Request: A way to mark/remove read articles? - <AUTHOR>

I absolutely love Hacker News, but I find that the more I read it, the more I have to switch to the "new" section because I've clicked most of the links on each page.  Then I read those and am forced to return to the mix, diluting my procrastination.
I've googled for a solution but can't find one.
For privacy, it might be best if the page could use javascript somehow and put any read links in a separate section under the unread ones (or better yet, hide them altogether so that every time we click "more", we get 30 unseen links).
If we are logged in, it would be good to have a button to quickly toggle the viewing mode.  I realize this is a nontrivial request, so I only propose it in accordance with the talent here.
Thanx! <comment><USER2> This is in general one of my long-running dislikes of web-based stuff as compared to the Usenet, email-list, and BBS Echomail stuff that preceded it. In all those, I could mark or delete stuff I'd already read, while with web forums, I have to exert mental effort to remember which posts, comments, or threads I've already read.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't followed links show up as gray for you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ya the styling works properly, it's just that, when every other link shows as read, it gets more difficult to sift through them.

As an experiment, I just tried saving this in a file called stylesheet.css, and setting it as the default style sheet in Safari under Safari menu->Preferences->Advanced->Style sheet:

td.title a:visited { visibility: hidden; }

It's a hack to make the read items disappear. Ideally, the whole row could be hidden under a turn-down arrow, or the site could somehow track which links have been read by the user and skip them (although that's not ideal for privacy, so would be best as an option).

P.S. I wasn't expecting the first reply to be from PG! This site is awesome.</comment></comment>


America wants to believe China can't innovate. Tech tells a different story - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/america-wants-to-believe-china-cant-innovate-tech-tells-a-different-story/2016/07/19/c17cbea9-6ee6-479c-81fa-54051df598c5_story.html <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12135777](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12135777)

</comment><comment><USER3> This story hasn't convinced me that China's startup scene is anything to pay attention to, outside of China.

Nearly every single one of their major successes, are successes in China, and _only_ China. Those successes, as great as they are, pale in comparison to the foreign competition in hard numbers, let alone quality and breadth of software.

Furthermore, are any of these services anything that hadn't been done before a dozen times? It isn't innovation just because you have State protectionism and made it on a computer. Nor will it necessarily lead to a major financial victory beyond China.

<comment><USER4> Sure, but once the Chinese market is saturated, those same companies will have a lot of cash to throw around to acquire foreign market share and develop their technology.

After all, Japan used to be a by-word for cheap, underpowered cars until the 70s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Look at Wechat's ecosystem in China then you will realize thats Facebook Messenger's future.

China's WeChat Foretells Facebook / Microsoft Bot Platforms' Future

>>> [https://chatbotsmagazine.com/chinas-wechat-foretells- faceboo...](https://chatbotsmagazine.com/chinas-wechat-foretells-facebook- microsoft-bot-platforms-future-278c3bd4bf14#.onz1tmaam)

</comment><comment><USER4> Turns out the Great Firewall had the side benefit of protecting China's nascent tech companies from foreign competition.

<comment><USER6> And others countries should do the same. Brazil included.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Define "innovation". According to most tech journalists Theranos innovated. By that definition, I innovated today when I took a shortcut home. Is China innovating? In some places. Is Silicon Valley innovating? In some places. What are most people doing? Not innovating.

</comment><comment><USER8> the situation has changed in the last decade. If I was working on a hardware project I would seriously consider relocating to Shenzhen. Anyone not aware of the what's going on over there should check out this documentary [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY&list=PLMOGwaNoHu...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY&list=PLMOGwaNoHulir88Gz17PftiLMPmZ26WZ8&index=28)</comment>


Catching an iPhone mugger without iCloud - <AUTHOR>

Last week I got mugged, and lost my iPhone as a result.  iCloud was not enabled, so "find my iPhone" wouldn't work (phone's GPS was water damaged anyway; it'd always think I was in Union Square even though that's not where it got water damaged).
I called my provider to add the phone to the stolen registry, disable calling, all the usual stuff.
To my surprise, a group text a friend of mine sent out got a response; apparently iMessage was still working and the genius in possession of the phone decided to respond to the group text with a "who's this".
I'm thinking of having someone else send an iMessage with a hyperlink, and attaching a script to get their IP (since they must be connecting via wi-fi) and send it to the authorities.  Normally I'd consider it unlikely to work but this person has already shown they're not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
My question is: if you were in unlawful possession of somebody else's iPhone and not bright enough to wipe the device or get rid of it, what's an example of a text message you would be most likely to tap a hyperlink through? <comment><USER2> This is crazy but it might work:

1\. Start talking about a prize you won, something like "Remember that radio show I called? Well, finally I won the macbook pro contest".

2\. Set up an environment where you have to go somewhere but you simply can't so your friend needs to ask a favor to show up at "blablabla" and show "this code" in the name of "Blablabla". Another friend of yours should say "ok, I'll go".

3\. Talk about when they are at the "public place" the day X from 10 to 12", your friend talk about he won't be able to arrive earlier than "11:30".

Give all the details like "I have already talked to them, and I have told them that my friend is going to pass by to get the iPad and that they only need to show the code in his mobile. Anyway, they are going to be there from 10 to publicite whatever...".

Just wait from 10 to 12 that day at that place, bonus points if you print some "radio t-shirts" or something...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> As it turns out, they took the bait, clicking on the link and revealing a ClearWire IP address, which is probably neither static nor traceable.

Anyone got any ideas? (Getting them to click another link would probably be possible, but to what end?)

</comment><comment><USER3> Something like "yo here are those girl's pics"

</comment><comment><USER4> I had my Android stolen, and I GPS located it. The idiot even took a photograph of their medical paperwork, revealing thier identity, address, social security number, date of birth, etc... BUT THE SAN FRANCISCO POLICE DEPARTMENT MISSION PRECINCT WOULD NOT LIFT A FINGER TO HELP ME!!!

I finally published the photograph online, in hopes that some identity thief finds it.

FUCK PEOPLE WHO STEAL PHONES

<comment><USER5> Police must have been busy rounding up someone for jaywalking on an empty street.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something that implies sex, such as pointing to a fake login page to a fake hookup site that requests his html5 geolocation to find "hot girls nearby who are down to fsck".

Alternatively, something that implies fast/easy cash or as a last resort, a reward with a details url with html5 geolocation code.</comment>


Show HN:  Tell in Future - <AUTHOR>

Please provide your feedback for my small webapp, http://tellinfuture.com .  An easy and instant way of creating time capsules. Write a message , select the time when you want your message to be visible and that's it. Share the URL you get with your friends and make them desperately waiting for the time when the message will show up. Write messages to future you, friends or anyone at all. <comment><USER2> Not sure that I understand the point of this... but it works well. I particularly like your date/time picker. I think the design would benefit from centering and better margins. "send Feedback" should be "Send Feedback" and shouldn't be flush with the left side of the page.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> clickable <http://tellinfuture.com></comment>


Google Blacklist - Words That Google Instant Doesn't Like (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.2600.com/googleblacklist/

<comment><USER2> I find this somewhat disturbing, but at least these are mainly on google instant*

*for the most part</comment>


Top Website Customer Satisfaction - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/19/google-tops-website-customer-satisfaction-index/

<comment><AUTHOR> this is actually kinda boring - just big media brands. would love to see that analysis completed for fasted growing sites, or split across a few categories like shopping, financial services, search/info, social network etc.</comment>


How to Get a Job at Google (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html <comment><USER2> They say getting into Google is a lot more tough than getting into Harvard.

How true is that?

<comment><USER3> The claim can probably be supported by rationalization. Google gets more applications than Harvard because applying has a minimum zero cost. Harvard has a non-zero cost due to application fees. So one scenario is that Google gets many many times more resumes from around the world per hired position than Harvard gets applications per academic admission leading to Google to have a higher rejection rate. Another scenario is that Google simply that Google receives so many more applications than Harvard does applications that Google simply does not hire a greater absolute number of applicants than Harvard does not admit.

So basically, not really true at all since Google also has more employees than Harvard has students...and has employees that don't require a US visa, and so on.</comment></comment>


11 Books by Yakov Perelman (in Spanish) - <AUTHOR> http://www.librosmaravillosos.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> If you've never read his books (esp. "Physics for Entertainment") in high school , then you really did not have fun with Physics.

His math books:

1\. Mathematics Can Be Fun 2\. Figures for Fun 3\. Arithmetic for entertainment 4\. Geometry for Entertainment 5\. Lively Mathematics 6\. Fun with Maths & Physics

His physics books:

1\. Physics for Entertainment (1913) 2\. Physics Everywhere 3\. Mechanics for entertainment 4\. Astronomy for entertainment 5\. Tricks and Amusements

Free electronic edition of "Physics for Entertainment" @ Internet Archive. <http://www.archive.org/details/physicsforentert035428mbp>

</comment><comment><USER2> A whole generation of Indian geeks grew up on his books, particularly the superb "Mathematics Can Be Fun". It's a real shame Mir publishers died :(</comment>


Go Hercule - <AUTHOR> http://www.thumbtack.com/engineering/go-hercule/

<comment><USER2> Not sure if it was your intention, but your weekly update case will reset every time there is a manual update. I avoid time.After for recurring tasks in a select loop for this reason.

time.Ticker is great if you want to repeat the task at approximately the same interval. time.Timer is what I use when I want the task to repeat a certain time after the previous task has finished. You can also conveniently use timer.Reset(0) to trigger an immediate tick.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's intentional. The update doesn't have to happen at the same time every week, we just wanted the model to be no more than 1 week old.

