Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

echelon

You poor summer child.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEXINT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexpionage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vassall

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/how-no...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/nsa-tracking-online-po...

https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/echoing-dirty-pa...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/nsa-files-live...

It's such a successful strategy, even Bitcoin scammers use it:

https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/extortion-spam/25070/

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/27/asia/south-korea-telegram...

View on HN

> It's such a successful strategy, even Bitcoin scammers use it:

For years, email spammers have claimed to have tracked victims' porn habits to try to extort them. That's a far cry from actually doing so. (And no, they aren't actually doing it.)

Right? I have a spam folder full of automated "we saw what you did and recorded it and we're gonna send it to everyone unless you give us bitcoin".

The best thing against this is to promote sex-positive values. You can't be blackmailed about some sex habits if you're not going to be ashamed of them :) it will also really tick conservatives off which isn't a bad side-effect.

The only sexual habits people should be ashamed of are non-consensual sex and anything underage of course.

But the conservative values are the very reason many people can be blackmailed in the first place.

> You poor summer child.

Being condescending doesn't help your case.

Link-bombing me with stories about Bitcoin scammers and South Korean telegram scams has nothing to do with your claim that politicians are using Discord to blackmail people about their porn habits.

If state-level spy agencies wanted to spy on someone's porn habits, they do not need to kindly ask Discord to collect that person's ID.

> If state-level spy agencies wanted to spy on someone's porn habits, they do not need to kindly ask Discord to collect that person's ID.

The first time I ever had a conversation about privacy concerns with anyone was around 1999. I've been hearing this kind of argument ever since then. Meanwhile, the erosion of privacy since back then has been nothing short of staggering.

We're at the point where we have government using Palantir to target the people, yet somehow privacy concerns keep falling on deaf ears and keep producing the same old "government doesn't need this latest privacy-eroding change" knee-jerk non-argument.

No, they might not need it, strictly speaking, but it sure as hell comes in handy, not to mention that it shifts the Overton window and serves as a stepping stone for the next invasion of privacy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com