thisiswrong

From the BBC article: ''The authorities said the pair were engaged in a scheme to sell more than $1m (£603,000) in bitcoins to users of online drug marketplace the Silk Road.''

This is ridiculous! Please tell me how selling Bitcoin to someone is illegal? What that person does with the Bitcoin they acquire not the responsibility of the exchange. This smells like another case of gvt scare tactics to protect the bankers and their out-dated & thieving business models. Anyone remember liberty exchange ?

SoundCloud is great. You really get the feeling that you're being empowered as a content consumer and creator. This is because SoundCloud really doesn't give a shit about the making people listen to what the copyright monopoly wants people to listen to (ie J Bieber/M Cyrus). YouTube is the complete opposite. You log onto Youtube and it feels like MTV all over again.

SoundCloud will become HUGE for this ability to empower its users in a way that no other streaming platform has done before. But as VC money flows into SoundCloud it will become crappy like YouTube, Deezer, Skype, Tumblr, and most other start-ups that end-up loosing the original spirit of their founders.

> Fuck Kim Dotcom. He's a scumbag piece of shit

Really? Perhaps you work for the corrupt dinosaurs at the MAFIAA or those in the UK/US government? Or perhaps you were easily fooled by the lies fed to you by mainstream media?

Either way, people on HN should remember that Kim Dotcom is one of the few successful .com businessmen to fight against Hollywood & the NSA in the name of internet freedom and privacy rights. Whatever you think of him, remember that the enemy of your enemy is always your friend.

> I've now spent more of my adult life outside the States than in the U.S., and I've also come to the opinion that the U.S. is one of the most amazing places in the world.

Yes. The American backed/sponsored slaughter of innocent men, women, and children across the Middle East and Africa in the name of profit, power, and greed doesn't seem to cross your mind. Also, it's clear that as an American you have free speech, but Americans who speak too freely might not wake up to see tomorrow [1] [2]

[1] http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-killed-michael-hastings/535... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/22/white-house-dro...

>We are apathetic, b/c we are tired.

No. Americans are apathetic because they are one of the most brainwashed peoples of the planet [1], perhaps after North Koreans. There are exceptions to this and some few Americans are very enlightened indeed.

>They have the general population divided so strongly between right and left that it almost seems like a civil war is on the verge of breaking out.

Yes - divide and rule. Think Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria(...). The same sociopaths that run US politics, own the banks, and energy giants have always thrived by creating inner conflicts within exploitable countries [2]. Meanwhile the people fight themselves instead of pushing out the imperialists.

Those that run the USA are clearly preparing for an internal civil war [3]. How it will happen and when - who knows. But i can sure tell you that the amount of US flags behind Obama in his most recent NSA speech was alarming and resembled some Nazi era nationalist/fascist appeal. Scary.

[1] http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/26/1182220/-Research-S... [2] http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-imperialism-and-iraqs-descen... [3] http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/10/06/homeland-security-pr...

I'm not so worried about net neutrality. I mean it's easy enough for the average person to eventually understand the importance of all traffic being treated the same.

Copyright extremism (and 'protecting' children - Firewall of Cameron) is what we should be worried about. Our rulers have chosen copyright as their 'Trojan horse' of choice [1] for regaining the arbitrary censorship powers that they once enjoyed. Sadly, most people can't come to terms with the importance of copyright reform in the digital age. They fail to understand that copyright has always been used by rulers as means of controlling the rhetoric and preventing 'non-aligned' publishers from reaching large audiences [2].

[1] http://torrentfreak.com/the-copyright-monopoly-was-created-a... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum

False. Speedtest.net gives results in Mbit/s. 25 Mbit/s ≠ 25 Mb/s. 1 Mbit = 0.125 MB

Yes it is. And so is Twister. But the millions who use Twitter to quietly follow people/things could potentially be profiled [1] and labeled ''terrorist™'' by association.

> Twister is designed to prevent other users from knowing (...) who you follow.

Essentially, Twister prevents the NSA from profiling you as an 'undesirable' based on who you follow.

[1] http://www.cs.umd.edu/~golbeck/pubs/Golbeck%20et%20al.%20-%2...

> any arbitrary hierarchical group of people with common interests

From the Guardian article: ''Obama’s White House staff were meeting representatives of tech firms on Friday, concluding a packed week packed of meetings with surveillance stakeholders''

I damn well think you could call corporate surveillance stakeholders a ''guild'' or an ''arbitrary hierarchical group of people with common interests''.

> Obama will follow the recommendations of a review group he set up, which suggested that the responsibility for the bulk domestic call records database should be transferred from the NSA to a third party, such as the phone companies

Mussolini: '' Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.''

It seems each 'reform' that these authoritarian sociopaths put forward just further enables/legalizes their crimes.

> a world riding the wave of the industrial revolution

> all of the people filmed were affected in some way by the Second World War

I can't agree with you more. But what makes me more sad is that it all seems to be slowly repeating itself right now. I mean we're currently riding the first ripple of the digital revolution... and war, fascism, and social unrest is back once again in the west - just under a less recognizable form.

The words from this song might be familiar to you. What's scary is that the speech makes so much sense in a present day context:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzxT7DNabB4

> This is bbc news, not fox news. I expect better.

Seeing how bbc 'news' have covered the NSA scandal so far [1] I would no longer say there's much difference between bbc and fox. Both are establishment mouthpieces, while one is quite blatant and the other more subtle.

