The Satoshi Nakamoto SourceForge account has been hacked - <AUTHOR> http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/ <comment><USER2> Satoshi's account on p2pfoundation.ning.com also made the first comment since he said "I am not Dorian Nakamoto." back in March. It says:

"Dear Satoshi. Your dox, passwords and IP addresses are being sold on the darknet. Apparently you didn't configure Tor properly and your IP leaked when you used your email account sometime in 2010. You are not safe. You need to get out of where you are as soon as possible before these people harm you. Thank you for inventing Bitcoin."

[http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topic/listForContributor...](http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topic/listForContributor?user=0ye0gncqg772o)

<comment><USER3> So could someone explain how an IP address would leak when using an email account? I suppose potentially in the SMTP header, but this would assume he was using a email server running on his own personal ip, right?

So is the guess here (assuming this is even true) that he had an email server running at home, leaked the ip, and then was attacked when someone found it?

<comment><USER4> gmail, for instance, includes the client IP address in mail headers.

I learned this myself recently from an article here on HN, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2083798](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2083798)

Haven't checked it myself, just reported there by a former gmail engineer in the context of their anti-spammer efforts.

<comment><USER5> Gmail has NEVER included the IP in headers (you can easily check this yourself). Hotmail/Outlook on the other hand ...

<comment><USER6> Depends on how you access Gmail. Webmail doesn't include your IP in the headers. SMTP does.

<comment><USER5> Ah ok. I've only ever used webmail, it makes sense SMTP would include the IP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Intresting theory from [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=775174.80](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=775174.80)

[Quote]

nycgoat on September 08, 2014, 11:49:43 PM Is it possible that he deleted the e-mail address @gmx when he left the project and that it has been recycled? Someone else may have been able to sign up, then use the reset password feature on these other sites. It is likely that the @gmx address would have been destroyed at the conclusion of his participation in the project, as all relevant information and e-mails have been public from the beginning.

1) Satoshi finishes with Bitcoin and deletes GMX account 2) He does not delete other accounts (sourceforge, i2p, etc) 3) GMX account is recycled after x period of time 4) Person signs up for @gmx account after it is recycled 5) Passwords for other sites are reset because they still point to the @gmx e-mail address as a recovery 6) Person tries to profit by extortion and fails

This is probably the most likely scenario... and they probably don't have any of Satoshi's information because it is unlikely that any e-mails were still in the box when he re-set up the @gmx address.

[/Quote]

<comment><USER8> The behavior of the p2pfoundation "resurfacing" of Satoshi is different than the sourceforge one, possibly indicating 2 people with some of Satoshi's credentials, so in my mind that lends some credibility to the explanation on the p2pfoundation post (Satoshi's info being sold to various buyers) as being more likely.

<comment><USER9> That does not contradict shlorn's hypothesis. One hacker gains access to Satoshi's accounts through @gmx recycling. Then he sells those accounts separately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/509145414008725504](https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/509145414008725504)

Peter Todd  @petertoddbtc

"Interesting, got another forwarded email from "satoshi", from 2011 - indicates this was a hijacked account, not expired and re-registered."

\----

Going to grab some popcorn, this might get pretty entertaining...

<comment><USER11> Interesting link. I'm sure there's a lot more to come if what they have is true. But the comment about the popcorn doesn't seem right. Is it entertaining to watch him get dox'ed? Shall we encourage hackers holding info for ransom?

<comment><USER10> "Is it entertaining to watch him get dox'ed?"

uh... yes, of course it is?

I'm not saying it is necessarily a good thing, especially for him personally, but it is undeniably interesting.

Why is Jack the Ripper still making headlines? Because the unknown breeds mystery, which is inherently entertaining to people.

<comment><USER12> Apparently we know who Jack the ripper is now. [http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/was-it-aaron- kos...](http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/was-it-aaron-kosminski- jack-ripper-dna-claims-get-ripped-n198506)

He is Aaron Kosminski according to DNA probably.

<comment><USER13> Will be vetted after his book has sold out. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> More details via Wired: [http://www.wired.com/2014/09/satoshi/](http://www.wired.com/2014/09/satoshi/)

1) A pastebin threating to dox Satoshi for 25 BTC: [http://pastebin.com/7gbPi8Qr](http://pastebin.com/7gbPi8Qr). Address has received less than .02 BTC thus far: [https://blockchain.info/address/19pta6x1hXzV9F5hHnhMARYbRjux...](https://blockchain.info/address/19pta6x1hXzV9F5hHnhMARYbRjuxF6xbbV)

2) The GMX screenshots show 11k+ emails in the inbox, with one from as far back as June 2013

<comment><USER15> Mirrored screenshots here:

[http://i.imgur.com/McgiZwb.png](http://i.imgur.com/McgiZwb.png)

[http://i.imgur.com/lfCJeBI.png](http://i.imgur.com/lfCJeBI.png)

Edit: To respond to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8288579](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8288579)

Looks like "Phone 31x" under the email address, which is consistent with St Louis area code of 314.

<comment><USER16> That guy did a really bad job of blacking out sensitive information. It probably nails the receiver down to only a couple of hundred people.

<comment><USER5> With a bit of levels adjustment and [http://i.imgur.com/y0Ee8cl.png](http://i.imgur.com/y0Ee8cl.png)

We're being lied to. This is fake. The street address doesn't match the post code.

My assessment: The hacker created the order himself, with fake ID, fake address and doctored the timestamp.

<comment><USER17> > With a bit of levels adjustment

Care to explain?

<comment><USER14> Bumping the shadows/black levels so that they are brighter. Literally just moving a single slider all the way to the right in photoshop or lightroom. Just google 'levels', or here's a decent intro: [http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/levels.htm](http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/levels.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Greetings,

We suspended s_nakamoto's account 2 hours and 17 minutes after the attacker gained access to that account.

After generating a list of changes made, confirming method of attack, and identifying no serious changes to project content, the project was restored to its pre-attack state, and the compromised user account was removed from the project.

Risk to the community is believed to be low, as file content wasn't modified.

Regards,

Roberto Galoppini, SourceForge.net

See [https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/site- support/8512/](https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/site-support/8512/)

</comment><comment><USER19> It's looking like his email address got recycled, and someone is using that to request password resets on accounts associated with it.

<comment><USER20> Actually it doesn't: [https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/509145414008725504](https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/509145414008725504)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hackers have changed bitcoin's description to read:

Buttcoin is a peer-to-peer butt. Peer-to-peer means that no central authority issues new butts or tracks butts. These tasks are managed collectively by the network. It's like a bitcoin, but with butts instead.

<comment><USER21> Starting to wish these guys would hire writers. So much more exposure for saying something clever or funny... but no. Butts.

<comment><USER22> Butts are always funny

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> theymos: "email@example.com is compromised"

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=775174.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=775174.0)

</comment><comment><USER24> If you take the screenshot showing the leaked e-mail from an order 'he' placed at CardReaderFactory, you get an interesting data point:

\- You can lookup orders tied to the e-mail address firstname.lastname@example.com \- You _cannot_ lookup order tied to gibberish accounts, like email@example.com

Proof: [http://imgur.com/a/22z72](http://imgur.com/a/22z72)

<comment><USER25> And what does this say?

<comment><USER26> That a legitimate order exists and has been placed using satoshi's email address.

<comment><USER16> The address is invalid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Seems to have been reverted now.

