The Current Events Thread

[Dedivax]

Does that mean they are drift compatible?

[Barabba]

Now we can finally see what the dogs are planning.

[D-vid]

8 year old shoots grandma after playing GTA
Everyone talks about the videogame, no one asks why an 8 year old has GTA IV or how he got to a loaded gun.
Same old, same old.

[Kamak]

Scientist manages to link his brain to another's and controls finger movement.

They managed to link basic thoughts together and one of the scientists managed to control what the other typed on a keyboard.
This is the first step to finally becoming a hivemind race.

But if one tries to send a thought of Kadabra to the other, will it be an Alakazam when it arrives?

Finally, we can trade in our heads.

[Syobon]

"US and UK spy agencies defeat privacy and security on the internet"

[Brekkjern]

Hey! Americans! Remember that constitution you flaunt when the scary government tries to take your guns away? Maybe it's time to flaunt it now, but try using the fifth ammendement this time.

[Madican]

If you notice Brekk then you'd see that the UK and Europe are also willingly going along with this so try focusing your attention on the plank in your eye than the splinter in ours.

[Madican]

It's a Biblical quote that essentially means "Take care of the problem you have before berating other people for having the same one."

[Brekkjern]

I am active in the Norwegian Pirate Party. I was just wanting to get the Americans moving.

[Stranaton]

So Russia and the US are in a Mexican Standoff off the coast of Syria

[corsica]

Hey! Americans! Remember that constitution you flaunt when the scary government tries to take your guns away? Maybe it's time to flaunt it now, but try using the fifth ammendement this time.

This is not the appropriate response nor is it the right thread to have this type of conversation in.

[Syobon]

If you notice Brekk then you'd see that the UK and Europe are also willingly going along with this so try focusing your attention on the plank in your eye than the splinter in ours.

It's quite obvious the US is the driving force behind this though, although that certainly doesn't excuse the actions of European governments. It's also not certain at all which and to what extent European governements are involved in this, besides the ones that already had their own leaks like the UK.

[Brekkjern]

Hey! Americans! Remember that constitution you flaunt when the scary government tries to take your guns away? Maybe it's time to flaunt it now, but try using the fifth ammendement this time.

This is not the appropriate response nor is it the right thread to have this type of conversation in.

So this thread just got the rules of Taboo Topics by proxy? Ok.

The US, through NSA, is the driving force of this kind of surveillance. We have seen them use diplomatic sanctions against other countries, notably Spain, for not wanting to implement copyright laws that can be used as proxy to spy or censor online communication. The UK is part of this through the GCHQ which has much looser laws on how they can operate, but quite frankly, the NSA has removed all trust from the internet. You can now assume that anything you send over the internet (even if it is encrypted) is now open to anyone to read if they want to. The NSA has built in so many back doors that encryption itself is gone. Poof. Finito. If you want to send messages to another person without anyone snooping on it you have to use a third party encryption method. Suffice it to say, banking, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google and so on does not use these third party encryption methods.

You will also notice that in Norway we only have the Data Retention Directive for which there is heavy opposition. It hasn't even been implemented yet since nobody wants to take responsibility of it or pay for it. On top of that, we have a committee who is now investigating the Norwegian equivalent of the NSA because they might have been collecting too much data about Norwegians and they will not just get away with it. That is not how the Norwegian society works. You will notice that the plank in my eye has been removed and firmly nailed down. You can point out the EU hasn't done as much to stop things will constitute that I still have this plank, but Norway is not part of the EU. We are part of the European Economic Area which means we have to accept a few laws, but we rule ourselves. We can deny most, if not all we think are infringing too much and we have done so previously.

On another point, there are actually a global political movement that tries to stop this kind of thing happening. It's called the PirateParty and it has mandates in Iceland, Germany, Czech Republic and Sweden, and soon possibly Norway (election on Monday). The US version is only registered in 8 states and has yet to deliver any meaningful results, but I do encourage you to get involved. Here is a link to the US Pirate Party.

[Shad]

Yeah, I'll add that this is a thread used for serious discussion in the OP.

[Stranaton]

Tokyo for 2020 Olympics!