Landed (YC W16) on why teacher home-ownership is central to improving schools - <AUTHOR> http://blog.landed.com/teacher-homeownership-is-central-to-improving-americas-schools-3/ <comment><USER2> If they focused on home ownership for educators teaching medicine they could achieve the trifecta! Markets in which government has decided 'everyone must have this' and subsequently interfered/distorted until they've created bubbles/crashes..

I'm pessimistic that encouraging anyone to take on more debt then they could ordinarily obtain is a helpful thing in the long term.

The post talks about how educators find their rents unaffordable - how does getting them out of an unaffordable rental into an unaffordable mortgage make their situation any better? If anything it makes their situation worse. They'll be locked into a mortgage for a house bought in a bubble. If they have an opportunity to move for a better position or more salary they'll be unable to do so.

<comment><USER3> I similarly struggle with that pessimism. I mentioned below that our primary goal is to even access to homeownership across people who make similar incomes.

A big component of housing-related credit is equity (ie. collateral). Many parts of that dynamic are very rational -- having equity is a proxy for financial responsibility (you know how to save money, or have access to other people who don't mind occasionally gifting you equity). Having equity also buffers the lender from loss when housing prices cycle, which is a very important part of building resiliant financial infrastructure.

I think our high-level argument is that for a very specific group of people (tenured employees) in very specific places (urban diversified economies that are resistant to land bubbles), there is opportunity to push the edges of the box.

<comment><USER4> What do you think of teachers who re-train and get a different job? Around 30% of newly qualified teachers do this.

<comment><USER3> Our investment follows our educators regardless of what they do afterwards. I do think that less educators would re-train if they had more financial security in their chosen profession.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> [One of the co-founders of Landed]. This post doesn't really talk much about what we do. What we do is run down payment assistance programs for private schools and public school districts to help their teachers become financially secure near the communities they serve.

That's a mouthful! The economic problem here is that if you're a median wage household in a city like SF, NY, DC, etc. you will struggle to save enough money to make a conforming down payment while paying rent. Most of our teachers get trapped in a cycle of their wages increasing at the exact rate of their household expenses.

Homeownership in cities is not for everybody. But for those community members who are making a very long-term commitment to a place with very predictable salary schedules, locking in your housing payments is an important part of your security. In the absence of rent controls (which we can talk about at length on why they are often misguided), homeownership is the only form of insurance on rising housing costs.

As an owner (especially in California thanks to Prop13), you can be protected from the failure of all levels of government to build sufficient housing for rising economic activity in cities.

<comment><USER5> The fact that you are praising Prop 13, which is a large factor in the unequal funding of schools and has exacerbated the exact problems that you refer to in your blog post, is supremely troubling. I'd welcome a more in depth explanation on your thoughts on Prop 13.

<comment><USER3> I think when I came to California, I shared your position on Prop13... namely that it was a unnecessary market distortion that distributed wealth from the new to the old that ultimately worked against the apparent intent of the legislation (to make California more affordable).

I've sinced developed a more nuanced view. I believe Prop13 for owner- occupied, primary residences is perhaps flawed, but something I believe two reasonable people can disagree on (happy to explain more fully). I believe Prop13 for anything else has absolutely no rational justification and needs to be overturned at the earliest opportunity.

<comment><USER6> I'll offer my view. First, I absolutely agree that it should have been limited to primary residences -- extending it to rental and commercial property is lunacy that wasn't even justified by the primary selling point (keeping fixed- income seniors in their homes).

Secondly, I contend that the limit should never have been on the amount of tax levied, only on the amount of tax that actually had to be paid in a given year. The locality would receive a lien on the balance which would be paid only when the property was sold. (The lien could also be capped at 1/3 the selling price, to answer objections that it might become so large as to make it uneconomic to sell the property at all. I suggest this because whenever I float this proposal on HN, someone comes along and fixates on that possibility, which is actually extremely unlikely; the market would have to tank very severely for this cap to come into play.)

This way, fixed-income seniors could stay in their homes just as long as Prop. 13 allows them to, but localities would still get their money.

<comment><USER7> This is a brilliant solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This post is a bait and switch. The title and first few paragraphs talk about America, but all the analysis is focused solely on the Bay Area. No justification is given for why the results for the Bay Area should be generalizable for America writ large.

There's nothing wrong with focusing on the Bay Area, that's certainly a big enough problem to tackle. But the title, graphics and first few paragraphs should be changed to reflect that.

<comment><USER3> I don't disagree with your comment -- none of us are necessarily great blog writers :).

I would say the way we think about this is that there is both a cyclical and structural housing problem in American cities. The structural piece is that: 1\. there is a limited supply of land in near proximity to economic opportunity -- most of this land is concentrated in cities. 2\. cities need a wide variety of people to live in them to function properly. 3\. even if we paid all of those people a median wage, the median person will struggle to accumulate significant wealth while paying rent. 4\. the banking system cannot be expected to take low down payment risk without making the entire system vulnerable to another housing crash. 5\. therefore if no 3rd party equity exists, then the only people that will be able to acquire any land holdings will be the sons/daughters of those with existing land holdings (intergenerational wealth transfers)

<comment><USER9> And this isn't a problem if cities permitted adequate housing growth and goverments didn't encourage detached single family homes in urban areas with massive subsidies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Be very careful of the word "home ownership". It means different things to different people.

Much like the weasel-word "affordability" (which means better access to credit, and not cheaper prices) "home ownership" means "mortgaged, bank-owned properties". Both terms mean debt slavery and a preservation of the status quo (ie: property owners stay rich. buyers, mortgagers and prospective buyers remain poor).

What is needed is cheaper housing.

Not "affordability" or easier-to-access debt.

The way to get cheaper housing is to destroy housing as an investment class. And the way you do that is by taxing 2nd and 3rd properties at increasingly higher rates.

<comment><USER11> > And the way you do that is by taxing 2nd and 3rd properties at increasingly > higher rates.

And then those taxes end up getting passed on to renters, who are on average poorer than their home-owning counterparts.

<comment><USER12> This would be the case in an efficient market, where the risk-adjusted economic profit of renting out homes is close to 0. This is not the case because San Francisco artificially restricts supply of housing. This causes rents to be determined solely by (small) supply and (large) demand. Increasing taxes would not decrease supply of housing or increase demand for it, so it would just serve to decrease the excess economic profits landlords are making.

<comment><USER13> You can't really say that without knowledge of how high those additional taxes would be. If the costs rise to the point that a reasonable profit for the level of risk involved can't be made then prices would certainly have to rise irrespective of demand. I suspect given the nature of ever rising taxation in most municipalities that introducing this tax even in a modest form would increase perceived risk[0] of property ownership enough to increase average rents.

[0]If the cost of an unoccupied property or a nonpaying tenant goes up, rents will likely go up in response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I live in the Bay Area and my wife is a teacher. I know a lot of Bay Area teachers. And the ones that live anywhere close to the school they work at are all married to engineers, without exception. That's the only way they can afford to live near school.

<comment><USER3> You certainly have to be a dual income household to have a chance of making it as a teacher in the Bay Area. That said, educators in Mountain View are paid reasonably well ($80,000 - $130,000). Two educators can still afford to buy a home reasonably close to Mountain View, they just can't save money fast enough for a $200,000+ down payment while concurrently paying rent.

One of the first homes we did was a principal in Oakland. He was just able to make it work on a single income.

<comment><USER4> If you could wave a magic wand to fix housing for teachers, what would the solution look like?

<comment><USER3> In California, I would eliminate Prop 13 for landlords (which would increase teacher salaries 20%-30%). To me, that's a no-brainer. The other no-brainer is decreasing political barriers to additional density.

Everything else requires trade-offs. \- If you allow educator salaries to track property values instead of CPI, you create massive inequities between school districts. Maybe a regional inflation index that includes housing costs? \- If you raise salaries, you have to raise taxes. \- If you build teacher-specific housing, you're just passing the buck to the next profession.

Regardless of all the above, I think you'll need mechanisms for people to share the investment risks of expensive land ownership. I'm not sure mortgage insurance is the best mechanism -- hence Landed.

<comment> gm-conspiracy "If you raise salaries, you have to raise taxes"

This is not necessarily true, as the assessed value of all land in the area is "increased", additional tax revenue is gained without "raising" taxes. As assessed values fall, the chances of a budget shortfall increase.

To me, increase density as a solution to affordability, is as effective as adding additional highway lanes to reduce traffic congestion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> from a purely capitalistic perspective, i can understand that providing financing of this sort could be of some economic value, but i worry that it simply continues to exacerbate wealth disparity by funneling more money to already wealthy financial institutions under the guise of helping teachers and children.

rather than this type of roundabout financing, the economics can be straightforward: school districts in wealthy areas should just pay their teachers more. and it sounds like they are, at least in some districts, according to co-founder jra6 elsewhere on this page: "...educators in Mountain View are paid reasonably well ($80,000 - $130,000)...".

even so, the idea that teacher homeownership is the central problem for schools is quite a stretch. poverty and a dozen similar issues are much more likely the central problems for schools, not teacher homeownership.