</comment><comment><USER28> A bitcoin address appeared on satoshi's profile page:

[https://blockchain.info/address/19pta6x1hXzV9F5hHnhMARYbRjux...](https://blockchain.info/address/19pta6x1hXzV9F5hHnhMARYbRjuxF6xbbV)

[http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/SatoshiNakamoto](http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/SatoshiNakamoto)

Satoshi Nakamoto posted a status:

"Tip Jar: 19pta6x1hXzV9F5hHnhMARYbRjuxF6xbbV"

</comment><comment><USER29> One of the comments on the Wired post[1] shows that the email from CardReaderFactory is a hoax: you can see the person's name using the Levels tool in Photoshop.

Confirmed with Photoshop myself using the imgur image links I got from this HN post.

[1]: [http://www.wired.com/2014/09/satoshi/#comment-1580438754](http://www.wired.com/2014/09/satoshi/#comment-1580438754)

<comment><USER30> What makes this a hoax? Couldn't that person be Satoshi?

<comment><USER31> Apparently, that address does not exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> How can you blackmail a person for digital information you steal? Who knows if you won't blackmail again?

<comment><USER33> How's that different from non-digital information?

<comment><USER32> There is at least an original copy.

<comment><USER33> Yes, but a very slight degradation in making an analog copy of some pictures or records won't degrade their blackmail value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I won't post a working link to the images but I did view them and the top-most email says it was sent 12/6/22, a date that has not occurred yet. So this is either a bug in GMX that doesn't validate timestamps or he didn't finish his otherwise convincing photoshop job :-)

<comment><USER35> The email in question looks like a Chinese spam email, which are often sent with dates in the future to show up at the top of date-sorted inboxes.

See also: "spam chinese emails from the future?" [http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung- galaxy-s3/278777-sp...](http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung- galaxy-s3/278777-spam-chinese-emails-future.html)

<comment><USER34> Strange. I've never noticed such an email in my inbox. I would have thought that a future timestamp would be flagged by their spam heuristics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I believe Satoshi Nakamoto is zohar002. This is my belief... At least for now!

[http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Hyper+Lemon+Buster+Cannon/t...](http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Hyper+Lemon+Buster+Cannon/the- legend-of-zohar002-244052.phtml)

</comment><comment><USER25> This makes me wonder whether the "I am not Dorian Nakamoto" message left on p2pfoundation is also a fake. It did seem weird back then that instead of signing a message using his well known public key, he decided to use a p2p forum to announce the fact.

</comment><comment><USER37> Heh, so far this guy has earned about 10 bucks.

[https://blockchain.info/address/19pta6x1hXzV9F5hHnhMARYbRjux...](https://blockchain.info/address/19pta6x1hXzV9F5hHnhMARYbRjuxF6xbbV)

</comment><comment><USER38> Whoever satoshi is/are, it's a good opportunity to step forward and become the public face of bitcoin without this stupid hide-and-seek.

</comment><comment><USER39> Couldn't this person who has Satoshi's GMX email then reset the passwords on any of Satoshi's existing accounts?

</comment><comment><USER40> if he has a lot of bitcoins, wouldn't it be smarter for him to just sell them right now ?

I mean it's much safer to have real money in a bank account than to have bitcoins.

<comment><USER41> If he sell any of them it will be easy to track him down.

<comment><USER40> why track him down ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> What was there? It is just the bitcoin SF page now.

<comment><USER43> Someone apparently defaced the project description replacing "Bitcoin" with "Buttcoin" and so on. Someone else apparently restored the original version.

<comment><USER42> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> more relevant link: [https://archive.today/odPyB](https://archive.today/odPyB)

</comment><comment><USER45> [http://pastebin.com/vAwmBBpC](http://pastebin.com/vAwmBBpC)

</comment><comment><USER46> I just ploughed through the thread on the bitcointalk forum. (disclaimer: a lot of the following summary is based on hearsay and lacks evidence)

Some kid hacked the firstname.lastname@example.com mailbox, by guessing the birthdate forgot-password check on gmx.net (yes, it sounds kind of unbelievable to me as well).

He probably used this email to gain access to the SourceForge account, and wrote some juvenile texts about "buttcoin" (everything seems to have been reverted now, see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8293062](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8293062) ).

He also used the mailbox to gain access to Satoshi's account on p2pfoundation.ning.com, which is the same place where the "Dorian is not Satoshi" message was posted a while back when some news media thought they found SN. Then he used this account to try and pull off a "give me 25BTC or I'll release SN's dox" scam. Nobody in the bitcointalk thread seems to believe the kid actually has SN's dox, because Satoshi was clever enough not to leave personal info in that mailbox.

The kid also used the email to try and threaten the bitcointalk forum admin ("send me some coins before I hitman you" ...). The forum admin seems fine to just let it be, because no real damage has been done, it was just a kid and by now the kid and his family have been doxed, who's probably scared shitless right now realizing what sort of serious business he's been messing with.

Adrian Chen tried to mail email@example.com with some questions, and in response got a screenshot of the mailbox, "proving" it was indeed under someone else's control: [https://twitter.com/AdrianChen/status/509162847130370048/pho...](https://twitter.com/AdrianChen/status/509162847130370048/photo/1) . There's a second screenshot of some invoice of someone ordering a bitcoin- mining device, with the address info photoshopped out--which was done badly because someone on Reddit quickly revealed part of the name and address. But that order seems partially fake, just some guy that thought it was funny to enter Satoshi's email when ordering the device.

It's assumed the kid no longer has access to the firstname.lastname@example.com mailbox. Again I didn't see these claims substantiated either.

All in all, someone smarter could have done a LOT more damage with this hack. But whoever did this really screwed it up. There might be some unintended clues about Satoshi's identity in that mailbox, but it seems like whoever got access isn't clever enough to string all that together (tying it with the research done into his identity so far). So unless the whole mailbox gets dumped somewhere, that's it, case closed?

</comment><comment><USER47> What are the signs that it has been hacked, the sourceforge page looks correct, has it been recovered?

<comment><USER14> They changed the description to "buttcoin" (which has now been reverted), made some private information public, and removed the administrators. See: [http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2fuuzf/the_old_now_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2fuuzf/the_old_now_unused_bitcoin_sourceforge_project/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Could this be a government posing as a hacker in order to discredit the threat to mainstream currencies? I don't think so, but I do think conspiracy theories will be abound!

<comment><USER49> I'll play. My conspiracy theory is that this is a PR stunt by gmx.com to advertise their email service. Motive and opportunity!

<comment><USER50> Funny theory, but then again, it wouldn't be great advertising considering the gmx account was compromised. Which maybe makes it funnier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I wonder if this could be Satoshi creating an additional layer of complexity in the hunt for his/her identity. By compromising his email address and web properties he can basically direct the masses in any direction he/she wants to. While ensuring that they have false bits of information seeded within them.

Creating a myth and story around the creator is brilliant to ensuring future relevance. I doubt this is a planned event; however, if the Satoshi did plan it... Wow tip my hat to you sir/ma'am

<comment><USER52> And what if you are Satoshi, and you created this account to create a third dimension of complexity.

<comment><USER51> What if I created a 2nd account to make my first comment seem absurd?

<comment><USER53> "It's Satoshi all the way down"

<comment><USER54> Nah. For example, this isn't Santoshi.

..... or is it....</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Growing a consulting business with a CRM - <AUTHOR> https://blog.reifyworks.com/growing-a-consulting-business-with-a-crm-d44474ed58d2 <comment><USER2> I don't like this guy's potty mouth.</comment>


Lean Startup by Eric Reis - highly recommended - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-ebook/dp/B004J4XGN6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1316676773&sr=1-1

<comment><AUTHOR> Really like the way the book backs up each of his 'theories' with real world examples showing how others have implemented them.

