Rtty – Access a device's terminal from anywhere via the web - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/zhaojh329/rtty <comment><USER2> > Access your device's terminal from anywhere via the web

Nah, nice try, but I'm good with ssh, key based authentication and few white- listed IPs.

<comment><USER3> It'd be nice if you could just outbound ssh from anywhere that has a browser, but sadly this isn't the case.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean by that?

<comment><USER5> As an an example, at my work you cannot make any outbound ssh connection. The only way to get one is to apply for a specific connection , where you have to explain why you need an outbound connection, in which case they open a port for you and the remote machine you specified.

<comment><USER6> if it's just filtering of certain ports, you can just set your ssh port to 80 or 443

<comment><USER7> At my last job we used corkscrew ([https://github.com/bryanpkc/corkscrew](https://github.com/bryanpkc/corkscrew)) to tunnel ssh through HTTP proxies without needing the ssh server to use another port.

I guess if that work depends on how the proxy is set up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As much as I get, "make it simple for users" and "you can always read the script being downloaded", seeing a wget piped to sudo makes me think nothing in this world will ever be secure :(

<comment><USER9> Even if it's not piped to sudo, how many people have their personal files and documents (ie. the stuff that can't just be re-downloaded) owned by a user other than the one they log in as?

Desktop permissions are based on protecting a user's data from other users, not from anything that they themselves are running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What could go wrong?

<comment><USER11> Haven't checked the code. Any obvious security flaws? Or is it the fact that it's not peer tested and proven?

<comment><USER12> The intended use of this is "maintaining" internet of things devices.

So it's not really meant to be a secure system, think of it as a botnet CnC and this makes a lot more sense.

It's why the system is supposed to be run on OpenWRT (which most cheap IOT things are based on), it why there's not hostnames, it's why it supports hundreds or thousands of devices.

<comment><USER13> > The intended use of this is "maintaining" internet of things devices.

> So it's not really meant to be a secure system, think of it as a botnet CnC > and this makes a lot more sense.

Is there anything to back this up? While the mtls initialization looks less than ideal and there's downright stupid stuff in the README like credentials in URI parameters, this doesn't look any different than the other web terminal gateways we've seen on HN over the last few weeks.

> which most cheap IOT things are based on

Most cheap IoT devices I'm aware of aren't remotely capable of running OpenWRT, do you happen to have examples for this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yeah, I wouldn't install this on any machine that I own or use.

</comment><comment><USER15> I use Butterfly ([https://github.com/paradoxxxzero/butterfly](https://github.com/paradoxxxzero/butterfly)) with ssl client certificates for auth.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm using ttyd ([https://github.com/tsl0922/ttyd](https://github.com/tsl0922/ttyd)) behind an nginx reverse proxy with client certificates. This gives me access from locations where ports other than https are blocked.

<comment><USER17> This kind of tools is basically always less safe than straight SSH. This one specifically, by-passed the authenticator of your OS.

Yes, you can run `login` instead of a shell, but doing so require the tool to be executed as root, still sound bad.

I'd recommend to use a proxy that supports converting socket to Websocket(wss) and back, then you can by-pass the blockage from there. And since it's a proxy, it should not decrypt the SSH traffic.

<comment><USER16> That is an interesting idea do you know of any tool that can do the websocket to socket translation in combination with an xterm.js webpage?

<comment><USER17> Not with a webpage. But there are many two-part proxies supports Websocket or even HTTP as their back-end transport protocol.

The idea is basically:

Your SSH client <\---SSH-Traffic---> Proxy front-end <\----Websocket----> Proxy back-end <\---SSH-Traffic---> Target SSH server

You can deploy the "Proxy front-end" inside the restricted network, and the "Proxy back-end" out side the network. After that, all you need to do it to config your SSH client to go through that proxy front-end.

There are many proxy software is capable of doing that, the GitHub keyword I believe is "socks5 websocket".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I used wetty for this: node server, but like this uses xterm.js client [https://github.com/butlerx/wetty](https://github.com/butlerx/wetty)

Though only locally, not connected to the internet. Maybe I'm paranoid, since I use so much other software without auditing, but somehow I feel especially vulnerable to web terminals, aside from anyone being able to login, and public keys not being convenient on the web.

Also, the readme.md for rtty here suggests running as root.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why not just use SSH?

<comment><USER20> Because SSH might be blocked, and not only trough port 22 blocking but firewalls sniffing traffic and blocking on OpenSSH in the connection (eg. SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_8.1).

<comment><USER21> Then this stuff would also be blocked for the exact same reason. And if it isn't, you will probably be fired for knowingly and willfully circumventing security measures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Odd that the client is written in C, but the server in go. I'm curious as to why the author chose to do that (along with the artisan buffer implementation).

<comment><USER23> Go easily compiles to a distributable static binary, no fiddling with musl toolchains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This might be useful as a backdoor around networks with strict rules that block SSH access, until the network admins detect and block this as well. People got fired for installing tools like this, think twice before trying with your company's servers.

<comment><USER25> Don't install remote access tools on company servers!

Anyway you could just as easily run SSH over another port, rather than using this. Unless your company is using deep packet inspection to recognise SSH traffic, but then it'd be weird to accept HTTPS traffic from a device that isn't supposed to have any.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm using a patched version of wetty ([https://github.com/esantoro/wetty](https://github.com/esantoro/wetty)), a web-based ssh terminal.

The patches add the possibility of specifying a different target host, whereas the original wetty only allowed connecting to the host currently executing wetty.

I run it in a container, I've skimmed the source code and it disarmingly simple: it performs a forkpty call to spawn the ssh client binary and then the connection goes on as the forked process is forwarded raw characters.

Under the security POV is kinda okay as everything is tunneled via TLS and the endpoint is (at least in my installation) not advertised very much. I check the server access logs from time to time and I don't see any activity besides my accesses.

In general a web based terminal is very handy, I wouldn't dismiss such a technology so quickly and superficially.

</comment><comment><USER27> This thread is interesting, I'll be looking for other suggestions in the comments. I'm currently using the free option of remote.it to connect to a raspberry pi behind a router, though I always have to go through the step of obtaining the connection url and random port before using something like putty.

