Samsung Galaxy Fold review: The future is an ugly disappointment - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/?p=1578203 <comment><USER2> > Since the Fold doesn't run in tablet mode, websites default to the mobile > version

I translate that to mean "You'll see a lot less ads." I generally read mobile sites and pages even from my laptop for that very reason. I like the built-in assumption that there is no active code execution available, which impacts malware exposure as a pleasant side effect. And I prefer the simplest layouts anyway. For my purposes, gopher doesn't suck. Fancy widgets and auto-playing videos drive me nuts. Especially when they're unrelated to the textual content I was actually clicking for.

Also, the complaints about how thick it is: it seems obvious that if you want a double-sized screen, you are going get a double-sized phone regardless if it is flat or folded. Get a delicate chain and carry it like a little purse.</comment>


Critical SSH Backdoor in multiple Barracuda Networks Products - <AUTHOR> http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/fulldisclosure/2013-01/0221.html

<comment><USER2> Looks like it's worth avoiding Barracuda appliances even after this patch, since they're retaining the "remote" account.

As to why they did this -- feature checklist compatibility with Huawei and ZTE is my guess.

Remember most of these do intercept -- they have an SSL CA cert which is trusted by all your business client devices, to do MITM. So, if you pwn the box, you can pwn all the SSL traffic at the target company, too. It's an excellent place to attack.

<comment><USER3> > Remember most of these do intercept -- they have an SSL CA cert which is > trusted by all your business client devices, to do MITM. So, if you pwn the > box, you can pwn all the SSL traffic at the target company, too. It's an > excellent place to attack.

I really hope this certificate is not installed/trusted by default on major browsers. Can somebody confirm it?

EDIT:

<https://www.barracudanetworks.com/news/press_release/33>

"Transparent deployment of this enhanced SSL Inspection feature requires deployment of a trusted root certificate on client Web browsers."

<comment><USER4> No, the way these work is your IT deploys the internal CA cert as trusted on all systems in the enterprise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you are going to put backdoors (I can't believe I am even saying this) on your product then it might be good to at least disable normal password logins and only do SSH key exchange.

That said why the hell are there UNDOCUMENTED backdoors? I mean it makes sense from a customer support perspective but really?

<comment><USER6> If you think thats bad, why are there undocumented backdoors that don't immediately trace back to Barracuda?

<comment><USER7> What do you mean?

<comment><USER8> If you've got SSHd running on an unexpected port, you could put in a banner: "Barracuda field service access".

If you've got accounts on the system, they can have GECOS fields saying the same.

And put it in the manual. "Disabling the fieldservice account will prevent service personnel from logging in. Customers with active support contracts should not do so."

White hats tell you what they're doing and why.

<comment><USER9> Does this add any security? Your fake sshd can also say "Barracuda field service access".

<comment><USER10> No, it's just to explicitly inform the customer that Barracuda has shell access to the appliance. These accounts were undocumented.

<comment><USER11> Reminds me of a situation I encountered at a prior gig. We were getting random log-ins to an administrative account from a user we didn't recognize. I sent email around the group asking if anyone knew what was up. Nope.

Started tracing IPs. Turned out it was coming from a gateway used by our corporate parent (very large organization). Further tracing localized it to our office.

Turned out my seatmate (who I'd included on the initial email and who had heard me muttering over this for 2 days) was the guy who had some random bozo named account that he was using for test purposes ... but had neglected to tell anyone about.

Sort of pissed me off.

One reason for documenting these backdoors is so that, if you're OK with their legitimate use, you can properly audit and account for their legitimate use. That said: given shared keys and common access, I'd be inclined to consider the device unsecurable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There's a very unfortunate [dead] comment by Intermernet in this thread. Unfortunate because it might be a good solution for someone who administers the affected hardware and wants to remove the backdoor after patching (as per the _Workaround_ section in the OP, _"Barracuda Networks offers an expert option that disables the SSH daemon. For assistance contact the Barracuda Networks Support."_ )

Note, I have no idea why the user is dead, nor if this solution actually works, but I'm posting Intermernet's post below:

 _The workaround mentioned involves:

1\. Log in to the device and go to the "Advanced" tab on the web GUI.

