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Yandex Mail
- Ihmahr 13y agoI don't think this would be a crazy thing to do. Russia doesn't drone 'suspected' terrorists based on their meta data.
- jdminhbg 13y agoIs this a really subtle joke...? The FSB will very definitely kill you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Anna_Politkovskaya http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Anna_Politkovs...
- alan_cx 13y agoWell, at least they got and only got the target. Drone strikes seem to regularly take out many innocents. Or are no A-Rabs innocent?
- GabrielF00 13y agoSeriously? Are you completely unfamiliar with the conflict in Chechnya and the surrounding regions? From Wikipedia's article on the Second Chechen War: > According to the 2001 annual report by Amnesty International: >> There were frequent reports that Russian forces indiscriminately bombed and shelled civilian areas. Chechen civilians, including medical personnel, continued to be the target of military attacks by Russian forces. Hundreds of Chechen civilians and prisoners of war were extra judicially executed. Journalists and independent monitors continued to be refused access to Chechnya.
- ivan_gammel 13y agoThis is not precise comparison. The Russian military actions in Chechnya are quite similiar to the ISAF actions in Afghanistan, including bombings of civilians and refusals for journalists (http://www.stripes.com/news/files-prove-pentagon-is-profiling-reporters-1.94248 http://www.stripes.com/news/files-prove-pentagon-is-profilin...) This is the face of modern warfare, not security operations. Better comparison to drone attacks on terrorists is killing of Dzhokhar Dudaev by laser-guided missiles in 1996 and, possibly, killing of Shamil Basayev in 2006. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzhokhar_Dudayev#Death_and_legacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzhokhar_Dudayev#Death_and_leg... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamil_Basayev#Death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamil_Basayev#Death
- sologoub 13y agoNote that while not as widely deployed as the US versions (most likely due to spending barriers), Russian UAVs are under active development. If/when combat ready, you better believe they'll deploy them. Probably with the same attitude as US/NATO. As sad as it might be, it's the rational thing to do - not endanger any of your citizen's lives, get the target, remain relatively untouchable... From the military's perspective, the "innocents" are collateral damage, to be minimized, but acceptable within a given range.
- alan_cx 13y agoA personal friend of mine, Darren Hickey, was kidnapped by Chechen rebels. As a result of a bungled Chechen attempt to rescue him and his 3 fellow captives, he was beheaded by a road side. Have a read: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/230215.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/230215.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1215350.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1215350.stm So, yeah, I am fairly familiar with it. And let me tell you, you are not even slightly comparing the same things.
- rdtsc 13y agoSomehow that is better. It gets people who are involved in it to get their hands bloody. That is necessary when taking lives. It should be damaging to ones psyche and it should be difficult and stressful to kill. It should not be a push of a button. Go blow up kids herding goats all day, then pick up your own kids for soccer practice in Langley at night, that's what we are up to now.
- desireco42 13y agoI agree
- kpierre 13y agoKGB is much better than NSA: they simply don't have money for data processing on that scale. Yandex Mail is a great competitor to gmail, some things even work better -- you've got a separate list of thread's attachments, ability to unsubscribe from whole spam categories in one click, SMS (maybe only in russia) and so on
- ihsw 13y agoThat's a dangerous assumption to make, many world governments may have purchased intelligence from the NSA and now they'll have to re-allocate funds for locally-sourced intelligence.
- stcredzero 13y agoOutsource your domestic spying to the NSA cloud! EDIT: How do we do it? By saving money on counter-intelligence! it's a win-win!
- slig 13y agoOnly until patio11 convince them to increase the monthly price 10-fold.
- brown9-2 13y agoA quick search found estimates for the FSB's budget in 2005 was over 60 billion rubles, which would have been about $2 billion USD back then. http://www.agentura.ru/english/experts/safranchuk/ http://www.agentura.ru/english/experts/safranchuk/ That seems like a very healthy budget to me.
