If you didn't cancel the credit card you used for linode.com, now is the time - <AUTHOR> I have been a victim of procrastination. Since linode have been compromised, i promised my self i would cancel the credit card and get a new one. Well I didn't, eventually I just stopped thinking about it.
On May 28 checked my card account and I see multiple charges for large amounts. (cash converters, groceries, cheese, and so on). Note this is all done overseas.
How do I know this is from linode?
For my online transactions I use prepaid cards that are easy to dispose of, and this card was used solely for linode.
Advice: If you are still on linode and didn't cancel your credit card, well you should. <comment><USER2> Please provide a little more evidence than starting a flame war. Although it could in theory be true, it's a fairly baseless claim until you present a little more evidence.

 _For my online transactions I use prepaid cards that are easy to dispose of, and this card was used solely for linode._

Couldn't the online card issuer be to blame? How do _we_ know you haven't mistakenly used it for anything else? The fact that you use prepaid cards for online purchases seems fishy to me in the first place (which is just as baseless of a claim on my part as yours is here).

 _groceries, cheese_

How do you use a online generated CC for groceries and cheese??

From Linode:

 _Credit card numbers in our database are stored in encrypted format, using public and private key encryption. The private key is itself encrypted with passphrase encryption and the complex passphrase is not stored electronically. Along with the encrypted credit card, the last four digits are stored in clear text to assist in lookups and for display on things like your Account tab and payment receipt emails. We have no evidence decrypted credit card numbers were obtained._

<https://blog.linode.com/2013/04/16/security-incident-update/>

TL;DR - This is unfair to Linode and I think the community (who uses their service quite frequently) would appreciate if you took it up with them first, before you start a smear campaign.

<comment><USER3> Why is using prepaid cards for online purchases fishy?

\- Prepaid cards impose an upper limit on what can be spent, so that if the card details leak out you are protected against losing more money than is on the card. They can't plunder your entire bank account.

\- Some people don't like the idea of having debt. By using a credit card you immediately have a debt whether you like it or not.

<comment><USER4> _By using a credit card you immediately have a debt whether you like it or not._

Credit cards are only debt if you treat them like debt. I use the shit out of mine, but pay the full balance pretty much every month. There's a lot of convenience, I'm fully protected from fraudulent activity, and I have a stupid amount of points/miles/whatever for free (or at least cheap) travel, to boot — I flew to .au a couple years ago for free on that basis, for example.

<comment><USER5> Your balance is irrelevant - your available credit line is debt, as at any moment you can be liable for up to that amount.

<comment><USER6> Your available credit line is _not_ debt, and I can't recall ever hearing of anyone being held accountable for fraudulent purchases made against their account. Does this happen?

<comment><USER7> Credit card terms vary from country to country.

Here (Singapore) card conditions were recently changed so that you would only be liable for the first $100 of fraudulent transactions (assuming you can prove it wasn't you). I think the bank can still hold you liable for more if they find you were negligent about guarding your card details.

Prior to these condition changes, I remember being told by the bank that you would be liable for all charges incurred before you had reported the card physically stolen or lost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To be fair, that still doesn't mean it's from linode 100%. I recently had a fraudulent charge on a Chase Freedom card that I never once used anywhere (their fine print when it arrived showed they mislead me in the rewards I was promised). I had even shredded it when I got it so its not possible someone took it from my place. When they called me about the possible fraudulent charge, they guy explained that various government/creditor databases contain these cards and sometimes malicious employees use them for fraud.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, i cannot say it's linode 100%, maybe 99%. however it is still a good idea to cancel those cards.

<comment><USER9> Maybe if they are debit cards, but the hassle of changing cards everywhere combined with the protection against fraudulent charges banks give, I don't plan on doing anything just for the heck of it. IE, lets say your correct and I start seeing fraudulent charges? I call my bank and they reverse them all immediately, it's not a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Signing up for on-line services is a good use for "virtual account numbers". This is a feature offered on some Citibank and Discover credit cards (maybe others) that allows you to generate a separate credit card number that's billed to your original account. The nice thing about them is that once a virtual account number has been billed by a vendor, it does not accept any charges in the future except from the same vendor. So if the account is compromised, the credit card number is useless to the person who steals it.

<comment><USER11> I wish other banks offered that functionality. I am not a fan of Citibank.

<comment><USER12> Get the Fidelity Amex from FIA (aka BofA). It's one of the few genuine 2% cashback cards, has no annual fee, no forex fees iirc, and lets you create "ShopSafe" numbers.

<comment><USER11> Are you sure it is the amex card that supports shopsafe? I thought Amex discontinued their similar product _years_ ago.

<comment><USER12> It's not an Amex issued by American Express, it's a card issued by Bank of America that is processed on the Amex network.

<comment><USER11> Interesting. Thanks for the info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Linode stored the encrypted _credit card numbers in our [linode's] database_ ... _we have no evidence decrypted credit card numbers were obtained_. [1] To me, this implies that the attackers _did indeed_ get the encrypted data. This would be a mighty juicy target to focus your decryption efforts on! In my mind, it was only a matter of time. Regardless of whether OP's story holds water.. get your card re-issued if this applies to you!

[1] <https://blog.linode.com/2013/04/16/security-incident-update/>

<comment><USER14> > This would be a mighty juicy target to focus your decryption efforts on!

In practice, either the Linode data was properly encrypted and keys properly managed, or it wasn't, rendering the encryption worthless. There's very little middle ground.

If you can break properly encrypted data, you have _way_ bigger opportunities than carding.

<comment><USER15> Attackers claimed that the keys were stored in memory and that they retrieved them: "We proceeded to breach Linode and acquire their in-memory keys." <http://straylig.ht/zines/HTP5/0x02_Linode.txt>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I just got an email yesterday from Amex about suspicious activity on my account. The card was used to make purchases from at least three dating sites, groupon, Microsoft, hidemyip, and a handful of others.

This card is tied to Linode, Amazon, and one or two other large merchants. Sure looks like Linode CC numbers were breached.

</comment><comment><USER17> Bank Simple actually reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to cancel my card. I did. But I was impressed that they saw that I'd had charges from them and knew about the security issues.

<comment><USER18> I also use Simple and I've been very happy with their customer support. Not having checks has been a pain in a few cases, but I definitely prefer it over a brick and mortar. I have a few invitations on my account if anyone is interested.

<comment><USER19> Hi Osiris would you mind sending me an invite ? Email is hn username at google's mail service dot com. Thanks !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I cancelled mine for an unrelated reason, but was about to anyway once news about the Linode compromise got out. Linode themselves have admitted that the only thing between HTP and the credit card numbers is a passphrase (of unknown quality).

I no longer have any VMs on Linode. It's unfortunate that a company I trusted behaved so oddly and non-transparently over the course of the incident.

<comment><USER21> The Linode write-up from HTP which may be relevant to this.

Scroll to the "Linode" section of course.

<http://www.exploit-db.com/papers/25306/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Tangentially:

Why do merchants really need to store CC numbers? From the consumers' standpoint, there would be no difference if, during the first transaction, the merchant is issued some alterate key with which to charge the account. Each merchant would be issued their own key, so there would be no risk of a security breach spreading outside of the merchant.

<comment><USER23> Mostly they don't. The payment provider stores this and provides that and the truncated PAN (the card number with digits masked by asterisks).

One of the things you pay payment providers for is for taking on the risk of the higher levels of PCI compliance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> OP, I'm confused how your system for paying for things online works.

If it's a prepaid card, I'm assuming that you have to load it with money. Since you're just using it for Linode, you couldn't have loaded that much money on it (unless you're paying for huge Linodes). I'm wondering how large these large amounts were and why they didn't simply empty out the amount on the prepaid card.

Besides my confusion (if I were using your system, I would load $20 or whatever onto the card each month and then the maximum I could lose if the card was stolen was $20), I would also like to point out that while prepaid cards are easy to dispose of, Credit Cards typically provide better fraud protection.

With credit cards, there is normally a $50 liability if the card is stolen and no time limits around reporting it. With debit cards, there are time limits around reporting the card being lost or stolen. With prepaid cards, they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the FDIC and consumer protections are voluntary on the part of the issuer.

</comment><comment><USER25> I would also like to add that the same thing happened to me. Except it happened on May 30th.

I can't be 100% sure that my card was compromised because of linode, but there is a good chance that it was.

Thankfully the transactions were not captured, so I'm not out any money, but it still sucks.

</comment><comment><USER26> FirstDirect cancelled my Linode card for me, after the first three fraudulent charges. Luckily, they were easy to detect, as they were made in physical locations in the US, while I was in the UK at the time.

Probably the only time in my life a bank actually helped me retain my money!

</comment><comment><USER27> What do you mean by "cancel"? If you mean have your card issuer give you a new card with a new number, and stop allowing charges using the old number, that isn't necessarily sufficient. You may have to close your underlying account.