<comment><USER28> [https://sshreach.me](https://sshreach.me) (disclaimer: I am the author)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I use Guacamole to achieve the same results. The Guacamole service runs on Docker on my home 'server' with Nginx in front of it giving me SSH access through the web browser to my home machines and any other SSH services that I configure.

</comment><comment><USER30> I read the headline and imagined that someone had built a device you can leave plugged into a serial port and access remotely.

I'm old.

</comment><comment><USER31> looooks fishy

</comment><comment><USER32> Worst idea ever.

</comment><comment><USER33> Just use an onion service.</comment>


Ask HN: How much money does your iOS app make? - <AUTHOR>

Just came across to a post by the developer of River Of News, Dylan Ginsburg, disclosed the amount he earned so far (http://blog.riverofnewsapp.com/2010/10/how-much-money-can-you-make-on-app.html). I couldn't agree any more when he says "I don't know why this should be such a secret. I'm going to tell you how much money I make."
So if you are an iOS developer like Dylan that wants to reveal your figures to our curious HNer, feel free to share below.
It's okay if you simply want to share the approximation or you don't want to disclose your app name. We all respect that. <comment><USER2> My app started out slow but has been pretty successful through word of mouth. I've done no advertising or marketing as this started out as a class project.

In the 5 months since my app was released (this is cumulative for all versions of the app both paid and free):

June: 500

July: 2K

August: 16K

September: 23K

October: 11K (so far)

My app is FantasyMonster (<http://www.fantasymonsterapp.com>)

I have similar thoughts as the author of the blog post. Doing your own thing is way better than working for a corporation. I plan on quitting in a few months and traveling the world with my wife while working on more apps.

</comment><comment><USER3> I make over $1000 a month, but less than $5000 a month (on an average month, not including months with updates) from my two main iPhone apps: Color Stream (<http://colorstreamapp.com/>) and Dayta (<http://daytaapp.com>).

<comment><USER4> Thanks for being open and sharing this. I agree with the author of this article that more openness with regards to sales people are getting as iOS developers is only a good thing. If people had more open discussions about this sort of thing, perhaps it will quell some fears newcomers may have before joining the Apple dev program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have free and paid versions of iDealyzer on iOS and Android. Each month the income is roughly a 50/50 split between app sales and affiliate commission (people buy stuff from my app). January(not the first month) income was $150 September was $1,000.

</comment><comment><USER6> To quickly help others who may be curious but don't want to copy/paste the link:

Dylan Ginsburg has pulled in just under $21,000 USD profit between 8/19-10/13, 2010.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very good article.

Can you possibly edit your submission and at the article link to it? That way people can click right through to what you're linking.

<comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: [http://blog.riverofnewsapp.com/2010/10/how-much-money-can- yo...](http://blog.riverofnewsapp.com/2010/10/how-much-money-can-you-make-on- app.html)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What will happen when everybody uses an ad blocker? - <AUTHOR> As experts on technology, business and startups, I'm very curious what wil happen (technology AND business wise) if the pentration of ad blockers is 100%. <comment><USER2> 1) An arms race of ad-detection tech vs ad-hiding tech;

2) A segregation of sites in those who are okay at being free&ad-free (personal blogs, hobbyists, shops, corporate sites) vs paid-content sites. Possibly site owners will have a big need for functioning micropayments.

3) Migration of ad budget from banners&impressions towards sponsorships, paid placements and "advertorial" content/biased articles.

<comment><USER3> Your list is all of these but not in a specific order I believe. I see it as more like bullet points that will happen. Is that correct interpretation?

Id like to ad 4. search engines has to change, there will be room in that market to specialize in searching the ad-free sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We will see the explosion of native and more tightly integrated ad formats that are harder to block. Example: Job posts on HN.

</comment><comment><USER5> Research has shown that the problem is becoming an epidemic, with publishers losing an average of over 20% ad revenue due to ad blocking software. Tech and Gaming websites, along with other sites with a more tech savvy audience, are hit the hardest, with block rates sometimes over 50%.

With the current online advertising model, ad blocking will force publishers to take drastic measures that we as users do not want. We can shut down the ads, but the content will still have to be funded. We as users will still have to pay to view that content. Only in the future, instead of paying passively (by viewing ads), we will pay actively, being forced to deal with things like paywalls, freemium models, and subscriptions.

You can view our brand new report on adblocking here- [http://blog.pagefair.com/2013/the-rise-of- adblocking/](http://blog.pagefair.com/2013/the-rise-of-adblocking/)

<comment><USER6> I as a consumer prefer to pay for my content, the primary issues I have with ads.

      - A violation of privacy
      - Content creators' incentives are not for me the consumer.  Important in editorial contexts
      - An impairment of my computer systems, between another attack surface to being resource intensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That ads will be directly served from the same server where the content resides, and thus be indistinguishable from content?

<comment><USER8> If it can be identified by any mechanical means, including by element xpath, by id, by class, by CSS properties, by the fact it got inserted after document load, by OCR of the image... then it can be ad blocked. A "sufficiently smart" adblock could be as good at spotting ads as a human.

<comment><USER7> How many false positives do you think users would tolerate with such smart algorithms?

<comment><USER9> There are a fair number of sites that simply don't work properly with adblock on. I load the page and I get a big grey blankness. I just shrug and move on - there's plenty more where whatever it was came from. It's well worth not having to look at ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 1\. Won't happen at 100% penetration. Horses are still ridden. Some people still use quills. People without adblockers become more valuable.

2\. Personal, targeted advertising rather than mass advertising. [Only you can see this: Why not try a holiday in Greece next year - it's cheap and the beaches are great, fantastic culture and the people are pretty easy on the eye.]

3\. It will be as good as a cold coke on a hot day when adverts are in-place in content. Heck, you'll be paid by advertisers for including product references.

4\. People will pay for some things that they don't pay for now.

5\. There will be an increase in sponsored material. [This reply brought to you by Drupal. The finest CMS you will ever use.]

6\. People will be paid to not have adblockers switched on. [Thanks for reading. Now click here for your $1 - news.ycombinator.com.]

Things change. Nobody expects economies to be static any more, do they? People will invent new ways or re-invent old ways.

Edit: Meh. Bad formatting. And added more ads.

