I visited that website, just to test my shields, and the site displays in all its lame glory, no warnings, no threats of impending doom for blocking ads... o.O
Ffox 42.0 + uBlock Origin 1.37 beta 4 + No JavaScript allowed whatsoever(courtesy of NoScript)
Ohh the blessing of having a full featured HTML firewall instead of just an ad blocker...
Also, ww125.smartadserver.com and track.adform.net are just a few of the 3rd party domains you connect to when visiting that toxic website.
Just a couple of clicks in Privacy Badger and uBlockO and boilá: entire domains banned forever.
And that website still works like a charm, not that I give two fucks anyway
It's been so sad indeed seeing the decline of such an amazing tech & science news website. I've registered there a long time ago.
I could never express in words how much I've learned over the years not only with amazing articles, but ESPECIALLY through invaluable input from thousands and thousands of regular users with hardcore knowledge of the subject matter at issue in each of them.
And when the vast majority of readers point out their factual errors, fallacies, and flagrant bias, they just "moderate" those comments (read censorship) and flat out block them.
They just seem to not give a fuck about the Ars community any more. That may be the only website I will really regret not going back ever again, if and when they pull the plug on the comment section... I'm really fed up as it is with what the site as a whole as come to.
But the amount of knowledge and "agnostic" resources one gets just by reading the comments and compiling hundreds of links that the community selflessly contribute day in and day out, on every single article... that website has amassed a treasure trove of intellectual capital, I really wish they would value it so much more...
But this seems to be the sad state of affairs... just push a fundamentalist ideology and bury the head on the sand... lalalalallala we don't hear!! lalallalalaa
For what it's worth, this is their last sorry attempt at pushing the same already a-million-times-over debunked narrative...
PLEASE Read the comment section there, 99% of readers are politely telling them that they are not buying the shit they are trying to sell, with well reasoned counter-arguments and facts... and all we get in return is a half-ass response from "some editor", yet the article's title and the subtitle remain untouched!
Adding insult to injury, this last article (as well as many previous ones) are concocted and featured under the SCIENTIFIC METHOD/SCIENCE & EXPLORATION section!!
They are a disgrace to the scientific method and to science in general with this flagrant ideology pushing and lame practices, a hundred face-palms do not cut it...
Anyway, maybe you guys can do something, I've seen many times that you cross-reference some of their articles and vice-versa, maybe you can talk to some higher-ups @ Ars before it's to late, they do not seem to care that they relabeled themselves "The Titanic-a" and with every piece of made-up hateful propaganda, with every comment they censor and block, with any piece of feedback they get telling them they are on the wrong path and they ignore, they keep rearranging chairs...
In closing, taking the world wide web as a whole, that community and the one that comments here at TechDirt, are the only ones I would really miss if they ever go under.
Sorry about a really long rant, but it's really sad for me to have been a front row witness to the decline in journalism standards of some of the most prestigious websites out there, Ars, the Guardian, Motherboard/Vice, those you mentioned and others.
Keep up the good work here, I salute you from Argentina.-
In hindsight this is just the natural course of events:
I mean... dedicating an entire section (read temper tantrum) to what they -and only they- called 'The Reddit Meltdown' O.O
Feminazi after feminazi propaganda and disinformation campaigns...
And now the final touch: stick the head in the sand "lalalala can't hear nofin!!" hahahahaha this is too adorable!!
So long Daily dot, as a long time visitor to your site (circa 2012 onwards), it is with not little sadness I say 'Fare well' I'll always remember when you used to be an interesting/fun forum to hang around with.
Not any more I'm afraid.
*goes to DailyDot bookmark's favicon* > Right click > delete
Every minute of this presentation ask yourself why encryption is so important to them... (Please disregard the title of the video. Focus on the bigger picture)
They've long realized that's the ONLY thing that can defeat surveillance and by proxy the only real threat to the Status Quo.
F..k my face this article was well written. Congrats to the author. Please have this piece as the standard for future posts. (Not saying that previous ones were bad though...)
NSA director Mike Rogers testified in front of a Senate committee this week, lamenting that the poor ol’ NSA just doesn’t have the “cyber-offensive” capabilities (read: the ability to hack people) it needs to adequately defend the US. How cyber-attacking countries will help cyber-defense is anybody’s guess, but the idea that the NSA is somehow hamstrung is absurd.
