>A/I’s cadre of radical hackers and tech developers provide a full spectrum of services – including encrypted chats and email, web hosting, secure video conferencing and streaming, anonymity shields, and a suite of other technological tools [...] while remaining anonymous, untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law.
ignoring the political leanings, this type of rhetoric will certainly be used to further the campaign against encryption, bolster the case for id verification requirements, etc. it paints the use of everyday normal tools: email, web hosting, etc. as inherently bad if they are private.
i know you have strong feelings about this, because you have over 10 comments on this submission, but i'm talking about the general rhetoric of the message (as i quoted), not specific to a/i or any left/right politics.
the general language used in this announcement is undoubtedly anti-encryption and anti-privacy. it just so happens that this time the rhetorical device is terrorism instead of protecting children.
When the government decides its going to exercise more control over speech, its a coin-flip whether the excuse will be "preventing terrorism" or "for the children".
So, you must support AWS and MS getting sanctioned for supporting the IDF, which has committed many more acts of terror and far worse forms of it. Right?
Well, they never will be. So that reveals the real intention behind this action, like someone else said: elimination of human rights and political persecution. This has nothing to do with terrorism, since the people doing it are happy to be inflicting terror globally.
Careful now, YC will get added to the terror watch list for being... "statistically lacking in support for dear leader and his current executive actions/~~corruption~~ interests, (subject to change with the wind)"
Sanctioning an email provider doesn't have anything to do with human rights, just like breaking the cables of a high speed train because you want your communist utopia to be realized has nothing to do with democracy.
as a neutral provider, they should still be punished for providing services to sanctioned entities of course, no limited to revoking their license to be a business invloved in transfering money.
>Rose City Antifa also used A/I Collective tools and services to disseminate doxing lists and release illegally obtained personal information of Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with calls for targeted attacks on ICE agents in the streets and “in their homes.”
That's what DHS does. They dish it out but can't handle it when it's done to them. Cowards.
Dishing it out but not accepting it being done to them is exactly what it means to be a monopoly on legitimate violence. When two parties are dishing it out separately to each other, and one of them calls themselves the government, this is called a civil war or at least a terrorist insurgency.
Very strange to decide to only supply a communications system to people ideologically aligned with one. That seems like it would make one stand out to an undesirable degree, and it makes me wonder whether these groups actually do this, or whether they're setting others up. If this is correct I almost whether they're going after something set up by the Italian government.
Still, it seems like this would likely to be protected under the US first amendment, and it would probably be reasonable to bring legal action in the US to avoid silly stuff happening in Europe, when this in inevitably used to send goons and annoying infiltrators across the sea to Italy and Europe.
It’s fairly common, given the presence of Disroot and Riseup. The problem for political groups is that they can’t necessarily trust non-aligned hosts not to betray them. A warrant is one thing, you have to comply regardless, but non-aligned hosts may hand over data upon request even if there is no warrant.
Yeah, but it is possible to make distributed systems.
I've written up a little toy in Erlang where you have lots of connections to peers and send dummy messages, all of the same size, to all your peers continuously and then, because of this, you can obviously send a message to whoever you like without anyone being able to know to whom you sent it. With a bit of extra delay you can add retransmission, and then you can have huge networks. Complete resistance to traffic analysis.
The only thing you need to accept to have this kind of security is to accept that message timing might be 1/s, or 0.1/s, but for things like e-mail that isn't a problem at all.
My system is not done. I had intended to finish it if ChatControl 2.0 passed, but since it didn't, and there's upon that a war on I didn't put it out, and I thought it was a bad idea to popularize this kind of thing since there was a war on, but it's quite straightforward. Many here could probably write something like it.
There are plenty of P2P and anonymous collaboration tools out there, but the problem for these groups is that members will use insecure tools unless they are as convenient and capable as what they are used to. This is the same reason that the government constantly screws up its own opsec. Nontechnical people in any group are a serious problem for maintaining security.
(This is also why law enforcement concerns about encryption are overblown.)
Yes, but then you have to accept that they can't be part of a group that needs security.
If they aren't willing to do things correctly, not be lazy etc., and you tell them that this means that adversaries will be able to pinpoint them, and pinpoint you and everybody else, and they don't express that they're going to take the effort to be reasonable, then maybe you shouldn't talk to them.
True. If you look at the average person who gets involved in radical politics, many often have issues sticking to a strict security regime. I think this may be why “black bloc” groups and the like are normally smaller splinter groups within the larger movement. Garden variety protestors, activists, and local organizers are probably fine using something like Signal.
They are splinter groups because they are violent cowards who use mainstream protests (that might actually have a shot of convincing people of something) as a meat shield for their vandalism.
Minneapolis showed us the way. Sandwich guy showed us the way.
The civil rights movement showed us the way.
Black bloc is embarrassing and associated with the consistent failures of post 60s left wing bubble politics.
