2 New Social Networks With Very Different Political Twists

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2 New Social Networks With Very Different Political Twists

Posted by timothy on Wednesday June 20, 2012 @02:15AM from the choose-your-paradigm dept.

judgecorp writes "Frustrated at the off-topic chatter on Twitter, British MP Louise Mensch has launched a supposedly rival service. Despite the name, Menshn, this is apparently not a hoax, but a site aimed at 'on-topic' conversation, initially around the U.S. election. Mensch is a former 'chick lit' author, and a Member of Parliament since 2010. She has taken part in questioning of Rupert and James Murdoch, and urged control of social media." If "control of social media" urged by sitting politicians strikes you as undesirable, or the hyper-focused content seems constraining, take heart: an anonymous reader points out an online community of a different stripe — a social network launched by Wikileaks, intended to be "a secure, surveillance-resistant social network purpose-built for Friends of WikiLeaks." Whether or not your politics line up with those of most Wikileaks supporters, you might wish for some of the features FoWL is designed to provide: "By design your details are encrypted, and hidden from everyone except your immediate contacts. Even we can't access them. Connected by FoWL, friends of WikiLeaks will communicate however they like, including using secure person-to-person methods. As the network grows away from the site infrastructure, it becomes autonomous and decentralized, opaque to observers and impossible to compromise."

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Irony by Sparticus789 · 2012-06-20 02:16 · Score: 0, Redundant

Irony is an organization based on the premise of revealing secret information to create a website that protects your personal secret information.

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sudo make me a sandwich
1. Re:Irony by jguevin · 2012-06-20 02:23 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Is it that hard to distinguish between individual privacy and abusive and/or illegal secrecy in government?
2. Re:Irony by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 02:59 · Score: 0
  
  Ignoring that many of those secrets also contain personal information of individuals?
3. Re:Irony by Nadaka · 2012-06-20 03:52 · Score: 2
  
  No...
  Wikileaks has always sought to protect the identity and lives of the people who reveal the secrets of corporations and governments who would seek to harm them.
4. Re:Irony by Sparticus789 · 2012-06-20 03:56 · Score: 1
  
  No...
  Wikileaks has always sought to protect the identity and lives of the people who reveal the secrets of corporations and governments who would seek to harm them.
  I'm sure Bradley Manning would agree with you. The least Wikileaks could have done is shown him how to use Tor.
  
  --
  sudo make me a sandwich
5. Re:Irony by Nadaka · 2012-06-20 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  Bradley manning screwed himself by revealing his actions to someone who could not be trusted. Tor wouldn't have helped him that much.
6. Re:Irony by HarrySquatter · 2012-06-20 05:01 · Score: 0
  
  Like the names of the informants against The Taliban they leaked? Oops...
7. Re:Irony by Sparticus789 · 2012-06-20 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  That's actually more ironic, that a whistleblower got caught by talking too much.
  
  --
  sudo make me a sandwich
8. Re:Irony by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 06:44 · Score: 0
  
  No, irony would be a whistleblower being caught after blowing their own trumpet too much.
Hmmm by larry+bagina · 2012-06-20 02:19 · Score: 5, Funny

Will Ecuador accept Julian Assange's friend request?

--
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
1. Re:Hmmm by Chemisor · 2012-06-20 05:07 · Score: 1
  
  Only if he agrees not to play Mafia Wars.
Friends of Wikileaks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 02:20 · Score: 1, Interesting

This sounds like unsocial social media. Social media is all about attention-whoring, and doesn't sound like FoWL can do that.
Impossible? by DrData99 · 2012-06-20 02:24 · Score: 4, Interesting

"...impossible to compromise."
Sounds like a challenge for NSA!
1. Re:Impossible? by java-lawson · 2012-06-20 02:46 · Score: 1
  
  Ah yes, just like the unsinkable Titanic
2. Re:Impossible? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 03:32 · Score: 0
  
  Actually it _doesn't_ sound like it would be all _that much_ of a challenge, lol
3. Re:Impossible? by bacon.frankfurter · 2012-06-20 05:30 · Score: 1
  
  Wouldn't uhhhmmm... merely admiting to your own friendship and affinity for WikiLeaks technically compromise the network? I mean, wasn't the whole anonimity/security part of the act of leaking actually part and parcel TO the whole idea? Like, "leaking" is not "whistle blowing". The whole point is protecting the identity of the source. So... if there's suddenly a "social network" of WikiLeaks supports, and they promote their own visibility, doesn't that uh... uh... uh... make them targets?
Right. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 02:24 · Score: 1

Good luck with those. I'm sure they'll blow up and everyone will become overnight millionaires. No, seriously. Totally.
1. Re:Right. by cpu6502 · 2012-06-20 04:24 · Score: 2
  
  I spy sarcasm with my little eye.
  - I didn't know Wikileaks launched a social network. So too did Alex Jones with PlanetInfowars. And of course google started one a few months ago. "Launching social websites" must be the new fad.
  
