out to talk?</comment>


Alvin Toffler Investigated by FBI for Communist Activities - <AUTHOR> https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/alvin-toffler-investigated-by-fbi-for-communist-activit-1828034656 <comment><USER2> regarding the DETCOM list (the list of people to round up and imprison in an "emergency" situation), I think it is safe to assume every modern nation has such a list (or even multiple lists of different gradation/priority, probably some traveling "sales"-man for swift round up involved too):

consider how quickly Turkey rounded up critics etc after the failed coup attempt.

technology has only made tracking citizens much easier and more detailed

I wonder what would happen if such a list got leaked? would it automatically prompt the listed people to be rounded up? or would it be too transparent, such that the targeted people start collaborating?

<comment><USER3> I think, the prime majority of people arrested in Turkey were detained simply based on the high school they graduated

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It didn't take much to get on the list back then just checking out a copy of the Communist Manifesto from the public library was all it took to get on the list. A lot of writers who were simply voracious readers with no organizational connections to communists landed on the lists for their reading habits alone.

<comment><USER5> Related:

"Pete Seeger on being Black Listed in America, 1965: CBC Archives":

[https://youtu.be/Y0_IME9WsHQ](https://youtu.be/Y0_IME9WsHQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not entirely related, but always amazes me:

In the US, the word "socialism" seems to be confused with "communism" like they were exchangeable. Mostly like people think vegan and vegetarian are the same thing. Nazis and Soviets were both socialists, despite being classified as right and left wing respectively.

There's a lot of things the US could do so much better if it understood that even hardcore republicans can be socialist and remain ideologically intact.

I guess we'll have to find another word for it, since this one seems to have been tainted during the Cold War.

<comment><USER7> The Nazis were not Socialists. They came to power by opposing Communists and Socialists, who were seen as a threat to middle class Germans and their property. The Nazis and facists in Italy operated a dictatorship for the benefit of corporations.

<comment><USER8> _for the benefit of corporations._

It's true that some corporations did very well under those regimes, but it's not accurate to say that enriching corporations is why they did what they did. Hitler never thought "starting a war is the perfect cover for making my buddies in the private sector rich", he wasn't angling for a lucrative post- political career as a board member or a lobbyist or after-dinner speaker.

<comment><USER7> I did not say that every action was done for the benefit of corporations.

<comment><USER8> _every action was done for the benefit of corporations_

Corporate interests were pretty low down the priority list in those regimes. German corporations would certainly have been more competitive and profitable if they had kept their Jewish workers and been permitted to use "Jewish science". The Nazis merrily hamstrung the corporations in their territory for the sake of their overarching ideology, they totally subordinated economic interests to serve the State.

<comment><USER7> Here is a good reference. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The title alone invokes laughter. "Man investigated for links to communist activity" like it's the bogey man. I feel a sense that old media is ratcheting up the rhetoric like good doggys

</comment><comment><USER10> OK, but it is no secret that Toffler indeed was a Communist and later a committed Marxist. It is also known that the Soviets ran numerous spy rings and infiltrated unions and worker organizations throughout the US; the Red Scare was perhaps an overreaction, but it was not completely unfounded. So it is no surprise that he was heavily watched by FBI and others.

(I am Russian, libertarian, and keep some interest in Cold War history. By the way, Toffler authored amazing books; if you haven't read "Third Wave" yet, you totally should. It was finished in 1980 and it completely describes the future of today: from societal anxiety from Silicon Valley automation to the rise of Trumpism. I was really impressed.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Do people still take Gizmodo seriously after the dishonest reporting they did of the Damore memo (i.e removing all links /references and calling it the full memo)?

<comment><USER12> Well, they linked to the source in this instance. If you don't trust them you can go and read the FBI reports directly and form your own opinion about it.

<comment><USER11> I decided to write them off at that point (having read the fully referenced version a few days before).