`time.Ticker` looks handy, I will definitely use it for another project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> FYI:

       for i, v := range array

will give you the indexes and values. If you just want the values then use "_" in place of i to "throwaway" the index.

[http://play.golang.org/p/JZZ40FMOMz](http://play.golang.org/p/JZZ40FMOMz)

<comment><AUTHOR> The funny thing is that I knew it, but wrote `for v := range array` anyway at least a few times! My point is, it's not very intuitive. Thankfully, the compiler catches that, unless it's `[]int`.

<comment><USER4> The idea is it's `for k := range object` to iterate over the keys, and `for k, v := range object` to iterate over the keys and values, whether the object is a slice, array, map or string. The only exceptional case is a channel, which has no indices/keys.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does make perfect sense, just goes against muscle memory from years of Python coding :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "Slicing past the end of array results in a runtime panic. Ignoring out of > bound indices is more convenient (and consistent with how other languages > handle this)."

Ignoring logic bugs sounds like a horrible idea

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not _always_ logic bugs. For example, here's how you would limit your slice to max N elements:

        arr = arr[:N]

...compared how it has to be done to avoid a panic:

        if len(arr) > N {
            arr = arr[:N]
        }

Not a big deal though, just slightly more verbose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm clueless about what this is...

Can I use it? Is the source code available?

<comment><AUTHOR> It wouldn't be very helpful, the algorithm and the problem are very specific to Thumbtack.

That being said, we plan to extract and free common code as we use Go for more projects. We love free / open source software!</comment></comment>


Kofi Annan: Stop 'war on drugs' - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/05/opinion/annan-cordoso-humane-drug-policy/ <comment><USER2> "We called on governments to adopt more humane and effective ways of controlling and regulating drugs. We recommended that the criminalization of drug use should be replaced by a public health approach." So the request here is not to say that everyone should use drugs however they wish without regulation, but rather that use of certain drugs should no longer be subject to criminal penalties. A few years ago, Richard Branson's blog post on drug regulation[1] similarly pointed to reducing criminal penalties without saying that drugs should be entirely unregulated, by looking at the example of Portugal. (How is Portugal doing these days?)

The state I live in in the United States, Minnesota, has a low rate of incarceration in large part because it has a low rate of criminal prosecution of drug offenses, with even the small number of persons convicted of drug offenses being unlikely to do time in prison. But this state has a thriving private industry of drug treatment centers, drawing in people from all over the world who want to become clean, and responses to drug use often include judicially ordered drug treatment. Stopping a war on drugs waged by the police and courts and prisons doesn't have to include giving up on discouraging drug use.

[1] [http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/time-to-end-the-war- on...](http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/time-to-end-the-war-on-drugs)

AFTER EDIT: I'll use the last bit of my edit window to post two more links to news reports about the experience of Portugal. These links are in chronological order, and newer than Richard Branson's blog post.

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating- drug-d...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug- decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html)

[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-01/news/ct-met- po...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-01/news/ct-met-portugal- drugs-20130502_1_treatment-facility-portugal-drug-policy)

<comment><USER3> "Stopping a war on drugs waged by the police and courts and prisons doesn't have to include giving up on discouraging drug use."

There's big business in prisons and law enforcement. There's also big business in rehab and pharma. Getting the monied interests to shift their focus from one of incarceration to one of health shouldn't be this hard. We just need to shift dollars from one big industry to another. Perhaps pharma and health companies need bigger lobbying efforts?

<comment><USER4> Man the "money" argument for the drug war is so stupid. Private prisons are a small minority of prisons even today, and were very uncommon in the 1980s and 1990s when the drug war really heated up. Blaming monied interests is a cop out here. They are just the opportunists. Its "just say no!" moms and dads, teachers and school officials, that keep the drug war alive.

<comment><USER5> It's more than just prison owners. What would happen to the DEA? Hell, huge numbers of local police would be unnecessary without the drug war.

<comment><USER6> And there wouldn't be any justification for seizing people's property before they are even proven guilty, if ever. Not that it ever was justified.

The Netherlands closed prisons after it decriminalized drugs.

Personally, I think this should be decided at the neighborhood level, like many social issues. If people are ok with it where they live, it should be allowed. If they don't want it around their kids, that should be possible as well.

<comment><USER7> > If they don't want it around their kids, that should be possible as well.

Restricting other people's rights because "THINK OF MY CHILDREN!" is how we got in to a lot of these messes in the first place.

I mean, what if your daughter got high on the marijuanas and dated a Negro? The shame it would bring on the family!

<comment><USER6> Thee is always some rational for curtailing freedom. For example, some people want to prevent me from lying down on the ground, just because some cars want to use the space to go places.

The line must be drawn somewhere. We all draw it at our own front door for example.

I think the problem is that shared spaces are usually created and governed by coercion rather than by mutual agreement governed by a contract.

When you have a contract with your neighbors, the rules are in the contract. To change it requires mutual agreement. The contract can also end. I think this is a more appropriate arrangement than forcing people to live a certain way.

If your neighborhood wants nudity and crack cocaine and bike only trails instead of car traffic, that should be your business. People that want those things can move to these neighborhoods. And those that don't can avoid them.

This seems like more freedom than we currently allow. Freedom to do and freedom to avoid. Good fences make good neighbors and this just seems like a logical extension of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love how whenever a major world leader comes out against the war on drugs, it is always after they are out of office and generally retired from political life.

<comment><USER9> Do you risk your career and your livelihood for your innate principles often?

<comment><USER10> While I agree with this, it's exactly the reason many governments right now get almost nothing done (and what they do get done is awful): People in power who care more about their job security than their -- or anyone else's -- principles.

A politician's career should _be_ based on reconciling principle with reality. Their livelihood should be linked directly to their ability to do this successfully.

That comes with a certain level of idealism, true, but without that we have to concede that our lives are in the hands of people we don't even expect to care.

<comment><USER4> It's more complicated than that. Politicians have a limited amount of political capital, and in American politics even getting little things done requires spending a lot of it. Obama put up some huge numbers and ultimately spent all his political capital just doing two things: 1) getting us out of Iraq; and 2) passing the Affordable Care Act.

Ending the drug war is important to some people, but there are tons of people who support the drug war for moral reasons, on both sides of the aisle. Meanwhile, with an aging populace people are much more concerned with Medicare, Social Security, healthcare, pensions, etc, than the justice or injustice of the drug war.

Even a politician who does care sincerely about ending the drug war wouldn't waste his political capital actually doing it, not in face of all the more important things that people want done.

<comment><USER11> Support the drug war ... for moral reasons?

That mother showing pictures of her 4 missing boys in the article this thread is about, I think she would argue the war is immoral.

I think the people who think the drug war is moral, would change their mind if they spent more than 30 seconds thinking about it.

Baffles my mind, and when pressed in person, even pious blowhards admit there are serious violent death problems with their methods --- but the people who support them seem totally oblivious to the violent oppressive death that their war causes.

How the fuck is it a moral war?

<comment><USER12> If your daughter was routinely going over to a friend's house where the friend's parent was visibly high on a regular basis how would you feel about it?

<comment><USER13> It's either up to you and your daughter to decide if going over is a good thing; however; it is not an argument that says wether that parent should be put in prison.

<comment><USER12> If drugs are legal, and allowed everywhere it takes that choice away from me unless I want to lock my kid up and not let her leave the house.

<comment><USER13> Alcohol is legal and allowed everywhere (especially at peoples' homes), but it doesn't in any way preclude you from telling your daughter that she's not allowed to visit mr.X because he's an alcoholic, or he's a pothead, or because you simply distrust him.

But "I don't want my daughter to meet X" is something that you need to handle within your family, not by asking armed men to forcibly remove X from the community. In your given example (daughter visits friend whose parent is high) you can punish cases if your underage daughter gets offered drugs, as currently would happen if she'd get offered alcohol or sex; but saying that your neighbor should be imprisoned for what he's doing in his own home simply because "my daughter might visit..." seems a bit ridiculous reason.

It's perfectly okay for your neighbors (and parents of your daughters classmates) to do all kinds of wierd sh*t that you wouldn't allow your underage daughter to do - they can practice crazy religions, have freaky sex including blood and bondage, do near-suicidal acts for thrills, implant horns in their foreheads, whatever. If you don't like that, then that is a valid reason for you to avoid them, but it's not a valid reason for requiring them to stop.

<comment><USER12> I can not allow my (non existent btw) daughter to visit Mr X the Alcoholic, but it's impossible for me to shield her from a culture of alcohol unless I basically remove her from US society. A lot of people don't like that.

Even more people feel that way when it comes to other drugs, which is why they are still mostly illegal.

I'm not saying I agree with their position. I actually largely agree with you. I was just trying to explain to proksoup (the commenter who I originally responded to) how others view the world. He was baffled how people could support the drug war. I think it shows a real lack of imagination and empathy to not see other people's point of view. You don't have to agree with it, but I think it's pretty easy to understand where they're coming from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> IMO the battle is won in stages, and the first step in the legalization of Marijuana at the Federal level.

The next step is when we recognize the victims of the War on Drugs, specifically persons who were sent to jail because of Marijuana. You expand the affected to be people who've committed all non-violent crimes, and advocate for reform from that angle.