  --
  My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
2. Re:Right. by dkleinsc · 2012-06-20 08:28 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, it's not "launching social networks" as much as "launching bleeding-edge viral cloud-based scalable social software with user-generated content".
  
  --
  I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
We already have this by vlm · 2012-06-20 02:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

a site aimed at 'on-topic' conversation
We already have this, its called the comments section of our local dying newspaper. I would assume your local newspaper, if any, is similar. The comments on articles are exclusively filled with sloganeering by "both" sides written by paid political hacks. The problem with the business model is its already dying, because on a percentage basis, roughly no one wants to read idiotic "divide and conqueror" sloganeering. Why sling meaningless slogans on a new site, if you're already slinging them on the old site?

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
1. Re:We already have this by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 02:56 · Score: 1
  
  Connected by FoWL, friends of WikiLeaks will communicate however they like, including using secure person-to-person methods. As the network grows away from the site infrastructure, it becomes autonomous and decentralized, opaque to observers and impossible to compromise.
  And we already have THIS. It's called "the internet" combined with a little unknown development called "even the slightest bit of encryption, you knobs".
  Well, besides the "impossible to compromise" part, but if the normal internet with decent encryption can't do that, I fail to see how a social network can. No, not even one made and blessed by every anarchist's darling idol-of-the-moment, WikiLeaks.
Sad.. by Kupfernigk · 2012-06-20 02:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

When she was elected, I thought Louise Mensch might actually be some use in Parliament. Certainly a lot of the attacks on her have been (a) unmerited and (b) seem to come from people who are not quite right in the head. But Arianna Huffington she is not. And it is pretty clear that, no matter how MPs of all parties may complain about News International and its proprietor, David Cameron is determined that no harm shall come to Murdoch, his cashflow, or (given the retention of Hunt) Murdoch's moles. Rather than waste time on a website doomed to oblivion, shouldn't she be trying to get her own party on board the prevention of foreign media interference in the UK Government?

--
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
1. Re:Sad.. by SkunkPussy · 2012-06-20 03:17 · Score: 2
  
  After all, it was Cameron (and/or Osborne) that decided to put someone aggresively in favour of news international with personal relationships with key staff in charge of the bid. So if Hunt is bad, Cameron (and/or Osborne) is/are worse.
  
  --
  SURELY NOT!!!!!
2. Re:Sad.. by BasilBrush · 2012-06-20 03:40 · Score: 2
  
  Certainly a lot of the attacks on her have been (a) unmerited and (b) seem to come from people who are not quite right in the head.
  Or (c) come from people who heard her imbecilic comments about protesters drinking coffee and being able to afford tents on HIGNFY.
3. Re:Sad.. by TheMathemagician · 2012-06-20 05:48 · Score: 0
  
  Unfortunately your comments about Murdoch make me you think you are not quite right in the head. He owns something like 300-400 newspapers and really couldn't care less about interfering with the UK Government. He's been a hate-figure for so long that you can't even see how irrelevant he really is.
Louise Mensch by Des+Herriott · 2012-06-20 02:29 · Score: 4, Informative

For an example of her (lack of) grasp of politics, or indeed common sense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WvAkhW-XNI
1. Re:Louise Mensch by BasilBrush · 2012-06-20 03:47 · Score: 2
  
  And the postscript to that story is that the queue stretching outside the door of Starbucks wasn't even for coffee. It was to use the toilets. People wanting to purchase coffee could just go straight to the counter.
  That's not to say that no protester ever bought coffee from Starbucks. I'm sure they did. Starbucks not being a bank isn't actually responsible for the banking crisis. However the basic premise of Mench's comments couldn't be more wrong since it wasn't people buying coffee that made the long queue. Everyone's got to pee, from bankers to protesters. It's a great leveller.
  If there were still plenty of public conveniences around, people wouldn't have to impose on Starbucks and McDonalds when they're caught short.
New social networks? by zrbyte · 2012-06-20 02:31 · Score: 2

Whatever happened to Diaspora?
1. Re:New social networks? by IRGlover · 2012-06-20 02:41 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  It went away.
2. Re:New social networks? by plover · 2012-06-20 02:52 · Score: 0
  
  Oh, for mod points to grant you. Thanks for the laugh!
  
