Reflections on Trusting Trust (1984) [pdf] - kalium-xyz https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> 56 submissions: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Reflections%20on%20trusting%20...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Reflections%20on%20trusting%20trust&&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=none&prefix) (Reposts are ok on HN after a year or so: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html))

These seem to be the threads and they're mostly small:

2017 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13569275](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13569275)

2015 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10698537](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10698537)

2015 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9183106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9183106)

2014 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8662876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8662876)

2011 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2642486](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2642486)

2008 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=300350](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=300350)

Like a lot of classics, it seems to have actually been discussed less on HN than we would all assume.

</comment><comment> dane-pgp "Reflections on trusting trust" is specifically called out as a motivation for the Bootstrappable Builds project[0], which I think is an interesting approach at regaining some of the trust in our software. Another, better known project is the work on Reproducible Builds[1], and of course it would be nice to have auditable hardware based on clearly documented designs.

[0] [https://www.bootstrappable.org/](https://www.bootstrappable.org/)

[1] [https://reproducible-builds.org/](https://reproducible-builds.org/)

<comment><USER2> For some other projects that more or less explicitly try to approach this challenge from various angles, see e.g.:

[https://dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/](https://dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/)

[https://github.com/akkartik/mu](https://github.com/akkartik/mu)

<comment><USER3> There is also GNU Mes, which is able to build a GCC toolchain starting from nothing but a Scheme interpreter:

[https://www.gnu.org/software/mes/](https://www.gnu.org/software/mes/)

Practical implementation notes can be found on the Guix blog:

[https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/guix-reduces-bootstrap- seed-b...](https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/guix-reduces-bootstrap-seed-by-50/)

[https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2020/guix-further-reduces- bootstra...](https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2020/guix-further-reduces-bootstrap- seed-to-25/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ken Thompson is a giant in our field. This paper convinced me that pragmatically all computer security reduces to theater. There are too many moving parts and the likelihood of some TLA influencing one of them such that it has a backdoor is so high that you can comfortably assume that any information you enter into a computer network is publicly available. One of my ex-NSA buddies told me that they don't even bother attacking crypto algorithms, they just attack the implementation.

<comment><USER5> "Trusting Trust" and the halting problem are often misinterpreted in similar ways. Unbounded skepticism is not right take-away from either of those results.

I don't have a solution to the halting problem, but I can definitely tell you that `while(false) {}` terminates.

Similarly, I can't resolve the problem of trusting the people who write the libraries I use, but I identify a trusted computing base and substantially reduce or even sometimes eliminate the risk of attacks that don't violate the integrity of the TCB.

 _> This paper convinced me that pragmatically all computer security reduces to theater._

I have yet to be bitten by a smashed stack using any language other than C/C++.

I have yet to be bitten by a SQL injection using any interface to a DB other than passing raw strings around.

As Ken notes, I still have to trust the developers of those libraries/languages (or audit the code myself). But that's okay. Nailing down a chain of trust is possible.

Ruling out certain classes of security vulnerabilities is possible.

 _> One of my ex-NSA buddies told me that they don't even bother attacking crypto algorithms, they just attack the implementation._

Again, a solvable problem^1. Within the next 5-10 years, they might have to go back to attacking the algorithms.

[^1]: See e.g., [https://www.wireguard.com/papers/zinzindohoue-bhargavan- prot...](https://www.wireguard.com/papers/zinzindohoue-bhargavan-protzenko- beurdouche-hacl-2017.pdf) Note that the first sentence of Ken's paper still holds, but the _number of people you have to trust_ can be reduced if you only need to trust the verifier's kernel instead of every line of code committed from every contributor.

<comment><USER4> It's possible to provably construct a program that will halt. That is the whole point of loop invariants. Similarly it is possible to provably construct a "secure" program up to physical limitations. However in both cases it requires that the semantics of the programming environment are known to the programmer. Even without a malicious adversary there are gotchas at every level from hardware bugs, compiler bugs, programming errors, incorrect configuration, and who knows what else that impair the programmer's ability to understand the actual semantics of the programming environment. When you add to that the potential for maliciously clever modifications such as the one in the Thompson paper along with the undeniably large benefit to any number of parties that might wish to compromise same, the only rational conclusion is that no computing system deserves to be trusted in itself.

I don't trust other levels of the alleged chain of trust either. For example I consider it an absolute certainty that every competent globally active intelligence agency in the world has assets inside Facebook and Google, and most likely others. The cost and difficulty of inserting or recruiting an asset is so low and the potential benefits are so high that it's certain to have happened and in fact already has[1].

By the way while my ex-NSA buddy didn't elaborate on what he meant by attacking the implementation, but I'm pretty sure that includes subverting an implementer.

Edit: I don't think we really substantially disagree, the above is meant to be elaboration not rebuttal.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/nsa-i...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa- infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents- say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Worth looking at David A. Wheeler's 2009 work for countering trusting trust attacks: [https://dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/](https://dwheeler.com/trusting- trust/)

<comment><USER7> Thank you so much for the reference! I'm that David A. Wheeler. If anyone has questions about my work, just let me know.

Here's how to contact me by email if you prefed: [https://dwheeler.com/contactme.html](https://dwheeler.com/contactme.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Every time this comes up, I'm reminded of this answer to the Quora Question "What is a Coder's Worst Nightmare?"

[https://qr.ae/pNKf3M](https://qr.ae/pNKf3M)

</comment><comment><USER9> If you enjoy Reflections on Trusting Trust, you will absolutely love Coding Machines by Lawrence Kesteloot. Same concept is explored further as fiction.

(If you like, don't forget to buy it) [https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/coding- machines/](https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/coding-machines/)

</comment><comment><USER10> For anyone who's put off by the visual quality of the pdf, I made a nicer copy of it: [https://nerfsoftware.com/reflections.html](https://nerfsoftware.com/reflections.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Made a short explainer video covering this: [https://youtu.be/Ow9yMxJ8ez4](https://youtu.be/Ow9yMxJ8ez4)

<comment><USER12> Thank you for sharing and making it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've always wanted to write something about how this is a more general philosophical problem that goes beyond computer security. Even Descartes failed to be skeptical enough to account for it [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_circle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_circle)

</comment><comment><USER14> A classic paper. The general struggle in security is getting to a point where you minimize the trust required by your application.</comment>


Show HN: SpectX launches the free edition of its raw log file / blob analyzer - <AUTHOR> https://www.spectx.com/articles/meet-free-spectx <comment> 076ae80a-3c97-4 I read this as SpaceX and was disappointed.

<comment><AUTHOR> For y'all disappointed we're not SpaceX, here's a little query you can copy- paste into SpectX to query SpaceX telemetry data and calculate the max q between seconds 48 and 89. Copy, paste, run, press 'graph' and voilá :)

[https://go.spectx.com/queries/rockets](https://go.spectx.com/queries/rockets)

<comment><USER2> Just rename the company Tesler.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> SpectX has been incredibly useful while dealing with tons and tons of web server logs. If you've ever thought that surely must there should be something with less overhead than Graylog et al, you should at least consider it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Tricky goddam title.... Here I come thinking SpaceX but no.... They had to include the word "Launch", refuse to believe that was unintentional.

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks really cool! Cannot download on Mac though: [https://imgur.com/a/iKMt37q](https://imgur.com/a/iKMt37q)</comment>


German Savers Lose Faith in Banks, Stash Cash at Home - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/german-savers-lose-faith-in-banks-stash-cash-at-home-1472485225 <comment><USER2> > Germany's love of cash is driven largely by its anonymity. One legacy of the > Nazis and East Germany's Stasi secret police is a fear of government > snooping, and many Germans are spooked by proposals of banning cash > transactions that exceed €5,000.

> Ms. Metzger is a member of an activist group demanding the existence of cash > be guaranteed in Germany's constitution.

Its not technically impossible to create a electronic version of anon cash.

In fact its always possible to create tracked versions of fake cash. Its what the FBI uses for catching drug dealers. With crpyto-currencies that would be impossible.

Also cash has your DNA on it.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's super interesting. Most of the money exists in form of virtual money (i.e. a record in a database in your bank). Cash is much more rare.