I don't care what the law really has to say regarding Heroin, as long as victims/addicts get helped instead of aggregated and exploited by a pseudo- warrior class.

<comment><USER15> I care what the law has to say regarding heroin. Legalize it, regulate it just like alcohol.

Being illegal didn't keep my brother from becoming addicted and dying from it. If it was legal and pure he might have had a chance.

But on the other hand, nobody is trying to outlaw tobacco and alcohol, which are the biggest killers of all. Thats what did my mom in.

So yes, legalize it and keep it pure. Educate people on proper drug use and spend money on health resources for those who need it rather than jail.

<comment><USER16> A concern is that the practicalities of such a legalization would just make things worse. It could make it much easier for children to get hold of. You would also need to define what is "pure" and police that for an endless list of possible products. It is difficult enough to keep salmonella out of food, effective regulation of cannabis sounds impossible. Any regulation would need to be sufficiently loose that you do not need a black market.

I would argue that the most important impact of drug use is to people who are not drug users. Any legislation should put the interests of those people first.

<comment><USER17> > _It could make it much easier for children to get hold of._

There are currently no age restrictions on heroin. All a child needs is a morally-bankrupt drug dealer, which imo is easier than finding a morally- bankrupt store clerk if it were legal.

> _You would also need to define what is "pure" and police that for an endless > list of possible products._

'Pure' can be easily defined, and it doesn't have to be 'pure' anyway, just not increasingly harmful - beer isn't pure alcohol, McDonald's burgers aren't pure beef, etc.

> _It is difficult enough to keep salmonella out of food, effective regulation > of cannabis sounds impossible. Any regulation would need to be sufficiently > loose that you do not need a black market._

Comparing keeping salmonella out of food to keeping drugs clean is apples and oranges - they're entirely different problems. Also, given the insane markup drugs are subject to today, primarily due to the risk of distribution, prices would fall with regulation, and imo enough to undercut any current black market. Also, the quality could be better or worse, but you know it would be safe.

<comment><USER16> > There are currently no age restrictions on heroin. All a child needs is a > morally-bankrupt drug dealer, which imo is easier than finding a morally- > bankrupt store clerk if it were legal.

It is very easy for underage people to get hold of alcohol. It is ridiculous to suggest that drugs would be any different. It would make it much easier to buy.

> Beer isn't pure alcohol, McDonald's burgers aren't pure beef, etc.

I still don't understand how you can regulate that. How exactly do you define "not increasingly harmful"? Presumably whatever the definition it risks creating a black market, or being very cheap; both outcomes would be negative.

> Comparing keeping salmonella out of food to keeping drugs clean is apples > and oranges - they're entirely different problems.

Why? It would presumably need a similar system of inspection and rules. It doesn't just need to be safe for current drug users, but all the other people that may decide to give it a go. Why would people give up basic consumer rights?

<comment><USER18> > It is very easy for underage people to get hold of alcohol. It is ridiculous > to suggest that drugs would be any different. It would make it much easier > to buy.

While I was underage (I'm 24 now, so not long ago), it was easier to find weed than it was to find alcohol. The repercussions for selling weed to a 16 year old are the same as selling weed to an 18 year old are the same as selling to a 21 year old and so on. The repercussions for selling alcohol to a 21 year old versus an 18 year old or cigarettes to an 18 year old versus a 16 year old are entirely different, in that there are none if you sell to someone of legal age.

If you're already selling an illegal substance, there's no legal reason not to sell to someone who would otherwise be under age if the substance was legalized. What you're doing is illegal either way. With alcohol and tobacco, you're asking a store clerk likely making minimum wage to take a risk so you can buy alcohol. It's just way less likely to fly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Part of the problem is too many people have been brainwashed into the "protecting us from dangerous drugs" lie. Your average Jane/Joe will say "legalize pot, but ew, meth is bad!"

The fact that we collectively choose to participate in this madness is, well, maddening.

<comment><USER19> > "legalize pot, but ew, meth is bad!"

Which, I would say, is true. Our argument should be where the facts are: It's bad, but it should be handled like a public health problem, not like a criminal problem, because criminalizing it does not protect you from dangerous drugs as the last century shows, but it primarily finances mafia groups which cost even more lives than even the most evil drugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I feel like politicians are to their constituents what parents are like to teenage kids with respect to substance use advice/"laws." Parents of teenagers ban their kids from substances even though they themselves definitely did them when they were younger. The hypocrisy is kind of funny to me-- it's like there are two different worlds going on (one public facing, one the reality) that everyone just plays along with for reputation's sake even though we all know we're kidding ourselves -- it's ridiculous that this social play we put on actually seriously affects the lives of those touched by the global drug trade.

</comment><comment><USER21> Drug usage is a medical problem. Without medical care, it becomes or has the potential to become a criminal problem. In the USA drug usage and mental illness are generally lumped into the criminal category, sending sick and/or mentally ill people into a the criminal justice system without any chance of treatment or remission.

<comment><USER15> We should be examining a "medical court" system. It's basically each individual's right to do whatever they want but there's a line that gets crossed when they are truly sick and need help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> No one in the government cares because this only effects poor people and they don't have the money to make a difference.

If Obama wanted to make a real change he would have stopped the war on drugs already.

</comment><comment><USER23> The real issue that needs to be discussed, but no one wants to, is how one particular three letter uses drugs as a source of black ops funding, so that it is beyond congressional oversight. Of course, congress is so compromised they are much less afraid of oversight these days, but until people understand that the drug war is about money more than just in regards to asset forfeiture and other LEA uses, and the very top structures in government benefit from it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Prohibition was great ... for Al Capone.

Cue Homer Simpson sound bite: "I haven't learned a thing"

</comment><comment><USER25> Here's an analogy some may find crazy: I've been collecting data that classifies sugar (cane / corn / etc.) as a drug, rather than a food. Considering that type 2 diabetes is a self induced illness caused by sugar abuse, should we imprison sugar addicts? I know, I know, that may be a bit of a stretch for some persons. Still, think about it.

</comment><comment><USER26> At this point I think a big reason prohibition is kept alive is to save face. To end it, they'd have to admit they were wrong.

</comment><comment><USER27> I believe the results of decriminalization may vary according to your social context. I live in Brazil and I don't think decriminalization would reduce violence around here, it would, at its best, move the focus away from the drug addict to other parts of the society.

Collaborators from large drug organizations (tens of thousands of criminals, running millionaire operations, heavily armed) won't simply boo-hoo, go home and look for real jobs once drugs are decriminalized. They would look for the new weaker link of the chain and then concentrate all their violence on it. Once drugs are legalized and are freely sold on public points of sale (whatever government calls them), criminals would target the "supply chain" and distribution network. All of the sudden drug organizations would find themselves operating wholesale, not retail anymore. They would steal cargo to sell it at poor city areas or in places where official suppliers haven't established POSes yet. Stealing (buying for zero) and selling is much more attractive than "cooking" and selling. It's like outsourcing your production the bad way, keeping the benefit of higher profit margins. Higher margins lead to more competition, thus guns, thus violence among organizations (this is the current scenario in cities like Rio where drug organizations fight for territory dominance[1]). On the bright side, anyone interested in consuming drugs would be spared of this fight. They would be the same people who ever bought drugs, but now with the benefit of new regulations, treatment and care from the government.

[1] This video shows a battle between two drug organizations in Rio that mobilized around 100 members coming from different slums. You can see a great deal of collateral damage in the local population, and this is what my point is all about. Watch from 1:00 onwards (sorry, Portuguese language all the way). [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etu6YWC- rT4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etu6YWC-rT4) Criminals were even able to shot down a police helicopter killing two officers. Drug war at its finest.

<comment><USER28> I'm unfamiliar with Brazil drug operations. But certainly these other crimes have significantly less profit/risk than the huge markup on illegal drugs?

If they are properly legalized, the price should plummet. So even stealing or going wholesale is far less lucrative. You can already steal other goods. You could hijack a shipment of beer - but end-users aren't going to pay $15 a bottle for it because the normal price is known to be far less. So even if these organizations moved into theft, they wouldn't be able to finance huge armies anymore.

I'd also note that stealing does not have a cost of zero. You need to finance people to attack, pay for their weapons, etc. And the cap on pricing means even if stealing was cheaper, the absolute profit still won't be as high, overall.

Unless Brazil has a problem with criminal gangs already monopolizing distribution of other goods (like aspirin, tabacco, or alcohol), it seems like a stretch to say they'd do this for drugs.

Even in the US, people have been killed in hijackings of trucks containing Intel processors.

<comment><USER27> Yes, this is very complex and there are a lot of points we could discuss from a factual perspective.

It's very hard to know what's the most profitable LOB of crime organizations here. What is well known is that they operate on a wide "portfolio" of products and services since there are strong dependencies between them. Drugs, weapons, bank robbery, ATM stealing, truck robbery, kidnapping... the list is long.

Drugs is a relevant LOB because it employs a great deal of terror on the human structure of the organization. Debt with a drug dealer is usually seen as a death sentence. So the dealer knows he can manipulate those who cannot pay their debts by forcing them to commit various crimes as compensation. Dealers don't need money to finance crimes, they do it mostly through terror. Drugs are just the foundations.

Black market. If the legal drug is sold for $15, drug dealers would sell the same amount for $10. Like the do with stolen medical drugs sold mostly in slums.