These are two of the official "Values" they claim to defend.
* To ensure professional and ethical conduct by City employees. * Be a citizen-oriented government which operates as an efficient, friendly business entity.
Of course it has everything to do with the NSA's takeover of the internet. Now that the rest of the world has a clue as to what to look for, these things are popping up left and right.
The problem with a lot of technical people having trouble in differentiating this from misconfigurations or simple stupidity, is that they are attacking the problem from an engineering point of view.
It is to be expected, after all, it's really hard to reconcile the reality of this madness and not feel overwhelmed and/or powerless.
The first reaction is to tackle the issue with an "IT mentality", to speculate on the nature of what's being discovered, and to try to come up with a solution/workaround.
Anyway, the most important thing is, in my view, that good people around the globe, who work for a free and open internet, keep looking for things like this and bring them to light.
Nobody asked or wanted to be dragged into this, but we need to come together and defend our privacy, our freedom of communication/association, without monitoring or outside interference.
Thanks man. Now, what really bothering me is what's happening at the other side of the pond. That the user adopts good practices when configuring software is a must. Been there, done that.
And then there's this little tiny thing, where at the other side, a 3rd party is actively disabling that way of communication. Whether an encrypted communication is possible or not, that's not an issue, the fact is that they are, arbitrarily and without user intervention, making it impossible to use a secure method.
If that's not a dead giveaway of the intentions behind it, I frankly don't know what is...
Taking into account the fact (well known to ISPs and the like), that 99.9 % of internet users do not have the first clue as to how to properly configure an email client.)
I don't know man... I hope it's all just a perfect blend of my level of paranoia and my lack of understanding of the subject matter.
Thanks a lot. On the token of "stupidity trumps malice", call me a tin foil, but it's undeniable at this point, when every day the entire world is waking up on what has been and is happening behind the curtains, that malice is winning by a landslide (as far as government and corporate overreach goes).
Of course, that does not take anything away from stupidity, which is rampant. But if even with all the facts and evidence that are a click away, we still attribute to stupidity things like this, we are really making it exponentially easier for this things to keep on going.
In any case, ultimately it does not matter the nature of the beast, what matters is how to avoid it. And always be vigilant of things like this.
Could anyone explain, in laymen terms, the following aspect of this issue? (Maybe it's already explained but I'm unable to see it, so I apologize in advance, I don't have the technical background to understand most of this)
The fact that packets are being modified in transit to purposely disable encryption, that happens with no warning or error message to the end user, unless of course the user knows what he/she's doing, and the connection takes place nonetheless, IN THE CLEAR, even tough the user wanted to use encryption technology?
So, the message (or wahtever) is sent, and the whole time the user thought was using an encrypted means of communication and never noticed that that wasn't the case?!
Am I missing something? Please someone tell me that the user gets an error message and the connection is NOT established, or something, that the user does not send anything.
(Even if that's the case, what about machine to machine communications? Big data sent back and forth automatically, without user intervention?)
If I'm correct, (and I hope I'm not), this should be a crime, it's encryption disabling technology without the user's consent and knowledge that it's happening in the background, in real time. What about corporate secrets, R&D, scientific/academic research, medical records, financial records, etc, etc.
This is flat out malicious interference, wtf...
I really thank anyone and everyone who can comment on this and put my suspicion (or my worst fears) to rest.
I've just deleted my Dropbox account. (Yes, I know my stuff remains in their servers, I don't care) However, I'm in the painful process of detaching myself from all US companies I've trusted with my data.
I'm taking my time tough, since it's of no use reacting in anger. I just thought appropriate to share with you my feedback to Dropbox when they asked for it, right before you press that button:
(Mind you, of all those conveniently formatted reason as to why "you are leaving", 'Privacy related issues' was nowhere to be seen. So, Reason: Other.
Not that this comes as a shocking surprise nowadays but still... I value my privacy more than anything because it's the foundation of liberty as a citizen under any democracy. It's a fundamental human right.
The fundamental thing here is that I don't use these words as a punchline, as the lame rhetoric you put in your privacy policy and other documents in your website.
