Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/03/17/study-immigrants-founded-51-of-u-s-billion-dollar-startups/ <comment><USER3> One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants.

Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones, as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all.

<comment><USER4> It wouldn't be hard to have an immigration system which is biased toward useful vs. not useful. The question is: where do you want to have the cutoff?

I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), combined with a transparent and straightforward points-based system for mainly immigrant visas. I'd eliminate the inherent racism in the current system (penalizing India and China vs. Equatorial Guinea and Monaco). As a first pass, just copy the Canadian or New Zealand systems.

Where we set the threshold for entry is a worthwhile debate. Should it be anyone who isn't likely to be strongly negative? Anyone where net benefit exceeds cost? Where net benefit is >3x the annual median income?

A baseline of "not a felon, terrorist, etc." for visitors, a solid system of constraining visitors to defined periods of time (thus making it easier to grant visit visas), and a straightforward path to immigration and citizenship for high-value immigrants is a better starting point than the current immigration system.

<comment><USER5> > I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"),

Having lived on the east side of Berlin (post Wall!) I cannot forget that that wall was supposedly built to keep people _out_ but of course it kept people _in_.

I am Australian, and I have to admit the points based system does work there...but. I have lived longest in the USA where the chaos has been beneficial for the country, and thus for me. Australia doesn't have a culture of "creative destruction" and its system has kept that from arriving/emerging.

If the US does choose to shut the door and I'll jump through it before it slams...and continue starting businesses (and creating jobs) elsewhere.

<comment><USER6> Well, I am inclined to like creative destruction and open borders too. But Australia and the US are democracies -- they are ruled by the people, most of whom seem to like a bit more orderliness.

Now if the democratic process is producing something like the White Australia Policy[1] then we have cause to cry out our moral censure from the rooftops. But whatever your view on the current points system, that's just a policy debate, not a great moral issue.

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

<comment><USER7> The WAP has been dead for more than 40 years, and 28% of the Australian population was born overseas (21% if you discount poms and kiwis). In comparison, the UK has 12% foreign-born and the US 14%. If you exclude the refugee crisis last year as a once-off, the only sizable western countries taking in more migrants per capita are Spain and Norway.

As national policies go, there aren't many that have been so resoundingly reversed. The only thing that keeps the WAP alive is people that keep on referring to it, thinking it represents the current state of affairs.

<comment><USER5> Yes I'm an old fart, born in the (fortunately waning) days of WAP. When I first visited the US, we landed at D.C. and drove north, because to drive south would have meant we would have to split up the family to stay in different hotels. Still, it seemed less racist than Australia.

Nowadays, both have improved but I feel like the positions have reversed. Then again, I don't think America throws kids off navy ships into the water. And they have only one overseas concentration camp that I know of, and I don't think the people in America's wanted to enter the US, unlike the people AUS sticks in camps.

Nobody is perfect. But really, it's astonishing how far Australia has come. Now if only the coalition could reflect that.

<comment><USER7> > _Then again, I don 't think America throws kids off navy ships into the > water._

When did Australia do that? The claim was that the _refugeees_ threw the kids overboard in order to get a rescue, not that the navy threw them overboard themselves for a photo op. The scandal was about the government lying about refugee actions, not that the navy was drowning kids.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_Overboard_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_Overboard_affair)

<comment><USER3> He didn't say that exactly. On the other hand, there are persistent reports about the Australian navy letting refugee ships sink.

By the way, often the only alternative to self-scuttling their ships, for the refugees, is to let their ships be turned around and maybe never reach another shore for lack of navigation skills, water or fuel.

That comment certainly was a bit hyperbolic, but not that far from the actual truth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Whenever I see "Immigration" in the title, i think anti-Trump and get sad.

No one is trying to stop legal immigration.

Tech companies are mad because they are cracking down on H1-B Visa abuse. This is not a bad thing.

<comment><USER9> Really? Than why so many leaked memos show that Bannon and Miller want to reduce family Visas for those already legally here? Why is Bannon and Miller's favorite novel a racist French book about Europe becoming less white? Why when Bannon was interviewed on radio he said he wanted to bring the numbers on legal immigration way down?

You're fooling yourself if you think this is just about undocumented Mexicans, Muslims, or H1-B abuse. There's way too much circumstantial rhetoric that's been said that indicates this is something more and we invite peril if we don't harshly Critique it.

<comment><USER10> First they came for the "Illegals"...

Rhetoric aside, as you pointed out, this is only the beginning. Authoritarians always need a scrapegoat to blame for "failed policies". Once one group is eliminated, on to another.