Now, with people preferring cash to virtual money the price of the two may get disconnected, with 1 EUR of cash being worth 2 EUR in a bank or somesuch.

<comment><USER4> They are worried about the government forcing negative interest rates on the banks for retail investors.</comment></comment>


Leakage paths for the Apple / Google Bluetooth tracing system - awinter-py https://abe-winter.github.io/2020/04/10/leaky.html <comment><USER2> I recommend everybody to look at the whitepaper which discusses this type of protocol extensively: [https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/blob/master/DP3T%20White%...](https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/blob/master/DP3T%20White%20Paper.pdf)

A lot of the arguments against this were rehashed the last few weeks over and over. As an passive participant to such discussions I can't express how tiring it is to see new people drop into these conversations without reading up on what already has been discussed beforehand.

<comment><USER3> I agree that people should be reading the paper. Crucially, the whitepaper explains why it doesn't preserve privacy.

For example, section 5.4 (design trade-offs) says that individuals who have declared themselves as infected can be retroactively tracked and identified. Tracking only requires a bluetooth receiver which is aware of its own location - government agencies could easily do this.

<comment><USER4> Obviously. I think having your location tracked for a few days, _if you are infected_ , is not a serious concern.

In fact, there is absolutely no way I can see that can get around that.

<comment><USER5> Where is the "few days" coming from?

Once a system like this exists, you can plan on it being a feature that doesn't disable at some point. Great intentions, but no thanks.

<comment><USER4> Because the keys, from my understanding, change every day. So if someone is infected, you can only track them for the relevant days because those are the keys they would give you.

You could simply set it up to delete your own keys after 14 days, for example.

<comment><USER5> This is obviously just all obfuscation. The entire plan is that you are uniquely identifiable, you are being pinged by every person you walk near, there is protection from Target, Bestbuy, "Ze Russians" but not Apple, Google, Gov.

You can put as many crypto or "random" or key derivation layers you want in there, you just also need to admit they are surface deep and really "just for show".

This is constant person tracking, that's the whole point.

<comment><USER6> Well no, the point, as the whitepapers explain, is that there is provable cryptographic protection from Apple or Google tracking you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone who thinks this will "go away" eventually is naive. We don't even have a definition for what the end of the pandemic looks like, nevermind an exit strategy for social distancing or these draconian tracking measures.

It's optional until it's not, and it's anonymous until it's not. I don't like this one bit.

<comment><USER8> This "going away" is more likely in some places than others depending on legislation and entrenched interests. That said, it's probably going to stick around in the US, if anything pandemic watch is going to be the next TSA where unfathomable resources will be diverted. The only rival to US security lobby is the US medical lobby. Though it'll probably be more useful than security theater in the long run.

<comment><USER9> _The only rival to US security lobby is the US medical lobby. Though it 'll probably be more useful than security theater in the long run._

Given how big pharma's previous big win gave us the opioid crisis, I wouldn't count on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lots of comments on these topics seem to revolve around fear that democratic governments have an interest in making tracking permanent and mandatory. From the more nuanced "I don't trust that they don't abuse the data" to the downright dystopian paranoia "you will be chipped".

I don't get it. We should worry about privacy issues of course, but isn't this nearly as good as it could be and still be effective?

Which democratic government could mandate the use of this type of tracking forever yet _not_ be able to impose it against people's will?

The privacy fears feel somewhat rational but the fear that governments act with some interest that is separate from the voters' interests seems irrational to me. Maybe I'm used to governments that people trust and that are simply doing what voters want, rather than having an agenda.

<comment><USER11> > Which democratic government could mandate the use of this type of tracking > forever yet not be able to impose it against people's will?

First they'd have to coerce two US-based companies to implement the technology. For example, imagine UK.gov ( pop 60 million ) telling Apple ( 250 million annual iPhone sales ) to do so.

Secondly they'd have to coerce their population into using the feature. Without a clear public benefit I suspect there would be workarounds and hacks within days to dilute its effectiveness.

However, implement it under global public health reasons and coercion is much easier. Protect the NHS, keep your tracking app active! Don't turn your phone off when out exercising! Keep your phone with you at all times... for the public good.

> Maybe I'm used to governments that people trust and that are simply doing > what voters want

Any such governments come to mind?

<comment><USER10> > Without a clear public benefit I suspect there would be workarounds and > hacks within days to dilute its effectiveness.

Exaxtly. Governments can easily do this, because they already have the bigger tool at their disposal: lockdowns.

People in prisons choose to wear an electronic tracker to spend the last year of a sentence at home. Their freedom was already taken, and the monitoring is a way to get some of it _back_. No one turns that down out of fear the government won't remove the tracking thing around their ankle. "No thanks I don't trust them to take it off after a year so I'm staying in the cell", said no one ever. If you don't trust them to take it off after a year why would you trust them to unlock your cell door?

Of course the public will choose to use this tech if the alternative is less freedom.

So yes people will voluntarily use this because of peer pressure and because the alternative is worse. At least they will do so in countries with high trust in goverment, the public healthcare system and a strong sense of community in crisis (this is where I would have thought the UK would be the obvious example!). "For the public good" is _very_ persuasive to me - <AUTHOR> "for your own good" might work better in other places.

> Any such governments come to mind?

Most Western European governments I would have thought? I (Scandinavian) always considered the government to be "me", not "them".

<comment><USER12> And the way governments would take advantage of this is by having devices everywhere exchanging IDs so that when somebody has a disease, those devices will let the government figure out some of the places they've been? This sounds too roundabout to make any sense. The government can already request location history from cell phone providers and Google if it has a warrant. Why go through all that trouble to get lower quality data?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> didn't see any info on how the "download list of infected people's keys" would work in the documents, but it seems like k-anonymity[0][1] would be a good choice for saving data on peoples' phones and mitigating the potential DOS threat.

Another way the DOS attack could be prevented is perhaps requiring you to get a QR code from a government or testing facility before you can report your keys as being infected.

0: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/validating-leaked-passwords- with...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/validating-leaked-passwords-with-k- anonymity/)

1: [https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/v4#update- api-v4](https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/v4#update-api-v4)

<comment><USER14> This technology is meant to be used by local health agencies like city or county. If you have the app provided by the county and you are tested positive by them, they would then ask you if you would like to share that information with others. So the chance of DOS is nil since you actually have to test positive to broadcast the keys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> DTKs are derived rather than random so that the device doesn't have to store its own keys or identifiers, saving both space and flash wear. It can start with the initial seed and re-derive all the rest as needed.

<comment><USER16> You phone already stores lots of data every 10minutes, I am not sure if flash wear is a problem. Same with storage space.

A guid is 16 bytes per key * 6 keys per hour _24 hours per day_ 365 days makes less than a megabyte. Even accounting for additional data stored where guid is the key it feels not a big concern.

I imagine data stored like: Key: guid Contacts made: <timestamp, guid>[]

<comment><USER17> Because you want to use the same protocol for 89¢ devices?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Armchair prognosticator here, but is there not a zero-knowledge proof way of doing this? A way so that neither side (or intermediate) can learn the identity of the other?

</comment><comment><USER19> Aside: you look like you might be the author, so I thought I'd mention that the link for "one-way hash" seems to be empty.

<comment> awinter-py eek fixed thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Since they generate the keys anyways, why not just make a new one every 30 seconds? This would address the main concern IMO.

<comment><USER21> Although I think tge aproach is correct. I think the DTK period is far too long. 1 day may reveal to much information regarding movement patterns if someone has enough distributed trackers at critical spots. Also if everyone uses it I see a slight chance of bruteforcing in often visited spaces (didn't do the math). Adding more hierarchicies would allow people to share information more finegranuarly. Putting RPIs into a bloom filter and releasing them might be another idea. Critical contact would mean multiple bloom filter matches anyways .

<comment><USER22> I guess you are not aware what contact tracing is. If you get a disease like this most governments have the right to ask you where you have been and who you have seen and the need for society to be protected from your disease is seen as to trump your privacy rights. This is just another mechanical way to get the same information, except privacy gets much more protection here.

<comment><USER23> But most people won't know very well who they have seen. For example, I went shopping this morning and probably saw around 50 people. I would recognize less than 10 of them, if I were to meet them again. I know the names of none of them.