National Security Process received 0-249 Accounts affected 0-249
We all know that you are not allowed to disclose how many NSL's you have been served, much less disclose how much information you produced, but what you are saying here, the way I see it, is that you have received 249 NSL's and of course you complied with every single one of them. That is particularly damaging, first and foremost to your company, because many of us lost the only thing that keeps this relationship going: Trust.
I was planning on upgrading my account maybe next year, for professional and academic reasons I will need the space to store a lot of data. I'm forced to look elsewhere, spideroak seems to be a promising alternative, we'll see...
Needless to say I am NO criminal, nor I intend to become one in the foreseeable future, I'm just a regular guy who wants to mind his own business and enjoy my well earned liberty as a free citizen. I'm a productive member of society, and I contribute in several ways to the betterment of my community.
I will neither tolerate nor sit idle when my personal data is shared willingly or otherwise with a dark branch of your government that is violating your own Constitution and your Bill of Rights, and let's not forget, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We, in the rest of the world, are well aware that in the eyes of your government, foreigners do not have any rights, by your laws we are sub-humans. So much for having "the moral high ground"...
It's a shame really, because I really liked your service, and I'm the first to acknowledge that you provide it for free. I guess I should thank you for that...
This service is really useful, the UI is neat and clean, but the blatant privacy violations you have been complicit/facilitators/compelled to forward to your government, who by the way is not mine, far outweighs the practical benefits.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that you, as a private company may be the last to deserve the blame, I'm not accusing you of this whole ordeal, however you are deceiving people with a really lame PR + Damage control campaign with what you say in your policies.
Much better than displaying "empty numbers" that lead to believe or assume the worst possible scenario, adopt a warrant canary.
That may not be much better, but it's still something, of course, if you really care about your customers and users. "Put your money where your mouth is", as you guys say up there...
To end on a positive note, thank you for all these years providing a great service, and I hope my files on Object Oriented Programming 101 have been of use to the NSA. (Don't think so, but hey... we never know) In my modest opinion, they are of little intelligence value. I'd advice looking for more renown authors. :P
Note: sorry for poor formatting, couldn't get to display hyperlinks correctly
Indeed. I've assumed long ago that the sociopaths running the Military/Intelligence[sic]/Surveillance Industry hold that as a core principle to exploit to their advantage. It's a rookie's attack vector: to undermine any reputation and trust an organization may have built over time (in this case Reddit.com) via infiltration, disinformation, obfuscation and other methods older than the sun.
That's why it's paramount to defend against such a critical and vulnerable aspect of any social entity.
On that token, there's good news and bad news: On the bright side, many strategies can be put in place and should be enforced 24/7, and you pointed out some of them. If I may I'd like to expand where you left off; I would argue that having a "small" group of people as the "Accountability & Transparency Police" is not a bad thing per se. Actually, if implemented correctly it could be very efficient. (Of course the mere total would have to come up from a ratio of the total users and some other meaningful metrics so as to be able to keep up with the data flow, but this whole point is a matter of a long debate).
As far as the community's role, I think it's essential that it complains, not once or every now and then, but every single time. And that property of a community, the ability to pin-point and address wrongdoing is not something to be taken lightly. On top of that, I posit that if anything, a group of commons has three powers that are both rights and obligations: to complain, to be vigilant that best practices are observed at all times, and to denounce/report wrongdoing WITH evidence (such as time-lapses, screen-caps, logs, etc).
All that falls under the responsibility of the entire community, and it should be. Of course, if that community perceives no upper structure of accountability, no system that will look into these things, it all falls apart. So every layer has duties to fulfill.
Admins, Mods and Managers can not do the "job" of the community and vice-versa.
On the Dark Side, It's just another canonical example of an arms-race, a never-ending battle between measures and countermeasures, because as you can imagine, even IF (huge if) a strong-organic-dynamic system is put in place and it actually works, it's just another big target to conquer in the eyes of these pseudo-soldiers without a war or a real enemy to fight. And they have endless money and time to hack at the problem. Of course, that should never be a deterrent for trying.
The Ultimate Facepalm is that in the Information Age, with one foot in the 21st century, Sysadmins, Mods, as well as Regular Systems/Networks Users, we all have to get proficient in the Sun Tsu's Art of War, and very fast.