<comment><USER3> I don't disagree -- I definitely struggle with this. The problem we are solving shouldn't exist. We should live in an society where people with equal incomes should have equal access to credit.

The reality is though that intergenerational wealth transfer are the primary way people acquire the necessary equity to buy homes (they get help from Mom and Dad). So I think you need both... both higher incomes, and mechanisms that create intermediary stages being renting and owning.

And on being a stretch, don't disagree. I feel the incentive is to be provocative beyond reasonableness, so apologize for that! Public schools in America are suffering death from a thousand cuts. I will tell you though that when urban school turnover (largely as a result of rising housing costs) is now up to 25%/year... it becomes your primary issue pretty fast.

<comment><USER16> Are intergenerational wealth transfers the primary means to down payments across the Bay Area or the US? The latter doesn't comport with my friends experience, but I'm always easily persuaded by hard data. Any references?

<comment><USER3> The hard data is piss poor. It's largely self-reported data collected by media agencies. Just google "Bank of Mom and Dad", there are lots of poorly done studies. This one is okay: [http://paa2005.princeton.edu/papers/51443](http://paa2005.princeton.edu/papers/51443)

The reason it's poor is because everyone has an incentive (bank, broker, parents, you) to under-report the parental funds. Parents send the gift money in advance (3 months to be exact), banks look the other way to meet equity requirements and the transaction takes place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I appreciate the effort here, but in general I don't think more fine grained mechanisms of offering selling debt to the lower classes is going to help long term.

Perhaps if you put upper limits on the assets of the people who can invest, but that seems unlikely.

Also, home ownership tends to be one of the "liabilities disguised as assets" that middle / upper middle class people love to buy.

Since our economy appears to be heading towards a post labor society with a massive divide between rich and poor, what exactly is the utility of educating kids to work in an economy that won't exist?

Seems to me the core skills we ought to help facilitate are creativity, maintaining an authentic self, emotional and Relational mastery, cooperation / democratic citizenry, permaculture, eco-regenerative architecture..

Instead of the industrialist model we have now, perhaps we ought to be teaching them how to develop, integrate and share technology into eco- regenerative housing and permaculture farms.

Use the education resources to purchase land, kids can help learn to build and work cooperatively along side adults, in a democratically run community.

You provide cool tiny-homes to anyone who needs them. And build them together, learning all sorts of great skills as you go along.

I am adivising & working on 2 such pilot projects in Costa Rica right now with a group of accomplished intellectuals (some of whom you may know). Costa Rica was chosen for a number of reasons including climate, mental health of population and a lack of a standing military.

We aim to develop a globally connected network of such projects in a neo- tribal model that fits with the emergent archaic values as post-modernism gives way to a more holistic and connected world.

Happy to invite any of you down to check out the property if you like, anthony+cr at 175g . com

Ps, I hope Landed helps some people, at least in the short term, and also that there passion to serve underserved populations with integrity continues no matter the success / failure of this particular manifestation.

<comment><USER18> Cool tiny homes with electricity and running water, I would hope? Because if not, it sounds like you're just advocating for families to live in poverty and have their children work on farms instead of attending school. Which sounds a bit... backwards.

I mean, the idea of a commune is hardly a new one. Socialists and religious folk have been at that game for a while, so I wonder how you think plan to differentiate meaningfully.

Also, > a neo-tribal model that fits with the emergent archaic values as post- modernism gives way to a more holistic and connected world.

Holy cringey buzzword mashup Batman! Sounds like the market appeal here is for the vaccine-denier crowd. I don't think many people here would agree with "archaic values" being an innately good thing. I read that sentence and I can only think of the short, brutal lives human beings experienced during the era of tribalism. Not of something holistic and connecting.

I'm also a bit amused that you say you chose Costa Rica for it's "lack of a standing military". I worry that might be interpreted in a less-than-positive way by the government there.

<comment><USER17> The idea of an archaic revival is the return to more connected communal living with the best that technology has to offer. Our property in Costa Rica is now the worlds largest permaculture farm and we also have high-speed fiber optic cable.

I'd imagine the primary differentiator is that I'm advocating for one where the founding values are best scientifically supported practices for health and community vs. a religious text or cult leader.

"Holy cringey buzzword mashup Batman!" >> Check out Don Beck's work on psycho- social development if you aren't familiar with the words / concepts.

Costa Rica is proud of its non-aggressive position and welcome other folks who aren't interested in supporting a militaristic global agenda.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Homeowner property wealth is a ponzi scheme, enriching early adopters and money lenders at the expense of wealth generators - like teachers. Helping people get on at bottom, while it may help them outbid their compatriots, ultimately benefits the higher ups to the detriment of everybody else.

<comment><USER3> Land is like any commodity of fixed supply. It is increasingly valuable as incomes and inequality grows. Until such a time that the supply/demand dynamic in cities is significantly altered, it will be valuable (whether it is properly priced is another matter altogether).

I guess I'd rather live in a place that has more distributed ownership of land, rather than less :)

<comment><USER20> No land is plenty, even in markets like bay area, its the schools that are limited commodities. add to that various building restrictions and you have perfect recipe for the mess SV is in.

I recall around 2006 Elizabeth warren did a study for most markets in US and found for every single point deviation in school performance there was 2 point deviation in housing cost. translation people are mortgaging themselves to the hilt to get the best opportunities for their kids. commute is the second factor. essentially people extend their commute till they can afford the house/school.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> But what do they actually do, and why do you need a startup to do it? Hanover, NH has a housing price problem, but Dartmouth College offers subsidized housing to its faculty. Why can't school districts do the same?

<comment><USER22> The blog post doesn't say, but if you dig through their site you eventually find an explanation. Go here then click on "how it works": [https://landed.com](https://landed.com)

No idea why the direct link to that is broken.

Anyway, it looks like, they pay your down payment, then take 25% of any profit when you sell.

<comment><USER23> Fascinating. I'm curious if this will work, strong(er) incentive to not sell and unlikely that a teacher will receive a sudden windfall permitting them to move. But, maybe if they are a part of the success story of a neighborhood, they can share the increase in their equity with Landed.com. I love the long term bet that is happening here with this startup and their customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Homeownership is a luxury, not a right. Its still within reach in many locales. If the locals value education as a product they will bid it up.

I dont see how this isnt just the market telling educators they should go elsewhere?

<comment><USER25> > Homeownership is a luxury, not a right.

Why do we spend $100+ billion per year of tax payer dollars subsidizing luxury purchases? (via the federal mortgage interest deduction)

<comment><USER26> That's chump change compared to the subsidies through FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. The US government plays a direct role in subsidizing homeownership _because it creates community cohesion_.

<comment><USER24> someone cannot have community cohesion as a long term renter? Anecdata to illustrate the point. A friend of mine and his family rented their home for something like 20 yrs. It often makes sense to have people not buy. The capitalization for a house can be long in the past, meaning that the cost vs rent is very favorable to the landlord.

Similarly, the only reason to sell an asset is when you think you can make more money on the equity elsewhere. If its true that the landlord can take their equity elsewhere for a better return, maybe the renter (soon to be owner) should be investing elsewhere?

Also, afaik young people are increasingly mobile, meaning they're going to be giving a large portion of their equity (either downpayment or profits) to real estate agents' commissions, banks closing costs, legal fees, etc etc.

if housing is not affordable, its probably because of artificially (or temporarily) restricted supply.

<comment><USER26> The data doesn't agree with your anecdotes. Millennials will move out to the suburbs just like their parents did to have a yard for their kids.

[http://www.curbed.com/2016/6/21/11956516/millennial-first- ti...](http://www.curbed.com/2016/6/21/11956516/millennial-first-time-home- trends-suburbs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> When you click on how-it-works on the navbar from the homepage, it navigates to the page as expected. But if you refresh then you get a 404. Looks like there isn't a SSL certificate on the first load, but when you refresh or navigate to the link directly there is ([https://www.landed.com/how-it- works](https://www.landed.com/how-it-works)).

</comment><comment><USER28> This is kinda like point.com right?

</comment><comment><USER29> Did you know I can't find a single link from this blog article to your website?

Even the link at the bottom which says 'landed.com' actually links to 'blog.landed.com'! And then there's actually text that says 'www.landed.com', which isn't a link! Why do you do this?!

It's brought up lots of HN and I can't believe people still do it. You've got me reading your blog, but you aren't going to link to your website? Presumably the whole point of the blog is to get people interested in what you're doing, but you aren't going to link to it? It's madness!

Edit: actually there is just one - in the author's profile at the bottom. There isn't one in any of the layout of the blog page, or the blog front page.

<comment><USER3> Shamefully poor tech competencies! Come help us! :)

<comment><USER30> You should put your e-mail in your Hacker News profile so people can contact you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This argument is so wrong in so many ways it will end being absolute truth because no one can explain its full wrongness in less than 50 hours.

</comment><comment><USER32> Articles like this are embarrassing. Here's how to fix the schools:

1\. When a parent withdraws their kid from a school that's not doing the job, the parent's money GOES WITH THEM to whatever other school they ultimately choose.