If you dont get the book at least watch: [http://techcrunch.com/disrupt/video/watch/piOHBzMjrYRS5_bzpu...](http://techcrunch.com/disrupt/video/watch/piOHBzMjrYRS5_bzpu9odr3O7b0EyrDa/)</comment>


Unique Electronic Signature Feature of ESignly - <AUTHOR> https://www.esignly.com/info/features <comment><USER2> Curious about the security model for signature as a service.</comment>


Bower is fucked - <AUTHOR> http://blog.psych0tik.net/2013/03/bower-is-fucked/

<comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: I normally hate "foo is broken" type posts, but jesus.

If you're curious/masochistic just look at my twitter feed for the last few hours: <https://twitter.com/rich0H></comment>


Students digging into data archive spot mysterious X-ray source - <AUTHOR> http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Students_digging_into_data_archive_spot_mysterious_X-ray_source <comment><USER2> _"This event is challenging our understanding of X-ray outbursts: too short to be an ordinary stellar flare, but too faint to be linked to a compact object," explains collaborator Sandro Mereghetti, lead author of the paper presenting the results.

Another possibility is that the source is a so-called chromospherically active binary, a dual system of stars with intense X-ray activity caused by processes in their chromosphere, an intermediate layer in a star's atmosphere. But even in this case, it does not closely match the properties of any known object of this class._

Interesting. I guess an alien source was ruled out due to magnitude of the source. Still, would be interesting to see if there is potentially an underlying communication pattern there.

<comment><USER3> I'd imagine they ruled out an alien source simply because _any_ astronomical phenomenon could be produced by aliens. Thinking about that for anything slightly unusual is just burdensome cognitive overhead.

Similar to how cosmologists aren't satisfied with "god did it" as an explanation. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a reason they don't print the high school students' names? It seems like they should be given some sort of credit for their work.

<comment><USER5> You can find their names at the end of the article. Hope this guys will keep working in the field in the future.

<comment><USER4> Ah, you're right -- the "continue" button shows them. Never mind!

<comment><USER6> But on a journalistic note, isn't it proper form for names to be above the fold? Maybe scientific journalism is different?

<comment><USER7> It doesn't appear that the high school students are authors on the paper. Academic papers place authors at the top of the paper (some exceptions for e.g. huge collaborations with hundreds of authors) and acknowledgments at the end of the paper. It appears the article follows this pattern, so I don't find it at all "offensive" coming from an academic background; simply different conventions of where names appear, but they are listed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Plus: Tagging automatically shares private photos - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Picasa/thread?tid=52e06725a97fe570&hl=en <comment><USER2> This seems 100% reasonable to me. If somebody tags me I want to see that photo - and the entire album (since context is also important). I don't want that somebody starts taging me on some photos and then sharing these photos with others without me having chance to untag myself.

<comment><USER3> Before people start forgetting real-world context here:

In the physical world, people can and do take photos with you in it. They then get these developed, and may put them in an album with the people identified.

You would have absolutely no access to this photo unless they choose to share this with you, however that may be. They can also choose to share it with their friends, possibly even form a presentation with it to a certain slice of the public, and you still have no control over this, or even access to it.

This automatic re-sharing is quite the opposite, and I suspect Google did not fully follow the logical consequences through, or purposely chose to subvert the current physical-world situation. I don't like it, I'd rather have new-to- digital features following known physical traditions until there is ample evidence that it may be a good thing to change it.

<comment><USER4> The equivalent to your analogy is the "My Pictures" folder we all have on our private computers. Google is not this. They are a giant corporation letting you store your photos with them for free and they have documented that tagging is sharing.

<comment><USER5> Google's whole goal for G+ is that it's supposed to be modeled after how life _really_ works – circles, hangouts, etc. The picture sharing is not how things go down in the real world. When your aunt has goofy pictures of you at family gatherings, chances are she's showed them to a handful of other individuals without your consent. The pictures are _hers_ and she shares them with _her_ circles, regardless of who's present in those photos. The way Google is handling this seems to go against the ethos of G+.

<comment><USER6> That just seems like a disadvantage of real life that Google+ can improve upon!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's more than the privacy issue. If the tagged person does not have a Google+ account, then Google+ sends an email with subject "<Name of person tagging photo> invited you to join Google+" for every photo tagged. Spammy.

<comment><USER8> On the other hand at least you get notified that your name and face are now publicly viewable on the intarwebs somewhere. The question is what you can then do about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I read it when I opened my G+ account, and it sounded to me pretty much like Buzz all over again. Hope that gets fixed soon.

Only because some guy you barely know made his way into one of your holiday photos, it doesn't mean you want to share your complete vacations with him. Probably not even that one picture, why should you be forced to?

<comment><USER10> you're not being "forced" to. simply don't tag that person.

<comment><USER11> I think it is more of a managing expectations issue. Consider another situation: you pay me $25 via check. I can now debit your bank account for $100,000. Surprised? "Don't write checks." doesn't quite cover it, does it?

P.S. Don't write checks.

<comment><USER12> That is sure going off-topic, but - seeing that I never used checks in 30 years of my life, they are very 'popular' and common over here in Israel now.

Can you share your bad experiences? For me that stuff was never relevant and something I heard 'old people' talk about. I feel like someone invites me to a party and wants to play the gramophone for us..

<comment><USER13> _"... due to an unfixable security flaw in the way funds are now transferred electronically, worldwide, it is no longer safe to write personal checks"_ \- Donald Knuth, on reasons for no longer writing his famous reward checks. Google for more info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's one more privacy feature/annoyance with photos on Google Plus. Apparently when I share an album with someone, that person in turn can share that album with other people and can also see who else I've shared it with. Now what's the point of a private album if everyone else can share my album. I like how Facebook solves this problem. You, as the album owner get to choose who sees the album. People who you've set the visibility as true cannot see who else I've shared it with.

<comment><USER15> Only allowing the owner to share an album is a false sense of security. If someone can see your album, they could just as easily download the photos and make them public.

Instead of disallowing it outright, I'd rather they make it clear that you're sharing content with a wider audience. One solution would be to require that the owner approves the share, similar to how tagging is handled.

<comment><USER14> That's good idea. But it still wouldn't solve the issue of people downloading the photos and making them public.

<comment><USER15> That problem is inherent with posting something online. The best any service can do is make it difficult for someone to accidentally violate their friends' privacy.

This, in my opinion, is where Google+ is failing: sharing makes it very easy to make private posts visible to an audience larger than the author intended.

<comment><USER16> _This, in my opinion, is where Google+ is failing: sharing makes it very easy to make private posts visible to an audience larger than the author intended._

In addition to G+ reminding users when resharing a limited post that it was intended for a smaller audience and to be mindful of that, the original poster can also disable resharing entirely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is the behavior I expect. I don't think I'm alone in this.

<comment><USER18> I'm with you. This is how it works on Facebook and I suspect this is how the majority of people expect it to work. Not only that, this is not only the behavior I expect but the behavior I want. I suppose it might be OK with me if someone tagged me in a photo that was private just to the person who took it.

But it would be a huge, huge problem if someone could tag me in a photo and share it to some circles that didn't include me. Fake-tagging people or tagging people in embarrassing photos is a major problem on FB, and the privacy issue here goes two ways: the person you tagged also has their own privacy concerns. What if you tagged an embarrassing photo of me, shared it with a circle of hundreds of co-workers (that you excluded me from), and then not only do I not know the picture is out there, but co-workers can see it by visiting my profile and looking at pictures tagged of me? That would be orders of magnitude worse than the status quo.

I'm trying to think of how you design a system that respects both my concerns and those of the OP, and I can't come up with anything that would be intuitive. (Suppose that you could tag an album full of people and keep it private to yourself, but sharing it with a family circle caused it to also be shared with everyone you tagged? That really would break user expectations). I think the current implementation might be the best one, perhaps with more of a warning in the UI that tagging shares with the person tagged. In essence this is not a privacy complaint, it's a feature request: people want to use tags for a different purpose (organizing private albums) than they are designed for.