Since most governments can't ask their entire population "were you in the neighborhood of this walking path", there's no simple way for them to find those people (t.v. broadcasts and canvassing in the neighborhood would work, but are labor-intensive and slow)

That's where this will help. The people who came into close contact will get informed, and, hopefully, will self-isolate. The government doesn't have to know who they are, where they were, etc.

It will require a significant part of the population to opt-in on this, though. That's challenging. In Singapore, only 20% of people did. That's why privacy is so important for this for many countries.

<comment><USER22> This is true in general but the stated issue is that this system would make it possible for governments to find out where an infected person has been. Manual contact tracing is the same thing, but manual. You can always opt to not tell them about something, you can always opt to leave your phone at home or turn it off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Gamification:

In countries with a working social security system, getting into proximity of a known infected person can be rather easily achieved.

In countries without a working social security system, staying 'clear' is easily achieved by turning of your BT or phone or even just lining your pocket with tin foil.

<comment><USER25> South Korea and Israel both have working social security systems, universal health care, mandatory national IDs no devolution of administrative or legislative powers to local authorities, a single police force and both are relatively small countries geographically with a relatively dense population and both had to use mobile data to do contact tracing effectively.

<comment><USER24> No, both used it, they didn't 'have to'. There is strong doubt in both cases as to whether the app had any effect at all.

<comment> awinter-py If you have links about the efficacy of the tracing programs, please post -- I'm trying to educate myself about this

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> crazy to think where this tech is going after the epidemic

</comment><comment><USER27> Why does it have to be anonymous? The coronavirus is not HIV, there is no social stigma in knowing someone was infected.

The biggest problem is exactly the fact that since it spreads so easily, it's impossible to reach all who have to been exposed

<comment><USER28> > Why does it have to be anonymous? The coronavirus is not HIV, there is no > social stigma in knowing someone was infected.

Fear of contagion is strong and not always rational.

Healthcare workers in the UK have been attacked. Sometimes that was to get hold of their NHS ID badge, but at least once it was because the attacker didn't want covid-19 to be spread.

[https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11347158/nurses-scrubs- superma...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11347158/nurses-scrubs-supermarket- coronavirus/)

[https://abc13.com/nurse-attacked-as-man-accuses-her-of- tryin...](https://abc13.com/nurse-attacked-as-man-accuses-her-of-trying-to- spread-covid-19/6076346/)

[https://wwmt.com/news/coronavirus/nurse-attacked-on-her- way-...](https://wwmt.com/news/coronavirus/nurse-attacked-on-her-way-to-work- suspect-believed-she-was-spreading-covid-19)

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia- india-52151141](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52151141)

<comment><USER29> > Sometimes that was to get hold of their NHS ID badge

What's the point of that?

<comment><USER28> I don't know, but people think it's to get access to "key worker" shopping times.

Supermarkets over here are opening for an hour or so in the morning and leaving that hour for only key workers.

But I don't know if that's why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Good thing I have a removable battery on my phone.

<comment><USER31> What, so you can more effectively spread a dangerous infectious disease?

<comment><USER30> Do you see where this is going? The end game is treating every individual in the world as a convict and potential murderer that requires 24/7 mandatory surveillance and an injected digital ID that they can't remove. Heck, we should add an immobilization capsule so we can just knock out anyone with remotely electronically released drugs who isn't obeying quarantine.

<comment><USER31> Are you really expecting any sane person to take you seriously when you say shit like that.

<comment><USER30> Yes. Bill Gate's ID 2020 program is a underskin implant that holds a vaccine record that he is proposing that all will have to get to do just about anything in the future. You probably think this is a good thing and will love getting scanned everywhere and getting your regular lightly tested compulsory vaccines. It's basically parolee ankle bracelets for everyone.

None other than the Attorney General recently commented on this and said it's a "slippery slope."[1] Slippery slope privacy arguments used to be totally normal on Hacker News. Now everyone's demanding their rights and privacy be taken away!

[1] [https://www.dailywire.com/news/ag-barr-on-bill-gates- wanting...](https://www.dailywire.com/news/ag-barr-on-bill-gates-wanting- digital-vaccine-certificates-im-very-concerned-about-slippery-slope)

<comment><USER31> > Bill Gate's ID 2020 program is a underskin implant that holds a vaccine > record that he is proposing that all will have to get to do just about > anything in the future.

This is complete and utter nonsense. It is a fantasy made up by conspiracy theorists.

<comment><USER30> I really hope you're right, but there's quantum dot technology, which is more like a smart phone readable tattoo that's delivered with a vaccine that the Gates foundation sponsored [1].

"By selectively loading microparticles into microneedles, the patches deliver a pattern in the skin that is invisible to the naked eye but can be scanned with a smartphone that has the infrared filter removed. The patch can be customized to imprint different patterns that correspond to the type of vaccine delivered."

"The research was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation"

Gates has also been funding implantable microchips that are remote controlled to deliver birth control medicine.[2]

[1] [http://news.mit.edu/2019/storing-vaccine-history- skin-1218](http://news.mit.edu/2019/storing-vaccine-history-skin-1218) [2][https://nationalpost.com/news/bill-gates-funds-birth- control...](https://nationalpost.com/news/bill-gates-funds-birth-control- microchip-that-lasts-16-years-inside-the-body-and-can-be-turned-on-or-off- with-remote-control)

<comment><USER31> None of which is anything like the utter nonsense you just sprouted.

Time to get off the conspiracy theory addiction, dude.

<comment><USER30> The 2nd link, to the implant that contains a small computer and injects drugs via remote control feels like the kind of technology that could be misused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > Given all those unknowns, I shouldn't express an opinion on 'do we need > this' and so I won't.

A blog post is a form of expression / opinion, isn't it?

The technique is limited in time, after the pandemic I'm hoping usage will drop to zero. Coming from the two major OS vendors, we now have a point where we can get it to be shut off after the threat is contained. The proposal by Google / Apple does not touch upon the serverside other than recommending restrictions on usage of the data that is gathered and shared.

> Find out if someone specific is sick

Many countries already have mandatory reporting paths for infectious diseases, if you operate an office building it is likely that you will find out if somebody using that building has to quarantine themselves for a few weeks already.

You will want to know if someone specific that you have been in contact with is sick. This reads like you are pointing out the main reason for why we do contact tracing in the first place as a negative leakage path.

> I won't know who they are, but I can at least grab aggregate information > about where coronavirus getters travel.

You do not know who they are, you can track an infected persons movement (assuming 100% coverage) at most over a single day. Existing tracking using Bluetooth and other signals a typical smartphone puts out already allows you to do more. The problem in this scenario is a lack of customer protection rights, not one of the proposal being bad.

> Increased hit rate of stationary / marketing beacons

Again, that's a policy issue more than a technical one and pretty US centric. As you correctly point out it also isn't new. The data they gather now will likely be less useful than what they can get with the broken MAC randomization stuff phones put out before.

> Leakage of information when someone isn't sick

The alternative to the first bullet point is running around infected. The second point seems unrelated to the method of contact tracing. With existing manual contact tracing, the health authority could also tell you that you're infected and get your DNA.

> Fraud resistance

Most civilized countries have central reporting for positive test results, making the fraud resistance argument moot. This supplements existing, manual, contact tracing. The proposal itself has nothing to do with that part of the workflow, it merely helps app developers to take care of a crucial and previously hard part of the stack and suggests a well designed crypto scheme to ensure privacy in the scope of the exchanged data itself.

The only realistic scenario in here seems like that of existing stationary marketing beacons, which I'd propose to look at in terms of realism and the tradeoff between the status quo of manual contact tracing (which is inefficient, labor intensive, and error prone). In the realism aspect, marketing firms are hardly on the edge of technology. How likely is it for a major player to upgrade their systems with this tracking capability in the timeframe of the pandemic? What insight do they gather on those infected? If you're infected you would have to realistically share a few days worth of keys.

<comment><USER33> > The technique is limited in time, after the pandemic I'm hoping usage will > drop to zero.

Do you think it's likely that, if successful, this same technique would be proposed to reduce the negative economic impact from the traditional seasonal flu in future?