2\. If any kid in any class disrupts the class and prevents anyone else from learning, the teacher informs the principal. The principal says "Yes, sir/ma'am, I'll take care of it", removes the kid from the room, places them in a different room, and informs the kid's parents.

3\. If any kid in any classroom verbally threatens or physically assaults a teacher for any reason at all, the kid is immediately expelled. Any lawsuit over this by any parent is dismissed via lack of standing to sue, and the parent pays the school's court costs.

Problem solved.

If you work at a school that can't seem to fire incompetent teachers, you'll be out of business and good riddance.

If you teach at a school, your word is SCRIPTURE when it comes to a disruptive or dangerous student. That means you have the last word about when or whether a student is returned to your class, not the pricipal or the board or some parent who can't discipline a kid.

If you're a parent and your little snowflake can't handle the concept of "don't hit the teacher and don't start screaming in class", you are free to educate him yourself.

<comment><USER33> This is wrong on many levels. Here are some problems.

1a. This policy favors parents who can pick up and leave a school (and ship their kid somewhere else) if they're not happy with it. For low income parents, school often doubles as day care and this may not be feasible.

1b. We are ignoring the reason why this school might be failing your kid. Maybe it's a bad school. Maybe your kid has an undiagnosed learning disability. If it's the latter, and we flood the hardest-to-teach students to the best schools, what happens? In real life, schools have to worry about composing teachable classrooms, and this policy is a great way to destoy that balance.

2\. This policy, in practice, will likely prove to be both sexist and racist. Boys are WAY more likely to disrupt classrooms especially at a young age. This policy is a good way to segregate the sexes. Not that that's necessarily bad, but certainly its an undeclared side effect. On the race front, black kids are way more likely to be punished harshly for similar offenses as white kids. Who determines what is disruptive and what's kids being kids? Why on earth you think any (every??) teacher is qualified to make these distinctions is beyond me. When you're talking about public dollars, this matters.

3a. Please show me a successful school where this policy is 100% implemented. It's absurd. For teenagers, you are dealing with people at the most emotionally volatile time of their life. Any school system should seek to first serve the student, and this policy flatly fails that test. Also, why just physical assault against teachers? What about physical assault against other students? How about sexual assault? Hate crimes ok? How about libel or slander? Kids, it turns out, will be kids. There's a reason we don't let them vote or drive or buy guns. Zero-tolerance policies are unlikely to be enforceable without devastating effects on outcomes.

3b. A 1-strike policy of expulsion for outbursts will guarantee a higher dropout rate, which costs taxpayers (that's you) hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost tax revenue over the dropout's lifetime. Still a great long- term idea?

I could go on.</comment></comment>


Code is the new language of creation - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/code-new-language-creation/ <comment><USER2> I love this idea:

"What if, in the future, instead of growing a tree, cutting it down, and then using mechanical engineering to sort of reshape it into a house, we just design a tree to grow into a house or design moss or mushrooms or something else could provide our furniture for us?"</comment>


PhD Student gets quadrotor helicopter moving aggressively - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/phd-student-gets-quadrotor-helicopter-moving-aggressively-20100528/ <comment><USER2> Serious question, is there anything driving mobile robotics research besides the defense dept?

I spent my grad school time in a robotics lab and it always bummed me out that anytime you see something amazing like this it's invariable funded by a military research agency which can't wait to strap a gun to the damned thing.

Same thing for computer vision, except it was all about surveillance.

<comment><USER3> A lot of cognitive science (especially AI related) and cog psychology is DoD related as well. For FY2010 60% of the US governments total R&D spending is military 40% non-military.

<comment><USER4> Reference please?

<comment><USER3> [http://budgetinsight.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/research- and-d...](http://budgetinsight.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/research-and- development-in-the-fy-2010-defense-budget/)

> _Historically, between 50 and 60 percent of the federal R &D investment is > made in defense._

>[mentions the American Reinvestment and Recover Act] _However, despite this shift in R &D investment priorities, defense R&D spending continues to outpace non-defense R&D spending by $20 billion._

>For psychology claim, my own experience

sry takes a while to respond with /noprocast on

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Holy. Crap.

Imagine what could become of this research in 5-10 years of sustained development?

God help the poor sucker that needs to deal with one of those things when coupled with less than benevolent intentions. Imagine five of these, armed and working together?

Good bye urban combat, hello robotic assassins.

<comment><USER6> It reminds me heavily of some of the bots in The Terminator movies.

<comment><USER7> Or the manhacks in Half Life 2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice! This is more of what I'd like to see on HN.

<comment><USER9> Might be asking too much, but I'd also like to see a thread discussing the possible parts, schematics, and source code I could use to hack one of these together myself :) To start: what kind of rotors are those? Are they expensive?

<comment><USER10> $100 in parts, according to this guy: <http://vicacopter.com>

I tried (unsuccessfully) to make his design a year ago and it was more like $300 though, and that assuming you have the RF equipment.

Guy works at NASA I think. The claim that his is the only fully open source autopilot is to my knowledge true. No docs or schematics though, but these could be adapted from other projects, <http://mikrokopter.de> <http://diydrones.com>

<comment><USER11> What about the Rotomotion guys? I thought their stuff was also released as OSS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Am I the only one who thinks a future filled with robots like this is scary and pretty undesirable?

<comment><USER13> Speak for yourself, I look forward to joining the resistance and shooting at them all day long.

<comment><USER12> Who are you kidding, the resistance is going to have open source versions of all these things shooting back.

<comment><USER14> Or the resistance will "jailbreak" some of these and turn them against their evil masters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder what the control system for that looks like?

I had a professor who engineered control systems and I remember him showing me this giant PDE-filled matrix that described the control system for the helicopter.

One of his grad students even had a computer simulation where you could try to fly a helicopter with no control system on it. It was pretty much impossible to control. Whenever you tried to go forward, you were likely to flip over.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is interesting. It reminds me of manhacks from half life 2 though which scares me somewhat but thats probably intensional since its so aggressive.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm sure the DOD would probably want a word with that guy

<comment><USER18> This was my first thought. It's sad that whenever new technology is developed, governments think of ways to use the technology to kill people.

<comment><USER5> A simple look a history suggests that 99% of all human invention begins with looking for a better way of killing each other.

Don't blame governments, we're all like that.

<comment><USER19> That's kind of a weird thing to say, since the main reason so many inventions are related to weapons is directly because political entities war with each other so much. Serial killers, cuckolded husbands, and street gangs don't usually pay for new weapons inventions the way governments do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Forget recon and bomb usage. I spy swarms of assassin drones. Would make fine horror story.

</comment><comment><USER21> As the author suggested, Is there any indication that they aren't preprogrammed flight trajectories? And with so many cameras, the instrument setting is so "brute forced" that it seems hard to imagine a setting where this work could be applied. This <http://heli.stanford.edu/> seems a lot more impressive to me

</comment><comment><USER22> The maneuvers look like something out of The Empire Strikes Back.

If the maneuvering could be calculated locally in relation to sensed objects and other quad rotors, then robust swarming behavior combined with this degree of agility is easily achievable.

Small swarms of such quad rotors equipped with video cameras could autonomously patrol a certain volume around a base vehicle. Low res video feeds could be used for automatic heuristic recognition of bipedal targets.

Perfect a lightweight weapon like a Gyrojet, and this becomes a very effective area denial and recon system. Combine this with Taser projectiles and you could have a very effective crowd control or prison security system.

14 minute battery life doesn't seem like a lot, but with a swarm, individual units could be programmed to return and perch on a battery exchange dock. Such a system could be installed on a vehicle like a Humvee or an APC.

</comment><comment><USER23> well...crap. This makes the AR.Drone ( <http://ardrone.parrot.com> ) I've secretly been craving for the past couple of months seem utterly boring.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is pretty cool. However, as a technical note for others, if you decide to develop a state of the art fast-moving RC helicopter I suggest you record your experiments with a video camera that has a higher frame rate than, seemingly, 5fps.

Edit: my apologies, after re-watching the video it looks fine. It must have just been a problem on my end (although I've never seen anything like that from youtube before).

<comment><USER25> Looks pretty smooth to me... I'd give it >10fps for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you find quad-copters doing cool stuff check out also this video: [http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/18/quad-copter-responds- to-y...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/18/quad-copter-responds-to-your- voice-isnt-coming-to-a-toy-store/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I love the sound it makes when the rotors speed up to catch the copter after a maneuver.

</comment><comment><USER28> doesn't seem that crazy when you see someone doing this kind of stuff without computer assistance: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zzhriAN9Bc>

<comment><USER29> With respect to the skill displayed in that video, it's different from this research. The video you linked doesn't have the same precision displayed in the research; I don't think they'd be able to go from hovering, through a window, back to hovering as precisely as was shown in with the single copter craft.

The single copter craft does turns, flips and dances all around, but it's over a much larger area and nor is the human pilot trying to accomplish a particular task. I think he's just having fun, free-form style. The key difference, I think, is that a single copter craft can't change direction as quickly as the quad copter craft.

