[cheald]

I'm not snarking at all. I'm observing that comments about the NSA are entirely apropos given the current climate we live in. Yes, you're right, at this point, it would take something extremely radical to convince us that the NSA isn't spying on us anymore. Therefore, we should expect comments about the NSA and spying to become a part of the common dialog regarding technology and personal information. Asking them to go away is just asking people to stick their head in the sand and ignore it.

The comments will go away when the issue goes away. The issue isn't going to go away. Therefore, don't expect the comments to, either. Welcome to the world we now live in.

[melling]

But you are accomplishing absolutely nothing here. Being annoying and ineffective doesn't help your cause. Do you know that Jesus loves you and he wants to save your soul?

You might as we'll be discussing religion or politics here. This is not the place. I heard your warning the first ten times.

[cheald]

We're talking about it, aren't we? We haven't forgotten this issue, distracted like children by the latest shiny toy. Even in the face of the things that traditionally kill news stories, we're talking about it.

Change starts by making enough people aware of and angry about the issue that the politicians can't afford to support these programs any more. If we're just distracted the next time $TECH_TOY or $NATURAL_DISASTER comes along, then nothing at all will change.

I don't particularly care if people find my anger at the NSA's systemic intrusion of our privacy annoying. I care more about that particular issue than I do what a random person on the internet whom I've never met might think of me. I care more about keeping you talking about the issue than I do about you liking me.

[stanleydrew]

No, we aren't talking about anything. The original comment speculates that the NSA has a backdoor into every iPhone, and uses that as the foundation for a comment about whether it's a good idea to store a copy of your fingerprint locally on the device.

There is no new information about the NSA there. Just more speculation.

[threeseed]

Look HN is not a US-only site.

For those of us in the other 200 odd countries it really is boring as hell to have to wade through your pointless, unsubstantiated paranoia.

[jsmeaton]

We non-US citizens have even MORE to worry about, because there are no laws to protect us and our privacy. We are open season.

[gbog]

If you are in Europe then you may have better enforced laws protecting you. If you are in Africa your government might not have the expertise and resources to spy on you. If you are in China, well...

[AngrySkillzz]

I think he means that it is even easier for the US government to spy on you if you're outside of America, not that your domestic government might.

[maaku]

You have absolutely no protection from the U.S. government. Your European rights and protections meaning nothing in an American court.

[mark_integerdsv]

South African here - we have a lovely little bit of legislation known as RICA. Don't assume that African govts are backward in terms of technology.

[Brakenshire]

> For those of us in the other 200 odd countries it really is boring as hell to have to wade through your pointless, unsubstantiated paranoia.

Speak for yourself, not for the rest of us, please.

[logjam]

Oh brother. We care about legitimate privacy issues but now you are suggesting that becoming the equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church on these matters will somehow be effective.

It won't.

The adolescent libertarian smell combined with semi-hysterical, semi-supported outrage on this issue is rapidly beginning to stink.

[cheald]

Sigh. I'm not advocating in any way for being obnoxious douchecanoes for the sake of desperately screaming for airtime. I'm saying that this is an important issue related to the topic of discussion, and that I'm not going to let the fact that talking about it annoys some people dissuade me from talking about it.

We know that the NSA has their hooks into US hardware and software vendors. At this point, it's difficult to trust the promises that US-based companies make about security and privacy because we know that they're being compelled to lie. That's an extremely important variable in the discussion of a new piece of internet-connected hardware that collects biometrics. Dismissing discussion of it as "annoying" is juvenile and myopic.

[jlgreco]

Talking about privacy implications of a new device in a discussion about said new device is now the equivalent of picketing the funerals of soldiers because you don't like gay people?

I am a fan of hyperbole, but at least keep it coherent... At the very least, cheald is on topic while they are notoriously not.

[samstave]

You called discussing the NSA spying on everyone, subverting the American system as well as the faith in the constitution similar to evangelising that Jesus loves you?

Wow - that has to be hands down the absolute most ignorant, ridiculous and bullshit comment I have ever read on HN.

This is The Best place to be talking about the National Security Agency Technologically spying on everyone, building in parallel infra and forcing the biggest tech companies in the world via court gags and threats to providing them with access to encrypted user data.

Your comment is mind-boggling, to me, how you could even think this is not the place!

Edit: Toned it down a notch.

[anchorsteam]

He did no such thing. Making a passing reference to the NSA whenever remotely possible is not discussion, let alone action. Perhaps we could leave such talk to the submissions that are actually about the NSA? Believe it or not, many of us are already familliar with the topic; as we are of Jesus.

[lfuller]

I don't think that this was a passing reference - a passing reference would have been him saying "I wonder if the NSA can read my text messages on this phone" when texting is an expected feature on any modern phone.

Fingerprint scanners are not yet prevalent in modern smartphones, and fingerprints are one of the primary ways that law enforcement can trace / track individuals. If the NSA, which has already been shown to have backdoors into Apple's systems, was able to access fingerprint data on a massive scale, this would be a massive affront to privacy for millions of users around the world.

pilif's comment was absolutely relevant to discussion of the iPhone 5S launch, as one of the phone's primary new features has the potential to be a massive security and privacy breach given information we've recently learned regarding Apple's close relationship with the NSA.