The most obviously incompetent right wing government in the United States in years, and we are talking about black bloc? How about getting someone capable to make an argument against them instead of resorting to street tactics - literally the one thing this administration is salivating for as it would offer them an opportunity at mainstream redemption.
Left wing politics is truly so depressing. At this point I would respect a movement that openly argued/modeled a path for blue state secession more than the multitude of left wing degenerates who seem to have gotten their civics from V for Vendetta.
If you receive 10,000 messages per second, that's nothing. That means that you can have 10,000 people online simultaneously with 1 message per second and 100,000 people online simultaneously with 1 message every ten seconds even in the version where there is no retransmission.
American companies have contested warrants have they not? The jump from request to warrant is not the major hurdle.
Imo people often make the wrong tradeoff here. If the government really wants something jurisdictional questions will not stop them. You're actually inviting them to just steal it at that point.
Better to keep things in the US where there will at least be a clear paper trail. And instead of wasting money on non-aligned infra budget for a half decent lawyer. American companies and citizens will have an easier time holding the American government accountable than "non-aligned" hosts. The current administration in particular is routinely embarrassed in the courts.
Sometimes I read about left wing civic groups and their privacy efforts and it feels delusional. You would think many of them would relish a paper trail of persecution and the publicity of a victorious court battle. The US government will not be deterred because you are hosting something in Europe or your homegrown service. It's really a bit of a joke to think so.
Plus what do you think is going to happen in two years? It feels like now is the time to lean into being on the shit list (if you can manage it - most of them are so ineffective they barely even register) so you can benefit when the tables turn in two years.
To be fair, most US companies aren’t particularly sympathetic to radical politics, and many will cave in with only a little pressure. There may also be concerns of a secret FISA warrant.
The downside of hosting overseas is that you’re exposing yourself to the full NSA toolkit, without the usual fig leaf of legal protection.
Dark web P2P is probably the best option.
You forget that a portion of the radical left truly believes that there won’t be an election.
> The downside of hosting overseas is that you’re exposing yourself to the full NSA toolkit, without the usual fig leaf of legal protection.
We know that the NSA is spying on every American, and every communication they make no what the source or destination. Sending traffic overseas might cause the collected data to surface more often or be subjected to additional scrutiny but it's all going to be collected and scanned over either way.
ok, but the US is actively looking for terrorists to attack iran. terrorists and terrorism is constantly quite popular with the US at large.
its even embedded into the US constitution. armed resistance against the government like the 2nd amendment people like to argue for is literally terrorism - political violence by non-state actors.
the black bloc folks are second amendmenters, theyre definitionally ok with terrorism. Terrorism has only recently gotten a bad wrap, at any rate
Well this is concerning, hopefully they aren’t planning to go after Disroot and Riseup as well. The ability to access secure hosting shouldn’t depend on political orientation.
considering the state that cyberpunk was in on it's release lead to so much backlash that Sony and other digital storefronts allowed unconditional full refunds as the developers knowingly shipped out unbuggy untested garbage, I would say you also have a starring role in that documentary by supporting cdprojektred. Might be a game, I respect myself a little too much to engage with it though
It's not a statement that they're continuing to do exactly the same as before. The people publishing this piece of propaganda at least want to present it as new, which is thus a new situation and so rightly reported as news.
An organization does have to have a clear set of shared plans, toward which it takes a program of coordinated action. That's what an organization is. It's about being organized. A bunch of random individuals who share some opinions, occasionally use similar tactics, may cooperate sporadically, and describe themselves using some term or gravitate toward certain symbols, is not an organization. And it's not clear that "antifa" even does most of those things.
Nor are a bunch of small groups a single "organization" if they don't have some kind of ongoing, systemematic structure for coordinating their actions.
I'm an atheist. That doesn't make atheism an organization.
Please don't keep commenting the way you did in this thread. It's not what HN is for and it destroys what it is for. Please take a moment to read the guidelines, particularly these ones:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
HN is not the place for debating topics in that way. The guidelines specifically ask: “Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.” Please choose a different forum if you want to engage in such discussions. You're welcome here if you earnestly intend to observe the HN guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I've remember news and reporting about neo-Nazis (adjective) but not a lot of "the Neo-Nazi international terrorist organization..." (singular noun).
Seems like an ideology, not an organization.
If you look at the Treasury wording here: "so-called antifascist groups (“Antifa”)" they do this weird thing where they refer to groups, plural, but give it a singular noun as if it's one big global thing.
And that seems very intentionally misleading compared to, say, "self-described Antifa groups" or such.
It all seems consistent with right-wing/American-evangelical victimization propaganda techniques going back to talk radio in the 80s.
Copy-pasting my comment to the other poster making the same point:
"Antifa" is not being presented as an ideology, it is being portrayed as a global terror cell. The specific purpose for this is to be able criminalize leftist politics, since the state has many more tools to prevent association with foreign groups.
"Nazi" does not have a leader, but the Nazi party had a leader. Atomwaffen had a leader. Various III% groups have leaders. Strangely, these groups are not being linked to foreign right-wing groups in an attempt to make them illegal.
