[mmf]

Little known implies that if you ask 100 randomly selected people if they know if it exists, what it is and what it does, a small number, say less than 10 or so (little) will know.

Did you take your educated guess at that fraction?

[___ab___]

Most concepts posted about on HN, and for that matter, discussed by the EFF, are "little-known." The inclusion of that description in the headline is obviously intended to make the reader believe that the committee is up to no good in secret, not that most people simply don't know of it.

[pdkl95]

Why are you pretending that the EFF is writing headlines for HN? We are not the (only) intended audience.

I find it very unlikely that you don't understand this.

[justratsinacoat]

Oh well -- the EFF knows that if they write for themselves, there'll be lower-brow comment-threads full of 'lol wtf bbq' and no one will take them seriously because they won't understand. Write accessibly, and well-read nitpickers of a HN-like brow alignment will pick apart their clickbait headlines. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[studentrob]

Agreed. Many things in news are little known. That's often what makes it news.

[rtpg]

I don't think that's what it means in this context.

I bet if you ask 100 random people, not 10 would know what Stripe is. Not 10 would know what Angular is. But would you ever describe either of those as "little known"?

I think in this situation it implies that even if you're in the domain you aren't aware... and on this it's not really the case right?

[tommyman]

and the top of this thread is now a stupid meaningless argument about a word in the title instead of talking about the issue. Well done. Can you guys take that rubbish to reddit or voat or somewhere crappy? I like reading HN, please don't make it a waste of my time.

and since I'm here now I'll throw out my opinion on the meat of the story.

I use Tor a lot and am not based in the US and am nor american. If America gives itself the legal ability to hack anyone, anywhere regardless of what they are doing then all american networks/nodes/people are open to hacking and posting publicly. That includes all private people, public people, everything from correspondence to baby monitor cameras. It calls for an open season against those countries whereby we air every single persons dirty laundry in as public a way as possible.

It is similar to europeans like UK, where certain people there think they can hack all people everywhere, legally, with complete immunity.

Excuse my parlance but fuck everything about that. That is a system balanced way too far in one direction.

but hey, that guy said 'little-known' about the Judicial Conference of the United States. That's what is important to americans...

Posted without Tor because I still live in a free country and am not afraid of speak up.

[anon1385]

If the EFF was able to write posts that weren't full of gross hyperbole and flat out untruths then every comment thread about an EFF statement wouldn't require discussion about how the EFF is misleading people.

They know perfectly well what they are doing. They know it leads to people talking about the stuff they exaggerated rather than the actual issue. They know that it turns away reasonable people. They are gambling that they can whip up an ignorant mob as with SOPA. The difference there was that a bunch of high profile corporations and capitalists had a financial interest in that fight and were happy to fuel the outrage machine to get their way.

[tommyman]

What are the untruths and what is misleading people? Keep in mind that not everybody who watxhes EFF is american, I never heard of that group before and I read most of the big tech sites daily since the late 90's.

Why would the EFF want to turn away reasonable people?

Here's the rub (for me). If what you say is correct then to my mind the EFF is doing you a favor. If people don't get at least a little riled up about this then it will go through like all the other rubbish being passed around the world and you will be left with the consequences.

The arrogance is absolutely astounding, on a level with 16th century britain. To think that you can do what you want, to whomever you want, wherever you want in a completely legal manner is disgustingly arrogant and will lead to the same problems as it always has throughout western history.

We have been here before. Technology changes but people (unfortunately) do not. The people pushing this kind of legislation will suffer the least, ordinary americans will take the brunt for them. That is your choice - is this move representative of you and if not - will you do anything to stop it?

edit: excuse my ignorance but this si actually about warrants through proper court mechanisms? I'm okay with proper warrant procedures through proper (ie. not FISA) court systems. I don't hold US courts highly compared to others but every country needs proper procedured.