Thats why I ask the question.</comment></comment></comment>


Why don't companies hire "idea" people?  Is it because they think anyone smart can get good ideas? - <AUTHOR>

In my experience, "idea" people and analytically strong people  are different sorts.  And so it would make sense to hire "idea" people.<p>But apparently, few companies agree.  They see analytically strong people as strictly better than everyone else. <comment><USER2> An idea is only worth something when it's put into a fixed medium. We refer to people by the medium they work with. People who turn ideas into code are called coders. People who turn ideas into writing are called writers. etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Coders generally don't turn their own ideas into code. They are given something to work on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The bottleneck is almost always implementation. Therefore, it makes sense to hire more implementation people. If you hired more idea people, you'd just have more ideas that you don't have time to implement.

And large companies _do_ hire idea people. That's what corporate research labs and fellowships are for. But you need a _really_ strong track record to qualify for those, because if only a limited number of ideas can make it to implementation, you want to generate only the best ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bottleneck to what? The bottleneck to success is the idea. Without a good idea, you have nothing.

<comment><USER4> The bottleneck to success is not the idea. It is the execution of a idea.

Right now, there is a great example of this that is rapidly evolving and you can follow easily. Facebook apps. Do the best 'ideas' for Facebook apps dominate? No, the apps that take any idea and execute well are the ones that tend to dominate. Speed is a big part of the game - the first to market tends to spread the best.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used to wonder this myself. The answer I come up with is that companies have a check that they can cash pending execution of a series of finite steps. In a reasonable mature enterprise these steps are defined and one needs a person to execute a subset of these steps.

An idea introduces a probabilistic component to this that the person in charge of hiring has not considered because he/she has no _incentive_ to do so. He/she will definitely receive negative feedback if the series of finite steps to the money they are in charge of is not properly executed. In short, no reward and definite risk is bad for a company drone, in general. No straight path to money != good.

</comment><comment><USER6> Put yourself in the position of a company. You decide you need an "idea person" position. You post an opening and collect resumes. How do you decide whom to call? Whom do you interview? How do you decide whom to hire?

<comment><AUTHOR> I would conduct phone interviews asking people to brainstorm in real-time. I would then invite the most promising candidates to an interview where they would be asked to do more brainstorming in real-time.

<comment><USER6> You, I, or anyone else who attempts this, would make a sincere effort to assess their brainstorming abilities. What we would end up with, though, is an assessment of how similar their ideas are to ours. Ideas like ours will sound best.</comment></comment></comment>


Handlebars Considered Harmful - <AUTHOR> https://bryce.fisher-fleig.org/blog/handlebars-considered-harmful/ <comment><USER2> yeah. i am using it to build an html template for generating PDFs. both because I am lazy and because hbs is new to me I find myself offloading heaps of logic to it.

I could imagine this becoming a bad habit, especially starting to use it as a programning language.

I have a line like:

        ../../obj

and tried to parse down to a different context with:

        ../../obj.type

I quite like handlebars, but the author is certainly correct. Error handling is bad and it definitely can be tempting to offload logic too

</comment><comment><USER3> I liked what the creator of Mithril had to say about this:

[http://lhorie.github.io/mithril-blog/getting-over-a-fear- of-...](http://lhorie.github.io/mithril-blog/getting-over-a-fear-of-turing- complete-templates.html)</comment>


Unfollowing - <AUTHOR> https://unfollowing.net/

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't use this without knowing what it's going to do.</comment>


Obama Can't Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/17/in-first-nsa-interview-obama-cant-confirm-if-courts-ever-rejected-spying-requests/

<comment><USER2> Dear God, it's like I'm a kid again.

I didn't grow up in the US; when I was a kid, we didn't have this kind of interviews on TV. For one thing, most of the TV shows they aired was propaganda, and it was so utterly boring most of us didn't bother. The newspapers, on the other hand, carried propaganda along with the news, so you kindda had to read it, too, if you were to know what's happening. The smarter folks could even read between the lines.

This one struck the most sensible chord:

> And what that does is that does not apply to any U.S. person. Has to be a > foreign entity.

Entities. Not individuals, not groups, but entities. If you're an American citizen, you're cool. If you're a foreign entity, you're preeeetty much either a ladybug or a human, either way, it's pretty much the same thing.