</comment><comment><USER11> Websites start to prevent it.

When I used to run a website only financed with ads, I managed to make non- blockable advertisements with some PHP scripting. I think I included the picture on my server, named it something like a book.png and setup a bit.ly redirect with PHP. It all worked even with ad-blocks on. Not sure though have adblocks advanced a lot since then.

<comment><USER12> It's really easy to thwart ad-blocking at the micro level, as you've found. Third-party ad networks have to be much more predictable, which makes them a lot easier to block.

In some ways, it's the same as with comment spam: if you have a common interface or you're a large enough target, people will write code against you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> We'll actually get to be the customers and pay for the things that interest us instead of being the product.

I think this would be a huge improvement, personally.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting question. I really don't know the answer

In real life, many of the people who are inclined to use an ad blocker are not the sort to click on ads anyway and are not providing advertisers with any significant revenue to lose. In fact it may save them a small amount by reducing server and bandwidth load.

I suspect that you would never see adblockers used everywhere as it simply isn't the case that everybody minds ads

However I'm still curious what people think would happen if the advertising giants had to dump advertising

<comment><USER15> > In real life, many of the people who are inclined to use an ad blocker are > not the sort to click on ads anyway and are not providing advertisers with > any significant revenue to lose.

This. I recently had an opportunity to chat with the CEO of a well-known blogging platform company and his attitude was that, first, the number of people who actually use ad blockers is much smaller than you'd think, and second, for the type of person who uses an ad blocker, you're not doing yourself any good by doggedly trying to put ads in front of them. If getting people to look at your site is one of your core goals, the fact that some of those people aren't necessarily going to benefit you directly via ad revenue is just a given. They can still benefit you indirectly by helping your site's popularity: enjoying it, linking to it, sharing from it, etc. In effect, "don't worry about it."

I don't think we'll ever get anywhere near 100% ad-blockers. I've never bothered with one and I'm perfectly happy with it. It's a somewhat self- limiting problem because I just end up avoiding sites whose ads are too obnoxious, so it's in the advertisers' best interest to reel it in to the point of tolerability. I suspect a lot of people are like me in that the ads are not enough of an annoyance to want to do anything about them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> People who create AdBlock software will sell out and strike deals with major advertisers to let certain ads through.

<comment><USER5> They've already started. Google has made a deal to regain some of the $887 million they lost last year alone due to adblocking.

You can read all about it here- [http://blog.pagefair.com/2013/acceptable-ads- soothe-google-p...](http://blog.pagefair.com/2013/acceptable-ads-soothe- google-pain/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well, there are some people, like myself, who are interested in seeing ads. The reasons vary. For example, im on the lookout for an upgrade to a vps. Im getting lots of targeted ads with offers and specs. I consider that a good thing. I also like to know when my friend's startups are advertising and how they are doing it. Not everyone dislikes ads enough to go through the technicalities of installing an ad blocker.

</comment><comment><USER18> Technology-wise, an arms race. We have been in this situation before with pop- up blockers: instead of recognizing that users _do not want pop-up ads_ , the advertising industry worked hard to find ways to circumvent pop-up blocking. Nothing has changed since then, and in fact, ad blocking continues to be an arms race as advertisers find increasingly intrusive ways to display their ads.

</comment><comment><USER19> Well, I doubt if anything really spectacular will happen. Content owners will get their developers to whip up scripts that prevent users with adblock from accessing the content.

I visited a small forum via a google search where I was redirected to a page "encouraging" me to disable adblock since the site runs on ad revenue. Of course, I abandoned the site.

There is already a wordpress plugin to detect adblockers [1]

Now, once sites start implementing these measures adblock developers will develop their product to circumvent these scripts. Content developers will update their script to break these new tools, adblock developers will update their tools to again circumvent the new script and the cycle continues.

Don't even think of paid for/subscription models because a large percentage of these sites _know_ their content are _not worth_ paying for so won't even bother considering it. They simply want eyeballs to attract advertisers.

[1][http://wordpress.org/plugins/no-adblock/](http://wordpress.org/plugins/no- adblock/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Subscription Models Could Emerge.

There are already tens of millions of folks using ad blocking.

Anti-ad-blocking technology is not difficult to implement. OKCupid had nice messages asking for donations to adblock users. Reddit thanks users for not blocking ads.

I think that if adblocking grows, a system will come up where users pay a monthly fee to not see ads on content sites & that fee is distributed among the sites. Something like flattr I think is doing something like this.

I think this model could be implemented today if you could get several big media/net companies behind the effort.

The current state where Google pays AdBlock a whole bunch of money to unblock their ads isn't really cool - I think this subscription model would be a win for publishers, win for adblock (revenues), win for users (at least in developed countries, making payments is relatively easy/we're used to it & most want to support content/music/filmmakers,etc.!)

[Disclosure: I am the founder of the Epic Privacy Browser which blocks ads because they almost always involve trackers/tracking]

<comment><USER21> > I think that if adblocking grows, a system will come up where users pay a > monthly fee to not see ads on content sites & that fee is distributed among > the sites.

But that's a kind of ransom, and once established, the payments could only become larger. It would be like a government demanding tribute with no benefit to the payer, just so they won't invent a reason to throw you in jail. Oh, wait, that's already true. :)

Seriously though, if a pay-the-advertisers scheme were to be considered, wouldn't it make more sense to pay individual websites a subscription fee directly? That would be more efficient, and by being focused on specific sites it would improve the relation between quality content and income.

Obviously if a website had reliable subscribers, they could do away with the advertising. So could television and radio. I don't fully understand why this isn't the model, but I suspect it has something to do with people thinking they're getting something for nothing. But if we've learned anything from nature, it's that you only get nothing for nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I used to wonder this, but eventually I figured out that most of the major browsers are controlled by players who profit from the ad tech ecosystem, and will ensure that ad blocking is always an opt-in option. A large majority will always use default settings.

</comment><comment><USER23> The same thing that happened when TiVo let you skip TV commercials.

If you're on ThePirateBay or are looking up song lyrics all the time you have good reason to use adblocker, but most ads sent intrusive enough for the average person to care about. Therefore there is no need for a tech arms race.