So far that's been a must only for Management and Military, but as information has always been and always will be the ultimate power, we all have to catch up. That is, of course, if we innocent and free people of the World would want to stand a chance.
It could be another powerful tool for social gathering (at a massive level) and where you are welcome to engage in elevated discussions. That's what powers that be fear the most.
Yes, we know it, internet is 99% porn & trolls. Still, that 1% is huge and the impact those virtual oasis can have in real life is proven time and time again.
A smarter(?) move would be to NEVER trash a site that is deemed untrustworthy, otherwise common folks would be doing exactly what those in power want, hopping on the mouse wheel, stuck on an infinite loop of social sites that take a lot of time to develop, spread and establish. (That often takes a lot of time rather than little, and that is LOST time, which they also capitalize).
No, no, a common "base case" would be to get the people in charge of the site to put a system in place that guarantees transparency, at the very least in terms of Moderators and Management. (Yes, I know, guaranteed transparency belongs to the Realm of Utopia... but you get the idea. If I were running the site, or if I were a mod, I would have to answer to somebody for my actions. I would stand by my decision if I ban a subreddit and would have to give all the details as to why I made that call. My actions would then have to be audited by a group of peers or superiors.
Anyway... just some thoughts thrown into the ocean. It can't hurt to brainstorm a little...
Disclaimer: I've never used Reddit, I find that format particularly confusing. I do acknowledge however the potential it has to gather people and minds from all walks of life. And that's a huge power. And those corrupt in power know that far better than us. Sites like that should never be given up easily. To pin point the rotten apples and expose them should be a must. But never to burn the entire box.
So... Being Reddit a major social network player, it's pretty obvious it's been compromised for a long time now. They're just "doing their job" [sic] with this piece.
The bigger problem I see, is that if people loose trust in Reddit as a platform, they "win" anyway. After all, if it gets digged, it'll be just one huge platform less they have to infiltrate.
In the meantime, moderators will get defensive, users'll get mad @ them and @ the site as a whole... and nobody wins, and by nobody I mean not "the good guys", on each side of the browser.
Tactics deployed: instant profit.
Tactics discovered and denounced: Site looses trust and eventually collapses. Delayed profit. (But huge jackpot nonetheless)
Die Welt Die!
Ffox 42.0 + uBlock Origin 1.37 beta 4 + No JavaScript allowed whatsoever(courtesy of NoScript)
Ohh the blessing of having a full featured HTML firewall instead of just an ad blocker...
Also, ww125.smartadserver.com and track.adform.net are just a few of the 3rd party domains you connect to when visiting that toxic website.
Just a couple of clicks in Privacy Badger and uBlockO and boilá: entire domains banned forever.
And that website still works like a charm, not that I give two fucks anyway
Meanwhile in Dangerous Ideologues Head Quarters...
*Quick! everyone grab a wide brush!*
aaaaand Go!
smh...
If these sad creatures are "experts" I'm Elvis incarnate.
Wait... they are experts in one field actually: victim-hood
Hi everyone!
and this one especially.
Enjoy!
Mark my words: ArsTechnica is next, give it a few months...
I could never express in words how much I've learned over the years not only with amazing articles, but ESPECIALLY through invaluable input from thousands and thousands of regular users with hardcore knowledge of the subject matter at issue in each of them.
But quite some time ago they started trying really hard to push this toxic ideology of a pseudo-feminist agenda, (watch especially from minute 49:55 on-wards for a primer and in it's entirety for a complete and condensed fact-filled crash course on journalistic/moral and ethical corruption) and with disinformation tactics, and they have been relentless in this push...
And when the vast majority of readers point out their factual errors, fallacies, and flagrant bias, they just "moderate" those comments (read censorship) and flat out block them.
They just seem to not give a fuck about the Ars community any more. That may be the only website I will really regret not going back ever again, if and when they pull the plug on the comment section... I'm really fed up as it is with what the site as a whole as come to.
But the amount of knowledge and "agnostic" resources one gets just by reading the comments and compiling hundreds of links that the community selflessly contribute day in and day out, on every single article... that website has amassed a treasure trove of intellectual capital, I really wish they would value it so much more...