<comment><USER30> I do not dismiss this research: it is amazing. But, I also think you are underestimating the skill and sophistication of RC helicopter hobbyists. There are international competitions involving very complex, but well-defined and precise maneuvers.

For example, there is a maneuver named "chaos" in which the pilot continuously pirouettes _while_ continuously flipping _while_ continuously rotating the axis of the flip _while_ holding the aircraft in a single position a few feet off the ground. It is tremendously difficult to even visualize this fully.

The research video also reminded me of this video, where an RC pilot lands on a vertical wall (without velcro): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ2HlePbD20#t=1m07s>

<comment><USER27> That was an amazing stunt. Has something like that been used as a plot device in an action movie yet?

<comment><USER31> There was a stunt at the end of the Italian Job (the new one, of course) where a stunt pilot actually flew a full-size helicopter around inside a parking garage. Can't find the clip right now, probably DMCA'd :-/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Some useful research, in PhD field. Hope he keeps this one, up. Though the thought is scary if you have to confront one of these things armed with a tazer or some such nefarious immobilizing device.

</comment><comment><USER33> Is... is it wrong to get turned on by this?

My uncertainty about what I'd actually do with one is equaled only by my irrational conviction that I nevertheless need one.

</comment><comment><USER34> At this stage, I wonder if there is there a way to move these little beasts with cameras and weapons without making them too big for windows though...

</comment><comment><USER35> This is cool.

But it looks like it has too many degrees of freedom to make such fast/complicated manoeuvres steered by human.

<comment><USER36> That is what they need us (ie, programmers) for. Layers of programming jobs for a militarized swarm of these things. From twitch decisions to overall unit formation and attach plans. These would also be useful as bomb delivery devices. Think about it flying straight down, either reversed propeller spin or (more likely) upside down flight to avoid AA fire then sneaking through a window with plastic/gel explosives to take out a general hiding in an otherwise public building. Could be used for micro biological/poison attacks, like anthrax to take out key targets, or as cheap satellites for the 3rd world to spy on their people.

Of course civilian uses are vast as well, but harder to find really high priced jobs in the private industry.

<comment><USER7> Terrifying, but _so damn awesome!_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Interesting as a media-grabbing stunt, but not terribly useful. There might be applications in reconnaissance for emergency services or police, but that market is not very significant. Really roboticists need to be focussing their efforts on solving problems which will allow the industry to grow and break out from its traditional niches.

</comment><comment><USER38> Nice companions for that little dog-like robot.

The military applications are kind of creepy

</comment><comment><USER39> But can they interface with Skynet?

<comment><USER40> I soon as I saw the video I recalled Terminator 3. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpYJg5obUkg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> awesome. the first out-of-control robot swarm is gonna be so freakin scary.

<comment><USER42> If you see me walking around outside with a fishing net draped over me, well, now you know why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Watching that video gave me one of those moments when you think you are seeing the future. Something from science fiction suddenly brought into the real world. Amazing achievement from an engineering standpoint. Kudos to the guys who made it happen!

</comment><comment><USER44> DOD comment: took the words right out of my fingertips...</comment>


Etcher tracks user data without consent - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/2977 <comment><USER2> Etcher seems to be an USB flasher. The linked issue says that it phones home on startup, but there's no analysis regarding what it sends. This could be usage tracking or an update check.

While the reporter is correct that some users don't want this to happen, it doesn't look that unusual or dangerous. "Secretly spies" is unnecessarily inflammatory, I would say.

Looking at the GitHub history of the reporter, he seems to be opening quite a lot of issues like this one (asking projects to stop recommending Etcher or complaining about Netdata). He's also advertising his own standard for disabling telemetry across different applications: [https://consoledonottrack.com/](https://consoledonottrack.com/). That idea has some merit, maybe, but I don't really like such an aggressive approach.

</comment><comment><USER3> Any automatic update check would classify as "secretly spying" according to this report. This is nonsense.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, most (possibly all?) software has a "automatically check for updates?" checkbox, which would solve the author's issue, if it's just an update check.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As others have indicated, this is just an auto-update check.

[https://github.com/balena- io/etcher/blob/master/lib/gui/etch...](https://github.com/balena- io/etcher/blob/master/lib/gui/etcher.js)

This makes me very curious as to the motivation behind such an inflammatory issue report. Does this individual work for a competitor, or have some other issue with balena?

<comment><USER2> Nah, he's been doing that for other projects.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> He also wants removal Etcher from Brew: [https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew- cask/pull/73195](https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/pull/73195)</comment>


Show HN: We Released an Open Source Covid-19 Knowledge Graph - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/graknlabs/biograkn-covid <comment><AUTHOR> We're excited to release an open source knowledge graph to speed up the research into Covid-19. Our goal is to provide a way for researchers to easily analyse and query large amounts of data and papers related to the virus.</comment>


This is Hackathon Harassment - <AUTHOR> https://code.likeagirl.io/this-is-hackathon-harassment-6d4fdfd8cbdf <comment> aaron-lebo I understand I'm the wrong gender to be saying this, but I don't see harassment there. Maybe there was harassment (dozens of emails over a week could be it, but she never says what the emails say or even how much it is). It's just "harassment". I'm willing to believe that the guy was being threatening and harassing, but I also read into that evidence a guy who is socially inept and frustrating to work with, but not sure on the harassment part.

A further example, when she texted one of the mentors, she got back:

 _I am not trying to be too invasive in the reasons, but would like to know the reasons of the early split._

To which she states:

 _This mentor said he wasn't trying to be invasive, but he was._

Then she says that how they really should have responded was (edit: this is another actual response):

 _Thanks for letting me know, [I'm] sure you had good reasons and I'm glad to hear that you'll continue on with [Project]._

OK, I get why you'd prefer the second response, but considering what happened, it's not rude for them to ask what's up, and they even padded that question so as to not be demanding. It's possible that's an unusual situation for them. I kind of get the feeling that neither person is really fun to work with, but that's based on what's in this blog post.

I don't mean to be a jerk or victim blame or anything like that.

<comment><USER2> OP here!

If Mark was an employee who was fired and refused to leave the premises, he'd be escorted off by security. If he promised to show up a few weeks later to talk to the board of directors or investors, they'd similarly bring in security.

That's what happened here (or what he threatened to do, anyway.) After a really bad weekend, he was "fired". Then, over a series of emails with escalating demands he eventually threatened to show up at the project booth falsely representing himself on the project. Yet, he was offered exactly what he'd have gotten if he stayed on the project.

As for the rest, it's probably harder to see this if you've never had to do it before, but it's really exhausting being asked to repeatedly justify your actions in a situation like this.

When you find that one golden person who says, "I trust your judgment", it's honestly shocking. It feels good to have your judgment trusted when you go to someone saying, "Hey, I was in a bad situation and had to make a difficult decision" and they say, "That sounds tough, but I bet you made the right choice," rather than, "Tell me why you did that?"

<comment><USER3> The analogy with a company is misleading. Is Mark a cofounder or an employee of this company?

* If a cofounder, he's probably entitled to shares. As a cofounder, talking to the board or investors would fit the character (he /was/ a cofounder)

* If an employee, as employee was getting paid or equity. Upon termination, he would receive severance. I think the discussion about how many tickets, what percentage of the booth, etc isn't very different from a company firing an employee and discussing how much severance. For a company with no money, how to split the assets.

In general, as investor/board member, I would be shocked to know that an employee - who hasn't signed an IP license agreement - is walking away, without signing an IP license agreement, making the entire IP asset of the company a potential legal liability. As board member, I'd have advised the CEO to QUICKLY settle this IP dispute, to give in on everything requested (booth, tickets, etc) - BUT - to receive a signed paper claiming full ownership of the project. Booth and tickets can easily be replaced. A startup whose IP ownership is unclear will be a dealbreaker for any investments during ANY due diligence process.

<comment><USER4> Employees are paid, even if the idea fails.

Perhaps the tickets could be considered Mark's pay, but how much are the members of other projects who don't win paid?

If nothing, as seems likely, they (and Mark) aren't employees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sorry but this doesn't seem like harassment to me. Read his email without projecting any tone, it sounds totally reasonable. Your mentor also wasn't being sexist, he was suggesting you not start a startup by discarding the most passionate team member who helped write the prize-winning software.

I'm not seeing the "you're a woman and I'm threatening you" anywhere. "By the way I designed cool t-shirts, you want one?" and "Lets not have any bad vibes due to this", doesn't sound like "Do what I want or I'll kill you."

Maybe the guy is selfish, and intensely trying to "make it" (sounds like a young over-eager tech guy), but he's not threatening to attack or "victimizing" due to sexist views imo.

If someone disagrees, please provide one shred of evidence. As best I can make out its summarized with the big-text quote midway through:

"He didn't use all caps. He didn't swear. He didn't yell. All he did was calmly… threaten. Subtly… insinuate. And distance himself from reality, little by little."

I'm not impressed, the bar has been raised for claims of harassment and victimization. If you had spent your whole weekend working around the clock on a project that won the prize on your own code, only to be told your dreams were now crushed because you "weren't a good fit", you'd probably be begging to find a way to hold onto the tickets or the project as well, whether your boss was male or female.

