An almost-GHz active differential oscilloscope probe (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.weinigel.se/2016/02/26/ghz-differential-probe.html <comment><USER2> That was almost nostalgic for me particularly. I was part of the group that did the LMH67xx series of parts. I personally didn't design the LMH6702, but I was next cubicle over from the guy who did.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Part 2: [http://blog.weinigel.se/2016/02/28/ghz-differential- probe-2....](http://blog.weinigel.se/2016/02/28/ghz-differential-probe-2.html)

Part 3: [http://blog.weinigel.se/2016/03/16/ghz-differential- probe-3....](http://blog.weinigel.se/2016/03/16/ghz-differential-probe-3.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Excellent write up. I'm also a software guy that experiments with hardware, so I love seeing these type of projects. How much time was spent on R&D for this? I'm sure there are plenty of reasons, but it's insane to me that something like this would cost $3k.

<comment><USER4> 3K in the RF world is cheap... I've watched as more than that in chips fried with a bad reflow profile, and that was with some very very cost-efficent people.

<comment><USER5> Yep, I have a Keysight 7 GHz diff probe at work that cost $25k, and that's one of the cheaper ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One thing I never saw in the writeup is:

Why use discrete components to build the instrumentation amp?

Surely, there is an integrated version of a differential amp that has the required specs in one chip somewhere for <$50?

<comment><USER7> A quick DigiKey parametric search yields instrumentation amps with GBW <= 35 MHz.

<comment><USER6> Sure, if you hunt for "instrumentation amps".

Instrumentation amps are meant primarily for amplifying low voltage rather than high-bandwidth. What you're looking for is a "fully differential" amplifier.

He apparently actually built a board using an LMH6702 (roughly $3 for 1.7GHz), but then never mentions anything about it.

And, what's with the downvotes on my question? If the answer is so obvious, what's the answer oh-so-brilliant-ones?

<comment><USER7> Yes, instrumention amps are often used for low-voltage amplification...primarily because the topology enables the elimination of impedance-matched input termination with the distinct benefit of minimizing parasitic load on the UUT. Apparently, readily-available _integrated_ instrumentation amps on the market are designed for relatively low-bandwidth applications as a quick DigiKey parametric search suggests, but the canonical topology itself isn't fundamentally bandwidth-constrained...which is part of the reason why I pointed to max GBW results from the search and left it at that.

No, that's not what I'd be looking for, especially in response to your question with the specific constraint of "an _integrated_ version of a differential amp"; given the sensitivity of the in-circuit measurement application being considered, this effectively suggests integrated instrumentation amp. With your suggestion of what I _should_ be looking for, how would you go about input termination without loading the UUT to the detriment of SI?

The author does indeed briefly discuss his prototypes and even released his Eagle design on GitHub[1] with still more notes.

For the record, I didn't downvote on first response, but your "oh-so-brillant- ones" snark may have earned one.

[1] [https://github.com/wingel/diff-probe](https://github.com/wingel/diff- probe)

<comment><USER6> I actually did originally go back to the GitHub repo, but I missed this in the README:

"So far I have only built the B variant of the probe, that is, the probe with separate OP amps for the inputs."

So, that's why he doesn't discuss the others. He never built them.

> With your suggestion of what I should be looking for, how would you go about > input termination without loading the UUT to the detriment of SI?

I would almost certainly want to grab the LMH6552 which is a fully- differential. It's input bias current isn't dramatically worse (110uA (about 10K Ohm) vs 34uA (about 30K Ohm)) than the LMH6702 that he used and likely wins by being matched/same temperature because same die/no PCB routing mismatch/etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


When You're Visited By A Copy Of Yourself, Stay Calm - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/11/07/164607292/when-you-re-visited-by-a-copy-of-yourself-stay-calm?ft=1&f=1007&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER2> The book mentioned by Oliver Sacks on hallucinations looks interesting.

I have to say that one of my favourite neuroscience books has to be, "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" by the aforementioned Dr. Oliver Sacks.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-Who-Mistook-His- Wife/dp/03305236...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-Who-Mistook-His- Wife/dp/0330523627)

It's really a great read for anyone interested in neuroscience, psychology or just weird and wonderful stories in general.

<comment><USER3> "Musicophilia" is also very good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I took the subject to be advice for composing recursive functions.

<comment><USER5> haha. I wish I took the advice during a recent programming interview, in which I thought a recursive function would be the best way to accomplish the end goal. forgot how much i hated them until it was too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This reminds me of the Nobel Prize winner who came up with the first concept in Game Theory - John Nash.

</comment><comment><USER7> seems as if npr.org is having an issue with their ssl cert.. or akamai's..

(Error code: ssl_error_bad_cert_domain)

</comment><comment><USER8> In my self-hypnosis scripts for Summon the Warrior: <http://SummontheWarrior.com> I use sensory recall and a few other techniques that can induce hallucinations. Certainly, they can be triggered by a smell or sound.

Negative hallucinations are even more common (like not being able to see the car keys when they are right in front you). I see people show signs of negative hallucinations when they walk past litter on scenic paths.</comment>


Monkeypatching For Humans - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001151.html

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://weblog.raganwald.com/2008/07/my-analyst-warned-me- but...](http://weblog.raganwald.com/2008/07/my-analyst-warned-me-but.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> Does Hacker News have to re-post everything Jeff Atwood writes? Sorry for my ranting.

<comment><USER3> as long as its relevant, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good article for C# & Java boys. Hacker News worthy? Hardly.</comment>


PagerDuty hacked. And finally comes clean 21 days later - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/31/incident_managers_pagerduty_pwned/ <comment><USER2> Has anyone written a checklist for CEOs/CTOs of stuff to do/avoid when such incidents are discovered?

<comment><USER3> In my opinion: the Pager Duty team did okay. Disclosing sooner would have been cool, but then again law enforcement might have had the gun to their heads on disclosing anything.

They explained their bcrypt implementation awkwardly, though. This is what their code did: [https://github.com/plataformatec/devise/blob/1a0192201b317d3...](https://github.com/plataformatec/devise/blob/1a0192201b317d3f1bac88f5c5b4926d527b1b39/lib/devise/encryptor.rb)

I would not have advised them to go the pepper route, but it's probably a moot point now.

In their favor: When asked, they gave specific answers up to the point that they were allowed to by law enforcement. _More companies should follow their example here._

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Based on the investigation, the attacker bypassed multiple layers of > authentication and gained unauthorised access to an administrative panel > provided by one of our infrastructure providers.

Sounds like a VPS provider screwed up? If that's the case, would love to know which one it was. :/

<comment><USER5> They have a couple of subdomains hosted with AWS, in the us-west region looks like. Not really definitive, but AWS is common infrastructure for a lot of startups these days, and it wouldn't be the first time that someone managed to find their way into an AWS admin panel.

<comment><USER6> Linode seems like the more likely culprit here.

<comment><USER5> Given Linode's past history, I'd regrettably have to agree. I didn't see evidence of Linode infrastructure when I posted my earlier comment.

It's frustrating that PagerDuty can't / won't share that information. I can't see how that's helping law enforcement's investigation, and it's potentially putting a lot of other people at risk depending on the nature and severity of the compromise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Recent discussion on HN: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977399](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977399)

<comment><USER8> This is way, way too prevalent -- people thinking that by doing more things to the password you are being more secure. The bcrypt algo already salts, there's no need to prepend extra stuff. And if you really had 80 chars of preliminary table condiments and your bcrypt implementation truncated at 72 -- well that's just textbook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just PR content, too little, too late.

now wait and watch if someone will dump this on pastebin or some torrent.

compare it with what slack posted under similar scenario

[http://slackhq.com/post/114696167740/march-2015-security- inc...](http://slackhq.com/post/114696167740/march-2015-security-incident-and- launch-of-2fa)

</comment><comment><USER10> It was less than a week ago that someone here proclaimed loudly that 'security is just as bad as premature optimization'. I wonder how the pagerduty folks feel right now, but I'll bet that 'premature optimization' is not the first thought that comes to mind.

A good start-up fires on all cylinders and strikes a balance when it comes to features, user friendliness, performance _and_ security. Ignore any one of those and you'll lose the game eventually.

Let's hope they pull together and up their game then manage to survive, I'd trust them much better after failing like this than before assuming they learned their lesson.

<comment><USER11> >It was less than a week ago that someone here proclaimed loudly that 'security is just as bad as premature optimization'.

Although I work in infosec, I could see how this case could be made if your company/service does not handle or store any customer or financial data at all, and does not have any particularly sensitive information. Otherwise, it's a pretty ridiculous statement.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, jacques is definitely pulling my comment far out of context. I was commenting on his suggestion that _everyone_ start serving their own JavaScript files, and writing custom code to check their sanctity.

