What do you mean when referring to userscript extensions and dynamic code?
The latter I think refers to being able to execute code that is fetched at runtime? That certainly makes things a lot easier for developers, but I don't quite see what limits that imposes for users?
There's a range of different ways to author & uses for dynamic code.
In terms of use cases, downloaded on the fly code is definitely one example. Userscript engines like Greasemonkey, VioletMonkey, & TamperMonkey are all alao on the chopping block, which also allow user-edited code as well as downloaded code.
There's also a huge range of uses for dynamic code in general. Data stores & engines will optimize performance by using the Function constructor[1]. Cant do that anymore: basic, sensible, multi-decade long optimizations are now off the table. Being able to use eval() to dynamically generate a complex expression- no longer allowed.
It's bitterly ironic that Apple's prohibition against interpretters (a type of dynamic code) has held their platform back from allowing interesting things to run on iOS. Chrome's real rendering & js engines are blocked there. Because Apple says it's too unsafe to trust programs to do anything not statically defined, that only code that can all be fully read & understand is ok. Now here's Google & then Mozilla, bringing the exact same prohibitions against dynamic code to the web. At it's deepest heart. It's so ugly, so hypocritical, & so menacing & massive a threat to possibility, to extensions that can grow & develop.
Long hope, but a deep one: I very much hope one day (far away) a semantic-web like world wide web might emerge, but if this sick knee-capping happens the browser will never be a viable place for user agency- which must be a dynamic & growable organic thingh never be tenable as a place where user agency can grow & flourish. Extensions are amazing, but if they're restricted to single-purpose little timmicks, unflexible static predefined capabilities, Google will have insured that the only thriving systems the world will get will be inside the data center. These restrictions mortally cripple user-agency, that which is most special & most dear about the web & what set it apart from conventional software applications.
The basic problem is that the average non-technical user lacks the knowledge that these policies exist, much less their deleterious effects. This is the problem with some of the valid points RMS has been raising for decades. Look at dragnet surveillance- ask the average person who Snowden is.
Unfortunately I don't see that changing, especially since you can see the same dynamic in (nearly?) every other industry. The industry engages in widespread practices, sometimes legitimized by corrupt laws via regulatory capture, that harm our society and everyone is too busy trying to put food on the table to notice.
Ignorance is by far the best breeding ground for FUD.
Tech has gone so radically anti personal computing, exists mostly in modern mainframes (data-centers) once again. There's so little hope for good when so much of computing is so very very far away, when technics have all so swiftly effervesced up into the cloud.
That’s very idealistic that you think “justice” is what the US has in mind for him. If you haven’t noticed from the Assange case, the US fed gov’t rewrites the laws and creates its own definition of justice to try its best to murder anyone who exposes its crimes.
If the US was interested in “justice” for Snowden it would have awarded him a Congressional medal of honor instead of hunting and trying to prosecute him.
The truth already came out the day his material was released. He’s been isolated from his country, culture, family, everything he knows and loves and has to fear every day will be the day the US figures out a way to kill him or bargain with Russia to hand him over to death/lifetime imprisonment via a kangaroo court. He hasn’t sacrificed enough?
He’s one of the few patriots. The traitors are the ones working for and especially managing these unconstitutional illegal programs that continue to this day.
We don't have a kangaroo court waiting for him. This sacrificial lamb has easy street waiting for his crimes compared to Navalny. Navalny still returned home without fear, and may lose his life for it. Yet his spirit, unlike Snowden's, will live forever and cannot be killed. That's a hero vs a coward. Navalny inspires me, an American.
Equating the US and Russian justice system is hilarious. We could kill any traitor, anywhere we so chose to kill one. He's safe and running from justice in Russia, but he's not safe from the blade. The government chooses to spare him. Never underestimate the long arm of Uncle Sam.
I for one, think it's best that his true character is revealed through his self-imposed exile. He's too selfish to come home and bring attention to his cause. He's all about himself, and he hasn't suffered a lick, yet. He has spent a lot of time running though. And don't call him that. He's not American.
Benedict Arnold died in England, hated by both the Americans and English. Even the British who benefitted from him didn't respect a man who would betray his own people.
Wrong. He had a nice life in Hawaii with a big paycheck. If he was all about himself he wouldn't have done what he did, his life would have been far easier.
The proof that it's a kangaroo court is that he's being charged in the first place when what he did wasn't a crime.
I can tell that you like to live in your own reality. He violated the Espionage Act. He is a foreign agent, he won't say but supposedly now has Russian citizenship. Quite the patriot, seeking shelter in one of the least free and most oppressive European nations he could find. He harmed the US and the UK, and assisted China and Russia.
I realize you want to make that coward & villain out to be a freedom fighter, but I already provided a real freedom fighter. The comparison is stark.