Government/private companies would have a hard time trying to sell legal drugs anywhere near slums. Not only the dealers would exterminate the workers of those places, but would also steal the products to resell them.

I'm pro drug decriminalization. I believe people should be free to experiment anything they want in their lives, of course, being properly accountable for that. But my problem is with people that generalize the success of ANY decriminalization campaign only because Portugal made it right. There are so many variables in this game, so many social and cultural pre-requisites that we cannot treat this subject with just a couple of lines.

I appreciate you time articulating your ideas while commenting my point. I think that's the type of exercise that this subject deserves.

<comment><USER28> >Debt with a drug dealer ... Dealers don't need money to finance crimes, they do it mostly through terror.

So if the people are working for them to pay off a debt, then the dealer paid for the service still. Additionally, someone has to buy weapons to hijack shipments.

>If the legal drug is sold for $15, drug dealers would sell the same amount for $10

Going along with fictional numbers, currently they're getting, say $100 for the same amount. Legalization might bring it to $15, and black market guys might sell at $10. That's still 1/10th of the revenue flowing in. They'd have to have very thin profit margins to benefit from a major reduction in prices.

>Like the do with stolen medical drugs sold mostly in slums. ... . Not only the dealers would exterminate the workers of those places

Sounds like this is a problem with slums and Brazil's law enforcement capabilities in general than anything else.

If your point is that Brazil will still have massive problems after legalization, yes, sure. Legalizing all medications won't solve hunger, either. Legal sales reduce criminal pressure on end-users (maybe not an issue in Brazil) and reduce revenues to criminals.

Why would a policy of open drug sales make things worse in Brazil?

<comment><USER27> > ...someone has to buy weapons to hijack shipments

Yes, "soldiers" pay off debts by robbing banks and handing over money to dealers, whom in turn buy weapons on the cheap in Paraguay (country) or from corrupt police forces (aka milícias[3]).

> Sounds like this is a problem with slums and Brazil's law enforcement > capabilities in general than anything else.

That's my point.

> Legal sales reduce criminal pressure on end-users

Absolutely, for the middle class alone. Can't say it for the poor.

> Reduce revenues to criminals

Not for the big organizations like PCC [1] or Comando vermelho [2]

> Why would a policy of open drug sales make things worse in Brazil?

I don't know if it would make it worse. But I'm almost sure it wouldn't make it better to most of the population (basis of my point) simply because violence wouldn't be reduced. Organized crime finds its ways to keep its dominance, and it has been like that for decades.

Thanks for the "debate". :)

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primeiro_Comando_da_Capital](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primeiro_Comando_da_Capital) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comando_Vermelho](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comando_Vermelho) [3] [http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil%C3%ADcia_(Rio_de_Janeiro)](http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil%C3%ADcia_\(Rio_de_Janeiro\)) (use a translator, sorry)

<comment><USER28> Sorry to persist - how does it not reduce revenues? If the illegal restricted rate of a certain opiate is $1/mg, but the free-market, competitive rate is $0.10/mg, then the revenues will drop approximately to 1/10th.

In the slums, is Pepsi, alcohol and ibuprofen priced at obscene rates? Why or why not?

Either way, even if it doesn't benefit the poor class (because they're totally fucked either way), it doesn't harm them, and is the right thing to do. So it does seem simple to state: yes, legalize everything.

<comment><USER27> > how does it not reduce revenues?

It may reduce revenue of smaller groups, but not of large organizations. As I said, they have a wide portfolio in crime. If one thing has reduced revenues, they would intensify on another thing, thus violence is kept at the same level.

> In the slums, is Pepsi, alcohol and ibuprofen priced at obscene rates? Why > or why not?

Pepsi is VERY expensive for them, so they opt for a myriad of alternative brands that cost a 1/3 of the price. Alcohol, same thing, they consume strong drinks at around R$1/bottle. Medicine drugs, they rely on those given for free by the government. If they are not free, they go for the black market, which is too bad because they often but fake medicine... another huge issue.

> Either way, even if it doesn't benefit the poor class (because they're > totally fucked either way), it doesn't harm them, and is the right thing to > do. So it does seem simple to state: yes, legalize everything.

Well, that's a way to see things. Government would invest loads of tax-payer's money in the process, the poor would say exactly where they are and the middle class/elite would benefit greatly. Thank goodness I'm part of the latter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The article is co-written by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil.

I didn't like him when he was the president, but I do like very much his approach to legalize/decriminalize drugs... Kudos for them!

</comment><comment><USER30> Easy to say, but it'll never happen, especially in the US (at least not in my lifetime, hopefully my daughters). Too many jobs would be unnecessary if the "war on drugs" was over.

<comment><USER4> We had far more invested in prohibition, with far more outright corruption (politicians on the take from bootleggers), but managed to end that somehow. The difference was that alcohol consumption was mainstream so ordinary voters cared about the impact of prohibition. Drug consumption is not mainstream and enforcement largely affects minorities, so ordinary voters don't care.

<comment><USER31> >We had far more invested in prohibition

Is this actually true? We've invested an enormous amount in the war on drugs.

<comment><USER4> This is a must-see documentary, not just for its coverage of prohibition, but for the historical insights you can glean about American politics: [http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition](http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition).

In a nutshell, prohibition was far more invasive and far more corrupt than today's drug war. Al Capone was a billionaire in today's money, and the drug lords of yore were willing to exert political influence in a way that maybe happens today in Mexico, but certainly does not in the U.S. Al Capone once walked into City Hall and pushed the Mayor of Cicero (which was a former independent city in the Chicago area) down the stairs and nobody touched him. Politicians and police were openly on the take from bootleggers in a way that is totally foreign to our modern sensibilities (unless you have any familiarity with the developing world).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Slight tangent but I've been reflecting recently on how many people seek out things they know are dangerous to them for the _thrill_ of it. Its an interesting trait.

</comment><comment><USER33> My idea would be: make them legal, tax them high (or make them accessible only after certain educational exams), from that money educate people, help them recovering. Teach them basic game theory and the term what trap is, what is it like to be the frog in the boiling water, etc.

I'm confident I missed many aspects here, although really interested in: What are the problems with this model?

<comment><USER28> Taxing them _really high_ will increase the likelihood of black market product, which goes against the public health aspect. You don't want a poor person buying junk and getting sick because they couldn't go to the store and buy proper medicine. Just like you wouldn't heavily tax aspirin or ibuprofen.

Basic medical education should be provided as part of national education. Except, properly done, not the factually incorrect, dramatic anti-drug programs they have these days.

There also seem to be a bias against drugs here, which I don't believe is founded in research. After all, we encourage people to get treatment for mental illnesses, the treatments which usually involve becoming addicted to very strong medications like SSRIs. Yet there's no education against being "trapped" onto such things.

<comment><USER33> Makes sense. It could be difficult to raise money for prevention and rehabilitation purposes from the tax approach. Although maybe wealthy recreational users would happily "fund" the education / rehabilitation of the poor. Or maybe I'm just completely wrong here :D

I agree with the other points you've discussed.

<comment><USER34> > It could be difficult to raise money for prevention and rehabilitation > purposes from the tax approach.

Maybe, but it'd be easy diverting money being spent to arrest, prosecute, and imprison people into prevention and treatment (and we're already spending money on prevention and treatment from general state and federal tax money _without_ legalization, so with legalization and no special taxes -- just general income, sales, etc., taxes -- there'd be more money from that, even before you consider repurposing the money currently being spent on the enforcement end of the drug war that would no longer be required.)

OTOH, while there are black markets for alcohol and tobacco -- largely as an effort to evade the special taxes on those products -- the special taxes on them _still_ bring in considerable revenue, and the black market for, e.g., alcohol is far less significant and socially problematic than when alcohol was prohibited. So, its far from clear that special "sin taxes" on legalized drugs would not be useful as a significant additional revenue source for prevention and treatment activities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This legalization talk is flawed.

Alcohol is legal, and that doesn't stop people, specially teenagers, from abusing it. It's also proven tobacco addiction starts during adolescence. In this case, legalization is just removing responsibility from the people who profit from it, since in practice the law isn't protecting who it's supposed to protect. Just because something is legal doesn't make it ethical.

Then, we know legalizing certain drugs will only move traffic to worse drugs. Legalize marijuana and dealers will move more crack, just like the mafia moved from alcohol to cocaine after they lifted the prohibition in the US. Now what, the government will legalize crack too? Make even more unethical businesses operate under the law, knowing these products will be abused by teenagers just like alcohol and tobacco today?

There's no easy solution, and no one is addressing the real issue: that substance abuse is cultural and heavily promoted. You talk to young people, and their concept of having a good time is "getting wasted". Dysfunctional families and poverty only worsen the issue.

<comment><USER36> I respect that you have that opinion, even though I disagree with it personally.

The big question to me, is what causes more harm: drug use, or the criminals that it funds? I'd wager the latter; drug use can be dealt with as a medical problem (I'm living proof) to some extent, murderous cartels, warlords, and corruption around the world can't be.

Something to think about anyway!

<comment><USER35> You know what's one of the most trafficked products in Brazil?

Tobacco.

Tons of counterfeit cigarettes cross the border between Paraguay and Brazil, and that funds crime syndicates. A _legal_ and _regulated_ product. Now imagine if marijuana or anything else is legalized... they will do the same thing to avoid taxation, which would go to fund health assistance, and buyers won't care about where it comes from - they'll just care that their fix is available for cheap.