I can't see the parallel here, or how that practice would have helped PagerDuty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> * cue PagerDuty "sad trombone" alert sound _</comment>


The economic case for giving refugees cash, not stuff - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/750020/the-deceptively-simple-economic-case-for-giving-refugees-cash-not-stuff/ <comment><USER2> This scenario is also quite interesting for cryptocurrencies, say at the moment you don't have the cash in the local currency, you may want to distribute a token. As of now in fact paper vouchers are also used in that scenario.</comment>


Transition to Python4 won't be like Python3("we've learned our lesson") - <AUTHOR> https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2015-December/142361.html <comment><USER2> Too late; learned Clojure.</comment>


Civil and environmental engineer explains why coal is dead as a power source - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/5jtfan/coal_jobs_were_lost_to_automation_not_trade/dbjjslr <comment><USER2> Thats a tough read, hopefully metalurgical coal or minerals/metals can be used to shift the work experience and slow down the job loss, while replacement infrastructures are built.

One canadian company Teck does met coal,zinc, and copper mining and they pulled a damn near miracle from bankruptcy, I tried to short them because I was betting against coal when a bunch of them including peabody was on the verge of bankruptcy. Thankfully I was only testing my appetite for stocks, and didnt go bankrupt.</comment>


After Netflix crackdown on border-hopping, Canadians ready to return to piracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/netflix-piracy-content-vpn-1.3548476 <comment><USER4> I am an English person living in Switzerland. Netflix Switzerland is useless to me (no House of Cards, not enough focus on UK and USA content, etc.).

Therefore I had a Netflix USA account, which I accessed via unblock-us. The clampdown by Netflix has been "successful" and I now can't access Netflix USA using unblock-us.

This happened halfway through watching House of Cards. So my choice was either stop watching or download the remaining episodes...

I am tired of companies talking about borderless trade, global economy, etc. when the distribution of movies and tv shows is stuck in the sad world of geo- restrictions. I also legally get access to UK TV channels through my cable subscription, but I don't get access to iPlayer as that's only for UK residents... so again the only option to catch-up on TV that I forgot to record, is to use an unblocker.

<comment><USER5> This blows my mind. How on earth does Netflix not have the rights to show their _own_ show in Switzerland? I understand their hands are sometimes tied in getting content from the studios, but they own House of Cards... I'm so confused how they could end up in that situation...

<comment><USER6> > How on earth does Netflix not have the rights to show their own show in > Switzerland?

One often-overlooked point is soundtracks. This is why there's no official Cold Case DVD/BD set - it would be prohibitively expensive to license all the music for distribution outside of TV.

<comment><USER7> Same thing with "Wonder Years" it's all about licensing... hell "Daria" had to replace significant portions of the music (thankfully they had the original separate tracks to work from).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We're in Canada and have been cable cutters for almost five years now. We've gotten by on Netflix US and YouTube with the occasional pirated streaming site, but we're barely ever using Netflix anymore.

We've turned to Kodi. We don't want to pirate, but it's hard to make a compelling argument against it when you get everything you want even easier than torrents.

Add to that the abusive monopolies of Shaw and Bell, who each now have their own streaming subscriptions, services like Hulu and HBO Now either being blocked here or controlled by Shaw or Bell, and the Netlix subscription increasing by 50% in May for a lacklustre catalogue.

With all of that, the three movies I go to the cinema to see each month, and my Netflix subscription, it's hard not to feel like I pay my share for content. Not a popular opinion, I'm sure, but I'm not getting a dozen streaming services subscriptions.

<comment><USER9> What's wrong with Bell/Saw/Rogers having their own streaming services? I've found Bell's Crave TV to be pretty good, Shomi not as much.

<comment><USER8> It might just be my experience dealing with Bell when we had ExpressVu before becoming cable cutters, and Shaw's Internet service when I was growing up.

I also hate the things Bell has tried to do through the CRTC, like that whole Internet thing with smaller providers using its pipes.

I guess it's a principal thing.

EDIT: Another example... I used to always choose Famous Players for movies. I avoided Cineplex. Then Cplex gobbled up Famous and I started going to Landmark. I should be able to choose where I consume my content.

<comment><USER10> Yea, the CRTC is much better than what it was years ago. They are pushing for channel unbundling for example now.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, and look how well that turned out: [http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/crtc-skinny-basic-pick- and-p...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/crtc-skinny-basic-pick-and- pay-1.3472647)

(Spoiler: the unbundled packages cost more and have fewer shows)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The same effect is occurring in South Africa. People I know are switching back to piracy because our Netflix catalog is probably in the region of 10% of America (for the same reasons, as well as others).

After years of not being able to legally access some copyrighted content, with no discussion and no change, I honestly don't see the copyright holders backing down - strange considering that they are the only ones actually losing out. Nobody deserves to have their hard work stolen, but I can't lie and deny that I don't perceive some form of justice happening here.

<comment><USER13> >Nobody deserves to have their hard work stolen

First off, it's not theft, it's copyright infringement. No one's stealing their content, because the copyright holders still have it. Stealing is wrong because it deprives the owner of the use of that thing: if I steal your car, then you can't drive to work any more. If I sneakily scan your car with a tricorder and 3D-print a clone of it, you still have your car.

Semantics aside, I completely disagree about them deserving to have their hard work copied and not getting paid for it. They absolutely do deserve this. If someone works hard on some piece of art (music, movie, etc.) and makes it conveniently available to everyone at the same fair price, then I think they deserve to get paid for it. But if they're dicks and they use their dominant position and inertia to promote their works and make them popular and culturally relevant, but then they only make them available to some people and not to others because they're trying to figure out unethical ways of gaming the system to make more money, then fuck 'em. People in other regions where this stuff isn't available have _every_ right to copy it without paying.

These copyright holders have been bitching for many years about "piracy". Then along came the iTunes Store, Netflix, etc., and they _proved_ that people are willing to pay for this stuff as long as it's a fair price and is convenient. Now they want to dick with it, so predictably, people are going back to piracy. Personally, I'd rather not bother with piracy: it's a PITA to use BitTorrent, try to find good versions of stuff, hope there's enough seeders out there, wait forever for it to download (not a problem if it's extremely popular that day, but a big problem if it's not), etc. I'd much rather pay $8/month for Netflix and just select what I want to see, hit "play" and watch it. But if the copyright holders are going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, then oh well...

<comment><USER14> > People in other regions where this stuff isn't available have every right to > copy it without paying.

I think you've got this wrong. The people in other regions don't have "every right to copy it", they have "every right to not consume it". Don't like the rules? Don't play. It's their content, so they set the rules. That's kind of all there is to it. I absolutely agree that you can be pissed off about this and not like it though.

But nothing gives you the "right" to force your way into someone else's party just because you weren't invited, or didn't like the ticket price. If you think like that, you're as much of a dick as the people you seem to be mad at.

So unless you are using the word "unethical" in an ironic fashion when you describe what they do, you probably should not use it at all if you're then going to condone what is essentially an unethical response yourself.

<comment><USER13> >The people in other regions don't have "every right to copy it", they have "every right to not consume it". Don't like the rules? Don't play. It's their content, so they set the rules.

>But nothing gives you the "right" to force your way into someone else's party just because you weren't invited, or didn't like the ticket price.

Completely wrong on both counts.

If I'm not invited to someone else's party, but I want to observe it without interfering with the partygoers, I have every right to invent a device which allows me to create an artificial wormhole which then allows me to remotely observe this party (see the Arthur C. Clarke book "Light of Other Days"). The partygoers will have no idea I'm observing them and since they wouldn't sell me a ticket anyway, they won't see a difference in their revenues.

Similarly, if content holders don't bother to offer their wares to me and then make it too difficult for me to acquire them with a workaround (subscription + VPN), then I have every right to download a copy. As above, they have no idea that I'm watching their content, and since they didn't offer it to me for sale anyway, they won't see a difference in their revenues.

>if you're then going to condone what is essentially an unethical response yourself.

I'm not condoning an unethical response, I'm condoning an ethical one. Ethics are in the eye of the beholder; for some people, it's completely ethical to hack someone's head off if they don't follow the correct religion. I choose to reject your system of ethics which grants all power to large, moneyed interests.

<comment><USER15> > I have every right to invent a device which allows me to create an > artificial wormhole which then allows me to remotely observe this party (see > the Arthur C. Clarke book "Light of Other Days"). The partygoers will have > no idea I'm observing them and since they wouldn't sell me a ticket anyway, > they won't see a difference in their revenues.

Voyeurism may or may not be a crime in your jurisdiction.

<comment><USER13> That really depends on the exact laws and how they're worded, and what kind of party this is. A party which involves ticket sales (as was stipulated before) is not a private house party, this is the kind of party that happens at a club and is something that's "open to the general public" (just like a concert or movie), so I don't think voyeurism laws would apply here. There's no expectation of privacy in a setting like this; anyone is allowed to enter, as long as they pay the ticket price and don't exceed the venue's capacity. So if you come up with a way of looking inside the place, getting the viewing experience everyone else has there, without trespassing in any way or interfering with other people there, I don't see how it could be a crime unless they invent a new law to address it.

Here's another thought experiment, but using modern tech: suppose there's a party like this (open to the public, tickets required to enter), and there's no rules at the club forbidding cameras or communication devices. If you pay the ticket price, you're allowed to enter and take photos all you want as long as you don't disturb people and make a nuisance of yourself. (I'm pretty sure any normal bar or club these days is just like this; people take photos of themselves at bars all the time.)