William Wallace didn't hide in Paris or Berlin. Neither did the modern day Wallace in Navalny. They stood in their homeland like men. Snowden? Good for a laugh, and will go down in history as such. He was just a boy who ended up harming, and outright turning on the nation he was supposedly liberating, then hid from the consequences.
It's odd and suspicious that you have so much hate and vitriol for Snowden while the silence is deafening on the highly illegal, democracy-destroying programs he exposed. He should be protected as a whistleblower, not prosecuted under the Espionage Act. He exposed crimes by the US govt whose severity and scale are hard to overstate. That should be your concern, not where he lives, that's an irrelevant diversion from the real topic. Snowden as a person doesn't matter, at all, 0%, the only thing that matters in this discussion are the crimes he exposed. Or how about James Clapper not being in prison after he lied about these programs under oath in front of Congress.
Why change the subject constantly? I was responding to-
ask the average person who Snowden is
And I told you who Snowden is. A coward, and a traitor to his former nation and people.
He's easily exposed by looking at his actions. I have no position stated here on your various rabbit holes of whistleblower vs espionage, etc. I'm not a Constitutional scholar as you believe you are. What I can assure you, the ACLU and others would be more in front of abuse of power than you or some nerd here could ever pretend to be. Should he return "home" to show his courage, to follow through in his beliefs like actual national heroes have done throughout history.
He harmed US and UK national security. He won't admit it (why would he, he won't even face justice in the "nation he loves") but they believe he handed over his harmful material to the Russians and Chinese for their protection. The guy is a Benedict Arnold, a scumbag, no matter how you slice it. Just because you like part of the information he exposed on surveillance doesn't change the rest, nor what the whole of his actions have revealed about his intentions and character. You've been duped by a false prophet.
It's not changing the subject. The point of that statement was that most people are completely unaware of these issues. People shouldn't know who Snowden is because of his personality they should know him because of the information he revealed. You seem obsessed with him as a person for some reason.
> I'm not a Constitutional scholar
You don't have to be a constitutional scholar to understand that recording everything everyone is saying all the time is a violation of the 4th amendment. By your logic, only scholars are able to have legitimate opinions on the crimes of the government, no matter how plain and obvious they are. It's a good thing your philosophy wasn't held by the millions of people whose pressure and marches got the 13th amendment passed, almost none of them constitutional scholars.
> the ACLU and others would be more in front of abuse of power than you
They are in front, apparently you don't realize that the security state is more powerful than the ACLU. They've constructed secret courts (FISA) with secret laws written with words with secret interpretations, all designed to make these criminal programs legally impenetrable. The EFF has been suing over these problems for years, and took several years to even get a court to recognize its standing.
> you or some nerd here could ever pretend to be
And what is the point of this derogatory disrespectful statement? That because the ACLU exists, technologists that understand the mechanics of these abuses better than anyone should shut up and leave it the "scholars"?
> He harmed US and UK national security... they believe he handed over his harmful material to the Russians and Chinese
He handed over his evidence of US crimes to journalists who published it. If his goal was to hand over secrets to foreign governments he wouldn't have had it published in the news. Your evidence-free conspiracy theory isn't logical.
> Just because you like part of the information he exposed
Like it? He exposed some of the most heinous crimes of the US govt, who would like it? You apparently have no problem with these programs, which have already chilled free speech and protest against the government, because (I guess?) you're not "a scholar" and therefore unable to recognize crime when it's in your face, and because the citizens shouldn't be concerned about being the victims of crime or standing up for ourselves because the ACLU exists (???)
The points you're making are increasingly illogical.
> You've been duped
Duped by black and white evidence that even the government concedes was real? How does that work?
You missed the point. I'm not qualifying the information released, I'm qualifying his treason. I'm not commenting on the constitutionality of mass surveillance. He went about it the wrong way, then ran like a coward and hid like chicken little.
Of course Snowden isn't going to admit he handed over intel to the Russians or Chinese, but it's most likely he did. Hence he's safe from justice today, right. Believe more in your hero though. I like my heroes to have an ounce of manhood and bravery like Russia's Navalny. Edward wouldn't have 1/1000th the struggle that man has faced. We could poison him, give him cancer, anything. He's not safe. He's just blessed to have been a traitor of America, rather than a totalitarian society like the one he resides in now.
And yes, I do consider the ACLU more qualified to handle any potential US gov't abuses of Snowden. There won't be any. He's just a traitor and a coward in hiding. Hiding behind the same cheap rhetoric here about "unfairness". Yet he trusts the Russian system. You can't make this stuff up. But here you are.
If you wouldn't mind, please explain the right way. He went to his superiors first, was told to shut up and go back to work. Even when he released the black and white evidence, James Clapper stood in front of Congress and lied about the programs under oath.