Visa and MasterCard both have updater services, which are available to some (but not all--I'm not sure what exactly the requirements are for access) merchants that accept their cards. The updater service allows the merchant to inquire about a particular card number and receive back a status that can be one of: no info available; card still valid; card replaced and here is the new card number and expiration date; account closed.

<comment><USER12> There is absolutely no risk that this would happen if you call and report your card as stolen. None.

Now, if you've already had a charge authorized, then yes, the issuers has to allow that charge to be captured, even if you cancelled the card in the interim. But your issuer can certainly tell you if there are any valid authorizations outstanding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I just had to cancel my card due to a large, unauthorized purchase at Walgreens states away. I don't know that it was from Linode, but it was the same card that I had when Linode was compromised.

</comment><comment><USER29> WF opted to send me a new card out of nowhere, without explaining _why_ they're sending me a new card. I suspect it's due to the linode breach.

<comment><USER30> My bank does this to me from time to time, without bothering to notify me. It seems incredibly insecure to me - I do have to call to activate it, but there are no "secret" questions asked during this process, just the last four digits of my social security number, and my zip code (and guess where the card gets sent to?)

<comment><USER31> I believe you only get that streamlined activation if you call from the number they have on file for you, which makes it more secure than it seems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just got notified by my bank about a fraud notice, and they cancelled the debit card I use for Linode.

It's a huge pain, but I'm inclined to give Linode the benefit of the doubt. I've done enough stupid things in my life to not cast the first stone. Hopefully they'll learn from this, and beef up both their approach to security and their transparency. Strike one.

</comment><comment><USER33> My credit card was recently reissued without my request. The accompanying letter said it was being reissued to prevent fraud, as a merchant had recently disclosed a compromise. It did not say which merchant, but not I suspect it could have been linode. Has anyone else had this happen?

<comment><USER34> I'm not positive that it was Linode, but I received this email from my bank about the card I used for Linode (bank name removed):

"We were notified by a payment processor that your debit card information, such as your name, debit card number and expiration date may have been compromised. Unauthorized access to non-_____ systems may have occurred through a merchant where you shopped or dined, or by other fraudulent activity. Specific details about the compromise were not reported to _____."

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Thanks, I was thankfully canceled my card. Is there anyone else here that has had their card compromised?

<comment><USER36> I haven't had anything odd yet.

Ironically, Chase _did_ flag my DigitalOcean charges last week.

<comment><USER37> Chase notified that a 3rd party was breached and my credit card was at risk. They sent me a new card two weeks ago. Figured it was because of linode.

<comment><USER38> Funny, that's about when I cancelled my Chase card. When they asked why I told them an internet company I do business with had been compromised. I have a monthly charge from Linode on the card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anecdata to the contrary, I've seen no suspicious activity on my Linode- associated card.

<comment><USER39> Yet? One of the things I've learned by reading Danchev and other blogs on the scourge of credit card fraud is that 'carders' seem to have waaaaaay more cards than they need so the turnaround time between having it be made public and having it used can be quite long. So far for me every time one of my cards has been compromised there was a small charge that went through before the bigger charges came in. And my bank has been pretty good about effectively freezing things as soon as that small charge hits.

Given all the big data stuff on my 'work' cards (like gas card which is only used to buy fuel) it should be instantly obvious if a charge is bogus coming from a non-gas station. But I digress.

I wish someone would set up a 'whitelist only' type credit card where I could first do a small test charge, then I could authorize that source with my bank, and then their regular charges would go through. But if the number was compromised any attempt to use it _anywhere_ that I hadn't pre-approved would be rejected.

<comment><USER4> Fair enough. "Yet."

I've also noticed the same pattern with compromised cards: a couple of small auths to test the waters, and then increasingly large charges coming from decreasingly likely places. I regularly log onto my online banking and inspect the recent activity looking for exactly that kind of activity.

I've long wished for the same, "whitelist-only card" type thing, too. I think I might smell an opportunity...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It should be easy to prove you did not make the purchases and instantly have your funds credited back to your account OP.

</comment><comment><USER41> I canceled my card the day I saw the issue relating to linode.com. I'm glad I did!

</comment><comment><USER42> Do you use Windows? If so, you are infected with Malware that stole your card number and it finally got used.

I don't know why this is getting downvoted. This is a perfectly valid explanation for why your card got charged that contradicts your reasoning that Linode's encrypted card database got cracked.

<comment><USER43> The way you phrased it makes it sound as though, if you are a Windows user that experienced fraudulent charges, then the _only_ possible explanation is malware.

Your explanation is certainly possible, but it doesn't contradict the Linode explanation. You might say that the former is much more likely than the latter, but that doesn't rule linode out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I haven't seen anything yet, and I tend to keep pretty close watch on it.

<comment><USER45> I haven't seen anything yet either. All of my accounts have some policy in place where they call us. It actually got annoying when my wife was "couponing" and we hit 5-6 stores in a couple hours. Always got a call. Comforting. Any charge in another country is set to be a flag. When we travel we make a call and let them know so it doesn't get flagged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Guess they really did leave the private and public keys on the sevrer.

<comment><USER47> They admitted that at the time. They assured everyone that the _password_ on the private key was secure, even boasted about how long it was on twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> BoA actually cancelled it for me, I didn't even have a choice!

</comment><comment><USER49> Are there any other alternatives out there for VPS service?

<comment><USER50> I've tested close to a dozen providers, mostly found via <http://www.cloudorado.com/> or <http://serverbear.com/>, and there are _many_ who can match or exceed both Linode and Digital Ocean (who seem to be all over every story here that even touches on VPSes) according to every possible criterion. Personally I went with Host Virtual when I left Linode (shortly after having left Rackspace), but the choice was largely dictated by physical location. Another day it might have been Ramnode. There are others too. The real point is that it's just _not hard_ to find a better VPS host. It's a crowded space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> that card tied to a lot of things :(, probably a bad idea in general. but for overseas charges at least, my bank will block transactions and notify me.

</comment><comment><USER52> This isn't because of Linode. Both the hackers and Linode themselves have shown that no credit card information was stolen.</comment>


The Pirate Bay: "The Battle of Internets is About to Begin"  - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-the-battle-of-internets-is-about-to-begin-110509/ <comment><USER2> Here's the link to the _actual_ story: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8481330/Alarm- ove...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8481330/Alarm-over-EU- Great-Firewall-proposal.html)

<comment><USER3> >"The Presidency of the LEWP presented its intention to propose concrete measures towards creating a single secure European cyberspace," according to brief minutes of the meeting. The secure European cyberspace would have a "virtual Schengen border", it adds, referring to the treaty that allows freedom of movement within the EU but imposes controls on entry to the bloc. There would also be "virtual access points" whereby "the Internet Service Providers would block illicit contents on the basis of the EU 'black-list'", the proposal says.

Wow. Not only is it a terrible-sounding idea when heard second hand, it is even worse when heard straight from the horse's mouth. "A single secure cyberspace" sounds an awful lot like "A single secure SOCIETY!" It's as if Emperor Palpatine and the MAFIAA elite got together to determine the most efficient way to deny people of their rights for the sake of greed and power. How can anyone possibly hear what they are saying in these plans and not recoil with horror and disgust? It runs counter to all ideals and freedoms that the West purports to stand for.

Sheer absurdity.

<comment><USER4> It is the classic case of what happens when you apply the old rules (stuff like Schengen) to completely new areas where they don't apply at all.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. The problem with politicians (in places where they are democratically elected) is that they are concerned only with short term solutions because they are only concerned with getting re-elected and scoring political points. So when new and unique situations presents their selves and certain interest groups and parties feel threatened (especially those with any semblance of influence), the politicians apply older and inapplicable methods because it provides the image that they are "at least doing something" about the supposed threat.

The Internet is still a completely new, ever-changing landscape and politicians are stuck spinning their wheels in the mud as special interests (such as the MAFIAA) demand something, anything be done when the new model does not run parallel to their profit motive. So the easy solution is to just slap older laws and regulations over the top like an ill-fitting band-aid and hope it works. MAFIAA wins. Politician wins. Citizenry loses, as per usual.

<comment><USER5> There were no elected representatives at this meeting. The LEWP is a subgroup of the non-democratic council, not of the parliament. That's one of the things that you have to be careful with the EU - many "politicians" are not elected.

<comment><USER6> Who are the members of the group? Ex-politicians? People from MAFIAA? A mix of both? If they aren't elected they still might have the instincts of a politician.

<comment><USER5> I think you're misunderstanding me. These people are normal working politicians but they were never elected to the post. Normally, they are appointed by the civil service (who obviously aren't elected either) of a country of the EU but sometimes they are appointed by a government.