This was Communist speak for non-Communist (to be fair, it was the twisted kind of Soviet-inspired Communism). We had communist workers and teachers and housewives, but foreign elements. Our country had communist friends but the democratic entities weren't that friendly.

This defensive depersonalization makes it very easy to strip away ethics. Butchering unarmed civilians sounds a lot more horrifying than annihilating non-combatant, but dangerous entities.

> The — because — the — first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are > surprisingly small… number one. Number two, folks don't go with a query > unless they've got a pretty good suspicion.

This sounds very much like the kind of conversation that, at some point, was taking place between Soviet representatives and representatives of various other subordinated, but somewhat nasty countries of the Soviet block.

It's the kind of stuff that was handed out to us during the talks about the Warszaw pact. Is it true that the Soviet Union has supreme command of all troops and can invade any territory, even that of its allies? Well, no, I mean, it wouldn't be an invasion. It's a trade-off we have do for our freedom: should the Revolution be abandoned in any of the member countries, the allied countries should intervene to restore the right values. That is why the Soviet Union has to have representatives at all levels, must be informed of every decision. It's one of those things we must concede for democracy -- we need to entrust our freedom to people who can protect it. Words like freedom, democracy, values and way of life were freely thrown in -- ours was the land of the brave and free, unlike that of the oppressed working-class friends living in imperialist, totalitarian states.

I shivered a bit when I read this.

Edit: BTW, just to practice my reading-between-the-lines muscle, my guess is that a) FISA hasn't turned down any request yet and b) the requests were summarily "reviewed" and approved, through a short process that should give legal backing. In other words, FISA isn't there to actually review the requests, it's there simply in order to fill in the paperwork that's needed in order to make the whole thing seem legitimate.

In the early days of the regime, we had something similar to this, too. The curious dudes submitted a request to a committee of representatives of the people -- the request was basically a form which said that the following people have highly suspicious activities that can be a threat to the security of our people, to the Revolution and the communist way of life we have so hardly fought for (actual fucking words!) and was recommended to be placed under surveillance. These were signed pretty much in bulk -- the representatives of the people usually signed a big list at the bottom. Later on, this was eventually dropped: complaining about paperwork was useless, and after a few years it became obvious complaining about paperwork was so dangerous that when it was no longer required, no one dared do anything about it.

<comment><USER3> _> And what that does is that does not apply to any U.S. person. Has to be a foreign entity._

Referring to a living, breathing human being with feelings, emotions, needs and wants (just like any American) as an "entity" is what Rory Miller calls "othering" [1]. The point of othering is to remove the humanity from someone or from a group of people. It makes it easier for someone to monitor, torture and... kill someone else.

And Americans are masters at it. People in the middle east, regardless of anything, are referred to by Americans as hajis. Gooks in Vietnam. And so on. It's subtle, but it works on Joe Public as well as it does on American soldiers invading some random country.

It's inhumane.

[1] Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected - [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594392137](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594392137)

<comment><USER4> The media could help here, by instead of using the administration words in their articles, they'd be using _their_ words - the normal words.

Also, at every press conference where they say "entities", they could ask, do you mean "people"? Or something along those lines. The people in the media are American citizens, too. It would help if they'd try to defend their own rights, too, instead of being nice to the government, which they are supposed to keep in check.

<comment><USER5> If "the media" were going to help, they could have done that at any time since 9/12/2001.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Obama is almost certainly the best spoken US President in 50 years. But when asked a simple, straightforward yes or no question:

"But has FISA court turned down any request?"

We get this answer:

"The — because — the — first of all, Charlie, the number of requests are surprisingly small… number one. Number two, folks don't go with a query unless they've got a pretty good suspicion."

Just blather, incoherence and grasping at straws. C'mon man you went to Columbia and Harvard Law, you give speeches almost every day - you can do better.

How about "yes", "no" or "I don't know" next time.

<comment><USER7> The inarticulate, chopped-up sentences are just an artifact of the article's author purposefully being nasty to Obama. Everybody talks like that; it's just not quoted as a matter of course.

<comment><USER8> I think it makes more sense to say the author is writing it like that to show that Obama was stumbling with his words in response to a "yes/no/I don't know" question. That's useful information that I appreciate the author conveying.