You could perhaps argue that fox 'news' spectators are mostly clueless brainwashed Americans while bbc 'news' still has a strong following among all levels of English society.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Zvo8N3G94

Or if El Salvador and Panama dropped the USD as their currency and used BTC.

You're correct. Litecoin will go mainstream - just like bitcoin. Believe it or not but bitcoin only represents 75 percent of the cryptocurrency market [1]

But people should'nt forget that bitcoin has thousands of GigaHashes per second pointed at the network and litecoin (nor any other altcoin) doesn't. Therefore, in the short term future (next 3-5 yrs) I would says that 25 percent of of the market cap will be altcoins and 75 percent will be bitcoin.

[1] http://coinmarketcap.com/

Bearish!? You do realize that if you invested 6 months ago, your investment has risen by 1000% ?!

Also, these recent price rises are nothing compared to what will hit when mass adoption happens in 2014. It's all about perspective. Try to ''zoom out'' when thinking about where bitcoin will go.

http://blog.panampost.com/joel-fensch/2014/01/02/bitcoin-set...

Yes. Larry, and Google have gotten a lot of (well-merited) bad PR recently.

Sadly PR-stunts like these were, so far , only restricted to Reddit [1]. But it seems that HN has a growing user-base and can no longer escape the commercial shills and PR submissions like these.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/shill [1] http://factions.in/article/General/How_I_Turned_My_Back_On_R...

> Only someone watching too much 24 and Homeland would believe that [...]

You're picking up on something very interesting here. Sadly, you don't fully address the issue.

Hollywood propaganda [1] could very well be THE reason why we have become so politically apathetic and hence THE reason why such tyrants have managed to gain power in the USA/UK.

[1] http://www.globalresearch.ca/screen-propaganda-hollywood-and...

> That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians.

The irony is that your comment only emphasizes the severe disconnect between relatively wealthy & employable 'techies' versus the rest of the struggling recession-hit population.

It's hard to understand how life has changed since 2007 when, coming from a tech-related field, one generally doesn't suffer the everyday hardships that most Americans endure [1].

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-a...

Not related to the laptop: I like the retailer's site [1]. It's simple and clean. But most importantly there are no 3rd party trackers, and they have chosen not to use Google's surveillance code (Analytics) and instead they use Piwik analytics - which is probably hosted on a server that they control.

[1] http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/

Wishes for Mozilla in 2014:

-Accept cryptocurrency donations; -Break free from Google/surveilance as default search; -DDGo as default search; -Firefox OS becomes as adopted as iOS and Android; -Firefox browser regain market share back from Chrome/surveillance.

> The American public are war-mongers and game studios are simply giving the people what they wanted

By that logic GW Bush was simply trying to get reelected when he helped start a false war in Iraq and Obama is simply appealing to his electorate (and perhaps the Nobel peace prize panel) with his assassination programs.

This article raises a valid point, but sadly doesn't fully address it.

Are the same group of conspirators who illegally spy on us also pulling strings in Hollywood and at game studios to promote their agenda? This concept may seem hard for certain to believe. But a quick look at history clearly shows that oppressive and feudal rulers have actively promoted different types of story telling/theater acts or bible scripts that implicitly match their agenda.

Some articles for your thoughts...

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/mar/18/video-game...

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-01-17/government-p...

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/01/the-cia-and-other-gov...

This a great step forward. General IT education at an early age is currently non-existent in most schools around the world.

Technology is for everyone - not just a select few. Teach all kids (and adults) basic coding skills and you'll be safeguarding democracy by preventing technocracy.

Unrelated to the article: I have taken a quick browse around this site. Their content and supposed mission is very appealing and something i have much respect for. However, as an organization that is fighting for digital rights i don't agree or understand why they use Google's surveillance code (analytics) on this site.

A similar site comparison would be Bruce Scheier's blog [1], which uses no 3rd party tracking code whatsoever.

Furthermore, they don't accept cryptocurrency donations and seem to push for PayPal. Disappointing.

[1] https://www.schneier.com/

''Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.'' Oscar Wilde

> It would be lovely if it would fall through Ireland, since the Irish have consistently been the most vocal proponent of surrendering EU privacy protections to American business and government interests.

I can't agree with you more on this issue. Sadly, this point is often overlooked - even by the Irish public. A bit of insight shows that Ireland, with its recent history of colonial sufferings, has yet again 'prostituted' [1] itself to imperialism through unbelievable tax loopholes for US tech giants.

One could expand further and argue that the Irish political class also willingly enslaved the people to financial 'colonialism' when they nationalized private bank debt.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnmwuRpfKr8

I hope you've settled somewhere with a more conservative gvt that has everyone's best interests at heart (sarcasm). Perhaps your new home is in the land of the free?

> It's the question of why we all let this happen without any resistance.

Why, and how did we let this happen? Look no further : http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Holl...

'War-nography', islamophobia, narco-phobia... and the script goes on. When the masses believe that they are in danger, they will stand behind those in power for protection.

There's surprisingly little difference between Joseph Goebbels and Hollywood.

I also have high hopes for the PayPal 14

> In-Q-Tel, a non-profit venture-capital firm established by the CIA

Good old Mussolini style fascism is steaming full speed ahead in the land of the free.