[Edit] And also, the mentors, the coordinators, the others in the posts all seem to agree that this isn't harassment. This really points to an issue with hackathons in general. You have people contributing to a "startup", then getting tickets to an expo, all without any contracts, just some verbal agreements -- these type of disagreements are bound to happen.

<comment><USER6> This is exactly how I felt too; nowhere in his responses do I see any form or sexual harassment. Sure, the person is a little intense and doesn't seem to get the hint, but this isn't at all related to gender. There's absolutely no reason to pull gender into this at all.

At what point does the line blur between needing special treatment because you're a different gender and equality?

Edit: after rereading the article I realize my comment might've been a bit knee-jerky. However, I do feel the author puts emphasis on the gender of the people referenced in the story. Above all the line "I considered: what would a male CEO do in this situation?" feels like a forced focus on gender. But I concede; the article focusses on harassment in general, not sexual, mea culpa.

<comment><USER7> > At what point does the line blur between needing special treatment because > you're a different gender and equality?

Well, as I read this piece she's describing potentially abusive behavior, but not gender related. I read it as a shitstorm of over-intense personalities with optimistic dreams of being the next big thing creating an awful environment for eachother. Somebody of either gender could have a bitter ex- teammate who wants to undercut them.

So I read this as a criticism of the atmosphere of hackathons rather than a women-in-tech issue.

Now, the philosophical question is whether this distinction means I agree or disagree with the author.

<comment><AUTHOR> It isn't claiming to be sexual Harassment, but Harassment in general. This story would be equally awful it it happened to a man. However, a man wouldn't have to think about his personal safety as much by attending the event they won. So the result of the Harassment plays out differently for each gender.

<comment><USER8> > a man wouldn't have to think about his personal safety as much by attending > the event they won.

Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER9> A man generally is not at the same disadvantage physically should someone decide to attack or overpower them. Even if things were uncomfortable they could reasonably expect to defend themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are two ways to read this article:

1\. Be completely skeptical of the author's claims and demand proof.

2\. Give the author the benefit of the doubt.

I submit that when we ordinarily read an article, we do the second. We can't know what the other person did that was creepy or intense, but we have (presumably) all been in similar situations. The person snaps, or doesn't respond, or yells, or takes credit or any number of odious habits.

For whatever reason, some people are inclined to not give this author the benefit of the doubt and, without being there, want to give this other person the benefit of the doubt.

To them I would say this: imagine that you have an idea and recruit a technical person to help you with it. After a weekend, you tell them its not going to work for whatever reason.

Maybe you just don't like the way they smell, or they go off on goofy tangents, or you don't like their puns, or they don't laugh at your jokes. I don't care. Its just one weekend and you don't want to work with them.

You have a right to ask them not to work with you and move on. You didn't say this was forever. If the person refused to move one, what would you do?

<comment><USER11> Did she pay though?

<comment><USER10> The agreement was that the work was voluntary.

If you volunteer to fix my yard, and after a weekend, I tell you thanks but please leave, am I suddenly expected to pay for it?

<comment><USER12> > The agreement was that the work was voluntary.

I'm just not seeing that in the article.

<comment><USER13> It's made very clear in the article. That's the point of SW. It is voluntary. It's understood that you are sharing everything. Both ways.

<comment><USER12> > It's understood that you are sharing everything. Both ways.

This was my preconception, based on the hackathons I've attended.

That also doesn't fit well with the article - it seems the author was expecting it to be their company.

In the absence of a prior discussion or agreement, I would expect it to be an equal partnership.

<comment><USER13> No, not at all. There is no equal partnership. They are under no obligation to bring you on board. You are free to go your own way, and so are they. God, if there was an implied equal partnership, that would be bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Really not trying to be a stick in the mud, and Mark does give me a little pause. However, there were only two people on this team, right? Which leads me to the conclusion that you were the PM (as you specifically say you're the project leader) and Mark was the engineer? I don't go to too many hackathons, but if it's you two only, that makes me think 50/50 split. I understand if you're parting ways, sure, but this seems like a legitimate complaint from a 50/50 split team:

"While I understand the original idea was yours, I need you to understand that the prize we won together. […] That exhibition booth […] is as much mine as it is yours."

And of course either of you can choose to leave the team unilaterally, but on a 50/50 team, it seems odd that one person can "fire" the other person and take all the benefits (minus one ticket) that the team won together. If we formed a 50/50 team, and a VC gave us a bunch of funding, and I told you I was firing you and giving you some of the VC money, you would be pretty miffed.

If there's a booth to demonstrate things, then your statement here seems odd:

"The tickets being offered were exactly what he would have gotten as a team member.."

because there's more to the benefits of winning than a ticket to a conference or whatever. Additionally, you paint his email as harassment, but I really don't see it:

[https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*DQAH9nLoO8yC4rwtK...](https://cdn- images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*DQAH9nLoO8yC4rwtK61hgQ.png)

I won't continue from there as hopefully you get the idea. And I'm not blaming you, but it really does not seem like harassment, despite the narrative you're painting. It makes me think you have some angle here, but someone shouldn't be "fired" and told to leave a project that they had a 50/50 stake in because you thought they were a little gruff.

<comment><USER2> Hi, I'm the OP!

There were no engineers on this team. I have a CS background but decided that because the project would require significant AI work, the best use of time during the weekend would be user research and wireframing to validate the proof-of-concept. I did program management, UX design, and was "CEO"; Mark did graphic design.

I don't want to get too into the weeds on what the exact breakdown of work was, but it wasn't an equal 50/50.

What I know is this:

\- Techstars, the overall organization, doesn't provide guidance re: whether teams are hierarchical or non-hierarchical, or what should happen when and if teams split (which happens to 75% of them)

\- Mentors had mixed guidance; however, multiple said that because I pitched the idea, did over half of the work, and was the "project leader" I was effectively "CEO"

\- A lawyer I consulted with also said that without any partnership agreements promising a 50/50 split, "ownership" was mine as idea originator, project leader, etc.

But putting all that aside, I think the point most often overlooked is that if this was a company, if Mark was fired and then refused to leave, he'd be escorted away by security. If he threatened to show up later representing himself as an employee and talking to investors, that would be considered a credible threat and they'd take that seriously.

I didn't know if him busting into the project booth was the worst he'd try. I was considering hiring security and cancelled my trip at significant personal expense.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure the (frequent) comparison you are making to a company. In a real company, he would have received a salary for his work and equity. On the "firing" day, he would have received "severance". So if you are comparing it with a company and a termination, every termination involves some level of "severance" \- unless you are firing him for cause (I'm keeping the company- firing analogy). I doubt this would be a termination for cause (I don't like you/it's not a good fit) is not a termination for cause.

I think the problem you have experienced is that you started a project with someone else in a team of 2. You managed him as an "employee" but he felt (right or wrong) to be a cofounder. It seems you haven't discusses this prior of the project, so somehow you got stuck with a co-founder (and everything else that followed is just that).

I've been in similar situations, where cofounders have to split. It's never easy and there's always intensity involved. I'd not call them harassment though. Following again your company analogy, when you fire an employee, there is (often) drama - especially if you try to fire an employee without severance (well, in that case often there are legal problems).

Anyway, if you point out he was a volunteer at a startup weekend, do not mention the company analogy. In the company analogy - regardless if he was a cofounder or an employee - he would not walk away empty handed.

<comment><USER15> >every termination involves some level of "severance" Where does this statement come from? I don't think that's true in the U.S., not for full-time employees and especially not for independent contractors. Especially not for an unpaid position like an intern (whether legal "for school credit" or illegal), which is what this most resembles.

If she was the CEO / owner of the hypothetical company (this seems to be the point that people disagree on - was she owner or co-founder?), she absolutely has the right to fire an unpaid "employee" whose contributions were two days of work with no expectation of severance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't see any harassment in anything he wrote. Here's what I see: Web Summit is next week, and Mark has made his case to the hackathon organizers that he should get the tickets and booth since he was actually on the team, and Kim doesn't want them. Kim, apparently out of spite, would prefer that the tickets go to some unrelated person she chooses.

Now she's taking this dispute public. She hasn't named Mark yet, but people can deduce it. Does Mark want to wind up like any of the dozens of alleged perpetrators of sexual harassment and sexual assault that have been called out of the past two weeks? If not, he should let this thing drop and let her get her way. Kim is the real bully here.

</comment><comment><USER17> If they did not make an IP agreement, then don't they each own the code that they wrote? In effect, isn't she "stealing" the work and presenting it as her own?

I see his objections to her IP and substantive theft (the code and IP, the booth presence and control over 1/2 of a ticket) as justified. His reaction may not be 100% blameless, either, but she is the original offender here.

The worst part is that she tries to use a "harassment" accusation to justify her theft.

<comment><USER2> Hi there - no code was written during the weekend. After consulting with a lawyer, we concluded the only "IP" was the original idea, which I pitched.

The weekend was used exclusively for user research, concept validation, and some wireframing.

(My partner's work - a mock website and logo - couldn't be used after the weekend.)