  --
  John
3. Re:New social networks? by HarrySquatter · 2012-06-20 03:01 · Score: 1
  
  It mostly became a moot point once Israel was formed.
4. Re:New social networks? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 04:19 · Score: 0
  
  http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-10/on-diasporas-social-network-you-own-your-data
5. Re:New social networks? by Johann+Lau · 2012-06-20 04:33 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  It's fine: http://diasporaproject.org/
  There's also Friendica, which is cross-network (you can even add diaspora users to it) and contrary to diaspora will run on quite a few shared hosts: http://friendica.com/ Though public pods aren't easy to come by... care to run one? :D It may not be the fastest or the prettiest, but that's why I post the link on slashdot, and not on grandma's wall ^^ I also LOVE the tagline. "The internet is our social network." That's the spirit, and something to build on.
  Also, this is a few days old and nothing is on it yet, but I'll certainly watch it: http://socialswarm.net/ We don't need more networks, we need protocols and microformats! Most of this stuff goes completely over my head, but I hope in a few years there will be tutorials for noobs, so that even I can make my own CMS interact with social networks... IMHO, apathy and resignation just isn't on. We all have text editors, so there are no excuses. Run a little node, federate some love, get down tonight.
OStatus by Rinisari · 2012-06-20 02:32 · Score: 1

These networks need to support http://ostatus.org/!

--
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
So when will Mensch's resign? by sqldr · 2012-06-20 02:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

Given that she has chosen not to work full time as an MP any more while she goes off to start another "lifestyle company", I assume she doesn't need to earn £66k of tax payers' money, let alone all the expenses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_expenses_scandal) every year as a result.
So.. where is the resignation letter, Louise?

--
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
1. Re:So when will Mensch's resign? by u38cg · 2012-06-20 02:43 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  MPs don't resign, and discouraging MPs with external interests is a bad idea, unless you like the Ed MIlibands of this world.
  
  --
  [FUCK BETA]
2. Re:So when will Mensch's resign? by sqldr · 2012-06-20 02:54 · Score: 2
  
  and discouraging MPs with external interests is a bad idea
  No it isn't. It's a very good idea. They're there to do a job, and external interest = bias.
  
  --
  I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
3. Re:So when will Mensch's resign? by BasilBrush · 2012-06-20 03:51 · Score: 2
  
  By the Ed Millibands of this world, you presumably mean MPs who concentrate their time on the parliamentary work that they are paid for, rather than sending time writing novels and setting up vanity project websites.
  Obviously by your comment you're a conservative. But I'm sure even the Tories must have at least some MPs who aren't moonlighting to make extra cash.
4. Re:So when will Mensch's resign? by tlhIngan · 2012-06-20 04:37 · Score: 2
  
  By the Ed Millibands of this world, you presumably mean MPs who concentrate their time on the parliamentary work that they are paid for, rather than sending time writing novels and setting up vanity project websites.
  The flip side is well, you also want legislators who have current real-world experience, not some career politician who's been at it for 30 years and completely out of touch (e.g., the ivory tower). As long as these interests are revealed well ahead of time and the appropriate people recluse themselves from voting on said topics.
  Those who concentrate on their jobs find themselves the target of lobbyists because they know they don't know the real world so are vulnerable to people telling them "how it really is." (This goes for both sides).
5. Re:So when will Mensch's resign? by BasilBrush · 2012-06-20 09:01 · Score: 2
  