You don't want to pay the ticket price to get in, but you want to see what's going on there. Your friend however wants to go in, so he buys a ticket and enters. While inside, he whips out his phone, and activates an app which contacts your phone, and then streams live video from his phone's camera to your phone. You're now able to see and hear what's going on in the party without buying a ticket, apparently legally. Fast-forward a few years and instead of watching your buddy's video stream on your 5" phone screen, you're watching it on a VR headset, so it's almost like being there. My wormhole idea isn't much different from this; it just doesn't require a confederate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Regional rights agreements are really slowing down the move of TV to online. Publishers say "well, we already signed these agreements with these TV companies, so we can't let this shows be streamed online in those countries". TV companies say "well, we only got the rights to broadcast on TV, so we can't stream the show online in this country".

Hopefully as the popularity of online streaming increases, new contracts will take online streaming into account more. There's no real reason to have regional restrictions online, but I'm sure they'll continue as long as the companies want to get more money

<comment><USER17> > There's no real reason to have regional restrictions online...

While I broadly agree with you I don't buy this one point.

By restricting availability by region, publishers can (a) spread out their promotion costs & reduce risk exposure, and (b) charge more.

Wearing my techno-utopian hat, the first reason is bullshit that nees solving and the second reason is greed. Wearing my realist hat, both reasons are the way the world works and neither seems like it's going to change in short order as publishers hold a monopoly over content.

Does anyone know if Netflix delay release of their own content by region?

<comment><USER18> They kind of do. At least in France, until about a month ago, you could not watch House of Cards on Netflix because the show was sold to a local network !

It's been "fixed" now though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Piracy has always been a convenience problem and only partly a cost problem.

Pirating content is the easiest, fastest, highest quality, and most available method of watching content. The price is just a nice bonus.

Digital restrictions hurt everyone and maybe one day Hollywood will wake up and realize that you can't strong-arm the market into behaving how you want it to and you have to adapt to consumer demand. It's one of the few industries that I know of that try this hard to fight against consumer demand. It's so backwards.

Until the day they change, pirate on.

<comment><USER20> Yep -- I want to watch tv shows on the night they come out so I can talk with friends about them the day after. Nearly every per-episode-purchase vendor lists them the day _after_ (most likely because the networks that air the shows require them to wait). It's dumb, and all it does is push me away from paying them more than they'd make on advertising from me anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The only reason I subscribed to Netflix was that it was the best way to get Warehouse 13, which I really wanted to see at the time. For now Netflix still has enough content to satisfy me, but the idea that the library is so much smaller here in Germany than in the U.S. was never to my liking .. Greedy companies force Netflix to block customers, customers pirate content instead, all loose. One would think Hollywood learned their lesson, just as the music industry did, but it doesn't look that way. Maybe one day they'll find out that the correct solution if you ran against a wall is not do it again and hope that the wall falls, but to go around it.

<comment><USER22> It's never been well explained to me how this is a profitable model, _especially_ considering the ease with which popular shows are pirated - <USER2> full HD and digital sound I might add. What do studios really stand to gain by keeping Germany et al from so much content?

<comment><USER23> Why is everyone assuming that greedy German companies aren't willing to sell? Is it also possible that Netflix isn't willing to pay the going rate or hasn't bothered to negotiate for the rights.

Netflix launched globally without taking the time to negotiate content for most countries on earth. I'm not sure you can assume that Netflix is being diligent in trying to acquire content.

Especially since even in the USA netlix appears to be pivoting into being a content creator instead of a content aggregator.

<comment><USER13> >Why is everyone assuming that greedy German companies aren't willing to sell?

The OP isn't talking about greedy German companies, he's complaining about greedy American companies who won't let Netflix in Germany show American content to German viewers. Greedy German companies are a different issue.

This whole issue is mainly about greedy American companies, because if there's one thing that America produces that people around the world want, it's our movies and TV, and a lot of people outside the US were/are using VPNs and other such things to get access to a US-based Netflix account because the versions in their own countries didn't have all the content that the American version has, and now Netflix is restricting that access.

There aren't many people outside Germany/Austria who really want to see content from German media companies.

<comment><USER23> But it most of these situations some German company already bought the rights to the show. So the greedy American companies already got paid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I still can access netflix through the VPN I use. As long as I still can do that, I will keep my account. The second they block it, I'll cancel my netflix account and will go back to resorting to piracy. If movie studios don't want my money then so be it, I'll find better use for it.

EDIT: And I say this as someone who spends roughly $100/month supporting artists I like on Patreon and Kickstarter, so I'm not opposed to paying for content. I'm just opposed to big media conglomerates screwing me.

<comment><USER25> Their blocking seems to be quite aggressive, as a lot of regular hosting providers even had their IP ranges blocked by them. I've been following a few forum posts where people were sharing their working VPN provider/ISP, but those were showing the same error message a few days later, so it looks like they are actively monitoring traffic and maybe even social media to block further IP ranges.

<comment><USER26> I was not able to test it (for example borrowing a residential IP in a different country) but I suspect they detect OpenVPN via packets inspection, like this example: "Detecting VPN (and its configuration!) and proxy users on the server side" by @ValdikSS [https://medium.com/@ValdikSS/detecting-vpn-and- its-configura...](https://medium.com/@ValdikSS/detecting-vpn-and-its- configuration-and-proxy-users-on-the-server-side-1bcc59742413#.forbbpie6)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Same issue in Singapore. The Netflix library available here doesn't even contain the latest season of House of Cards – and it's a bloody Netflix production.

I would love to pay _someone_ for timely content, but now that Netflix is blocking vpn access there is literally nobody to pay. It's complete madness.

<comment><USER28> Netflix doesn't own house of cards actually, it exclusive rights to it in some countries in others it doesn't.

<comment> maze-le Since it is a production of them, is seems utterly moronic to remove one of the main reasons people would join their services in the first place. Many non-us customers joined, just to cancel the account right after they realized that they had no access to the good content. In some cases this is not the fault of netflix, but that of 19th century copyright laws. I cannot blame them, when other services had the rights prior to them...

But 'House of Cards' is a Netflix production, and this doesn't apply here. They would have done themselfs a favour by not selling the rights to this content to the highest bidder. Especially since their ads suggest access to 'House of Cards'.

<comment><USER29> The problem comes from the original BBC House of Cards. Netflix doesn't actually own the rights, they're licensed from a company called Media Rights Capital.

<comment><USER30> Netflix funded production, so would have had strong leverage over MRC's relicensing. We can't see the contracts, but I'm fairly confident that Netflix would have had at least right of first refusal for rights for any region.

<comment><USER29> Leverage only goes so far. Since it was originally a BBC show ~20 years ago, chances are that country-specific rights were sold off long before Netflix got involved.

<comment><USER30> Why would the licensing of the old shows have anything to do with the licensing of the new shows?

MRC licensed the name and concept from the BBC. That license would definitely not be regionalized.

<comment><USER29> It's likely impossible to say without having insider knowledge. Perhaps somebody with international IP law could weigh in.

But it appears there's an added wrinkle. Back when the show started production, MRC sold off rights in countries where Netflix didn't yet operate. CanalPlus in France and Sky Deutschland in Germany managed to get exclusive rights in their respective countries. Netflix is trying to get the rights globally, but they can't force anyone to sell them anything.

source: [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/netflix-subscribers- eu...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/netflix-subscribers-europe-wont- get-714647)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I ended up having the conversation with a co-worker...I live in Canada, and anyone who lives up here can back me up on the fact that this country is just awful with regards to its copyright litigation with regards to television, especially.

It's far, far easier for me to pirate content than it is to legally buy it.

Until that's the case, I'm not interested in forking over my money to be inconvenienced (and this is coming from a dude who buys his music mainly on vinyl).

<comment><USER32> Wait, you are justifying an illegal action of yours because it is easier than the legal route? Since when doing the right thing is and should always be easier... So, do you also not pay income tax because it is much easier to not do so? There are countless examples where being illegal is easier over legal, but as a society some of us understand that if the majority respect the law and order, we are much better off.

I'm Canadian, and I certainly don't back you up on this. I use Netflix, Crave, my providers VoD service, independent and mainstream theaters to consume content all the time. When I realize I've spent more then I should on entertainment, I simply find other stuff to do or consume.

Is it really about being "easier" and not about being cheap? Personally, I find it quite easy to swipe my credit card or link it to a Google Play account.

I am amazed to read this under the caption of articles picture: "Netflix customer Susan Lorenz of Toronto doesn't understand why the company is suddenly shutting her out from the content she used to be able to see." ... Susan most certainly understands why.

<comment><USER33> Regardless of whatever moral card you want to play here, the fact of the matter boils down to Gabe Newell's famous insight on the matter: Piracy is almost always a service problem[0]. People value their time. Make the experience easy for them, and people will pay. Make the experience shitty for them, and people will find the path of least resistance.

People pay taxes because they have to. When it comes to entertainment, people aren't going to waste their time jumping through hoops.

[0] [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves- Gabe...](http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe-Newell- Says-Piracy-Is-a-Service-Problem)

<comment><USER34> It might be true of first world. I do not think that in poor countries like India where 100s of millions live on less that ~2 dollar a day any service could be cheaper than piracy. And I have seen people in India jump through hoops to pirate content rather than paying even a little for convenience.

Gabe Newell's observation seems to me a very limited view of the world by a spectacularly successful first world entrepreneur.