Techstars has its own guidance regarding IP, but it's rather hand-wavey. I was surprised by this when I later found out that only 25% of teams continue working together.

> "As with any startup, the team decides. Techstars Startup Weekend doesn't > support or take part in the signing of any legal documents at the events > themselves, and while Mentors with legal backgrounds are often present and > able to give general advice, they are not permitted to give specific legal > counsel. While it doesn't hurt to be clear about your individual > expectations from the start, we've found that teams who don't spend time > addressing this issue until it actually matters (i.e., there is a tangible > product to have ownership of) are much more productive and successful than > those who do."

[https://startupweekend.org/attendees/faq](https://startupweekend.org/attendees/faq)

<comment><USER17> I'm not buying it. IP is not limited to code.

"the team decides". That is not what happened. You decided.

The booth presence and the tickets are as much his as they are yours. If you decide to take them (and use them, give them away, or anything else) you are taking part of something that he has a right to.

Again, I do not justify his response (as he is not here for me to address), but what should he have done in light of someone denying him access to something that is rightfully his?

Just because you did not do your due diligence (because you didn't know that you should, or were inexperienced in hackathons, or whatever...) and you turned out to not like working with the other person, does not negate the work or award that the team accomplished together. Regret does not change anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not the most disturbing, but the strangest aspect, is how the truth of the matter kept getting lost and people who had no idea about what had happened held strong opinions.

Makes me wonder how often this happens in other news items.

I do want to know what happened with the tickets and the booth, though.

<comment><USER18> Look around this comment thread and you will see the exact same thing.

<comment><USER19> > Not the most disturbing, but the strangest aspect, is how the truth of the > matter kept getting lost and people who had no idea about what had happened > held strong opinions.

The author quite thoroughly documented the entire ordeal (with screenshots and everything).

I'm struggling to understand how this comment thread is an example of "the truth of the matter getting lost," when we have all the "evidence" of the "harassment," and are merely pointing out what we see?

<comment><USER20> Because most of the people commenting here seem to have not actually read the article. E.g. so many comments mention /sexual/ harassment, but the article was mostly focused on just harassment in general, and didn't claim that Mark's actions were explicitly sexual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "If I go, how dangerous is he?"

Yeah, because someone sending you emails is surely physically dangerous. Spooky men.

<comment><AUTHOR> Based on our historic experience with men, if they treat us like that over email, it is probable they will treat us like that in person. His behaviour made her feel unsafe. Why would you knowing put yourself into an unsafe situation.

<comment><USER22> Treat you like what? Where was the threat in the email? Did he call OP a "bitch", "slut", etc? Did he belittle her? He asked her for his share of the prize and said that if she didn't then he would pursue it unilaterally.

Since when did that mean he was going to physically harm her? Sorry, I believe sexual harassment occurs in the tech industry and should be stamped out, but this is not a case of it.

<comment><USER23> Tis is NOT a case of sexual harassment. He might be unknowingly threatening (best case scenario, the one i believe), or downright manipulative, either way she do not want to work with him. He joined her on the project and she offered to give him 2 of the 3 tickets then he started his passive-agressive emails. I got those from people i worked with too, every time i just left the project (mainly because it was never mine). This type of passive-agressive behaviour exist very much in tech, mainly because this behaviour is related with self- entitlment and goes well with smug personnalities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have a story to tell and I was kind of the Mark in your story. Except my brother was on the other end of the story and he got it all wrong which turned in both of us not talking with each other for more than a year. It wasn't a good time in my life and it's really hard to write about it.

It also wasn't the first time, I was part of something, putting much work into the project and got fired from it. It's not nice to get fired after you volunteered to help someone with their project. Selfish people seem to think the success is their own and they own the project, because they had the idea, not recognizing that success is a team effort.

Ok, my story: my brother is a lawyer, I'm a software developer. After finishing his degree, he decided to start his own law firm and I helped him to create his website including SEO, etc. He became very successful more or less over night. Before we had lived together in an apartment and there were weeks when we didn't eat much except rice and fishsauce, now he had the money to buy Macs and Porsches.

The website was build with WordPress and several plugins, so I thought my job was it to update it as often as possible in order to not allow hackers to access his clients data or bring the site down. I didn't have any formal contract with my brother. In fact, he didn't really understood what I did - the site was finished as he saw it, why would he need an admin? He gave me gifts, often much bigger ones than I expected, but I didn't have much income. What I wanted was an income I could count on, even when it was a small one.

I made the mistake and told him, I needed a contract to provide the work so nothing would happen to the site. He understood that all wrong and thought I was threatening him and the website. He went into panic mode instantly. In his panic he even changed passwords, including the MySQL password, but didn't know that he needed to change it in the WordPress config too. This brought his website down.

Of course I helped him to recover the website, but we were mad about each other for month and didn't talk. I had a rough time, I was depressive and broke. I couldn't pay my health insurance and the fucking health insurance company was able to suspend my banking account. Not once, but thrice.

The whole fight wasn't worth it.

I know, this story doesn't has much to do with what has happend to OP, except one thing: Please try to talk to each other and understand the reasons why someone does something.

</comment><comment><USER25> I can't see what this has to do with 'harassment' especially as it's being gently couched to sound like sexual harassment ("powerless to stop him from invading my booth at the conference.", etc).

I think the idea of these events is that everyone is volunteering their talent, and that includes the "project leader" and "their" idea.

We hear enough on here about how ideas in themselves are all but worthless, so the result of the hackathon is really jointly owned by those participating, and I think the "volunteer guy" (and it seems that in her mind she could have just "hired" another objectified commodity-person, right?) has every right to be less than impressed at being summarily dismissed from a project he seems to have helped create.

</comment><comment><USER26> The responses here make me a little sick. Why are you all brushing off her experiences? Stop belittling this person.

<comment><USER19> Did you read the article? It uses the word "harassment" quite liberally, and belittles _actual_ victims of harassment.

<comment><USER10> Harassment doesn't necessarily mean _sexual_ harassment.

<comment><USER14> No one thinks that it does, in fact "sexual harassment" hadn't even crossed my mind. But based purely on what the author wrote (which seems comprehensive, complete with emails), I don't see harassment.

<comment><USER13> Yes, people do. Here is one example.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15586109](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15586109)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple Is Trying to Make iMessages More Private - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/apple-is-trying-to-make-your-imessages-even-more-private <comment><USER2> I see a lot of complaints about closed code. That is the first thing that people bring up with Apple and security. But how is open source changing things here? No company open sources their server side components. Even if Google released their server code we have no confirmation that they deploying the same code on their servers. They are not vouching for that. We have a company here that really seems to want to do good on security and privacy. Immediately going to the closed source argument is just lazy and not helping.

Of course the good part about a crowd is all views come out and so th closed source thing has its place but we should atleast give them their due and some kudos. We know people will try to evaluate the implementation and see what happens. In this case it's just a PR article. Let's wait for them to release detail and see if it stands out. May be the protocol is enough to give us confidence that their claim is true. We don't know yet.

<comment><USER3> Signal has open source clients and server. Matrix has crypto support now (needs more auditing, but you can turn it on and nobody has cracked it yet to my knowledge) and thats fully open source.

No, open source does not guarantee they are using the secure algorithms advertised on their servers. But open source does is let you run your _own_ server, that you can put much more trust in. People spin up their own signal and matrix servers all the time now for just that reason.

<comment><USER4> But Apple isn't in that business, they are trying to make common user's comm private. Open sourcing only helps the power user (audit, run their own), as you described.

Signal and iMessage both don't guarantee true privacy as we can't see the servers.

<comment><USER3> No service that uses a third party server can guarantee privacy _unless_ they let you see the servers.

For common users the question is if you trust the server operator, and if not, to consider your communications insecure. What they do about that is up to them. And it is up to these providers to _earn_ trust.

<comment><USER5> Personally I can't trust apple for a specific reason... On iOS they've made it quite difficult to turn location services off unless you jailbreak the device itself. You have to go into settings -> privace -> locations -> on - off -> are you sure you want to do it? -> yes ....

I mean when a company does that, it makes it pretty clear that they do want to monitor your location, making it annoying for you to turn it on and off.

<comment><USER6> How is that difficult to turn off?

<comment><USER5> The steps, I am a privacy junkie myself and I want to have location services off most of the time, apart from when am gonna use uber or gmaps. Even for me that I'd go the extra mile to turn it off, it just puts me off that you have to go through so many steps to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We don't have to speculate how Apple could possibly handle account recovery without entirely sacrificing security, because it's spelled out in their iOS security whitepaper: [https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf](https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf)

TL;DR: Keychain recovery relies on a cluster of hardware security modules to enforce the recovery policy. After 10 tries to guess your PIN, the HSM will destroy the keys. Apple support gates all but the first few of these tries. The paper also implies that you can use a high entropy recovery secret as an alternative, though I can't figure out how you would enable that.

This seems like a pretty reasonable point in design space to me. Of course, you are relying on Apple's trustworthiness and competence to implement this design. But that is true without recovery, since the client software is also implemented by Apple.