2\. Add "&expert=1" to the end of the URL.

3\. Click on the red "Expert" button.

4\. Scroll to the bottom and disable remote support.

You will need to reverse this process if you ever actually require the barracuda remote support._

</comment><comment><USER13> I attempted to view this URL at work. It was blocked by our Barracuda filter.

"The link you are accessing has been blocked by the Barracuda Web Filter because it contains spyware. The name of the spyware is: Spyware.Exploit.Misc.MWBR"

<comment><USER14> Well, now you know how to fix that.

With a properly formatted request to the department responsible for maintaining the web filter, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's unfathomable to me why any company in the IT security industry would ship a product with an undocumented remote access mechanism built-in. This seems like a sure way, when the mechanism is inevitably discovered, to cause harm to your company's reputation.

I've always felt vaguely distrustful of Barracuda anyway, but it's nice to have some facts to cite when not recommending their products.

</comment><comment><USER16> Here is the timeline if you're interested - 14 days from contact to publication:

2013-01-10: Sending advisory and proof of concept exploit via encrypted channel.

2013-01-14: Vendor confirms receipt and provides BNSEC IDs.

2013-01-14: Vendor sends listing of reported vulnerabilities and release schedule.

2013-01-21: Conference call - discussing implemented solutions.

2013-01-23: Barracuda Networks releases alert & secdef

2013-01-24: SEC Consult releases coordinated security advisory.

<comment><USER17> From the post to f-d:

> 2012-11-29: Contacting vendor. > 2012-11-29: Sending advisory and proof of > concept exploit via encrypted channel.

<comment><USER16> Oops. You are completely correct. I posted the timeline for the follow-up advisory! And it's too late to edit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder how much it is worth to crack the root password that was left embedded in all the Barracuda devices even with the patch applied?

<comment><USER19> To a competitor? Depends if people blame barracuda or can trace the cracking back to you.

Are you thinking of switching a bitcoin mining operation into a cracking- passwords-to-put-companies-out-of-business operation?

<comment><USER18> I'm more afraid of the nebulous criminal underground or national entities than I am of Barracuda's competitors. I'm not referring at all to Bitcoin (or putting companies out of busines...), it's surely cheaper to just use available "cloud cracking" assets directly (which I'm also sure is already being done).

Since it's apparently unclear, I'm not talking about taking action myself, but I will say that due diligence for any company using Barracuda hardware means that they should be asking the same question themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The "patch" disables some but not all backdoor accounts on the machine. The root account is still present with password auth.

</comment><comment><USER21> I worked for Barracuda, I left, because I felt the company was slimy. On the other hand, from a customer service point of view, this supposed back door is great, it makes the product much easier to support, for a customer base who is honestly, most of the time not that technically astute. If they were more astute, they would have bought a different product.

</comment><comment><USER11> Monitoring and support backdoors are common and pervasive in _most_ networking gear. This isn't something that should be considered lightly.

There's been some hullaboo about Chinese manufacturers putting backdoor access into their devices, Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corporation particularly: [http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/21930-China-Has- Backdo...](http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/21930-China-Has-Backdoor- Access-to-Eighty-Percent-of-Communications.html)

Legally mandated backdoors exist on Cisco gear as well: [http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/03/hackers-networking- equipmen...](http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/03/hackers-networking-equipment- technology-security-cisco.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> Wow thats amazing. Honestly feel bad for any IT admin who bought any of their products not knowing about those backdoors(assuming they arent disclosed anywhere). I personally would be extremely upset to read that A)they had backdoors in the box they sold me, and that B)they intend to keep them intact for "customer support"!

</comment><comment><USER23> I've had an upswing in spam today on my systems, and it looks like a lot of them have headers indicating they've gone through a Barracuda device. It doesn't surprise me that spammers are all over this.

</comment><comment><USER24> Why did they write pubic key in the solutions bit? Surely a sly joke..