Popups were extremely annoying and came with malware that was on almost everybody's computers. But I highly doubt Adblock will ever reach anywhere near that level of saturation.

<comment><USER24> My wife had her work computer infected with malware by an ad that was served on the main page of one of the biggest news oultets in Germany. That single instance reportedly caused thousands of infections. Since then I unconditionally recommend adblocking.

Also, if you are browsing the russian part of the internet, you should block everything you can (ads, js, flash).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Other than the ad networks, who's surviving and growing their business off of ads, really? Like, who's in the business of ad clicks and the business of content? TechCrunch, et al. So, handshake coverage deals, just like now. Samsung is willing to pay a lot more for your site to proclaim its love of Samsung's new device than it is for some annoying little 150x150 ad, no matter how many times you show it.

</comment><comment><USER26> It flashed over my screen for a millisecond.

huh? what's that? a pop-under? did I turn ad-block off again?

2 days after their "publicity" campaign launched, things like...

"we have detected you using an ad-blocking service. Your wait time before this video plays has been increased"

...started to show up on various websites.

If "ad-blockers" become widely used, they will stop working effectively because the advertisers will have to make sure their ads are "seen".

<comment><USER5> Ad blocking has already become widely used. Adblock Plus, the most popular ad block extension, reports over 150k downloads per day. Adblock (not affiliated with ABP) also reports over 20 million users. Adblocking in general is growing over 43% per year.

We aim to educate the internet about adblocking. You can read more here- [http://blog.pagefair.com](http://blog.pagefair.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> FYI: vanilla safari on iOS does not allow for ad blockers, and I wouldn't be surprised to see future devices prohibit them as well

</comment><comment><USER28> I think the use of adblockers has plateaued. In my experience, most people just don't mind ads that much. For example, if someone else installs an adblocker, they'll leave it on. But if they get a new computer, for example, they won't bother to go and install it themselves.

</comment><comment><USER29> I suspect everyone on hacker news works too closely with websites to make predictions without the myopia that comes from being an "expert". I'd rather ask an advertiser what they would do if users blocked ads. And even that will predict little.

</comment><comment><USER30> The content on the web could gradually begin to resemble an ad in and of itself. We're seeing this to an extent now in other forms of media, with the growth of (increasingly shameless) product placements, promotions, etc in movies and TV.

</comment><comment><USER31> What will happen when everybody uses an Ad Blocker? I can think of two positives;

The Advertising Industry will finally wise up and realize that the consumers do not like having Ad's forced upon them interrupting their content. This will cause the Advertising Industry to Innovate (which is sorely needed, and good for business)

Online based Businesses will realize that Advertising is no longer an effective Business Model, which will lead them to charge for their content and/or services. Over time this will eliminate the concept of Freemium and reinforce the concept of paying for stuff (which is sorely needed, and good for business)

</comment><comment> martin-adams The other scenario is that the whole freemium model may disappear and you end up with more paid for/subscription models for a lot of sites.

</comment><comment><USER32> I would imagine they'd move to some sort of out-of-band method, where the servers use something akin to WebHooks (or maybe just WebHooks themselves) in order to rotate their ad stock, rather than loading the ad on-the-fly from a 3rd party site upon each visit. This would allow them to maintain an ad network while still serving the content from the same domain as the ad.

</comment><comment><USER33> The web will simply stop being an effective advertising medium. No big deal. There are plenty of others.

</comment><comment><USER34> I wish I could just directly pay the equivalent amount of my ad views to the content provider.

</comment><comment><USER35> Publishers will figure out how to make ads that bypass ad blockers (i.e. "native".)

</comment><comment><USER36> The content (and ad) provider will provide a page of advertisement first, then count to ten, then release the content. User can choose to watch the ad, or (with ad blocking technology) a blank screen for ten seconds.

This is already being done with videos.

</comment><comment><USER37> When I listen to ESPN radio on the internet I have to do it in an incognito browser for it to work properly. The adblock program stops the site from running correctly, or the site is correctly not running.

<comment><USER27> Ghostery recognizes BrightCove as a tracker, but services like amctv.com use it for video streaming. A similar thing might be happening there

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Publishers will start blocking users that use ad blocking software. Those users will be shown a message telling them they can't see the content until they turn off their ad blocker.

</comment><comment><USER39> I see new ad/paywall hybrids springing up, whereby adblock users are detected and presented with a paywall / donation / nag screen and regular users are shown display ads.

</comment><comment><USER40> 1) I think that is highly unlikely. 2) Ever look in your spam folder? Its full of questionable emails from non reputable vendors, trying to outsmart the spam filters.

</comment><comment><USER41> There is already an arms race between ad blocker and ad producer technologies...

</comment><comment><USER42> The ad blockers start selling ads.

</comment><comment><USER43> Actually, the main reason I block ads is not because I can't stand ads, but because I don't want to be tracked and traced around the web, and also it turns out that as most of this ad-systems are based on extensive javascript and flash, blocking them makes most news sites load so much faster.

There's a very easy way to solve this problem for websites, and that is to host the ads from the main site. That would make it harder to track you across the web, but also harder for you to block content without braking the functionality of the page.

This in combination with how ad networks like The Deck works, with beautiful exclusive ads per page is the way to go.

<comment><USER44> "There's a very easy way to solve this problem for websites, and that is to host the ads from the main site."

It's not that simple. Almost all display ads are served through 3rd party ad servers like Doubleclick, Zedo, etc. because advertisers want the ability to:

\- Control and change what ads they are serving without contacting hundreds or thousands of different site owners and coordinating mass creative changes. This is why ad networks exist. This includes controlling which creative gets served and optimizing for serving the best creative (ad + copy) when they figure things out.

\- Account for frequency and reach correctly. By having a 3rd party serve your ads, you have insight across the web by "user" so you can cap the frequency. I don't want to hit you with 100 impressions per day so having global knowledge of how many times you've seen the ad helps eliminate waste.

\- Account for impression based conversions / goals. You can correlate goal conversions on your own site with impressions and clicks so you can see if people who saw your ads but did not click behave differently than people who did click. This also gives you the ability to do multi-channel attribution so you can detect if impressions impact your SEM campaigns or do they increase direct-type-in traffic to your site, etc.

