I stopped moderating because there is no justification comment for either mods or meta-mods. Lots of comments deserved to be modded down to reduce the noise, but it would be less than obvious given the few choices whether it was a fair down-mod.

Rather than risk the meta-mod, I ended up commenting to clarify the downmod, which removed all moderation in the discussion. I had mod points at least twice a month last year, and ended up ignoring them completely.

They shut down money sinks, and are opening up potential new revenue streams. That's how business keeps moving forward. The reason for the closings and new launches is the same - profit.

They had to explain it to the users without alienating users. "Your service that you like costs us too much money and isn't popular enough to monetize" doesn't have that snazzy ring to it.

Google seems very much in control of themselves, outside of the various FTC probes they will be subjected to since they are trying to monopolize all data everywhere, as the stretch goal.

But this is not the government, which is for the people, by the people (the NSA's government, that is).

This is capitalist juggernaut sucking up all your data, reading your e-mails, eating your cookies and storing your wifi data so your phone knows where you are, and so does Google, so it can market intrusive ads to you. It's completely different.

There are reserved domains for just that purpose. This isn't a whoosh - this is one of those moments where you initiate direct eye contact and say, "REALLY?!"

It was an otherwise informative comment which will get down-voted, so I'll re-phrase with a word of caution.

Does the other guy have a website, and work in a different profession? If so, create your own simple page with your CV, and put a note near the top "Looking for K. Ackle of Loudmouthville, TX? Click [here]".

But be careful not to appear to be linking to someone who is simply more popular than you - so choose a brief way of implying he's just a different person, not that you constantly get messages from people trying to contact him and are annoyed by it. It's a very thin line, and your circumstances will dictate what is best to use.

Yes. It's a thing.

Either you have not had a lot of interviews lately, or you don't seek employment by simple-minded cretins. There's this whole thing where some employers want to see your private, friends-only stuff to make sure you're not cooking meth or running a brothel. Then there's this push-back so that employers can only see what is public. So, many employers do a little searching to see if you are posting pictures of alcohol-fueled parties on weeknights.

Consider the full spectrum, from requiring social media passwords, to ignoring imaginary friends completely, and you see that leaves a lot of room in between for all manner of behaviors. Then search to see if someone has posted about that, and be enlightened.

And then because they usually check up before even calling you, you may not even know they searched to see if you have a blog with obviously incorrect advice like the kid who posted a tutorial on "tracer t" that shows all of the IP addresses of users connecting to a website. He's young, and probably learned something, so no need to further embarrass him by linking here, but you've probably seen it.

So, in addition to the two sides of the "either" statement above, there's third side - maybe you're missing the part where they don't have to ask because they already know.

You stopped just short of where I was hoping you would go - Narcissism.

Facebook is a mirror and Twitter is a megaphone, according to a new University of Michigan study exploring how social media reflect and amplify the culture's growing levels of narcissism.

Facebook offers the chance to seek approval and validation, as well as feedback to alter your behavior - the link refers to this as "curating" your online presence. If you do curating that steps over into reputation management, you can look like you're trying to hide something instead of show something.

LinkedIn and similar sites about careers and such are still social media, but they are more about professional networking to increase the chances of you knowing the right people for a job change. Almost goes without saying these sites are not helpful when you are new to a career, unless you know key people, in which case you're already set.

The specific personality they want may be a narcissistic extrovert, who would do well in banking and finance, or as a CxO. Perhaps they are looking for sociopathic tendencies, because they tend to rise to the top. Or maybe they know better.

It's not just about introversion/extroversion - there is a huge amount of insight that a person will get in how you choose to express yourself, maybe not to the point of individual personality disorders, but just a gut feeling that someone is a little too this or that.

I have a tendency to detect flaws in logical arguments, or basic failure to reason, and it drives me nutso. I have posted many a tirade here pointing out those flaws, even when I agree with the premise. Sometimes people correct me, and I learn. I post mostly anonymously so I can float some trial balloons from time to time and see what gets shot down. My online presence is finding and pointing out flaws, or arguing the other side so that people can either see their own flawed rationalization or actually strengthen their argument. My job involves finding problems with requirements, design, or architecture, and being able to argue that point, so now that I've considered it for the first time, I see it as a natural extension.