<comment><USER19> _What if you tagged an embarrassing photo of me..._

This happened to me _3 HOURS_ after joining facebook, and was not even ill- intentioned. (ah, young people!)

edit: I marked tagged photos as private for a year till that photo was untagged. The photo is still there. :(

<comment><USER20> This may not have always been the case, but you can untag yourself and once you do that no one else is allowed to retag you.

<comment><USER19> I saw the untag feature, but it shouldn't be my job to monitor facebook 24x7 to untag embarrassing photos.

<comment><USER21> It hasn't always been the case, but Facebook has a setting called "Who can see photos and videos I'm tagged in". There's also "Let friends of people tagged in my photos and posts see them."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "This move goes against Google's supposed philosophy of controlled sharing within circles."

This is exactly in keeping with google's philosophy. When the pictures are public, google can use them for advertising. Google+ was created to mine date to sell ads against. Why do you think Larry tied the bonuses this year to performance in social?

</comment><comment><USER23> On the one hand, I can understand the point of view of the people who are upset about this and there should at least be a way to disable this behavior.

On the other hand I view putting photos online (or even just having them on a computer that connects to the Internet) as basically a binary sharing of that photo with the entire world already. The Internet is like a reverse black hole that sucks in all available information and then doesn't allow it to ever be truly destroyed. That view has become so deeply ingrained that I can't bring myself to personally care about this one way or the other... I just wouldn't put pictures on Google+ (or any other site) in the first place if I wasn't okay with the idea of the entire world eventually seeing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree. One not-insignificant use-case of Picasa Web Albums was to share photos with selected people only. Face-tagging was just another piece of metadata that could be attached to private or public photos, just like the location geo-tags, captions, timestamps, etc. It never had anything to do with sharing.

<comment><USER23> I'm not disagreeing with the fact that Google violated the principle of least astonishment here in a way that people are right to be upset about due to privacy concerns... that's what I was agreeing with on my "first hand".

I just don't have any strong emotional reaction to the situation because of my binary view of sharing on the Internet. Any site feature that allows you to share something "to selected people only" is more an illusion of security/privacy than a real thing (you can't control who THEY share it with, etc). Even if you never share the photo with others and have it marked strictly 'private', I still see putting it up online as basically "sharing it with the world" because all of the untrustworthy middlemen you introduce that have access to that data regardless of your public/private settings.

Because I don't view such public/private/partially-shared/etc features as effective security for photos/videos/writings/etc in the first place, when the way they operate changes in some unexpected way I can't work up much rage about it, though (again) I do see why other people may be upset about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't share that "binary view of sharing on the internet".

I store photos "on the internet". I also store emails in Gmail. I face-tag photos with whoever is in them, for the same reasons I tag emails with whoever they relate to.

This is as if Gmail were to automatically share my Gmail conversations whenever I mention someone in an email.

<comment><USER24> I've got a better one: You write a cheque to somebody, and suddenly your bank lets them see your transaction history.

There's a level of control and security one may sacrifice by doing things online, that doesn't mean the information is automatically public, and it definitely doesn't make it OK for Google to treat it in an entirely unexpected way that actually violates ordinary privacy/access control rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The url stopped working. If anyone can find a new one that works, reply therewith.

<comment><USER26> Works for me. Also cached here [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:GyuhHac...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:GyuhHacTTbAJ:www.google.com/support/forum/p/Picasa/thread%3Ftid%3D52e06725a97fe570%26hl%3Den+http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Picasa/thread%3Ftid%3D52e06725a97fe570%26hl%3Den&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com)

Alternate discussion here [http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/07/how- google-transfor...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-google- transformed-picasa-web.html)

<comment><USER25> Sure enough, it works now. Must have been a temporary glitch. Ok, never mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What's even worse that it automatically connected to Picasso which I must have used 5 or more years ago for some very private photos. When I signed up to google plus I was shocked to see these photos my ex gave me. There were under albums. I was horrified. I think connecting ur Picassa account to google plus was a bad decision. I never used it minus that one time years ago.

Fortunately I deleted them upon finding them a day later. Luckily I only had a few friends in my circle at the time.

Overall I'm not using it. I still use Facebook until everyone moves onto g plus.

<comment><USER28> When I signed up I remember they asked if I wanted to link to picassa, and all my photos where private until I actually shared them with a circle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> facebook is the sameway...no one is questioning that

<comment><USER30> Well judging by governments getting involved around the world I would say there has been sufficient questioning of the handling of privacy.

I think a lot of people where really hoping (myself included) that Google+ was going to give us the tool we wanted for social communication. But tis just another Facebook, with all the privacy concerns, and restrictions of freedom included. Everything that makes Facebook 'evil' is now part of Google.

Oddly enough a lot of musician and writer friends use pseudonyms, myself included ... or even plain nick names for that matter.

Facebook doesn't seem to ban those people as long as they have 'real activity'. So I could argue that Google is in fact on a worse 'evil' footing than Facebook right now.

After I read through the Google "what is Google+ really for" powerpoint I closed my account. It became obvious to me it was a lock-in attempt, and then went as far as saying the main 'target' of Google+ was Microsoft and Apple (because desktop apps where seeing a resurgence eroding Google business ambitious).

In my personal opinion Google+ is a very sinister piece of work which should be avoided at all costs. Because I know exactly how I would abuse it, and it appears already that Google is thinking along similar lines to me.</comment></comment>


Defense Dept. orders Stars and Stripes newspaper to shut down - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/04/media/stars-and-stripes-future/index.html <comment><USER2> It won't be, though, correct? Trump tweeted something about continuing funding, likely as a response to leaks of him disparaging dead veterans.</comment>


Goodbye, Hedge Fund; Hello, Touch Revolution - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/goodbye-hedge-fund-hello-touch-revolution/?ref=technology <comment><USER2> I would've liked to known more about what the hedge fund had under the "Where we went wrong" section</comment>


Junethack 2020 – The 10th NetHack Cross-Variant Summer Tournament - <AUTHOR> https://unnethack.wordpress.com/2020/05/31/junethack-2020-the-10th-nethack-cross-variant-summer-tournament/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here's a FAQ for those that have never played before or want to join: [https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Junethack/FAQ](https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Junethack/FAQ)</comment>


Hotel Wifi JavaScript Injection - <AUTHOR> http://justinsomnia.org/2012/04/hotel-wifi-javascript-injection/ <comment><USER2> I am a co-founder at a startup that does advertising on WiFi networks. We only run advertising before you connect (when you are in a captive portal), without the use of proxying.

Before anyone overreacts to this article, it would be beneficial to understand the hospitality space. The hotel you stayed at is most likely owned by a franchise group and operated by a GM. GMs are responsible for contracting their own networking services with Hotel WiFi Operators such as the one mentioned here. As such, a major hotel brand such as Marriott may use _hundreds_ of WiFi operators. WiFi operators range in size, managing anywhere between one property to tens of thousands. The vast majority of these operators do not leverage javascript injection.

The ones that resort to proxied ad injection do so because hotel IT is a thin- margin business. WiFi is considered a cost center but is tolerated because it is the number one amenity requested by guests. Operators will sometimes offer a discounted service fee to the hotel GM in exchange for mid-stream ads, although, in this case, it is just as likely that the hotel GM is unaware of this. It is almost absolutely certain that Marriott is unaware of this. Even if they were made aware, the power balance between the brand and the franchisee is not clearly defined with regards to WiFi.

