De-Googling my phone - <AUTHOR> https://piware.de/post/2018-05-01-android-degoogle/ <comment><USER3> Your increased trust in these stores is motivated by .... _what_ governance and audit structure?

yes, its a devils-advocate position. You might (for instance) have high trust because you know them from hacker traeff you've been on, f2f. I can't have this a-priori knowledge.

From here, this looks no better than "trust google" and in some dimensions looks significantly worse. Of course for the _primary_ goal of "distrust google" it works very well.

(well done btw, its a good, complete list, and has apps I think I too would put on my need-list)

<comment><USER4> Something I haven't yet understood -- why hasn't a ~Debian of Android- compatible phones emerged?

Are we lacking a UI? Kernel? Apps? Interest? Interface with existing closed- source apps? Is stock Android too good?

<comment><USER5> Purism is planning on fixing that[1]. The funny thing is that we've actually reverted backwards, you could install a Debian-based distro on the Nokia N900 -- not really possible on newer phones (though you do have stuff like Ubuntu Phone).

[1]: [https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/)

<comment><USER6> I miss my N900 so much and for so many reasons. Unfortunately all of mine had abysmal build quality and fell apart after a few months. A friend of mine kept repairing his for many years -- maybe he still uses it.

But a huge part of why I liked the N900 was the physical keyboard. What is the puri.sm stance on that?

<comment><USER7> I'm guessing they won't include it, but if they really do their job well it'll be easy to add your own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I run a similiar setup for almost 1,5 years. LineageOS 14.1 with f-droid "store"; syncing contacts and calendar with davdroid over nextcloud; also switched search to duckduckgo (on desktop, too) and I really don't miss anything. Another advantage of missing Google play services on my now 5 year old phone is, that the power last two times longer than before. A google service free phone is absolutely usable in my opinion and I can recommend this to anyone who does not want to share all its data with google. Some word to the play store problem: I've heard of so much malware and fake apps there, that I don't think the trust is less for an open source community. To install any proprietary apps, I can recommend yalp store, which uses the play store. It's interesting to see how much apps depend on google services and the only trusted source is the google play store, which requires a google account (which I don't have). At this time any request on providing google free apps are ignored or denied with google play being the only trustable source for android. I don't think that this is true, at least not for people with some technical background.

<comment><USER9> How do you find it when communicating with people who don't share your ethos, say those heavily invested in Whatsapp, or another platform to which there is no F/OSS compatible client.

<comment><USER10> you can use whatsapp without gapps

<comment><USER11> But backup, at least in the past, did require gapps

<comment><USER12> If you install the drive app, microG + whatsapp backups works. There is an open ticket to natively support this in microG as well.

Also, WhatsApp has long supported compressed file backups (non-cloud) for a while now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For who ever is interested.... I live in China and have lived in a "google free" microcosm for some time forced on me by the government. Generally do not miss anything at all - at least I dont miss anything i dont know about.

FTR i dont game or media watch on my phone. For me a phone is a mobile device for getting things done when im not at my desk. I use a Blackberry DTEK60.

The apps I use: APKpure for getting apps - great selection and its fast. But you do need to know which ones need GPlay Services before downloading. work : Blackberry Hub - use this for work and service integration. Simply the BEST bar none - and yes I am huge fan of BB devices and yes i do/have owned and used everything else. email : MailDroid - for personal email. photos: Simple Gallery - photos txt: YAATA - sms/mms pCloud: cloud storage riot.im: messaging with a few friends and family + calls T-UI: a power saving and very efficient UI for android TurboClient: ftp client - fastest way to move files between pc/Mac and phone

Have loaded and will try some of the author's suggested apps as well. Im not anti-google, just need to have my apps work all the time whether im in Hongkong or China.

<comment><USER14> Is there a way to verify that the apk on apkpure is the same as the one on Google play? Or is that site very reliable by itself?

<comment><USER15> I was having the same issue. If you are fine with something more homegrown you can use gplaycli[1] to download the apks directly from Google Play. I use it in combination with rsync, but it should be possible, at least in theory, to host your private f-droid repository with the downloaded apks.

Unfortunately, this does not solve verification of the apk signature. As far as I understand it, Android uses something similar to "trust on first use" [2] with apk signatures, so verifying the signature before first installation should be sufficient for most people.

[1]: [https://github.com/matlink/gplaycli](https://github.com/matlink/gplaycli) [2]: [https://developer.android.com/studio/publish/app- signing](https://developer.android.com/studio/publish/app-signing)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great list! NewPipe is _really_ good, far better than the proprietary YouTube app. K9 is also a superb app and holds up very well against the proprietary options. I have to recommend andOTP over FreeOTP, though, it's more featureful and does some important things like backups.

<comment><USER17> NewPipe lets me play audio of YouTube videos in the background, allowing me to turn off my display. While Google's official YouTube app stops the video entirely when turn off the display, and pesters me to upgrade to "YouTube Red" so that I can pay money to do what NewPipe already does for free.

<comment><USER18> >and pesters me to upgrade to "YouTube Red" so that I can pay money to do what NewPipe already does for free.

It's even worse if you're supposed to have YT Red as a Google Play Music subscriber, but they don't enable that functionality in almost any country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I did a similar thing a couple years ago, it should still be pretty up-to- date:

[https://infinity0.github.io/droid-hacks/](https://infinity0.github.io/droid- hacks/)

I go into a bit more detail than the OP does, though with less-flowing prose.

</comment><comment><USER20> I am adopting a different approach. It seems likely that I may not be able to de-BigBrother myself without tremendous efforts. There are all kinds of devils out there, why not at least sell the soul only to a single devil? So I am going all Google. Nothing else. I exclusively use all their products (even Google+). I don't have FB, Twitter etc. Google is the devil I have sold my soul to.

<comment><USER21> I do the same and with youtube as well. I bookmark video timestamps by leaving comments and liking videos to see if I've watched the entire thing. I do the same with stackoverflow too(upvoting comments if it was helpful). Later i can browse my likes across many platforms to refresh what I was looking up.

Might as well apply data capturing to yourself and reap its benefits

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was interested in reading this until I realized the scrolling was broke.

Please consider using default scrolling

<comment><USER23> What browser were you using.

Scrolling works perfectly in Firefox 57 on Linux.