<comment><USER32> I'm not a doctor but it is my understanding that the traditional flu is an impractical target for this type of contact tracing due to various reasons and would not make much sense. At any rate, this is a huge measure even if the privacy impact is limited. As a German I don't particularly like tracking of any kind and am relatively certain that extending the measure beyond the scenario of a pandemic wouldn't go over well with the population where I live.

<comment><USER5> > I'm hoping usage will drop to zero

>impractical target

It seems like you might not be empathizing with how governments or bad actors or opportunistic companies think.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Performance: Showing versus Telling (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://alistapart.com/article/performance-showing-versus-telling <comment><USER2> I don't want everybody to always worry about performance. This would lead to people spending their time optimizing non performance critical parts of the software, creating hard to maintain code.</comment>


The populist backlash has been a revolt against the tyranny of merit - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/06/michael-sandel-the-populist-backlash-has-been-a-revolt-against-the-tyranny-of-merit <comment><USER2> "There needs to be a redistribution of esteem as well as money, and more of it needs to go to the millions doing work that does not require a college degree."

I could not agree more with this statement. There are far too many people that believe they are better than other people because of their job title, education or wealth. Too many university educated people think that because they have a degree that they are smarter than everyone else and their opinion needs to be accepted as fact. I'm not sure if this is what is being taught in universities or if this is what society is telling them...but we would all be better off if we tried understanding other's viewpoints.

No one lives without the contributions of others anymore...no one.

<comment><USER3> I'll be interested to hear who you decide to send a portion of your paycheck to every month.

<comment><USER4> This is called charity. It turns out voluntary charity by individuals isn't enough to redistribute enough worth from the wealthy minority to the poor majority. Charity as a system is only really capable of keeping the poor majority from rebelling. To make it work, sending a portion of your paycheck every month needs to be mandated, and we call that taxation.

<comment><USER3> I always thought taxation should be for services that benefit the common good: utilities, first responder services, roads, food safety, etc. Are we being taxed as a way to prevent an uprising against the 1%?

<comment><USER5> One of society's purposes is also to ensure that all of its members are provided for. That's basically the exchange: contribute to society and society will make sure that your needs are met.

Therefore, I would say that taking a portion from those who have an excess and giving it to those who do not have enough is within the legitimate role of society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Much of it is a backlash against the conflation of anointment by organs of prestige with "merit"; at best, these prestige organs are very noisy proxies for some form of merit, and they get worse by the day.

(The article says as much, of course.)

<comment><USER7> Educated people usually underestimate how much "having a university diploma" correlates with social class more than with being smart and diligent.

For example, in my country, university education is free, but it still means your parents need to pay for your food, travel, and accommodation. Guess what, poor people can't afford that; they need to start making money when they are 18. On the other hand, for relatively stupid people from middle class families, there are safe choices of a university where they will probably succeed. -- And I don't think any of this is difficult to understand. Yet people around me insist that having a university diploma is a measure of intelligence and hard work.

(It is especially ironic with the politically correct ones. What is your opinion about people who treat poor minorities with contempt? Absolutely reprehensible! Oh, and what is your opinion about people who don't have a university education? Lazy losers, they deserve what they got! Hey, and you do realize that most members of the poor minorities actually don't have a university education, so you do in fact treat them with contempt? Uhm, that's completely different! Yeah, I am pretty sure they will be happy to hear that the reason they can't get a good job is not the circumstances of their birth, but rather the predictable consequences of the circumstances of their birth.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The rise of populism is probably because nobody trusts established politicians, not some abstract reasoning around the left being meritorious.

</comment><comment><USER9> Some of the HN crowd might be familiar with the academic Freddie deBoer, who just recently published a book on this very topic with some suggestions of how to address it, _The Cult of Smart_[1]

[1] [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250200389](https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250200389)

</comment><comment><USER10> The definition of "success" has been very narrowly construed, if it has measured against mere tangibles.

</comment><comment><USER11> Highly, highly recommend The Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovitz [1]

[1] [https://www.themeritocracytrap.com/](https://www.themeritocracytrap.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I was surprised he did not address the issues of loyalty and betrayal. To whom does the state owe its loyalty? To its own citizens first, or to everyone (i.e. no-one)? It's no surprise people feel betrayed when the countries they and their ancestors helped build offer them no more than a level playing field on which they are to compete against the world. A world that seldom reciprocates those open and individualist attitudes, as it has not forgotten "united we stand, divided we fall".

Of course this does not apply so much to major corporations, but that is a different matter.

<comment><USER13> I find it funny how the ancestry logic (presumably European) sounds so alien to US ears. Our majority isn't 30th-generation immigrants.

But what claim does ancestry truly offer? If my parents are from the UK, do I qualify for Super Citizenship there? What if those parents had only been UK citizens for 2 generations? What if it's my great-grandparents, but they were part of a lineage that spent 22 generations "building" the UK, surely an absence of only 3 generations is just a rounding error!

<comment><USER12> You try to paint this as some ridiculous hypothetical proposition, but it's the status quo in most of the world. What are you even trying to say? Because there are ambiguous edge cases, countries shouldn't look after their own citizens first at all?

And US immigration policy favored Europeans, based exactly on shared ancestry, all the way up to the Hart-Celler Act of 1965. So for most of its history, this logic didn't sound alien to US ears at all, despite being a young country. It has abandoned it only relatively recently, paradoxically as it got older. In fact, with how often the US is _still_ accused of xenophobia (despite immigration policies that will see its former 90% majority become a minority in a mere 24 years), I find it puzzling how you can make that statement in the first place.

As for your question about your grandparents, many countries do indeed recognize a right of return, but the UK is not among them, so you're out of luck: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return)</comment></comment></comment>


GitHub Hits 1,000,000 users - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/936-one-million <comment><USER2> They provide a great service, and I use them all the time, but I don't like how their pricing scheme works for freelancers. You end up with a million small private repositories, and BitBucket has much more reasonable options.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it's ridiculous. I have enough repos that I'd need the Platinum 200 dollar a month plan.

All the repos are small and most are updated once or twice a year -- but the pricing is the same as if I had a whole team of people pushing to github every day.

<comment><USER4> But what's the point of having those on Github anyway? GH is great for teams or for sharing your code with 'the community', but I don't see what it buys you for private, single developer projects over a directory in your drive(s).

<comment><USER5> Code availability from anywhere without having to manage your own repo server.

Even for a single dev it might be worth it to be able to check out to your normal dev workstation, your laptop, and even on a totally random pc when the need arises. It also allows you to checkup on things through the web when a pc to checkout on isn't available.

<comment><USER6> A git server (at least on a personal scope) requires close to zero management. Fire up an Ubuntu box on Linode or such, `sudo apt-get install git`, boom, there's your server. A git server is nothing more than "filesystem + SSH + git".

Not to say GitHub doesn't make it even more convenient, but the DIY option isn't exactly difficult either.

<comment><USER7> Gitosis also takes like all of 5 minutes to set up and then you've got repositories that you can collaborate on and manage permissions between projects.

[http://scie.nti.st/2007/11/14/hosting-git-repositories- the-e...](http://scie.nti.st/2007/11/14/hosting-git-repositories-the-easy-and- secure-way)

I set up our repo hosting using Gitosis a few years back and haven't had to think about it since. Accounts are also managed via a special repo so even that is done over git.

You could also put your collection of repositories on your Dropbox and clone from / push to there.

<comment><USER8> Gitolite is a better tool, with more options. It's easier to manage who gets access to what as well with gitolite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, that number almost doesn't seem believable. A million people must be a good chunk of all programmers in the world. This Wikipedia article[1] says there are 612,000 programmers in the US and 522,000 in India. Admittedly old incomplete data but it's easy to see how a million people might be 10-20% of all programmers worldwide. In corporate drone offices I've been in my guess is maybe 10% of programmers have even heard of git.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demographi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demographics)

<comment><USER10> Do you need an account to be able to report issues or watch projects? Interested bystanders and responsible bug-reporting OSS citizens may account for some of that.

I wonder how many of those accounts have active repos of their own?

<comment><USER11> I would wonder how many of those accounts have pushed to a repo recently, not just their own (in cases where people work for a company/on a project that has a GitHub organization).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm very happy for their success, I really see GitHub as one of the most rapidly evolving services; my only wish is for BitBucket to receive the same care.