1. Do not create an unnatural online presence - only do what feels right, which could be nothing at all
2. Do not create something that feels burdensome to manage, as it will go stale and you will look silly when I interview you
3. Do look at what other people have done. A lot of it has built up over time, time that you may not have. Nothing you can do about that.
4. If your employer wants your online passwords, and you don't have them, they may not believe you. You don't want to work for that company, not one bit
5. To follow from that, if your online presence helps you get a job, did you really want that job? Or would you prefer a harder-to-find employer that fits your style better?
6. Online presence means people can troll or otherwise make you look bad. Even if you do not allow comments, or use a platform that lends itself to discussion, they can show up in search results with a clear link back to your presence. It's just something to consider when you decide where and now to set up, or not to.

How does it raise the bar? The site is a binary download, which asserts that it takes my privacy seriously.

Can I download the source? Oh, sure, but between the Obfuscated C contest, Underhanded C, and compiler bugs/"quirks", can I really trust it?

I would prefer the recommendation of a privacy group, not Anonymous Coward. And for the record I would trust Linux and GCC if I were to compile from source. I wouldn't trust a binary from a random ass website.

Second reference by AC linking to nothing, with no substance, implying this is a bad company. I have not heard of it. Why should I accept your claim?

Again, I have not heard of this company, or maybe it was long enough ago that it made no lasting impression.

Would you give some context so I can evaluate your claim?

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you. I have actually not heard of Adecco. Should I have? Should I trust an anonymous coward?

Of course not, you posted a link so I can evaluate your statements. Oh that wasn't you, Trepidity (597) posted a link to The Adecco Group's home page. Which, as I see it, is propaganda, not truth.

Lots of things linked to lots of stuff, by some group... What is your point?

Honestly, this is my question. I have not heard of this company, and you posted nothing. another reply posted a link with the home page and more questions, but I don't see anything that makes me question anything other than the marketing contract's future viability.

Why in holy horseshit are you +5 insightful? You had a personal paraphrase of a hypothetical, one-sided exchange between two parties to which you, apparently, are a non-party.

I am 100% certain that some person attempted to contact Turner. Engaged is the term when you don't do this yourself. They made him some apology, he said GFY.

I hold the opinion that "Around the world in 80 {x}" is public domain, and if you happen to choose the same X as someone else in a short timespan, maybe you had the same idea independently.

I cannot judge who is correct in this case, as I am not a judge. But I won't try to paraphrase one side as to suit one side.

Speculation really doesn't help here. And I don't see how 4.1 MIME content headers relates to displaying a clickable link. The headers tell the e-mail client where to look for e-mail content, not how to display links. Maybe I missed something.

No.

I only reply because you somehow got up to +5 interesting. The patent trolls will take action against the people who make money by displaying e-mails. So Microsoft (Outlook), Google (Gmail), you know - they guys with lots of cash.

If they were to send the lawyers after the end users, it would be the people viewing links - you and me, reading non-spam, and not the spammers because they are not infringing this patent as far as I can tell. And I use the term patent extremely loosely.

You're talking about the right "against unreasonable searches and seizures" ?

It's not clear whether "the people" means the people of the United States, or everyone, since the Constitution usually says "citizens" or "persons". So it could apply only to US citizens. If that's the case, the NSA doesn't know if it's data about a citizen or not, and once it figures that out the data gets dumped.

If it should apply to everyone, then we have to define what is reasonable. Is it reasonable to capture all available information in the hope that it cracks open a lead? That's the current argument.

If you intentionally use SSL, Tor, PGP, or any other privacy tool, do you have an expectation of privacy?

This is an important argument. If you send a letter in an envelope, you expect that it will remain unopened until it gets to the recipient, and society generally agrees. If you send a postcard, you have no expectation of privacy. If you are convinced that all mail is private because sealed letters are private, you have an expectation of privacy. But most of society would see that no such expectation is legitimate.

If you use HTTP or POP or some instant messenger, all without encryption, you may *expect* privacy even though you are sending data to third parties, and it might get copied, and not just moved. Society in general would agree that people would expect it to be private - but if they knew how the internet works, they would probably change their minds.

If you use Tor, you obviously expect privacy, and society would agree. But here's the tricky part. The exit node has unencrypted data. Considering that some data includes IP addresses inside the packets, not just in the TCP or UDP headers, you are not always as anonymous as you think.

Now, if knowing the technical details makes you change your expectation of privacy, do you really have an expectation of privacy? There are lots of people who are prosecuted based on social media like FaceBook. They expected privacy, and obviously are just idiots.