But this seems to be the sad state of affairs... just push a fundamentalist ideology and bury the head on the sand... lalalalallala we don't hear!! lalallalalaa
For what it's worth, this is their last sorry attempt at pushing the same already a-million-times-over debunked narrative...
PLEASE Read the comment section there, 99% of readers are politely telling them that they are not buying the shit they are trying to sell, with well reasoned counter-arguments and facts... and all we get in return is a half-ass response from "some editor", yet the article's title and the subtitle remain untouched!
Adding insult to injury, this last article (as well as many previous ones) are concocted and featured under the SCIENTIFIC METHOD/SCIENCE & EXPLORATION section!!
They are a disgrace to the scientific method and to science in general with this flagrant ideology pushing and lame practices, a hundred face-palms do not cut it...
Anyway, maybe you guys can do something, I've seen many times that you cross-reference some of their articles and vice-versa, maybe you can talk to some higher-ups @ Ars before it's to late, they do not seem to care that they relabeled themselves "The Titanic-a" and with every piece of made-up hateful propaganda, with every comment they censor and block, with any piece of feedback they get telling them they are on the wrong path and they ignore, they keep rearranging chairs...
In closing, taking the world wide web as a whole, that community and the one that comments here at TechDirt, are the only ones I would really miss if they ever go under.
Sorry about a really long rant, but it's really sad for me to have been a front row witness to the decline in journalism standards of some of the most prestigious websites out there, Ars, the Guardian, Motherboard/Vice, those you mentioned and others.
Keep up the good work here, I salute you from Argentina.-
So they pulled a Sarkeesian on us... hahaha ROFL
I mean... dedicating an entire section (read temper tantrum) to what they -and only they- called 'The Reddit Meltdown' O.O
Feminazi after feminazi propaganda and disinformation campaigns...
And now the final touch: stick the head in the sand "lalalala can't hear nofin!!" hahahahaha this is too adorable!!
So long Daily dot, as a long time visitor to your site (circa 2012 onwards), it is with not little sadness I say 'Fare well' I'll always remember when you used to be an interesting/fun forum to hang around with.
Not any more I'm afraid.
*goes to DailyDot bookmark's favicon* > Right click > delete
I wish someone would connect the dots once and for all
They've long realized that's the ONLY thing that can defeat surveillance and by proxy the only real threat to the Status Quo.
Reflect deeply on this
A delight
On the substance, great news of course!
All about pushing his stated agenda
This is all about this. No more no less.
So sad indeed...
Can you spell hypocrisy?
* To ensure professional and ethical conduct by City employees.
* Be a citizen-oriented government which operates as an efficient, friendly business entity.
How do you like dem apples?
http://southpittsburgtn.org/
They really should change the site's address to OfficialCensorship.gov :P
Re: Re: Re: legitimate use?
Re: legitimate use?
The problem with a lot of technical people having trouble in differentiating this from misconfigurations or simple stupidity, is that they are attacking the problem from an engineering point of view.
It is to be expected, after all, it's really hard to reconcile the reality of this madness and not feel overwhelmed and/or powerless.
The first reaction is to tackle the issue with an "IT mentality", to speculate on the nature of what's being discovered, and to try to come up with a solution/workaround.
Anyway, the most important thing is, in my view, that good people around the globe, who work for a free and open internet, keep looking for things like this and bring them to light.
Nobody asked or wanted to be dragged into this, but we need to come together and defend our privacy, our freedom of communication/association, without monitoring or outside interference.
Re: Re: In need of some basic clarification...
And then there's this little tiny thing, where at the other side, a 3rd party is actively disabling that way of communication. Whether an encrypted communication is possible or not, that's not an issue, the fact is that they are, arbitrarily and without user intervention, making it impossible to use a secure method.
If that's not a dead giveaway of the intentions behind it, I frankly don't know what is...
Taking into account the fact (well known to ISPs and the like), that 99.9 % of internet users do not have the first clue as to how to properly configure an email client.)
I don't know man... I hope it's all just a perfect blend of my level of paranoia and my lack of understanding of the subject matter.
Re: Re: In need of some basic clarification...