</comment><comment><USER25> Knowing not much about network appliances and their role etc., when you're building a company, starting from scratch, are there good rule of thumb to not fall for the "enterprisey compromisey" piece of junk that such companies (Huawei -- state-sponsored espionnage-- ZTE, Barracuda, etc.) do sell?

Is there _anything_ you can do to be at least a little bit safe?

Are there vendors that still value security or is it just accepted now that MITM and state-sponsored attacks are a normal way of operating?

<comment><USER26> The easiest way is to just not buy that crap at all. Computers are cheap, open source software is available, put the two together.

<comment><USER27> People do not want to maintain that stuff. Your comparative advantage as a startup is not running your own firewall.

Nb: I am employed by a Barracuda competitor, but would probably still advise against trying to run things on your own.

<comment><USER11> Which is where leveraging Open Source comes into play. We have ROMs for home networking gear, we have bootable distros for security purposes, we have open source builds for Android. No reason similar projects couldn't be aimed at enterprise type kit. You'd still require hardware manufacturers, though open standards and whitebox builds might come into being. And there'd be distro wars, but very likely 2-3 lead contenders that would be the default safe choice.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Uber Suspends UberPOP in France Following Turmoils and Arrests - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/03/uber-stops-uberpop-in-france-following-turmoils-and-arrests/

<comment><USER2> It's a shame, UberPop was really useful to mee when I had to go home late, or when I had too many things to carry.

The government's decision really isn't informed enough. Most people using UberPop wouldn't use taxis because their price is prohibitive, this will just force us to take huge detours and public transportation full of inebriated people instead of going home directly when going out late.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ongoing discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9824759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9824759)</comment>


"Zuck off": Doctors, nurses, scientists rail against Zuckerberg - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/zuck-off-doctors-nurses-scientists-rail-against-zuckerberg/ <comment><USER2> I would have loved it if the Zuckerberg endowment was an annual donation to the hospital's bottom line. Then we'll see whether the doctors and nurses are willing to put their money where their mouths are, and make some real responsible choices about which is their priority.

San Francisco supervisors, on the other hand, are complete political morons. They can spout pure bullshit and not face any consequences from the voters and electoral system designed to incentivize such idiocy.

</comment><comment><USER3> Disclosure: I used to work at one of Priscilla and Mark's charitable organizations, many years ago. I left for a number of reasons, chief among them was the realization that Facebook is not run in an ethical manner, and that it has a negative effect on its users.

Here in 2020, there should be absolutely nobody who's deluded about how Facebook does business and makes money. So, if you're a scientist or doctor and you're just now speaking up because something something Trump, that means you were fine taking dirty money, as long as it's not dirty in one particular way. I suggest you do what I did: either take Priscilla and Mark's money and keep quiet, or go work somewhere else.

<comment><USER4> This is quite a claim. How is Facebook not run in an ethical manner?

<comment><USER3> One example of many: manipulating people's feed as a non-consensual experiment on affecting mood.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2014/06/30/contro...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2014/06/30/controversy- over-facebook-emotional-manipulation-study-grows-as-timeline-becomes-more- clear/#6e0a46809caa)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From the article, this just sounds political. The people protesting just happen to be doctors, nurses and scientists.

And as per the article, it would be interesting to see if the people protesting are willing to give back the money and all the equipment it bought.

</comment><comment><USER4> I hope Zuckerberg keeps standing up to all these outrage mobs. Courage is contagious and inspiring.

<comment><USER6> Is this sarcasm?

<comment><USER4> No. Practically every institution, academic, corporate, media, entertainment etc. has been bending over to the demands of the woke mob.

Good to see someone put their foot down and say NO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They're confused.

Twitter's the hate speech one. FB is more about freedom of expression.

But I won't be caught using either.

<comment><USER8> They are both equally bad.

Twitter has already identified the problem, Facebook apparently needs a few month longer. Both are not doing nearly enough.

<comment><USER7> At least Facebook is neutral.

Twitter has decided to fight some hate, and blatantly ignore some other hate. It has an agenda.

>They are both equally bad.

