[comfypotato]

Would be nice if I could respond to all of you in one place, because y’all are more or less saying the same thing.

In don’t appreciate the personal attacks on my character. It’s really a testament to my point, though. The internet is private enough that you feel comfortable commenting fighting words from behind a keyboard. Hypocrites the lot of you.

It’s perfectly reasonable to say that I have no moral commitment to improving the online privacy situation in light of your given example. State actors in Saudi Arabia are so far removed from a typical citizen that they’re completely irrelevant to the discussion.

[dang]

Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? It sounds like you have a lot of experience in this area and have substantive points to make, but you've been making them in an inflammatory way that is guaranteed to worsen the discussion. We're trying to go in the opposite direction here.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

[danShumway]

> The internet is private enough that you feel comfortable commenting fighting words from behind a keyboard.

With respect, nothing said by maxbond in this thread is what I would consider to be fighting words. If someone was talking face-to-face to me and dismissed human rights violations in Saudi Arabia by saying "f** around and find out", I'd feel extremely comfortable saying to them, "if that's your view of human rights we might not be able to see eye to eye."

Privacy violations in the US itself leading to human rights violations and attacks from the government are common. Since you are a privacy researcher, you should be aware of this stuff already. I don't want to insult you by suggesting you're not. However, if I assume you are aware of how online tracking has been used in the US proper to target marginalized groups, prosecute cross-state abortions, and dox and harass activists -- then the only conclusion I can draw is that you're aware of it and don't think it changes anything about your position.

In which case, if that's your view of human rights we might not ever be able to see eye to eye on this.

[comfypotato]

If you peruse down the flagged comment nearby you’ll see maxbond backhandedly agree that I only care about myself. I’m not one to punch people in the face, but that’s grounds to be punched in the face in any bar.

That being said, it’s perfectly reasonable not to see eye to eye regarding privacy, which is effectively what I said that started this entire thread. I personally don’t think that online privacy is the front on which discussions about abortion legislation should take place. Even Google, manufacturing Chromium, takes privacy into account to a reasonable extent [0], and I personally feel that it is enough.

[0] For example, if your machine has more than 16Gb of RAM, Chromium only reports 16 because there’s no browser application that needs to know you have more than 16, and it would instantly make your device fingerprint unique.

[maxbond]

I'm sorry you feel I've attacked your character. That wasn't my intention. If I've misread or misjudged you, please do correct me, and I'll add a correction to each of the comments I've made in this thread. This offer does not expire, if you correct me tomorrow or next week or something I'll still get the comments fixed (at least, as long as I see it).

I'm genuinely sorry that you feel frustrated and insulted. Hope you have a good rest of your day.