The council is the executive branch of the EU, a bit like the President of America, except with a lot more power (the President of America doesn't have much power on domestic issues). For example, one of the things that the Council has the power to do is pass new laws, and they can often choose not to put it to a vote in the EU Parliament. The EU Parliament is elected, but not many people vote or really take an interest in it (good luck finding someone who can name one of their MEPs, or any MEP for that matter).

To say that these people have short-term interests or that they are beholden to the electorate or something is factually mistaken. There is no such accountability of democracy.

<comment><USER6> I'm just speculating that, even if they aren't elected to this post, if they are politicians by trade they may still act as such out of habit or training (i.e. they will prefer short-term and antiquated or inapplicable methods to solve a problem, in order to present the image that they are "doing something").

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "In February, a secret meeting of the European Union's Law Enforcement Work Party (LEWP) resulted in a worrying proposal."

How can some small EU working group even dare to discuss my human rights in a secret meeting without any democratic legitimacy?

<comment><USER8> This is symptomatic of the whole EU enterprise. You might ask how it is that a totally non-elected person like Baroness Ashton, the so-called High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union and Vice President of the EU (I repeat, no one elected her bar a coterie of the elite in the EU) can call for the EU to be given a seat on the UN Security Council. By the way, the president of the EU is unelected as well. Oh, and the EU finances have not been passed by the auditors in 13 years.

I apologize for this off-topic comment but a little background for non-EU folk is useful in considering this latest EU nonsense regarding the internet.

<comment><USER9> Civil servants, government ministers and heads of state in many if not most democratic countries are not elected directly by the people. There's nothing special about the EU in that regard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Its interesting that they don't mention Usenet.

For those of you to young to remember, what you now call "The Internet" was originally "ARPAnet" (and then DARPAnet) which was funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) but they had lots of rules about what you could and could not do on their network (as was their perrogative).

Some folks who wanted to be on the network didn't "qualify" because they were either too small, or not germane to the research goals. Other folks chafed at the restrictions.

My first encounter with the ARPAnet was in 1978 when I started at USC which had a node on the net (USC-ECLC) which was a DEC KI-20 running Tenex. When I graduated and went to work at Intel they weren't connected to the ARPAnet but they were running a 'usenet' node via modems and software called 'netnews'. The node, intelca, and the guy running it (Ken Shoemaker) were in my building at Intel. Since Ken was open to having the 'new guy' help out so I took on some fairly simple tasks of keeping it running.

Usenet was a simple store and forward network where nodes would call each other periodically on the phone and exchange data which was destined for other sites. Addressing was in the form of 'host!host!host!host!user' where each 'host' was a hop and if you could move something along you did.

Anyway, today, it is entirely possible (see the TOR network) to build a network which runs across the existing communications structure but uses a set of protocols that are 'invisible' (in the sense of firewalling and monitoring etc) to the host network. It makes building something which does what Usenet did (create a network with less authoritive oversight) much easier than it was in the past. I would not be surprised if such networks already existed although I am not aware of any at this time.

<comment><USER11> Fascinating, and interesting similarities.

I did not know much about Usenet, so I went to the Wikipedia page and found this:

 _ISP-operated Usenet servers frequently block access to all alt.binaries. groups to both reduce network traffic and to avoid related legal issues._

This was the case years ago on the old news.iol.ie server; forgot all about it till now. That whole <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Legal_issues> section is quite interesting in light of the above; a recommended short read.

\--

In general it seems that the network on which any system runs is pretty vulnerable to legal challenges. If not the ISPs, then maybe those pesky fibre and copper owners between them, for aiding and abetting copyright theft! Or maybe the ISPs might be coerced to only permit "Accepted" packet formats (ie inspect-able) to be used.

So far ISPs seem to not be caving in _too_ quickly, but there have been some awful exceptions: the recent DNS seizures in the US, and a little closer to home our backbone-less Eircom being the only ISP in Europe to cave into the demand a few years ago to block access to piratebay.org (ex govt, careful).

However I shudder at the idea of a seperate darknet, it just seems so... unnecessary! Not to mention: "What are you doing honey?" "Oh I'm connecting to the Darknet." "Gee, isint that for pirates, hackers and perverts?". Though the ability for the common Jane to download mp3's and movies on it might have everyone secretly supporting it... hmm. I can only wonder at what the Internet will look like in 20 years time.

Personally I hope we all get UN mandated rules for unregulated Internet - China, North Korea and Iran being some of the leading examples for why this is so important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Already, to some extend, Europe is not a part of the Internet anymore. At least here in Germany, I personally consider it fraud when Internet Service Provider offer "Internet access". Wrong label!

After returning from the US I got extremely frustrated that I wasn't able to listen to Pandora anymore (I'm even paying) or watch many of the best Youtube videos that happen to use popular music as background.

When I recently got access again, over my US friends University VPN, I felt a bit like a former east German, who managed to tweak his radio so he can listen to "west stations".

<comment><USER13> Conversely, Americans can't listen to Spotify, or watch many of the european broadcaster's online streams (e.g. Eurovision)

<comment><USER14> > can't listen to [...], or watch [...] Eurovision

Don't worry - you're not missing anything worth spending the time on...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They will sell this with "think of the children" thing again, I am sure. Pisses me right off.

We fought this in the UK in the disguise of deep-packet filtering at the ISP's, that one floundered from the off but dragged out its demise for a good while before being sheleved.

Then France gave it a go with Loopsi, and unfortunately they seem to have managed to set a precedent for filtering/monitoring/blocking. It was only a matter of time before the EU got involved.

</comment><comment><USER16> The "copyright lobby"? Where is the technology lobby? I'm disappointed in our industry, especially given the enormous market caps of tech giants.

</comment><comment><USER17> Clarification: The Pirate Bay is not totally blocked in Ireland. The largest broadband supplier (Eircom with about 80% residential market) block it. No other ISP in Ireland block it. Several others (eg UPC) are actively opposed to blocking it.

</comment><comment><USER18> meh. I think this proposal is bad, but why can't a site that is not screwing others over come forward and be the public face of "championing" it?

Thepiratebay being a large voice against it will just harm the cause, "oh thepiratebay is breaking the law and losing musicians money and they are anti- censorship so censorship must be good to stop that illegal stuff".

<comment><USER19> Are you one of those people who believes that the damage done by intellectual property "piracy" exceeds its benefits?

How is the Pirate Bay screwing anyone over more than draconian copyright laws which have been extended decades and decades beyond what the law originally intended while criminal enforcement is provided by free thanks to taxpayers?

<comment><USER18> If someone creates content it is their choice whether or not it's given away for free or if people must pay for it. If you create a song you can give it away for free, sell it for $0.99 or sell it for $900, that's your choice. I agree some of the copyright laws that exist are silly, but it should still be the content creators choice what happens with that content (or if they sell the rights then the new rights holder etc etc). Your desire, my desire or anyone else's desire for that content (be it music, video, game, program, image) is not more important than the wants of the person who created it.

Anyway my point was just that TPB is not a good voice against this, it would be like having Hitler being against anti-freespeech laws, it would make it much easier to justify those laws because of Hitler.

<comment><USER20> If what you're selling is just a long string of bits, securing it against _copy_ (not theft) is your problem, not the state's.

IP is just a way for established players to be lazy and avoid finding business models that acknowledge reality. Unfortunately, their laziness and greed also cost us civil liberties since freedom to copy a string of bits is indistinguishable from free speech.

<comment><USER21> Since were going with the "songs and music and anything digital are just bits...".

What about identity theft? It's just words on a piece of paper representing you as a person. Should we say the same thing when someone "steals" (just like with digital items, nothing is actually stolen) your identity?

What about your bank account? In most banks it's just numbers representing money...but it's just 'bits'..right?

Currency is also just ink and paper. Like digital goods, it's only as valuable as what people are willing to pay. Why should I be put in jail for copying ink that is on a piece of paper?

"IP is just a way for established players to be lazy and avoid finding business models that acknowledge reality. Unfortunately, their laziness and greed also cost us civil liberties since freedom to copy a string of bits is indistinguishable from free speech."

You want to talk about greed? The greedy people are the ones that download music and movies for free and devalue the work of people that put hundreds and thousands of hours to make it.

<comment><USER20> If something tangible is stolen as a result of copying, that is an issue of fraud, not IP. 'Potential profits' are not tangible.

The people who put hundreds and thousands of hours into making content aren't the ones who benefit from IP laws. It's the big cartel-ish companies with a zillion lawyers and friends in government who own rights to the IP and pay artists small royalties that rake in all the cash. IP is not necessary for artists and content-producers to make money. This should be fairly obvious by now after the success of the Grateful Dead, the rise of the indie recording industry, free and open source software, etc.

I'm not necessarily arguing that copying content isn't a skeevy thing to do in some circumstances. It's definitely a lot more noble to support an artist. But IP laws inject the state's jurisdiction deep into our private lives, and the result is things like continent-sized firewalls and searching of laptops at borders. In this case the solution to the problem is much, much worse than the problem itself. It doesn't even have to be a problem at all--a smart producer can use copying as an advantage.

