Slashdot Mirror
Why the Latest FISA Release By Google Et Al. Means Squat
Nerval's Lobster writes "Google, Yahoo, and other tech firms are offering some updated statistics about government requests for data. There's just one problem: under revised guidelines issued by the federal government, those companies can still only report a range, rather than a definitive number, for those requests. If that wasn't fuzzy enough, the range can only be reported after a six-month lag. Between January and June 2013, Google received between 0-999 FISA
'non-content' requests on 0-999 user accounts; it also fielded between 0-999 'content' requests for between 9000 and 9999 user accounts.Yahoo actually received a larger number of FISA queries than Google: for the first six months of 2013, the federal government made between 0-999 requests on between 30,000 and 30,999 user accounts hosted by the company. ... These companies have little choice but to advocate this new information release as a huge step forward for transparency. Unfortunately, restricting government data requests to a broad range isn't very helpful: for example, a range (rather than a single numerical value) makes it difficult to determine trends, such as whether government requests are gradually increasing over the long term."
This is off topic, but I'm getting a warning at the top of Slashdot that classic is going to be going away soon (looks like in 4 months).
How many people will leave if they cut it off completely...?
Re: the new one - do not want.
I can't even get classic Slashdot to load correctly. It sits there for 15 seconds, then finally loads it without any CSS. A format that is still better than the beta site.
Well, a sudden, obvious surge in requests could alert terrorist planners somebody was on to them. That's probably behind both the large ranges and six month delays.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It says there are 74 comments on the poll, but beta doesn't load any of them. I would put this in the feedback, but the feedback form is some idiotic survey. Fuck you, I only want to tell you about the thing I want to tell you, I don't want to check a bunch of mandatory radio buttons, asshole.
just assume the highest number of it. Case closed.
Why does the comment section always show me a "Load More" button, even when there is nothing more to load? Completely useless.
Didn't the NSA already provide a range of terrorist attacks it has thwarted by gathering up every American's personal data? Wasn't it somewhere between "0 - 100"?
These ranges are nothing new. The government uses them for plausible deniability, and to cover their tracks in the case of any rogue agents or operations. Accuracy has its downsides.
So let's say they made 473 requests last year and 526 this year. Does it mean anything? Did they make the additional requests on accounts associated with criminals, or accounts of those who post on slashdot, or accounts of those whose sons stood up some bigwigs' daughters?
Numbers don't say anything about that, only proper auditing by people with no conflict of interest and heavy penalties for misuse will tell you if they're doing their job properly.
I just noticed that if you post a comment, see it on your screen, then hit "Load More," it will load your comment on your screen a second time, making it look like you double-posted. Nice.
I also noticed that when you go to "Preview Comment," it doesn't put your cursor in the text box, and god knows where the hell that text box is in the tab list. Beta is terrible.
And now I've discovered that if you hit "Preview Comment," then hit "Edit Comment," type some more, and hit "Preview Comment" again, the text box disappears entirely. Wow. Just wow.
Poll? What poll? There's a slashdot button at the top, and the rest of the page is just stories over the whole width.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
I didn't like the redesign at first a couple months ago, but it was half baked. a quick glance at it now and it seems fine. you look at stories, read comments, then make comments. this still seems to be the case. the biggest problem I see is a scandalous mix of serif and sans serif fonts.
True, 0-999 is kind of BS, but 30,000 to 30,999 is only about 3% different. If that jumps to 1,000,000 to 1,000,999 then we're talking 0.1%, at which point, I would think the range hardly matters.
It gives an idea of the scale. If they are getting court orders for less than 1000, we can believe they have reason to look at that data. If they are getting orders for 100,000 we KNOW that they are not seriously engaging with the information that they are getting. It's not a great gain, but it's not squat. OTOH if it's all we ever get, then it's probably not worth anything. If nothing else, it gives us hope that we can get more control in the future...
If this is "fine", I don't even want to know what you considered "half-baked". Stories and commenting are literally the only functions available. I can't access my profile, log in/out, look at messages, or see the poll. Hell, it doesn't even show users' sigs.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
I think the flat design is fine. I've been on slashdot since the 90s - it was time for a change.
These companies have little choice but to advocate this new information release as a huge step forward for transparency.
Ah, bullshit - they very much could release the full details, but are afraid of government retaliation. That's not the same thing as "having little choice" but to engage an alternative.
You know why Paul Revere was awesome? Not because he rode a horse yelling some stuff, but because he risked his life and livelihood as a silversmith in the name of Liberty.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I'm growing more of the opinion that UI design isn't really about any kind of improvement in usability.
I think it serves two purposes. The first is simply fashion-oriented -- showing that they "look" up to date and modern.
The second is really to disorient people enough that users no longer drive their own interest or usage out of the site but instead but instead through obfuscation, feature changes, etc, the people who control the site basically manipulate you into using the site they want, which basically means seeing more ads in most cases.
As for a Slashdot redesign? In a full web browser its not bad, but I've never understood why a tech site could be so awful for so long on mobile. On a tablet its manageable, on a phone it's not and I just don't get that, unless it's one of those political things, like the people who make code decisions are just angry FOSS users who refuse to accommodate anything that doesn't pass some litmus test.
The real answer may just be a horrific tangle of Perl dating from the 1990s that just can't accommodate mobile.
I just sent the following to the feedback address:
Folks,
I've been around on /. from before there were UIDs and I actually have a 3-digit one.
You managed to make me stop logging in years ago with a series to totally broken UI updates that did not get fixed despite people complaining; by adding ever more space wasters; and by what I consider to have been "ruining the discussion system".
Since that moment I've considerably reduced my presence and have reduced a lot more my contributions. Over those past years I've however still kept Slashdot somewhat usable for me as AC by means of a set of Stylish rules and AdBlock Plus rules that filter out 95% of the crap and that resize things to not waste screen real estate.