  The flip side is well, you also want legislators who have current real-world experience, not some career politician who's been at it for 30 years and completely out of touch (e.g., the ivory tower).
  Oh absolutely, MPs need real world experience. It's a terrible idea for people to go straight into politics from University. They should go out and experience the real world for a far period of time before standing for parliament. But not when they actually are MPs. Then, there job is to be an MP. And that's a demanding and time consuming job. If they're doing it properly there shouldn't be time for other jobs.
  Not only that but current employment means that they can't be independent. They are almost inevitably employed either because it gives their employers a vehicle for lobbying, or because it gives them information that they shouldn't be privvy to.
  And it's part of the job for MPs to listen to people telling them "how it is", because even if they moonlight they only get experience of a small niche of "real life". And generally it will be people sitting round a table talking politics, just as it is in parliament. Moonlighting as a city company director, or an author, or a web entrepreneur won't give them insight to the health service, or education, or policing, or transport. They have to go and find out about those things. It's part of their job. And a part of the job that they will distracted from if they're using time outside of parliament to persue a particular moonlighting avenue.
  Yes this applies to both sides. But it would be remiss not to notice that this is far more prevalent on the Tory benches.
6. Re:So when will Mensch's resign? by u38cg · 2012-06-21 00:27 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, there's no need whatsoever for an MP to be full time - they only make work for themselves. There are legislatures out there that only meet once a year or more. And it's not like the country grinds to a halt every time Parliament goes into recess. The country might be labouring under a few less ill-thought out laws if Parliament only assembled once a week.
  
  --
  [FUCK BETA]
7. Re:So when will Mensch's resign? by phlinn · 2012-06-21 03:04 · Score: 1
  
  I wouldn't mind government officials with no external interests if they were content to sit around and do nothing. But they tend to want to be seen doing something, so they insist on finding things that aren't broken to fix. Otherwise their constituents might start wondering what they are being paid for. Having a secondary job indicates some sort of grounding in the real world instead of viewing everything in it as something to be managed.
  
  Measuring the number of jobs handled is a poor idea for poor tech support and politicians, for the same reason. If they do their job right, they shouldn't be busy because most things are chugging along without intervention.
  
  --
  "Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
8. Re:So when will Mensch's resign? by sqldr · 2012-06-21 03:23 · Score: 1
  
  NHS IT project: 12 billion. Who "championed" it? Patricia Hewitt. What were her external interests at the time? Anderson consulting. Which companies qualified for her over the top stringent requirements for being given an RFP? Anderson was one of them. Who did it and fucked it up? Anderson and Cable and Wireless, which she also had shares in.
  External interest = conflict of interest. I know a few companies that could've done it in half the time for a quarter of the price.
  
  --
  I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
Won't last. by CimmerianX · 2012-06-20 02:34 · Score: 2

And the U.S. Government seizes those domains in 5..4..3..2..
Attractive female politician + coder?! by zidium · 2012-06-20 02:35 · Score: 2

I cannot even fathom a U.S. politician being 1) a young female, 2) an attractive young female, or 3) an attractive young female who releases new web apps.
It’s phenomenal :O
I wish there were more women of this calibre to go around.

--
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
1. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by nschubach · 2012-06-20 02:43 · Score: 2
  
  I can't wait for the day when the person's sex doesn't matter in what they do.
  
  --
  Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
2. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by u38cg · 2012-06-20 02:45 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  She wasn't involved with the coding, and she's not (that) young, either, but she is a refreshingly different face from the political old guard.
  
  --
  [FUCK BETA]
3. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by TubeSteak · 2012-06-20 02:51 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You'll probably have to wait until men can gestate, give birth to, and then nurse a baby.
  Until then, sex will matter.
  
  --
  [Fuck Beta]
  o0t!
4. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by cpu6502 · 2012-06-20 03:25 · Score: 1
  
  >>>I can't wait for the day when the person's sex doesn't matter in what they do.
  Yeah well I'll stop looking at women and saying "cute", when THEY stop looking at posterior and saying, "Nice butt." It's not just the ladies who get judged by appearance.
  
  --
  My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
5. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 03:47 · Score: 0
  
  I'm genuinely curious what relevance you feel your post has to GP's post. Because I don't see any connection. GP talks about the "OMG A WOMAN IS DOING JOB X! THAT IS SO FREAKING AWESOME FOR REASON Y!" mindset, while you're discussing the double-standard of "women get to gawk at men, but if a man gawks at a woman, it's sexual harassment". So please, explain the relevance of your post to theirs.
6. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by nschubach · 2012-06-20 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  It's close... not completely related, but I understand both your point and cpu6502 ... I personally hate that guys have to be the initiators of relationships, but get railed by harassment or called "creepy" when that initiation is unwanted by a particular person. It's social politics and not everyone is good at it. While that is mostly unrelated to a person being looked better upon by their sex in their profession it doesn't help the double standard society we live in.
  