<comment><USER45> What about if a subdomain of the real website was pointed at the ad network, e.g. adverts on this site would be served from doubleclick.ycombinator.com

Every website would serve from a different domain, which prevents (? helps prevent?) tracking, but advertisers like myself can still run it through our own network and see valid stats.

<comment><USER46> Easy to block. Needs to serve all other non-html static files too, to be uneasy to block at mass.

<comment><USER45> The idea would be to allow adverts while still blocking tracking - sure it would still be possible to block them, but less people would want to block them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Learning from Human Preferences - <AUTHOR> https://blog.openai.com/deep-reinforcement-learning-from-human-preferences/ <comment><USER2> Lying as an emergent phenomenon:

> Our algorithm's performance is only as good as the human evaluator's > intuition about what behaviors _look_ correct, so if the human doesn't have > a good grasp of the task they may not offer as much helpful feedback. > Relatedly, in some domains our system can result in agents adopting policies > that trick the evaluators. For example, a robot which was supposed to grasp > items instead positioned its manipulator in between the camera and the > object so that it only _appeared_ to be grasping it, as shown below.

<comment><USER3> I think there is a case to be made that it's a feature, not a bug. Humans have so much baggage we carry into everything we do. Is there any difference between a person who has memorized multiplication tables vs a human well trained in using a calculator? In most situations there is not, though we seem to personally value the memorization method despite the increased cost. The principle scales.

What you've pointed out is a wonderful demonstration of our need to improve measurement and testing, which humans are typically horrible at. For a good example, just look at government under any party. Policies are continually argued over when that time would be better spent developing a good test and solid measurements for policies and laws.

<comment><USER4> > developing a good test and solid measurements for policies and laws

Most regulations are closed-loop in that sense. They create the way to measure their effectiveness and be reevaluated accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Super exciting seeing on-par performance of RL tasks with dramatically less supervision.

Really looking forward to a follow-up where they explore 2.2.4 further. Sampling examples which provide maximal information game seems like it could result in another huge reduction in the amount of human oversight necessary. Could see an adversarial scheme which could learn to sample these examples optimally from the manifold. This kind of thing is powerful in human learning of complex tasks to ask for clarification or feedback in specific places of uncertainty.

</comment><comment><USER6> Its doing a frontflip not a backflip but I guess thats secondary to how efficient this kind of human-AI collaboration might turn out to be. Similar in vein to the human-AI "centaur" chess teams.

<comment><USER7> Extending the concept of 'front' and 'back' to a vertical pile of hotdogs is a separate, but relevant, problem.

<comment><USER6> Good point. I guess i just anthropomorphized the pile of hotdogs the wrong(mirrored) way compared to the researchers.</comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Tech Companies Sidestep a Ban, to Keep Selling to Huawei - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/technology/huawei-trump-ban-technology.html <comment><USER2> > Some officials feel that the sales violate the spirit of the law and > undermine government efforts to pressure Huawei, while others are more > supportive because it lightens the blow of the ban for American > corporations.

It clearly does violate the spirit of the law and undermines government efforts, potential jeopardizing US national security. However, any corporations that legally circumvent this ban will have a competitive advantage, leading other corporations to follow.

<comment><USER3> This is all about the trade war. The espionage pretext is just that: a pretext. US wants to keep everybody hostage to its military, its technology and its economy.

This is not something new. The only change is that now the US admin uses a kind of zero tolerance policy and I believe it will fire back.

The free trade is replaced by America First trade: we have the biggest military power and economy so you do it our way or you deal with the consequences.

Personally I believe the policy reflects Trump's personality.

<comment><USER4> While I agree with you, I would also like to point out that to protect our economy President George W Bush's administration came up with the 'axis of evil' to economically fight three oil producing countries who had announced willingness to trade oil for currencies other than the US dollar. I think this is close to the same thing, really. Using our military might and pressure on allies to maintain an advantage.

I personally believe that we must spend less on our military and more on education, new technologies, more efficient industrial systems, have firm but fair laws governing corporations. Capitalism can work long term if we have laws that are guardrails on what corporations can do and fight hard to be competitive with other countries on merits, not coercion.

<comment><USER5> North Korea produces oil? Iran and Iraq, I totally agree, but DPKR is a snub to China.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From a google search, this is the first hit.

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/17/18264283/huawei- security-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/17/18264283/huawei-security- threat-experts-china-spying-5g)

Some quotes

"This may help to explain why Western governments broadly agree that Huawei poses security risks,..." Note the word "risks". A risk is something that may or may not happen.

Quote of CEO of OpenVPN

"The US is right to treat Huawei as a security threat, but I don't believe any ban on any equipment is the right solution. No matter what equipment we use for 5G, there will be security risks." Again the word is "risks".

</comment><comment><USER7> Honestly the US gov is playing with fire here. This sort of behavior will only lead to global corporations avoiding doing important business in the US. This is clearly a step in that direction.

<comment><USER8> That's a desired effect for the decision makers. They want to have selfsustained economy. They were pretty explicit that they want to have production back, I assume they didn't mean it for export.

Also it's easier to control local companies because you have a jurisdiction over them. Look at europe, they don't have any major high tech companies, so they can only choose which threats and risks they want to deal with us or chinese. Can't avoid it, unless they drop particular tech at all.

<comment><USER9> Ericsson and Nokia

<comment><USER10> Also Philips

<comment><USER9> Yip, also off the top of my head: Siemens, BASF, Bosch, Aibus, Leonardo, ARM, Bayer, Sanofi, Saab, ABB, Schneider, BAE, DSM, Infineon, ASML, Thales, Alenia, Aixtron.

You have to wonder where some HN posters get educated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the 2nd hit from a google search

[https://www.tomsguide.com/us/us-huawei-ban-op- ed,news-30132....](https://www.tomsguide.com/us/us-huawei-ban-op- ed,news-30132.html)

"There seems to be something different about Huawei that makes the U.S. government regard the company as a global threat, but government officials need to explain why. Otherwise, without proof, the American government will be able to just ban any company it wants."

<comment><USER11> It's because Huawei is poised to take over the 5G market ahead of Qualcomm and Ericsson and refuses to give back doors to the NSA or any other US intelligence agency. It's presumed that Huawei will give access to China only.