<comment><USER7> The problem here is that that information is being conveyed solely through contentless innuendo. You can expect the same level of disfluency from a softball

"How awesome is your new program?" "So awesome"

Q&A session. People only think this transcript shows Obama stumbling with his words because they aren't aware that printed media cleans up the natural disfluencies that occur in speech. This transcript looks highly unusual, but that isn't because Obama's false starts and stops are unusual (they aren't). It's because it's unusual for them to be printed in a quote. Thus, the conclusion that the author is malicious. An attack on Obama for refusing to answer the question is fine. An attack on him for speaking like a normal person in a spoken interview makes no sense.

<comment><USER8> I think your response is valid and an excellent counterpoint.

I would only disagree by pointing out that the President of the United States is not a normal person merely having a spoken interview. He's known as an excellent orator -- that's an important part of his job --, his speeches are carefully crafted and as you (seem to) say this is a softball interview. With all that in mind, why is he stumbling over a seemingly simple question?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The question I want to see asked is:

"Obama, in the course of your day, you and your staff probably interact with many foreign diplomats and other persons which this system is likely to classify as 51% likely to be foreign. On top of that, the content of those conversation, depending on the topic at hand, is likely to include words that would trigger an alert. With this in mind, do you think it is acceptable that those in the NSA, many of whom may have a differing political affiliation than you, can read any correspondence flagged for review? Furthermore, how can any member of congress operate from a position of equality if they cannot have confidence that their communications could fall into the hands of their compatriots across the aisle that may have a different agenda?"

If the answer to those questions included a filter that excluded all members of the executive, legislative and judicial, the obvious follow up question would be, "Why are members of congress allowed this right, but not the citizens of this country?"

I would also take comments he made on the Wikileaks Manning trove and present them as counterpoints to any rebuttal he has. I don't remember anything verbatim, but I remember him specifically addressing the importance of American diplomats being able to be secure in their communications to be able to carry out the roles for which they were appointed. This exact same argument can be applied to every single elected representative of the people and every official appointed by a duly elected representative.

<comment><USER10> I believe Snowden has gone on record saying that members of Congress are exempt from NSA spying.

<comment><USER9> Are all the staffers of those members of congress and the counter-parties with whom they interact also exempt? If you know someone's address book, you can spy on them while maintaining the appearance of spying on others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Obama:

> You have my telephone number connecting with your telephone number. There > are no names. There is no content in that database...At no point is any > content revealed because there's no content that...the FBI — if, in fact, it > now wants to get content; if, in fact, it wants to start tapping that phone

Snowden ([http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward- snowden-n...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa- files-whistleblower)):

> If I target for example an email address, for example under FAA 702, and > that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. > All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything.

Notice how Obama only talks about the phone metadata DB, and a process for getting data from companies about "non-US persons" (Google, etc) based on "essentially a warrant" (not the same thing as a warrant, though). Snowden's allegations are starting to become much wider than the original Verizon DB and PRISM systems. And I don't think that we are going to see Obama address them and deny them directly any time soon.

<comment> brown9-2 The quotes you have highlighted are discussing two different things.

Obama is referring to the phone metadata database.

Snowden is referring to what an analyst sees after an email address is targeted, meaning that an active surveillance process has been started for that specific email address and that the email provider has begun to provide access.

So of course these two statements are different, because they are talking about different things. The operative phrase in Snowden's statement is "If I target", which should be read as "after I start data collection for an email address...".

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > There is a second program called the 702 program. [...] It can only be > narrowly related to counter-terrorism, weapons proliferation, cyber hacking > or attacks

A FISA 702 [http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr6304/text](http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr6304/text) order (IANAL) authorises "the targeting of persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information". In FISA [http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg178...](http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg1783.pdf) section 101 "foreign intelligence information" is defined thus:

 _(e) "Foreign intelligence information" means— (1) information that relates to, and if concerning a United States person is necessary to, the ability of the United States to protect against — (A) actual or potential attack or other grave hostile acts of a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power; (B) sabotage or international terrorism by a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power; or (C) clandestine intelligence activities by an intelligence service or network of a foreign power or by an agent of a foreign power; or PUBLIC LAW 95-511—OCT. 25, 1978 92 STAT. 1785 (2) information with respect to a foreign power or foreign territory that relates to, and if concerning a United States person is necessary to— (A) the national defense or the security of the United States; or (B) the conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States._

Again IANAL, but it _seems_ that just about any possible reason the US could have for going through a non-resident alien's GMail or Dropbox account could be waved through under (e)(2). Lockheed Martin would like to know all your business secrets? Of course this would benefit the national defense of the United States. Annoying EU politician holding out against whatever intellectual-property treaty the US government is pushing this year? Clearly the United States would be aided in the conduct of its foreign affairs by complete surveillance of his email and calendar, maybe even by tipping off some journalists about the affair he is having. (Again, I'm not saying here that anything much like this _has_ happened, just suggesting that the "foreign intelligence information" requirement isn't going to prevent it from happening.)

And it's not even clear to me that the FISC court has any requirement or ability to rule on whether the US government is staying within even this very generous "foreign intelligence information" requirement. On a FISA 702 certification the Government has to 702 (g)(2)(A) "attest that-- [...] '(v) a significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information". Does this give the FISC any ability to inquire into the specifics, or is the government basically on Scout's honour in this?

So I can't see any _legal_ basis on which FAA 702 orders are restricted to being "narrowly related to counter-terrorism, weapons proliferation, cyber hacking or attacks". But I presume Pres. Obama isn't just lying here, so I assume that an _executive decision_ has been made to that effect: that the NSA cube-farm workers who are grinding through routine counter-terrorist surveillance are under orders to so restrict themselves. But that would just be an administrative order, not a law actually binding on the government. So, at some level between the President and the desk-jockeys, the decision could be made at any time to revise or take away that restriction - or just to set it aside _ad hoc_ at any time for any reason. I don't think it's even clear that the boys who handle industrial espionage and the like are covered by this order at all.

</comment><comment><USER13> Best article I have read in a while. It's tragic comedy how they get a way with it.

I mean i tried asking a group of friends what they thought, to learn they don't know what the fuck PRISM is!

It usually goes. "No one cares about, what the government does, your just weird."

I'm anti social so the only time I hangout with them is when I'm stoned. So I can see why I'm weird to the average teenager, but to not know about the government being caught spying on us, makes it seem like they were never really caught unless your on 4chan or reddit...

Fuck it...

<comment><USER14> It's questionable that they are "getting away with it".

The implications of what they've done are incredibly vast and damning. Not to mention, persistent - people now know everything they type on their computer is handed over to the government. That doesn't go away, no matter how much the media might want to ignore the subject.

I'd actually be surprised if they completely get away with it. At least a few people will be in trouble over this whole thing. Lots of civil rights organizations are organizing lawsuits over this as we speak.

<comment><USER6> NYT columnist Maureen Dowd recently described a supposed political strategy in a recent column:

"It's not true, it's not true, it's not true, it's old news."

If you can delay and delay and delay until the outrage disapates you just might be able to get away with something outrageous.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/dowd- when-m...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/dowd-when-myths- collide-in-the-capital.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What surprises me the most is Americans never stopping and wondering about people outside the US. This is why I never used a lot of services inside the US, and the few I have I will remove over time.

<comment><USER16> Most are happy to buy "Made in the USA." and bash economic immigrants. Just because they were born on the wrong side of the border. Not unique to the USA, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> >What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not.

So I'm screwed as a non-US citizen, and so are the 2.5billion people using the internet outside of US purview. Now I'm seriously considering a switch to safer alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER18> The reason that FISA warrant requests have such a high acceptance rate is because a federal prosecutor wouldn't ask for one unless they were certain it would be approved. They don't have to file a request every time a federal agent wants a warrant. They have the option to say "You need to gather more evidence".

They say a good trial lawyer won't ask a witness a question without knowing what the answer will be. FBI lawyers know the law and they know the judges, they won't just take shots in the dark when it comes to obtaining warrants. It's like asking why you have a 100% approval rate for your bank card purchases. If you know that you don't have enough money, you won't try to buy something.

