Why, do they have something to hide?

Also, if they're doing things they don't want other people to know, maybe they shouldn't be doing those things in the first place.

Or something.

In other words:

"Why I read less HN and you should, too!"

Forget the "media". Drop your stuff at WikiLeaks.org

Yes, that's sage advice. Let me call all my non-internet-obsessed friends and family and tell them to only get their news from a single website.

End users dont get their news from Wikileaks directly.

What Wikileaks does is breaking the ice by publishing something that everybody else wouldnt touch, and keeping it in the open.

Once Wikileaks took all the risk and blame, traditional risk averse media can jump on the bandwagon claming "It wasn't us" and serve the news to the end users.

Yes, kind of, actually:

If our media are too corrupt, then we need to create new ones that work better and change our habits. Submission to corruption can not be a mid- or long-term solution.

Why does Wikileaks get to skip your filter? And who is talking about submission to corruption?

And lose legal protection/funds from a news outlet AND a salary as a journalist.

The disadvantage: You're still funding Google b/c StartPage sells their ads.

Kind of "funny", if you remember that the US builds all kinds of stuff on other nations' soil:

- Tons of military bases (see: all over the world)

- NSA mass surveillance centers (see: Germany, and probably secret ones elsewhere)

> But it just feels creepy to email me about it this way.

In other words:

"Yes, I know it's wrong and they should not know these things about me, but I want to use their product anyway, so can we please just pretend nobody knows what's going on in our society?"

> FBI warns hacking spree on government agencies is a “widespread problem”

Another “widespread problem” is government agencies conducting mass surveillance.

It's nice to help suffering people.

The recurring pattern I see, however, is: We single out 0.001% of all cases, do something extraordinary, and make a big fuss about it in the media. All this to make us feel good about ourselves. What we don't want to fix though, are the real causes of the problems, because that's way less pleasant to do.

What are you talking about?

"What we don't want to fix though, are the real causes of the problems"

I'm pretty sure a crap ton of people are working on solving "the problem" aka cancer. The world is filled with shitty things, can't people create the occasional extraordinary experience/ scenario just to make people feel good?

If you look at statistics for access for cancer care for people with low income, you'll probably find enough places to put this money and effort into with better impact.

But that's boring.

People are also working on bringing cheaper care to people who can't currently afford it. Plus, this event was organized almost entirely for free.

Some people can only complain, all you can do is avoid them.

Sorry man, priorities - you got them wrong. Who cares about a few credit card numbers or "personal love notes" when we find ourselves living in corrupt "democracies" that are about to crumble pretty much all over the Western world.

Is it wrong when the NSA reads your email under certain conditions but who cares when it's released to everybody?

The strength of your principles can only be tested at the extremes. We can't beat corruption with wishy-washy values and situational ethics.

I welcome all efforts to fight the abuse taken as granted by the government(s).

On the other hand:

> a virtual private network (VPN) smartphone app

"smartphone app": for iOS and/or Android, I suppose. Can we trust anything that does not run on an open-source OS? Absolutely not.