That's what this is all about.

<comment><USER6> Oh, absolutely. That's precisely why US is so upset!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there any actual evidence that says that Huawei is selling nefarious (in terms of providing a hidden backdoor to a third-party which the buyer is unaware of) devices? Is there a continued pattern of them doing so?

<comment> T-A How do you prove that a vulnerability is intentional? It could just be bad engineering. Lots of it:

[https://www.channelnews.com.au/huawei-more-vulnerable-to- sec...](https://www.channelnews.com.au/huawei-more-vulnerable-to-security- risks-than-rivals-according-to-report/)

[https://www.crn.com/news/security/british-watchdog-finds- ser...](https://www.crn.com/news/security/british-watchdog-finds-serious- huawei-security-vulnerabilities)

[https://fortiguard.com/zeroday/FG- VD-18-017](https://fortiguard.com/zeroday/FG-VD-18-017)

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/03/nsa- inspired_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/03/nsa- inspired_vu.html)

[https://www.huawei.com/en/psirt/security- advisories/huawei-s...](https://www.huawei.com/en/psirt/security- advisories/huawei-sa-20190517-01-share-en)

[https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability- list/vendor_id-5979...](https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability- list/vendor_id-5979/Huawei.html)

<comment><USER13> There's evidence strongly suggesting that - for example - Juniper Network's use of the NSA's backdoorable Dual EC random number generator in their VPN hardware is an intentional US backdoor. Not only is Dual EC slower, more complex, less random, and worse in every possible way except for the fact that it allows for a backdoor that can only be accessed by the person who has the matching private key to its public key, they also introduced a bunch of other changes at the same time across several levels of their software stack to make this exploitable in practice: [https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/376.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/376.pdf)

On top of that, when an attacker broke into Juniper's systems and replaced that public key with their own, they simply changed it back without fixing the "bug" introduced at the same time as Dual EC which meant the countermeasures that they'd claimed prevented this attack never actually ran. (They moved the index variable of their existing PRNG function, which was meant to post- process the Dual EC output, from a local to a global, overwrote it in the Dual EC code so the other PRNG never ran, used the same output buffer for both, and added a hidden on-by-default setting which ran the Dual EC code on every PRNG call. The whole thing stunk.)

I don't think anyone has found anything even remotely comparable to this smoking gun in Huawei's hardware and software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The ban will only come into force mid-August for current product. ([https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/05/21/us-delay-to-huawei- ban-...](https://www.snopes.com/ap/2019/05/21/us-delay-to-huawei-ban-gives- tech-sector-time-to-adjust/))

At the beginning of the article they state: "It's not clear what percentage of the current sales were for future products.", so 0% can be a valid answer.

Frankly US press is really in a bad shape if even NYT is just a clickbait agency.

</comment><comment><USER15> How is Amazon selling Huawei products? [https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/34F6034C-1D34-4913-9648-3...](https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/34F6034C-1D34-4913-9648-3DBD220C1648)

<comment><USER16> I don't know what you think has been banned?

There is a ban on the sale of American technology to Huawei.

There is not a ban on selling Huawei technology to Americans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if the DoJ investigations against Google and Facebook will now become leverage against them in this context.

<comment><USER18> The discussion in the article is mostly around Micron and Intel and their selling of Semiconductors to Huawei.

Even then though the title is contradicted somewhat by the article...

`American companies may sell technology supporting current Huawei products until mid-August.`

They're not so much side-stepping the ban as they are continuing normal sales after confirming they are allowed to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really hope this sets enough of a precedent / whatever is required so that Canada can not be stuck in the middle of dealing with the Huawei / Iran controversy.

<comment><USER20> I always wondered that if everyone broke sanctions then sanctions lose their utility. This includes US financial sanctions, only problematic if most financial entities obey. If most don't then the US would be sanctioning itself.

<comment><USER21> The US still follows a might is right approach ignoring transnational rules and regulations, breaking their sanctions is extremely dangerous for other countries let alone companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Idiotic tariffs and bans, trade will always find a way. Just ask drug dealers.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is article from techcrunch, a fairly reputable SV publication.

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/26/is-huawei-a-national- secur...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/26/is-huawei-a-national-security- threat/)

Title : Without proof, is Huawei still a national security threat?

The title gives it away : there is no proof of this allegation.

</comment><comment><USER23> Looks like a win-win to me. POTUS will continue to claim at his rallies that he's crushing Huawei, while US corps exercise simple loopholes to continue doing business as usual.

</comment><comment><USER24> USG issued an arrest warrant for Huawei CFO alleging sanctions violation. It is only fair to issue arrest warrants for Intel and Micron executives based on the same charges now.

<comment><USER25> Where does it say that what they did was illegal? The article talks about them breaking "the spirit of the law", which suggests that the didn't break the letter of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Words are cheap. We will see how many patriotic people will gray import Chinese products to avoid the Trump tax.</comment>


Anyone developing for the iPhone?  Any suggestions on learning? - <AUTHOR>

I just got accepted to the developer program.<p>I'm pretty fluent with C, but I've never worked with Cocoa/Obj C, and was wondering if anyone here had suggestions on good ways to come up to speed. <comment><USER2> There is loads of information on the official SDK webpage. Did you have a look at that first?

<http://developer.apple.com/iphone/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, but I'm interested in other resources as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> this site has nice stuff <http://trailsinthesand.com/> or the apple sample code</comment>


Stream of Foreign Wealth Flows to Elite New York Real Estate - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/nyregion/stream-of-foreign-wealth-flows-to-time-warner-condos.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> Never sure what people are trying to imply when folks buy real estate via an LLC but this is the key quote: _" What is more, ownership of shell companies can be shifted at any time, with no indication in property records."_

Selling property is a cumbersome and difficult process, selling an LLC is trivial. If you own a property as an investment then you may want to liquidate some or all of that property at a given time to cover other costs. Not really very easy to do if you have to go through a title process. Contrast that with selling someone half interest in an LLC which owns the property. That is easy to do, requires only a notary, and voila you've got cash. I'm all for having direct ownership on your primary residence but for vacation homes, or investment properties, using an LLC is just a whole lot smarter from a money management perspective.