<comment><USER22> iOS Safari

<comment><USER24> That's your problem. iOS Webkit has buggy scrolling behavior if you use fixed position elements or iframes. Unfortunately, Apple won't allow non-buggy browsers on their platform, so there's nothing you can do about it.

<comment><USER25> It's our problem that developers feel the need to override the default scrolling behaviour which works perfectly across all devices on all platforms?

<comment><USER26> The developer hasn't override any of the scrolling behaviour, the browser just handles position:fixed incorrectly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Interesting article. You can add Hound as a surprisingly powerful alternative voice AI to Google Assistant!

I'd be curious to know if anyone has had any positive experiences with any of the non google/apple OS phones or if there is a comparison out there as I'm so fed up with that duopoly. Apple has terrible battery life and intentionally obsoletes their expensive equipment every year. Not to mention they rip off third party devs (its why theres no amazon store app). Googles design on the other hand is so bad it takes forever to figure out how to do something stupidly simple like turn a text message pic into your background or it even tries to kill you with a full screen text wall pop up on google maps when driving over a bump. You find the tiny dismiss and then... bump again...

<comment><USER28> > You can add Hound as a surprisingly powerful alternative voice AI to Google > Assistant!

Is this available on F-droid? I didn't see it there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Nice, I've also thought about moving all my notes and todo stuff to Org Mode.

I did figure out a way to sync org mode files between laptop and phone with low latency (unlike with Syncthing) running Unison inside Arch Linux inside Termux, using git to automatically merge conflicts. It's a little crazy, but seems to work? Maybe will do a write-up at some point.

<comment><USER6> Syncthing has recently gotten inotify support for lower latencies. These days I barely even notice any latency, actually. (Where previously it would depend on your scan interval, default 60 s.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I used k9mail for awhile until I realized it had sent every temporary draft of an email as I revised something and changed between apps. Was super embarrassing. Hard to trust it now even though the ui seemed great.

<comment><USER31> Original author of K-9 here. I haven't been involved in the project for some time, but my recollection is that any time we investigated this issue, we found that the issue was GMail displaying multiple drafts to the sender as having been sent, not actually sending the drafts via SMTP.

(That's what the bug reference in a reply to this comment is about)

<comment><USER32> Yes I actually faced this exact bug myself a week ago. What happened was - <USER2> mobile app gmail displayed my draft as sent (but actually I have already completed it and send it using desktop web app), but when double checked on desktop, it indeed actually send my completed email, not the draft.

I tried restarting the app/ refresh email threads, but it didn't fix the visual bug. I'm not sure if the bug is still present today as the email thread has been buried down and I couldn't care enough to follow up on it. I'm just glad it didn't actually send my draft when somehow the app displayed my draft version as sent.

Note that I'm not a user of K9, I'm just describing similar buggy encounter with Gmail desktop and its android app. I only noticed this that one time and just shrug it off due to me turning off apps auto update. Usually I only update manually when I really think I need to and after carefully reading each change logs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've been running LineageOS (and its predecessor Cyanogenmod) for 6 years now across three phones, currently a Moto G5 Plus. Have also set it up for several other people. Subjectively, the overall stability and quality has improved drastically in the past few years. It's almost certainly better than the stock build of Android on most phones. Performance and battery life is improved without Google Spy Services always running in the background. It feels great to run a (mostly) surveillance-free smartphone that answers to me, and only me.

If you do need an app from the Google Play Store in a pinch, Yalp Store gives you access to that, and most of them work well enough. For the occasional app that really needs Google Spy Services, I keep an older 'burner' phone around which runs the factory-default build of Android.

<comment><USER34> Agreed, a 5 year old one plus one runs very smooth with the latest oreo 8.1 on LineageOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Isn't it ironic that lineage is still basically Google?

I get a bit of solace knowing it's open source... But I certainly won't be crawling through the code and compiling.

I hope others do...

<comment><USER36> Its Google as in the code was written by Google (AOSP). But the binary is built by themselves, on their build server (As with any other custom ROM).

It's like Chromium on Debian. It's Google code compiled by Debian

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm curious about the battery and reliability effects of push notifications without FCM. Using a single service for notifications allows a single wakeup across the device when fetching notifications. Last I checked, the minimum interval for coalesced timers in android is 15m and that's just in time for most telco NATs in the US to have silently killed your connection. [Source: I used to run a 3P push network on android]

<comment><USER38> Well I'm not sure how Telegram does it, but I get messages pushed instantly, it doesn't use Google spy services for that, and it's super low in battery usage rankings.

I might be wrong but isn't it simply about building a tcp connection whenever Internet is available or changes, and the server will push whenever there's something new? You don't need a single thing polling (which would indeed save power) if the server is pushing. Recently I learned that sleeping (power- conserving) clients are even part of the WiFi spec, so that an access point will hold onto messages for some time until the client is listening again. I assume this is just some ms, but still.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> That blog post is mostly just about the apps. Sadly we still have a lot Google services in use afterwards, like e.g. the optional location service which speeds up the GPS positioning, but those parts are much harder to replace :-/

Some time ago MicroG[1] was set to solve that problem, but I don't know how far they have come.

[1]: [https://microg.org](https://microg.org)

<comment><USER40> "LineageOS 14.1 without the Google apps" (from the OP)

Google apps/Gapps is what MicroG replaces. Gapps is an optional, separate install not included in LineageOS. Location services etc are part of that.

MicroG works well, I use it on one Android device and have another using LineageOS without either Google apps or MicroG. Both devices are extremely useful and capable and do everything I require, but I've never let myself become dependent on any Google services in the first place (despite having been a web dev for almost 20 years).

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I've been doing this for 3-4 years. Most of the apps are what he recommends

A couple of other recommendations:

Try using amazon app store as they have some commercial apps and don't use google

KeepPassDroid - and use syncthing to sync Skype (on amazon)

The two that I have problems with are uber which use to allow you to use their web interface and google maps replacement. I ended up with a burner phone after a while...

</comment><comment><USER42> The Deutsche Bahn navigator mentioned in the article runs fine without Google Play Services. The only thing missing is the map view. And you can use yalp to install and update it.