<comment><USER11> this is also called the slippery slope fallacy.

<comment><USER12> While I appreciate the recognition of the fallacy, just because the reasoning fits the template for a fallacious argument doesn't mean that it is. The slippery slope argument is only a fallacy if other evidence doesn't exist to suggest we're on such a slope.

There is historical precedent in this particular instance...

<comment><USER11> it doesn't just work when it applies to bigots, it applies to everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I assume what they really mean by _Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion- Dollar Startups_ is that _51% of $1B+ U.S. startups have at least one immigrant founder_ , right? (as opposed to _51% of unicorn founders are immigrants_ )

<comment><USER14> It also heavily depends on the definition of "immigrant". Uber is listed, for example. The two founders of Uber are Travis Kalanick (born in Los Angeles, not an immigrant) and Garrett Camp (born in Canada, resides in San Fransisco). Is Garrett Camp an immigrant? Sure sounds like it. But is that really in the spirit of "founded by immigrants"?

I am not arguing in favor of an immigrant ban in any way, I think it's a bad idea, but when a headline is trying to argue against the ban the president has put forward and lists people from Canada and South Africa... well I mean yeah they're technically immigrants, but they wouldn't have been banned by the policy anyway. Now, Arash Ferdowsi, Iranian co-founder of Dropbox, _that 's_ your success story. Unfortunately the number of billion-dollar startups with founders born in countries listed in the travel ban is far smaller so it'd make for a worse headline.

I feel the inclusion of people like Camp and Musk hurts the point the story is trying to make. We have tons of important people from countries affected by the immigration ban, and it'd be worth it to highlight those people rather than just any immigrant. The president has never called for banning all immigration from any country regardless of anything. So the argument is disingenuous.

<comment><USER15> >Is Garrett Camp an immigrant? Sure sounds like it. But is that really in the spirit of "founded by immigrants"?

Yes, Garrett Camp is an immigrant. He just happens to be white and from Canada and is thus perceived less as "those other people" and more "American" because he blends in. If he came from Sudan would you consider him to be "more of an immigrant"? Your own comment implies this bias even if you didn't mean for it to sound that way.

<comment><USER14> >Your own comment implies this bias even if you didn't mean for it to sound that way.

I see your point, but I disagree in this situation. If there was no context around the discussion, you'd be exactly right. But there is context, and the context is the immigration ban put in place by the president. That immigration ban excludes people from specific countries. This article was very obviously written to show how important immigration is as a way to counter the reasoning that bore the immigration ban, but I feel it cheapens the point when you include immigrants who are not part of the ban.

Basically, if the point of the article was just "immigrants are good", then yes, you're right. But since the point of the article is "this immigration ban is bad!", it makes sense to restrict the discussion to people from countries actually listed on the ban.

To put it another way, what if the article mentioned Canadian immigrants, South African immigrants, German immigrants, British immigrants.... but no Iranians? No Syrians. No Iraqis. The conclusion of the article could then be portrayed as "see? muslim immigrants don't do anything useful anyway! ban them!" For every immigrant you put in the article that _isn 't_ affected by the ban, the case _for_ the ban becomes stronger. That's why I think we should limit our conversation to the context implied by the article's conclusion.

<comment><USER15> > But there is context, and the context is the immigration ban put in place by > the president.

Yes, your point only makes sense if the context of the immigration topic was limited to a travel ban in the countries that the Trump administration is _currently_ focused on. But there is an even larger context of this administration's statements regarding immigration. If you are looking to apply larger contexts then keep in mind Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions' statements regarding immigration:

\-- Steve Bannon: "When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think... A country is more than an economy. We're a civic society." (He dislikes Asian executives in SV).

\-- Steve Bannon: "Don't we have a problem with legal immigration? Twenty percent of this country is immigrants. Is that not the beating heart of this problem?" (He dislikes legal immigration from any country, not just muslim majority countries).

\-- Jeff Sessions: "The H-1B program is a "tremendous threat" to American professionals." (He wishes to curb visa programs for highly educated and professional immigrants).

At the end of the day, an immigrant is an immigrant. If Steve Bannon or yourself are accepting Canadian and South African immigrants' contributions, but wish to isolate those contributions from those of Sudanese, Muslim or Asian immigrants then there is a deeper bias problem that must be talked about. The current travel ban might be of 6 muslim majority countries, but you cannot ignore the very real statements by the Trump administration about their intention to stop legal immigration from as many sources as possible.