<comment><USER8> That's a good point, but the question is not just how to maintain security and usability without account recovery, but how to do so without device redundancy. There's no speculation about how to maintain true E2EE with a network of trusted key pairs, but without multiple devices the user is very vulnerable to permanently losing access. I think the recovery key is a clue.

As I speculated elsewhere in this thread, I think they're going to do it with multiple recovery keys ostensibly written down by the user and never transferred directly to Apple, which each then redundantly encrypt all user data before transmitting respective copies to iCloud.

That would pull it off, and it basically just shifts the trusted device redundancy problem to a trusted key redundancy problem. The only remaining usability obstacle is to make sure the user has safely recorded all recovery keys.

<comment><USER7> The "HSM cluster" serves as a redundant "device" which is in Apple's possession rather than yours, but which you must trust to withstand tampering, even by Apple.

The option to record the keys yourself is also described in the whitepaper:

"If the user decided to accept a cryptographically random security code, instead of specifying their own or using a four-digit value, no escrow record is necessary. Instead, the iCloud Security Code is used to wrap the random key directly. "

As I said, I can't actually find this option in my iOS settings. Maybe you have to disable Keychain first?

<comment><USER9> I think this relates to a time before 2 Factor Authentication, when Apple used 2 Step Verification. You could st that time (if you were using iOS 6 to iOS 8) chose various recovery options.

I'm no expert but this is my recollection.

In the scenario where you have 2 devices, one is iOS 9/10 and have migrated from 2SV to 2FA, the other is iOS 6/7/8, you can still access the recovery menus on the iOS 8 device, but it does weird things to the keychain if you mess about with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> iMessage is fine. Don't use it deliberately.

For secure, private messages, your sane current options are Signal, WhatsApp, and Wire. Signal is the best option, but you're going to make some UX sacrifices for security. WhatsApp and Wire are extremely comparable. If you worry about implementation or operational security flaws, WhatsApp has the Facebook security team behind it, and a long-term relationship with OWS; no cryptographically secure messenger is better staffed. If you're worried about Facebook seeing your metadata, which is a sane worry, Wire is approximately as slick and usable as WhatsApp with mostly the same underpinnings.

Regardless of the underlying cryptography, in the absence of a well-reviewed published crypto messaging protocol, iMessage is basically just an optimization over SMS/MMS. It's great for that, but it shouldn't be anyone's primary messenger.

<comment><USER11> What about Telegram? Is there a reason you haven't listed it? I find it better that WhatsApp.

<comment><USER12> Telegram can be confusing for users. Encryption needs to be turned on, and isn't available in group chats.

[https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP2017/papers/84.pdf](https://www.ieee- security.org/TC/SP2017/papers/84.pdf) Is super interesting when thinking about secure messaging from the perspective of ordinary folk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The question is whether Apple will allow recovery if you lost all your devices.

If they don't, I don't think it is that hard for Apple to extend their current security model to iCloud. They currently rely on senders encrypting messages with each destination device's public key, so they can store the individually encrypted messages separately in iCloud.

When a new device arrives, they could have an existing device perform re- encryption of the messages for it (after the user authorizes that the device should be added).

Even without the new iCloud functionality, Apple has always been in control over the key exchange, which would allow a malicious employee / government to write code that could add a new authorized device/key silently and thus allow Apple to eavesdrop from that point on in future conversations.

<comment><USER14> > allow a malicious employee / government to write code (...) from that point > on in future conversations

This is exactly what Apple fought to protect "recently". Once a government entity forces backdoors on citizen, privacy goes out the window. Apple knows this and I think you can expect them to make a gigantic media mess if they were forced to. It would ruin their business world-wide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The headline is misleading. There are two features here, iMessage syncing and iCloud device backups. All Apple has announced is better iMessage syncing with no change in (already maximal) privacy. There's no indication that Apple is going to stop backing things up the way they do now, which is not maximally private but is capable of surviving a forgotten password, which is probably a good default setting for consumer backups.

If Apple has changed _backups_ to function in a more private manner, then they would announce that, not something exclusive to iMessage.

More detail: iMessage syncing has always been maximally private from day one. However a drawback to the current implementation is that new devices cannot sync message history. The reason is that each message is encrypted separately by senders for each currently registered device for the receiver. And yes that means if you have 3 devices on your iCloud account, whenever someone sends you an iMessage, 3 separately encrypted copies get sent. Apple has gone to great lengths to ensure that private keys are never shared by devices.

So what's new is apparently Apple's figured out a way to sync history via iCloud. I'm interested to hear the implementation details, but there can be no doubt that it still respects the design goal of never sharing private keys.

Now, the privacy goals for _backups_ are different. You obviously want them to be as private as possible, but most people generally want to be able to recover their life in the event of a simple forgotten password. There are certainly scenarios where you want to encrypt your backups, but it always should be an informed, opt-in choice. You should clearly be aware that if you forget your password, you lose your backups. So generally it's desirable to default to having a fallback recovery method.

Like I said earlier, if Apple has figured out a fallback recovery method that somehow does not involve storing your data in a manner they can decrypt, that would be something they announce as part of iCloud Backup... not just for iMessage. But it seems almost a fundamental design constraint. You can either have something impossible for anyone else to decrypt or conveniently recoverable backups, not both.

<comment><USER8> _> iMessage has always been maximally private from day one. However a drawback to the current implementation is that new devices cannot sync message history._

No it hasn't and yes they can. I've done it several times. The ability to restore messages to a device is specifically what breaks the otherwise end-to- end encrypted iMessage architecture, which is why Federighi talking about the new iOS 11 capabilities is intriguing.

To your last point, my personal hypothesis is that Apple has designed a cryptosystem that uses a PKI with redundant key pairs to extend the redundant encryption. That shifts the recovery usability solution from redundant trusted devices to redundant keys that are written down.

<comment><USER15> _> I've done it several times. The ability to restore messages to a device..._

Interesting. To be clear, you're not just talking about restoring messages to the same device, like after resetting it?

Looking more closely at Apple's security whitepaper, perhaps restoring history on a new device is possible if you enable iCloud Keychain. Looks like that would in fact share the private decryption keys among devices.[1]

Ah, and that more clearly points at what this iMessage change may be: Mandatory iCloud Keychain, at least as far as iMessage keys are concerned. Which would suggest another, hidden improvement: no more need to redundantly encrypt a copy of every message for every recipient device!

I want to add however that this still does not suggest anything about changing the security of backups, which was the implication of the article. Nor would I necessarily characterize iCloud keychain as "breaking" encrypted architecture.

[1] [https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf](https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf)

<comment><USER8> Yes, I mean restoring to a new device. See here: [https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/06/26/can- appl...](https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/06/26/can-apple-read- your-imessages/)

<comment><USER15> It sure sounds like you're talking about restoring from backups. There's nothing in that article that suggests you'd normally be able to sync iMessages to a new device apart from restoring from a backup. And that's expected behavior.

I just noticed that you misquoted me.. I said iMessage _syncing_ has always been maximally private, and drew a distinction between that and backups. The article you cite mentions the tradeoff between strong cryptography (maximal privacy) and user pain (losing your data forever). Apple has made the intentional design choice of enabling the former for syncing but allowing backups to survive an account password reset. I think it's pretty clear that's a good choice for a consumer device. You can always turn off iCloud backups and back up locally via iTunes if you want maximal _backup_ privacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Except of course via Chinese access to the unencrypted cloud as required by their laws. Who as we've seen this week, is willing to sell to anyone.

<comment><USER17> Could you elaborate on this and/or provide some links? First I've heard of this.

<comment><USER18> [https://www.hongkongfp.com/2017/06/08/china-uncovers- massive...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2017/06/08/china-uncovers-massive- underground-network-apple-employees-selling-customers-personal-data/)

<comment><USER19> This looks totally unrelated to some "unencrypted cloud" access the parent mentioned.

It says "The suspects allegedly used an internal company computer system to gather users' names, phone numbers, Apple IDs, and other data, which they sold as part of a scam worth more than 50 million yuan (US$7.36 million)."

So this is about CRM style data being stolen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sounds great. But how do we check if what they say is true?

<comment><USER21> Make sure criminals use them. Check how the police reacts.

<comment><USER14> As funny as your comment seem, it's actually true.

Look at the "recent" FBI case. The insecurities became very apparent because Apple had to cooperate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good. Only problem: iMessage is useless in Germany, where Android market share is at least 70% or so and 95% of my friends use WhatsApp.

<comment><USER23> Maybe the Germans should consider buying a device that cares about their privacy a little bit. Why is that Apple's problem?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The trade-off is that if you lose your keys, you're shut out.

I would recommend having an option to generate keys based on something you have and something you know that you won't easily forget, such as a passphrase. That way you can always recover them later!

</comment><comment><USER25> What if you could enter a special private iMessage chat with someone where to decrypt and read/reply the participants had to verify each message with Touch ID?

Good or bad idea?

<comment><USER26> Touch ID is a username, not a password.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Has there been any known exploit(by government or any other actor) that worked by exploiting advanced cryptography. I feel using a zero day is more easier way for exploiting anything. Also, there are limited ways in which one can exploit cryptography, unlike zero days for which there is a free market and continuous supply.