Phone records and backing information has been "knowingly exposed" to a third party, even if you expect them to keep it to themselves. Police can just ask for those, and the phone company or bank can just hand the information over. They can refuse, but do so infrequently from what I can tell.

When you use HTTP, you may not consider your ISP, the hosting provider, or any intermediate hops, and society as a whole may expect privacy there, not knowing the technical details. When you use Tor, however, it is reasonable to assume that you know a little about it, at least enough to know why you want to use it.

The front page of the Tor project leads you to believe you are perfectly safe. The "Learn more" link shows red links that are "in the clear". Because Tor is an "anonymizing" solution, it never makes the claim that your information will never be revealed - only the source of it.

If an exit node can save every bit of data that goes in and out, do you really have an expectation of privacy? Or have you exposed information to a third party, which removes that expectation? I would argue that the ignorant masses would agree that HTTP does have an expectation, while the more informed Tor users knowingly give information to a third party, removing that expectation. Tor users retain an expectation of anonymity, which has nothing to do with the fourth amendment.

For the record, I believe that siphoning all Tor data is not what the founding fathers intended. But a legal challenge will only cement it in case law, eventually. Especially since the policy is to dump data that is essentially inside the US only. We don't have to trust them - they are interested in foreign data.

It is unlikely that a US citizen would have standing to bring a lawsuit to even challenge this. Once they know they have US data, it becomes uninteresting. Until then, they don't know that's what they have, and you are unlikely to be able to prove that you were harmed without identifying your data, which involves you revealing your *identity* to the NSA, defeating the purpose of anonymizing. If you have standing to sue, you would have to be using Tor for the sole purpose of having your data captured so you have standing to complain about exactly what you knew would happen - removing your expectation of privacy.

What kind of horseshit rhetoric is this? From all accounts, there are not enough TOR nodes to support much torrent activity. TOR project itself has explained this as well as common attacks against TOR users. I doubt performance is much better in 3 years. So let me re-phrase.

You cannot use Tor to download as the speed is too slow. In fact, you will most likely use it for communication purposes such as e-mails, web browsing, instant messaging, and other low-bandwidth activities.

TCP, IP, UDP are communication protocols, and anything that happens over them is a form of communication. Sharing software like linux distributions, source or binary, is communication. You're not going to do a lot of it over TOR.

An individual or group who believes it is acting in the interests of the state cannot objectively evaluate whether it is correct. Snowden did what he thought was right, based on his understanding of documents that he says came from Executive Branch organizations. We can assume from this official charge that he compromised some security, not that he shared factual information. And he could be prosecuted just based on his own statements, with his defense being that he fabricated the documents to support things he actually misunderstood.

On the other hand, a government organization is just as incapable of deciding whether it is acting in the interest of the country or just in its own self-preservation. After all, the American revolutionaries would be called domestic terrorists today, since the purpose was to overthrow the government. Taxation without representation, and other abuses of King George's court against the colonies, were clearly not in the interests of the governed people. In hindsight, Britain lost the tax revenue and resources of the colonies, and lots of colonists got shot. So it wasn't good for either side.

We had a little disagreement about slavery and states rights, with opinions so staunchly held that we fought each other. And both sides thought they were right, that they were acting in the best interests of the people. Timothy McVeigh thought he was going to spark a revolt against tyranny, and all he accomplished was killing a lot of people. Maybe he was right, but that stopped the moment he set the bomb off and failed. If he had tried another approach, maybe he could have started a change that meant something and been a hero. But no, he's just a delusional mass murderer.

Note: I'm not saying McVeigh was right about anything. He saw a government that had to change direction, and thought he could start turning that boat around. He believed he was just as good for the country as George III did, and as the revolutionaries did.

If Snowden exposed abuses without compromising US interests, he's a hero. But we don't know everything he has, and the impact it will have. He could expose abuses, and reveal information that is as damaging as what the Rosenbergs revealed, and they were executed.

Of course, exactly what the Rosenbergs revealed is still in question, even after numerous memoirs, interviews, transcripts, etc. Their intent seems pretty clear, but what they accomplished is not. And that's really the point. History will reveal the intent of BOTH parties. The truth may never be known, or multiple truths may be known as in the case of the Rosenbergs.

He can't be both a hero and a traitor, so until we know the whole story, we can't really declare him anything. It's way too early to take sides.