When you keep that context in mind, it makes less sense to add nuance to the situation and start isolating contributions of immigrants based on the countries they are from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate Matt Yglesias's snarky tweet[0]: "Depriving Americans of valuable founder opportunities". The lump of unicorns fallacy is a nice update to the lump of labor fallacy [1].

[0] [https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/841305139440959488](https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/841305139440959488) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy)

</comment><comment><USER16> The irony here:

 _Some people_ see studies like this and think, wow, think of how much we'd lose if we didnt let in immigrants. Our economy would be smaller, we'd have fewer jobs, etc.

 _Other people_ see studies like this and think, wow, only us locals should own, run, and be employed by these Billion-Dollar Startups. Bannon has explicitly noted this as a goal!

<comment><USER17> This sense of entitlement due to physical proximity of birthplace is completely arbitrary, ridiculous, and counterproductive.

Discriminating on nationality (which most had zero choice in, and was decided for them at birth) is the same as discriminating based on skin color or biological sex. It's just standard anticompetitive in-group/out-group fear- driven nonsense.

<comment><USER18> Do you argue that culture and community can never have a geographically component?

<comment><USER17> Not at all, but using force to prohibit people from traveling and participating in any culture they wish to peacefully interact in is ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For the eleventy-millionth time:

Most of those accused of being "anti-immigrant" aren't against immigrants, but are against _illegal_ immigrants. There _must_ be an orderly process to entry, primarily to prevent criminals & diseases, and also to keep the numbers assimilate-able.

The headline alone seems designed to invoke consternation where none existed, or to construe a common position as anti-immigrant which isn't.

<comment><USER20> So the recent Muslim ban was anti-illegal immigrant? Hmm..

<comment><USER19> Snarky misconstrued labelling aside: Yes. Targeted countries chosen (and approved by prior President!) due to previously-acknowledged problems with the vetting process. Timeframe for the "ban" was limited & short. "Muslim" was not specified in any way.

<comment><USER20> Sounds like you didn't hear about people being asked about their religious affiliation, or POTUS himself noting on a radio show that Christians would get preferential treatment.

<comment><USER19> Religious persecution is a thing. If you're a normal adherent to the state- sponsored by-far-majority religion of a country, claiming refugee status via "violent religious persecution" is a stretch. If you're a rare adherent of a state-persecuted tiny-minority religion being violently exterminated with the tacit (if not declared) approval of the government, then you are exactly what refugee status via "violent religious persecution" is legally recognized for. Kind of hard to discern the difference without asking someone their religious affiliation.

ETA: Legitimate refugees, people actually being violently persecuted by the state for some aspect of their minority status, are unlikely to get proper vetting regardless of the quality of the vetting process, and 'tis quite humanitarian to take them in if they can be reasonably identified as such. Those not so persecuted are in the best position for their state to provide proper vetting, which if their state can't/won't provide proper vetting then we need to halt their immigration until reasonable vetting can be established. This has NOTHING to do with religion per se, especially when the allegedly discriminated-against group has over 5x as many members in other countries who _can_ apply for properly-vetted visas without any difficulty.

<comment><USER20> So it's a Muslim ban, because the majority of potential immigrants from the targeted countries are Muslim.

But you have to admit that it got quite outrageous once they started removing LPRs and dual-citizens of foreign countries from inbound flights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have an honest question as I was not familiar National Foundation for American Policy before today.

Does anybody know how they are funded in general or who funded this study?

From some cursory research I see that Stuart Anderson, the person behind the NFAP worked on the Hill in the INS Office of Policy and Planning during the first term of George W. Bush. And his organization now regularly releases studies on public policy. This kind of screams lobbyist to me or at least retained by lobbyists.

I am not making any judgements on anything in the study or any statements about the current political climate I am just trying to read critically. I am curious to hear what other's might know about Stuart Anderson or the NFAP.

</comment><comment><USER22> If you want world prosperity this isn't a simple issue at all.

Why should the richest country in the world get richer by taking the best and brightest who could have helped elevate their own countries? Isn't this just contributing to a world stratification of wealth?

<comment><USER23> The problem their own countries dont want to utilize their skills so those people seek a better future somewhere else.

<comment><USER22> And how do you break that cycle?

<comment><USER23> If I had that answer I probably would have been a political leader bringing change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would argue that the very act of immigration means you're getting a higher- than-average selection of a country's population. Immigrants, after all, are a self-selecting group. People who are willing to upend everything in their lives in order to better themselves and their families would seem, to me, to be quite well-suited for entrepreneurship.