As much as I dislike ad injection, it is important to note that public WiFi is _never safe_ unless you are using a VPN. It is offered as an amenity, one that GMs would be more than happy to get rid of if they could. Unlike with your broadband ISP, you have logged into a privately operated network. You are probably not paying for it. You are subject to their rules. Furthermore, when you signed onto the WiFi network, you most likely had to check a checkbox indicating your agreement to the terms of their network (which no one ever reads). As such, caveat emptor, etc.

<comment><USER3> "Beds are considered a cost center but are tolerated because they are the number one amenity requested by guests."

WiFi is just as much part of the service a modern hotel provides as a clean bed, nice breakfast and whatever else they might advertise. Why isn't it treated like that? Why aren't they putting ads on my pillow?

<comment><USER2> Not on your pillow but definitely on your TV, on your desk, on your room key, ...

Thought exercise: If you took away the WiFi, you would still have a hotel. If you took away the bed, you would have ____.

<comment><USER4> A personal WiFi connected quiet space that rents by the hour?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The hotel wifi service provider business is (and has been for 5+ years) a really crummy race to the bottom. Hotels don't want to do it themselves. They can't really; they don't have the talent in-house. It's fairly expensive to do correctly. Most hotels weren't built with cat-5 installed, so you have to pay someone to go do that. Then you have to install a bunch of networking gear which isn't cheap. Then you have to pay someone to monitor it all and come out and fix it when it goes down. You probably also want some 1-800 number your guests can call when they can't get on-line. The costs add up pretty quickly.

So how do you pay for it all? You're in a hotels.com price war with all your competitors, so you can't just raise room rates. Your customers will get pissed off if you tell them they have to pay extra for wifi. So eventually some genius comes along and gives you this brilliant idea that will make wifi pay for itself, and this is what you get.

<comment><USER6> Note however this is happening at a Marriott hotel.

<comment><USER5> See excellent comment from henryl on the hotel business. He's spot on.

Marriott is a franchise business. That is, they don't own the hotels. They license the brand to hotel owners or operating groups. Most hotel brands work this way. Some hotel brands require their owners to use a specific wifi provider or choose from a list of approved providers. Other brands let their owners do whatever they want.

In this case you can see that the owner opted for a presumably low-cost provider that hoped to recoup its costs by displaying ads this way.

<comment><USER7> Henryl is incorrect in places (places that matter).

Marriott owns hotels, but they don't own every hotel with a Marriott brand on top.

Hotel "brands" can NOT dictate providers AT ALL. To do so runs afoul of anti- trust law. They _CAN_ issue a "brand standard" that you have to have WiFi, and it has to be at least "this good" (insert specification).

Now, where the hotels are OWNED (by any party) the OWNER can dictate whatever the hell she wants.

And Marriott most certainly does own a large percentage of the hotels that sport their brand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is nothing related to WiFi in this system. The hotel is running the traffic through a _transparent proxy_ which is performing MITM "attacks" to disable ads from providers and show their own ads.

It is icky for all sorts of reasons. I suppose an individual website could consider it theft of ad revenue, and an end-user could consider their privacy invaded.

<comment><USER7> transparent proxy?

no, they just need to intercept all the port 80 traffic.

<comment><USER8> Intercepting port 80 traffic is exactly what a transparent proxy does. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server#Transparent_proxy>

They call it transparent because the client does not need to support using a proxy server or even be aware that it is happening.

Transparent proxies are common at corporations that filter web browsing. It is harder to circumvent than DNS blocking.

I suppose that it is no longer a _transparent_ proxy once it starts modifying the requests or responses. But even transparent proxies generally serve an error message in some cases, like when a domain name doesn't exist or a server does not respond on port 80. So they are rarely, if ever, fully transparent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My ISP also does this. Once in a while I get a pop-over ad in the bottom right corner of HN. As a matter of fact, I just got a pop-up to this ad: <http://18.104.22.168/shenzhenyocc/swf.html>

<comment><USER10> Which ISP are you using?

<comment><USER9> Some Chinese ISP, I think it's called China Telecom.

<comment><USER11> China Telecom does this routinely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is yet another reason I'm glad that SPDY is manditory TLS encryption. Shenanigans like this get a lot harder.

I'm hoping we see a lot more SPDY (or plain https) rollouts in the near future.

It's enough that I'm going to try now to https-ify all of my web properties, including adding HTTP Strict Transport Security headers where they aren't.

<comment><USER13> My personal site, for various reasons including this one, is entirely HTTPS. If you try to access any part of my site by HTTP, you're just redirected to HTTPS.

(this is mostly because I'm too lazy to maintain separate site configurations for HTTPS and HTTP)

<comment><USER14> Make sure you also set the Strict-Transport-Security header to prevent attacks against the HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is one of the many reasons to use an extension that forces SSL on every website that supports it.

It's possible to MITM SSL, but it would throw all kinds of security warnings on the client and prevent this kind of tampering.

Note: I'd recommend SSH tunneling, or using a VPN, but there's quite a bit more work involved here, so for the install-and-forget crowd, SSL is already a huge improvement.

<comment><USER16> relevant:

<https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere>

<comment><USER17> Also: <https://code.google.com/p/https-finder/>

HTTPS Finder automatically detects and enforces valid HTTPS connections as you browse, as well as automating the rule creation process for HTTPS-Everywhere

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow, that is very gnarly. I love that "Web experience manipulation" is listed as a _feature_ on this page:

<http://rgnets.com/index.php?page=features>

<comment><USER19> The original "web experience manipulation": <http://www.ex- parrot.com/~pete/upside-down-ternet.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was part of a startup 5 years ago that built something identical to this for hotels. We used privoxy and a regex of doom targeting the <title> tag to inject javascript that would add flash toolbar on the bottom of the page you were viewing. It would show local ads and allow access to some hotel services.

Worked surprisingly well but I'm glad it never took off. I don't think I could have forgiven myself for being responsible for what would come of that.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's likely that the issue is due to that specific hotel / ISP instead of blaming the entire Marriott chain. In fact, you could contact Marriott for them to investigate.

Hotel chains usually have brand standards relating to internet access, so this particular install may be in violation. For example, I know the Hilton chain requires its (newer) hotels to use AT&T, so it's unlikely there's tampering from the ISP/provider standpoint (though MITM attacks are still possible so always use a VPN).

</comment><comment><USER22> Is it legal to manipulate web traffic like this? I would assume some companies who depend on ads (eg, NYTimes.com) would object, perhaps with a lawsuit, to ISPs or other imitation ISPs (ie, Hotels) to removing original NYTimes ads and replacing it with their own.

<comment><USER23> The same can then be said for using an ad-blocker - are you denying NYTimes.com revenue by blocking their ads?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is BS in 2012. Hotels need to treat internet access like running water and make it at least as good as what people get at home. Especially when you consider many people in hotels are subject to international roaming fees if they resort to their mobiles.

Even in higher-end hotels, you get a shoddy experience, and not just this ad injection.Weird login dialogs every few hours and restricting access to one device. Outrageous fees. Lack of transparency on bookings websites about availability and pricing. And once you're online, good luck trying to watch a video or getting any work done, the connection's often too slow to do anything but check a few emails.

I really hope AirBNB puts pressure on the hotels to get their act together. You stay in someone's house for $40 and you get a much better experience than a $200 hotel room. The whole situation is why I recently made the decision to use AirBNB instead of hotels whenever practical.

<comment><USER7> funny, back in 1999 I predicted that "for pay" hotel wifi would be the new equivalent of pay toilets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is a slimy practice, but I what I wouldn't mind, _at all_ , are ads when I first connect to the AP. Make me watch a video, or let me click through a few pages of ads for local services - if I'm at a hotel, I'm likely from out- of-town and are interested in nearby restaurants and tourist destinations. Show them to me! It's likely that I'm using the internet to look those up anyway.