<comment><USER21> "The people who put hundreds and thousands of hours into making content aren't the ones who benefit from IP laws. It's the big cartel-ish companies with a zillion lawyers and friends in government who own rights to the IP and pay artists small royalties that rake in all the cash."

hmm..so who gives the big cartels the rights to their music? that's right...the artists. If the artists are getting scraps and you are illegally copying their stuff and as a result, they lose contracts, it's hurting them in the process.

Copyright infringement is not theft, it's closer to counterfeiting. If it's not stopped, the value will eventually be $0 because people will not be willing to pay for it. see: music, newspapers, books, and eventually movies. Its happening to anything that can be digitized.

"IP is not necessary for artists and content-producers to make money. This should be fairly obvious by now after the success of the Grateful Dead, the rise of the indie recording industry, free and open source software, etc."

Free and open source software is a bad example. OSS uses copyright law to protect it from being used in proprietary software. With no IP laws, most big companies would either create very expensive software (so anyone that buys it would not be willing to share it) or they would all go to service based apps (this is already starting to happen).

The grateful dead has had a following for many decades. What about new artists that want to make a living? Bar gigs don't pay anything, so the only real way to make a living is to sign with a recording company. In some ways, sharing music forces artists to go with a recording company, because they don't have a chance at making a living any other way.

After 10 years of popularized piracy (I know it's been available for much longer than this, but Napster mainstreamed it), the youth of today feels entitled to free things on the Internet and are becoming less and less likely to pay for digital media.

This is the danger of piracy and why all of those industries wanted to stop it.

"It doesn't even have to be a problem at all--a smart producer can use copying as an advantage."

I no longer make applications, only services. So the direct result of piracy is that people that normally would have to pay a one-time fee for my software now have to pay me every month.

<comment><USER20> "hmm..so who gives the big cartels the rights to their music? that's right...the artists. If the artists are getting scraps and you are illegally copying their stuff and as a result, they lose contracts, it's hurting them in the process."

More artists go with indie studios every year, and for the most part these studios have learned to use copying to their advantage instead of fighting it.

There's never been any definitive research that shows artists lose money from copying, even the big studio artists. The math isn't simple--even if you grant that fewer albums are purchased due to copying, a wider fan base could lead to higher concert and merchandise sales. Of course, this may also mean that copying can _increase_ album sales if it boosts popularity enough through network effect. One copier who likes an album may tell 10 of his friends, 2 of whom buy the album; that is profit directly attributable to copying.

"With no IP laws, most big companies would either create very expensive software (so anyone that buys it would not be willing to share it) or they would all go to service based apps (this is already starting to happen)."

If this is really how it would play out, I don't see the problem. If copying bits makes shrink wrapped software untenable (which I question), then so be it. Business models change all the time. It's not the end of the world.

"The grateful dead has had a following for many decades. What about new artists that want to make a living?"

The Grateful Dead started small like any band. One of the factors that led to their explosive growth was letting people freely distribute recordings of their live shows.

"After 10 years of popularized piracy (I know it's been available for much longer than this, but Napster mainstreamed it), the youth of today feels entitled to free things on the Internet and are becoming less and less likely to pay for digital media."

I see it more as people feeling entitled to communicate and share with each other freely, which is a good thing. I hope the trend continues.

"I no longer make applications, only services. So the direct result of piracy is that people that normally would have to pay a one-time fee for my software now have to pay me every month."

So? You adapted to the circumstances and are still providing the world value and getting paid for it. What's the problem?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> One of the issues is that "we" as internet community tend to protest online, for instance by blocking a site (DDOS) or sending tweets to politicians.

Europe doesn't realise this and might mistake the lack of angry people in the streets for "not caring" or "no problem", while complaining about "hackers" taking down web sites.

I'm afraid that there are only two options, either this gets blocked by the European Human Rights Court (article 10, freedom of speech) or we are going to get into a situation where we're China: internet filter plus many many tools to circumvent it.

I guess it's our first response to develop the latter and claim "we'll just use Tor / Freenet / VPN" but IMHO preventing the instatement of a filter in the first place would be a more noble struggle.

</comment><comment><USER23> So what if they do erect this "virtual wall"? People will just access those sites through some non-EU based proxy. Unless they block access to each and every non-EU based proxy, of course.

<comment><USER24> Where would you put your proxy to be clear of both "think of the rights holders" and "think of the children" as valid reasons to filter your access ?

<comment><USER23> So, what you're saying is that EU countries would block access to the proxies in other countries because of these reasons that you mention? Possibly. They might try to do that, but I'm not sure that they would succeed. There are too many proxies, and new ones pop up practically ever day. Unless they block access to any non-EU server, in which case EU becomes North Korea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Seems like focusing on pirates now would be like running a campaign against burglary in 1939 /instead/ of mobilizing against nazi Germany?

</comment><comment><USER26> this just might be the most elaborate example of Godwin's Law I've ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER27> The religious war between pirates and copyright will always continue.

<comment><USER28> Did you read the article? The issue here is internet censorship; the Pirate Bay guys are just getting involved because they tend to also be opposed to censorship.</comment></comment>


Garbage In, Garbage Out: Why Scraping Doesn't Work for Local Search  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nelso.com/2009/07/garbage-in-garbage-out-why-scraping.html

<comment><USER2> The blog post I wrote wasn't primarily about the legality of scraping (and I also didn't expect it to be read by more than a few people). But as that seems to be the topic of the thread, here's my response.

The courts found that it isn't possible to copyright facts, and that's all we were scraping - things like addresses, business name, and phone number. We weren't even scraping things like business category, because something as simple as putting a restaurant in the category "Fine Dining" might be considered a judgment call and therefore value-add by the original site.

And think of what would have happened if the court had found otherwise (i.e. had found that lists of facts could be copyrighted). If you opened a store, and I was the first one to put your address and phone number on-line, no one else could ever include your address or phone number on their site. Even if you created a website for your own business after I published your address, you wouldn't be able to include it on your site, because you'd violate _my_ copyright.

I can't see how the Supreme Court could have ruled any other way.

</comment><comment><USER3>
      "We've tried scraping ourselves in the past (yes, it's perfectly legal),"

Is scraping indeed "perfectly legal"?

<comment><USER4> Yes. Facts can't be legally protected.

A compilation is protected only as a completed work. You can't, for example, photocopy the yellow pages and resell it. But you could copy each and every phone number from the yellow pages and use those numbers in your competing directory.

<comment><USER5> Is that true in all cases? There's dispute about who owns sports statistics because the leagues are trying to claim they have licensing rights to them.

<comment><USER6> These would be the same people that claim to have rights over who can let who watch their broadcasts, no? I don't see how anyone can have licensing rights to stats regarding events.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There will always be garbage in. you're algorithms have to overcome this for the most part. Some things have to be manually dealt with and some things could be manually dealt with, but it's impossible to manually verify tens of millions of local listings.

<comment><USER2> That was the point of the post. Without some manual oversight of every new listing, too many errors will creep in to make the database truly useful.

Local search is not like general text search, where one expects that many of the results returned are not relevant, are wrong, are spam, etc. and can be ignored. Having the incorrect address or phone number for a business on a local search site is a major irritant to the user, and will quickly erode one's user base.

<comment><USER7> I think you missed my point. Manual oversight of tens of millions of listings is not remotely practical. The article points out bad data in google, and it hasn't eroded their user base ;) Don't you think there is a reason google hasn't manually reviewed each listing?

<comment><USER8> _The article points out bad data in google, and it hasn't eroded their user base ;)_

I don't trust Google at all for local information. I use social networks and ask my local friends rather than Google when I'm looking for a restaurant or other business in my town.

<comment><USER7> apples and oranges

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It looks like it still needs a lot of work. As a quick test I looked for Sports Bars in London (via their categories) and it returned an Antique Shop in Westerham. I then tried editing the record to remove irrelevant categories and got a server error.

<comment><USER2> The only cities we have good data for are Prague, Copenhagen, and lower Manhattan. Try <http://www.nelso.com/cz/prague/></comment></comment>


GoDaddy No Longer Supports SOPA - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/23/godaddy-no-longer-supports-sopa/ <comment><USER2> This is pretty hilarious. It was going to happen eventually, but I love how they're like "we're backing the internet community and this bill just isn't good enough yet" when they were gung-ho about supporting it before.

People would be fools to buy this. Their original stance really speaks volumes about their inner workings and mentality. Just because they're backpedalling doesn't change a damn thing about who they are as a company.

"In an effort to eliminate any confusion about its reversal on SOPA though, Jones has removed blog postings that had outlined areas of the bill Go Daddy did support."