The other reality is that traditional means of economic ascendancy in countries are often restricted to immigrants. Best example I can think of is the non-acknowledgement of certain foreign degrees in America.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm appalled by the need for statistics showing how "useful" immigrants are.

Combating xenophobia should be a moral issue, not a utilitarian one.

I understand some people will not be swayed by moral arguments, but society doesn't seem to try anymore. Utilitarian arguments have become the default.

<comment><USER26> When merely being a person gives you rights to government-issued finite resources, it has to be a utilitarian argument.

<comment><USER27> You need to be a lawful permanent resident to qualify for any federal public benefits.

<comment><USER26> Tell that to the emergency care centers that aren't allowed to turn away anyone or else they will not receive medicare reimbursements.

<comment><USER27> That is literally the least we can do. Or would you rather we deny emergency medical treatment and let people just die? They do pay sales taxes, rent payments (they have to live somewhere) that go towards property taxes and the majority also pay into social security which they will never qualify for.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/illegal- immigrant...](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/business/illegal-immigrants- are-bolstering-social-security-with-billions.html)

And by the way, many have kids that are Americans by birthright. So, I'm not sure what the benefit is to scapegoating the undocumented immigrant labor class. Maybe you can answer that.

<comment><USER26> I'm just offering you counter arguments to the idea that the government doesn't give out resources to people. I'm sorry you can't handle one refutation without turning to emotional arguments.

Another is Fannie Mae subsidizing housing. Another is public school. Another is protection under the law. Another is all public road/land use.

The fact of the matter is that we have finite resources. And simply being a person inside the US's borders give you rights to these resources, and if we do not make sure that the return we get from the presence of the people we're letting in at least makes up the cost of bringing them in, then we are doomed.

<comment><USER27> Speaking of emotional arguments, we're not all doomed.

Again, a lot of those public services are paid for through taxes immigrants do pay into, like property taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, registration fees, and even income taxes. And again, their children are Americans by birthright so public education is an investment in Americans.

[http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/oct/02/...](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/oct/02/maria- teresa-kumar/how-much-do-undocumented-immigrants-pay-taxes/)

[http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2013/pdf/sr133.pdf](http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2013/pdf/sr133.pdf)

We can argue resource allocation, entitlement programs but considering China has 1 billion more people with a land mass not much larger than ours, we're certainly not running out of space.

And if you gave them a pathway to amnesty it would be much easier to allocate entitlement programs and have common sense taxation.

<comment><USER26> I don't know what to say other than chill out. You have completely hijacked the original thread with your ill-argued cliche talking points.

The original statement was "I'm appalled by the need for statistics showing how "useful" immigrants are." Mine response is that it's a necessary framework. I in no way gave any conclusions about what I believe is the result of thinking in that framework, but you seem to harbor some sort of prejudice that makes it so you've assumed what I think.

<comment><USER26> Got it. You're a troll whose only response is "umadbro."

<comment><USER27> It's very obvious you're upset since you're resorting to name calling.

No trolling required to upset you. It seems just facts and reality will do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This argument is weak...

In my humble opinion not only are we doing a terrible job at educating our youth; but we are also condemning large numbers of them to a live of poverty.

Who is to say what our underprivileged youth could accomplish with the proper support and education?

Yes, this country was built by immigrants; but things have changed, we must accept that. Long gone are the days of prosperity for all. I would argue that today, our system is failing large portions of the population and addressing these failures should be our top concern.

The current environment of despair and hopelessness that suffocates many Americans makes it difficult to have a constructive dialog about immigration. Would you have this discussion in Flint, Michigan? Do homeless veterans have access to free Airbnb? Do aging Americans who on a daily basis must decide between food or medicine find this discussion fair? And you know I could go on and on...

I realize that modernizing our infrastructure or fixing our education system are very hard problems, addressing poverty and restoring faith in the system will be even harder. And yes, bringing prosperity and hope to all seems almost impossible; but these aren't reasons not to try.

My apologies for the rant; but I think many of the discussions around immigration fail to recognize that America is much more than the wealthy coasts. There is real suffering out there and we should be sympathetic to that and realize that despite our real or perceived cultural differences with the millions of disenfranchised Americans; this country is theirs too!

<comment><USER29> Your comment is premised on the notion that immigration vs. locals is a zero- sum game. It is not uniformly so.

Restrictionists claim: "If fewer Mexicans, Indians, and Chinese came to the US, then American citizens would be better off."

There frankly isn't compelling evidence that this will happen. The number of immigrants using up social services is minuscule and the amount of tax coming from 100s of thousands of H1Bs (and illegals/undocumenteds) is all going into social services used by veterans, American seniors, etc.