Being sneaky about it and hiding local ads in the banners of other websites is:

a) Rude, and

b) Unlikely to work, since I ignore those banner ads anyway. Even if I saw those ads, I'd be highly suspicious of it (in a "10 local girls are interested in talking to you!" sort of way).

Talk about an opportunity lost. Look at Starbucks' free wifi sign-on page. It's nice to look at. Do the same thing, and it's alright, put some ads on there. I don't mind.

</comment><comment><USER26> Yet another reason to run a VPN over any unknown network, such as hotel wifi. Aside from people sniffing your traffic it will also protect you from MITM attacks - be they benign like this or potentially more serious.

<comment><USER27> Who do you (anyone) suggest as a reputable VPN provider?

<comment><USER27> I found a list of VPN providers [http://lifehacker.com/5759186/five-best-vpn- service-provider...](http://lifehacker.com/5759186/five-best-vpn-service- providers) It is kind of terrible though: all the cheaper ones are PPTP-only, and PPTP is insecure. Security is why I'd want a VPN!

Some of the comments on that article suggest running your own OpenVPN instance on Amazon EC2 or other VPS. If the EC2 suggestion works, it looks reasonably priced (at least as long as you don't use it all day every day).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> You made the mistake of staying at an expensive hotel. Expensive hotels generally have the most gouging internet setups, whether it's silly high prices, or MITM ad revenue takeovers like here.

<comment><USER16> I think $368 a night is pretty middle of the road for Manhattan.

<comment><USER28> Sure; the cost of your hotel is largely a function of where it is located.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Singapore Free WiFi Wireless@SG was doing this for a period of time! Serving all pages a a HTML Frame page and putting adverts in the bottom page frame.

I have yet to seen any for a while, but i guess is more due to the lack of advertisers.

</comment><comment><USER30> Hrm... so they charge for wifi access and then inject ads on every page you visit?

</comment><comment><USER31> My workaround, whenever I can't tether to my mobile phone and must use an untrusted hotspot, is to route all traffic over OpenVPN to the server running in my home.

</comment><comment><USER32> I've also seen a hotel in Canada proxying all e-mail one sends unencrypted via port 25. One more reason to use a VPN in hotels.

</comment><comment><USER33> One of but many reasons I don't connect to public _anything_ without using openvpn to carry my traffic.

</comment><comment><USER11> The real question is if the OP's blog was hacked by terrible designers. What a hard-to-read site.

</comment><comment><USER34> Wow. This is a new low.

</comment><comment><USER35> Hotel Wifi JavaScript Injection sounds like a prog rock act.</comment>


The US Government Keeps Harassing a UW Researcher Who Speaks for WikiLeaks - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/obsessed-with-jacob/Content?oid=7560624

<comment><USER2> You know what's really sad? I met a programmer the other day who works in a related field, and he categorically states he never wants to meet or correspond with Jake. He couldn't deal with the level of harassment that Jake is getting.

And it is straight up harassment.

<comment><USER3> I get that often from a whole slew of people I wouldn't expect to be cowardly.

It's really awkward to date when the n-th date involves a discussion of possible harassing police raids in the middle of the night.

<comment><USER4> I don't think "cowardly" is the right way to put it. The level of harassment you put up with is obscene, and that you continue to stick to your guns in the face of it is admirable. That said, it's not something that most people want in their lives. Many people just want to pursue their interests, develop their career, and raise a family. Dealing with the level of harassment you face imperils all of those goals. Unless someone is dedicated to a cause and willing to sacrifice a lot to serve it, it's unreasonable to ask them to invite that kind of drama into their lives.

I respect what you do, but I think it's unfair and myopic to label as "cowards" anyone who doesn't share your commitment.

On an unrelated note, does this mean the FBI will be serving pg with a warrant for our info?

<comment><USER5> It is cowardly, though. By refusing to associate with someone simply because they've been bullied, you have given your consent to the bullying and even (to a small degree) participated in it. By the way, no one was labeled a coward for failing to share his commitment; that part of your comment is a straw man. People were labeled as cowards for refusing to associate with him.

<comment><USER4> As I said, the refusal to risk the harassment he endures comes not from cowardice, but from having other, competing goals that are more personally important. If I, as a 20-something man saw a woman getting raped, I would feel compelled to intervene, at non-zero risk to myself. Would I take the same risk if I had a wife at home with our newborn child? Likely not.

The willingness to expose oneself to the kind of harassment Applebaum endures is derived from one's commitment to the cause. I can certainly applaud those who risk being ostracized by associating with someone being bullied, without condemning those who don't. The bullying is morally wrong, but the reaction of others is neutral.

<comment><USER6> I don't have a partner or a child, so what I think I'd do isn't worth much. I'm not even sure I'd have the courage to intervene as a single person. But I hope I would.

And I don't think having a partner and child would change that. Because I don't want my children to grow up in a world where someone would walk by them getting raped and ignore it. I would rather they grow up in a world where their father died to help someone.

The same applies to Applebaum. I don't want my children to grow up in a world where it's considered good and decent for them to be ostracized by people like you for making choices like Jacob's. I wouldn't want them to grow up with a father who supported that.

<comment><USER7> _Because I don't want my children to grow up in a world where someone would walk by them getting raped and ignore it. I would rather they grow up in a world where their father died to help someone._

Keep in mind when making this decision that it will still be a world where a rape victim can get ignored.

<comment><USER8> At least he won't have contributed to that world. If enough others followed the example, it would cease to exist. These people are what we call natural leaders, able to inspire those around them to rise to an occasion to prove their decency and humanity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> WTF is an Army officer doing intergating an American civilian at the airport? They have no jurisdiction or authority off base. Military activity in a civilian context should sacre the shit out of everyone.

<comment><USER10> I thought the founding fathers had something to say about standing armies. Standing armies should be disbanded and instead we should seek advice from the 2nd amendment as to how the gov't can best guarantee rights not delegated from the people.

<comment><USER11> But this "war" on terror is an excuse for the government to continue to grant themselves "emergency" powers and give their friends in the defense industry hundreds of billions of dollars.

<comment><USER12> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTioaRXiSps&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTioaRXiSps&feature=related)

The fact that we crushed Al Qaeda in the opening years of the war doesn't diminish the threat that existed at the time. The Treasury Department essentially rewrote the rules of international finance in a matter of months, devastating their financing, and the followup in Afghanistan crippled them.

This hasn't been a "war", it's been a War.

The biggest problem is that we haven't gone far enough yet- security theater in the airports instead of Israeli-style real security. No screening of cargo containers. Virtually all American cities lack plans for how to deal with nuclear terrorism.

<comment><USER13> Here's a different take on "Israeli-style" security: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1909154>

Nuclear terrorism is not a realistic scenario, if only because it's much easier and much more terrorific to have a bunch of quadrotors dropping poison- tipped darts on a city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I highly recommend the film "Trumbo", about the Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted for refusing to say whether or not he was, or ever had been, a member of the communist party.

It is extremely relevant to all of this discussion, including the question of whether one should sacrifice the wellbeing and safety of one's family in order to promote a cause that's somewhat secondary to them.

Lots of people lied under oath, or turned other people in in order to protect their families, because they didn't want to "risk it". But Trumbo and several others stood up for their right to free speech and paid dearly for it.

<comment><USER3> I'd also highly endorse reading Johnny Got His Gun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's simply disgusting, how the government can simply harass people without bringing any cases against them, preventing them from defending themselves.