</comment><comment><USER13> I love GitHub and when our company recently migrated its code to Git, we were much interested in hosting the code on GitHub. I was surprised that they have a repository size limit, or more precisely I was surprised by how low the limit is. They have no hard quota, but they "don't recommend repository size over 1GB". Plans don't make a difference.

We're a small four-people workshop, but our repos are easily several gigabytes in size because of the artworks, source photos and similar stuff. We would probably have squeezed under their limit, but did not want to live under the constant threat of growing out of it.

So, I love GitHub, will continue using it for my public stuff, but I am surprised you can't easily host 10-15 GBs of private code even though you're willing to pay $50 a month for it.

</comment><comment><USER14> How are they measuring users here? Is this all-time-registrations? Or "actives"? Because if this is registrations, I thought they were a lot bigger already. Regardless, awesome!

<comment><USER15> >Because if this is registrations, I thought they were a lot bigger already.

No way. How many programmers are there in the first place? I bet you it's <100M, hell <50M.

EDIT: Back of the envelope by other people put it between <12M to <24M [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/453880/how-many- developer...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/453880/how-many-developers- are-there-in-the-world)

Under that perspective, one could say that Github has captured the attention of 4-8% of everyone capable of understanding the app.

<comment><USER16> I think it depends on how you define programmer. If you are just looking at people who write scrips or excel macro's etc then it might be as high as: 6billion people * 1/3 have computers * 25% of computer users write scrips = 500 million people. Or you could limit it to people who have software developer or programmer etc as part of their job title and then it's probably below 20 million.

PS: Personally, I rather prefer the most inclusive version which includes people who simply train their outlook to auto sort their mail etc. In the early days of computing there was little that separated users from programmers and I like to think we are heading back in that direction. If for no other reason than I like the idea of the maximum number of people learning how to work though problems logically.

<comment><USER15> Fortunately, in this case we're clearly talking about people who understand what source control is and have a desire to use it ;).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Github is the best place for Social Coding. Can't tell you how easy it is to manage a Repository being a Release Engineer with Github.

</comment><comment><USER18> Well deserved. The team has consistently brought the kinds of functionality we need as developers since they launched the service. Kudos guys!

</comment><comment><USER19> This made me curious what my user number was. You can see it on your Account page source:

<https://skitch.com/e-dasil003/f5nx6/safari>

Unfortunately I couldn't figure out a way to explore user numbers like going to /users/5603 for example. That is actually the route for DELETEing your account, but it doesn't have a GET redirect or anything.

</comment><comment><USER20> ".. and as a gift to you all, we'll be building side by side diffs!"

(j/k -- congrats to the Github team, you can pry my account from my cold dead hands)

</comment><comment><USER21> If anyone's interested in their growth curve, this scraper of their search engine using date ranges gives you figures for their number of users every month since they started. <https://scraperwiki.com/scrapers/github_users_each_year/>

</comment><comment><USER22> If you don't like GitHubs pricing model, just download and install Gitorious on your own server. It's open source.

</comment><comment><USER23> When was this reached? I setup an account a few hours ago and have to wonder if I am the millionth user?? ;-)

<comment><USER24> It wasn't you, we already contacted the 1 millionth user. Nice try though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Good work GitHub team! Using github as part of my workflow has greatly helped my efficiency. Their interface makes reviewing code and making comments much easier.

</comment><comment><USER26> GitHub is basically the Facebook of software developers and I think it is eating LinkedIn's launch.

</comment><comment><USER27> such a coincidence that this happens the day I created a Bitbucket account :)

</comment><comment><USER28> How many users does the biggest public SVN repo have?

</comment><comment><USER29> Well done GitHub! Keep up the good work.</comment>


America Is Facing a Monkey Shortage - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/08/america-facing-monkey-shortage/615799/ <comment><USER2> I worked at the California National Primate Research Center as a Student Assistant when I was at UC Davis. CNPRC is about a mile outside of town. Happy to answer any questions anyone has about the center. They had thousands (if not tens of thousands) of Rhesus Macaques from China and India there.

<comment><USER3> What kind of lives do these monkeys lead - is it enough for them to be happy, or miserable, or ok, or what?

<comment><USER2> I worked with monkeys that lived outside in cages. The cages were probably 50'x20'x12' (LxWxH). There were hundreds of monkeys per cage. Veterinary students would be observing them often. I was told to not disturb them or interact with them in any way. That's quite impossible. They're keenly aware of where you, other people, and even where all the squirrels are at all times. They're mini- or pre-people, if you will. If you think your dog is smart, these animals are smarter.

I wouldn't say they were abused or neglected but it is a sad twist of fate that these wild animals end up being cooped up in cages in the Davis heat, which is close to my personal definition of oppression.

I honestly felt bad for them all the time and I did meaningless work for the center so I moved on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Time for Silver Springs, FL to shine: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/30/florida-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/30/florida- monkeys-herpes-macaques)

</comment><comment><USER4> Plenty of code monkeys around. Heck, did they count me?

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't think the problem is that theres a monkey shortage per se, but that 1% of people own nearly 100% of the monkeys.

<comment><USER6> Whether there is a Bonobocrat or Banana Republican involved, this unfortunately never seems to change.

<comment><USER7> Recessican?</comment></comment></comment>


The Times loses almost 90% of its readership after going pay - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/20/times-paywall-readership?CMP=twt_gu

<comment><USER2> So the real question is whether the £1.4m a year they estimate they'll bring in now is significantly higher or lower than the revenues they were generating when they were free.

I would assume their operating costs are now noticeably lower, at least from a hosting and bandwidth perspective. Maybe this isn't a doomsday scenario for them.

<comment><USER3> I would say that little money isnt worth the loss of readership. Let's say the next scheme to save the empire is tee shirt sales. They have lost 90% of their customer base. Driving away customers isnt going to save newspapers.</comment></comment>


SxSW – Lost That Loving Feeling for Early Stage Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://founderdating.com/sxswearly-stage-entrepreneurs/

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure what the relationship is between an A Capella group and entrepreneurs is... But I can tell you why the cops showed up.

SXSW the brand is very powerful - if you are an artist, being able to say that you performed at SXSW means that you'll be able to book better/larger venues, and perhaps get a better deal with a record company.

As a result, there are several artists who show up each year and stage ad-hoc performances like the ones who played while being driven around on a trailer. They don't pay venue fees (a source of revenue for Austin), and are now say "We're cool - we played at SXSW". In other words, glomming onto the brand that SXSW has worked to create.

Austin PD will shut down unauthorized performances for this reason, as well as general crowd control & liability reasons. It's not because SXSW has become this big evil corporation - they're good people. But now that they're the size they are, they have to do certain things.

You'll see the same things happen at Fun Fun Fun Fest this fall, and for the same reasons.

OK, back to early-stage entrepreneurs. I got to (over)hear about a dozen elevator pitches, and it's still very much a happening scene. Compared to last year, I didn't hear the word "coupon" nearly as much. :)

<comment><USER3> Like a typical corporate drone, you sounds like your subtly justifying the arrest of some young people singing acapella at SxSW.

<comment><USER4> It is amazing to me that someone "explaining" something is heard as "justification". Nowhere did chiph express approval or disapproval, but simply explain chiph's belief of why it happened. Calling someone names for providing an explanation is not very nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Performing on private property without the permission of the property owner is not a "right", and is subject to many restrictions, most, if not all, have nothing to do with SXSW.

Try going to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York and pulling off that stunt there - you'll get more than just an earful from management.

SXSW is a big event. Whether or not it makes sense for startups has a lot to do with the people who attend and how you plan to get their attention, more than whether the conference organizers care to cater to the less well-funded.

</comment><comment><USER6> A few random comments on this article:

The Austin Chronicle is a little out of place in that list of huge corporations.

In regards to stopping the impromptu musical performance: Could you imagine the chaos if every musician that wanted to could bust out on whatever street or hotel lobby they wanted during SXSW?

SXSW is a great place to launch -- if you have the right product. It doesn't have to cut through all of the buzz, just pique the interest of the right people. Now if you are talking about throwing a lot of money into a launch party or something like that, yeah, probably not the right place. You'll never spend enough money or come up with a gimmick that is going to garner more than a raised eyebrow.