  --
  Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
7. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by circletimessquare · 2012-06-20 05:20 · Score: 1
  
  it will be a lot easier for women to build mechanical sperm machines, maybe personal size, all carrying the X chromosome of course, than it will be to build artificial wombs
  men will be otherwise be replaced with fancy dildos
  science is pretty much at the point where us males are irrelevant and unnecessary, we're not yet at the point where females are
  
  --
  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
8. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by buglista · 2012-06-20 06:23 · Score: 1
  
  No, she's not - was nice to see her to stand up to Murdoch though.
  
  But she also said on TV that the Occupy protesters couldn't complain about anything if they bought Starbucks coffees, as that was the capitalistic system in action and it's all the same, isn't it? Buy a Starbucks coffee, endorse the military-industrial complex and the banking sector, apparently. (wtf?)
9. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by Johann+Lau · 2012-06-20 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  And the ladies started it, right? Right?
10. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by Bigby · 2012-06-20 07:09 · Score: 1
  
  Especially in England
11. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by billstewart · 2012-06-20 11:10 · Score: 1
  
  Christine "Not a Witch" O'Donnell is a US politician who's female, relatively young, and relatively attractive. And while she's not likely to be releasing any new web apps, because she's crazy and an idiot, chances are that Mensch didn't write her own either.
  But if you're puzzled that a young woman would be releasing web apps, or that a young woman would be a politician, there's a reason you're still single and living in your parents' basement. (If you're puzzled that somebody who's bright enough to release web apps is also a politician, I won't harass you for saying that.)
  As far as women being politicians goes, when I was helping my mother work on political campaigns back in the early 70s, she did complain that the way the political system was set up, women did most of the work organizing and running campaigns, while the men got to be the candidates. The world has changed somewhat since then, and US politics isn't quite as sexist as it used to be, but it hasn't reached equality or common sense yet.
  
  --
  
  Bill Stewart
  New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
12. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by tqk · 2012-06-20 17:06 · Score: 1
  
  science is pretty much at the point where us males are irrelevant and unnecessary, we're not yet at the point where females are
  Really? So, what is it you're going to use to impregnate that egg? I also wouldn't count out the possibility that we may invent artificial wombs in the next few decades, freeing both genders of all the complicated bits of childbirth.
  
  --
  "Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
13. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by epyT-R · 2012-06-20 19:44 · Score: 1
  
  men offer much more than reproductive ability to society, and it's not all or even mostly negative, no matter what the man-haters say.
14. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by epyT-R · 2012-06-20 19:48 · Score: 1
  
  since her achievement has nothing to do with having babies, her being a woman doesn't make it any more or less special.
15. Re:Attractive female politician + coder?! by epyT-R · 2012-06-20 19:58 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure the mating behavior of both genders started and evolved co-dependently and in parallel, long before homo sapiens existed. Men and women objectify and check each other out.. it's how sex works. feminist morons need to accept their sexuality.
Beware beware the NSA security letter by pla · 2012-06-20 02:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

Whether or not your politics line up with those of most Wikileaks supporters, you might wish for some of the features FoWL is designed to provide: "By design your details are encrypted, and hidden from everyone except your immediate contacts.

Does anyone seriously believe the founders of Wikileaks still have any control whatsoever of such a valuable source of information about leakers?

Nothing but a pure sweet grade-A honeypot. Oh bother.
1. Re:Beware beware the NSA security letter by tqk · 2012-06-20 18:11 · Score: 1
  
  Does anyone seriously believe the founders of Wikileaks still have any control whatsoever of such a valuable source of information about leakers?
  Yes. There is still hope out here. Some very smart and reputable people signed on in the past, and lowly proles like me find it difficult to easily discount their action.
  Strip away all the politics and personalities, the *idea* (WikiLeaks) is a good one. Execution may not be perfect so far, but the goal (holding bastards feet to the fire, shining the light of day on their nefarious deeds) is a positive one.
  Well, that's the way I think of it, at least.
  
  --
  "Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
British "imperialism"! by k(wi)r(kipedia) · 2012-06-20 02:42 · Score: 2

What's this, a web site owned by a British MP available only in the United States?
Old debate by jythie · 2012-06-20 02:46 · Score: 1

So essentially what we have is yet another rehash of 'how much moderation is appropriate' with two (relatively) extreme examples?