That leaves a bad taste in my mouth, too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just saying we are no longer supporting this revision of SOPA is not good enough. You were one of the people who created this mess I won't be happy until you end it. A true reversal is to go from actively supporting it to actively opposing it. Those people who you empowered to create this monstrosity need to know that you no longer support this bill or them. That's the apology I need to see before you will ever get my business

</comment><comment><USER4> You already opened the kimono, douchebaggy. I'm not transfering over SOPA:I'm transfering ahead of your support for SOPA II.

<comment><USER5> As friends of mine say, it's never over, the line just keeps moving inch by inch, year by year. Try to get something wildly egregious passed, then fall back to just a little bit of what you wanted. Then push forward again, fall back, repeat until toast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I know that there is a statistical likelihood that as a 32 year old programmer I am probably a huge cynic. So this is a fun little project for me on a sick day, to try and come up with a scenario where I can accept their 180 reversal at face value and find all forgiven.

</comment><comment><USER7> Repeat - the official post from GoDaddy is already #1

</comment><comment><USER8> Ha. At least not right now. I have little faith and trust in the company now.

There is something to the "Don't be Evil" motto as company fountain of youth. Once a company loses my trust as a core audience/customer of theirs, they'll have a hard time winning it back.</comment>


Id Software's John Carmack sticks up for Call of Duty - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/07/id-softwares-john-carmack-sticks-up-for-call-of-duty.ars <comment><USER2> My biggest complaint about CoD is that the singleplayer is really more of a movie than a game. The story and the characters are always interesting, the voice acting and music are great, and the game _looks_ very impressive (especially the semi-interactive cutscenes). The problem is that the game designers usually resort to tricks like infinite enemies, enemies that only shoot at you and not your squadmates, etc. I guess what I'm saying is that it is a very linear scripted experience when compared to games like Halo.

The multiplayer on the other hand is what most people seem to buy the game for, and consequently I think that's what gets the most attention. I think there are some pretty significant changes in-between the games that really couldn't be done with DLC, so the cries that CoD is becoming the Madden on FPS games are unwarranted IMO.

I'm not sure why people bash Treyarch. I really liked MW2 and spec ops, but Treyarch brought us split-screen on XBL (yes, some people actually do play split-screen) and zombies.

As someone who mainly plays zombies on BO I do wish they would release the zombies maps as standalone DLC. Spending 15$ when I'm only going to play one map is an annoying waste of money.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "While people are still going to assume that Call of Duty fans are having some kind of fake fun just to spite everyone else, can we give the hate a rest, just for a bit? We're all in this hobby to have fun and play games, and spending money to get more of what you like doesn't make anyone a sucker."</comment>


Ask HN: How do you boost/improve your immune system? - <AUTHOR> Little bit off-topic for HN, but wondering what HN do for health.<p>How do you boost/improve your (and yours child's) immune system? <comment><USER2> Natural night - ten hours real darkness (no light) starting and ending at the same time (red light is okay.) Many immune and detoxification processes are left to your nightly melatonin cycle, when you don't need energy to do other things.

Other than that: strictly avoiding any supplement that's touted to "boost the immune system." I'm not joking at all, putting your immune system into high gear for no reason repeatedly is a bad idea, and all that crying wolf will leave it less able to respond when really needed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Regular exercise and getting enough sleep are both really great (for lots of reasons, but definitely a boost to your immune system). And of course nutrition is important, and it's show to be helpful even if you only make small changes. Ditto on the healing powers of vitamin D - especially when it comes from the sun.

</comment><comment><USER4> If one doesn't exercise, that would be the one with the best outcome. It would then lead to a better eating habit, would make you happier and increase the self-confidence. So many benefits to it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Haven't been sick for 6 years - cold/flu/any sickness. I put it down to intermittent fasting which I started at the same time. I eat about once a day in the evenings (I eat a lot then) although I often snack before exercise early to mid afternoon. There's been a couple of times where I've felt I'm coming down with a cold, and then it goes away like nothing happened. Writing this, I actually went out last night, had food and beers and woke in the night with that tell tale scratchy one side of my throat, then woke up this morning and nothing. I've found that if I feel something coming on, I eat nothing then it goes away. Water is obviously ok. You know how when you get really sick you lose your appetite, I think it might have something to do with that. I reckon eating is quite an energy hog, so if you don't eat then you can leave your body the resources it needs to fight a cold. All this is just anecdotal, but I'm sticking to it because having a cold is such a waste of time/so annoying.

</comment><comment><USER6> Note: most of this is purely anecdotal / may or may not be backed up by rigorous scientific research, but a lot of it comes down through ancient wisdom teachings / tips from eastern medicine (Indian / Chinese) so please don't put me on the cross if there is no medical study to back up what I am listing here :)

* Enough Sleep (at least 6 hours)

* Staying in a single location / time zone (hard for me, as I'm travelling every week)

* Eating healthy / balanced diet

* Eating at normal times (avoid late night eating)

* Celibacy

* Avoiding cold water (sticking to room temperature, and if sick only sipping hot water / teas)

* Reducing caffeine intake (coffee)

* Light yoga practice

* Staying warm in cold environments

* Get a blood check up and see if any deficiencies (look out for Vit D, Vit B, Zinc, high cholesterol, BP, fatty liver, Thyroid activity, etc.. Vit C supplementation also helps)

* Reduce / eliminate mental / emotional stress

* Eat organic / local

* Reduce meat consumption

</comment><comment><USER7> Try to be a little bit dirty whenever possible. Most of the time I don't wash my hand before I eat. I deliberately eat a small amount of microbes to stimulate my immune system, similar to how the vaccine works (by giving a weakened bacteria or antigen to stimulate the production of antibodies).

Being too clean is considered not healthy. [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis)

<comment><USER2> An especially safe way to go help about this is to not clean your cookware _too_ well; since this gives you regular exposure to dead bacteria, etc. that's been heated and killed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ensure you do not have vitamin D deficiency, reduce stress, exercise, and eat a well balanced diet.

<comment><USER9> Worth noting a good source of vitamin D is the Sun

<comment><USER8> In some places, at certain times of the year, the sun is not a good source. Also dermatologists don't suggest using the sun to get vitamin D due to skin damage. Everything in moderation of course. I imagine the sun has other benefits than just vitamin d.

Also getting sun through glass does not give vitamin D.

<comment><USER9> Right because glass filters most harmful spectrums of UV light which is what stimulates vitamin D production.

<comment><USER10> Gotta give yourself cancer and premature wrinkly skin if you want to boost your immune system. No pain no gain.

<comment><USER9> Like in all things in life, moderation is key.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't - 'boosting one's immune system' is a meaningless alt-med phrase. For someone like me, with an auto-immune disease, if 'boosting' my immune system was actually a real thing I would become more sick. Reading through the responses posted here - natural remedies, drink lots of water, get your kids to eat nuts, try and be a little bit dirty, reduce animal products - you can see that the advice is not based in good science or is purely based on someone's anecdotes or beliefs.

</comment><comment><USER12> Zinc. Sufficient intake daily.

Don't helicopter kids. Let them free to do things that aren't too clean like exploring creeks or rummaging in the dirt, or forgetting to wash food, or even eating food off the floor, or not washing their hands after touching animals. They also need to eat things like nuts, or other strange or unusual things from an early age.

</comment><comment><USER13> Try Spirulina. It seems to increase white blood cell count: [https://examine.com/supplements/spirulina/](https://examine.com/supplements/spirulina/)

</comment><comment><USER14> They say Ashwagandha and many other natural remedies help boost immune system.

<comment><USER6> Ashwagandha is great, also known as indian ginseng. Has been very helpful, but would recommend making sure it will help balance your doshas rather than aggravate them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Drinking lots of water

I also love to take vegetarian "sprints" for 2-5 days

</comment><comment><USER16> Elderberry syrup and Echinacea, Exercise and good sleep.

</comment><comment><USER17> Reduce or completely eliminate animal products (way too many toxins), boost the antioxidants ( amla, berries), eliminate processed food and switch to whole foods, exercise regularly, sleep well

<comment><USER18> "Reduce or completely eliminate animal products (way too many toxins)"

[[[[[[[Citation Needed]]]]]]]]]

Especially when comparing it with other foods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Spend more time with Nature (easier said than done)

</comment><comment><USER20> \- Eat a well-balanced diet

\- Get 8.5 hours of sleep on a consistent sleep schedule

\- Exercise regularly

\- Get vaccinations</comment>


Thoughts on Clojure Package Management - <AUTHOR> http://stuartsierra.com/2009/08/31/thoughts-on-clojure-package-management

<comment><USER2> "These days, when everyone has a blog and a Github account, sharing code is easy. Doing "git push" requires almost no thought, no investment of time. Why not release everything, even when it's untested, undocumented, or unfinished?"

Indeed, why not? Getting code in front of eyeballs is one way to improve testing and documentation, and getting features finished.

