berkeleynerd

Nicholas Merrill famously fought a 11 year legal battle (and finally won) the right to reveal all aspects of a National Security Letter (NSL) served to him. Almost all such letters are accompanied by a complete gag order.

https://www.calyxinstitute.org/news/federal-court-invalidate...

EDITED / CORRECTIONS - Thanks commenters - The battle was won by Nicholas Merrill not Ladar Levison of Lavabit fame as I originally posted.)

According to my source at Apple HQ a TV van is on the way. We should see some news coverage soon with any luck.

According to my source at Apple HQ a TV van is on the way. We should see some news coverage soon.

According to @HillRat in the other thread : "Based on open sources, NSA has a fleet of about 100 vehicles at most in CONUS, so they would be more likely to fly vehicles cross-country if DIRNSA needed to use a fleet vehicle. Having said that, NSA doesn't just arbitrarily get involved in domestic law enforcement cases, even ones involving crypto, so let's wait to see if there's more evidence than a random HN post to support this allegation." Good information and an entirely fair statement. I'm hoping someone from Apple can chime in directly.

This is a completely fair comment and my source certainly isn't fully aware of the situation...they just relayed what they saw out the window and some discussion among staff. I wanted to make sure this information was recorded for posterity at the time it happened in the (unlikely) event Tim Cook was taken away in hand-cuffs or something similarly dramatic were to happen. I'm hoping someone from Apple feels brave enough to confirm the events here on HN. Ideally with a few pictures showing the motorcade. I doubt Apple PR will comment.

A friend of mine at Apple reported multiple Black Vehicles (Lincoln Town Cars and Escalades) with at least one having MD License Plates at the Apple Executive Briefing Center this morning between 11AM and Noon. Occupants had ear pieces and sun glasses and were accompanied by a CHP (California Highway Patrol) cruiser and three motorcycle escorts. I suppose it's possible this was a quick (less than 1 hour) VIP stop but given Tim's message last night, as well as the reaction of folks on campus who were bandying about comments like "I don't want to work on this or because I don't want to be deposed" the impression certainly was it was not a friendly visit. Given Tim's very public push-back I'd think delivery of an NSL with accompanying intimidation is at least possible. I submitted this HN and updated in real-time. There's a bit more discussion here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11120365

At least one car had MD plates. I don't think the source could see all of them clearly enough to make them all out.

Also the motorcade was there for a very short period of time...under an hour. Usually VIP visits involve meet-and-greets, etc... Maybe they were delivering an NSL as you hinted at?

I thought that it might be a Secret Service detail of some sort but the timing with Tim's response to the FBI demand led me to jump to this conclusion. Well, that and that was the feeling I got from the source on campus...they were definitely intimidated and phrases like "I don't want to get deposed" were being bandied about in their department.

Source indicates cars are leaving now. Nothing on the twitters so far. Hopefully someone will chime in soon. If I see anything in my news feed I'll post it here.

I've contacted the San Jose Mercury News...hopefully they can get a reporter on site to photograph what must be a very intimidating moment for the folks at Apple.

Yes, that's my understanding. Deeply disturbing news IMHO.

Sources at Apple are reporting multiple Black Vehicles with MD License Plates at Apple Executive Briefing Center this AM. Multiple CHP escorts. Men with ear pieces and sun glasses. Rumor is MD license plate indicates NSA involvement. If anyone at Apple can confirm please let us know.

If you're interested in the CIA's involvement with the UFO phenomena check out this article on the Robertson Panel.

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

“(t)he "debunking" aim would result in reduction in public interest in "flying saucers" which today evokes a strong psychological reaction. This education could be accomplished by mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles. Basis of such education would be actual case histories which had been puzzling at first but later explained. As in the case of conjuring tricks, there is much less stimulation if the "secret" is known. Such a program should tend to reduce the current gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda. The Panel noted that the general absence of Russian propaganda based on a subject with so many obvious possibilities for exploitation might indicate a possible Russian official policy….The Panel took cognizance of the existence of such groups as the "Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators" (Los Angeles) and the "Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (Wisconsin). It was believed that such organizations should be watched because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking if widespread sightings should occur. The apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind.”

Our startup works with a remote Cray XC40 which we can only access via a combination of a REST API and SSH wrappers so...yes, EXACTLY what batbomb said. We've toyed with the idea of building the kind of abstraction layer that would, for example, allow you to choose FEniCS or OpenFEM based on the FEA capabilities you need through a common API but it's a huge undertaking we're simply not funded to accomplish so we can do little more than ideate. We'll be roaming the halls of SuperComputing 2015 in Austin, TX next week which will be informative and a lot of fun though. It's a really interesting space to work in despite all the pain batbomb mentioned.

This. It's damning. I was an attentive nerd when this and the Stacker scandal went down and I was outraged. I've been a staunch open source advocate ever since.

Microsoft's willingness to sabotage competitor's software is an established fact.

"The AARD code was a segment of code in a beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1 that would determine whether Windows was running on MS-DOS or PC DOS, rather than a competing workalike such as DR-DOS, and would result in a cryptic error message in the latter case."

"The rationale for the AARD code came to light when internal memos were released during the United States v. Microsoft antitrust case in 1999. Internal memos released by Microsoft revealed that the specific focus of these tests was DR-DOS. At one point, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates sent a memo to a number of employees, reading "You never sent me a response on the question of what things an app would do that would make it run with MSDOS and not run with DR-DOS. Is there feature [sic] they have that might get in our way?"

I'm not sure we should expect only cold, sterile data and the most banal hypothesis from a magazine targeting the general public.

Moreover, I think it's good to spark the public's imagination through informed speculation. Yes, maybe what lies over the horizon is not a mysterious land full of strange wonders but -- you know what? -- maybe it is. So to all those out there who feel it is their duty to defend the orthodoxy that we're alone in the universe from the human imagination I say just let others have their dreams. One day you may live in a very different, more wondrous world because they refused to accept the limits you seem so eager to impose on them.