What I said above aside, when considering the size of the Facebook tumor, I have to agree. They are about equal bad.</comment></comment></comment>


Verizon Says 44,000 Managers Qualify for Company Buyout Offer - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-03/verizon-says-44-000-managers-qualify-for-company-buyout-offer <comment><USER2> Aren't these buyout offers the worst way to trim headcount? The people most likely to take them are the ones who are good at their job, and confident of landing another one at a different company. The people least likely to take them are the mediocre ones who know they'll never land an equally good position elsewhere. If you want to keep your best people, this seems like the exact opposite way to do it.

<comment><USER3> Many times the offers are a thinly-veiled attempt to get rid of their older (more expensive) employees. People nearing retirement age are most likely to have many years of service, making a severance package that pays per tenure especially appealing. And there's the threat of layoffs if you don't accept the offer. If you're in your 50s or 60s it's hard to get a new job regardless of how qualified you are, so this makes gambling on your continued employment risky.

My mother went through this exact exercise two years ago. Management was clear that, if not enough employees took the buyout, they would start layoffs with less generous terms. From previous rounds of layoffs she knew older employees were the first to go, so she took the buyout and got 52 weeks paid severance.

The day she resigned, she received a termination letter offering only 40 weeks. Fortunately the company stood by the more generous offer. But it took her the better part of a year to get a new job, and it pays much less than the one she invested 30+ years in. She's from a generation when you worked at a single company for life, but companies don't operate like that any more.

<comment><USER4> Almost the exact same thing happened to one of my family members too. 50 year old programmer with a decade+ tenure at a large corporation. 52 weeks severance retirement offer. It took a year to find a new job and only now, almost a decade later, is he above his old salary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The incentive includes three weeks' pay for every year of service, thanks in > part to profit-enhancing benefits from new corporate tax laws.

I genuinely had to check whether this was some kind of a parody site. "Corporate tax cuts are great, companies can now afford to give bigger severance packages!"

<comment><USER6> I'd read that as, "The investor class has not quite yet internalized regarding the recent tax changes as their god-given birthright, so at the moment they don't squeal quite so loudly when the proles get a nickel."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Amazing that they have 44,000 managers

<comment><USER8> They use the term manager for lots of roles that don't actually have any management function. I worked on a team within Verizon that had ~40 people, all of whom were considered managers, even though none of us, other than the two actual managers, had any people under us.

<comment><USER9> For those who may not know, companies do this so they can classify as many workers as possible as "exempt employees" meaning they are exempt from overtime pay and other worker protections.

<comment><USER10> "In general, to be considered an "exempt" employee, you must be paid a salary (not hourly) and must perform executive, administrative or professional duties."

[https://www.thebalancecareers.com/exempt-and-a-non-exempt- em...](https://www.thebalancecareers.com/exempt-and-a-non-exempt- employee-2061988)

To be honest, I'm a little surprised that these employees couldn't be considered administrative or professional without a managerial title.

Edit: reading further, this clarifies a bit: "These categories are purposefully broad to encompass many types of jobs. However, it is the tasks performed on the job, not the job title alone, which determine exempt vs. non- exempt employment status." Essentially, it's __not __entirely a cop-out by companies to avoid worker protections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >> _" Verizon had 153,100 employees as of June."_

and 44,000 managers qualify for the buyout. Let's assume that 100% of managers qualify, so they only have 44k managers. What am I missing in corp America? 1 in 3-4 is a manager?

<comment><USER12> Yeah. It's a stupid title like "architect."

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> In past decade Verizon had been rapidly reducing workforce: 224K to 153K. The 44K new cut is massive 29%. So net shedding over a decade is almost 48%. From the look of the graph, the shading had been at constant rate. This short of indicates that the problem isn't over-hiring (which they could have fixed by one time layoffs) but rather attempt to increase stock by risking long term prospects. AT&T for comparison has over 254K employees. I'm now bit worried about verizon's long term future. I have been planning to switch to Verizon from AT&T and now this doesn't give me comfort.

</comment><comment><USER14> Verizon paid me $4k (business customer svc rep) to go away which I put towards my first startup/learning to code.