On top of this, because immigrants are usually the cream of their own societies and/or have taken big risks coming to the US, themselves and their children contribute via starting new businesses, etc.

This notion that immigration is part of a zero-sum game is likely flawed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> A link to the study for those without WSJ subscriptions: [http://nfap.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Bi...](http://nfap.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Billion-Dollar-Startups.NFAP-Policy- Brief.March-2016.pdf) [PDF]

</comment><comment><USER31> A bunch of folks on this forum love to bash the H1B visa. But that visa is not so new - this is how America has always filled her need for labor. Please take a few moments to read about "indentured servants" \- immigrants from Britain and other parts of Europe who came to the US in 1800s. They were required to serve 5 to 7 years working in fields. After that they were given land and free to work for themselves. The H1B visa has similarities. Guess what is the duration of stay for a H1B visa? 6 years. During this time they are pretty much tied to the company that sponsored their visa. After that they are given the green card, which lets them work for any company.

[http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Indentured_Servants_in_C...](http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Indentured_Servants_in_Colonial_Virginia)

<comment><USER32> Wait, are you seriously, non-ironically using the similarity of the H-1B to indentured servitude as your basis for suggesting that people are _wrong_ to bash the H-1B?

<comment><USER31> Yes. I am non-ironically suggesting exactly that. Indentured servitude emerged as a solution to a socio-economic need in a bygone era, like the H1B does now. Neither is a perfect system, and all stakeholders concerned - the company, the employee, competing employees, society - get some benefits, some pain. But overall, American society is the net beneficiary of the education, skills, and entrepreneurial drive that immigrants bring with them (circling back to the original topic). Want proof? Look at the America today that was built by the ex-indentured servants and their descendants.

<comment><USER33> People who criticize H1B are not generally criticizing skilled immigration in general. They're pointing out that the way H1B is set up, it's a very poor implementation of skilled immigration, especially when you compare it to other countries (like, say, Canada). The ongoing discussion about switching to a points-based system for workers, for example, necessarily implies that skilled immigration track remains.

<comment><USER32> > They're pointing out that the way H1B is set up, it's a very poor > implementation of skilled immigration

H-1B is primarily a guest worker program, not a skilled immigration program. That is why despite allowing dual intent, the H-1B is a non-immigrant visa. There are skill-based immigrant visas in the US system, the H-1B just isn't one of them.

<comment><USER33> H-1B is _de facto_ a skilled immigration program. The fact that it's dual intent, and that you can get a green card through employer sponsorship, seems to indicate that it is at least partially by design.

Those other programs that you reference are for "extraordinary talent" and such, and the bar there is much higher than for ordinary skilled immigration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34>
       The immigrants that started all of these companies including all of the immigrants that have started all of their businesses in the last 30 years that employ Americans...first let me say Thank You.
      Second.....someone should create a list off all of these companies, their geographic location, number of Americans (not family members) but number of Americans they employ, income, contributions to the communities etc.

     Once they have this list maybe each business can submit a small 2 minute video entitled I am an Immigrant and I employ ____ Americans.

       Then create a Website that has all of these videos....might want to censor some info to keep telemarketers from contacting these business owners.

        To draw attention to these businesses I'd gather up some of the funniest and well known comedians on a Ted Talk. After the comedians break the ice.....have some of the most successful business owners get up on stage an tell the World why they came to America! Why they fled their homeland.....etc......Might even include anything like their sons and daughters serve in the Military, Law Enforcement or local Hospitals. If they are doctors have some of their patients tell the world about how this doctor

saved their life.

</comment><comment><USER35> All pretension aside, you cannot presume to publicly forment xenophobic sentiments against brown people, implying that they are all kinds of evil, while at the same time presuming to make yourself attractive to highly-skilled tech workers from all around the world.

If you embolden racists, they will start harassing and attacking all kinds of non-white people and that includes, legal recidents from all around the world because frankly racists don't care.

<comment><USER36> foment

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Good study and all, but I think it misses the point of the current sentiment in the US. Regardless, yes, immigrants are more likely to found businesses than natives. Whether or not their businesses become billion dollar startups because of their efforts or venture capitalists is another question, but yes, they help the economy (As much as those who are a drag on it? Who knows).

I wrote a lengthy post about the effects of immigration recently, so here's I'll just focus on the issue of human capital.

Immigration creates a situation for rich countries to be able to draw from a much larger pool of talent than they otherwise would since they take talent from other countries. This is a great situation for the host country, and devastates developing economies. It's basically colonialism all over, except instead of stealing physical commodities you're stealing human capital.