<comment><USER43> I downloaded it from uptodown a few weeks ago and can confirm that it runs fine without google play services. It only gives you an error message on some occasions which you can ignore. However, I don't really trust uptodown. When I asked them where they sourced their apps from I didn't get a reply. I also mailed DB and they said they publish to Google Play only. Now I've checked the apk file with various online tools but I still feel slightly uneasy about it.

I really hope that one day institutions like public transport operators and public service broadcasters publish they apps in google-free stores. I don't want to depend on the Google Playstore one day because there's no other way to purchase an electronic ticket or to use tv on demand services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Very interesting! And you should have a look at [https://eelo.io](https://eelo.io) because they are industrializing your ideas :-)

</comment><comment><USER6> I have been running non-stock ROMs for a while now (specifically AOSP Extended, on my Samsung S7 Edge) and ny main issues have been related to reliability/stability, primarily in what I assume is the device drivers' area. Camera freezes phone or gives shitty pictures, microphone not working, etc, etc. This is nearly enough to cause me to go back to stock.

However, I do see the number of ROMs built for my phone has increased a lot, so maybe I should try something else?

<comment><USER45> LineageOS is my go-to, FWIW.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Nice setup. I would just recommend andOTP instead of FreeOTP.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Any reason? I'm currently using both and they both seem nice.

<comment><USER46> For example, andOTP allows to back up your codes. FreeOTP doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Very interesting. I've been looking for something like Syncthing for a while now, without luck. I ran into TLS/https issues (can't remember what exactly) while configuring OwnCloud/NextCkound, and realized it had some security flaws I wasn't ready to live with. I decided to stick with Google Drive. I'll give a try to Syncthing this summer. Thanks!

<comment><USER39> I use Nextcloud since a few years and I am very happy with it (especially with the desktop integrations, e.g. KDE/Dolphin). I even use the Nextcloud WebDav server as a backend to store and sync data for my own Progressive Web App :D

The only security flaw I see is that it is written in PHP, which makes it harder for the devs to write secure code, but not impossible.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm running basically this, with microG Nano so that most apps don't crash right away.

I would recommend Yalp Store instead, it works pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER48> I think one of the things I'd really miss is Google Maps. The directions are really good, and the web app is unusably slow

<comment><USER49> If you don't need real-time traffic data, OsmAnd or Maps.me are both pretty good replacements.

<comment><USER50> The voice directions on OsmAnd is pretty horrid. It often doesn't say anything where there is an important turn and hardly ever says the street name to turn on to. I suspect it gets really confused by the little turning lanes on the edge of intersections which usually have no data in OSM as they aren't a real road.

If you have your phone in a dock with the screen on it's usable. Also the search is pretty bad and forget looking up most stores by name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I factory reset my (old) Android phone a while ago and now use it without a connection to Google Play. The only app I installed is Firefox, from an APK file. Works for me, although I rarely use a phone anyway. It's also nice not getting the constant upgrades of apps that came with the phone but which I don't use.

<comment><USER52> >The only app I installed is Firefox, from an APK file

a manually updated web browser... what could possibly go wrong?

<comment><USER51> There's not a lot of information on the phone to lose anyway. I understand that it's not a secure device and use it accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Been thinking of getting the Essential Phone as my next phone as opposed to the Pixel 2 but not sure if I want to root and install Lineage, which begs two questions: how secure is Lineage does it maintain close ties to Android or does it drift a little? and... Are there LineageOS phones out there yet?

<comment><USER54> Isn't one of the main purposes of the LineageOS project to preserve as close- to-stock of an experience as possible?

Personally in terms of security, I would worry more about the Essential- specific builds, not general LineageOS releases. For example, a quick search shows LOS having the KRACK vulnerability seemingly patched the same month after public disclosure.

As for my distinction between Essential builds vs. general LOS builds, bear in mind LOS has not reached Official status for the Essential phone and is very unlikely to within the foreseeable future, primarily due to the difficulty in decoupling Google services from the OS. BUT! If the Essential LineageOS Discord channel is any indication, maintenance and updates are super active. And, the (volunteer-run) support is VERY helpful. Keep in mind, they are supporting LineageOS on Essential, not necessarily cases of rooted devices.

Furthermore, rooting isn't a 1-click process at this time, either. You'll have to bust out the computer terminal, run some adb/fastboot commands, and do a couple additional things that get your hands dirty.

If you use T-Mobile and have the money for a Pixel 2, I would just go with that. Essential has widely varied reception for T-Mobile users. Mine for example simply doesn't work much of the time that it says I have full signal, and it flat out drops incoming calls and text messages with absolutely no indication whatsoever that anybody even tried to contact me.

I kind of regret my choice in phone to replace my aging, problematic N5.

Pretty healthy pool of LineageOS phones "out there." [https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/](https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Thanks for the great blog post! I did exactly the same a couple of month ago. Instead of using my own server for contacs and calendars, I used posteo.de for syncronisation. By the way, the DB-Navigator works fine without google. I installed it with the amazon market app.

</comment><comment><USER56> Maybe I can help, I have written this in google context, but it is general privacy enabled configuration.

This is what I am using: [https://lineage.microg.org/](https://lineage.microg.org/) (get rid of google play (and save 1/3 of battery)) apps have a dependancies to google framework and just not having it breaks lots of stuff (this is google true vendor lock- in). Microg is opensource reimplementation of it, but it needs patches into android to fake its file signatures. And lineage microg takes care about it)

First thing, get rid of your gmail/android account, register new account with 3rd party email provider. If you are buying phone, check xda-developers which has most support from ROM builders as you don't want, for instance, Samsung ROM. Only than go for hw specifications. Root phone (don't be afraid, it is nothing special, companies are scaremongering here), flash recovery TWRP (imagine it as "bootloader" for android), flash lineage microg.

From here, you start playing with OS.

\- Replace dns server (root required) 18.104.22.168 with other (I use my own but there are plenty privacy oriented like ccc.de)

\- Install yalp store (replaces play store, buy things using browser, if developer drm doesnt support verifying that you have bought its app, break it using lucky patcher or demand money back)

\- Install xposed framework, install netguard, install xprivacylua (one of rare developers I trust for this, due to his privacy work), pay him donations to get pro versions (I have my own versions of those two built and a tad modified)

\- use netguard logging to block all the fishy urls that system is calling (gps service, block complete network access,...)

\- take special care about firefox, block all privacy details using xprivacylua, install webapi manager add-in, learn to use it.