<comment><USER35> Odd that it seems to work, though. How much money does Steam make from people who could be getting the content for free?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Puts pressure back on regional rights holders to sign on with Netflix - <USER3> the dominant market player and make a few bucks, or see your content pirated and get nothing

<comment><USER37> The whole deal system is a problem here. In Germany even the latest season of House of Cards isn't available, and that's their own production.

<comment><USER38> Production that, I'm pretty sure, they sold to some German network for more than it would bring in on Netflix itself... gotta love economics!

<comment><USER39> Yup, sold to Sky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> After years of using netflix, since long before it was even available in Germany, I canceled my account the moment I couldn't access the US library anymore. The German library is just not worth it and titles were often missing English subtitles, even for movies which were available on US netflix with subtitles. As I usually watch shows with english subtitles (including shows in english) and original audio, this really bothered me and made the non-US experience even worse. Never really watched many of the German shows on there, maybe one or two.

</comment><comment> tech-no-logical I must say I've been considering the same thing (I'm in the netherlands). for now, there's still ways to watch the US version of netflix, but should that too be blocked, I will probably revert to piracy, even though I've been against it for a long time...

</comment><comment><USER41> But violating the license terms by border hopping _is_ piracy.

Not saying I agree with geo restrictions, or any of the other silliness (I don't, and thankfully we're rapidly moving away from that sort of thing), but using VPNs or foreign credit cards to subscribe to a service that isn't available to you because the company selling it doesn't have a license to do so is still, technically, piracy.

<comment><USER42> Sure, but piracy where everyone gets paid.

<comment><USER23> No, piracy where the service provider you subscribe to gets paid, but the rightful license holders don't. Sometimes the license holder and the service provider are the same, in which case everyone gets paid.

But in most cases you aren't. Sure you pay netflix, but netflix just keeps the money. They definitely don't go find and pay the right people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Good. This is the only way to make the publishers change something.

</comment><comment><USER44> What exactly does Netflix stand to gain from making it harder for its non- american subscribers to VPN the geoblocked content?

Surely they must have predicted a substantial drop in subscription rates as soon as people realize they can't watch the good stuff.

It just seems like international-marketshare suicide.

<comment><USER45> My guess is that Netflix has now positioned themselves as the first global 'television' network.

They hopefully have enough power and leverage to stop the content producers from stupidly restricting access via region, but they're not able to do this effectively if users can easily bypass the restrictions.

If it doesn't work out then at least they'll get a global audience for their own content and the rest will go back to piracy.

<comment><USER46> They don't even have a global audience for their own content - House of Cards isn't available in many countries because Netflix sold the TV networks exclusive distribution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Same story here, but I have been living in Eastern Europe and then Australia and then back for a few years now, paying for unblock-us and Netflix US which I signed up for while in the US.

Ever since my first experience with Netflix powered by a Roku I have been praising how awesome it is, trying to get my friends to sign up for the service.

And then the geofencing crap happened but the service was suddenly available in our country, but with minus 90 percent of the content - a lot of my friends signed up and then cancelled their subscription.

I for one am seriously thinking about canceling both unblock-us and Netflix as I suddenly feel a 'localized' citizen with no way to legally we global anymore and it sucks.

</comment><comment><USER48> "We look forward to offering all of our content everywhere and to consumers being able to enjoy all of Netflix without using a proxy. That's the goal we will keep pushing towards."

\-- David Fullagar is Vice President of Content Delivery Architecture at Netflix.

[https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/evolving-proxy- det...](https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/evolving-proxy-detection-as- a-global-service)

</comment><comment><USER49> The same is happening here in Australia talking to people.

<comment><USER50> Yes I'm cancelling my account as I haven't used it in 2 months.(since the vpn I used was blocked)

<comment><USER51> Getflix still mostly works. They added new proxies but many of the old ones don't work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Netflix really screwed up with House of Cards. They should be able to take the high ground and say:

"Don't get mad at us, they're making us do it. We're leading by example, maybe someday everybody will realize that regional restrictions are a bad idea."

But their licensing and handling of House of Cards prevents them from taking the moral high ground.

</comment><comment><USER52> We can say the same about taxes and regulations: if it's too high, individuals will just go elsewhere. For some reason, we always try to punish the individuals that do this.

Piracy will only continue to make it more difficult for small and mid-sized companies to compete. The multi-national corporations will always have the resources to wait out the slaughter.

The end result will be the same as what we have with the music industry: huge companies owning all of the media.

</comment><comment><USER53> Popcorn Time should publish some graphs of their traffic. I bet there will be a correlation between Netflix blocking proxies and downloads of Popcorn Time

<comment><USER54> I thought Popcorn Time had shut down?

<comment><USER55> If I recall correctly the original project did close down and others picked up where it left off. Some good, some malicious.

I use this subreddit to find a trusted one: [https://www.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/)

[https://popcorntime.sh](https://popcorntime.sh)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Imagine I live in Canada and one day drive to the US and purchase a House of Cards DVD, which I take back with me to Canada. Would you consider what I just did piracy?

No? Then why is it piracy if I do the exact same thing by different technical means? (Streaming the content instead of buying a physical disk)

</comment><comment><USER57> I see no statistics. This article is air.

</comment><comment><USER58> Why does netflix care so much? Doesn't just blocking ip's by country satisfy whatever legal requirement? Do the contracts with content provider specifically require netflix to maintain a list of VPN providers and block them?

</comment><comment><USER59> A lot of people seem angry about the geo-blocking, and I would agree with the sentiment, but can anyone tell me why Netflix is geo-blocking so heavily?

Companies don't do things for no reason...

<comment><USER60> Because content producers are threatening to remove their support of Netflix.

<comment><USER59> Which is what I thought...so why the Netflix hate? Shouldn't we be instead be getting angry at the copyright holders essentially exercising monopolistic control of the market?

<comment><USER61> Isn't everybody already?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Same here downunder. Loved my Netflix US subscription. Now I have no subscription with Netflix guess they don't want money ey?

</comment><comment><USER63> Content geofencing makes no sense. Until businesses realize this people will always find ways around it.

<comment><USER23> It makes a lot of sense for the world we live in now. Most revenue from TV is still captured by regular broadcast or cable viewership. Those means of distribution are typically geofenced.

If you have an American show, Sky or BBC will pay more than Netflix will.

Plus, people in developing countries can't and won't pay western prices for content. It makes sense to geofence and then sell it to them much cheaper.

<comment><USER64> But in most cases here, people are willing to pay the same price as the original country of origin of the content but are denied that option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Atleast you can download : for personal use in Canada last I read.

<comment><USER66> It was ten years ago. I believe this has changed since then…

<comment><USER67> It cannot be changed. You can download (watch) any proprietary content (if you can), but you cannot redistribute it to others.

<comment><USER68> Canada signed the TPP, which tadically changes things

<comment><USER69> Signed, not ratified, nor codified anything in law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I've been rather stunned at how no one has come up with a strong workaround to this yet. It's really quite simple, we just need slick, easy-to-use software for it.

Make software that both turns your home computer into a single-user VPN server, that lets you set the maximum upload bandwidth to ~5mbit/s or so, and lets you _only_ pass through Netflix content; and also gives you a VPN client that lets you connect to another's computer and _only_ uses the VPN for Netflix content, allowing your web browser and everything else to continue working through your regular ISP. The whitelisting eliminates the traditional concern of someone using your connection for torrents or worse illegal content. The bandwidth limiting ensures smooth QoS for your own network. Latency here is not a concern at all ... it's streaming video.

Once you have this software, it's simply a matter of setting up a message forum somewhere where people say, "I am from 'country X' and want to watch content from 'country Y'", and waiting for someone in the reverse situation to come along. As long as your connections are always-on, this works perfectly.

As an alternative to the fact that more people will want US Netflix than any other region, people could also offer server-only access for nominal Paypal fees. Eg lease out a 5mbit/s link for $10/mo. The price would naturally follow supply and demand.

I can change my IP any time, and there is no possible way Netflix can ban my hostmask as a VPN (all of Time Warner Cable in Columbus, Ohio.)

And if this forces Netflix to start charging by billing region ... _good_!! Now we can offer services that let people pay for the regions they want to access! Or if they try and block that too, then perhaps people sharing VPNs can share their account logins next.

Either way, this is a cat-and-mouse game with a _very clear_ end-game. Why the hell is no one working on this problem? There are _millions_ of people affected by this VPN block nonsense.

On that note, I have a US 300/20 connection I'd be happy to share, and I can do the software the hard way with BSD/pf. Is there anyone with an always-on JP connection that would like to trade with me? I would also be willing to pay someone for a residential ISP VPN connection in Japan, which I would use exclusively for Netflix only. I'd really love to be able to use Netflix Japan again; it's helped a lot with my listening comprehension in studying the language.

(Side note: this proxy software wouldn't have to be _just_ Netflix. It could be a wonderful anti-geolocking system. The major VPN and VPS models are clearly detectable and blockable. This could allow fine-grained whitelisting or blacklisting and decentralization of VPN services.)

<comment><USER71> Or: go to private tracker, hit download button, wait 60 seconds.

Don't pay $10/mo to some random, don't pay $10/mo for HD netflix subscription.