You don't have to grab stuff from a repo, but often it's nice to be able to use something even if it's crap, when the alternative is nothing at all.

"I concluded that it's just too early. Clojure is a scarcely two years old. It just released "1.0″ this year, and is still developing rapidly."

Wrong approach. Rubygems made it way easier for people to try things out and have some fin with other people's code. Likewise, Cabal for Haskell has made it much simpler for me to poke around in a language I'm just learning.

Ruby got a big boost from Rails, and the reason Rails got traction was because it was stupid simple to install and start using. If people had to run arcane compilation tools or track down dependencies, things would have been very different.

Every new language designed should include a simple and accessible package management process from the very start to boost adoption and contribution.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I know we have some big time Perl folks here... Can anyone give a synopsis of how the CPAN approval process works? It's been held up as the gold standard for just about every new language over the past decade. Having only consumed resources from it, I've got no idea how things get into CPAN to begin with.

<comment><USER3> I think you just get an account and upload your stuff. CPAN has a lot of great stuff it also has a lot of crap. That's how it's supposed to be.

<comment><USER4> That's it. And everyone can register and upload code. Some tests from the CPAN servers are regulary runned against your code and you get notified by email, but that's all about it really. Darwin selection ;-).</comment></comment></comment>


Using Client-Side Javascript for Distributed Computing - <AUTHOR> http://victorquinn.com/concept-idea-using-client-side-javascript-for

<comment><USER2> I've been lurking hn for a while now but finally decided to register for this post. I actually did something similar to this for my undergrad honours thesis last year. The main difference being that my client was written in actionscript instead of javascript.

The difficulty with this type of application is breaking up the computation into chunks large enough to offset the overhead of getting the data to and from the client to net a "profit" in terms of computation time. As the author mentioned, you have to limit the amount of CPU time that the client uses, otherwise, you'll end up potentially impacting the user negatively. Couple this with the limited amount of time between a user's browser requests and the amount of computational power at your disposal is pretty limited.

Although my implementation was far from optimal (it was purely academic in order to see if the concept would work), I found that in every case, it was on the order of at least 100 times slower than simply doing the computation serially(!) on the server machine. It was actually costing more time to manage the connections between the various clients and the server than the amount of computational work that I was getting from the clients.

Now, it's not to say that something like this couldn't potentially be made to work. But the types of computations that this sort of grid is also severely limited. Due to things like sandboxing and socket restrictions you cannot (easily) have clients collaborate together to perform more complex computations, therefore you are effectively limited to embarrassingly parallel algorithms.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are there any JITs for JS that end up exposing SIMD instructions on the host processor? Without that, and combined with the fact that JITs still don't necessarily get to C speed even on simple math on raw floats/integers, you're going to take a _stiff_ performance penalty for this, even on the latest JS VMs. User will still be paying for their electricity but will be doing a vanishing fraction of the work... rather than being a great idea it would actually sort of hostile to even offer this option.

NaCl, maybe. Google isn't helping me figure out if it can do SIMD instructions.

<comment><USER4> I'd really rather use NaCl. And, I think SIMD is in the plan for NaCl, eventually...

But, you might be a bit surprised by the raw float performance of the latest JS VMs. Running this benchmark, [http://stepheneb.github.com/webgl-matrix- benchmarks/matrix_b...](http://stepheneb.github.com/webgl-matrix- benchmarks/matrix_benchmark.html) on my 3.4Ghz AMD in FF4, CanvasMatrix can multiply 20,000 pairs of 4x4 matrices in 1.5 ms. That's about 1.5 double- precision gigaflops on 1 core. 4 webworkers would give 6 gigaflops. That's low compared to the 50 gigaflops that native, pure-cpu-burn benchmarks get on that processor (when overclocked to 3.6 Ghz) [http://www.overclock.net/amd- cpus/499526-official-phenom-ii-...](http://www.overclock.net/amd- cpus/499526-official-phenom-ii-x4-9x5-oc.html) but it's not terrible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The slickest way I can imagine to do it would be be using HTML5 Webworkers on the clients and Websockets on NodeJS for the server. I've been thinking of doing some experiments in this direction, I'd be surprised if at least a few folks aren't already doing this.

</comment><comment><USER6> This vaguely reminds me of John Resig's TestSwarm project (<http://ejohn.org/blog/test-swarm-alpha-open/>). Although I'm not sure what the current status of the project is since the links to the site and github project are now dead:

<http://testswarm.com/>

<https://github.com/jeresig/testswarm>

This seems like it would be an ideal starting point for a project like this.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is what wowd (<http://www.wowd.com/> [no longer relevant]) tried to do for realtime search before they had to pivot. Current browsers with ECMAScript as the only API are simply too insular, too limited and too slow for any useful distributed computing to ever be genuinely feasible.

It would be nice if the browser was a stronger vm specifically suited for executing untrusted objects, yet still with a more traditional os api, filesystem access, and real network interface. But the web still sucks for now.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hi Victor, there have been a couple of projects exactly like this here on HN, first was MapRejuice, AFAIK.

"You've heard of SETI@home? We're SETI@Chrome." <http://2010.nodeknockout.com/teams/anansi> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1645520>

</comment><comment><USER9> This is brilliant Idea, very innovative....</comment>


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says 'we should be excited about automation' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/10/18258134/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-automation-sxsw-2019 <comment><USER2> It's the same viewpoint that lead John Maynard Keynes to predict that with automation and efficiency the average working week in 2030 would be 15 hours.

That is, we've had centuries of automation - why shouldn't we expect fewer working hours yet still with a good standard of living?

It's the same argument behind a guaranteed minimum income. In essence, there's a structural problem which can be improved, not an intrinsic problem with automation.

</comment><comment><USER3> When people fear automation what they fear is a world where selfish people are no longer forced to share anything. Deep down they know that there is no history of power sharing more without mass casualties. It's not automation that is scary, it's the approaching fight.</comment>


36 years on, you can play Bill Gates' crappy Donkey game on Apple Watch - <AUTHOR> http://www.cultofmac.com/462801/36-years-on-you-can-play-bill-gates-donkey-game-on-apple-watch/ <comment><USER3> Toxic behavior 101. One dude, who I am sure most people never heard of, spouted off about some demo code written decades ago by a guy that is the quintessential successful software engineer and that _everyone_ knows about, probably even little kids in remote villages with no electricity. Now other dudes feel necessary to conform. Riling on about Bill's purported technical ineptitude doesn't put him down, or put you up anywhere near his level - <USER2> just makes you look like a donkey. This is intellectual dwarfism. Don't do it, because it's your own little glass ceiling (same goes for spreading the 640k rumor). It also looks lame and unprofessional, and we work in a pretty small industry, in terms of the kinds of people most of us would work around anyway.

And yeah, billg is the quintessential successful "startupper". Yes, he came from a priviledged background. Yes, he had some wonderful partners and colleagues, and yes he had the priviledge to have access to real computers at a tender age. All of this is really pretty typical of american enterpreneurship in a new hot market. And none of this takes away from Bill's own software engineering background and acumen. Remember: he developed and sold real products without finishing college. He started an extremely successful software company, successful in a large part because of Bill's extreme demands for technical and business excellence. He also knew when to move on to create a real difference elsewhere via the Gates Foundation, and doesn't live like the Kardashians or John McCaffee. He is a humble, very learned and hard working guy that all of us have plenty to learn from.</comment>


Darts, Dice, and Coins: Sampling from a Discrete Distribution (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.keithschwarz.com/darts-dice-coins/

<comment><USER2> probabilistic modeling is gaining popularity here for some reason. Alias algorithm is used here to create a discrete distribution [https://github.com/jliszka/probability- monad/blob/master/src...](https://github.com/jliszka/probability- monad/blob/master/src/main/scala/probability-monad/Distribution.scala#L284)</comment>


Taking a photo against a white background? Amazon owns the patent on that - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/207512/taking-a-photo-against-a-white-background-amazon-owns-the-patent-on-that/

<comment><USER2> I would make this exhibit A in my proposal, "The USPTO should be banished from the land before it can do any further damage."</comment>


A group of middle-aged whites in the U.S. is dying at a startling rate - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-group-of-middle-aged-american-whites-is-dying-at-a-startling-rate/2015/11/02/47a63098-8172-11e5-8ba6-cec48b74b2a7_story.html <comment><USER2> NYTimes take on it from yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10495758](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10495758)

</comment><comment><USER3> I can _totally_ understand why individuals with substance abuse problems give up in their early 50's and commit suicide, as I personally have felt this tug at times.

It is very difficult, both emotionally and financially, to look back at a life of wrecked relationships and blown opportunities and not feel an intense disgust with yourself and a deep fear about the future.

Also, there is simply no place for you in society anymore. In your 50's, you are almost completely judged by your status in life; your house, your cars, your relationships...someone fighting addiction for 30 years will have little to none of this.

Even super close old friends eventually give up on you and stop returning calls.