- ivan_gammel 13y agoFSB does not need the money for it, but they already spy on everyone for 15 years. In Putin's Russia, the ISPs purchase the necessary equipment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SORM
- Doublon 13y ago"Trust KGB to read your mail (http://www.russianpost.ru/ http://www.russianpost.ru/) "
- kpierre 13y agomore likely, trust KGB to steal your mail
- xentronium 13y agoNah, you're more likely to never receive your snail mail due to incompetence of the goddamn service. These are not photoshopped: http://cdn.trinixy.ru/pics5/20121123/mail_01.jpg http://cdn.trinixy.ru/pics5/20121123/mail_01.jpg http://cdn.trinixy.ru/pics5/20121123/mail_02.jpg http://cdn.trinixy.ru/pics5/20121123/mail_02.jpg http://cdn.trinixy.ru/pics5/20121123/mail_03.jpg http://cdn.trinixy.ru/pics5/20121123/mail_03.jpg
- memracom 13y agoWhat's the problem? This is in Russia where it gets REALLY cold in winter and never thaws for several months. Or did you think that they would haul the parcels into a heated building for sorting? Nope. As any Canadian knows, that kind of snow falls off as soon as you shake the parcel and the paper (at freezing temperatures) is so slick that it is as if it was lubricated. Most of that snow will fall off from the vibration of the ride inside the sorting building. And the recipients will never know that it happened. Plus, it is a Russian tradition to wrap things in plastic before putting them in the parcel postal boxes.
- xentronium 13y ago> What's the problem? The problem is that processing centers are overloaded. As a result, more and more boxes and parcels pile up. Sometimes it gets even more ridiculous, like recently in Moscow, when some boxes caught fire. Besides, the whole processing system is so ineffective, that you could send a box from China to Far Eastern Russia (relatively small distance), which would first land to be processed in Moscow (great distance) and then be sent back to Far East. Also, there is a queueing problem in the goddamn post offices, I won't even get started on that, it is so infuriating.
- dancryer 13y agoIn Soviet Russia, your mail reads the KGB.
- Jgrubb 13y agoReddit in-jokes will get you downvoted here, just a heads up.
- shitmaggot 13y agoShut the fuck up.
- stcredzero 13y agoIt's a Slashdot in-joke, actually.
- eli 13y agoIt's actually a Yakov Smirnoff joke, but either way it doesn't really advance the conversation very much.
- Samuel_Michon 13y agoYup, the original was: “In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, Party always finds you!” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Smirnoff#Russian_reversal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Smirnoff#Russian_reversa...
- cema 13y agoI have always thought it was all his pun on: "Under capitalism, a man exploits a man. Under socialism, it's the other way around!" But I may have been mistaken.
- Samuel_Michon 13y agoThat’s a real possibility, as that Russian (or Polish, depending on who you ask) joke had been making the rounds for almost 30 years when Smirnoff moved to the US in 1977. http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/under_capitalism_man_exploits_man_under_communism_it_is_the_other_way_aroun/ http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/unde...
- alan_cx 13y agoWasn't the KGB dissolved in 1991?
- workhere-io 13y agoYes - it was superseded by FSB: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Security_Service_(Russia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Security_Service_(Russi...
- Nekorosu 13y agoI'm russian. I've left Russia for good because of weather and politics. Now I'm laughing out loud. All jokes aside it's interesting to observe politics and technology interplay. But I'm not too excited I have to take part in some of the events.
- cadalac 13y agoWhat about the low taxes you would have had there?
- ivan_gammel 13y agoFor that low taxes you get: 1. Awful state clinics 2. Corrupt police 3. Poor public infrastructure 4. Irresponsible government So, you have to pay separately for security, for medicine etc.
- cadalac 13y ago1. Many countries with good care are on the verge of bankruptcy. 2. Sad to hear. 3. From what I gather, the corruption in the construction industry extremely bad there. 4. Are they really worse than any other country? Starting off of the base of the previous regime, there's obviously going to be a lot of work to do.
- eatitraw 13y agoWhy do you refer to taxes in Russia as low? Could you please provide some comparison to other countries? I live in Russia and I don't think taxes here are low.
- smnrchrds 13y agoI actually think Yandex is a good alternative. Assume that all countries have similar projects like PRISM. Which one would you rather have: your country spying on you or a foreign country? If your country is spying on you, it can use the data it gathers against you in a court, etc. If it's a foreign country, what could they possibly do?
- 3pt14159 13y agoThe NSA spies on all major email providers.
- snitko 13y agoSell it to your country?
- tptacek 13y agoTechnically, the FISA law being used by the NSA to capture phone records doesn't generate evidence that is easily used in court. If you're not a legitimate foreign target, you can suppress evidence that originates from FISA, and the NSA is obligated to destroy evidence it inadvertently collects on citizens.
- mschuster91 13y agoDo you actually believe what you're writing? Seriously, the NSA or any other govt agency would be stupid to delete data and I highly doubt that the "checks and balances" measures actually care about doing their job. If they had done so then the leak would not have been necessary.
- tptacek 13y agoYes, I actually believe what I'm writing. If you doubt any of the checks and balances work, what's there to discuss? The only conclusion I see you as being able to come to is that we'd have to eliminate all foreign signals intelligence.