<comment> mike-cardwell It's also stupid. If anything it probably made him more determined to do what he's doing, and convinced him even more that what he's doing is right and necessary.

<comment><USER2> The point is to deter others.

(See my comment elsewhere in this thread).

<comment><USER3> That is not the only point. It is but one of many.

<comment><USER15> What do you think the other points are?

To me, it looks like you're being made an example of.

(Thanks, btw, the world needs more people willing to endure that)

<comment><USER3> Just off the top of my head?

Some goals: to deter others, to extra-legally punish me personally, to pressure me into taking some kind of action that is subject to punishment, to upset others into action that is also subject to punishment, to profile me under stress, to monitor my associates as I am harassed, to watch the tactics or long term strategy, to attempt to provide comfort for these stresses (that's a weird story), and so.

So yeah, they're trying to make an example of me but it's not limited to run ins with CBP. The ongoing legal issue with a specific microblog is another example. Visiting me when I give talks is another.

There are others but I'm not comfortable discussing them at this time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Deterring future whistleblowers (as mentioned below) is why the Bradley Manning has essentially become a political prisoner who is being held in solitary confinement. It is why, as the article mentions, the DOJ issued a subpoena to Twitter for the personal info of 600,000 supporters. Fear. Fear is why Rep. Peter King talks about "labeling" WikiLeaks a "foreign terrorist organization".

This article made me angry, but also sad, as I believe if we allow the government (in many cases we already have) to use tools like the Patriot Act as a kind of umbrella document to provide cover to go after normal American citizens - academia, free-speech advocates, journalists, hackers working on Tor - we allow an extremely dangerous precedent to be set that will likely lead to all kinds of future abuses of civil rights of people who simply want things like transparency in government. (I mean the real kind, not the kind you promise to implement when you are running for office).

Anyway, Glen Greenwald gave an excellent talk on WikiLeaks and Why They Matter (55:00 minutes mark of video) He speaks eloquently on this very issue. [http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/09...](http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/09/wikileaks/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm flying back through Texas in a few hours from Serbia.

I wonder if this article or any of the others will change the way that Customs and the rest of the Federal Government treat me?

I'm guessing "no" - care to take any bets?

<comment><USER17> Good luck and keep us updated on how it goes.

<comment><USER3> It went poorly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Land of the free , home of the brave" but the government prefer to defend freedom of speech in other countries not in USA. It's the same song in almost all the western countries, we talk about democracy and human rights , but we support dictatorships all over the world, and forget about rights when we want.

<comment><USER19> Because they tried to make it confidential. I think it is a cultural problem, and the US gov is not the only culprit.

<comment><USER18> You are rifgt the US gov is not the only one, that's why i say western world, cause here in Spain, for example ,is exactly the same, the gov has the mouth full of human rights and democracy but the dictator of Morocco is like the young brother of our king (yes Spain is a Kingdom in the XXI century) and our government is silent about the tortures and everything that happens on the Sahara. US gov is not the only one, the problem is that they are the ones talking louder about other countries like China not respecting human rights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Bay-Area hackers might also know him as a cofounder of Noisebridge, fwiw.

</comment><comment><USER21> This sounds like the sort of harassment that would happen to people in dodgy countries with poor human rights records. And the truth is, America isn't a democracy under the rule of law, it's a nasty vicious oligarchy that denies human rights to its citizens while hypocritically lecturing other countries on those rights.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how much of this it would take to get him to seek asylum in another country?

<comment><USER22> Appelbaum already tried that. Appelbaum was engaged to and tried to marry a Canadian photographer so that he could move to Canada. Back in the day he bragged to the media about becoming an expat, but soon she figured him out and refused to get married. Appelbaum also openly bragged to Rolling Stone magazine about having dozens of GFs around the world, yet he has never considered moving in with any of them. Rightly so, IMO no woman should have to put up with his drama-queen defeatism.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, you're incorrect about why I am unmarried to a Canadian woman.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is likely to be unpopular. Here goes.

Is it possible that Jacob is calling others "cowardly" because he wants to prove how brave he is?

Taking a leadership role in a movement of moral prescience is at once commendable, laudable but also dangerous, onerous. I really appreciate what Jacob is doing by putting his face to the Wikileaks organization. It is something that I personally would not want to do.

Wikileaks' stated goal is to "...be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and corporations." In this, Jacob is succeeding. He is assuredly revealing this behavior through personal sacrifice. Part one is complete. Rejoice. Step two will be about knowledge. Now it is up to supporters of this cause to spread that information as far and as wide as possible. We've already seen the power of knowledge in this first quarter of 2011. A reality that wikileaks, twitter, the internet and the freedom of information has wrought.

Instead of spreading this message, Jacob seems to sprinkle a bit of guilt and self aggrandizing. Maybe I am speaking out of turn because the only interaction with Jacob I have is seen in here in this thread. However, let's take a step back from our Jacob- and self-imposed guilt and execute the next stage.

Edit: By all means we should empathize with Jacob and try to understand his sacrifice. We do not, however, all have to be martyrs in order to be Good(tm).

<comment><USER22> "Instead of spreading this message, Jacob seems to sprinkle a bit of guilt and self aggrandizing"

Hammerdr, I couldn't agree with you more. Willfull masochism is not bravery, or some activist good guy bagde of achievement. It's sad that our society mistakes the one with the other.

Appelbaum, I will be even more blunt than the previous commenter and say that I think you are wallowing in your Jesus complex. If you were serious about all this you would have already sued the DHS the first time you were harassed. You've been held up and hassled, how many times already? I've already lost count. You would have called up Jesse Ventura's lawyer and asked him to represent you as well. You would have contacted Alex Jones from Infowars, who specializes in reporting on DHS harassment, and gotten on his show. Instead, you keep coming back for more abuse like a masochist. You're 100% Jesus to me, and I don't mean that in a flattering way. Stop taking it, stop being a politically correct victim, get a lawyer and fight back. And stop calling people who question your ineffectual and pointless public masochism "trolls", "cowards" and "stalkers".

<comment><USER3> You have no idea what actions I am taking or not taking. However, you have shown that you are not interested in supporting me when I discuss the harassment that I receive.

For example, if I filed formal complaints or suit against CBP, would you support my actions? If so, why do you not support the actions that you have seen so far? If not, why are you here? Just to tell me that there is a single way to respond and that I'm wrong?

Do you really believe that I should simply be silent about the specific harassment that I receive?

There is more than one way to respond and I'm taking all of my options seriously. Your presumption of knowledge about my actions is of course incorrect and your arrogance is showing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Quick, let's change the subject to China's human right abuse!

</comment><comment><USER25> <https://sites.google.com/site/pfcmanning/>

An open letter to President Obama on retaliation against whistleblowers.

</comment><comment><USER26> These people are going to get theirs. The Arab revolts are eventually coming to America. Anonymous is just the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER27> And this is why I just won't visit the USA anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I love the principles your country was founded upon, but somehow you turned into testicle grabbing sociopaths.

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting side note:

Did you know the law or precedent being cited that allows customs to seize computers, cell phones, etc can be circumvented by just fed-ex'ing the device across the border?

Now tell me, if I know this than why cannot a suspect of illegal activities such as a Mobster, credit card phisher, etc do it? They already do it folks..

<comment><USER29> The secure way would be to upload an encrypted copy of the harddrive, bring across wiped hardware, and re-download the contents after clearing the boarder. FedEx packages go through customs, encrypted internet data does not.

That is to say -- if the intent is to sneak some data into the country, it seems obvious that it should not be available in plaintext on a physical device. With that in mind, is there ever a legitimate reason to seize all electronics, up to and including gaming consoles[1], from a security researcher (warrant had to do with MySpace, not anything console related)?