Relevant article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight)

And of course, there are negative effects in the host country, namely that there's more competition for jobs, which can drive wages down, eliminate some jobs for natives altogether, etc... The hope is that this effect is offset by the job creation effect, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. The US rust belt certainly doesn't seem to be gaining much, but other areas are.

Anyhow, the whole point of this is that there's well known pros and cons to immigration. It's not all pro, nor all con. You need to ask exactly what you want the end-game to be - not just for the US, but for the world. Human capital flight is the single biggest obstacle to development for the third world. At the same time, it allows the west to gather all the brightest minds in the world to maintain its hegemony. What's more important - maintaining a dominant place in the world, or more equal development that doesn't leave anyone behind? (I mean, I know the answer - we're willing to destroy countries who go against western hegemony and simply absorb the migrants)

<comment><USER38> > Human capital flight is the single biggest obstacle to development for the > third world.

Citation needed.

<comment><USER37> There's a million studies done about it. Also, the Wiki link I posted contained lots of links and references.

Anyhow, here's one: [http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRREGTOPTEIA/Resource...](http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRREGTOPTEIA/Resources/human_cap.pdf)

Quote from it: _Weakness in human capital and particularly skill deficiency is a drag on investment and growth in Africa. Progress in overcoming shortages of skilled and trained manpower seems to be disappointingly slow, despite substantial resources devoted by both governments and donors to this effort during the last three decades (OED, 1994). This deficiency is sustained at the same time that Africa is losing a very significant proportion of its skilled and professional manpower to other markets and increasingly depending on expatriates for many vital functions._

Edit - here's another: [http://www.sesric.org/files/article/491.pdf](http://www.sesric.org/files/article/491.pdf)

Relevant quotes:

 _OIC countries face multiple challenges in achieving their development goals and reducing the gap with developed countries; one of the main challenges is the plight of human capital flight or what is known as brain drain._

 _In recent times, brain drain has been exacerbated by globalization which has increased people mobility across country boundaries (see Iredale, 2001; Shenkar, 2001; Stalker, 2000). Furthermore, the internationalization of professions and professional labor market has led to an increase in the level of mobility and thus brain drain as documented in the works of Carr et al. (2005) and Iredale (2001)_

Like I said, this is a well known, well understood phenomenon. Hell, a generation ago the Canadian government was trying to stop brain drain to the US since it was a drag on growth.

Edit2

[http://web.pop.psu.edu/projects/help_archive/help.pop.psu.ed...](http://web.pop.psu.edu/projects/help_archive/help.pop.psu.edu/data- collections/new-immigrant-survey/P08_Rosenzweig.pdf)

A little more academic (ie. more math-y and economics-y).

<comment><USER38> I was trying to gather more information, not debate.

But now that you mention it, none of those citations support your hyperbole that human capital flight "is the single biggest obstacle". They all refer to it as "a" problem, or "one of the main."

<comment><USER37> Sorry, I'm just jaded (seems any statement on the internet is met with "source please").

Anyhow, it's not politically popular to state such in today's climate, but it is the largest impediment to development. We could also add war, famine, and a lack of institutions, but those are arguably caused by a lack of development and lower human capital. It's not exactly a politically correct thing to say but, if all the educated people move away from a country, who's left to rule it?

Anyhow, lots of sources list corruption, inequality, human capital flight - <USER2> opinion is based on both my education (in economics) as well as my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is the link to the actual study [http://nfap.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Bi...](http://nfap.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Billion-Dollar-Startups.NFAP-Policy- Brief.March-2016.pdf)

Indian immigrants seem to lead the pack, but it is still the tip of the iceberg. If the current shackles are taken off from Indian immigrants, I bet there will be way more entrepreneurs. I would love the calculate the impact on US GDP based on immigrants who are not allowed to start a company

</comment><comment><USER40> The linked study has one "key finding" that "The billion dollar startup companies with an immigrant founder excel at job creation" but I don't see anything in the study to indicate how the job creation at these immigrant founded companies compares to "non-immigrant" founded companies. The provided data appears to just be a table listing how many jobs were created at these companies with no mechanism for relative comparison.

Does anyone know of existing evidence to support this claim?

<comment><USER41> this study is bullshit, don't bother

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> None from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan or Yemen.

<comment><USER43> You mean like Steve Job's biological father, who was/is a business owner in America?

<comment><USER44> > You mean like Steve Job's biological father, who was/is a business owner in > America?

You mean like his father who abandoned him?