It was a fun place to work with some great people and it's hard to beat getting paid to go away(union).

<comment><USER14> My heart wasn't in this job or profession, but I do thank Verizon immensely for being a great company to work for and treating their employees very well!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why did they hire them to begin with? Joe investor would like to know.</comment>


Will the European Union ruin the internet? - <AUTHOR> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/06/will-european-union-ruin-internet.html <comment><USER2> Discussed previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17354442](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17354442)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this proposed law is completely absurd. People who obviously don't understand how the internet works have created it.

For those not familiar. There are two main points that are quite harmful:

#1 Mandatory filtering of uploaded user content. This is to prevent possible copyright infringement. There are two things that will happen: the large companies will generate upload filter mechanism that won't work perfectly so they will deny many uploads. Smaller companies won't be able sustain an upload functionality. Thanks for killing innovation and supporting large monopolies

#2 Link Tax: publishers want to be compensated if you link to their content. This is to prevent google and the like to profit from publishers content without "paying" for it. This is totally absurd. Again, two things will happen: large corporations will stop linking to publishers site (see how google Spain stopped their news offering) and second everybody posting links online publically will become an outlaw.

The whole thing is nuts. Please, if you live in the EU, call your MEP about this. @senficon is leading the fight on this.

<comment><USER4> > Smaller companies won't be able sustain an upload functionality. Thanks for > killing innovation and supporting large monopolies

The law explicitly states that the size of the company, the amount of data that is uploaded and the availability, cost and effectiveness of the measures should be taken into account.

I don't understand how you call call this completely absurd considering that sites like Twitch and YouTube are already doing it.

> Link Tax: publishers want to be compensated if you link to their content.

The "link tax" has nothing whatsoever to do with linking. If you run a commercial site that publishes snippets of press publications you now have to obtain a license to do so. That's all there is to it.

<comment><USER5> > _If you run a commercial site that publishes snippets of press publications > you now have to obtain a license to do so_

Suppose someone posts a _Der Spiegel_ article. I read it and quote a sentence in a comment. Y Combinator must now (a) reach out to _Der Spiegel_ , (b) negotiate a fee agreement with them, (c) monitor my quoting of _Der Spiegel_ content, (d) remit international payments to _Der Spiegel_ and still (e) subject itself to other risks and requirements the fee agreement and EU compliance costs entail? (I'm ignoring questions around whether including the article's title itself requires fee remittance.)

That's what is being proposed and that is dumb.

<comment><USER6> If I got it correct, that is not what is proposed. What is proposed is that you pay an amount of money to a collection agency and then get the right to publish those snippets.

I think it is a bad proposal that will do more harm than good. But it is something that can be made to work.

<comment><USER5> > _What is proposed is that you pay an amount of money to a collection agency > and then get the right to publish those snippets_

Pardon me, so I post a comment on Hacker News and now Y Combinator has to (a) identify _Der Spiegel_ 's collection agency, (b) reach out to said agency, (b) negotiate a fee agreement with them, (c) monitor my quoting of _Der Spiegel_ content, (d) remit international payments to _Der Spiegel_ 's collection agency and still (e) subject itself to other risks and requirements the fee agreement and EU compliance costs entail.

This system having the benefit that when I quote _Le Temps_ , presuming they work with the same collection agency, we cut out step (b). Otherwise all of that again.

<comment><USER6> That's not how it works for existing cases. There is in each country a single agency per section of the law.

For example, if you want play music in a restaurant, you know who to contact. In return you get the right to use all music ever created. No need to figure out who owns what.

<comment><USER5> Do you think it's reasonable for Y Combinator to be assessed, by twenty-eight national agencies, fees and fines if I--a non-revenue generating user--quote a European publication in a comment?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What is happening here to the internet is what as happened to any other sector that was innovative at the time.

Bureaucrats who have a complete disconnect with what they are legislating but that somehow need to keep justifying their own job existence, will go ahead and vote regulations one after another even if they are unnecessary or harmful.

Bureaucracies will keep themselves alive by inventing new rules constantly and the EU is no different.

