The fact is, a lot of stuff we talk about is being influenced by the NSA, in a very negative way. The solution isn't to ignore it and go back to talking about the cool shiny color of the new iPhone.
One question: where does it end? I cede the point that Apple and the iPhone are part of tech news. So is the NSA. So they could conceivably be on topic together, especially with regards to privacy concerns.
My friends and I have a fantasy football league running through Yahoo. Yahoo could have backdoors from the NSA! I could be putting my entire online identity at risk by participating in fantasy football.
That's all speculation. I have no proof, just like the fingerprint TouchID theories had no real proof yesterday. Do I tell my friends this?
Instead of enjoying fantasy football, do I interrupt my friends' trade and persistently warn them about the NSA? When they tell me I'm being annoying, that they know already, that they heard me the first ten times, and that I am not offering any evidence or proof, just paranoid speculation, do I begin afresh in my spiel, like some crazed zealot touting Jesus on the street who can't let his friends just enjoy fantasy football? Do I make the sole decision that they need to hear this because I know what's best for them?
Like I said, I get your point. I understand that this is an important, sensitive topic. But again, some of us like Hacker News to aggregate tech news without NSA news necessarily being in front of our faces.
The perspective that I have to read about the NSA instead of the iPhone moving to 64-bit architecture because you know what's best for me is dictatorial. I understand if the democratic system of Hacker News demonstrates this is what the majority cares about, but at least you'll understand our perspective as well. Believe me, we get yours.
I would say that the reasonableness of that discussion would depend on the sort of otherwise private information your participation in fantasy football compromises.
Does this fantasy football program encourage you to install a phone application that requires far more permissions then a fantasy football program has any business requiring? Then perhaps a discussion about privacy is warranted (I mean, assuming we were discussing Yahoo's fantasy football program in the first place).
Does this fantasy football program just let you use a psuedo-anonymous handle and doesn't ask you for anything personal anyway? Then the discussion is probably a distraction.
Smartphones have a unique/unprecedented amount of access to our personal lives. Discussions about smartphones and privacy should be considered natural because of the properties that smartphones have. If other things share similar properties, they'll get that discussion too.
(As a non-smartphone example, I recall some discussion about privacy and the Xbox One and its (at the time) 'required' kinect sensor.)
my modus operandi changed completely
the way I live my life
the way I communicate with people
I moved all my data overseas
I encrypted as much as I can
I stopped posting jokes on Facebook
</suddenly realizes humor helps prove Tom's point>
The fact that a news headline about the Apple iPhone event got overshadowed by NSA speculation should tell you something. It should tell you that the NSA is fucking everywhere now, in everyone's life, and knows - or can learn - virtually everything.
This should worry you. It should worry you SO MUCH that you should be thinking about it all the time, and you should also be talking about it in every single context that is even remotely relevant to NSA's perpetual and eternal spying efforts.
I don't know about you, but when the true extent of the scandal was revealed, my modus operandi changed completely, including the way I live my life and the way I communicate with people. I moved all my data overseas. I encrypted as much as I can. I stopped posting jokes on Facebook that could even remotely be construed as suspicious by an over-zealous NSA agent. At work we use Microsoft Office Communicator, and even there I am censoring myself when it comes to non-work talk with co-workers because I have no idea what kinds of backdoors could be installed on its server software.
Right now when I evaluate new technology, the first and foremost question on my mind is this: can the NSA use this to spy on me? Therefore it made me very happy that the top comment in the iPhone 5S story was about the NSA. That is the way it should be.