But beyond that SXSW is a great place to get together with like minded people in a time and place that everyone has marked off as social time. The re- invigoration factor alone is worth the price of admission, IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER7> You didn't get shut down because of SXSW, you got shut down because you started singing in the lobby of a big downtown hotel without asking permission. Pinning it on "SXSW, Inc." is disingenuous.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think there is this huge expectation when it comes to sxsw for early stage startups. It's just a festival with lots and lots of people and that tends to attract both new and old companies to show off their products/talent. I was there too pitching my startup to whoever I had a conversation with. It was really interesting and I must say just watching the product being used by people I pitched was very overwhelming and insightful. It really made me rethink certain aspects/features of the product. At the end we did end up signing up over 200 new users and some of them seems to have adopted the platform. I did not buy the badge this year although there were times I felt I should have. I do recommend going there if you can afford. Simply to network, have fun and learn as much as possible.

</comment><comment><USER9> >Like any big corporation, SxSW has come to embody the very people and industry they once aimed to disrupt. They've made spontaneity illegal (literally) and lost that sense of passion and experimentation.

Holy wow, overreact much? Sorry that your stunt didn't go over well, but this hyperbole is really unnecessary. True, South By has become more corporate, but it's still an epicenter of entrepreneurship, startups, networking, and discovery.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been to SXSW five times now.. twice as a visitor, three times as a local, and this year without a badge.

It is an absolute blast and a great time, but the OP is right on two points:

\- Don't worry about FOMO. There is _always_ something else going on, some better, some worse.. Don't worry about it and enjoy where you are and who you're with. The fastest way to piss off people is to ignore them and stare at your phone.

\- _Always_ begin with a plan. Make a list of people you want to meet and reach out to them in advance, check out the schedules and see if there are unofficial events you want to attend, and work _really_ hard to get a hotel downtown.

But the other thing is always be willing to adjust.. don't schedule everything down to the minute. If you're in an interesting conversation, continue with it. If you meet someone you want to chat with and they're leaving, ask to walk them to the next location, etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> In my 5 days at SXSWi - I heard at least 50 Early Stage startups pitch, met their people, heard their stories. It was a GREAT year for large and small companies alike. Stop being so dramatic.

</comment><comment><USER12> On the point about buying a badge: I've been coming to a similar conclusion. I went in 2011 and 2012 and paid for a badge both years -- but literally went to one session last year and didn't really feel like I got my money's worth. I skipped this year but had I gone, I don't think I would have paid the ~$750.

<comment><USER13> There is plenty of free events to see without a badge, but, you do need a badge to see the panels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You definitely don't need a badge. I've found that you don't get any real value from attending panels. To your point, you can get some value if you are on a panel.

SXSW is still great for meeting people serendipitously and getting a chance to meet with people from all over that would take weeks of travel otherwise.

I didn't have a badge the past 2 years and was able to attend anything that was actually worthwhile to attend.

</comment><comment><USER15> I definitely love the comment about not succumbing to FOMO and not launching there. SxSW is a big jam with so much noise you're unlikely to get noticed. You should only attend if you have a good sense of how to maximize your time there.

</comment><comment><USER13> Austin is the self-proclaimed 'live music capital'. I lived there for 8 years, and, to my understanding, spontaneous performances anywhere will be shut down not matter what time of year it is, and especially if its on private property.

Really, its pretty reasonable. With 40,000 undergrad students flooding into the city every fall, you have to keep crazy kids from playing impromptu shows on the street... even more so during SXSW since those are the same kids that want to be 'discovered' by record labels...

... or was that last decade when that mattered?

</comment><comment><USER16> One meaningful point: we're early-stage and we bought a booth and we seem to be getting great value out of it, _but_ we have a very specific target audience not mentioned by the original poster: digital marketers. At least the interactive part of SXSW is now way more a marketing conference than a tech conference and if you regard it in this light you can do very well. If you need to pitch social media managers, it's awesome, if you just want to talk about something consumer-y, not so much.

</comment><comment><USER17> Maybe Toronto will fill the void? Try North by North East <http://nxne.com/>

</comment><comment><USER18> I volunteered for SXSW last year and got a badge. A great experience, but I felt like I wasn't fully capitalizing on the event.

This year, I had Name Your Price popsicles, wore a decorated box, and stood on top of a cooler shouting for 7 hours a day. It was monumentally beneficial for networking and self-promotion. Everyday, I was shut down by the police for not having a permit, but I had an awesome experience nonetheless.

</comment><comment><USER19> Ipso facto... not so true-o</comment>


How the Brain Uses Glucose to Fuel Self-Control - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/articles/how-the-brain-uses-glucose-to-fuel-self-control-1417618996 <comment><USER2> >> When you increase such "cognitive load" on someone's frontal cortex, he or she exhibits less self-control on subsequent tasks—just like muscle that's been exercising hard, then balks at having to move you one step more. <<

Everyone cites this as fact when in reality the science behind it is very shaky.

See this study from Stanford: [http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/august/willpower-study- su...](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/august/willpower-study- sugar-082713.html)

<comment><USER3> A similar misconception is "I need glucose therefore I should eat sugar" .

The most stable way to supply blood glucose is by eating fat. If blood glucose is high and circulation is low, then exercise maybe in order, more than additional eating.

<comment><USER4> Stable, maybe - but very slow for sure.

Try doing a 100km bike ride on an up/down road circuit, with fat as the main fuel.

EDIT: lol, downvotes. This is not about your metabolism while you're sitting on a chair at work, typing on a keyboard. This is about extreme endurance. I suggest you actually go ahead and try it, before thinking you've formed any sort of informed opinion on the subject.

<comment><USER3> Several studies have shown that endurance is equal w/ fat as the fuel. You do have to spend 4 or so weeks adapting though.

Here is a link to a summary, I couldn't find the actual research articles I was thinking of though.

[http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/sports-nutrition-should- athl...](http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/sports-nutrition-should-athletes-use- fat-or-carbohydrate-as-fuel-631#)

<comment><USER5> That's a really interesting article.

It is fair to point out (which the article does as well) that the athletes were running at 75% of V02 max, which is lower than when racing in cycling. I ride a lot, and anecdotally I had a cycling teammate that changed his diet to consist of primarily fats for 6 weeks. The first few weeks his body was adjusting and his endurance and power dropped dramatically as you would expect. After 4 weeks, though, he had come back and had a really strong season.

The way I understand it is that as intensity increases it becomes more difficult for the body to convert fat for a large source of fuel, and glycogen becomes the largest contributor to energy. I know the feeling of a "bonk", when glycogen depletes, is a really strange one and all fuel is coming from fat at that point and intensity has to drop by quite a bit in order to continue.

Our bodies are pretty amazing

<comment><USER4> > _bonk_

There's only one thing that gets you out of it quickly - and that's a shovel full of carbs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They should have had a control group that's completely off sugar. Sugar is an addictive substance and affects your psychology in a similar way to other addictive substances. You'd see similar results doing this experiment with smokers and cigarettes instead of sugar for example.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is well known by bars in many locations that pass out free lollipops and hard candies as closing time approaches. Anecdotally it causes violent altercations to plummet.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps you are also less likely to talk trash with a lollipop in your mouth. Clever hack.

<comment><USER9> Pacifier

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is why I drink a "bulletproof" coffee in the morning at about 7am. Basically, coffee with butter and MCT oil. Then I have a breakfast of poached eggs and bacon at about 9am.

My brain and focus is just way better running on fat than on glucose.

<comment><USER11> > My brain and focus is just way better running on fat than on glucose.

Your body runs on sugar not fat. Fat will be transformed into sugar to be used as energy in your body. With that said, it won't create a huge spike in your blood sugar like drinking a soda, and won't cause a giant release of insulin.

<comment><USER12> Fat isn't transformed into sugar, it breaks down into fatty acids which are metabolized using a different pathway. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_metabolism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_metabolism) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_degradation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_degradation)

<comment><USER13> Sometimes - but they ARE metabolized through the same pathway.

Essentially:

        Glucose ->[0] pyruvate ->[1] acetyl-coa -> TCA cycle

vs

        Fatty acids ->[2] acetyl-coa -> TCA cycle

The TCA is cycle is the actual main energy generating step.