- 13y ago
- jmngomes 13y agoWe're going from "companies launching social networks so they can get your data to do better advertising" to "governments launching social web services so they can get your data do better 'threat monitoring'"
- wcunning 13y agoSlightly off-topic, but how do people here think Yandex search stacks up against Google? I mostly use DuckDuckGo at this point, but I like to have several alternatives and Google is not going to be one of them anymore.
- tripzilch 13y agoIt's pretty ok. It definitely crawls a different part of the web than G and DDG, so that's always refreshing. I used to like it because it still had a lean, plain HTML no-frills interface, but I see they've added some JS interactivity to it (not much, though). I thought they had an English version, but I can't find the link :) So all I'm seeing is Russian, which I cannot read.
- ash 13y ago> I thought they had an English version, but I can't find the link :) http://www.yandex.com/ http://www.yandex.com/
- tptacek 13y agoI'm sure the FSB and SVR are only looking at the metadata.
- eli 13y agoSo is this post just an excuse to make snarky comments or is there a point you're trying to make?
- dantillberg 13y agoI imagine the NSA will still find a way to read your mail. Remember how Google complained loudly about Chinese hackers breaking into a few Chinese dissidents' gmail accounts? How pedestrian of them. The NSA is apparently far more efficient at that game.
- ck2 13y agoDidn't east germany have warehouses of piles of paper of records of everyone spying on each other? It bothers me as a progressive that many liberals don't see how we are a hop, skip and jump away from that mentality. From birth to death there is going to be a record of your child's phone calls, friends, dates, etc. It will never be deleted.
- buster 13y agoAye, and we're still at it deciphering shreddered papers :) http://www.goethe.de/ges/pok/ddg/en2491168.htm http://www.goethe.de/ges/pok/ddg/en2491168.htm
- ck2 13y agoThis quote from that article gives me chills because it's what they are saying now: Erich Mielke's mania for information: the long-time head of the Stasi, Mielke believed that "you have to know everything in order to be completely safe"
- buster 13y agoThat's a really good quote in the light of the NSA drama.. i still don't understand how people can defend this..
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- api 13y agoActually you laugh, but being spied on by someone with no jurisdiction over you is better than being spied on by someone who can name you an enemy combatant because they misunderstand your e-mails that contain a plot synopsis for a book you're working on or that can label you a child pornographer because you have naked photos of your grandkids playing in your yard.
- tptacek 13y agoSo that's happened when, in American history?
- SeanDav 13y agoAre you saying that at no time in American history has the FBI or NSA intercepted someone's emails, telephone calls or internet use and used that information to either capture them or force them into becoming a mole? As for the OP comment about the grandkids and child porn - that was a front page story a few days ago on HN.
- tptacek 13y agoI guess I'm looking for an example of the FBI or CIA misunderstanding an email and "declaring someone an enemy combatant".
- petemcc 13y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5825087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5825087
- pentheus 13y agoAt least they still have an RSS reader. It seems more like a valid replacement for most Google Reader alternatives that have passed around here before.
- sologoub 13y agoIf you are that worried about FSB spying on you, make sure you are not running a Kaspersky product: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/ff_kaspersky/all/ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/ff_kaspersky/all/ But in all seriousness... it seems to be a rather unfortunate reality of using FREE email service, that the actual level of privacy afforded to you is minimal. Russia has a very stringent set of anti-extremism laws that curb free speech big time. If your content is labeled extremist, it has to be taken down by an ISP via a swift court order. Note that the "court" is either a single judge or a small panel of judges making the decision. Under that set of laws. The hosted paid services like Google Apps is another matter all together. There the privacy expectation should be extremely high... but who knows if that's really true.
- mtgx 13y agoBecause NSA cares about whether it's a free service or a paid one, or about the company's ad tracking technology?
- huhtenberg 13y agoIf you are that worried about NSA spying on you, make sure you are not running Windows. Because, you know, routine software updates is just what the doctor ordered for on-demand installation of backdoors.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- omni 13y agoI know very little about how Linux works internally, and I use proprietary video card drivers in Ubuntu. Given Linux's internal handling of driver binaries, how much damage would these be able to cause if they contained malicious code?
- happycube 13y agoQuite a bit - not total kernel access, given the GPL symbol table export restrictions, but at least as much as a process running as root in user space. That said, it's quite likely that such malicious behavior would be detected by somebody.
- runjake 13y agoIn case you hadn't heard, the KGB no longer exists. They've been replaced by the FSB and SVR.
- akiselev 13y agoThe FSB is still colloquially referred to as the KGB.