\- You have set up base os now start using it and block everything that is trying to be contacted using microg. Lineage is by no means clean but you can silence it. Dont trust system apps, broadcom drivers are, for instance, contacting their servers. Dont start installing apps until you have done it, later you will get huge noise from apps. Take a day or two and just use phone normal features blocking everything that seems faul (google ntp servers,...)

\- For those who havent noticed it yet (or reversed a few of apps), most of android applications are demanding crazy lot of permissions. The reason is that in they have ~1/3 of developer code any 2/3 of spying code, from ad providers to trackinb and analytics and simply code that "just" needs to access your contacts =/. So... for every application you install, start it with everything blocked (netguard + xprivacylua) and work your way trough allowances. Don't give any app allow for internet if it doesn't need it, fake all the details to app that doesnt need them (South Pole is a nice place to be for gps coordinates)...

To really unhook yourself from google, you will need a server, I came to the point where all google domains are blocked (I mean ALL, not just google.*), all my comunication from all my computers/devices is passing server (i have two ways of doing it, either vpn or ssh tunnel) where communication is cleaned, http (+https mitm) over squid with huge blocklist, caching cdns forever,... and having squid in separate routing table (ok, its freebsd fib but close enough) with openvpn client, so also my ip is gone. I am completely self hosted (own "cloud" for webdav,webcal, files; mailserver; searx;...) and...

.. I am not missing anything that google has to offer, I am using android apps, but without google.

I would really recomend doing it, if you aren't familiar with networks, OS,... it will take a year, two, five, but you will learn a lot.

I have probably forgot about lots of details but please ask it, if you are interested.

Just for a taste, my google data export is 28kb (bought apps,...) after few years. What about yours? :)

Some links you might use:

[https://lineage.microg.org/](https://lineage.microg.org/)

[http://repo.xposed.info/](http://repo.xposed.info/)

[https://www.xda-developers.com/](https://www.xda-developers.com/)

[https://www.netguard.me/](https://www.netguard.me/)

[https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua](https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua)

<comment><USER57> Xposed shouldn't be used carelessly, see e.g. here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1y4u1p/can_xposed_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1y4u1p/can_xposed_mods_harm_my_device/)

<comment><USER56> Well, as long you are using only xprivacylua, it shouldn't be a problem. I have reviewed the code for it and netguard (doesnt need root) and it is clean (for netguard there are some callhome functionalities, but it doesn't submit anything relevant back or doing something fishy - I am talking only for paid version). Also Bokhorst is donationwaring it, so there is a money trail to physical person.

Regarding softbricking, TWRP should solve that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Ubuntu phone is not dead, it's now developed by ubports [http://ubuntu- touch.io/](http://ubuntu-touch.io/)

<comment><USER59> It is dead. Someone forked it. I'm sorry but I can't trust some random team with almost zero funding to write my everyday os. Ubuntu phone died when Canonical dropped it. Same for Mozilla. It's a shame and kind of bizarre that Google can go on without any competition, but without the hardware manufacturers cooperating this isn't working out. We need open hardware for this to work.

<comment><USER60> > Same for Mozzila.

I'm out of the loop, what happened with Mozilla?

<comment><USER61> S/he means the pre-Firefox Mozilla browser suite that was abandoned [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Application_Suite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Application_Suite)

<comment><USER45> Surely Firefox OS? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> If de-googling IRL, what is a viable webview alternative that retains not-inet related functionality in apps?

<comment><USER38> Doesn't Firefox add itself as option if you have the browser installed?

<comment><USER62> Sorry for delay, am unsure what you're asking. Webview is a G gramework baked into all android & ios systems to provide web functions through apps(sans browser).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> FreeOTP hasn't been updated in years. I recommend andOTP, it has more updates and features.

</comment><comment><USER64> Awesome! I am almost done building copperheados from source for my Pixel XL.

This is exactly what I was looking for.

edit : I used this for reference [https://gist.github.com/ramann/62abe0b266bb8c3e8483c7c7ca60f...](https://gist.github.com/ramann/62abe0b266bb8c3e8483c7c7ca60fdb8)

</comment><comment><USER65> ApkPure is a very nice replacement for the play store.

</comment><comment><USER66> [[

</comment><comment><USER67> Nice job!

Thanks

</comment><comment><USER10> i stopped reading after claim that Firefox is fast on android. it's objectively one of the slowest browsers

freeotp is also crap compared to andotp and name other alternatives are questionable and seem author has no clue about android/apps

<comment><USER68> Firefox for Android, and Firefox Focus have been my go-to browsers on Android for a while now. Zero complaints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Am I the only one that is weirded out by out-of-context images of people especially faces?

<comment><USER70> It's a photo of the author next to their name. It's not "out-of-context".

<comment><USER69> Yes but I'm interested in the content of the article, not how the author looks like. Especially not if his head is almost 33% of the window height.

And also in general. I often see articles where there really are completely random images in them to fluff things up... Like "Oh you're reading some technical article? Here have some people sitting on a bench eating ice cream!" Why?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> This is something I did a week ago, After finding a version of LineageOS with MicroG, I quickly realized that some apps just don't work without the real Google Services like Snapchat and Uber. I just gave up and keep only the Play store and Services Framework.</comment>


DeepMind Health - <AUTHOR> https://deepmind.com/health.html <comment><USER2> Maybe it's time for Google to invest seriously in homomorphic encryption or other technologies that guarantee they wouldn't infringe the privacy of the people whose medical records they are datamining, if they want expand in this field. And no, their current "anonymization" techniques don't count. Neither do the ones from NHS, which apparently has given up even pretending to care about the patients' privacy:

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25088-nhs-plans- leave...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25088-nhs-plans-leave- anonymous-medical-data-vulnerable/)

[http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2016/02/08/care_data...](http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2016/02/08/care_data_nhs_kicks_privacy_advocates_out/)

[https://hbr.org/2015/02/theres-no-such-thing-as-anonymous- da...](https://hbr.org/2015/02/theres-no-such-thing-as-anonymous-data)

</comment><comment><USER3> I fear that AI will most rapitly be adopted in clinics for optimizing the diagnosis keys for which they charge the health insurance providers. This task is currtly done by human controllers and early expert based software systems.