*yawn* wake me up when we go through this again next time, I think I will sit this round out.
Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by kelemvor4 · 2012-06-20 02:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

Who in their right mind would give private information to an organization that has made it's reputation on exposing private information to the public. Seems like a no brainer to avoid that site if you ask me.
1. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by Quakeulf · 2012-06-20 02:56 · Score: 1
  
  Ding ding ding! I think you are on to something.
2. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 03:02 · Score: 1
  
  beats giving private information to an organization that has made it's reputation on exposing private information to undisclosed entities... *shrugs*
3. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by HarrySquatter · 2012-06-20 03:04 · Score: 1
  
  But...but those are just government secrets! Ignore the fact that a number of the leaks contained such personal information like the names of informants against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
4. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by kelemvor4 · 2012-06-20 03:18 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure you'd only have to worry if you posted (or know someone who posted) something interesting...
5. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by NeutronCowboy · 2012-06-20 03:22 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This again? Find me one person whose name was on the list and who was NOT already known to be an informant. Good luck. Finally, as to the original poster's point -how much different would it be from a) a corporation selling it to other corporations and governments, and b) if it is really as secure as they say - and they should release the code, who cares where it comes from?
  
  --
  Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
6. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by camionbleu · 2012-06-20 03:41 · Score: 2
  
  To be fair to Wikileaks, they recognize that there are legitimate secrets. They are an organization for publishing information supplied by whistle-blowers.
7. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by kelemvor4 · 2012-06-20 03:45 · Score: 1
  
  This again? Find me one person whose name was on the list and who was NOT already known to be an informant. Good luck. Finally, as to the original poster's point -how much different would it be from a) a corporation selling it to other corporations and governments, and b) if it is really as secure as they say - and they should release the code, who cares where it comes from?
  I don't use facebook (or other social networks) either, however.... As much as I don't want corporations to be able to buy my information, it's preferable over the information being publicly available for free. If it's just posted on wikileaks for free, then scammers, identify thieves, script kiddies and everyone else (including corporations) can just grab it on a whim.
8. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by SputnikCopilot · 2012-06-20 04:31 · Score: 1
  
  On the topic of no-brainers, from the summary: "your details are encrypted, and hidden"
  Also: "Even we can't access them."
  Also: "the network grows away from the site infrastructure, it becomes autonomous and decentralized, opaque to observers"
  Perhaps those in their "right mind" might notice the relevance of these statements and stop trolling do degrade the value of said statements.
9. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2012-06-20 06:24 · Score: 1
  
  If you have nothing worthy of being leaked, then you shouldn't have to worry about having your privacy leaked.
  
  --
  Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
10. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by Johann+Lau · 2012-06-20 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  doesn't beat doing neither.
11. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by Johann+Lau · 2012-06-20 06:56 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, it's
  "As the network grows away from the site infrastructure, it becomes autonomous and decentralized, opaque to observers and impossible to compromise."
  Hmm. Also, where are the technical details? The source?
12. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 07:50 · Score: 0
  
  go eat some egg foo young and shut the fuck up, faggot.
13. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by Johann+Lau · 2012-06-20 08:05 · Score: 1
  
  But eating delicious food just gives me more energy to ask those awesome pro questions you love so much. What a weird attempt at whatever that was.
14. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 08:37 · Score: 0
  
  you certainly need all of the energy you can get. you look like a fucking cancer patient.
15. Re:Give my personal informatino to wikileaks? by Johann+Lau · 2012-06-20 08:54 · Score: 1
  
  That's very nice of you to say :) But I'm still ACTUALLY interested in technical details and source code. So maybe you could forward this to the person who helps you type your replies? Thanks.
Protip by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 03:26 · Score: 0

Protip: Don't tell your friend about your secret crush on the WikiLeaks social network.
Mensch? Questioned Murdoch?? Oh dont make me laugh by EasyTarget · 2012-06-20 03:37 · Score: 1

She has repeatedly stuck her tongue up News Internationals corporate arse and licked as hard as possible.

--
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
Off-Topic Chatter? by Jason+Levine · 2012-06-20 04:01 · Score: 2

Ok, people might not "get" Twitter or feel it has a use for them, but since when is anything off-topic on Twitter. It's like a giant mixer where people discuss anything and everything. You aren't forced to focus on just one topic. You can discuss cooking with one tweet and then reply to a political comment with another and then ask your followers about a recently released movie in a third. Why does Mensch think Twitter conversation *needs* to be focused on any one subject (politics)?