That drugs should be dealt with as a health issue, I don't disagree with, but legalizing substances isn't a silver bullet to stop crime, crime is rooted on other issues (education, poverty, lack of assistance).

<comment><USER37> > Tons of counterfeit cigarettes cross the border between Paraguay and Brazil, > and that funds crime syndicates. A legal and regulated product.

Yep, that's true (or maybe it's some illegal drug, but statistics on those aren't very reliable). Now just imagine what would happen if the entire brazilian tobaco market consisted of trafficked products. How big a mafia could you sustain with 10000 times more money?

Anyway, that question nowadays is completely academical, as Brazil currently hosts a single big mafia, that takes it's toll whatever economical activity happens here.

<comment><USER35> The point is, policy makers don't think like criminals.

I'm all for discussing legalization if we are talking about individual liberties (in which case, drugs _can 't_ be heavily taxed, to avoid a black market), but Kofi Annan and Fernando Henrique are presenting it as a solution to crime when there's no data back it up (the countries that legalized drugs so far don't face crime and poverty to begin with). So far it's just wishful thinking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've always wondered: what would drug dealers do if drugs were legalized? Would they throw their hands up and go get jobs at McDonald's? Or would they turn to robbery, kidnapping, etc?

Maybe black markets are useful for providing an income for people that have criminal records and no skills.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm reminded of a scene from The Assignment, where two characters are arguing at an official function:

\- How about "fuck you, pal"?

\- I'd believe it, if it was louder.

In other news, I'm a bit sick of public figures coming out against the War on Drugs _after_ their careers are functionally over.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm tired of these cowards coming out against the war on drugs after they no longer hold a position of power to do anything about it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Unfortunately, the "mighty" USA is utterly incapable of functioning economically without wars, so this will never happen.

</comment><comment><USER42> While we're at it, end the war on terror, war on poverty, war on sex, war on religion.

But above all, end the war on liberty.

<comment><USER43> How about we end assigning meaningless catchy phrases to boring but important US policies. There is no "war on sex" or "war on religion" in the US only news organizations framing policies in that manor to get ratings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Kofi Annan does not have any prerogative to tell me or others what to do with their own bodies. Fuck the UN and Kofi Annan.

<comment><USER45> The article isn't about "your body" (about which I'd rather know as little as possible); it's about the so-called "war on drugs" (which is actually a war on the poor).

Did you read the article before commenting?

<comment><USER44> Yes I read the article. The UN asserts the authority to interfere with what other people do to their own bodies and with their own property (drug use, manufacture, and consumption). This comes from "The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs" and later "The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances." The UN, including Kofi Annon, is used as an instrument by the US to further US drug policy.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy and its recommendations are nothing more than a ruse.</comment></comment></comment>


The Last Gunsmiths of the Khyber Pass - <AUTHOR> https://silahreport.com/2019/08/23/the-last-gunsmiths-of-the-khyber-pass/ <comment><USER2> Oh hey! I'm from that area. If you guys have any queries. :). Also the quality isn't top notch, but for the price you are paying it's ok. You are much better off buying a Russian AK-47 for $1100 like i did than buying it from Khyber for $120.

<comment><USER3> I am from India, and I'd love to explore that beautiful area one day. For several reasons, the historical importance of the region is one. So I had a couple of questions.

How safe is it for Indians to visit the Khyber region? I speak Hindi/Urdu with conversational fluency. Can I get by? What's the best and shortest route to take to get there?

Thanks to HN, I am conversing with someone from a region which seems so remote its almost been mythologized here in India

<comment><USER4> > How safe is it for Indians to visit the Khyber region? I speak Hindi/Urdu > with conversational fluency. Can I get by? What's the best and shortest > route to take to get there?

As an Indian citizen, it will be basically impossible for you to get a visa to Pakistan, especially to visit Khyber Pass.

Indians are only eligible for business, pilgrim or visitor visas to Pakistan. The pilgrim visa allows Indians to visit 15 sites in Pakistan for religious tourism.

The visitor visa is granted if you have close family members or friends in Pakistan and you can only visit a maximum of 5 cities for 3 months. More so, you will have to register and present yourself to the police every week I think.

If you have a citizenship of some other country, it does become easier but there will be an "eye" kept on you since both Pakistani and Indian governments are quite paranoid about each other's citizens being spies and visiting an area like Khyber Pass invites more suspiciousness.

<comment><USER5> When I went, there was special permitting required to go up the Khyber Pass but nothing for DAK. So assuming you can get a visa for the country, you should be able to reach DAK easily from Peshawar.

<comment><USER6> I think foreigners are banned from Kohat Tunnel

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Forgotten weapons, a YouTube channel that documents lesser known guns, has quite a few videos on khyber pass guns [https://youtu.be/rZZTD3w_a5Q](https://youtu.be/rZZTD3w_a5Q) [https://youtu.be/n5S_qmBL_KM](https://youtu.be/n5S_qmBL_KM) [https://youtu.be/zTvxFNRLbiw](https://youtu.be/zTvxFNRLbiw)

His videos on "Chinese mystery pistols" are also quite good

<comment><USER8> I really like how Ian McCollum (host of Forgotten Weapons) discusses guns without glorifying them. He doesn't seem to be a war or gun nut, and he doesn't seem interested (or at least he presents no obvious interest) in violence, death, or destruction. It makes the videos enjoyable for me, as someone who finds the engineering, ingenuity, and historical context interesting.

<comment><USER9> He treats historical weapons like others treat historical watches. They're amazing feats of precision engineering with a bunch of interesting history attached to them. I was raised with an awareness of fire-arms, and although I'm definitely on the side of gun control and education, I really appreciate the engineering that goes into firearm design. Ian does a fantastic job of showing the design and engineering side, while explaining the history, and avoiding the glorification. Somewhat aptly, his nickname around the various fora is "Gun Jesus".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> VICE video from 2011 on the same gun markets of Pakistan, I started following VICE after I saw that video.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinRqCocwGE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinRqCocwGE)

</comment><comment><USER11> Is it legal to make your own gun in most places? It's always been a fantasy of mine since I was a little kid, and I finally have the capital and attention span to do it.

Do people ever make non replicas? It would be unbelievably cool to design and Smith an a original weapon.

<comment><USER12> Where are you located? It's legal in much of the US, including California (although there are some legal hoops to jump through).

Take a look at the "Gunnit Rust" posts (particularly Tier I) on /r/guns for inspiration.

<comment><USER11> Thanks, I'm in the US. Will take a look.

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't suggest starting totally from scratch as a first project, so if you want something more challenging than an AR you might look into surplus parts kits. InrangeTV had a good series covering their CETME-L kits a couple years back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> See also his post about the AK M4geries (a M4 lookalike with an AK action).

[https://silahreport.com/2019/05/28/2663/](https://silahreport.com/2019/05/28/2663/)

</comment><comment><USER14> That's some incredible skill, especially with such limited tech.

<comment><USER15> Limited? When they say CNC, I'm imagining something like: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfFtPFJWufs&t=170](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfFtPFJWufs&t=170) but maybe I should scale down my expectations?

Edit: OK, not quite as fancy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj1qpAZf3yE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj1qpAZf3yE)

PS. arbhassan, any local music videos you'd recommend?

is [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73kBQHabhoY&t=840](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73kBQHabhoY&t=840) a good introduction? (knowing neither pashto nor arabic script, my search-fu is very weak)

<comment><USER2> Regarding the music recommendation this[1] is one my favorite song. Enjoy!

[1][https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ksJnzQKprzc](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ksJnzQKprzc)

[2][https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZywPW8t_kUA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZywPW8t_kUA)

<comment><USER15> Manana! Now I'll have to also look up Hamza Baba...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow. I'm reminded of De Soto's "The Mystery of Capital" when I see examples of incredible skill and resourcefulness in regions that somehow remain underdeveloped.

</comment><comment><USER17> The kid running in front of the guy shooting at 10:10 in the video gave me a little scare.

</comment><comment><USER15> Similar: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borz)

Related: (¶31-32 p.17) [https://www.justice.gov/opa/press- release/file/1313661/downl...](https://www.justice.gov/opa/press- release/file/1313661/download)

(My wild ass guess is that in the twenty-first century, as in the eighteenth, it takes far more[1] than SALW to mount an insurgency against regulars:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZcz589tJ5Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZcz589tJ5Q)

To me, the fetish for twentieth-century small arms among the various poorly- regulated US militia implies they're more likely to menace a poorly armed populace, or a BATF unit, than any of the well-regulated State units. Then again, as the affadavit above shows, using logic is not exactly the best way to predict these people.)

Any bets as to whether pakistan will join Oceania (as a commonwealth country) or Eastasia (in opposition to india)?

[1] US twentieth-century own goal: providing man-portable seeker missiles to a bunch of guys who had crazy ideas about visibility of women's bodies, alcohol consumption, and the relation between religion and state.

Горы стреляют, Стингер взлетает / Если нарваться, то парни второй раз умрут</comment>


Trump Signs Executive Order Giving ByteDance 90 Days to Sell US TikTok Business - sahin-boydas https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/15/tiktok-90-days/ <comment><AUTHOR> Is it even legal to force a foreign company to sell an asset to a US company?