<comment><USER3> We could have a healthier, more rational discussion here on HN if we all could be more critical of _popular_ libertarian dogma[1], and not take it as self- evident that private ownership of land is both a right and good economics[2][3].

-

[1] By "popular libertarian dogma" I refer to popular dogma that isn't necessarily supported by and may even contradict true libertarian principles.

[2] For a critique of private land ownership, read about Georgism ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism)) and Geolibertarianism ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism)). _Are you a Real Libertarian, or a ROYAL Libertarian?_ ([http://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html](http://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html)) makes the case against land as private property very plain.

[3] If you believe in the free market and it's ability to find the "right" price for everything, even the abstract (e.g. the time value of money), then how can you support a government enforced system that allows a finite amount of money to purchase an infinite amount of something, which is what ownership of land in perpetuity amounts to? How can $10,000 or even $10,000,000 be the price of full rights over a plot of land for an infinite amount of time?

<comment><USER2> Heh we could but then we wouldn't be talking about what we're talking about :-). As my philosophically focused friends tend to point out you can talk about anything at all, and still not have a discussion of substance.

I understand the debate about property ownership, but you can either choose to discuss using the system we have in place, or you can talk about the system itself. But trying to talk about both at the same time robs both points of view from the first principles they are starting from. Any argument in one system can be refuted by changing the principles in the other.

The land ownership system, currently in place in the US, may or may not be morally reprehensible and unfair, but that is not the issue to which the NY Times speaks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What really bugs me about such realty story is these expensive homes are owned but rarely used.

I was at a coastal town 1-2 hours away from Los Angeles a few years ago. Nice houses ON the beach. Bet each house was worth a million to a few million easily. What REALLY struck me was that virtually ALL the houses facing the beach seemed EMPTY. And this was over a weekend. I didn't see kids/family lounging on the deck or the beach.

These nice, big houses were all empty.

The town is too far from centers of commerce like LA to support a large population of people who would make big enough salary that can support multi- millions dollar houses. This means most of the houses are 2nd homes for families.

And I bet a family owning a million dollar beach house would also live in a everyday house that costs similar.

</comment><comment><USER5> At least NYC builds up, so they fit all of their foreign real estate money in not much space. London is in a much worse position - huge foreign demand with very little new housing supply has made anything remotely close absurdly expensive, which forces everyone to move further and further away and spend $5k+/yr commuting 1hr+ each way on trains.

<comment><USER6> Manhattan, at least, hasn't really had an increase in housing supply. The population is actually lower today than it was in the post-WW2 era (down ~20%, from just under 2 million then, to around 1.6 million today). Some of that is because of changing demographics (e.g. apartments that once held 4-person families now holding a 2-person couple), but the housing-supply constraint has been a pretty hard cap on population. There has been a lot of construction, but it's gone into mainly: 1) expanding commercial real-estate; and 2) replacing older, smaller residential units with newer, bigger ones. Redevelopment of the 2nd variety sometimes even reduces the number of housing units (but each unit is nicer).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > As nonresidents, they pay no city income taxes and often receive hefty > property tax breaks.

This strikes me as the problem. Why should these people, or for that matter any extremely wealthy homeowners, get property tax breaks?

Indeed, this article makes an excellent argument that high surtaxes should be imposed upon ultra-high-end real estate, and that the proceeds should be invested in infrastructure, public education, and/or tax breaks for the bottom 90%.

The usual counterargument against incresing tax rates at the top is that it will drive some of these taxpayers to take their business elsewhere. Seems like a win-win to me.

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://www.landvaluetax.org/what-is-lvt/](http://www.landvaluetax.org/what- is-lvt/)

</comment><comment><USER9> This has been going on for over a decade in many cities in the world. Vancouver is probably another good example of this.

</comment><comment><USER10> Allow squatting in buildings that are unoccupied for more than 6 months. That way even the super rich are required to actually have someone live in their unoccupied buldings. If they buy them and live in them then fine, but if not they need to find someone to put in them.

You can't stop people from buying property, and you probably shouldn't. However, you can force them to use it.

<comment><USER11> How do you decide who gets to squat there? Cronyism? Fist fights? Lottery?

<comment><USER10> First come first served. And if you leave your squat unattended, someone else can take it.

The point is to incentivize rich people to put someone in their building. Not to divy up unused buildings among the homeless.

There are tons of details that would have to be worked out with this idea. But luckily many european nations have been allowing squatting for decades, so there are lots of case studies, and legal examples to draw from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why does the article blithely take it for granted that we should treat investments by rich foreigners suspiciously while investments by rich Americans are no problem? The big problem in New York real estate is lack of supply — the vacancy rate in rentals hovers around 1%, and building new apartments is a nightmare. So of course, prices go up as demand keeps growing and supply is prevented from growing.

There may be some extremely marginal contribution to housing costs that you can blame on these ultra-premium buildings, but it's not the root cause, and playing whack-a-mole with these symptoms is what got the city's real estate so expensive in the first place.

Do folks think that if One57 hadn't been built, a building full of $150k studios would have gone up in its place? Because of the difficulty and cost of building, these money towers are increasingly the only thing that developers can afford to build. Build something more palatable and you'd go out of business.

The backlash to these buyers is IMO a misguided blend of economic misunderstanding and xenophobia. Something tells me that if the rich buyers were all from Colorado, people wouldn't have quite so much to say about it.

<comment><USER13> _economic misunderstanding and xenophobia. Something tells me that if the rich buyers were all from Colorado, people wouldn 't have quite so much to say about it._

It's not kind and successful foreign Tim Cooks who just want a place to live.

It's foreign criminals who are laundering money gained illegally through either graft or outright murder/exploitation into US property. Once money turns into property, it becomes "pure" and the chain of illegalness vanishes from view.

American politics has the revolving door between congress critters and lobbyists, but it's not nearly as bad as other countries. The US can't become a safe haven for all the powerful bad people in the world to hide from the consequences of their actions.

Vlad Pootie is worth over $40 billion dollars. Think he's just "a really good businessman?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's no way left to win.