Keep in mind that it's difficult to become a federal prosecutor and the job attracts intelligent people. The kind of lawyer that you see advertising on the side of a bus or a local DA trying to make a name for herself will try to push the envelope to get as much as they can. But high level corporate or government lawyers rarely sign their names to anything that isn't legally rock solid.

I just saw the Obama interview and he only hinted at this answer. As a Harvard trained lawyer he understands the system, but as POTUS he can't always be candid.

<comment><USER19> >But high level corporate or government lawyers rarely sign their names to anything that isn't legally rock solid.

So magically, these "high level" people stop trying to overreach? Suddenly they're struck with a respect for privacy and law? That's simply not credible. Feds regularly abuse seizure laws[1], why would you possibly think they're more restrained elsewhere?

I'd expect a reasonably high acceptance rate, especially if they're allowed to pick judges sympathetic to them. But a rate approaching zero should set off red flags.

1: e.g. [http://www.wbur.org/2013/01/24/tewksbury-motel- foreclosure](http://www.wbur.org/2013/01/24/tewksbury-motel-foreclosure)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Apparently there has been at least one instance of the FISA court rejecting a request, but we're not allowed to know about it.

From [http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/justice- department...](http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/justice-department- electronic-frontier-foundation-fisa-court-opinion)

 _the Justice Department was due to file a court motion Friday in its effort to keep secret an 86-page court opinion that determined that the government had violated the spirit of federal surveillance laws and engaged in unconstitutional spying. ...

But in July 2012, Wyden was able to get the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify two statements that he wanted to issue publicly. They were:

\- On at least one occasion the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held that some collection carried out pursuant to the Section 702 minimization procedures used by the government was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

\- I believe that the government's implementation of Section 702 of FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] has sometimes circumvented the spirit of the law, and on at least one occasion the FISA Court has reached this same conclusion._

</comment><comment><USER21> The number of requests is not, as Obama asserts, "surprisingly small". It is probably smaller than it ought to be, and in light of the NSA's recent admission that they've tapped warrantlessly, that's probably the explanation.

Regardless, here's their record, and they certainly aren't disapproving much. [https://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html](https://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html)

If there's a reason that Obama can't confirm it (beyond that he just doesn't know), it's because it is believed that the FISC acts differently than other warrant-granting entities in that at least usually, when it denies a request, it also then provides guidance on how to refile the request in a way that it might be approved. Regular courts will do this on procedural errors, but not as a matter of course.

In all likelihood, the 11 denials the FISC has issued over the past 34 years were likely all later converted to approvals with their guidance.

<comment><USER20> Don't we have evidence why the number of requests is "surprisingly small"?

All this time we assumed that the requests would refer to individuals who were under suspicion. But the Verizon order tells us differently. Here we've got one, giant request for "every call that passes through Verizon".

It's a huge amount of spying being done, all carried on the back of one (or a handful) of blanket requests.

<comment><USER21> As I understand it, that's possible, but the 'metadata' requests aren't routinely surveyed because they don't capture 'enough' data to constitute something that would require a warrant.

To put it in more real world terms, it takes a warrant for me to go into your house and listen to what you're doing, but I am perfectly free to sit outside your house and watch your comings and goings without one. I believe (but do not know) that the current interpretation of the metadata requests is being treated like this, where the NSA simply feels that no warrant is required.

Your argument however, probably holds more weight because, at the least, you would very much hope that Verizon and company wouldn't be handing over data without some kind of warrant, even with a 'strong suggestion' from the feds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's amazing how little this guy knows.

</comment><comment><USER23> > I don't think anybody says we're no longer free because we have checkpoints > at airports.

Lies right there. It's difficult to call someone a liar because the scope is far reaching, beyond just one untruth or another. Would it be correct to say "Obama is a liar"?

</comment><comment><USER5> >Obama Can't Confirm If Courts Ever Rejected Spying Requests

That means either: Courts have not rejected any requests. or: The gov't has ignored [one or more of] the rejections.

</comment><comment><USER24> Then I can't support him.</comment>