[samstave]

>But you are accomplishing absolutely nothing here. Being annoying and ineffective doesn't help your cause. Do you know that Jesus loves you and he wants to save your soul?

To quote him. Please explain how he "did no such thing"

[spangled]

He's talking about this submission, not this site. There are dozens and dozens of other submissions where NSA discussion is more on-topic, and anybody here is free to submit their own article on the topic for discussion. That way, people that want to discuss the NSA at that moment can do so, and people that want to talk about something else can do so, too.

To put it another way: the problem is not the topic. It's the tactic of derailing every other topic that people want to talk about just because you think something else is too important to be ignored. That tactic, as well-intended as it might be, has a history of driving good users away from once-good fora precisely because it's so annoying to not be able to talk about anything else.

[qq66]

How is it not on-topic to discuss NSA surveillance in a discussion about one of the world's most popular internet-connected devices collecting biometric data under the control of a large American corporation?

[sillysaurus2]

You should edit your comment to remove the capital letters. It's against the rules.

Your comment makes a good point, but it's too hysterical.

[raganwald]

With all due respect, howling "snark" is at least as annoying and creating at least as much noise. Think about that for a while. There are up and down arrows for expressing your discontent. Everything else--including this--is noise, not signal.

[chrisstanchak]

Changes in the political tide happen at the grass roots level (one reason why having all the data helps to stop change).

I'd say HN is one of the most important grass roots forums for this today.

Technology - aka OUR industry - is going to rapidly change in response. I think it's critical that there is discussion.

I'm actually really interested in your view. Do you think everyone questioning NSA surveillance of iPhones is wearing tinfoil hats?

[hughw]

I had not considered the privacy implications of fingerprint readers before. So I, for one, got a little benefit from the ancestor post.

[ferdo]

> Do you know that Jesus loves you and he wants to save your soul?

Do you that the NSA loves us all and is just, y'know, kinda watching out for us?

We all need a big brother to save us, right?

[timr]

"Asking them to go away is just asking people to stick their head in the sand and ignore it."

I think what's happening here is that you are being asked to go away. Your comments aren't adding anything to this discussion about a new iPhone.

[cheald]

And yet, the OP's comment is the top-voted comment in the thread, which would indicate the the democratic consensus of the HN readership is that this is worth talking about.

[timr]

let it go.

[stanleydrew]

Well now you are backtracking into a semi-legitimate interpretation of your comment as not snarky. If you didn't mean to snark you could have just originally said

"We should expect comments about the NSA and spying to become a part of the common dialog regarding technology and personal information. Asking them to go away is just asking people to stick their head in the sand and ignore it."

That is a useful comment that would further the discussion. So I will now respond to that, since I don't want to debate what snark means.

I don't mind useful or constructive comments about technology and the NSA, but most of the comments I see are very reactionary and misinformed and painfully naiive. They are similar to all the old comments on stories about Microsoft where people would say things like "Micro$oft is obviously evil" and such.

So if a comment is interesting and useful, and happens to be about the NSA, then great. I haven't seen many of those.

[cheald]

I chose brevity, and can see how it would be interpreted as snark. I wasn't aiming for that, but it was a simple question that deserved a simple answer, IMO.

> I don't mind useful or constructive comments about technology and the NSA, but most of the comments I see are very reactionary and misinformed and painfully naiive.

Perhaps our energy would be better spent pointing out why these comments are naiive and misinformed, rather than discussing whether they're worth saying at all, then?

[stanleydrew]

Totally agree that we should discuss why these comments are naiive rather than further engage in the meta-discussion. Perhaps we can start over?

(Meta-meta-point: I wish I could collapse comment threads on HN.)

[dreamfactory]

The security and related technological implications of the device seem relevant to any potential user and completely on topic to me. Agree it's unfortunate that battery life, form factor etc are overshadowed by recent revelations, and regrettable that Apple chose such a tasteless feature in the circumstances.

[tedunangst]

Are the comments that will never go away helpful?

[jlgreco]

Comments about the virtue of weight and thinness never go away, are they helpful? Comments about the importance of good UI design never go away, are they helpful? Comments about IT security never go away, are they helpful? Comments about performance never go away, are they helpful? Comments about the importance of battery life never go away, are they helpful? Comments about privacy never go away, are they helpful?

The answer to all of the above, if we assume that talking about a product is 'helpful' to begin with, is "Yes." Privacy is simply something that people are going to consider and discuss from now on. There is no reason we should treat it differently from the other things we consider.

[tedunangst]

Most of those topics are not sidelined by "everything they tell us is a lie and should be replaced by uninformed speculation." If we're discussing the importance of battery life, a comment such as "How do we know they aren't lying? Maybe the new iPhone doesn't even have a battery and requires you to turn a hand crank." is not helpful.

[jlgreco]

Yeah, you have a good point there. Speculation in discussions about smartphones is rather unprecedented isn't it?

[freehunter]

Can we talk about the price of tea in the colonies without the discussion always being about King George and the Tea Act?

[EpicEng]

You know what I like? Talking about tech stuff on tech sites. You know what I don't like? Random NSA comments on anything that has to do with some device which operates on electricity.