Of course, that does not take anything away from stupidity, which is rampant. But if even with all the facts and evidence that are a click away, we still attribute to stupidity things like this, we are really making it exponentially easier for this things to keep on going.
In any case, ultimately it does not matter the nature of the beast, what matters is how to avoid it. And always be vigilant of things like this.
In need of some basic clarification...
The fact that packets are being modified in transit to purposely disable encryption, that happens with no warning or error message to the end user, unless of course the user knows what he/she's doing, and the connection takes place nonetheless, IN THE CLEAR, even tough the user wanted to use encryption technology?
So, the message (or wahtever) is sent, and the whole time the user thought was using an encrypted means of communication and never noticed that that wasn't the case?!
Am I missing something? Please someone tell me that the user gets an error message and the connection is NOT established, or something, that the user does not send anything.
(Even if that's the case, what about machine to machine communications? Big data sent back and forth automatically, without user intervention?)
If I'm correct, (and I hope I'm not), this should be a crime, it's encryption disabling technology without the user's consent and knowledge that it's happening in the background, in real time. What about corporate secrets, R&D, scientific/academic research, medical records, financial records, etc, etc.
This is flat out malicious interference, wtf...
I really thank anyone and everyone who can comment on this and put my suspicion (or my worst fears) to rest.
On the topic of NSL's in bands...
I'm taking my time tough, since it's of no use reacting in anger. I just thought appropriate to share with you my feedback to Dropbox when they asked for it, right before you press that button:
(Mind you, of all those conveniently formatted reason as to why "you are leaving", 'Privacy related issues' was nowhere to be seen. So, Reason: Other.
Why:
I'll let others do the talking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_amBkYx_Fk
Not that this comes as a shocking surprise nowadays but still... I value my privacy more than anything because it's the foundation of liberty as a citizen under any democracy. It's a fundamental human right.
The fundamental thing here is that I don't use these words as a punchline, as the lame rhetoric you put in your privacy policy and other documents in your website.
https://www.dropbox.com/privacy
Adding insult to injury you mislead the users and potential customers with numbers and charts that do not resist the most superficial scrutiny:
https://www.dropbox.com/transparency
National Security Process received 0-249
Accounts affected 0-249
We all know that you are not allowed to disclose how many NSL's you have been served, much less disclose how much information you produced, but what you are saying here, the way I see it, is that you have received 249 NSL's and of course you complied with every single one of them. That is particularly damaging, first and foremost to your company, because many of us lost the only thing that keeps this relationship going: Trust.
I was planning on upgrading my account maybe next year, for professional and academic reasons I will need the space to store a lot of data. I'm forced to look elsewhere, spideroak seems to be a promising alternative, we'll see...
Needless to say I am NO criminal, nor I intend to become one in the foreseeable future, I'm just a regular guy who wants to mind his own business and enjoy my well earned liberty as a free citizen. I'm a productive member of society, and I contribute in several ways to the betterment of my community.
I will neither tolerate nor sit idle when my personal data is shared willingly or otherwise with a dark branch of your government that is violating your own Constitution and your Bill of Rights, and let's not forget, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We, in the rest of the world, are well aware that in the eyes of your government, foreigners do not have any rights, by your laws we are sub-humans. So much for having "the moral high ground"...
It's a shame really, because I really liked your service, and I'm the first to acknowledge that you provide it for free. I guess I should thank you for that...
This service is really useful, the UI is neat and clean, but the blatant privacy violations you have been complicit/facilitators/compelled to forward to your government, who by the way is not mine, far outweighs the practical benefits.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that you, as a private company may be the last to deserve the blame, I'm not accusing you of this whole ordeal, however you are deceiving people with a really lame PR + Damage control campaign with what you say in your policies.
Much better than displaying "empty numbers" that lead to believe or assume the worst possible scenario, adopt a warrant canary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary
That may not be much better, but it's still something, of course, if you really care about your customers and users. "Put your money where your mouth is", as you guys say up there...
To end on a positive note, thank you for all these years providing a great service, and I hope my files on Object Oriented Programming 101 have been of use to the NSA. (Don't think so, but hey... we never know) In my modest opinion, they are of little intelligence value. I'd advice looking for more renown authors. :P
Note: sorry for poor formatting, couldn't get to display hyperlinks correctly
Re: They're either lying or incompetent
On the same token, when pondering about the National Spying Agency, it's almost impossible for me to see an either-or statement on those adjectives.
