Dvorak's article is a regurgitation of previous HN discussions on this topic.
I have said in the previous HN post and I will say it again here: don't pile on Microsoft alone. These spying policies make every US-based services company untrustworthy to whomever privacy is important. Come to think of it, I'm not sure whether you can rely on European services either because it seems that gov't surveillance is widespread.
On the other hand, maybe if we do pile on Microsoft, and stop using their products for this reason alone (even though Google, Apple and others are in the same boat), it will force them and their lobbyists to influence their gov't shills to put a stop to these programs.
Yahoo
Google
Facebook
PalTalk
YouTube
Skype
AOL
Apple
Who have also been mentioned as complicit in this whole scandal.
Just to be fair :-)
By the way, I actually agree with you and have been slowly switching all my home stuff to linux and trying to get away from Google Dependence (although I type this in Chrome on a Win 8 laptop... damn work computer)
If you think a company has behaved badly, why are you under any obligation to be fair to them?
It might be extremely difficult to boycott every company involved, so why not choose one to make an example of? The idea that you must boycott all or none appears irrational.
It's as though you're being bullied by two people, and when you try to deal with one of them, you're accused of being unfair because you can't deal with both!
It sounds very much as though it was the bullies who decided what was "fair" in this instance.
I didn't say it was right, I said it was different and that your reframing wasn't appropriate.
What changes? For a start, the more people that are involved, the less each knows of the situation. A single individual being bullied is aware of each incidence and what it going on at all times. A group doesn't - witness mob justice as a clear counterpoint. A group is highly susceptible to hearsay and misdirection.
As for why it's unfair - if we expect the judicial system to be fair when it acts on our collective behalves, it is dissonant to not expect other group action to also be fair in how it's meted out.
I don't see why a group being "susceptible to hearsay and misdirection" is a good reason for their ire to be directed at more companies rather than just one.
I also don't see any reason why a group fighting against the injustices they can tackle, obliges them to take on the ones they can't.
EDIT: To take your example of the justice system - if I steal from someone, it would not be a valid defence to point out that other people had not been successfully convicted of stealing, therefore I should not be prosecuted.
All areas of Ubuntu that report to Canonical/Amazon/etc can be disabled and/or uninstalled. I personally find this the optimal way from base install to get to a desktop I enjoy using but otherwise I would probably have a look at debian.
Mint seems to be popular. But honestly if you care about this sort of stuff you're going to have to get a bit technical, at which point you might as well use something really serious like OpenBSD.
Yahoo Google Facebook PalTalk YouTube Skype AOL Apple
Done and done (including Microsoft) for well over a decade; I don't get this whole "can't be trusted anymore" thing. These companies could never be trusted, and never should have been.
The problem that people like you don't seem to understand is that online communications can be secure, unless the companies owning the servers themselves cooperate and companies have to cooperate if they have to do so by law.
It's only the US that has such a huge budget for spying on people's communications and the US is also part of a select handful of countries going to such great lengths to suppress the freedom of speech about it.
If I were to start a company in Romania (which is part of EU btw), the NSA can suck my dick as there's absolutely nothing they could do to make me cooperate and keep my mouth shut while doing it.
What really bothers me about this is not the actual spying - I always assumed that governments do engage in whatever spying they can get away with.
What really bothers me about this is that U.S. companies and individuals have to keep their interactions with the NSA a secret, while obeying whatever demands the NSA has, including the installing of back-doors.
Trust is a fragile thing and we rely on trust for conducting business and for living our lives. My trust in U.S.-based companies has been shaken. Even if the affected companies (such as Google, Microsoft, Apple) want to be trustworthy for their customers, they can be coerced by law to obey whatever the NSA demands and they must also keep it a secret, with absolutely no transparency - they aren't even allowed to say "yes, the NSA demanded some things and we unfortunately complied". Even worse, they can be coerced into making public statements that are full of lies.
I can no longer trust any U.S. based company again.
For example, right now I'm using Skype. But what if the Skype client has a backdoor allowing one to open and listen to my mike any time they want (it's a proprietary blob, we'll never know). What if this backdoor gets hacked and used by people that are not part of the U.S. government? So in spite of the best intentions of the people working on Skype and the NSA; even if I've got "nothing to hide", Skype is all of a sudden a security liability and nothing (short of an open-source client that I can compile and run) can prove otherwise, because Microsoft isn't allowed to be open about it. And I can no longer rely on the fragile trust I've had for Microsoft, because Microsoft can be coerced into being untrustworthy.
See how it goes? We'll see how this unfolds over the next years, however the damage done to U.S. companies will prove to be massive.
This is the most well reasoned argument i heard - and reflect my sentiments perfectly. Its not that i am too afraid the NSA can read my email or listen to my phone convo, but that they can coerce, "lawfully", the ISP/telco to do things against my wishes, and keep it secret from me.
These gag orders are the kind of things that creep into society and they are the first weapon against would-be activists that's perceived to be against the corporate interest (or the interest of the elite). It doesn't take much for chilling effect to set in. Fight it now, or it will be too late when it has the power to threaten the laymen.
It probably already has, in lieu of current European rattling.
I don't expect that GOOG or MSFT will suffer any damage in short term. But in long term they have proved unreliable. This erodes confidence. And if it keeps eroding, it will eventually cause them to collapse.
I'll be doing my earnest to move away from any non-OS tool. And will advocate others to do so as well.
That's kind of the same argument for European businesses and governments to not use Microsoft/American products. At least if they did it within EU, they would be accountable, and the laws prohibit most of it. But the US spying is unaccountable to Europeans, so they can do whatever they want.
The only proper answer to that is to stop using American products (at least until the US government can prove with extreme oversight from Europeans and Latin Americans and others, that they aren't abusing their spying power anymore).
It was merely claimed that PRISM was designed to target foreign communications.
That was entirely a lie. From day one their system has been targeting Americans. The proof is overwhelming at this point.
There's often a critical distinction between what gets claimed and what actually occurs in government. With a government that is so undeserving of trust, that's a very important distinction to keep in mind.
I have said in the previous HN post and I will say it again here: don't pile on Microsoft alone. These spying policies make every US-based services company untrustworthy to whomever privacy is important. Come to think of it, I'm not sure whether you can rely on European services either because it seems that gov't surveillance is widespread.
On the other hand, maybe if we do pile on Microsoft, and stop using their products for this reason alone (even though Google, Apple and others are in the same boat), it will force them and their lobbyists to influence their gov't shills to put a stop to these programs.