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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3099 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: We Lost

Figured that I might have missed something, given how mournful the message seems to be. Reloaded the page to read it once more. Now it doesn't let me scroll down, and it doesn't let me turn off the music with any sort of convenience.

So, uh... What happened? Has Big Brother been installed in the West?





b-612  ·  3099 days ago  ·  link  ·  

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/facebooks-new-patent-and-digital-redlining/407287/

Big brother has installed on the west, the good news it just wants money for now, and most people are ok with it. The bad news is that it's just one click away to turn ugly.

I was on reddit the other day talking about how whatsapp mines your message history and uses that context to display relevant ads on Facebook. The comment I got was: "so what, use adblock." It's like Snowden and company have been for nothing.

user-inactivated  ·  3097 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Nasty stuff. I've only read the first few paragraphs of the article, but... Damn.

I wonder: what would you say to a person who declares "Let them watch me" because "I have nothing to hide"?

dingus  ·  3099 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's about the debate over file-sharing. Nothing in particular happened, but it's essentially mourning the death of the old hacker culture of the early 2000's and the monetization of the internet.

b-612  ·  3099 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A lot of countries are closing on file-sharing (I was in UK a couple of weeks ago and it was impossible to access mininova, kickass or rarbg) but I don't feel the scene has died at all. There are a lot of private trackers, which also require a good level of responsibility sharing back.

It is certainly more difficult to find things online, but once you find a way, it's the same as before. At least that's my take on it. Except apps and games. I find it ridiculous that a lot of content it's only accessible through mobile apps (not that you can open a VM and run it from there), but the average user doesn't know that.

dingus  ·  3098 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Well, it's not so much that the scene is dead, it's more that the legal battle has been lost. The MPAA has free reign and DRM is still widespread. Sure, pirating is still pretty much as healthy as before, but as you said it's been buried under a pile of shit and it's fending off attacks from all sides. Piratebay is still raided regularly. Tor hidden services are pretty much easy pickings for law enforcement now. The freedom of the net is slowly going away, and the only group doing anything meaningful is the EFF -- and they're not terribly effective.