</comment><comment><USER2> Give that everything is personal for trump, it's hard to imagine this isn't a little bit of a thank you to twitter and Facebook and a bit of a payback for the tictok users encouraging fake registrations for trump rallies.

<comment><USER3> Isn't this Trump making clear to tech executives that he is the master and they are his puppets. Trump gave a top down order to Xi Jinping to basically split up one of the fastest growing company ever and he is not a negotiation about if that is possible.

What would have happened when China just let Google in for a few years and than say "Thank you" after chopping China's part off. Everybody talking about China only doing copying is experiencing cognitive dissonance driven by ignorance of the accomplishments of Bytedance & TikTok. Google still hasn't internally launched a Tiktok clone and Faceberg can't steal a specific feature that integrates easily in his products.

People are consuming content on TikTok because it has game like cooperation baked in and is thereby more engaging than watching Youtube videos, TikTok's dopamine hack is superior to Twitter and Facebook because those have disastrous 2nd and 3th order effects which get shoveled under the denial rug of free speech and capitalism.

This event is significant because this is the first China time beat the West on execution and originality of the innovation. People are panicking because the defensible network effects of the walled gardens do not exist when China throws a better mousetrap over the fence.

<comment><USER4> My understanding is that almost all the funding and board members of TikTok are western.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hope to see China ban apple as reply.

<comment><USER6> If that happened I'd vote for the bastard

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I presume there are legal safeguards, but what would prevent ByteDance from #yolo and turn the entire platform into an overt anti-Trump/Republican advertising network for the next 90 days? I mean, what's the gov't going to do ---shut them down?

I just remember in NYC when Uber added a "De Blasio" (the mayor, who was in the pocket of the local taxi cabal) mode (in addition to Economy, XL, etc.) that had higher prices and longer wait times.

EDIT: In fact, they probably won't even need to be explicitly anti-Trump. They can just turn the entire app into a get-out-the-vote campaign aimed at a young, mostly already anti-Trump user base.

<comment><USER8> It's not just the Trump administration that has an issue with TikTok. Joe Biden's campaign told its staffers to delete the app from their phones, and Senator Schumer publicly stated he wanted it sold off to a U.S. company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How this effect the Chinese startup valuations?

</comment><comment><USER10> Why push axing it back until November 12th? Is it more likely someone lobbied President Trump for more negotiation time or is this an election play?

<comment><USER11> So that tiktok negotiation strategies remain on the table before elections.</comment></comment>


Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/solzhenitsyn-as-he-saw-himself/ <comment><USER2> Great profile of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; one of the most important writers of the last century who was prolific up until his death. It's a shame that his last non-fiction work has yet to get a proper English translation even after all these years.

<comment><USER3> Well, I heard it's rather... controversial, to say the least.

<comment><USER4> He's a writer, not an historian. Thus his non-fiction works do not have to be read like history books, more like journalistic opinion pieces. In that sense, the factual errors on this book are mostly irrelevant, and the work is still very interesting and insightful.

<comment><USER5> But if it is not factual, what makes it insightful? If you're looking for insights, aren't you better off reading an actual history, rather than the text of an anti-semitic, nationalist, Putin apologist?

<comment><USER4> You can read both, and learn more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reading The Gulag Archipelago at university changed my life. I'd been reading Dostoyevsky for a bit, which I was enjoying, but The Gulag Archipelago was the book that opened my eyes to the idea that literature could have fierce moral purpose. I also loved the fact it was dripping with deadpan sarcasm and irony. A wonderful response for the powerless to take given the Kafkaesque situations that people found themselves in under Stalinism. I'm in awe of the incredible bravery of samizdat publishing given the horrific consequences that could follow if you were caught.

<comment><USER7> If you found the Gulag Archipelago insightful (the word 'enjoyed' seems wrong in this context), I highly recommend The Kolyma Tales[1] by Varlam Shalamov. Shalamov spent 17 years in 'hard labour' camps, in total. His work is more like a historical novel, akin to "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", but more raw and visceral.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kolyma_Tales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kolyma_Tales)

<comment><USER8> _" Things I Learned in the Gulag"_, from _Kolyma Tales_ was on HN previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17298645](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17298645)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I highly recommend the article _A Tiny Village in Vermont Was the Perfect Spot to Hide Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn_ [0] to learn more about his life in Vermont. His relationship to the town is very interesting and particularly interesting to me as I used to live near Cavendish.

[0]: [https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/statement/tiny- vi...](https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/statement/tiny-village-in- vermont-was-the-perfect-spot-hide-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn)

</comment><comment><USER10> Shame much of what he wrote down was a lie, or at the very least fiction. Which wasn't necessary, because the system was terrible enough. The Gulag Archipelago is useful as a source for life within the system, but cant be taken as truth. His wife is quoted as saying the book was meant as fiction, but the West took it as fact (i'm sure they had no good reason at all to promote the shit out of an anti-Soviet book). Solzhenitsyn also praised Franco and his dictatorship, was fiercely anti-Semitic and would have preferred Hitler winning the war against the Soviets. So yeah, stand-up guy overall. Guess he simply preferred a different dictatorship than the one he to to live in.

Current historical analysis places the gulag system in a different light, with political opponents being a minor part of the population, sentences being much shorter (less than 5 years) and general conditions being better than described in the book. Solzhenitsyn talks about 50 million prisoners with a peak population of 14 million, while current figures are somewhere around 14-18 million prisoners in total, with 2 million peak population at it's height. Still really high, but really, compared to America in this day and age not that shocking.

<comment><USER3> I always wondered why Franco has such a bad rep. I'm not really knowledgeable about the Spanish civil war but it seems he prevented Spain from becoming a Stalinist totalitarian country, which is a good thing in my book.

I mean no doubt he was a brutal dictator but in the grand scheme of things he was by far the lesser of two evils.

Edit: also I think your comparison of the American prison system and the gulag to be rather ridiculous. Afaik, american prisoners aren't worked to death in arctic conditions.

<comment><USER11> It was not all that clear at the time that communism would become as bad as it turned out almost everywhere it was tried.

Edit: downvoted, but I think this is objectively true. The worst atrocities hadn't happen yet in the 1930's. Hindsight is 20 20. A lot of people drew on older ideals from the French revolution which we still celebrate today, not the least in the US. (Do you really think the blood of tyrants can be spillt without collateral damage?)

<comment><USER12> I think you're getting downvoted because people today still haven't learned their lesson.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there any way to read this that doesn't require javascript?

</comment><comment><USER13> The sad thing is that while the soviet union has lost the old war economically, it's ideas have been internalized by a great deal of western "intelligentsia" voluntary with open hearths, instead listening to people like Solzhenitsyn.

<comment><USER14> Solzhenitsyn is an anti-semite, and blames atheism for the existence of the Soviet Union and the problems in the modern world in general.

It is a great thing that he isn't being listened to - and yet, he is receiving more attention than he's worth.

<comment><USER13> Yep, people surviving gulags (where btw. lot of jewish people died as well), need to be called names, because they them selves were not saints and said stupid things sometimes.

<comment><USER15> When a public figure you used to support disappoints you in some substantial way, it's best to change your views rather than paint yourself in the corner by rationalizing their abhorrence.

All humans are fallible. There have been some regrettable Nobel Peace Prizes out there, and Amnesty International had to call off some of their awards.

<comment><USER13> I don't know who he disappointed, but he didn't disappoint me. His analysis of murderous regime is spot on, and there is no discussion about that. There are only character assassinations and name callings for totally unrelated things from his opponents. First discreditation, then disqualification and lastly liquidation.

<comment><USER15> There have been a number of notable Soviet dissidents who were no less apt in their criticism of the regime yet did not descend to imperialism or anti- Semitism.

<comment><USER13> How does the existence of more notable dissidents make his critique of the regime invalid or less true? If you found out that Newton was a thief, would that invalidate his laws of physics for you?

<comment><USER15> Don't ascribe me your ideas please. Did I say anywhere that his critique of regime wasn't true?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Time to Say Goodbye - <AUTHOR> https://blog.bbm.com/2019/04/18/time-to-say-goodbye-english-version/ <comment><USER2> Trying to understand what this service is ... I paged through the images on the front page carousel ..... every image seemed to described it is a completely different service:

\- planet f1 - follow live action grand prix

\- bbmoji - get your own animated emoji

\- dana mobile wallet and payment system

\- buy event tickets in nigeria

\- bbm sticker factory

\- bbm discover - a single source for all the content and services that are important to you.

The last one might be a little too ambitious and unfocused perhaps.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right; I re-read the post and there's no mention of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) anywhere.</comment></comment>


U.S. could take 'controlling stake' in Ericsson, Nokia: attorney general - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-espionage/to-counter-huawei-u-s-could-take-controlling-stake-in-ericsson-nokia-attorney-general-idUSKBN2001DL <comment><USER2> And the EU should block that on the same grounds.

</comment><comment><USER3> First Greenland, and now this.</comment>


Ask HN: How serious is the Novel Coronavirus outbreak and how worried are you? - <AUTHOR> There's lots of rumours and theories going around and some of the news out of China have not been good. What are your thoughts and how are you handling it? <comment><USER2> If you would like some concise details about the virus and its risks, I would watch all the videos produced by this doctor. [1] I am not too concerned for myself, as I keep my immune system very strong. I am concerned for others that I care about that spent time around smokers, as they and elderly are at the highest risk. Read up on ACE2 as this is a big part of the risk to smokers. [2]

In my opinion, the best you can do is to not stress over the bits you can not control (rumors, numbers, etc). Stress will weaken your immune system. You can also reduce the load on your immune system by eating healthy (remove sugar, carbs) and getting exercise when you can. Get plenty of real vitamin C from green leafy vegetables, zinc, I'm sure you know all of this. If you have loved ones that smoke, try to get them to at least temporarily use the patch or nicotine gum for a while.