With respect, this is false. JDL members were certainly charged with crimes. They were not charged with belongimg to the JDL, since that would be a first amendment violation.
There are interesting reports on state.gov describing the difficulties the JDL caused with the Soviet Union, eg.:
Ok maybe I'm wrong or there is some subtle legalese but the wikipedia page states that "it was described as a "right-wing terrorist group" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2001".
Being part of a domestic terrorist group is protected by the first amendment in the United States. Being part of a foreign terrorist group is not. You can pay dues to the KKK, you cannot donate to Hezbollah.
"Antifa" is not being presented as an ideology, it is being portrayed as a global terror cell. The specific purpose for this is to be able criminalize leftist politics, since the state has many more tools to prevent association with foreign groups.
"Nazi" does not have a leader, but the Nazi party had a leader. Atomwaffen had a leader. Various III% groups have leaders. Strangely, these groups are not being linked to foreign right-wing groups in an attempt to make them illegal.
The 2001 AUMF (authorization of us of military force) needs to be repealed so that these "special designations" are no longer allowed and war has to be declared. The US federal government will still perform the same acts but at least after the 2001 AUMF is repealed they'll have to go back to secret assassinations. Instead of flouting it in semi-public with the executive disposition matrix system.
If I vet Al Qaida members on my platform, provide them services, continue to do it after several bombings, and keep their unencrypted mails and host their websites, I'm quite sure that I can be considered as an accomplice.
Would love to know who your supplier is, for... scientific purposes. FdS is controlled by managers appointed by political parties and the composition depends on who's in power in that moment, surely not "by the people" nor "communist unions".
I think a lot of this is revisionist. In most protests, what happens is the police get involved. The police don't know to to de-escalate anything, so surprise surprise - riot!
If you go back and look at the BLM riots, the police were there well before any rioting started. Having poorly trained people with guns, tear gas, and rubber bullets trying to "control a crowd" is a sure-fire way to start a riot. It doesn't help that BLM was protesting the police. Which, as you can imagine, means the police went into it pissed off.
Of course the blame is distributed, but we can't ignore the fact that the police are a major instigator of violence in protests.
Capitalism "needs to win", but there's no way it can without being ruthlessly forced upon people. Heck even forcing it is just delaying the inevitable decline/crash.
Certain elements of Capitalism (cough AI) seem to simultaneously be speedrunning its decline and keeping it on life support. What strange times we find ourselves in.
Capitalism has been judged on its own merits, and been found to be a ridiculously simplistic, unworkable system that tends toward oligarchy, massive inequality, and authoritarianism.
The state needs to get involved to protect the unworkable system.
Maybe you are right, at least partially, I can identify many of its flaws myself. However for example my homeland has tried communism/socialism, and went through brief periods of anarchy, and the same can be told about all. My family has lost a lot to all of these experiments (including the current capitalist one), but stability and modest prosperity are the best, and anarchism is as far from that as it gets, especially as represented by the Antifa.
Even the communist regime persecuted anarchism. (though they supported it when it was not at home, as a destabilizing tool)
Because the idea that there's one simple ideologically-based system that's going to solve all problems is simplistic.
Markets are useful, but that doesn't mean that societies should be organized around entirely around markets and private ownership of almost everything as the primary governing principle.
The US has really taken this to an extreme, to the point that it has legally ruled that "money is speech", which essentially guarantees an oligarchy.
Treating capitalism and communism/socialism as two sides of a binary choice is a propaganda trick, basically.
if the US considered money as speech, like code is speech, we would not be having crypto math wars on crypto/financial privacy as a concept. Tornado-cash for example would not be getting an execution with an audience in the joker "send a message" style.
No, the US govt does NOT consider "money is speech".
> Worth noting that at scale larger than family/clan/tribe it beats communism and feudalism on all relevant - to people - metrics.
No, it demonstrably doesn’t. The countries that have the least problems with the issues I mentioned are ones that combine market economics with socialist approaches.
In many ways, those countries are closer to market socialism than they are to pure capitalism.
Also, the US’s historical use of socialism and communism as a bogeyman is starting to look less defensible as China succeeds while the US is failing, and actually doing all the immoral things it used to accuse its opponents of.
> A/I (Autistici/Inventati, pronounced [au’tistiʧi]-[iŋ’vɛntati], or [iŋvɛn’tati]) was born in 2001 from an encounter of individuals and collectives of the autonomous anticapitalist movement interested in technology and active in the digital rights struggle.
Not in the tech industry, apparently. As a 50 year old, it's really shocking to see what I thought were just solid, solid underpinnings of a modern liberal society like "white nationalists are bad and should be ostracized" eroding.
ignoring the political leanings, this type of rhetoric will certainly be used to further the campaign against encryption, bolster the case for id verification requirements, etc. it paints the use of everyday normal tools: email, web hosting, etc. as inherently bad if they are private.