<comment><USER70> In my case, it's much more difficult to find Japanese series. Japan isn't nearly as big on file sharing as we are. Anime, sure, but I'd like to watch things with real people too.

Example: try finding the live action version of Nobunaga Concerto [信長協奏曲] (not the anime that's readily available.) Now I'm sure someone here can do it. But look at its seed ratio compared to say, Game of Thrones or Last Week Tonight. And this is a _really_ easy case, because it's being streamed subtitled from Crunchyroll. Now imagine the difficulty of series not conveniently subtitled into English on major streaming services already.

<comment><USER25> Oh yes, I'm constantly clashing with unavailable/blocked Japanese content. Crunchyroll has quite a bit of non-anime content to offer, but it's still far from other country specific streaming sites.

The oddest thing for me are the constantly blocked Japanese music videos on Youtube. I'm not talking copyright infringing content, but music videos published on the official band/performer's channel and being viewable from within Japan only. Why is a music video blocked outside of Japan, when you can buy the song via the regional iTunes store? One would assume that a music video is meant to promote the music sales, so why are so many of them blocked outside of Japan then?

<comment><USER70> > Crunchyroll has quite a bit of non-anime content to offer

Yeah, they have a drama-only section that even then is 80% Korean (nothing wrong with that, just I'm not personally studying Korean.) And no option to turn off the English subtitles unless I want to watch movies on my computer instead of my TV. And absolutely, definitely, 100% _never_ any offer for Japanese subtitles (closed captioning.) Very, very rare even on Netflix Japan, but it helps so much when I can find them.

> The oddest thing for me are the constantly blocked Japanese music videos on > Youtube.

Yeah ... I don't understand that at all. Of all the countries, Japan seems to have the most obscenely strict copyright takedown enforcements of all. I pretty much always have to resort to torrents to obtain songs even remotely popular.

Japan really is a country that's stuck in the '90s. No surprise that also includes their views on music.

> Why is a music video blocked outside of Japan, when you can buy the song via > the regional iTunes store?

I'm surprised they even let you buy it on iTunes. Apple must be forcing their hand somehow.

I've always dealt with extreme aversion to selling to me. The Japanese famously hate selling their wares internationally. It's pretty much a given that anything on Yahoo! Japan will be from sellers that refuse to ship internationally, so you have to use deputy services and pay them an extra 30% markup (plus a predatory and unfair yen exchange rate that's off by 15+ yen from the real market value.) And even _then_ , there are sellers that track deputy IDs and will delete deputy bids. I've even come across one such seller, and my deputy of choice used one of their 'hidden' IDs to pick it up anyway. They're so used to it that they already had sleeper accounts for dealing with such sellers, despite having 100% perfect payment histories to sellers.

There are several major doujinshi websites for buying from artists, and these sites are 100% perfectly capable of accepting Visa cards from anywhere in the world ("it's everywhere you want to be... unless you want to be in Japan"), yet they block you anyway.

It was only just very recently that Amazon finally started selling new Japanese games internationally. Before then, I was paying 50% markups to small, sleazy extortionist companies. On top of having to buy Japanese systems to get around their region blocking attempts. Half surprised the fuckers don't try to use GPS to pinpoint you're not actually in Japan while playing their precious games.

Apologies if I seem bitter... it's because I am. I probably wasted $2000 on deputy fees alone trying to build a game collection and buy other items I like. And the harder I try to practice and learn this language, the more I get taken for a ride.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Hollywood movies are such shit these days, I wouldn't even watch most of them for free.

<comment><USER73> Nobody is forcing you to. Plenty of folk have Netflix for access to favorite classics or TV series when they have time to. New titles are only added value for them.

<comment><USER74> In Spain Netflix has a VERY limited classic (or contemporary for that matter) catalog. Is only worth paying it for series IMHO.

<comment><USER75> That's going to vary wildly from country to country depending on what deals they're able to actually get for content. In the US it's pretty good for watching old shows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Well, I've cancelled my account. Who needs Netflix when I've got BitTorrent?

</comment><comment><USER77> Wonder when the first person stands up and claim this is blatant racism/ discrimination. Because it literally is. 'oh you come from this country and you have netflix? -- oops then you cannot see because you are canadian/european/ whoever'

Media copyrightrights per country, its 2016 its insane release your media globally or don't release it at all.

<comment><USER78> It sure is how it feels. Facebook trending: look at this awesome SNL clip the world is laughing and talking about! Click on it, oh sorry, you can't watch this in Canada, but hey, the rest of the world that matters can(read: the US), so yeah, good bye. Any content provider that blocks you out based on your location makes you feel discriminated against and it sucks!

I like how Netflix says that we are very vocal, but minor and 'inconsequential'. Well yeah, fuck you too!

<comment><USER79> I don't agree that that's the case. To me, region-restrictions for US content (the most popular worldwide) present a massive opportunity for content creators not based in the US to make something that is in fact truly globally available. While it's true that US TV and movies have been globally popular since the time of their invention, the rise of YouTube, Vine, Instagram etc. show that global audiences can be developed without needing to be US centric.

Your comment "this awesome clip the world is laughing and talking about" refers to SNL, but there are examples of viral videos that didn't originate from a big-name US studio. "Charlie bit my finger" and "Gangnam Style" are two examples. I don't think it's too much of a stretch that English-language long- form content (30-60 minute series) can be developed without having a "Made in America" imprimatur on it. Danish crime shows are popular in Europe and the UK, while Korean dramas are extremely popular in East Asian markets. Indian cinema is also popular in the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. A small slice of British shows like Made in Chelsea have carved out a niche in English-speaking markets like the US, Canada and Australia.

I hope production studios large and small across the world are seeing this as an opportunity to expand past their borders rather than simply continue "Business as usual" under the protectionism offered with these types of restrictive licensing rules.

<comment><USER78> I never said it wasn't a great opportunity for non-US content creators, I love shows from all over, I'm just saying it feels racist when the country next door won't share with me (or others) their content. Do I understand why they won't yes, but it's frustrating none-the-less and I imagine most people don't understand it. And it's not like they can stop me from viewing what I want, it's just incredibly aggravating when a simple hyperlink fails and requires a multi-step, lengthy process, especially for things ranging from a 30 second clip from goddamn syndicated TV I can get with basic cable (which I no longer have) to premium talk of the town shows.

In short, I'm kind of confused with why you don't agree and then talk about a completely different subject. Yes, good opportunity, but that doesn't stop the feelings for existing content that is also good, unless you consider it irrelevant, which you might, but I still like some premium US based stuff. Geo-blocking, at least to me, and I'm sure many others, feels like discrimination. Not all have to feel that way for it to be true.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startup aims to create mobile showers for homeless - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2013/04/new-san-francisco-startup-aims-create-mobile-showers-homeless

<comment><USER2> A worthy endeavour but doesn't this render the term "startup" so generic as to be meaningless? This is a new charity at best, it is not a business. So in what sense is it a startup? Unless you label every new organisation a startup, in which case you have rendered the term meaningless as it simply means something which didn't previously exist and so presumably calling something which existed last week a startup is by definition incorrect.

</comment><comment><USER3> San Francisco also needs public restrooms ASAP. Bart station entrances in downtown and Mission District heavily smell pie most of the time. Especially yesterday evening, I felt really sick when I was entering the Bart in 16th Mission.

<comment><USER4> San Francisco has placed quite a few public restrooms on city streets in the past - I believe as part of a partnership with an outdoor advertising company. For the most part, they became disgusting centers for drug use and prostitution. I didn't know they'd closed, but I'm not surprised they did.

Until San Francisco is willing to aggressively crack down on illegal behavior, which it's not, it can't have nice public facilities, for homeless people or otherwise. This includes things like the entrepreneur's well-intentioned mobile showers - criminals will destroy them, too.

<comment><USER5> In Seattle, they put in public restrooms but then had to take them out a few years later for similar reasons as why the ones in SF closed as they were being used for other things. For more info: [http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/High-tech-public- toil...](http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/High-tech-public-toilets- going-to-waste-city-told-1216439.php)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I spend too much time on HN, I read this as "create mobile browsers for homeless" which clearly makes no sense.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice idea, good to know that there are people that are still trying to fix the world

</comment><comment><USER8> It's really nice when people want to do good. They deserve our full respect.

Having said that, we, as a society, need to understand that we must correct the sick systems we've built and have come to accept as "the new normal".

In other words: Homeless people don't need showers. They need to receive a system which prevents them from ending up as homeless people. Homeless people are homeless because we, as a society, have accepted that we create homeless people. Other countries have successfully avoided this (take a very close look at how Switzerland works), why can't we?

To correct that, we need a social security net:

\- Mental health care for everybody who needs it

\- Sound financial aid for the unemployed

\- Put minimum wage above slavery levels: $20/hr AT LEAST

<comment><USER9> It's not that easy. Germany's social security system for instance provides all of that yet still there are homeless people in Germany. Probably on average not as many as in San Francisco but still noticeable.

I'm no expert on that matter but I suppose the causes of becoming homeless are too diverse for the problem to be solved easily and not all of these causes can be attributed to society. Debt, drug addiction, mental health issues to name but a few.