Other times fat absolutely is converted to sugar. It all depends on the metabolic needs of the body and one building blocks are available, and what protein "workers" are able to use the ones that are available.

For example, fatty acid synthase converts acetyl coa back to a fatty acid [3].

[0] Glycolysis: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycolysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycolysis)

[1] pyruvate dehydrogenase: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyruvate_dehydrogenase](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyruvate_dehydrogenase)

[2] beta oxidation: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_oxidation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_oxidation)

[3]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_synthase](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_synthase)

<comment><USER14> None of your refs justify your claim that "fat absolutely is converted to sugar".

<comment><USER13> That wasn't my claim, please don't misquote me. What I actually said was "Other times fat absolutely is converted to sugar." There is a very significant difference.

<comment><USER14> So what are those "other times" and where is the evidence?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's a little known fact that the brain can also be fueled by ketones by those following a ketogenic diet. Energy is more constant as the body is burning fat continuously instead of depending on constant feeding and the associated ups and downs in blood sugar. Those following a ketogenic diet report improved concentration and alertness.

Also, anything that overstimulates the reward system (sugar) will result in weakened willpower.

<comment><USER16> How often before that kicks in? I tried keto for a few days and I could not bear the post lunch slump.

<comment><USER15> Are you referring to the fatigue from eating too much or not having any glucose in your blood stream? People who eat keto meals generally don't feel any food comas. You might be experiencing low blood sugar because the body is not burning fat as it should though. The only real way to get into ketosis is to remove carbs. Personally, I find it easier to just bite the bullet and fast for several days. Trying to ease out of carbs didn't work for me. This is probably a good resource to get started: [http://www.ketotic.org/2012/05/keto- adaptation-what-it-is-an...](http://www.ketotic.org/2012/05/keto-adaptation- what-it-is-and-how-to.html)

<comment><USER14> I toughed it out for six weeks and I was definitely in ketosis per ketostix testing. I felt as bad as I ever have. So it doesn't work for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One of the researchers mentioned in the article, Roy Baumeister, wrote a book that I enjoyed (entitled "Willpower"). He gave a talk about willpower and glucose levels which you can see some of here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vefDeoXCBbk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vefDeoXCBbk)

It's not a completely pop-science book, more a translation of his research into an approachable lay-person format. I recommend it.

(edit - link to book: [http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest- Human...](http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human- Strength-ebook/dp/B0052REQCY) )

</comment><comment><USER18> "Each evening participants rated the level of any anger they were feeling toward their spouse."

Depressing that this is a useful measurement, that is, the level of anger is > 0 on most evenings.

<comment><USER19> Emotions can do a math kind of thing (additive, subtractive, multiplicative and such) from our personal histories and day to day, unrelated tasks. Lots of people project or distort their emotions in various ways, or they rationalize away emotions using psychological analysis terms like projection / and an observation of state changes based on input/output. Having it perfectly under control feels like being a computer sometimes.

I don't like feeling angry. It's weird.

<comment><USER20> I can count the amount of times I've actually gotten angry on one hand. I either get sad or irritated instead. Hm. Maybe I'm misinterpreting feelings?

<comment><USER19> People learn and create different ways to handle emotions. People experience differences and similarities in life experience. People resolve and analyze their histories, present and future evaluations differently, similarly, if at all. People have different temperaments, or similar. People can track their data independently to attempt to control their reactions internally to the external world, but life does things that make handling response not always controllable.

I can't say anything about your state anymore than I both simultaneously understand and do not understand my own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are pretty serious problems with the glucose theory right now: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/jan/kurzban_et_al_on_opportunity_cos...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/jan/kurzban_et_al_on_opportunity_cost_models_of/)

</comment><comment><USER22> It is interesting. Though, as far as I know [1] glucose consumption varies only a little with brain usage. So either this thing is wrong, or nervousness because of lack of glucose has different mechanism that some lobes being hungry.

[1] [http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/839/how-does- the-...](http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/839/how-does-the-brains- energy-consumption-depend-on-mental-activity)

</comment><comment><USER23> Isn't this common knowledge? Snickers has a whole advertising campaign based on this idea.

<comment><USER11> Maybe never actually studied? I mean vitamin water has a whole advertising campaign about being healthy, but that's clearly nonsense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've personally noticed that I get more irritated/angry 4-5hrs after my meal. This is quite evident for me in the morning when I delay my breakfast. Hence I try to time my meals religiously. Though getting irritated/angry doesn't affect my "willpower" as I can still keep my emotions in check and prevent them from ebbing out.

Coming back to the experiment, shouldn't the will power be benchmarked before testing for effects of glucose? Hypothetically, couldn't I get a study group of weak-willed people and enforce the WSJ article's premise as well as get a bunch of monks and refute it?

</comment><comment><USER25> How do get your muscles to look "full" on a keto diet? I'm talking bodybuilding here. I see almost everyone "carbing up" before a show specifically because of this. It also means if you want to follow this sort of diet you'll end up looking flat most of the time unless you leave the keto state.

Don't really see the point going low carb if you're lifting weights and calorie counting since you're replacing muscle glycogen all the time, there's not a lot of excess energy to be stored as fat unless you're eating way above maintenance.

</comment><comment><USER26> "Moreover, during a tough self-control task, circulating glucose levels plummet, consumed by hardworking frontal neurons. And, remarkably, self- control improves if subjects sip sugary drinks during the task (with control subjects consuming sugar-free drinks)."

Then is controlling urge to sip sugary drinks a doomed enterprise?

</comment><comment><USER27> > The largest lesson is that who we are and what we do must always be > considered in the context of the biology occurring inside us.

This is such a pointless ending sentiment. I realize the irony here too, my comment is pointless transitively but I don't care.

</comment><comment><USER28> If the results are saying "Self control when hungry is lowered." then I agree completely.

</comment><comment><USER29> From the Comments: _" Clearly explains why glucose turns into fat for certain people."_

</comment><comment><USER30> it is good to eat honey or fruit fro your sugar, not table sugar, as table sugar(white death) gets in your blood very quick causing insulin spike, which is bad and bad only, unless you completely deprived of energy like in long distance race.

this stupid sensationalist articles designed to glorify consumption of junk food are just pathetic and should not be on top of hacker news...

<comment><USER11> Honey has a very high glycemic index as well. Almost the same as table sugar.

<comment><USER30> no, honey is fructose and glucose separate.

sugar is sucrose - glucose and fructose in a very high energy bond.

apart that honey has a lot of other stuff(bee saliva, pollen) which make the SPEED of absorbtion wayyyyyyyyyyyy different</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Suggest the best books on software architecture - <AUTHOR> What are the best books, journals or papers for Software Architecture? <comment><USER2> I really enjoyed this one:

Beautiful Architecture: Leading Thinkers Reveal the Hidden Beauty in Software Design - [http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Architecture-Leading- Thinker...](http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Architecture-Leading-Thinkers- Software/dp/059651798X)

</comment><comment><USER3> The Architecture of Open Source Applications: <http://www.aosabook.org/en/index.html></comment>


Rapportive Announces Acquisition By LinkedIn - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/22/rapportive-linkedin-acquisition/ <comment><USER2> Old news.</comment>


Code Read: The Eight Queens Problem in CoffeeScript - <AUTHOR> http://shpaml.webfactional.com/misc/EightQueens/docs/eight_queens.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Link to the page where you can watch it run: [http://shpaml.webfactional.com/misc/EightQueens/eight_queens...](http://shpaml.webfactional.com/misc/EightQueens/eight_queens.html)</comment>


Ask HN:  How do I bring our web search service to market? - <AUTHOR>

My company has developed a search engine for our internal use for a specific vertical market.  Now we want to release the search service as a product but independent of our company.  Is there a company out there that will bring our product to market and "own" it so we don't have to maintain and service? <comment><USER2> I would suggest looking for larger companies who might have a large tech presence in the specific market you're referring to and see if they would be interested.</comment>


Ask HN: Setting up email for small business? - <AUTHOR>

Just wondering, how do you guys handle your email client.  I would prefer to be able to read all of my customer's emails from my personal email account.  But when I respond to them, I want it to show the customer, From: email@example.com, not firstname.lastname@example.com.<p>Just wondering if this is possible.  I set up POP3 fwding but I was wondering if there are any other possibilities. <comment><USER2> Yes this is pretty standard you just check out the email account of john@xyz... from your gmail account. and when answering you can select the from: field.