This is were the big cash is.</comment>


Plans for the death of the Queen - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/16/what-happens-when-queen-elizabeth-dies-london-bridge?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13883428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13883428)

</comment><comment><USER3> Most interestingly, several countries with the Queen as their Head of State have expressed a willingness to become Republics after Elizabeth passes. The most likely candidate being Australia. Her death is likely to cause the further deterioration of the British Empire, or whatever remains of it.

While the monarchy exists mostly in name outside the UK, her death will be closely followed by the people whose lives have been touched by the British Empire.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, that article just goes on and on and on and on.

I tried to imagine the Queen herself reading it and being comfortable with the endless extravagance. Does she really see herself this way? Is it how she wants those resources to be used?

"Leaders", you want to buy them a mirror.

Earlier today I was reading about the shameful cost of Trump's Florida weekends and his family remaining in NYC. This after carping about Obama's occasional trips. Bleh.</comment>


ORM for Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://bookshelfjs.org/ <comment><USER2> How does it compare to Sequelize?

I'm using Sequelize most of the time. Sqlite for development and PostgreSQL for production.

<comment><USER3> Same here.</comment></comment>


Why a School Banned Legos - <AUTHOR> http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_02/lego212.shtml <comment><USER2> In future episodes:

 _Why We Banned Names_ "Individual, parent-assigned names can make children feel unique and special. We reassigned children names based on positive concepts and numbers, such as Equality 7-2521, Democracy 4-6998, and Unanimity 7-3304. Only then did children learn that we are one in all and all in one, there are no individuals but only the great we, one, indivisible and forever." †

 _Why We Introduced Mandatory Handicapping_ "Some children's varied talents and interests were causing disruption in the classroom. Each child was assigned a handicap, such as a headset playing random noises to level intelligence, ankle and wrist weights to offset strength, or masks to hide excess beauty. Everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way." ††

† <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_>(novella)

†† <http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html>

<comment><USER3> Here is the Vonnegut short story on the same subject made into a movie <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-175006468841636088>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Into their coffee shops and houses, the children were building their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys — assumptions that mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — _a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive._ "

God help those children.

<comment><USER5> The fundamental problem with their Lego trading game (and the original Legotown) is that they assume capitalism involves a fixed amount of resources that can only be traded. In reality, the resources are constantly growing. If it was really a fixed-resource system, it would always end like Monopoly, with one person owning everything, or owning enough to always be in power at the least.

All it takes is a second to stop and realize that wealth is _created_ , not _taken_. If it was all really _taken_ , then where in the heck did we take it from? (I mean we as in the whole world.) The world is immensely more wealthy than it was a thousand years ago, and all that wealth was created by the hard work of all those generations. Surely all the wealth creation done by startups is evidence of that.

I think this is generally an economic misunderstanding that a lot of people have. To them, it's "Every dollar Bill Gates has is a dollar less for everyone else, so that is unfair." In fact, PG made this argument much better than I can, here: <http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html>

That said, I did really enjoy how these teachers approached the art of teaching children. Challenging the children to examine and modify their own worldviews seems infinitely more effective than preaching to them about 'the right way.'

<comment><USER6> "The fundamental problem with their Lego trading game (and the original Legotown) is that they assume capitalism involves a fixed amount of resources that can only be traded. In reality, the resources are constantly growing. If it was really a fixed-resource system, it would always end like Monopoly, with one person owning everything, or owning enough to always be in power at the least."

I'm confused. Are you arguing that resources in the "real world" are not finite? So we'll never run out of indium, oil, fresh water, fertile soil, etc? Because if you are, that's a fascinating viewpoint, and almost completely at odds with reality.

"Surely all the wealth creation done by startups is evidence of that."

Maybe, maybe not. A lot of the "wealth" created by startups exists nowhere but on paper.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, looking back now I wish I had written the first paragraph with the word "wealth" instead of "resources." (Alas, the edit link has disappeared on me.) So please, when you see the word resources in my post, mentally substitute for me.

As for you second point, don't confuse money with wealth. Most startups have _liquidation value_ (dollar value) only on paper, because there is no one to buy them, but the product they create represents wealth to someone, even if it's only one customer. If the startup doesn't create enough wealth for enough people, it will probably die, in which case it won't be creating new wealth anymore, but their product made someone's life better, even if only for a short time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is one of the best articles I've read here.

Initially, when left alone, the kids had a free-market society: they owned the resources (lego bricks) they found and exploited (stuff they built) but, nonetheless, they weren't excluding people for the sake of it. Hard-working and motivated kids had more power than other kids.

After months of hand-holding (I'm reluctant to say "brainwashing") by adults, they ended up building a "perfect", planned socialist society where everything was public and standard.

<comment><USER8> It's interesting that the children, when left to themselves, solved their own disputes peacefully through negotiation and a form of organically-grown community law. They had no cause to complain about unfairness until the teachers used arbitrary force to impose a solution that nobody wanted to a problem that nobody recognized as a problem.

<comment><USER6> I don't see that that's what happened at all. Apparently a fair portion of the class was marginalized and basically kept from play. They were either subtly or directly told that they weren't welcome in Legotown. The "smarter" kids learned to hoard limited and valuable resources, and used that power to direct what other kids could do.

It might have been "peaceful" in that setting, but take the teachers out of the equation for an hour or so, and see how peaceful it is when the marginalized kids realize they can force their way into the game by pushing the hoarders around, or simply smash the buildings so _no one_ gets to play.

You think it wouldn't happen?

<comment><USER9> The article specifically mentioned that most of the kids simply chose not to play the game, which is a choice with some obvious metaphors in adult society. Only a few kids were explicitly asked to stay out, and the article doesn't explain the circumstances behind that.

Quite simply, the students established their own meritocracy, which the teachers replaced with a form of socialism.

That may indeed be a more peaceful solution, but I can't remember any age at which that wouldn't have pissed me off. I used to play with Legos as a kid, and Construxx, and even an old erector set. I probably would have been one of the central kids in the story, one of the ones establishing rules and hoarding (and bartering for) pieces. I had to share a room with my younger brother at about that age, and that's exactly what we did.

I would have protested loudly at the change of rules, and then I would have lost interest in playing with them altogether.

There were many better solutions to the problems developing in that game, but the teachers chose instead to teach the kids that regardless of your skills, interest, passion, or ability to barter, at the end of the day, everybody gets the same thing.