<comment><USER10> Germanys social security system is effectively flawed, as it can decide to give people no money at all and thereby produces homeless people. Even without drugs and big debts and mental health issues, if you lose your job and got bad luck with the person working on your case, it is way too easy to become homeless. Even in Germany.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You are right, but yet, this is a nice start to fix the current situation.

<comment><USER8> Absolutely, the "band-aid"/short term help IS needed and the people behind it should get support.

As to why we still haven't eliminated the tragedy/ies at the root:

-> A few rich people control the media

-> control our vision of our nation's priorities (financially profitable wars VS taking care of our own brothers and sisters)

-> control of our votes

-> control of our nation's policies

-> REPEAT CYCLE</comment></comment>


Japan's ocean radiation hits 7.5 million times legal limit - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-nuclear-20110406,0,2697428.story

<comment><USER3> I don't know how to consume news about Fukushima anymore. 100 times the legal limit, 1000 times, a million times. What are we going to do? Evacuate the entire North? A billion times. Evacuate all of Tokyo? A trillion times. Evacuate all of Japan? That's obviously not going to happen.

<comment><USER4> I just have patience and ignore people telling me they know that the full scale of one in only a handful of major nuclear disasters is going to be relatively harmless/harmful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html>

It would appear that this article is exhaggerating more than a little.

The coverage of Fukushima by the mainstream press has only gone to show just how far they are willing to stretch the truth for a headline.

Had this article been written on the basis of actual data from IAEA readings, it probably would have been more moderate.

<comment><USER6> IAEA is the nuclear industry's main lobby agency. Is like asking OPEC what do they they think about the Gulf oil spill. So no, coming with data provided by them is no better than what you see in the newspapers.

<comment><USER7> So we trust no-one? There is a healthy level of scepticism but I think you are taking it a bit far.

The data is what has been actually recorded by Tepco and others and is certainly reported in good detail without being fudged or sensationalised like the mainstream media is doing.

<comment><USER8> It would seem that to trust no-one but be cautious of all reports is the correct stance.

We know there _IS_ radiation and we know that pretty much ANY radiation coming from any plant that has the words "disaster" "chernobyl" "meltdown" "breach" or any other range of descriptors is certainly BAD.

So, take-aways == radiation escapes, radiation bad, don't know truth == stay very far away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [Waits for XKCD to revise his cute infographic.]

</comment><comment><USER10> I dislike all the trumpeting of the levels of radiation compared to some "legal limit". I wish it was in terms of effect on humans. I guess that is a conversion I could do, but many people will not do that, and will just be horrified by the 7.5 million figure without knowing how bad things actually are.

<comment><USER7> This is especially true if the government requires zero radioactive material to appear in the sea water. So any accidental discharge is going to have some scary multiplier over the near zero levels.

The media also seem to also like the Becquerel scale along with cm³ instead of m³ to make the numbers extra scary.

I found an interesting article that describes some safe levels and also the calculation of Becquerel to Sieverts. [http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110321p2a00m0na006000c...](http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110321p2a00m0na006000c.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Did this high radiation persist in the time between the two cited measurements? That is very important information, especially considering how other anomalous measurements have been reported in the media.

</comment><comment><USER8> Look at this presentation/PDF from stanford which shows what happened within the reactors. Look at _THE LAST_ slide in which is says that the entire core of reactor 4 was outside the containment vessel at the time of the disaster for inspection and was housed in the cooling pond. It states that it believes the reactor went into full meltdown _in fresh air_

The materials from reactor 4 core appear to be completely dissipated into the atmosphere, and that we are really really not hearing the truth from japan.

[http://iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/6615/March21_JapanSeminar.p...](http://iis- db.stanford.edu/evnts/6615/March21_JapanSeminar.pdf)

<comment><USER12> > It states that it believes the reactor went into full meltdown in fresh > air.The materials from reactor 4 core appear to be completely dissipated > into the atmosphere [...]

You COULD read it that way, but the bottom of the slide says in big bold red letters that 'It is currently unclear if release from fuel pool already happened'.

To me it seems most of the bullet points on this slide are conjectures, not statements of fact (though note I haven't been keeping up to date on other news sources about the situation in Fukushima).

<comment><USER8> Well, considering that this was from 3/21 and since then there have been further revelations that things have only gotten worse.

Look at these pictures and tell me if you think it is possible that a reactor core outside the containment would _not_ have release material.

<http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm>

Sure, we can speculate that it has not _yet_ released 100% - and given the fact that refugees are being turned away for fear of contamination at hospitals, bodies from the Tsunami are too radioactive to be recoverable, and reports are stating levels that are just freaking scary - I prefer to err on the side of caution.

I think that in such cases its bettr to assume the worst case as opposed to saying "its probably less than we think".

<comment><USER13> Those pictures show the outer roof blown off by the hydrogen explosions. If you'd watched that Stanford presentation, you'd know that it's just a superstructure that essentially provides weather shielding. The fuel pools are deep in concrete in the actual containment structure. Sure, it looks bad, but you really can't tell at all from those pictures what's going on below.

And where did you hear that "bodies from the tsunami are too radioactive to be recoverable"? That's such a fantastic claim that it definitely requires a citation. (Unless you refer to the plant workers that were killed. They may very well be contaminated, but that's inside the plant. We've known the radiation levels inside the plant have been high since it happened, no news there.)

I'm not a nuclear apologist by any means, but I don't like such obvious speculation however way it goes.

<comment><USER8> [http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs...](http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=1000+bodies+recover+radioactive&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

Also, we are seeing reports, such as this thread of extremely high radiation - we already know that Japan was slow to report actual numbers and each report that comes out is something along the lines of "XXX times [whatever] levels"

Look again at the last slide where is specifically says "into fresh air"

I am not saying the pools are like backyard swimming pools with open exposure to the sky - but I would believe that if pretty every other report is claiming that radiation is very high there is clear evidence to show that being the case.

EDIT: Try clicking the link and reading it, there are multiple articles that clearly state _"Up to 1,000 bodies of victims of Japan's quake and tsunami remain uncollected in the exclusion zone around a stricken nuclear plant because of radiation fears."_

EDIT 2: please make an attempt to google fantastic claims if you don't believe them, and others should make it a point to link to sources when posting something that seems fantastical/really alarming.

<comment><USER14> "Too radioactive to be recoverable" and "because of radiation fears" seem rather different.

Just like you might not recover a body from a minefield, but it doesn't mean the body is explosive.

<comment><USER8> Correct - and I am not making claims either way, though I guess I could be more clear -- the fact is that the radiation is too high to recover - <USER2> the bodies themselves are too dangerous, or the surrounding environment is too dangerous. Either way -- recovery of more than 1000 bodies is hampered by radiation.

<comment><USER15> If I understand what you're saying, I think your analysis is alarmist.

The fact is that there is an evacuation area around the Fukushima plant established out of an abundance of caution. The highest readings that have been taken within that region --- _not including the plant itself, which is a different story_ \--- are still below a level that would pose a plausible threat to human health; they're in the single-digit mSv/hr range.

It's also important to understand that the evacuation area is designed to address multiple vectors for radiological health threats. Not all radionuclides disperse the same way, and the ones with the strongest impact on the environment settle out of the atmosphere as sediment. Presumably, you don't want kids stuffing their mouths with I-131 that settled in their sandbox. To avoid scenarios like this, you evacuate.

But most laypeople (of which I am definitely one) start with a conception that is much more primitive than reality. They imagine gamma radiation zinging through the air and making people's hair stand up and giving the carp in the lake third eyes. Not so. The most radiologically active stuff dispersed over a distance around the plant is probably no longer airborne; it settles out of the air quickly (and, not for nothing, but also has a short half-life).

It is also a problem that these bodies have been in some (tragic) cases sitting out in the air --- not because of radiation, but because of the scale of the disaster across Japan --- and thus the same rationale that motivates the evacuation (to avoid pointless exposure to Cs-137 and I-131 sediment) also suggests maybe it's not a good idea to distribute the personal effects of contaminated disaster victims. But that doesn't mean the corpses are glowing. It may, for instance, mean that the jackets of 1 out of every 400 people have to be bagged differently.

It is simply not the case that the region within 30km of the Daiichi plant is a nuclear hellscape.

<comment><USER8> Agreed, and you're right - maybe the tone should be more properly metered. With that said, it is important to note that it is apparently difficult to get a clear idea of the truth.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you have a Not Invented Here mentality? - <AUTHOR>

This question is aimed more at programmers than non-programmers. First a bit of background:
We have a lot of landing pages that are unique to a particular Ad Group on Google AdWords. When it comes to tracking which ads/keyword/landing page combinations lead to better conversions, I find it tedious to setup all of the tunnels and Goals on Analytics. Reporting is just as tedious, too. I've instead just built in some of my own tracking using Django and my PostgreSQL database. I find I can report on things much more readily and I don't have to futz around with web interfaces that are slow and cumbersome.
So my question is, how often do you find yourself developing a solution yourself, as opposed to having to learn or adapt to a 3rd party's system? <comment><USER2> It depends a lot on the complexity of the system, but I have a rule of thumb: if after 2-3 days I cannot get a minimal prototype of something I want to achieve (this doesn't include running attached examples), it's time to reconsider. Maybe the interface is too different, maybe the system was not designed for what I need, or maybe it's good but we simply have to spend more time on it. Then again, maybe we learnt enough to write our own solution instead.</comment>


Conservatives and higher ed - <AUTHOR> http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Conservatives---higher-ed-7920 <comment><USER2> Speaking as a conservative (albeit a fairly moderate conservative) I found this article to incredibly easy to agree with and on-point. Perhaps I wouldn't be able to say the same if I were left-of-center.