Check this link: [https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...](https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=22370&topic=1669030&path=1668953-1668950&ctx=leftnav)

But If I were answering customers emails I would use <https://www.helpscout.net>

It looks pretty cool (I'm not affiliated with the company juest think their product looks very interesting)

<comment><USER3> "Help Scout is the only help desk your customers will never know about."

How does that solve my problem as a customer ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This sounds like an issue for tech support and has been solved already. Most email clients have an option to do what you're looking for. I believe gmail also has something like this. Google it.</comment>


32-bit x86 Position Independent Code – It's That Bad - <AUTHOR> http://ewontfix.com/18/ <comment><USER2> I always wondered why Linux can't just use the same thing as windows for DLLs: Instead of PIC, a big tables of places to patch with the final position.

It looks really terrible to lose one precious register and have all this PIC overhead.

I don't use mono's ahead of time compilation because it also creates PIC. The JIT has one register more available. But I haven't measured it yet

<comment><USER3> > Instead of PIC, a big tables of places to patch with the final position.

Among other things, because that means the text section has to be writeable, and can't have a shared mapping across processes unless it's mapped in the same place in every process, which breaks address-space layout randomization (ASLR).

<comment><USER4> Off topic, but does anybody know if there's a way to turn off ASLR e.g. while debugging (honestly, i'd be interested if you can do this on any platform)? I'm pretty confident the answer is no, but it can really be a pain sometimes...

<comment><USER5> Either the linker, or GDB (or your debugger) can disable it for you. Under GDB it's controlled by the setting disable-randomization (defaults to false).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The more I play around with musl (the author's C library) the more I'm convinced dynamic linking was not worth the trouble.

<comment><USER7> As a programmer who unfortunately is suckered into doing devops at times, the more I get to just update the openssl library instead of the whole OS whenever a security flaw in openssl is announced, the more I'm convinced that dynamic linking was very well worth the trouble.

Funny how perceptions change depending on the angle you're looking at a problem.

<comment><USER6> Oddly enough I was thinking about openssl updates specifically. Did you remember to restart all your long-running _clients_? (I'm a sysadmin who occasionally gets roped into doing development...)

Dynamic linking makes security more difficult to reason about, which is a Bad Thing. It has many pluses, but also many minuses. And with symbol versioning it gets _very_ problematic to actually figure out what your real code path is to begin with.

<comment><USER8> And when you update all your clients with static linked OpenSSL, did you also remember to restart every single one of them? These seem like equivalent problems to me.

<comment><USER9> Not quite, I think. With a .so, I can ask `lsof` which services on the machine require restart: the ones that haven't are linked to a deleted so.

And you wouldn't need to restart the clients with static OpenSSL — _you need to recompile them_. And with static linking, I'm not sure how you would easily determine the linked version out to say, the minor or the micro. (Perhaps, if this is your OS's thing like nix, the package manager keeps track…)

<comment><USER10> Tip for Debian/Ubuntu users: checkrestart from the debian-goodies package is a nice wrapper around lsof that lists running binaries that rely on outdated solibs:

[http://manpages.debian.org/cgi- bin/man.cgi?query=checkrestar...](http://manpages.debian.org/cgi- bin/man.cgi?query=checkrestart)

[https://gehrcke.de/2014/06/good-to-know-checkrestart-from- de...](https://gehrcke.de/2014/06/good-to-know-checkrestart-from-debian- goodies/)

It not only shows processes that run older solibs, but in the case of services, it will also give you the commands to restart them :).

<comment><USER11> It also shows programs that are still using the old binary that has been deleted (unlinked from the filesystem) but not refcount 0 freed. This can also be used to uncover some forms of hiding that hack attempts use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So what's the story on 64-bit x64 or other processors?

<comment><USER13> Position independent code on x64 is quite trivial, it has a new instruction addressing mode called RIP-relative addressing so that the program can access everything relative to where it is currently executing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is 32-bit Linux still worth worrying about? It seems that 64-bit CPUs and kernels have been around for a really long time now. (Honest question.)

<comment><USER15> We still have embedded 8-bit. Expect embedded 32-bit approximately forever.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, but we all know the embedded 32-bit stuff that's going to be around forever is ARM, not x86.

<comment><USER17> We _hope_ it's not going to be x86… I dunno. I still see too many embedded 486/686 clones around for my liking, and Intel is now trying to get into the whole IoT business with x86-32 Quark CPUs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> For a JIT I'm working on, I've been trying to call into libc from the emitted code, and I'm running into this.

</comment><comment><USER19> "I know on darwin, we kinda hate those sorts of relocations because they are a performance sap. This type of performance sap is nasty as it is pervasive and invisible and hard to ever get back." \-- Mike Stump (gcc-patches ML, 2012)

I think the Solaris linker took some interesting approach with shared libraries at runtime as well.

</comment><comment><USER20> There was a time when shared libraries were a necessity. Not to mention supporting myriad architectures. That was a different era. Conditions have changed.

Of course, the designs and implementations have not. They are still in heavy use, 20 years later. What "just works" is never questioned. I am glad to see some people questioning the old assumptions.

Unrelated question: Why does Linux pass arguments in registers instead of using the stack?

<comment><USER21> What makes you say conditions have changed? Why should I have to wait for everything that consumes OpenSSL downstream to be updated/recompiled to fully patch my system?

<comment><USER20> Are you suggesting that the original purpose of shared libraries relates to patching software?

Others seem to be suggesting that the emergence of dynamic linking was a response to general limitations in secondary storage and memory. Limitations that no longer exist.

<comment><USER22> Does it have to be the original purpose to be a useful feature?

<comment><USER20> Is this supposed to be an answer?

I like marssaxman's comment.

I'm not sure I would call this a "feature" because I think of "features" as being intentional and if marssaxman is correct, this justification for shared library use was an accidental side effect.

But I have limited knowledge of the history behind dynamic linking. Hence my questions. I am just curious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Obviously what we'd like to see is: "foo: jmp bar"

Shouldn't that be "foo: call bar"?

<comment><USER24> I think it's JMP due to tail-call optimization. If there's a JMP, the RET of the inner function (bar) returns from the outer one (foo) also, and one unnecessary jump is eliminated.</comment></comment>


New China app dev rules require real-name sign-up, preserved user activity logs - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-internet-regulations-idUSKCN0ZE0N5 <comment><USER2> ou, how sad</comment>


Writing an AWS lambda function with Go - <AUTHOR> http://www.avitzurel.com/blog/2016/06/17/writing-an-aws-lambda-function-with-golang/ <comment><USER2> If I understand this correctly, each request will run the Javascript handler which in turns will spawn a process that happens to be written in Go. Which means we've basically come back to CGI. I thought that CGI was bad because creating a new process on each and every request was expensive. Is Lambda somehow different ?

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a bit more to it.

Native lambda functions are "always" running (if they're frequent).

When the functions runs it will spawn the Golang process and send the JSON via STDIN.

It has ups/downs of course but the good thing about it (for me at least) is that I can write in Go/Ruby or any other language and just wrap it with Node. This way I can use already built libraries and data access layers etc...</comment></comment>


Review my startup, whiteboard.co - <AUTHOR> http://whiteboard.co We announced a product this morning that we have been working on over the past several months and would love to hear your feedback and thoughts. It is called Whiteboard.
Whiteboard is a task and project management application that helps you focus on what matters most in your day, whether it be collaborating with clients and colleagues on projects at work or managing to-dos at home.
Here is a link to our video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQcmqw2G6oM <comment><USER2> I really love the idea. But the first time I saw the site, with the description, I thought, Oh god, is this just another to-do list or task management app? Well, I was convinced later. I'm going to give the app a shot. I'm going to implement this for a small team in my company (Skcript.com) to check how this works. But truly, a neat and good idea. The app looks pure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Sounds like we need to work on our messaging a little bit so we don't come across as just another to-do or task management app.</comment></comment>