> ran like a coward and hid
Not before, but after you're in his shoes, where you have US intelligence trying to figure out how to rendition you to a CIA blacksite and have you unpersoned and murdered, you can judge his wish to stay alive.
If he was a coward, he would have ignored the crimes the government was paying him to participate in like all the other people he worked with at the NSA.
> it's most likely he did
I'd argue the opposite. If his goal was to ferret intelligence to foreign countries he wouldn't have released anything to the press, the two actions are completely at odds.
> I like my heroes to have an ounce of manhood and bravery
He risked his life, and gave up everything he had, to expose these crimes to try and help his countrymen. That's enough manhood and bravery for me.
> I do consider the ACLU more qualified to handle any potential US gov't abuses of Snowden
The government is abusing Snowden without help from the ACLU right this moment by seeking his prosecution. You seem to have a very mistaken impression of the power of the ACLU.
> He's just a traitor
He literally did nothing to justify that label. The only traitors in this story are the people working for the NSA participating in these crimes against the American people.
> Yet he trusts the Russian system. You can't make this stuff up. But here you are.
You have strong opinions yet are uninformed. Snowden is in Russia because that's where he was during a flight layover at the moment the US State Department canceled his passport making it impossible for him to leave the country. If you're so angry he's in Russia (why would you care?) you can thank the US State Department.
The ACLU point was that they would watch for any injustice with a more astute mind and eye than you or anyone else here has. I don't think you have to worry about alerting HN about Edward's unfair treatment at the hands of the US government. I think there are coalitions of lawyers that will be releasing press statements if something were wrong. There won't be. It's all excuses to enable a criminal to continue his run on the lam.
The right way is however you feel is best, without running from the consequences under the justice system. I already said it a few times here, look to real patriots. George Washington, William Wallace, Alexei Navalny. Some had worse ends than others, all stood their ground till the end in what they believed. All men whose spirit will burn in the hearts of men forever.
I know Snowden's story. His passport doesn't bar him from returning home, and he's not helpless in Russia. He can leave, he chooses to stay. He either has or is still seeking a Russian passport which says it all. Forgoes American justice for Russian servitude. There's your personal hero. The boat sailed on that guy, your depiction of him sounds like someone years ago before he engaged in a full speed sprint from justice. He has exposed himself for what he is. Just accept that the story continued to evolve on him and people see it.
And the good news: the US will treat him fairly, and won't assassinate him. We could, easily. He ran from the world's longest standing democracy.
Bad news: he's a Russian. That government poisons you just for speaking in public. Most people there wouldn't dare speak their views outside of their kitchen table. Irony for your "freedom fighter" will be given they despise traitors so when he pushes the wrong button, they murder him.
What you seem to be missing is the fact that Snowden shouldn't be being prosecuted at all. He should be protected by the Whistleblower Protection Act. He shouldn't be "hiding" or "running" or whatever you'd like to call it because there shouldn't be anything to run or hide from. The second the evidence he presented was looked into the DOJ should have immediately dropped any charges against him, he should have been pardoned to protect him from any future prosecution, and he should have been awarded the medal of honor.
You're starting from this flawed premise that he needs to "face the music for his crimes" which is just completely fallacious. I couldn't care less what country he's in, again not the point. The point is the US doubled down on its crimes by not only committing them but illegally trying to prosecute someone who exposed them. For whatever reason or axe you have to grind you refuse to recognize any of that.
Again, Constitutional scholar. I don't buy any of this. I wouldn't want him to face injustice either. I don't buy it that this guy is innocent and blameless. He needs to face an open and free trial here in the USA. Let's have it out. Everyone will be heard. It'll likely be on CourtTV for you. No need for conspiracy theories and excuses for him. Let's see the freedom fighter nut up.
It does matter what country he's in, all of these circumstances are suggestive of one thing or another. No reason to stick the head in the sand. I have no axe to grind. I'm just an average person calling this guy out as I see him. I wanted to present an unpopular viewpoint on him on HN that isn't heard often, or one that people are scared of saying out loud in fear of the aimless mob tarring and feathering them for. I simply don't care, I'll speak out every time, and I'm always willing to bear any cross required for it, unlike Eddy.
if you see snowden as a traitor (someone who violated the trust bestowed on him by his government)
would you also consider that when the government did the illegal things we now know to its own citizens, that the government is also a traitor (having violated the trust bestowed on it by its citizens)?
it's a two way street, is it not? by your definition all whistleblowers who take personal risks for the common good are traitors.
The latter I think refers to being able to execute code that is fetched at runtime? That certainly makes things a lot easier for developers, but I don't quite see what limits that imposes for users?