<comment><USER6> "Quite simply, the students established their own meritocracy, which the teachers replaced with a form of socialism."

That is emphatically not what happened. What the kids discovered was that the fastest and most aggressive kids (i.e. the ones who got to the bins first) got the most desirable bricks/pieces. The spin you (and to be fair, most of us, me included) are putting on it implies that children are miniature adults, which isn't the case.

The role of the teachers (and recall that this is an after-school program) was to create a place where all children had the opportunity to play and enjoy themselves...not to allow the creation of an environment where some kids were specifically excluded. Yes, they proposed a framework -- one entirely appropriate to the setting. But in the end, most of the rules were created by the kids themselves.

The end result was a more satisfying experience for _everyone_, not just the fastest, biggest or smartest. In short, everybody does better when everybody does better.

"We invited the children to work in small, collaborative teams to build Pike Place Market with Legos. We set up this work to emphasize negotiated decision- making, collaboration, and collectivity."

I'm hard-pressed to see how people find fault with this. Who doesn't want their children to learn how to negotiate decisions and collaborate with others?

"There were many better solutions to the problems developing in that game, but the teachers chose instead to teach the kids that regardless of your skills, interest, passion, or ability to barter, at the end of the day, everybody gets the same thing."

But at the end of the day, everyone _didn't_ get the same thing. The only thing everyone got was a chance to be a part of the play. Where they went with that was up to them.

"I probably would have been one of the central kids in the story, one of the ones establishing rules and hoarding (and bartering for) pieces."

Except you wouldn't have had to. By getting all the "cool pieces (windows and such) you would have set yourself in possession of what everyone wanted. Plain building bricks were not valued, simply because there were so many of them. You wouldn't have needed to barter except in a very limited way. In short, you'd be the one with all the marbles. That's not appropriate to the setting, regardless of what spin adults might put on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great, great article. I'm amazed that the teachers went through this exercise with such rigor. It seems like a cool program.

That said, the ultimate lesson they implanted in these kids is flawed.

I'm sure they'd be thrilled if these kids ultimately grow up and demand society be like the utopia they constructed in their after-school program. But the whole thing stems on there being a finite amount of resources. In the classroom, sure, there is a bucket of bricks – and that's all there is. But in the real world wealth isn't a finite resource.†

The brick game is based on this flawed thinking: According to the game, different colored bricks are worth different amounts, and the luck of your initial draw determines how you rank. The kids are told they can trade (I guess to make it seem more like capitalism?), but that's stupid because there's nothing to gain by trading – who's gonna accept a 2pt brick for a 3pt one?

So the kids are supposed to take away that wealth gets randomly, _unfairly_ distributed, and the only way to make things right is to _force_ the undeserving to share their bricks.

But in real life you aren't stuck trying to trade your money for money: you can attempt to trade wealth – wealth you can create. So a kid could offer back scratches for 1pt bricks. Or agree to carry all of Liam's green bricks for a couple interest bricks. Suddenly you're not limited by your initial draw.

And I think that's a very important lesson that these kids didn't get.

The article says these kids are upper-middle class, so it may not matter as much, but imagine that these were poor kids. Here they've been taught that they can only reach a certain random level of success, and to get any higher will require resources be taken from some undeserving, rich bastard – which, hey, some politician will make happen once in a while – but otherwise your efforts to succeed are futile.

What a hopeless lesson.

† <http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html>

<comment><USER11> My thought was this school had brilliant teachers teaching an evil lesson. I was shocked at the simplistic model that the teachers had of the world.

But then again, knowing your typical education major, perhaps I shouldn't have been.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> To me the most interesting part of the article was the paragraph that describes how some of the kids gave up:

"During the trading game, a couple of children simply gave up, while others waited passively for someone to give them valuable pieces. Drew said, "I stopped trading because the same people were winning. I just gave up." In the game, the children could experience what they'd not been able to acknowledge in Legotown: When people are shut out of participation in the power structure, they are disenfranchised — and angry, discouraged, and hurt."

It reminds me of one of the most terrible sins that my mother inflicted on me when I was a child -- she taught me that things are supposed to be fair. She taught me the fairy tale that we have these things called "inalienable rights", such as freedom and justice and that kind of thing. She taught me that I was entitled to these "rights" and, implicitly, she taught me that I didn't have to do any work to earn these rights or to keep them.

She taught me, in very much the same way that the teachers taught these kids, that when there is injustice or inequity, I didn't have to do anything about it. All I had to do was whine about it and cry, and some higher power (like the teachers in this case) would come over and pat me on the head and fix it for me.

The truth is freedom and justice are not "rights". They are privileges, fought and earned by our ancestors, paid for by their tears and blood. We in the western world have grown so complacent in our corpulence that we just expect these things to be handed to us.

I would be much happier if, instead of making things fair for the "disenfranchised" kids, they had helped the kids see the advantages of their despair -- how having things stacked against them means that they have been given a chance to create a new way to win against greater odds, something the "rich" kids did not have and would never have.

The truth is the world does not owe us anything and we shouldn't expect otherwise. It is up to us to MAKE our place in the world, not sit and wait for it to be given to us.

<comment><USER13> Thank you for that thoughtful response. While I suspect we disagree on many points, I too think that dealing directly with the disenfranchisement would have been a more important lesson/exploration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article surprised me. I thought it was going to be some news piece about how some school banned legos, like how some middle school banned dances.

Instead, it was an exploration on social and power dynamics between people through legos.

I have to admit, as someone can see how the invisible hand works, I also reacted when I read that the teachers thought a capitalist society was unjust. But in their classroom, the situation arose because the amount of wealth, "cool lego pieces" were fixed, thus giving a zero-sum game. In the real economy, wealth is not fixed because peoples' needs expand, and is not a zero- sum game overall. I'd like to see the same experiment if kids could create their own types of pieces. I suspect the same power imbalance will arise where some kids can make cooler pieces than others, but that doesn't mean it can't change as some kids can get better over time.

So they brought back the legos, and I was thinking that they might end up with more communistic/socialistic rules due to the teachers, but then at the end the kids made up their own rules, and the article listed some of the rules that the kids came up with:

      * All structures are public structures. Everyone can use all the Lego structures. But only the
        builder or people who have her or his permission are allowed to change a structure.
      * Lego people can be saved only by a "team" of kids, not by individuals.
      * All structures will be standard sizes.