U feel me bro? :}
Lack of accountability is the name of the game
That's why it's paramount to defend against such a critical and vulnerable aspect of any social entity.
On that token, there's good news and bad news: On the bright side, many strategies can be put in place and should be enforced 24/7, and you pointed out some of them. If I may I'd like to expand where you left off; I would argue that having a "small" group of people as the "Accountability & Transparency Police" is not a bad thing per se. Actually, if implemented correctly it could be very efficient. (Of course the mere total would have to come up from a ratio of the total users and some other meaningful metrics so as to be able to keep up with the data flow, but this whole point is a matter of a long debate).
As far as the community's role, I think it's essential that it complains, not once or every now and then, but every single time. And that property of a community, the ability to pin-point and address wrongdoing is not something to be taken lightly. On top of that, I posit that if anything, a group of commons has three powers that are both rights and obligations: to complain, to be vigilant that best practices are observed at all times, and to denounce/report wrongdoing WITH evidence (such as time-lapses, screen-caps, logs, etc).
All that falls under the responsibility of the entire community, and it should be. Of course, if that community perceives no upper structure of accountability, no system that will look into these things, it all falls apart. So every layer has duties to fulfill.
Admins, Mods and Managers can not do the "job" of the community and vice-versa.
On the Dark Side, It's just another canonical example of an arms-race, a never-ending battle between measures and countermeasures, because as you can imagine, even IF (huge if) a strong-organic-dynamic system is put in place and it actually works, it's just another big target to conquer in the eyes of these pseudo-soldiers without a war or a real enemy to fight. And they have endless money and time to hack at the problem. Of course, that should never be a deterrent for trying.
The Ultimate Facepalm is that in the Information Age, with one foot in the 21st century, Sysadmins, Mods, as well as Regular Systems/Networks Users, we all have to get proficient in the Sun Tsu's Art of War, and very fast.
So far that's been a must only for Management and Military, but as information has always been and always will be the ultimate power, we all have to catch up. That is, of course, if we innocent and free people of the World would want to stand a chance.
Re: well it shouldn't be...
Yes, we know it, internet is 99% porn & trolls. Still, that 1% is huge and the impact those virtual oasis can have in real life is proven time and time again.
A smarter(?) move would be to NEVER trash a site that is deemed untrustworthy, otherwise common folks would be doing exactly what those in power want, hopping on the mouse wheel, stuck on an infinite loop of social sites that take a lot of time to develop, spread and establish. (That often takes a lot of time rather than little, and that is LOST time, which they also capitalize).
No, no, a common "base case" would be to get the people in charge of the site to put a system in place that guarantees transparency, at the very least in terms of Moderators and Management. (Yes, I know, guaranteed transparency belongs to the Realm of Utopia... but you get the idea. If I were running the site, or if I were a mod, I would have to answer to somebody for my actions. I would stand by my decision if I ban a subreddit and would have to give all the details as to why I made that call. My actions would then have to be audited by a group of peers or superiors.
Anyway... just some thoughts thrown into the ocean. It can't hurt to brainstorm a little...
Disclaimer: I've never used Reddit, I find that format particularly confusing. I do acknowledge however the potential it has to gather people and minds from all walks of life. And that's a huge power. And those corrupt in power know that far better than us. Sites like that should never be given up easily. To pin point the rotten apples and expose them should be a must. But never to burn the entire box.
Just trying to see the whole forest...
The bigger problem I see, is that if people loose trust in Reddit as a platform, they "win" anyway. After all, if it gets digged, it'll be just one huge platform less they have to infiltrate.
In the meantime, moderators will get defensive, users'll get mad @ them and @ the site as a whole... and nobody wins, and by nobody I mean not "the good guys", on each side of the browser.
Tactics deployed: instant profit.
Tactics discovered and denounced: Site looses trust and eventually collapses. Delayed profit. (But huge jackpot nonetheless)
Infiltrate > Divide and Conquer 101
What am I missing here?
Please edit the article on those two typos
Cojones = balls, courage, valor.
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