rbancroft

Programming more generally is about solving problems. That involves a certain degree of scientific knowledge, mathematical knowledge, and some engineering since we generally build things that people will use. There is also a certain amount of creativity, both in expression and in terms of the ways we find solutions to problems as well. In my view, it doesn't exactly mimic any of those disciplines, but can be a mixture of all, and in varying degrees depending on the person and task at hand.

impressive... I have a snapdragon 1ghz in my phone and it is pretty decent. Would be interesting to see the difference if any on normal phone tasks.

Even if wikileaks physically returned whatever they physically received, but made a copy for their own purposes, is that still stealing? There are laws that apply to information, such as copyright, but this information is not protected by copyright. I read somewhere that there was no classified information in this release, so it also wouldn't be protected by those laws.

For me, the 2 main questions are: 1) is it legal (yes) 2) will it do more good than harm? (unknown)

Startups can be very hacker-oriented, however forming a startup to sell out to a large corp. in the end is very anti-hacker in my opinion. But you don't see people complaining about every startup article on the site. The reality seems to be that the site attracts a cross section of visitors.

Resisting unjust searches and ridiculous security theatre procedures is hacking. The fact that it is also political is irrelevant. I have a hard time understanding a mentality where these issues are not considered interesting or important as they affect our most basic rights. Is your startup or your tech really worth anything without freedom?

Really, tarsnap looks like great technology and you are obviously very technically minded. But tarsnap doesn't look like a real business but rather a technology-based side project of yours. Which really is fine if that's all you expect it to be, but to somebody like me who sees a lot of potential in your ideas, the lack of business development is puzzling and frustrating.

in the end, thank you for your contributions to open source. It is very admirable. I would love to see you make a tonne of money off tarsnap and I really do wish you a lot of success.