I often say these days the only real regrets I have in life is hurting those who loved me due to my substance abuse lifestyle.

<comment><USER4> > Also, there is simply no place for you in society anymore. In your 50's, you > are almost completely judged by your status in life; your house, your cars, > your relationships...someone fighting addiction for 30 years will have > little to none of this.

Much of the country is not that way. My father in law is that age, and I think very few people in his community would judge him by that standard. He's a prominent member of a popular foodie Facebook group in his town, to the point where people stop him in the street and take selfies with him. In his community, that's a much bigger deal than owning a Porsche.

Almost all of my wife's side of the family (from coastal Oregon) is like that. Most of her cousins are doing great things with food, art, or in the church, and people praise them for that. When they ask what we do (we're both corporate attorneys), they nod politely. I am sure they would be horrified-- rather than impressed--to hear how much we spend on rent.

<comment><USER5> Those are just _different_ status indicators. The parent's point that people are expected to accumulate status stands.

<comment><USER4> A former drug abuser starting over at 50 has a fighting chance at finding a "place in society" when that society cares more about how you contribute your time than about your accumulated wealth.

<comment><USER5> This is a good point, and I'm finding on re-reading my comment that I was too flippant. I do think the point stands that it is easier for younger people to find their place without existing expertise or relationships, but certainly it's easier to build status in some communities than others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Though I'm still on the fence about the validity of the comparison, an argument that I've seen online regarding these stats is that it echoes similar trends in addiction and suicide that manifested in post-USSR Russia, which were arguably driven by an increase in general despair and decline in quality of life. Here's an interesting qualitative description of the phenomenon: [http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/sep/02/dying- russi...](http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/sep/02/dying-russians/)

Now, back to the contemporary statistics: the correlation between increased mortality and socioeconomic groups 'hardest-hit' by recent economic concerns (globalization, the recession, and income inequality) seems quite clear, but I'm wondering if the correlation with mortality associated with drug poisoning would hold true if the same information were collected about a country with a less dysfunctional approach to narcotics and addiction management. I have a hunch that it wouldn't.

<comment><USER7> > an increase in general despair and decline in quality of life.

Yet in our own country, suicide is treated as a "mental illness", and rarely does anyone acknowledge the circumstances which make suicide the rational option.

<comment><USER8> Please don't call suicide a rational option.

One can argue that oppression and malaise are driving people to despair. It's another argument entirely to say that wasting a life makes sense.

<comment><USER9> Assisted suicide is regarded as a human right by some. There are good rational arguments for that. Lets not be too PC to have the conversation.

<comment><USER10> I didn't get the impression that mbrutsch was referring to assisted suicide. Check out the quoted line. He/she was referring to suicide as the rational option for "an increase in general despair and decline in quality of life."

<comment><USER9> Ok, but same response. Folks' lives are their own to keep or 'throw away'.

<comment><USER10> A society that treats suicide as a rational way to treat mental illness is not a society I want to have anything to do with.

<comment><USER11> I think the original point was that suicide is not always a sign of mental illness.

<comment><USER12> Guess it depends on how you define mental illness- humans have a very strong biological drive to survive.. there's an argument to be made that a thought pattern that contradicts that very basic need is aberrant.

<comment><USER13> Sir Terry Pratchett decided that he'd rather die while able to make the decision, rather than letting his mind be destroyed by Alzheimer's. (Granted, his passing was natural, but he campaigned eloquently for the right to make such a choice.)

I also knew someone who suffered great pain on a daily basis, and I have a hard time considering his suicide irrational. I knew a guy (a friend of a friend) who, through foolishness in his youth, ruptured three of his spinal discs, and had damaged two other ones. He was in constant excruciating pain. In the trailing decade of his life, he could not get sufficient pain relief to hold a job, could not get/afford treatment because of that, and basically was in a pain-filled hell, as he put it. At some point, after he'd been in near- constant excruciating pain for twenty years, he decided he no longer wanted to live.

I don't think either of these men were mentally ill, or making irrational choices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yeah, I can imagine how it would be extremely stressful and life-shortening to be perpetually worried about money.

Wealth inequality has been rising for a very long time, with all but the highest income brackets stagnating. This isn't sustainable, it's literally causing the serfs to be so stressed that they die or kill themselves because of how few resources they get. We need at least some of these people alive and functioning if our society is to continue.

<comment><USER15> I think rising wealth inequality is underestimated as a cause of suicide in the US. So many statistics indicate that financial stress is rising on the 99%, with no little change in sight.

I suspect large numbers of American lives are being shortened, even if not by outright suicide, through diseases caused by constant stress, mostly economic.

<comment><USER16> What has inequality got to do with it? The 24/7 issue is whether people have a decent life day to day. Why is the existence of insanely rich Mrs X a cause of suicide? Of course there is an issue, especially in the US, whereby wealth translates into power. No more office boy to president! There seems to be reluctance to tackle this but that's up to Americans. Assuming you believe inequality is a bad thing in itself, you can only counter it by taking money from the rich. One does wonder however whether taking money from a hard- working entrepreneur and giving even more of it to an organization that has run up astronomical debts already (most Western governments) - to dole out to others is such a smart move. Opportunities here for fresh thinking. And since when has anybody really benefited in the long run from being given money. Give me a multiple of my income and I'll down tools and do something interesting but not necessarily economically productive.

<comment><USER15> Only with regard to your first three sentences:

It isn't wealth inequality or the existence of "insanely rich" per se, it's the ever-growing sector of Americans who are excluded from wealth _and who no longer see any realistic hope of changing that through their own efforts_. It's the latter view that is a growing suicide motivator, IMHO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _The mortality rate for white men and women ages 45-54 with less than a college education increased markedly between 1999 and 2013, most likely because of problems with legal and illegal drugs, alcohol and suicide, the researchers concluded. Before then, death rates for that group dropped steadily, and at a faster pace._

A graph in the article [0] shows a large spike in deaths by poisoning, a modest increase in suicides and chronic liver disease, no change in diabetes, and a decrease in lung cancer. So the authors quasi-conclude that the increase in this demographic is due to underlying psychic pain (tough times post- recession?) that causes people to overdose/die from alcohol poisoning.

There is a weird stat at the bottom of the article - according to the "National Heroin Task Force" (who knew there was such a thing) 110 people overdose on legal/illegal drugs every day. The CDC says that only 6 people die from alcohol poisoning every day. So if we take those stats at face value, which we probably shouldn't because the National Heroin Task Force has an incentive to overblow the problem, then we would conclude that heroin is a much larger problem than alcoholism across this demographic.

One other discrepancy was the author throwing in this strange citation that (supposedly) bemoans the future of Medicare:

 _" This is the first indicator that the plane has crashed," said Jonathan Skinner, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, who reviewed the study and co-authored a commentary that appears with it. "I don't know what's going on, but the plane has definitely crashed."_

It's not often that you see this level of insightful journalism and deep analysis, so I took a moment to savor that nugget of knowledge. Then I wondered - isn't it a "good" thing for the Medicare system if the working class is dying off after contributing to the pot but before taking anything out?

[0] [https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/Wash...](https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/11/02/Health- Environment-Science/Images/Whitedeath2.jpg?uuid=rEBj4IF6EeWnymq27CD4OQ)

<comment><USER18> Though it's not a concern within my inner circle, I've studied the War on Drugs and to claim the "National Heroin Task Force" should be baseline accused of "overblowing" the problem shows, well, straight up ignorance. Currently, yes, it's a much more fatal problem than alcoholism. The toxicity of opiate addiction - and the unregulated black market for which to get heroin - is a deadly mixture of factors.

 _So as painkiller overdoses leveled off at about 16,000 in recent years, heroin deaths skyrocketed from just over 3,000 in 2010 to more than 8,200 in 2013, according to CDC data. Though all heroin users didn 't necessarily start with painkillers, it's the transition from painkillers to heroin, Humphreys and other experts say, that led to the recent dramatic spike in heroin abuse._

Below is a link to a Vox article that presents evidence regarding the above quote, and the reason there's a heroin epidemic in the US is because of the overly aggressive (lobbied, and punished for dishonesty in marketing) pharmaceutical industry pushing opiate drugs. Now, with the crackdown on pills, there are wide, wide swaths of the US population who've gone from pills to the horse:

[http://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/9433099/opioid-painkiller- heroi...](http://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/9433099/opioid-painkiller-heroin- epidemic)

<comment><USER17> _Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years. Further, excessive drinking was responsible for 1 in 10 deaths among working- age adults aged 20-64 years. The economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption in 2010 were estimated at $249 billion, or $2.05 a drink._

So alcohol causes 10x the amount of deaths per year, and when you factor in economic damages caused by people operating machinery, driving, hurting themselves when drunk it seems like heroin abuse is neither a "much more fatal problem" nor a much more widespread problem than alcoholism. Faster growing, yes.