Looking at Beta, which is an even bigger waste of screen area than what is now called "Classic" and that - with all its "Web 2.X" nonsense - likely is less tolerant to unexpected interventions by Stylish, I don't see how I would again want to start tweaking the site to become something I'd be willing to suffer/use.
If you really insist on pushing beta down people's throat with no option to opt out (as an AC!), I will more than likely disappear even more from the site. Of course, once I'll be around only on a few very slow days per year, you anyway don't need to care about what I'm saying here. Seems like the future is clear, then. :-(
Slashdot used to be the hottest place on the net for people like me. I *really* hate to see it decline in this way, but if that's what you want as its owners...
Sorry,
MCE
<contact data removed>
(Also known as <e-mail address edited> or UID 503.)
means squat, for not for those reasons.
The actual title of my previous comment was (approximately):
Re: Classic Slashdot [And why the !@#$% do I have to fill in this title myself instead of getting a default that I can edit if I really want to?]
And guess what: In preview mode this was shown OK, once the comment was posted it's truncated.
=> NofBugs = NofBugs + 1;
The only reason they need the FISA requests, is for when they want warrants to pursue people. Having hacked into the main internet backbones the NSA doesn't need warrants to listen or collect. They listen and collect all.
The issue is that when they want to pursue some legal aspect, pass info to the DEA, etc. Then they have to use proper channels. So they solicity a FISA request and reverse engineer the evidence.
The overlord is the NSA, I shall be watched,
Thou maketh lies to Congress,
Misleadeth me on quiet matters
Thou hoardeth data thy stole
NSA hideth me from my rights past
for fear's sake.
Even though I browse through the darkest of nets,
I will fear thy evil,
For thou are watching me,
Abroad or home thy staff,
they watcheth me.
Thou prepares an exploit for me,
presenting me as enemies,
Thou decrypt my phone with toil,
Thy datacenter overflows,
Surely thy malice and eyes will follow me
all of the day, all of my life,
and I will be monitored in my house by the NSA
FOREVER
What a bunch of slime-and-oil covered weasels.
Remind me again why people do what they say...
Government (n) Organized Corruption.
Requiem for the American Dream
They could publish the data per "division".
Then invent a new division per, say, 10 or 100 requests.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
So that the NSA and pentagon can steal your code. It's commercial espionage, and it's happening more and more frequently.
Yes, the NSA will steal your code based on 'national security concerns' even if it has nothing to do with national security
Abolish the NSA and Federal Reserve, and you will then feel like what it was to be an American again.
Until then you are a slave living in a fantasy world draped over your eyes.
What's the alternative to awful new slashdot? To where will you be migrating?
I've been visiting slashdot consistently (almost daily) since 1998/99
I was here before Natalie Portman and Hot Grits.
I remember, and miss, Ogg the Caveman.
I remember when I saw my first article with 100 comments
I remember the struggle to deal with first-posts and flame wars which drove the development of the moderation system.
If I had bothered to register when I first started reading, I would probably have a 3 digit UID. I've been content to lurk, and my occasional AC comments ave been well received.
Slashdot has been a consistent source of news and information for me for 15 years, and I've seen it go through several revisions, changes to ownership, moderation, and commenting. Through all of that, the general look and feel of the site has remained consistent. The site has remained true to itself. (Even when the front page changed to pink ponies.)
Classic slashdot has the best user forum on the internet. The beta-site is a disrespect to the heritige, history, and main draw of the site for me, the forums. nowhere else (that I know of) can I find the intelligent discussion and informative discourse on news and current events I can find in the slashdot forum.
There are enough people out there like me who HATE BETA that if the site change goes through as-is, THEY WILL FORK THE SITE.
Slashdot is full of geeks like me who would have no problem putting together a slashdot fork. Give them motivation (And Beta is a BIG MOTIVATION) and they'll put together something faster than you can say "where did all the traffic go"?
And I will go with them.
Jonathan
- Long time slashdot reader.
Unfortunately, restricting government data requests to a broad range isn't very helpful
Of course it's not very helpful. It was never meant to be, nobody really expected it to be, and I'm sure they went to significant effort to ensure that no utility crept in by accident. As soon as the government allows or does anything, it is foregone that it won't be helpful or useful in any way. It is a tautology.
Why the Latest FISA Release By Google Et Al. Means Squat
Because it was a FISA release.
Ha, captcha: concise
I have been a regular visitor to Slashdot for around 15 years. For that, I get the checkbox to disable ads, though I browse with Javascript disabled so my browser does not slow down.
I come here for the discussions, and often read comments at +5, changing that only if I find a discussion interesting and warrants reading at a lower level.
The new beta uses JQuery for the comment threshold selector, and changes that on the fly. This means all the comments are loaded, but not visible, and processing any page with considerable number of comments will slow down MY computer! If I have a few tabs open to read later, my computer will be unusable.
If they insist that I enable Javascript to browse the site at the threshold I want, then they will lose me as a long time. I imagine that others long timers will hate the site too.
Dice have to remember that this site has two unmatched features, interlocked: a moderation system that is good at cutting down the trolling, spamming, and noise, and a comment section that is frequented by many people who are passionate about technology and other nerdy stuff.
If they manage to aggravate a lot of their users, the comment section will no longer be attractive to the audience. Perhaps we should revive kuro5hin?
I wrote the above in a feedback form that I filled a while ago, and I am emailing this comment to their feedback@slashdot.org.
Please send them feedback too.
And mod this up so Dice can see what they are getting themselves into.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
When I went there to see what the fuss was about, it was stories over 33% of the width, ads and other sidebar content 25%, and massive amounts of whitespace in between and at the sides.
I have 0-999 problems and snitch ain't one.