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT3_A1bf9pU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT3_A1bf9pU)

[2] - [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2798380/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2798380/)

<comment><USER3> Does more exercise really equal less strain on the immune system?

Intuitively, it would seem that resting and not doing any physical activities would leave more energy for the body to use to fight off diseases.

<comment><USER2> If I knew I were going to be around people exposed to the virus, I would probably take a short break from hormetic effects on the system. Otherwise I would get at least 30 minutes of elevated heart rate daily to keep the immune system strong. If feasible, I would probably also try to make sure I was getting 8 hours of sleep per day which I know is easier said than done if people are under stress.

<comment><USER4> Wow, I never knew about these tips & tricks.

I guess I can stop using condoms now, as long as I sleep well and exercise my heart for half an hour a day... /s</comment></comment></comment></comment>


GTK No Thumbnails in File Picker Meme - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/File_Picker_meme <comment><USER2> But..but Gnome now has one. Pepe is now happy?.</comment>


Minecraft coming to Xbox live?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/22/minecraft-clone-coming-to-xbox-live-indie-games-fortresscraft/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

<comment><USER2> A ripped off version seems more appropriate. This seems...well, criminal.

I love Minecraft. I hope Notch does something to stop this. I'd love to see Minecraft on the Xbox, but not if it means stealing someone else's idea.

<comment><USER3> The idea for Minecraft came from Infiniminer.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, though, Infiniminer has extremely little in common with Minecraft. There are some superficial similarities [0] but it is a completely different (combat based) game.

I still think that clones are perfectly alright, even good, for everyone.

[0] The world is made of destroyable blocks and has low-res, non-aliased textures. That's about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks really nice. Sorry, but I'd rather play that than the original Minecraft.

I find it funny that lately we've had to encourage a lot of startups to keep going after they realized they have direct competition doing the same thing, but for games we yell at folks who copy but improve.

<comment><USER5> Startups aren't art.

<comment><USER6> Art isn't special enough to break the rules.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The title is deliberately misleading. The linked article clearly refers to this being a different project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Was not deliberate. Should I change it? What do you recommend? Seriously.

<comment><USER8> Simply put the original title, this is recomended here anyway.

 _Minecraft clone coming to Xbox Live Indie Games: FortressCraft_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does XBox Live support Java? Seems like Notch could just upload the Jar and sell it there if they do. Otherwise this serves an extra market, hopefully some new and distinguishing features rather than just a graphics overhaul that could probably be ported into regular Minecraft as a texture pack... (For those crying idea-stealing, remember Notch got many of his ideas from the modders of InfDev, besides the more obvious points about block engines and sandbox worlds and so on.)

Minecraft has 1.3m sales, if this achieves anything close to that volume I'll be amazed and scratch my head wondering where the point of market saturation is for big-block-engine adventure games.

<comment><USER9> Xbox does not have a Java runtime, it's XNA with C# or C++.

C# should make a port job fairly easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I never played Minecraft, nor do I have an X360. But seeing this is absolutely disgusting, not even the slightest attempt was made to disguise wholesale copying! Awful, I hope this doesn't see the light of day.</comment>


Show HN: RSuite – React UI Component Suite - <AUTHOR> https://rsuitejs.com/en/ <comment><USER2> The component demos[1] are very nice and there are some I have not seen nice react components before such as the date range picker[2] and tree checked select input[3].

1\. [https://rsuitejs.com/en/components/overview](https://rsuitejs.com/en/components/overview)

2\. [https://rsuitejs.com/en/components/date-range- picker](https://rsuitejs.com/en/components/date-range-picker)

3\. [https://rsuitejs.com/en/components/check-tree- picker](https://rsuitejs.com/en/components/check-tree-picker)</comment>


Microsoft Stupidity or: Why I learned to stop worrying and love the GPL - <AUTHOR>

I recently was asked to upgrade some machines for a Medical Center I do some consulting for.
I bought a few Dell Power Edges - that came preloaded with Windows Server 2003 Small Business - because I needed the uptime/reliability of server hardware and they needed some proprietary Windows only apps.
When I was setting the computers up I had removed all the extraneous services (Active Directory, DNS Server, Exchange Server, etc), for security and performance reasons - and all was good.
Well, a week later I get frantic calls that all the servers mysteriously shutdown. After examining the event log I see a notice that: "The server was shut down because it did not comply with the EULA. For more information, contact Microsoft."
In their infinite wisdom, Microsoft decided to shutdown my servers, with no notice, a week later because I had uninstalled the Active Directory server. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555087 for details. In what possible world did someone think this was a good idea?
And that is why I now only use open source software whenever possible. I'll gladly pay for it - I just don't want this kind of stupidity and user antagonism in my software.
This is exactly like me buying a car and then it shutting down on the highway after a week, because I haven't been using the cup holders enough. <comment><USER2> Smanek, the center delegated the task of configuring a system to you because they trusted you to know the interdependencies of the system. However well meaning, what you actually did was take a tested and validated configuration from Dell and screw it up a little while trying to make it a little better. That's a recipe for trouble no matter what kind of software you use.

I think the lessons people should take from your post are

\- If you're going to dick with Microsoft software, be sure and research the Knowledge Base ahead of time. The number 555087 tells me there are at least _half a million known things you can screw up_.

\- If it matters that your system is reliable, avoid optimizing a configuration after it's been validated by the vendor.

\- Always expect a surprise when you give a customer a configuration with different software.

My mail server is a FreeBSD box. It's been running for 10 years and has been upgraded several times. Uptime shows

      12:47PM  up 473 days, 18:21, 17 users, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

However just last week someone screwed up mail on it when they installed a new open source library.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe you shouldn't have had Small Business Server preinstalled on them if you didn't want all the features it comes with. You know they sell Windows Server 2003 Standard with none of those features you mentioned installed by default, right? Pretty sure it's cheaper than SBS too.

<comment><USER3> I'm downmodded because the poster didn't do his research and I pointed it out. Funny.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do people trust just about any bit of open source code? - <AUTHOR> People seem substnaially unconcerned about running anything on their server that "gets the job done", with little in the way of proof that the author is not a bad actor.<p>Why is this? <comment><USER2> I think in most cases the threat is not about the authors bad intentions. Take Guzzle as an example, it recently had a very serious flaw that allowed anyone to set a custom proxy for all HTTP requests using it, this could of course be used to leak information about backend APIs, mitm the requests etc.

All of this happened because Guzzle devs followed some obscure standard that required you to set the proxy by the env var HTTP_PROXY. And another "standard" putting any headers set in a request as env var variables prefixed with HTTP_*

I guess what I am trying to say here is that eventhough an author may have good intentions, it can still cause bad things to happen. You should always scrutinize dependencies, but I think most rarely do.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thats not true imo. In my experience there always is research involved before pushing something to production servers. Especially for products that are not widely used by the community.

</comment><comment><USER4> The task of verification looks like a nice AI problem to solve.

</comment><comment><USER5> Because it's easier to just not think about it. Many people with regular day jobs also have management breathing down their necks to just get the job done.

</comment><comment><USER6> If the probability that a person is "in on it" is P, then the probability that N people are "in on it" is P^N, which converges to 0 as N goes to infinity. For every library you use, all of the independent people providing feedback, reviews, stars, etc. would also have to be "in on the" conspiracy.

You realize that the open-source code you use has hundreds of stars on GitHub, tons of independent people providing edge case and bug feedback. For all of those people to be bad actors is unlikely. If something was malicious about it, that information would spread through the web like wildfire, and you would _know about it_.

This is why people are reluctant to use libraries which are not well-known or have very little usage feedback. If you do use these libraries, you will probably read the source code first.

<comment><USER7> This answer seems sound to me, I'm not sure why it's being downvoted. Can someone explain why they disagree?

<comment><USER8> Ill upvote it. @OP I also have extreme interest in this space - happy to talk, if you'd like (email temporarily in profile)</comment></comment></comment>


AppleID password brute force proof-of-concept - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hackappcom/ibrute <comment><USER2> Weird that this surfaces right after the celebrity photo leak eveyone attributes to an iCloud breach..

<comment><USER3> This attack was already described by JB'ers for a long time.

<comment><USER4> What is "JB'ers"?

<comment><USER5> jailbreak

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Other people getting mails from Apple saying people tried to reset your Apple ID? They tried several times just an hour ago (was not checking my mail)...

</comment><comment><USER7> He's dead Jim [https://twitter.com/hackappcom/status/506383498333007872](https://twitter.com/hackappcom/status/506383498333007872)

Still, I expected better from Apple. Props for the fast patch.

<comment><USER8> Not so fast. This can very well be the leak used to access the celebs nude pics. Script kiddie gets access to the script. Tests it again some easily guessable celeb. emails (or emails he already knows somehow). Gets lucky. Gets access to many other celebrities' emails, gets even luckier. The whole thing snowballs from there.

What do you guys think?