[http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol- use.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm)

<comment><USER18> Care to balance out the statistics of the alcohol deaths with the number of people in the United States who use alcohol? I did a quick search and came up with this via the NIH:

 _In 2013, 86.8 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime; 70.7 percent reported that they drank in the past year; 56.4 percent reported that they drank in the past month... In 2013, 24.6 percent of people ages 18 or older reported that they engaged in binge drinking in the past month_

...and, via the 2010 US Census, there are 193,000,000 people between the ages of 18 and 64.

So, if we consider the math, many, many more people consume alcohol than heroin, and as such, 88,000 is a much smaller "fatal problem" than you frame it. So, not as widespread as alcoholism, but much more fatal for those affected. I stand by my assertion that there's no need to "over-state" the heroin problem in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Blue collar white Americans haven't exactly been celebrated in the past 30 years. One might suspect that there is a connection.

<comment><USER20> They have become this mythical creature in political rhetoric along with "small business owners". A lot of stuff is done and claimed in their name. Little of it becomes true, but the rhetoric of appealing to "hard working men and women" never fails.

<comment><USER19> I am related several different ways to blue collar people: they see the sham.

<comment><USER21> None of my relatives do. They eat that stuff up, because the alternative is to admit that they're a mediocre bunch that hasn't risen one iota above the wealth or social status of their predecessors, despite their derision for poor people of color for not climbing that same social ladder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "While the death rate for African Americans is still greater than the rate for whites, the turnaround among whites is shocking because of the advantages they enjoy, said David Weir..."

Is this just reversion to the mean? That is, is the death rate for working- class white people simply converging to to the death rate for African Americans?

If so, that's the most horrible way to end white privilege :(

<comment><USER23> No, a "reversion to the mean" is a statistical error caused by small sample sizes. For obvious reasons, you're not likely to see it when looking at death statistics for a population in the tens of millions. There's a clear hypothesis here for a real effect.

<comment><USER24> Unless you are using a different meaning of 'reversion to the mean' than I am familiar with, it's not a statistical error and has nothing to do with the size of the sample. 'Regression to the mean' happens when you have an imperfect correlation between two data fields.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if the next generation will sneer when watching circa 2015 clips of people boozing at virtually every social outing, like we do when we see old clips of people smoking everywhere.

<comment><USER26> I'm doubtful. Smoking is a fairly recent phenomenon for the most part, while drinking long predates written history.

<comment><USER27> Smoking has been around for about 5000 years, [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_smoking](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_smoking)

It may be the impact to others that gave smoking it's stigma compared to alcohol. Smoke drifts through the air and leaves a pungent smell in clothing. For non-smokers, this can be far more impacting than alcohol when both substances are consumed in moderation.

<comment><USER26> Right, but it wasn't the modern form of smoking a lot every day as a habit, as far as I can tell, but more of an occasional thing. That's what I tried to cover, vaguely, with "for the most part." Smoking a little bit isn't too bad, it's when you're inhaling multiple cigarettes every day that you really have trouble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So from 1979 - 1999 mortality rates fell an average of 2% but have risen half a percent per year since then. If I had to guess it could be that the pressures of stagnant incomes, skyrocketing higher health care costs, and more volatile economic conditions could be a bit of a pressure cooker for stress, poor diets, and increased alcohol/drug use.

<comment><USER29> Adding to that, the authors of the article and the paper are constructing an argument that over-prescription of opiod painkillers is a significant component of the problem.

<comment><USER9> How about: they got more affluent, ate too much red meat and died of strokes?

<comment><USER28> Yeah could be that, but think stress.

We started the millennium with a stock market crash, 9/11, the Concord crashed, the Space Shuttle broke up on reentry, two wars kicked off and just when things started calming down... the Great Recession. If you weren't laid off then you probably knew a few people that were. It seemed like everything we had built over the past two decades was failing us all at once.

The 90's seemed like a time when you just watched Seinfeld on Thursday nights and watched your stocks go up in value. The 2000's and on have been a bit more stressful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands Interesting there is no mention of obesity and the correlated diseases which are associated with being overweight.

The US has an obesity epidemic right now and it has huge risks for some of these health issues:

1\. high blood pressure

2\. diabetes

3\. heart disease

4\. cancer

5\. ulcers

Yet absolutely no mention of this in any of the stats or the issues which may be contributing to early deaths of this segment of the population.

<comment><USER30> They do mention it. They suggest that those types of ailments are increasing, but not at a pace that would explain these deaths.

"...the study clearly shows they are not the result of diseases such as lung cancer or diabetes, which are declining and increasing slowly, respectively."

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was surprised to read through all this and not see a more direct mention of the likely triad of causes for this phenomenon: debt, divorce, and dependents.

Especially divorce.

<comment><USER32> But isn't divorce down (or at least flat) since 1980?

However % of out-of-wedlock births have continued to rise.

Anecdotally and statistically, it seems like 'Family Court' findings are the major cause for a precarious-to-struggling decade long stretch of life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The findings discussed in this study make an interesting side note to this (older HN) discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5424241](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5424241)

The generation of "middle-aged whites" (which the article describes as being aged 45-54 between 1999 and 2013) probably doesn't get enough credit. So... lack of college education is a common denominator in many of their deaths. But people keep forgetting the information economy came _after_ we had our hefty physical infrastructure.

Alcohol and drug abuse are how people self-medicate when they can't afford expensive / professional medical care. We're only barely starting to scratch the surface of this problem with AHA; but for many of the "uneducated" people in this generation who were/are employed in construction / physical labor... it probably seems like too little too late.

</comment><comment><USER34> "This is the first indicator that the plane has crashed," said Jonathan Skinner, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, who reviewed the study and co-authored a commentary that appears with it. "I don't know what's going on, but the plane has definitely crashed."

This basically sums up my fears. Whatever is going on, economics is at the root of it.

</comment><comment><USER35> How much of this is due to the economy? The people in this group, surely, are finding it harder to get well paying jobs. It is much harder to find a middle income job working with your hands now than it was 20, 30 years ago.

What did this group's wages do during this same time period? Something had to push them to this. I am guessing this is it.

<comment><USER36> People with no college experience, are basically the only group not participating in the rebounded economy. In fact the only demographics that are actually losing jobs to immigrants in net, are lower class whites and blacks. Their job opportunities have been seriously harmed by the immigration influx. It makes perfect sense you would see a decline in their well being accordingly (especially considering the US has a weaker welfare state in sheer benefits volume, including for mental health, versus much of western Europe).

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> elephant in the room - our culture is broken

<comment><USER38> pmuch.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg)

<comment><USER39> I really wish that the whole Rat Park experiment this video relies on had been true, and a cure for addiction was that easy, but as I understand it the scientist behind the Rat Park experiment falsified the data to spark a public debate.

The idea was great, but further studies failed to reproduce the original results and all major science journals rejected the paper.

We are not making it easier to handle this big issue of addiction by relying on fals or unreproducible data.

<comment><USER40> Do you have a source that thoroughly supports the debunking of the Rat Park experiment? This is the first I'd heard that it was unreproducible and the result of falsified data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The study itself: [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full.pdf)

Kudos to the authors and journal for providing a full PDF immediately. Boo to the Washington Post for not linking.

</comment><comment><USER42> Yay! GenX makes the news at at last! [Spoiler: I'm 45 and white. This isn't sarcasm. It's just how we are.]

</comment><comment><USER43> My concern is that this only gets worse going forward. We have so many people raised to "hit the milestone, get the prize" sort of life strategies that when you run out of milestones to hit it will greatly depress them.

</comment><comment><USER44> Vaguely reminds me of the chapter on suicides in Tipping Point (iirc). I wonder if this can be explained in a similar fashion instead of by macro trends?

</comment><comment><USER45> In short, poor white folks struggle mightily just like poor black folks (or folks of any color) do.

<comment><USER46> It's a little terrifying that this needs to be said. We are now operating under the assumption that if you are white, then your life can't be bad in any way and you have money to burn.

I guess the propaganda has worked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Fox News Channel, founded 1996.

</comment><comment><USER48> Why just non-college considered in study? Seems to be an example of selection bias.</comment>


Twitter Took Phone Numbers for Security and Used Them for Advertising - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kez8d/twitter-took-phone-numbers-for-security-used-for-advertising <comment><USER2> This is what you get for giving corporations PII they don't actually need.</comment>


Building a BitTorrent client from scratch in C# (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://archive.is/CCx9i <comment><USER2> This is actually still available from the original author, just under a different URL: [https://www.seanjoflynn.com/research/bittorrent.html](https://www.seanjoflynn.com/research/bittorrent.html)

Additionally, it has been discussed previously on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11922444](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11922444)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, I submitted the archived page because I couldn't load the website at that time but it is responding perfectly now. Sorry for that.</comment></comment>