<comment><USER43> Doesn't change his ancestry.

<comment><USER44> > Doesn't change his ancestry.

Doesn't change the fact that Jobs was an american citizen, not an immigrant.

<comment><USER43> ...because of birthright citizenship

...that the same people oppose

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> What percentage of all startups are founded by immigrants? If it's on the order of 51%, you can't rule out the possibility that this number just reflects the base occurrence rate of immigrants in the "population" of all startup founders.

<comment><USER46> Good studies _must_ discuss denominators as well as numerators. The 51% is misleading. What would be important to know is how many immigrants were founders with a denominator of how many founders were there.

Moreover, there is some (wrong) assumption that an American could not have been a founder in place of the immigrant founders of a similar company.

H1-B visas were created for the intent of _not_ displacing Americans but rather filing jobs for which Americans do not have the skill.

Americans have skills for almost all of the jobs that are filled with H1-B visas. There should be a independent committee that verifies that there are absolutely no Americans available for each individual job.

<comment><USER47>
      The 51% is misleading. What would be important to know is
      how many immigrants were founders with a denominator of
      how many founders were there.

The statistic here is: "51% of unicorns had at least one founder who was born in another country". Palantir, for example, is included as an "immigrant- founded company", which it is, but Peter Thiel (Germany) is one of five co- founders. So with a subset of one company, only 20% of founders were immigrants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'd be careful with this information. It did not serve German Jews in the 30's very well to emphasize the fact that they had become important elements of media, finance and science. Instead of showing appreciation, there was a backlash by Germans who felt they were being excluded from these things. It's even easier to see how that same misguided victim sentiment could be applied to immigrants "taking" the opportunities to create and own tech from American.

<comment><USER48> your point is relevant but I think you're missing the conclusion that first comes to my mind. when dealing with revenge-driven mobs of ignorant bigots, there is NOT rational argument that can persuade them. this is implied by your statement and I agree.

what is to be done though?

the only historically proven thing a person in a potential victim class (such as my own Jewish grandparents) could do in those circumstances is flee for their lives. I hope that things never get to that point in America. We've already a few steps in the wrong direction though.

<comment><USER26> I'd personally start by not calling them racist bigots at every opportunity. They may have "started" this whole conflict, but they hold the cards. Until Fentanyl takes care of the problem for you, we should probably deprioritize fucking with them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> A 250 years study found that immigrants and their descendants founded 100% of any U.S. business

</comment><comment><USER50> And "immigrants" killed over 99% of the native North American population with small pox and the like.

We are all immigrants really. I agree with the spirit of what the article is about, but there is a serious Us vs. Them going on here that will not end well.

</comment><comment><USER51> And the amoutn of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups founded by illegal immigrants?

<comment><USER3> Some of these entrepreneurs actually abused their visa, so technically, even tech founders often are illegal immigrants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I wonder what would have happened if they stayed in their own countries? Would they have built billion dollar or even million dollar businesses there as well? Would that have been of more benefit to said countries than allowing one of their best and brightest to "jump ship"?

</comment><comment><USER53> Wouldn't it be more useful to see the percentage of total startups- and even better, the percentage of GDP created by these startups? That would seem to include key measures such as job creation, etc. Simply measuring the percentage of giant companies doesn't seem as useful.

</comment><comment><USER54> No one questions immigration. Conservatives complain about 'illegal immigration' believing that this would be the source of most criminal activity, ignoring that the 'war on drugs' is the real problem.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'll grab software jobs; You should do menial jobs; This type of uncivilized Caste system will not work in USA [https://qz.com/919782](https://qz.com/919782)

</comment><comment><USER56> Wait a second.

You can come to the US, start a company, employ yourself, and support your own h1-b?

<comment><USER57> No. You cannot apply for your own H1B. This memo should be useful.

[https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Laws/Memoran...](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Laws/Memoranda/2010/H1B%20Employer- Employee%20Memo010810.pdf)

<comment><USER58> incorrect. That changed recently [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on- immigration-a-ste...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-immigration- a-step-in-the-right- direction/2011/08/03/gIQA2bGgsI_story.html?utm_term=.8b051354c5fe)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> If you go back far enough, immigrants or children of immigrants founded likely 99% of US companies. Is this really surprising given the US is a almost entirely a nation of immigrants?

</comment><comment><USER60> Now that we know immigrants are better businesspeople than those US-born, the next logical step is to find out which immigrants are the best, and preferentially allow those...

</comment><comment><USER61> I was unable to get past the paywall (with the web option) but I'm wondering if race and inherent privilege that comes with it is considered in the study.