To me, it sounds remarkably like open source software. Translated, it's stuff we hear in OSS all the time:

      * Anyone can contribute patches, but only the maintainer and his trusted developers can commit the changes
      * (a bit of a stretch here, but) All bugs are shallow with enough eyeballs
      * Adhere to coding conventions you see in the code.  2 spaces for tabs, not 4.

<comment><USER5> While I very much agree with your statement of the zero-sum problem (as I posted above), I interpreted the rules they came up with totally differently...

      * All structures are owned by the state, everyone can use them, but only the person living there is allowed to decorate.
      * Groups take priority over individuals.
      * Everything must be the same, lest anyone feel superior/inferior.

I think the lesson they taught kids was terrible (it's better if everyone is the same), but I liked the _way they taught it_ by challenging the kids to examine their own assumptions. The problem was merely that the kids were examining them based on flawed premises, as you stated.

<comment><USER15> Yeah. I very much agree. So, the logical next question is, how would we use the same technique to teach kids better lessons?

      * Resources should go to whoever can make the coolest things with them.
      * Groups lead to compromises, great art is made by individuals.
      * People aren't equal. You can be unequal too, if you work hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Kudos to the submitter, but I couldn't finish reading this. I got too sick to my stomach about half way through. What an absolutely perfect microcosm of how government makes society go to hell.

Edit: I guess now I have to retract my comment from the other day on the trolling thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117146>

Suddenly that article doesn't seem so ludicrous anymore :-\

</comment><comment><USER15> It sounds like most of the teachers' problems centered around the Legos being a zero-sum thing, where if I use all the cool pieces, then you can't.

I wonder if they would be as bothered by the inner-circle thing if the students were programming, instead? If I use some cool hack, then nothing prevents you from using it also (except me being too busy to teach you).

<comment><USER17> Indeed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Awesome: "All structures will be standard sizes." Aweosme, awesome awesome. The solution is to kill creativity. Again, awesome! I mean, we already have too much creativity, and kids, they never have any anyway, and they can relearn it as they get older, cause everyone knows that as you get older you spend more and more time being creatie :rollseyes:

It is even better that "Children absorb political, social, and economic worldviews from an early age." and that, in this case, they learnt the very valuable lesson that "doing anything different that might cause a fight, discomfort or even a whiff of unfairness is wrong".

A world full of grey houses that are exactlty the size, shape and dimension is such a great political vision, and one well worth striving for.

So thank you, Ann Pelo, thank you so very much for making my vision of uniform, drab, uncreative existence such a possibility!

</comment><comment><USER19> Up next, the _Eastern_ Lego Block. All blocks are the same, the _cool pieces_ are banned, and all of the buildings look exactly the same! That way, all of the children can be equally bored with legos.

<comment><USER11> They're way ahead of you:

"We should have equal houses. They should be standard sizes.... We should all just have the same number of pieces, like 15 or 28 pieces."

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The lesson itself is less troubling than these teachers' undertaking to shape the children's beliefs without any parental involvement or input--not, note, as part of a curricular course of study at a school, but in an after-school program at a children's center.

Still: If they'd done this to me as a kid, I'd have brought in one of my Lego pirate ships, sacked and plundered Legotown (Legograd?), and shared the booty with anyone who volunteered to join my crew.

</comment><comment><USER21> Interesting point, aside from capitalism/wealth/zero-sum etc:

 _The game created a classic case of cognitive disequilibrium: Either the system is skewed and unfair, or the winners played unfairly. To resolve this by deciding that the system is unfair would call everything into question; young children are committed to rules and rule-making as a way to organize a community, and it is wildly unsettling to acknowledge that rules can have built-in inequities. So most of the children resolved their disequilibrium by clinging to the belief that the winners were ruthless — despite clear evidence of Liam and Kyla's compassionate generosity._

The game was patently unfair, so why did the children blame the winners rather than the system? I suspect there is a general tendency among people (not only children) to blame other people, as opposed to abstract causes. That's more important here than any positive commitment to rules and rule-making.

<comment><USER9> As you say, systems are abstractions, and people are tangible. It takes a greater maturity to be able to look at a system and find fault with it, rather than with the people involved in the system. There are a lot of adults walking around that never reach that particular maturity, and certainly it's not something you'd see in a lot of 8-year-olds.

Being able to blame a person for something comes back to a peculiar kind of satisfaction: you can confront the problem!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> How many more times _sigh_. The plural of Lego, is Lego. It's like Snow.

<comment><USER23> There is no plural of Lego since it is an adjective (derived from the phrase "leg godt"). If you're taking the liberty of calling a Lego brand building block a "Lego", then it hardly seems reasonable to object to others calling more than one "Legos".

<comment><USER22> "Please always refer to our bricks as 'LEGO Bricks or Toys' and not 'LEGOS.'"

From the horses mouth.

My original comment was perhaps ambiguous. You don't say "a Lego". Just like you don't say "a snow".

"Some Lego" "A Lego set" "A Lego brick"

Say after me...

<comment><USER10> But you _can't_ say _some Lego_ according to what you just quoted.

The point of that quote is to (show an attempt to) protect trademark. Like how Google asks people not to use _Google_ as a verb, Lego is asking people not to use _Lego_ as a noun. It's not establishing pluralization rules.

Anyway, I say _legos_ and always have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> You want to make something that someone wants? Fine, I want a way to throw up on these teachers over the Internet.

</comment><comment><USER25> It all goes back to the unnatural concept of fairness that adults force upon children. It's a harmful, artificial construct that damages them throughout their lives.

I'd rather my kid learn that if he wants some of the legos, he's going to have to figure out how to get them, through diplomacy, outsmarting the others, etc. The children on the outside either didn't try hard enough, or weren't smart enough.

</comment><comment><USER8> Murray Rothbard's essay, Society Without the State, <http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard133.html>, seems relevant here.

<comment><USER11> I'll trade you my current anarchist reading for yours:

[http://books.google.com/books?id=L_3I21lGS90C&dq=david+f...](http://books.google.com/books?id=L_3I21lGS90C&dq=david+friedman+the+machinery+of+friedman&ots=YGFYngvxc5&sig=FNwFi3vLdhqfsJeWo0UCzFd58VM&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?q=david+friedman+the+machinery+of+friedman&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en- US:official&client=firefox-a&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with- thumbnail&pgis=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Reminds me a bit of this:

<http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/brian/brian-07.htm>

</comment><comment><USER3> Short vonnegut story which i believe relates.