GDPR was not that bad though, it was about making sure that our personal information is not being sold to third parties like HR companies that provide services like telling companies your sexual orientation and other things of that nature.

GDPR was about telling the consumer what is being done with their data and about transparency, so at least it was for the people.

But this link tax is beyond absurd, and the content upload copyright infringement is only enforceable by the biggest companies.

In practice, Amazon S3 and Google Cloud will implement this on their cloud services and probably charge for it directly or indirectly to SaaS companies, and there will be a couple of years of a grey zone period where the law will not be actively enforced.

<comment><USER8> > ...is what as happened to any other sector that was innovative at the time.

s/innovative/"innovative and illegal"

While everybody has got used to "freely" enjoy copyrighted content on internet, IP protection is still a pillar for the low of most (if not all) countries in the world. Let's stop being hypocrite: either we push IP into oblivion or we enforce it consistently. Pretending that IP laws matter only when it concerns our own content doesn't help innovation.

<comment><USER9> The problem isn't enforcing legitimate IP rights. Effective and consistent enforcement would cause a wrench for a lot of people, and that in turn would surely cause laws to be changed to give a more proportionate and realistic situation, but we'd adapt.

The problem is that no mechanism can exist to reliably enforce genuine IP rights as provided by law today without also causing collateral damage and excessive costs.

<comment><USER8> Well, you agree with me that current IP laws are obsolete and should be ameliorated, I suppose!

<comment><USER9> I don't think copyright as a principle is obsolete. It generates useful economic incentives to create and distribute works, which I consider to be good things, and I have yet to encounter any alternative economic model that looks anything like as successful at achieving those things.

I do think the current implementation of copyright in law is flawed in a lot of places. This is bad because it potentially imposes excessive restrictions on ordinary people and sometimes limits how much we can take advantage of the benefits of new technologies. It is also bad because it brings the law into disrepute, and combined with the practical difficulty of enforcement particularly against small-scale infringement that is only a civil matter, it results in a general sense among much of the public that infringing copyright is a victimless crime and socially acceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's somewhat amazing how, between GDPR and this, I've gone from hardcore pro- EU to moderate Euroscepticism. Curious to see if this is personal or part of something broader.

<comment><USER10> The thing that the present crisis has crystallised for me, as part time Euroskeptic, is that _leaving the EU does not make the EU go away_. Even dismantling it entirely leaves you with 30ish different countries.

Would you rather have one set of rules for trade that you have to deal with, or thirty different potentially incompatible ones, not all of which are translated into English?

<comment><USER5> > _dismantling it entirely leaves you with 30ish different countries_

A study of American history reveals the wisdom of governments defaulting to inaction. If the country is split 50/50 on an issue, the proper thing to do is debate. Not wait until it's 51/49 and then pass a law half the population hates. We love to complain about gridlock in Congress but, most of the time, that is the system working as designed.

Twenty-eight countries would be harder to do business with. But as it is, GDPR will be interpreted by each of the the EU's twenty-eight national regulators. A single market the EU is not.

Co-ordinating twenty-eight nations to enact a treaty is a huge friction. But perhaps that is needed to counterbalance the continent's instinct for useless, often protectionist bureaucracy.

<comment><USER10> You do realise that actually passing EU law requires ... co-ordination from all the countries via the Council of Ministers, through double-majority voting, _and_ the approval of directly elected representatives in the EU?

This is far more democratic than the _secret_ processes of other international trade treaties like TTIP.

> wait until it's 51/49 and then pass a law half the population hates

.. which is what's happening with Brexit? I mean, the British system where a party is elected with ~40% of the votes and legislation is run through an entirely unelected upper house isn't an improvement. And don't get me started on the non-constitutional approach to devolution.

<comment><USER11> EU Parliament, Commission and Council meet in secret when these decisions are made. No minutes are taken and these meetings often don't even appear on any agenda: they are literally the definition of secret law making.

