frank_boyd

Why, do they have something to hide?

Also, if they're doing things they don't want other people to know, maybe they shouldn't be doing those things in the first place.

Or something.

Yes, kind of, actually:

If our media are too corrupt, then we need to create new ones that work better and change our habits. Submission to corruption can not be a mid- or long-term solution.

In other words:

"Why I read less HN and you should, too!"

Forget the "media". Drop your stuff at WikiLeaks.org

The disadvantage: You're still funding Google b/c StartPage sells their ads.

Kind of "funny", if you remember that the US builds all kinds of stuff on other nations' soil:

- Tons of military bases (see: all over the world)

- NSA mass surveillance centers (see: Germany, and probably secret ones elsewhere)

> But it just feels creepy to email me about it this way.

In other words:

"Yes, I know it's wrong and they should not know these things about me, but I want to use their product anyway, so can we please just pretend nobody knows what's going on in our society?"

> FBI warns hacking spree on government agencies is a “widespread problem”

Another “widespread problem” is government agencies conducting mass surveillance.

EVERYTHING starts with education.

Education is the most important thing the human race needs.

It's nice to help suffering people.

The recurring pattern I see, however, is: We single out 0.001% of all cases, do something extraordinary, and make a big fuss about it in the media. All this to make us feel good about ourselves. What we don't want to fix though, are the real causes of the problems, because that's way less pleasant to do.

Sorry man, priorities - you got them wrong. Who cares about a few credit card numbers or "personal love notes" when we find ourselves living in corrupt "democracies" that are about to crumble pretty much all over the Western world.

I welcome all efforts to fight the abuse taken as granted by the government(s).

On the other hand:

> a virtual private network (VPN) smartphone app

"smartphone app": for iOS and/or Android, I suppose. Can we trust anything that does not run on an open-source OS? Absolutely not.

> Car Mechanic Dreams Up a Tool to Ease Births

Pure gold.

Time to axe the iOS app store. Time for new open platforms.

Kill it with FIRE.

This has EVIL written all over it, in so many ways I don't even...

"We must handle this in secret! Trust us! It's for your own good! We just want to protect you from the danger!"

Why do I keep hearing this bullshit from all governments all over the World? (The last time, it was the NSA saying we should let them set up the police state.)

Secrecy has nothing to do with democracy. It kills it. (And that seems to be the goal, lately.)

TL;DR

> A U.S. email provider can promise its users all the security and privacy it wants; it still has to do whatever it takes to give the government access.

First of all, all that code must be open-sourced. It's so obvious that it really hurts. Next, hardware needs to become "open-source", too.

Criminal or not - if you let commercial entities dictate things this way and you accept this, it shows that your self-esteem is too low.

If you respect yourself, you don't let others play you.

To sum it up: This allows these people:

- to take over computers without leaving any trace

- to control public opinion by falsifying any information served (i.e. news)

- to conduct mass surveillance by a) tracking any use of the computer, b) by activating integrated cameras, c) by activating integrated microphones

Very, very nice work indeed, if you aim to destroy democracy and thereby society.

And we all knew for a very long time now that this kind of disaster is due to climate change.

And we all don't seem to care at all. At least not enough to changer our patterns of consumption.

Of course that's ok.

Nothing is ever entirely new. Everything has parts of other things in it.

> Let's fix this before it causes a scandal even bigger than Watergate—or permits behavior more scandalous than Watergate that is never uncovered, rectified or punished.

That's the thing. It can not be "fixed", it will not (although our representatives will offer all kinds of PR actions/"legislations" to try to calm us down and "accept it"). This kind of power is already strong enough to defend itself. Rather, it's going to become stronger (also because it is being attacked). It will take some sort of serious revolution for this sort of cancer to be undone. And for that to happen, we're going to have to feel some serious pain, first. That's our nature.

We still don't know if that was really a loophole or rather access given by Google (of course, they will decline that).

Well that's ok. But what really needs to happen is this to come from the top management - and most of all, they need to ACT accordingly. Until then, all this "fuck them" exclamations aren't worth a dime.