Addendum: the way it went down on 4chan points towards someone that is not an expert on extortions. You don't go to the public for some pocket change when you can have publications or the celebs paying you hundreds of thousands of dollars for those pictures. Anyway, I hope the FBI gets this freak and put him in the can for as long as they're able to.

<comment><USER9> > Anyway, I hope the FBI gets this freak and put him in the can for as long as > they're able to.

If only people shared the same feelings about illegal mass surveillance and the lax security of the companies responsible for these breaches.

<comment><USER8> I do, I think Snowden is a hero. That does not stop me from thinking that this kind of behavior should be punished exemplarily. This is no "new product" leak, nor a ethical hack performed to expose a hidden truth. It's just some private pictures stolen and uploaded to the internet for the public to see. Jennifer Lawrence has all the rights to take private nude pictures of herself in the privacy of her own house. Nobody has the right to steal them, even if her iCloud password was Katniss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So how could people use this to, for example, access people's photo's? Doesn't the two-factor authentication kick in whenever someone logs in from an untrusted device?

<comment><USER11> Two-factor authentication is optional and not enabled by default. Not sure if there is email confirmation required when logging in from an untrusted device the first time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dictionary attacks are incredibly effective. Humans have a hard time coming up with unique passwords.

<comment><USER13> It'd be nice if Windows/OSX/iOS/Android came with 1Password out of the box. It's both easier to use and more secure than manual passwords, which is a rare combination.

<comment><USER14> Safari on OSX & iOS does do random password suggestions, out of the box.

<comment><USER15> I've found this to work pretty well in most cases, but there are some websites that don't semantically mark up their fields in a way the browser can recognize, and there's no way to manually trigger the password suggestion feature.

<comment><USER16> Worse, many sites -- notably banking sites -- reject secure passwords (no weird characters, no long passwords)

<comment><USER17> What is worse than rejecting is I know of one major site that would, at least used to, silently truncate long passwords. That was... frustrating.

<comment><USER18> I used to have an ATM card with an 8-digit PIN. When entering the PIN, I noticed the screen would flash after the fourth digit. Subsequently, I discovered I actually only needed to enter the first four. That continued until the bank got taken over by Bank of America in 2004. Suddenly, I needed to enter the whole PIN!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hopefully apple is doing more than just fixing the code flaw, and is using logs to see which emails had brute force attempted on them and locked/reset those apple ids.

</comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone else prefer to entirely avoid signing up for an Apple ID?

I absolutely refuse to do so, and therefore use only software that doesn't require it. I suspect I'm not entirely alone out here on the sidelines...

<comment><USER21> Is it actually possible to use an iDevice without one?

<comment><USER22> I guess he also does not use hardware that require AppleID either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I solve the problem whit bypass iCloud activation screen lock on my iPhone from Apple . Hakers hack it !!! This bypass iCloud software is available on this page : www.bypassicloudactivationlock.net . This is a survey page , so for downloading the tool I must compleate a survey ( I download Flash player before the tool ) . Nice job hackers. Great work ...

</comment><comment><USER24> The bomb on Apple iOS security is here. My friend bypass the iCloud activation screen lock whit the hack tool from this page [http://bypassicloudactivationlock.blogspot.com/](http://bypassicloudactivationlock.blogspot.com/) Look it if you have this problem - you can solve it here

<comment><USER24> The bomb on Apple iOS security is here. My friend bypass the iCloud activation screen lock whit the hack tool from this page [http://bypassicloudactivationlock.blogspot.com/](http://bypassicloudactivationlock.blogspot.com/) Look it if you have this problem

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is interesting, but it seems irresponsible to even attempt expose the endpoint at fault for this until it is fixed.

</comment><comment><USER26> How is it ethical to distribute this without first disclosing to apple and waiting for a fix at least a few days?

<comment><USER27> Simple: it is Apples problem if their servers aren't secure. You don't owe apple free work.

Delayed disclosure is a nicety, not something you are obligated to do.

<comment><USER28> So there is no ethical responsibility to protect the users who will be left vulnerable to this exploit? Remember the danger here is screwing people who have iCloud accounts. It's not like Julie the housewife in Minnesota, had any say in the security of Apple's products.

<comment><USER29> One problem is that if the exploit is given silently to the company, they often don't change any of their practices (even if they fix that particular exploit), and more exploits soon surface, and maybe this time by people who plan to abuse them instead of telling the company.

By going loud and public, you ensure that the company has to do something to save face. It can't just be forgotten on some manager's desk.

And the fact is, you, as part of the public, would only know about the times when somebody goes loud about an exploit. For all you know, there might have been hundreds upon hundreds of times when security researches have gone to the company and been outright ignored, and when one finally goes loud with what he has found, you say "He really should have done this more quietly, it would have been much more responsible"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It should be noted that the attack has just been patched by Apple, so no longer works....

</comment><comment><USER31> anyone has confirmed that the leak is from icloud and thats the way they did it?

<comment><USER32> Nobody is sure how they did it. Or even if it comes from iCloud.

The leakers themselves claim it was from iCloud (the actual leaker only bought it online from various hackers though, again according to him).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> does this mean that you can bypass the icloud activation ?

<comment><USER8> No it has nothing to do with it. It's just a script exploiting the former lack of a brute force containment measure on Find My iPhone's login interface, now patched.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> x@508585 surendrapratap

</comment><comment><USER35> It's sad that there aren't legal requirements for security hardening. There are massive corporations which retain sensitive information that are low hanging fruit for script kiddies.

<comment><USER36> There is if a company promises the kind of security in marketing, though. SnapChat got slapped (and just that) for promising ephemeral messaging: [http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2014/05/snapch...](http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2014/05/snapchat-settles-ftc-charges-promises-disappearing-messages- were).

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I guess some female celebrities are going to reconsider Android next time they buy a smartphone.

<comment><USER38> CyanogenMod specifically...

<comment><USER39> Agree. I can totally see a celeb buying an Android then going on line and hunting CyanogenMod and then flashing their phone.

<comment><USER40> Good point. They're probably too poor to afford to hire someone to do it for them. /s

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This whole "exploit / massive celebrity pics leak" is surreal... Is this Apple's answer to _Cloud to Butt_ Google Chrome's extension?

That's the reason why I will never trust the cloud for personal stuff (for non-critical professional stuff is ok)... I'd only be willing to test MaidSafe, after they reach a stable release...

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't know if this was the attack used in the hack, but it is really, really bad news for Apple. The public is not going to trust iCloud any more. I'm pretty sure Apple will drop iWallet from the keynote, or it'll end up like their maps.

<comment><USER42> Yeah, no one plays Playstation since the Sony hack. And I bet no one shops at Target any more. TKMaxx ceased trading right after their hack. Linked In is a thing of the past.

<comment><USER43> Target's quarterly revenue did fall after the hack.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: LifeHQ – My Complete Achievement and Productivity System - <AUTHOR> https://www.lifehqapp.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just to expand from the title. I am building LifeHQ as a solution for everyone that's trying to organize their life, goals and projects with a bunch of paper notebooks, evernote, trello and are all over the place.

These tools are great but being spread out is difficult to stay consistent with all of them and your data is in 3 different places.

Also these tools only do storage and ease of access to your tasks, notes etc. LifeHQ has actual modules that help with productivity that I use on a daily basis while working. I am talking about custom Pomodoro cycles which is my favorite part of the whole app. You can read more about LifeHQ on the blog: [https://blog.lifehqapp.com](https://blog.lifehqapp.com)

</comment><comment><USER2> The get invite button seems to just pulse repeatedly when clicked?

<comment><USER3> I'm getting the same issue. I waited approx. 2 minutes for it to go through, but it just stays there, pulsing.</comment></comment>


Techcrunch partners with the competition - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/19/techcrunch-partners-with-seedcamp-europe/ Of course the YC companies get mentioned on Techcrunch anyways.<p>What kind of financial relationship does partnership imply? <comment><USER2> Hmm, this shows one difference between the new journalism and the old. In the old model, it was considered wrong for journalists to take money from companies they wrote about. I'm not saying Arrington is doing anything unethical, btw, just that the conventions of blogger journalism are still fluid.

<comment><USER3> Arrington claims that "We have no financial interest in the venture" which leads me to think no money actually exchanged hands on this.. But you never know.

<comment><USER2> Oops, my mistake. Change "take money from" to "do joint ventures with."</comment></comment></comment>


'Don't Be Evil' Tool for Google Search, by Facebook, Twitter Devs - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/248608/facebook_twitter_devs_release_dont_be_evil_tool_for_google_search.html

<comment><USER2> This was already submitted earlier today [1] by Blake Ross, who is probably one of the original authors. It has been on the front page all day.

The Hacker News guidelines [2] suggest submitting original sources, so it would have been better to submit the actual website (like Ross did), as opposed to a PC World article talking about the website.

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3500473> [2]: <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Marty - I had not seen it as I haven't had the time to read much news today. Got excited about this and tossed in the link.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr: Changes Google's "search plus your world" to include other social networks (Facebook & Twitter being biggest). Released as open source code.</comment>


Show HN: Weekend project. Heart rate measure with the iPhone microphone :) - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/soundpulse/id511288248

<comment><AUTHOR> I had an stupid idea 2 weeks ago if it would be possible to use the iPhone mic on the chest to measure the heart rate =) This is what came out =)

Sound processing is totally fascinating and hopefully i will learn more! I am looking forward for the first suggestions and updates :)</comment>