<http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html>

also, made into a decent film

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-175006468841636088>

</comment><comment><USER27> Double You Tee Eff.

Please, PLEASE tell me this is a joke. Please? Anyone? Someone tell me these people aren't for real.

... _Crickets_

C'mon, letting me believe that this article is anything but satire would make me feel uncomfortable. And THAT would be WRONG . . . .

</comment><comment><USER28> Man, I love legos. I (and Douglas Coupland, via Microserfs) think all good programmers were obsessed with them during at least one point in their lives.

<comment><USER4> I hear you about the lego(s).

I think I'm going to go and mess around with them for the next 4 hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> In another context (e.g. a film documentary) this could also be fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER30> I keep thinking what these kids really needed to learn was to put their toys away.</comment>


Just months after being ejected from Microsoft, former Windows Head.. - <AUTHOR> http://9to5mac.com/2013/01/13/former-windows-head-steven-sinofsky-is-already-tweeting-from-iphone/

<comment><USER2> Not newsworthy; for years he has regularly used products from Apple, Google, Samsung and others to have hands-on experience on the competition.</comment>


Startup idea: Do we value our laundry more than our privacy? - <AUTHOR> http://clearsignal.posterous.com/do-we-value-our-laundry-more-than-our-privacy

<comment><USER2> Coming from a law background this makes me, and I imagine many lawyers, nervous. Terms of Service agreements may be wordy and hard to understand, but they're also substantive--everything in them has meaning. Good lawyers should craft them to be as concise (and readable to lay people) as humanely possible, and there's no reason to believe that the lawyers that draft ToS agreements, particularly for highly profitable businesses, have done anything but that.

Even if you have a normal ToS and then try to abbreviate it, you have a host of issues: which one would control? You could explicitly say, "the normal ToS controls in the case of a conflict between the ToS and an abbreviated version," but, if people, don't read the normal ToS because there is an abbreviated version, is it really conscionable to say that the normal ToS would control? If the abbreviated controls, there have to be many caveats: like "We own everything you upload... unless you didn't own it to begin with, in which case, we don't own it, and you guarantee to us that you have the right to use it, and you give us the right to use it," or "There are no warranties, except if this statement itself is unenforceable (which is true in some states), in which case we disclaim all warranties to the extent applicable by law, and in the event this is unconscionable or found unenforceable, the rest of this agreement is still enforceable" etc etc. Once you're in that land, you've obviously lost the point of abbreviating it.

<comment> steve-howard Is having a summary on a ToS any different than the Creative Commons deed vs. legalese? (cf. the disclaimer on <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/> ).

<comment><USER2> It looks like Creative Commons tries to protect themselves with their disclaimer, which says that their deed has no legal value. I suppose a summary which similarly had no legal value would at least inform users about what the company does (which would be good) but, in the case of a lawsuit, if someone misunderstood the summary (or whatever), they're out of luck. And, anyhow, lawyers are taught to be risk averse. The more they have to think about and worry about the legal complications of something, the more they don't want it to happen. So, for places like Google, or whoever, adding increased readability even in a comparable "deed" would probably come at the cost of their legal department being very upset: and you can bet the second they got sued and the issue of some conflict between the summary/deed and the actual ToS came up is the second they would take that summary down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Mozilla introduced "Privacy Icons" (<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Privacy_Icons>) a few months ago, which seems to have the same goals.

The main problem I see is that if these icons are just opt in, why would a company use them if it wasn't respecting a user's privacy? It would be similar to a website having a badge that proudly says "Invalid XHTML".

P3P (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P3P>) tries to address a similar problem but in a machine-readable way.

</comment><comment><USER4> A few months ago, we put together <http://www.privacyparrot.com> which uses machine learning to try to classify what's in a privacy policy. (right now just trying to determine if a site sells your data or not). I am unfortunately confident that there isn't a viable business model in selling people online privacy for free services.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds a bit like the android permissions model applied to the web. I wouldn't mind it, but I doubt many people would pay attention to these more than they would the permissions they ignore when they add apps to their phones, or when they add a new Facebook app.

</comment><comment><USER6> At a risk at repeatedly beating the same dead horse: outside the US privacy valued highly as a civil right, and is heavily protected by law. The same countries also typically have strong consumer protection. Warning labels alone are meaningless there.

</comment><comment><USER7> Inconvenient reality alert:

I can promise you that many companies in the wild actively violate their own TOS, knowingly or unknowingly. I can promise you that you will never find out about all of those cases, even after there's a data breach.

</comment><comment><USER8> I really like this idea. I would add info about how long certain data is retained.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Update: olefoo pointed out in the Pinterest thread that this has been tried apparently. Updated post to reflect.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's a great idea, but how is it a startup idea? Not every good project is necessarily a business.

</comment><comment><USER10> Have you seen <http://safeshepherd.com/> ?

<comment><USER5> It incorrectly identified me twice, and apparently I'm subject to identity theft because one of the instances it found included "me" in the white pages.

</comment></comment><comment> steve-howard I thoroughly expected this post to advocate free laundry with the caveat that we receive underwear-related advertisements.

</comment><comment><USER11> I hope that readers or anyone wanting to pursue this idea disregard the last sentence, or at least the "confirmed site logo" bit. How on earth could these things be confirmed by a third party and what information would a "confirmed site" badget convey? Sounds even flimsier than the "secured by <random antivirus>" or "secure SSL guaranteed" nonsense.

Given the legal concerns and the skew that attempting profitability would have, I'd rather just see this adopted by projects voluntarily. But even then, if it becomes mainstream to expect a "privacy ticker", there's still nothing to keep companies from selectively disclosing or straight up lying.</comment>


Migrating to deepstream.io from Parse.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.deepstream.io/blog/migrating-parse-com-to-deepstream-io/ <comment><USER2> This is the second link on the front page. This link is on the www subdomain though which is how it must have gotten past the filter. I guess HN doesn't (yet) look for dupes across subdomains? Would it not make sense to make an exception for the most common case, www?</comment>