Here's an article about it:

[https://euobserver.com/institutional/136630](https://euobserver.com/institutional/136630)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The problem is that industry has been involved in EU politics for decades, they have their people and lobbyists well in place and they are able to make the politicians believe that they not only represent the industry but also the consumers/users and the creators. Of course this is not true.

For example Netopia which is sponsored by the film and music industry and the Premier League says consumers are diverse and that is why EU wide licensing is a bad idea.

An organisation of the picture industry claims directly to speak for photographers, even though they are their suppliers

But it works, politicians of all parties argue that those copyright regulations will help creatives and creators, that those people need platforms to present their art is not important, they are supposed to go to the old players (gatekeepers).

P.S. Platform company are also not speaking for creators and creatives. I think HN is full of links to articles about how YouTube isn't listening to the creatives who use their site. And how YouTube is changing the site to make is worse.

<comment><USER13> This law, especially article 11 which people are talking about in this thrread provide protection to the creators.

Here they're talking about letting the content creators retain their rights, and that copyright protections cannot be used to prevent publication in other places.

> 2\. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall leave intact and shall in no > way affect any rights provided for in Union law to authors and other > rightholders, in respect of the works and other subject -matter incorporated > in a press publication. Th e rights referred to in paragraph 1 may not be > invoked against those authors and other rightholders and, in particular, may > not deprive them of their right to exploit their works and other subject > -matter independently from the press publication in which they are > incorporated. When a work or other subject -matter is incorporated in a > press publication on the basis of a non- exclusive licence, the rights > referred to in paragraph 1 may not be invoked to prohibit the use by other > authorised users. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 may not be invoked > to prohibit the use of works or other subject -matter whose protection has > expired.

<comment><USER12> Article 11 is about a new right for publishers. It could potentially make an infringement to post a link to a news article on Twitter, the paragraph you posted is a limitation to that right, because it says that authors can do that what everybody always could have done.

This new right was "tested" in Spain and Germany. In Spain news sites lost 15% of their traffic. Bigger site were hit less hard because people knew them and got to them directly. In Germany they gave Google essentially a license for free because Google didn't want to pay and because the publishers couldn't lose the traffic from Google. But smaller companies than Google and start-ups had to pay, putting them at clear disadvantage. Also the scheme costed around 10 million euros in legal fees had almost no income for the publishers. A Massive failure.

But they passed it anyway yesterday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd say it should be possible to circumvent the 'snippet tax' (which is what the 'link tax' really seems to come down to) by using a generated summary of the linked article instead of a snippet. It would be a good project for some student looking for a real-world application of natural language processing. A quick-and-dirty solution is already at hand: feed the snippet to a translation engine, translate it through a chain of one or two well-supported languages to end up with the original language again. Here's how it would look, using the first sentence of this text on Google Translate:

English -> German: "Ich würde sagen, dass es möglich sein sollte, die "Snippet-Steuer" (auf die die "Link-Steuer" tatsächlich zu kommen scheint) zu umgehen, indem Sie eine generierte Zusammenfassung des verknüpften Artikels anstelle eines Snippets verwenden."

German -> French: "Je dirais qu'il devrait être possible de contourner la "taxe de snippet" (que la "taxe sur les liens" semble en fait arriver) en utilisant un résumé généré de l'article lié au lieu d'un extrait."

French -> English: "I would say that it should be possible to bypass the "snippet tax" (which the "tax on links" actually seems to arrive at) by using a generated summary of the linked article instead of an excerpt."

Close, but not identical. Using different translation engines gives results which differ more from the original text at the cost of accuracy, e.g. feeding the French text to Bing Translate renders the following in 'English':

(Bing) French -> English: "I would say that it should be possible to bypass the "snippet Fee " (which the "tax on the links" actually seems to happen) using a generated summary of the linked article instead of an excerpt."

Not perfect but certainly usable.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not before the USA, that's for sure.

</comment><comment><USER16> NB.

This is just a committee vote. It's not law yet. The overall vote is in July.