All the "nice" places to live have been taken over by either corrupt foreign actors using illegal money (buying $50 million condos with literal duffel bags full of untraceable cash) or by bubbleheads cashing out funny money and living ego filled nouveau riche lifestyles.

Step in to my own pity party for a moment. Last year my apartment lease went up by $300/month. I have no reason to believe the same won't happen again this year. The employer "yearly raise" last year increased my income by $70/month. Now, it's not my employer's fault I work from home and need space to both sleep _and_ work (in a lavish 700 square foot apartment that's half a mile away from any subway entrance). Forget about trying to move up either. Larger place? An extra $1k-$2k per month. Nicer area? Extra $2k per month for a smaller apartment. Uncontrollable rage starts bleeding from my eyeballs when apartment costs get within horseshoe distance of $50k/year.

What's left? Seattle? Full of Amholes. Chicago? Too cold. San Francisco? Too poor, dirty, and it'll take them at least another 50 years to build out modern-day infrastructure (high density housing + transit). And that's only if current levels of local government corruption don't increase. There's nothing quite like arriving at SFO and being greeted by a BART car from the 1970s then riding into the city past tract house slums cluttering the hills of South San Francisco. But, in rage, I digress.

One can always just give up and move to Austin. It's okay. All the other people who failed out of life and moved to Austin seem to like it just fine.

Also see [https://medium.com/@ryanpbroderick/why-im-leaving-new- york-5...](https://medium.com/@ryanpbroderick/why-im-leaving-new- york-5629bf28e05e)

<comment><USER14> Buy some Merino wool underwear and move to Chicago. Enough rich people and old money to have many of the amenities of NYC, with fewer hipsters and much more reasonable housing prices.

<comment><USER15> I thought Chicago was hilarious - it's the only place I've lived where two people can walk in opposite directions and both still have the wind blowing directly in their faces.

<comment><USER14> My perception is that it's sunnier and brighter than NYC, even though its colder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Money laundering is considered a big crime and I agree. But sometimes these foreign money flowing into US to buy up realty often smell like a form of money laundering. Can't explain it why but just feel that way...

</comment><comment><USER16> I think people need to come to the realization that real estate purchases by super wealthy is nothing more than a ponzi scheme.

<comment><USER4> I could care less what the super rich do with their money. What bugs me is they are hoarding limited resource (housing) in an already impacted area and everyone else ends up suffering for it.

<comment><USER16> During the housing bubble (as it was about to burst) I recall reading several stories about governments pursuing fraud charges where a family (or a bunch of close friends) would purchase several houses in a neighborhood from one another, each time raising the purchase price.

I would posit that probably in most cases of "real estate investment" by super wealthy, there is little to no difference, except it is not a "family bond" that exists, but a bond of being a member of the most exclusive club on earth. In many cases my hunch is (because of the opaqueness of the market) super wealthy can, and probably do, orchestrate purchases from and to themselves (not even requiring a separate purchasing party), each time raising the prices.

I think noone could argue that this kind of behavior doesn't affect surrounding real estate prices, and thus negatively affect everyone in the surrounding areas.

<comment><USER16> I should clarify. In fact I don't think super wealthy are necessarily corrupt in this way. I do, however, believe the people they may entrust with managing their wealth are in many cases. And it's not necessarily through any fault of their own. As a wealthy person I want the people who I entrust with managing my wealth to be very successful at what they do. So I make sure I get only the best. That said, I don't care to know "how the sausage is made".

I think the only thing that really fixes this sort of thing is transparency in markets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Dirty foreign money is more of a problem in NYC real estate than most people realize. Unless we do something about it, it's only going to get worse. London is even farther gone than we are. It's ugly.

Most people see it as a non-problem because they assume that they're in a separate property market from the billionaires, and because the billionaires are such a small set of people. What they don't realize is that housing is an extremely inelastic good, so even a 1% supply destruction is going to have major effects on price-- possibly a 20, 50, or even 100 percent bump. It's not about high incomes (NYC incomes are high, but not _that_ high for average people) or some amorphous "people want to live here". It's demand inelasticity coupled with our failure to keep dirty foreign money out. And the ultra-rich and middle-income markets do interact, if not directly. There's a push-down effect. If dirty billionaires are taking apartments that should be "only" $5-10 million at 5x prices, then the working rich get pushed down into upper- middle-class housing, the upper-middle-class gets pushed into middle-class housing, and on down the line, with the working classes getting absolutely fucked and having 1+ hour commutes.

Moreover, in addition to the foreign scumbag money (which is a problem on the West Coast, just as in New York) you have a lot of gray-water foreign money: overseas speculators who aren't criminals themselves but are betting on increased scumbag-fueled demand for U.S. real estate.

<comment><USER18> In London the idea of a 'seperate property market' is totally bunk; it seems like every day a new story comes in with social housing being demolished to fill with fancy apartments. The residents then have to be rehoused somewhere. There are also tens of thousands (possibly 100K+) empty residences in London.

The other problem is that those who already own are both insulated from the effects (mortgage payments from 10 years ago) and stand to benefit if they ever decide to move out of the capital.

It's a huge issue. Re 1 hour commutes; London is far enough gone now that 'the working class' need to cohabit to manage at all.

I have no idea how service workers get by - either they live with friends and family, or they house share. 7-800pm (~9000pa) is pretty much the bare minimum outside of remote areas with no transport links; UK minimum wage is roughly 13K. State benefits jump in to cover the shortfall.

Huge numbers of young people are staying in the family home for much longer. At least they can stay - but it also affects talent moving to the area. A lot of very skilled people are going to be put off by the prospect of permanently 'existing' rather than 'living' in and around the capital.

<comment><USER18> Oh; and to comment on the 'efficient use of land' argument that often comes up;

I tend to think that those who were brought up in a certain area, or have some sort of personal attachment (family, significant other) do deserve some thought.

What we're seeing now is just people downgrading and downgrading, professionals living in tiny apartments, the prospect of raising a family disappearing, housing rising to encompass higher and higher shares of income - but demand is not really letting up.

It reminds me of working hours. The economy is not a zero sum game, but after a point it seems as if people are just competing for competition's sake, and everyone suffers as a result - stratification of people with long hours and people with zero/unstable hours, disregard for work/life balance, etc.</comment></comment></comment>