<comment><USER8> To your first question: I'm interpreting you to mean a zero day of the form, "The NSA is aware of a cryptanalytic weakness in this encryption algorithm"; as opposed to a backdoor, e.g. "Microsoft provided a way for the NSA to bypass Skype's encryption without breaking it."

I don't recall any specific examples off the top of my head, but I believe it's probably happened and does happen. But backdoors are much more common; so much so in fact, that I'm led to believe the NSA doesn't have significantly greater cryptanalytic capabilities than academia and industry these days, given that their modus operandi is usually to demand a backdoor rather than breaking it. Their advantages probably stem from access to superior computing power or simply much more of it. I imagine a lot of the agency's research is in fundamental paradigm shifts that can broadly attack many algorithms (like quantum computing) - my edit at the bottom gives an example of this.

To your (implied) second question: it's probably not true that zero days are easier. When a company like Apple develops a novel cryptosystem, the NSA is not likely to break it for years (barring conspiracy-theoretic capabilities that we have no way of verifying). Zero days incur massive amounts of research and development time to go from identifying a useful cryptanalytic weakness (i.e. get an algorithm from exponential, to sub-exponential to quadratic time) to deploying an exploit. All the while, earnest cryptographers in industry and academia are attempting the same thing, except they'll publish their results. And if the NSA has a functional exploit, they will use it like you would a classified weapon: sparingly.

 _EDIT:_ Actually, your question reminded me of differential cryptanalysis. That's more of a paradigm of attacks against a variety of algorithms instead of a zero day against any one particular encryption algorithm; still, the NSA apparently developed differential cryptanalysis and maintained it as a classified capability before the public community independently came up with it. That probably qualifies for your question.

<comment><USER27> I was referring to zero days as in the way to gain the ability to run the malicious code in user's device, preferably in the root account which cannot be stopped by updating the software, something like that was done in jailbreaking using browser(a long time ago), or pwn2own. I was not thinking of encryption related zero day specifically. If someone gets root access, they get access to all the contents, no matter what transport security is used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What's to stop apple from registering another device on your account, which will get the shared keys?

color me skeptical.

<comment><USER29> Apple can't simply register devices into your account, they would have to have access to your iCloud account, which they can only get using one of those keys.

<comment><USER28> I guess if the devices are only willing to share keys with other devices which can individually prove they have the iCloud password. I wonder if it's an online procedure or if they just upload the keys to iCloud, encrypted with the user's iCloud password.

<comment><USER30> When registering a new device you have to authorise it using one of your existing devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A few thoughts I have after reading the article:

 _> "Our security and encryption team has been doing work over a number of years now to be able to synchronize information across your, what we call your circle of devices—all those devices that are associated with the common account—in a way that they each generate and share keys with each other that Apple does not have."_

 _> It's unclear exactly how Apple is able to pull this off, as there's no explanation of how this works other than from those words by Federighi. The company didn't respond to a request for comment asking for clarifications. It's possible that we won't know the exact technical details until iOS 11 officially comes out later this year._

 _> Meanwhile, cryptographers are already scratching their heads and holding their breath._

This might be uncharitable, but in my mind I think this writing and presentation of facts (probably unintentionally) implies that this capability is novel, when it's not. Sharing keys between multiple devices is a straightforward issue if you're willing to make user experience trade offs. Cryptographers are not scratching their heads wondering how Apple could achieve E2EE with a network of devices, they're wondering how they did it without sacrificing account recovery. It's not clear to me that readers would automatically understand this, because the real head scratcher isn't addressed until near the end of the article, which brings me to my next point:

 _> "The $6 million question: how do users recover from a forgotten iCloud password? If the answer is they can't, that's a major [user experience] tradeoff for security. If you can, maybe via email, then it's [end-to-end] with Apple managed (derived) keys," Kenn White, a security and cryptography researcher, told Motherboard in an online chat. "If recovery from a forgotten iCloud password is possible _without access* to keys on a device's Secure Enclave, it's not truly e2e. It's encrypted, but decryptable by parties other than the two people communicating. In that sense, it's closer to the default security model of Telegram than that of Signal."*

I'm hesitant on how much faith to put in Apple's scheme here. On the one hand I generally trust Apple very highly when it comes to security and cryptography in particular. On the other hand I don't see them making account recovery impossible.

However, over the past few years they have been increasingly pushing two- factor verification, and then full two-factor authentication based on a network of trusted devices. The iCloud password used to be enough to manage the account's security and trust, but now it frequently defaults to requiring authenticated approval from a trusted device (instead of e.g. security question responses).

I could see Apple abandoning conventional account recovery if they keep proceeding down this path by providing a huge amount of access redundancy. For example, they could keep redundant copies of all user data synced in iCloud which are respectively end-to-end encrypted on the client with a user's backup keys. Each authenticated user device might have 10 backup keys, with a typical warning that they should be written down and will not be displayed again, etc. The keys could be downloaded from the device and stored by the user but never given to Apple, and would primarily be useful in circumstances where a user only has one trusted device authenticated to iCloud. Then if a user loses primary access to any given Apple device, the user has two ways to recover data:

1) Authenticated approval from another of the user's trusted devices, or

2) Use the backup keys, which do not provide a method of changing the account password, but which instead decrypt the redundant user data corresponding to the key.

The basic idea is that removing conventional password-based account recovery required inordinate redundancy to counter usability loss; you can do this with redundant authenticated devices (each with their own keys), or you can simulate it on one device with redundant keys that are ideally harder to lose.

</comment><comment><USER31> Why is Vice so excited to write this article, with this headline, and then provide absolutely no details:

> It's unclear exactly how Apple is able to pull this off, as there's no > explanation of how this works other than from those words by Federighi.

All Apple says is "end to end encryption". From your phone to the cloud is 2 ends, and then from the cloud to the FBI is 2 more. Yay!

</comment><comment><USER32> If you encrypt your iCloud backups isn't the whole concern moot anyway?

</comment><comment><USER33> First priority to make iMessages more private: disable iMessages by default when iCloud sync is enabled, or at least give users the option to have iMessage backup disabled when iCloud sync is enabled.

</comment><comment><USER34> With true end-to-end encryption there is no need for a middleman.

Each user

1\. encrypts her data at the source i.e. _on her own computer_ and

2\. sends the encrypted blob over the untrusted network, or so-called "dumb pipes".

Hardware company that makes the users computer tries to dictate whether and how #1 can be done.

Not necessary.

The software for doing #1 does need to be open source.

On mobile, does such software even exist?

And even if it does, is a mobile phone really the users computer? It is an effectively locked enclosure with several computers controlled by third parties.

The way to do secure mobile messaging would be to encrypt the message on a computer the user controls, then move the message to the "mobile phone" and then send to the untrusted network.

Alternatively, _do not use a mobile phone_ for messaging if worried about others have access to the messages. Wait for a pocket sized portable computer that can be tinkered with. No baseband, etc.

<comment><USER35> Everything you said is also true of modern desktop computers, see intel's ME and AMDs equivalent.

<comment><USER34> Not all computers are Intel or AMD and not all Intel or AMD computers have the "features" to which you refer.

Even more, nothing requires these computers to be connected to the untrusted network. ME requires an internet connection.

The message encrypted on the user-controlled computer can be moved to the "mobile phone" via a wired local network, serial link or removable media. Is such transfer to and from the device made difficult by the way these mobile phones are constructed and configured? Yes, and probably this is intentional. Companies want user data and the way they get it is by encouraging users to store data in the "cloud".

Most importantly, these Intel and AMD based computers are not the only computers capable of encrypting messages.

If ME scares you then do not use computers that have it.

If you have computers with ME then disconnect them from the internet and get a computer without ME for your internet needs.

This message was typed on a computer that does not have ME, would not be considered "desktop" and would probably not qualify as "modern". It makes no difference. No problems encypting messages on it.</comment></comment></comment>


GSchool - intensive 6 month program turning novices into skilled web developers - <AUTHOR> http://gschool.it

<comment><USER2> Hi, I'm Jeff Casimir from Jumpstart Lab, director of the program. I'll do my best to answer questions here over the coming days if you have them, or ping me directly at contact at jumpstartlab.com

<comment><USER3> Can you give a brief summary of how Hungry Academy turned out (not necessarily placement statistics)?

<comment><USER2> Sure. All 24 of the apprentices were hired to the LivingSocial build team. They're about three months into their work now and are succeeding.

Sure, some have moved faster than others, but no one is doing intern work. One is working on rebuilding the payment system, another wrote the single-sign-on app that now every LivingSocial customer logs in through. The other 22 stories are similar.

Instructionally there were things that could have been better. We didn't do a good job cultivating our "permanent records" and didn't fulfill our plans for sharing everything we did. It's all there, but you'd need a tour guide to hop through all the disparate github repos. Apprentices made some great open source contributions (including Ruby core), but I want it to be more organized next time. These are two of the reasons that we've expanded from two instructors to three.

All in all, it far surpassed my expectations. And the next course, gSchool, will be better.</comment></comment></comment>