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEmO7wQKCMw#t=40s>

<comment><USER30> _With that in mind, is there ever a legitimate reason to seize all electronics, up to and including gaming consoles[1], from a security researcher (warrant had to do with MySpace, not anything console related)?_

Sure! A court would never convict the guy of anything, but Someone still thinks the guy should be punished. "Hi, we stole all your possessions again!" can be a good way to persuade people to interest themselves in a different field.

(I have to think this is intentional. If the government didn't want seizures to be punitive, then there would be a law that every device has to be paid for or returned within 10 days. But this is like the bill of rights for the government; a convenient way of circumventing "oppressive" laws when necessary.

Oh. I made myself sad...)

<comment><USER31> Better idea: Any time anything is seized without an according arrest, they have to hand you a check right then and there for the retail value of the goods. If a conviction comes out of it, they can tack that check onto the amount of your restitution.

Hey, I can dream.

<comment><USER3> This could turn into a fantastic recycling program!

<comment><USER31> Totally.

Downside, you were detained for sixteen hours without counsel... But hey, free upgrade to the latest Macbook refresh!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What does the US Government gain by doing this? It's not obvious to me that the deterring of similar opinions being voiced really outweight the current and future negative publicity.

It would be interesting to hear inside stories about what kind of conversations are going on on how to best handle Wikileaks. Perhaps via Wikileaks itself?

Also, I'm very grateful that people like ioerror exists. Stay strong and best of luck.

<comment><USER11> They gain the effect it is having on other people. For every one of us that gets enraged at this sort of bullshit, there's 9 more that are terrified to speak out after seeing this. The problem with America is that unless we personally are being injured we see terrible things happening and just shrug and go on with our latte-sipping, BMW-driving lives. Our freedoms are slowly being eroded and no one really cares as long as they can keep watching TV and driving their fat asses to McDonalds every day. It's like the toad in the pot with the water getting hotter ever-so-slowly...

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Julian Assange urges people to take a "scientific" approach to media reports, and to ask to see the primary documents. Well, allow me to be "scientific" with regards to all these reports about Jacob Appelbaum's customs&border issues right now: has Appelbaum ever published his correspondence with the DHS? His FOIA requests? Denial letters he has received from government agencies, the DHS, the TSA, CBP, ICE? The answer is no, no and no. There is no way to verify "scientifically" any of his statements. All we have are Appelbaum's claims on Twitter that "I was told by the G-man that Obama himself has a problem with me"... seriously, how can someone who claims to be a hacker believe such a statement, straight from the mouth of a government goon, cos hey, we all know the G-men never ever lie or exaggerate in order to intimidate, right? Still, no documentation whatsoever, no correspondence between Appelbaum and the DHS. Again, think what you will about Obama allegedly having a personal problem with Appelbaum, this is just not adding up for me.

</comment><comment><USER33> How many reading this article, and are disgusted by these clearly unconstitutional actions, are still living in the USA? How many of you are paying taxes to the very government that is using this money to fund this harassment, among other illegal activities?

You're providing material support to a terrorist organization! (presuming some number of harassed people are terrorized by the harassment.)

What are you doing to compensate for this material support? Are you going to stop it, withdraw your support? Or are you going to expend energy to compensate for the aiding these oppressors?

This is a rhetorical question. I've my own answer, and I hope you have yours.

<comment><USER34> It's not as easy to move out of the country as you seem to think, for a lot of us. Yes, it really is disturbing that I now live in a country that tortures people, and holds them for years without any trial at all. It's disturbing that it seems that humans are getting to be less and less important to our government than corporations all the time.

Still, what can I do? I'm disabled, and dependent on the government for survival. The only way I'm going to be able to get out of this country is by dying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> If you haven't seen this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9xrO2Ch4Co>

Its a great docu about wikileaks.

</comment><comment><USER36> I would be more concerned if the government were not harassing him

</comment><comment><USER12> I haven't heard a decent argument on how Wikileaks _isn't_ a terrorist organization, and why the principal members aren't enemy combatants.

The scattershot releases show that the goal is to hurt the US, not to affect change. There was real legitimate news in the releases so far- hidden in mounds of classified information that had no news value beyond exposing sources, risking lives, and slinging mud at the State Department.

There's HUGE value in an organization like Wikileaks, as shown in Tunisia.

Wikileaks itself, though, has shown that it is blatantly anti-American, risking the lives of our allies and sources. I really, really hope that one of the splinter groups takes off, with a bit more respect for the human cost of these kind of releases.

<comment><USER37> > Wikileaks isn't a terrorist organization, and why the principal members > aren't enemy combatants.

Well, they aren't operating with the intent to cause terror in enemy civilians. Further, an enemy combatant is usually considered to be someone armed on the field of combat. I believe there is a very technical legal definition of an enemy combatant.

They - Wikileaks - are pursuing anti-US goals, however. That is not illegal. It should be expected, however, that the US will retaliate in various fashions, because the interests of the US dictate that anti-US interests be diminished.

I am not certain in the least of the facts of Jacob Appelbaum's case. Certainly, if he was definitively operating against the US government in a terrorist fashion, he would deny it. But if he was an honest man, he would also deny that he was operating against the US government.

After spending an amount of my time in the last few months reading about the USSR's beginnings and the fall of the Tsar, I can assure him that he is living in a very nice country where dissidents don't simply get shot out without a trial. Being stuck in a holding cell is quite gentle comparatively. Which does not make it perfectly upright either, nontheless.

There is a higher problem here. The conventions of warfare since 1812 or so describe nation-states at war with each other, including how to deal with prisoners and manage trials. However, today we do not have significant nation- state actors in active war with each other, we have un-uniformed[1] militias operating against nation-states. I do not know of any serious attempt in international circles to define the non-nation-state actors in legal categories. This has led to the Guantanemo Bay problem. A terrorist is neither a civilian nor a military officer, but current law - to the best of my knowledge - does not handle that.

Nor does current law - to the best of my knowledge - handle the 'info-war' legal categories well. What are the legal details on publishing sensitive or classified material in time of peace, if you are not constrained to silence by your duties? I don't know that _that's_ ever been seriously treated in the US.

So how _should_ the laws of a country handle someone who appears to be acting as the ambassador for an anti-country interest? That's the real question.

[1] At least in the narrow eyes of the law, uniforms matter, according to a former US Army officer I know.

<comment><USER38> _What are the legal details on publishing sensitive or classified material in time of peace, if you are not constrained to silence by your duties? I don't know that that's ever been seriously treated in the US._

Treason? Applies to citizens acting against their own sovereign nation. I don't know what you call it from a non-citizen. Perhaps sedition?

<comment><USER37> Well, Merriam Webster defines sedition as "incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority"[1].

Treason also has a fairly narrow meaning, "the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family"[2].

I don't believe Wikileaks' actions falls under sedition or treason. Certainly I've never heard them of them advocating insurrections or US government overthrow.

What they _did_ do is publish large amounts of data classified by the US.

Legally, that should be a crime, I believe. I'm not sure it is. From my brief (and IANAL) reading on the question, it's never been adequately addressed, and it brings up _massive_ First Amendment issues.

There is also the question of Assange, who is _not_ a US citizen, and therefore not per se subject to US law, and then Applebaum, who _is_ a US citizen, and therefore unquestionably subject to US law. Even under harsher strictures is Manning (and other soldiers), who are under military US law, which is _not_ like civilian law.

The laws _have_ to deal with the "electronic frontier". They must, or we will continually mire ourselves in grey areas of general suspiciousness.

[1] [http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/sedition?show=0...](http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/sedition?show=0&t=1302532235)

[2] <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/treason></comment></comment></comment></comment>


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