Because I'm college-aged, I ran through my close friends (equal parts liberal and conservative) and sorted through them by their future careers:

Lawyers: only one self-identifies as liberal, Economics: zero self-identify as liberal, Politics (including teaching): zero self-identify as liberal,

while:

HR & related: zero self-identify as conservative, Social work: zero self- identify as conservative, Art & design: one self-identifies as a conservative.

It's a clear dichotomy between the ideologies, and the author really explains it perfectly when he says that conservatives prefer what's "concrete".

Honestly, we need more political diversity in _all_ fields. Even though I self-identify as conservative, we need more liberals in economics and more conservatives in the social sciences.

Liberals have made great headway in areas like same-sex marriage, and that's a good thing. Conservatives can take a lot of credit for building strong economic foundations (because of or in spite of government regulation). But by having such a stark difference between the two styles of thinking and letting that carry over to academia and career choices it only inhibits both ideologies' advancements.

<comment><USER3> Outside of your circle of close friends, there's not really a shortage of liberal economists even if the field might skew somewhat conservative (likewise, though you may have no self-identifying-as-liberal close friends planning to go into politics/teaching, neither of those fields is particularly short of liberals, and same with lawyers).

> Honestly, we need more political diversity in all fields.

Why? Particularly, why shouldn't _what people value_ have a very real relationship to _what they choose to do with their life_?

> we need more liberals in economics and more conservatives in the social > sciences.

Economics _is_ a social science. And, frankly, I think we need more _scientists_ in the social sciences (incl. economics) and fewer ideologues of any stripe (not fewer people that _have_ an ideology, that would be nonsense, but fewer that pursue the field with an axe to grind for an ideology.)

> Liberals have made great headway in areas like same-sex marriage, and that's > a good thing. Conservatives can take a lot of credit for building strong > economic foundations

I think that the case for the former belonging to "liberals" is a lot stronger than the case for that latter belonging to "conservatives".

> But by having such a stark difference between the two styles of thinking and > letting that carry over to academia and career choices it only inhibits both > ideologies' advancements.

What's the alternative? Ideological quotas in professions? How do you enforce it?

<comment><USER2> > Why? Particularly, why shouldn't what people value have a very real > relationship to what they choose to do with their life?

Yes. We should push the youth to want to do what they love, but also let them know other options exist. It shouldn't be weird for a conservative to want to be a social worker.

> Economics is a social science. And, frankly, I think we need more scientists > in the social sciences (incl. economics) and fewer ideologues of any stripe > (not fewer people that have an ideology, that would be nonsense, but fewer > that pursue the field with an axe to grind for an ideology.)

Sorry... I think you know what I was getting at though. And I agree we do, although I believe the article was about those who _have_ an ideology versus those who wear it on their sleeve.

> I think that the case for the former belonging to "liberals" is a lot > stronger than the case for that latter belonging to "conservatives".

Could be. It really depends how you look at it. FWIW it's more common for business owners to lean conservative, if only fiscally.

> What's the alternative? Ideological quotas in professions? How do you > enforce it?

You don't. It's a cultural thing, not something you can (or should) ever enforce.</comment></comment></comment>


React Native Open Source Update - <AUTHOR> https://facebook.github.io/react-native/blog/2019/03/01/react-native-open-source-update <comment><USER2> Glad to see the team really embrace the nitty-gritty of keeping the open- source community healthy. React Native is a project with a lot of potential that's taken a few high-profile lumps this past year. Being an OSS maintainer can be difficult and thankless sometimes, but it's good to see teams that recommit to open source instead of withdrawing and focusing solely on internal needs.

<comment><USER3> 'thankless'! They are getting paid big bucks as Facebook employees. What are you talking about?

<comment><USER4> Well, aside from money though have you seen some of the issues created on git repos and their responses? The software is OSS and free, yet there are countless people who use it acting like they're high profile businesses deserving white-glove treatment and they'll totally take out their anger on a maintainer.

<comment><USER5> To counter your point, you might remember the React team's about face when probably their largest benefactor in terms of free goodwill, Wordpress, threatened to drop ReactJS for its ambiguous license. I would think it matters a lot to FB right now that they don't do anything remotely annoying to the community.

I would be willing to bet that if Facebook adopted an attitude of "screw it, lets just stop responding to these idiots" that will make _even fewer_ people want to work at Facebook right now, given all the bad press these days. I bet if you ask people why they are still continuing at Facebook these days, a fair number would say something like "Yeah, at least I can work on open source projects".

If anyone at Facebook reading this wants to go for a dare, why don't you try dropping support for a high profile open source project like ReactJS and see if that affects the candidates entering your pipeline.

<comment><USER6> > why don't you try dropping support

I hear that sort of happened w/ ReasonML. Apparently Jordan still maintains it (because he's a prolific OSS guy like that), but FB itself is not investing in it, and is instead doubling down on Flow.

Jest is another project that largely yielded governance to its community.

You gotta understand that the number one incentive for someone to interview at FB is compensation. OSS opportunities are often a minor perk, and many (most?) employees don't do high profile OSS at all.

<comment><USER7> Doubling down on flow? Has TS not won?

<comment><USER6> Not at Facebook. Yes elsewhere

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is great!

I like to think that React — or more generally, component-driven user interface design — is the future of development on all platforms, not just the web. It really seems like we have "peaked" with concepts like state management, composability, and so on. Don't get me started on how nice hooks will be in the mobile dev ecosystem.

I feel like React Native has taken a hit in the last year or so, with large companies saying they are moving away from it. I really hope that the RN community continues to flourish because I think it will inspire other platforms to move toward better developer experiences.

<comment><USER9> Well, UI has been component driven forever - although we faltered on Web UIs. For instance, the entire control library in late 90s Visual Basic were components, and people would build re-usable custom components and forms just like you would on React. It went even beyond that - need a Telephony connection or TCP Listener? Drag a TCP component on to your application surface and set some props visually (like port number). It really was that easy.

We haven't peaked. If you leave out the closed-source nature of the Microsoft dominated tech scene, the tech from the 90s is arguably better than what we have now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We used React Native back then when it first came out. Surprisingly the problems that exists back then, still exists today like red error screen, slow TableView scroll, upgrading RN problems.

It is too late for Facebook because a lot of high profile startups are moving away from it. When you release something like this and then have the OSS deal with it and not responed to PRs for several months and years, it leaves a bad taste.

<comment><USER11> Which high profile startups are moving away from it?

<comment><USER12> AirBnB - [https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/sunsetting-react- nativ...](https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/sunsetting-react- native-1868ba28e30a)

<comment><USER13> AirBnb always comes up as an example of a team abandoning RN but it seems like no one actually read the entire blog post. Migrating an existing native app to RN is going to be hard for anyone. Starting from scratch with CRNA? Not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> While I like react Native, in my opinion Flutter from Google is proving to be far more superior as a cross platform app development technology. The apps are incredibly fast, feel far more native, and are actually fairly easy to build.

I went down this path of trying both and ultimately ended up building my side project with flutter. My project is a cross platform App that reads articles to you using some great sounding open source AI/ML models by converting any article to audio so you can maximize that dead time on your commute.

This is a little self promotional but if you want to see what's possible with Flutter, you can check it out here:

[https://articulu.com](https://articulu.com)

Edit: while I get folks may be upset with my comment and are down voting me, I've geniunely worked with both technologies so I'm not just making this up.

<comment><USER15> > feel far more native

I don't see how emulated native controls can feel more native than actual native controls.

<comment><USER16> Not emulated. Painted at the OS level, same as native controls. Uses [https://skia.org/](https://skia.org/). I second the grandparent poster's opinion about runtime speed and developer productivity, but Flutter is still not mature enough for production.

<comment><USER14> You are correct but I obviously disagree on not mature enough for production, I'm in production with paying users. :)

<comment><USER16> I'm glad to hear that. Let me know your experiences. We've a customer base of about 0.5 million, and ours is a mission critical system. Which is why I'm currently reluctant to use Flutter, even though I'm a huge fan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm really torn here between React Native and just building a PWA.

I'm building a tool for managing your reading across devices. IT basically allows you to suspend and resume your reading easily and supports caching web pages offline and reading them like you would a PDF.

[https://getpolarized.io/](https://getpolarized.io/)

Right now I'm torn between a PWA and React Native.

Our PWA code is React, just not react native.

Being a PWA means I don't have to deal with React Native issues and I can keep the same code across my entire app.

The changes that Microsoft has made to their app store to support PWAs are really nice.

Additionally Google has their new 'custom web view' that allows you to compile a PWA into an Android App.

Part of the whole thing with the app store is being discoverable.

You might be a PWA but people are taught to go to the app store to find new apps to install.

However, with React Native I think you would have to do a bit more work but your app would look better on that platform.