<comment><USER17> It particularly doesn't matter which nominal steps are still remaining, it's the general attitude. If the EU are blind to technology regardless of whether their intentions are good or bad, any such changes that might end up in the legislation are still very damaging to the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Maybe instead of altering the Internet globally, the EU should be regulated to modified browser clients that expose hooks into EU mandated policies like GDPR, link tax and elimination of memes? Address the problem where it is being consumed in the EU instead of pushing the solution upstream where it would feed many different branches.

</comment><comment><USER19> So this is how the internet dies. Repeatedly stabbed by the ignorant minions of the old elite corporations.

</comment><comment><USER20> as a european: where is a comprehensive list of our representatives? Given that I live in european country X, who do I contact about this? such a list would be immensely useful for spreading around to friends and acquaintances! (and for personal usage too, ofc)

<comment><USER21> Please note that this was voted at the committee-stage, it will be voted upon in plenary (the full parliament) in july.

Not every country is represented in these committees and as such you might not have a representative and you'll have to look for the parties to find an equivalent from another country.

IMO, this is also glaring hole in the design of EU's democratic structures, because the chance of other-countries representatives answering to your questions is practically zero, while at the same time them being subject to corporate lobbying from whatever country.

the legal affairs committee : [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/juri/home.html](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/juri/home.html)

the votes on "copyright in the digital single market" (pdf) : [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/149721/juri- committee-...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/149721/juri-committee- result-roll-call-votes-20062018.pdf)

<comment><USER20> which is why it's so important to act now, make sure that your representative(s) cast the right vote come july!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I thought the USA would, but Net Neutrality was fortunately repealed.

</comment><comment><USER13> Seeing the number of people using the phrase "link tax" in here is fucking baffling. This is a propaganda phrase that doesn't reflect what the law actually says.

If you think the law establishes a link tax you should be able to link to the article that does so.</comment>


Show HN: Element Capture, a Chrome extension to screen capture any HTML element - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tlrobinson/element-capture

<comment><USER2> Very very awesome! I love it. I will try to crossdomain post canvas.dataurl to a remote server... Hope with no browser restrictions! :) Thank you for sharing. You Rock!</comment>


Ask HN: What's the difference between a cofounder and an employee? - <AUTHOR>

I'm more specifically referring to Asseta's post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7468549), which is seeking a technical cofounder even though they have already raised a seed round, validated the idea, and built a team of 6. <comment><USER2> It's completely arbitrary. But giving the title of cofounder might make them feel more invested in the company. It'll be their "baby" as well.

<comment><USER3> Second on: completely arbitrary.

If someone shows up in early days before a company has product market fit and is one of the people that truly shapes the business, call them whatever you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought it was an odd choice of word too. They are looking for a CTO and they are willing to give a lot of equity, because they are still early stage. But I wouldn't call my self co-founder in that role.

</comment><comment><USER5> Most employee's don't get to set benchmarks , nor do they get >5% equity in a already profitable startup.

</comment><comment><USER6> My distinction: you're a cofounder if you worked at any point in time for nothing but equity.

<comment><USER7> I think this is the best description, but with a qualification. No mater when you joined the company, if you took no salary and got 'significant' equity, then you _could_ be called a co-founder, especially you helped the company get off the ground or make a significant pivot - like Elon Musk for Tesla.

I know folks who are on Founder Board of Advisors. They work/provide guidance for sub-1% equity and no salary. They would never be called 'co-founders'</comment></comment>


NY judge denies Apple Inc. request in e-books case - Suraj-Sun http://news.yahoo.com/ny-judge-denies-apple-inc-request-e-books-195246936.html

<comment><AUTHOR> From the article: 'The judge said she wasn't ready to rule on the government's suggested remedies to eliminate antitrust behavior. She seemed dismayed as she noted that the publishers and Apple seemed to express together their opposition to some government recommendations, "reflecting a seriously continuing danger of collusion."'

I do not blame her, Apple along with others are behaving more and more petulant as not many are putting up resistance. I would love a good hard look at how market favors are given to firms like Apple for 'work' rendered back to the US federal government.

Didn't some hardware sales block recently get overruled by Commander in Chief Barack H. Obama, 44th President of the United States? Interesting reasoning used, if I recall.</comment>