--
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
1. Re:Off-Topic Chatter? by Johann+Lau · 2012-06-20 06:20 · Score: 1
  
  Huh? Where did that come from? Who are you replying to? Where am I?!
2. Re:Off-Topic Chatter? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 07:02 · Score: 0
  
  Big Wok Way, across the street from Chopstick Town.
on-topic conversations for the short-winded? by whitroth · 2012-06-20 04:50 · Score: 1

An on-topic message link? And how is this different from any moderated usenet newsgroup?
Oh, right, it's still "tell me everything you know in 140 chars...."
mark
LiquidDemocracy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 05:50 · Score: 0

Creating a actual democracy enabling tool like that would have been more useful.
Why I joined Friends of WikiLeaks by Aristophon · 2012-06-20 05:58 · Score: 2

I'm nobody, but at least my voice can bear witness. That matters. If this makes the NSA waste time on me, then it has been a good thing. At the age of 16 I worked on a labor crew in Saudi Arabia composed of Yemeni's and Pakistani's. We dug ditches for laying telephone lines. They were just like you and me, though without our advantages of money and education. I'm ashamed of what the United States is doing to their grandchildren. I realize more and more how great and good the White Rose resistance movement was in Germany. Their backgrounds and habits of mind are so startlingly similar to my own. As they did so can you bear witness to your neighbors and community. I do in my day to day interactions. You can too.

--
"Nothing we despise in the other person is entirely absent from ourselves." -- Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Be wary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 06:02 · Score: 0

Be wary of anything involving Louise Mensch.
She likes to dish out slanderous comments in a context where she can get away with it (basically, as an MP and in the House of Parliament, Parliamentary Privilege allows her to say anything at all without fear of legal action) but she won't utter anything when the law won't protect her.
And these people run our country. My God....
1. Re:Be wary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 06:26 · Score: 0
  
  This why we left your country so we could have windbags we duly elected to say stupid stuff on our behalf.
impossible to compromise by englishknnigits · 2012-06-20 06:13 · Score: 1

lol
P2P social network. by balls199 · 2012-06-20 06:45 · Score: 1

I had the idea of creating a P2P social network a while ago, and actually started writing code: https://github.com/macourtney/masques
However, I haven't finished much due to lack of time. It's open source. Any help would be appreciated.
Instead of going through a website, each node in the network connects directly to each friend and all information is encrypted. Though you can create a handle, your real id is your public key. This causes some issues when finding friends, but public keys seem like the best way to go.
Not much is done right now. I wasn't planning on any kind of announcement yet. Since the topic came up and people are clearly interested in a more secure social network, I thought I would throw it out there and hopefully get some help.
Menshn by allo · 2012-06-20 07:20 · Score: 1

Menschen is the german word for people.
Menshn's "on-topic" commentary by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-20 08:03 · Score: 0

Gleaned from watching the site for a few moments:
* What kind of porn do you think Mitt Romney looks at? Does he make his wives...
* I'll vote for the candidate who outs the UFO thing...
* I heard that Romney was a merman
* What planet will Romney go live on after he dies?
Diaspora was Facebook competitor, not Twitter by billstewart · 2012-06-20 10:47 · Score: 1

This is supposed to be a Twitter competitor, not a Facebook competitor.
However, in both cases, what makes the dominant service interesting is the user base. Unless Menshn convinces people that it's an interesting place to hang around, nobody's going to hang around there, and therefore it won't be interesting.
And saying it's a "rival" suggests that not only does Menshn think that it's competing with Twitter, but also that Twitter thinks that Menshn is competing with it, which is a bit, ummm, premature.

--

Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Mensch vs. Occupy by billstewart · 2012-06-20 11:20 · Score: 1

And she's saying that in the UK - surely she's not expecting the Occupiers to drink traditional English coffee, is she? Starbucks may not be as politically or culinarily correct as Local Hipster Organic Coffee Roasterz(tm), but it's probably succeeding in the UK for the same reason it succeeded in the US Midwest and Southeast, which is that it's radically improving the quality of the coffee, as well as providing wifi and a social environment. (Besides, apparently the real story was that the Occupiers were mostly in line to use the bathrooms, and nobody minds exploiting big corporations' bathrooms.)

--

Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
1. Re:Mensch vs. Occupy by buglista · 2012-06-20 19:46 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah; time was - pre-2000 or so - you needed to find some cafe with an Italian with a proper coffee machine - nowadays we have Costa and Nero though, who for my money, make better coffee.
  
  Nice cake in Starbucks though, can't deny it.