Has anyone had to make this decision lately? Would love to hear your feedback.

<comment><USER18> When did google hijack the PWA term? [https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web- apps/](https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/)

It used to just mean you would build on standard html features so your app would fallback to it and still work if your crazy new JS driven input type didn't work the way you expected, and for accessibility purposes. I don't see either of those goals mentioned.

<comment><USER19> That sounds to me like you are describing "Progressive Enhancement", PWA's are different. To answer your question, according to Wikipedia the name got coined in 2015. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_applications](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_applications)

<comment><USER18> Sounds to me like you are right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> React and redux are nice but I'd never use it for native again personally. You update it to fix one bug only to get 2 more in its place, after you spend a day updating and fixing your app. I've spent less time coding entire Android apps than I have hunting bugs down in rn apps.

<comment><USER21> It really is unbelievably painful trying to work within the RN ecosystem. There's so much promise but ol well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Unfortunately, this is not something that we experience ourselves because we run React Native from master."

What does this mean? Does this mean they're always on the very latest RN version? If so, wouldn't this constantly break like many layers of dependencies?

I kind of like the idea though.

<comment><USER22> (Nearly) all of Facebook exists in a single repository, so all dependencies are building against other dependencies at ~master. Things do break, but extensive automated testing goes a long way.

<comment><USER23> Non-facebook users are in a less fortunate position though, because while the automated testing might keep their dependencies working, yours will break. So people tend to stick to certain release and avoid upgrading at all costs, trying to find a permutation of library and RN versions where everything is mostly working and rest can hacked around. All bug reports by react-native team have traditionally been treated with 'please upgrade to latest release' which makes things problematic, because while your specific issue might be solved, you'll have bunch of new ones caused by the new release and your dependencies not playing nice. Hopefully there will be some improvement with this in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> React native is pretty cool, but I do wish they would add support for desktop apps, not just ios and android. Proton native exists and seems stable-ish, but the underlying cross platform UI library (libui) still says it's only at an alpha level.

<comment><USER25> Have you seen React Native Windows ([https://github.com/Microsoft/react- native-windows](https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native-windows)) and react- native-macos ([https://github.com/ptmt/react-native- macos](https://github.com/ptmt/react-native-macos))? I haven't used either, but they both look very popular, 5k-10k stars on Github.

<comment><USER24> I was aware, but I don't recall those projects being very active. Additionally, IIRC they're both implementing their UI widgets differently rather than trying to build a common API that is desktop agnostic. There also is this project: [https://github.com/status-im/react-native- desktop](https://github.com/status-im/react-native-desktop) which seems somewhat more active, and also supports linux (which is much more important to me than windows support).</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Tries To Silence Blogger To Cover Up User Data Scandal - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2012/10/26/facebook-asked-blogger-who-purchased-user-data-to-keep-quiet <comment><USER3> I don't even trust the original blogger is being completely up-front and honest with us. He was going for the sensationalist angle from the start, and to have Facebook call him and ask for his help was just too rich for him to handle.

Ack, coverup! Ack, censorship!

FB needs to find out which app did this. Give them a chance.

<comment><USER4> Is he not performing the functions of a journalist? And if so, should we not encourage and admire someone's impulse to buck the system (without being destructive or unreasonable)? Why side with Goliath?

<comment><USER3> We should encourage reporting of the accurate truth, yes. We should discourage link-bait, and over-hype, and sensationalism.

Even RWW should have done a better job looking into what happened, instead of just finding an anti-FB story of the day to post.

<comment><USER5> That wouldn't comport with RW's editorial policies, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Read nothing scandalous about Facebook's behavior. This HN headline doesn't deliver.

There is nothing wrong with the request to keep this quiet for a bit so you can investigate.

This is not uncommon in the security world where vendors get some time to get their stuff together and release a fix. Depending on the severity of the issue and the risk of abuse.

<comment><USER7> _"Oh and by the way, you are not allowed to disclose any part of this conversation; it is a secret that we are even having this conversation"_

If this is true, it's practically begging for the blogger to research the law, and publish the whole conversation because FB has no right whatsoever to make such demand. I wouldn't call it scandalous, but it would certainly be a pretty dumb thing to say.

If I had to guess, I would imagine the conversation was slightly different. Perhaps a polite request to keep quiet. Who knows, Facebook is still a teenager in many respects so it's anybody's guess.

Edit: why would anyone downvote this comment? Curious.

<comment><USER8> I have no specific knowledge of this case, but ...

> Perhaps a polite request to keep quiet. Who knows, Facebook is still a > teenager in many respects so it's anybody's guess.

My experience with just about any company is that they would state their hopes as facts, and expect you to accept that as a fact. And it works with the vast majority of people.

Case (from outside the US): Credit card got a fraudulent charge. Called up the credit card company, disputing the charge (After credit card company was already paid by an automated payment service).

Credit card company: "Well, we're keeping your money, the law says we have 60 days to figure out if you are right or the merchant is right; if you are right, we'll give you back the money".

Me: "Ahhm. The law says you have to give me back the money this instant, and you have 60 days to figure out if you believe that the charge wasn't fraudulent; and if you do, you can explain it to me, and if I still disagree then there's a whole section in the law about that but you don't get any money automatically either"

Credit company: "Oh, you're right. Here's your money back, we'll be in touch in at most 6o days".

<comment><USER7> I understand. However, this is a savvy blogger who is looking for publicity. Facebook contacted him to defuse a potential PR situation, he didn't call them. You'd imagine they would be smarter than that, after all they are the world experts in virality and social media. Like I said, it's anybody's guess.

<comment><USER8> > Facebook contacted him to defuse a potential PR situation, he didn't call > them

From the description, it sounds like the security department called him, not the PR department. And sounds like they're sort of OK as a security department, but that they DID need to coordinate with the PR department in this case, and they didn't.

> You'd imagine they would be smarter than that, after all they are the world > experts in virality and social media

Their product people are experts in virality and social media. Their PR people - I don't know, I guess they're ok. Their security people? Obviously not. They just moved quickly and broke things for the PR department to fix.

If the blogger is lying, I'm sure facebook will shame them publicly - <USER2> have a recording, after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am fascinated by this. For most of us the situation, that some rogue web app developer is selling his data, is not really news worthy. But somehow this got magnified through the media-echo chamber into a massive "Facebook doesn't care about your data" story. Not quite sure, maybe it is because it fits already the existing narrative, but it is never the less fascinating to watch.

</comment><comment><USER10> Maybe Facebook should consult someone experienced: <https://www.facebook.com/barbrastreisand>

</comment><comment><USER11> The title "Facebook Asks Rogue Blogger to Adhere to Responsible Disclosure Policies" would present a completely different viewpoint while not requiring that the body of the article change at all.

<comment><USER12> "Responsible disclosure" is like the expression "digital rights": something that makes the opposite meaning so ridiculous that you sound like a looney if you dare disagree with it. ("Why would anyone want irresponsible disclosure? Why would anyone not want rights?")

In this case, the original blogger did not follow "responsible disclosure" practices (which means "don't tell anyone about this, we want our PR team to spin the news first") but what he did was not irresponsible. He told the users whose data has been compromised that they should be careful with Facebook until the investigation is complete and details are disclosed. Now the user has the ability to make a rational and data-driven decision rather than hope Facebook will make the right one for them.

I'm not saying one way is right or wrong, but coverups rarely cover up good news.

<comment><USER11> I don't see how a warning in this instance is helpful. Knowing that the data was likely scraped somehow from Facebook, what is the rational and data-driven approach to take? Unless there is a specific set of actions known to mitigate the risk of additional information leakage, saying "be careful with Facebook" sounds nice but doesn't help anyone. So why not let Facebook's security team do their due diligence first and then fully disclose the information later?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is an intriguing article, whether or not this true.

Now to be honest.. Facebook's platform is so open and easy to get information from people and their friends, that a typical web developer could create an App that requires the user's email address upon signing in via Facebook Connect. Upon successful connection, the developer could write a script to save that email address and post some article about the user using his/her real name. This could get the users attention, attracting their friends. Once they sign in, however, the script will store their email address as well. How long will this work for? Until Facebook denies the rights to your application.

If you want to make $5, sell that list to this guy.. again. haha.

</comment><comment><USER14> The best part of the article is the irony of Facebook's statement: "Facebook is vigilant about protecting our users from those who would try to expose any form of user information. In this case, it appears someone has attempted to scrape information from our site,".

I read this as "We don't want anyone to potentially profit from the data we're profiting from ... let's squash the competition!"

</comment><comment><USER15> There is nothing to investigate, from the screenshot of the excel file I can deduce what has happened.

Someone put up a service/application/website which required facebook login. The user logged in with his facebook account. The service/app/website may request the email address to be part of the authentication information. The user is informed about this before when he accepts the service/app/website into his life. The provider of the service/app/website was dishonest and sold basically the login info for $5. How do I know? I have developed applications with facebook login.

</comment><comment><USER16> facebook being shady, that's so 2003->forever</comment>


Apple invention would create custom comic book from game experiences - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/12/apple_invention_would_create_custom_comic_book_from_game_experiences.html

<comment><USER2> Now that's a creative idea</comment>