</comment><comment><USER62> Place a moratorium on legal immigration. The economy is a means rather than an end, and, three-hundred-million people is more than enough for North America.

<comment><USER63> No it's not enough

Immigrants make our country great

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Behind every great fortune there is crime; [https://qz.com/889524](https://qz.com/889524)

</comment><comment><USER64> For the people saying why an article from 2016 is on the front page, here is why this issue is still relevant:

"Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies." \- Congressman Steve King, Republican Iowa, 12th March, [https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/840980755236999169](https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/840980755236999169)

</comment><comment><USER65> How many of them were illegal immigrants? Can't read the article because it's behind a paywall for me.

<comment><USER43> Why does it matter?

<comment><USER66> Because most of the anger at Trump and his admin has been around their plan for deportation of criminal illegal aliens

<comment><USER43> And yet people all across the country protested at airports a few weeks ago...

<comment><USER66> Well sure, because that travel ban was ridiculous. I'm just saying most of the time "Trump" and "immigration" are mentioned together it's regarding the southern border, not ME immigration.

<comment><USER63> It shouldn't be.

Unauthorized immigrants face the most immediate danger due to the law but the Trump administration is hostile to legal immigration as well. They're seeking to decrease legal immigration and considerimg an executive order to deport legal immigrants for using welfare.

They are trying to ban by executive order legal immigration from arbitrary Muslim majority countries and all refugees (possibly temporarily but I expect them to try to extend it).

Steve Bannon sees the number of asian CEOs (which he greatly overestimates) as a bad thing.

<comment><USER67> > They are trying to ban by executive order legal immigration from arbitrary > Muslim majority countries and all refugees (possibly temporarily but I > expect them to try to extend it).

Arbitrary? This is blatantly false and disingenuous.

There are some 50 majority muslim countries and these were not pulled out of a hat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> So 49% were founded by native Americans?

</comment><comment><USER62> >Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

Curious if the overwhelmingly-Jewish editorialists at WSJ would likewise rationalize unlimited non-Jewish immigration to Israel based on spurious "greater good" economic arguments.

Maybe there's something more important than the economy at stake when deciding the fate of a national inheritance?

<comment><USER63> America is a nation of immigrants. We haven't been an Anglo Saxon nation in a while and aren't a white nation.

Israel is a homeland for Jewish refugees(and the Arabs that remained there after the independence war).

<comment><USER62> In other words, "one standard for me and another for thee".

<comment><USER69> Yes all countries should all have the same laws and culture!

<comment><USER62> Why not? They seem to have the same editorialists (ethnically speaking)...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> How about Canada? They have a point system. Should they have even a higher percentage?

</comment><comment><USER71> To Read the Full Story, Subscribe or Sign In. No thanks!

</comment><comment><USER72> When you have nothing to lose, you take large risks.

</comment><comment><USER73> Who exactly is not an immigrant in the states? If one traverse lineage of any of these so called "non-immigrants", within 3-4 generations one will see they were an immigrant too.

<comment><USER74> Anyone who was born in the US is not an immigrant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> It's fascinating to see how the people pushing this argument prioritize economic nationalism exactly to the extent it promotes open borders, and exactly no further.

</comment><comment><USER76> This article is from March, 2016

</comment><comment><USER77> This dovetails nicely into another discussion [1] I got tangled into because I don't view the world as the average HN user seems to. It's about the claim that the richest n% take-up the bulk of opportunities (or some versions thereof).

The same HN readership who believes this narrative also gets on board with the idea that we need immigrants in order to innovate.

If the latter is true it very much supports my claim that opportunity in the US has never been greater and that the rich are not keeping anyone from reaching for the stars.

It also supports the idea that rising inequality has nothing to do with the rich doing things the rich do but rather a complex set of factors, ranging from education to lack of drive and motivation. Some choose to blame others (the rich) for their ailments instead of going after root causes. The latter is far more difficult and time consuming.

Immigrants arrive at our shores devoid of these pre-conditions. Why, then, is it that they excel and thrive? Simple: Drive, motivation, dedication, commitment, grit and lack of victim mentality.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who understands subjects such as competitive sports. Often the difference between athletes of similar physical capabilities is in their minds far more than anything else. Same characteristics I listed above: Drive, motivation, dedication, commitment and grit.

A few months ago I could not dead-lift 325 lbs when just a few days earlier I had done 320. I could not get the damn thing off the ground. My trainer looked at me and said: "Dude, it's all in your head. Take five minutes and think about that". Minutes later I completed my set as if nothing had happened.

If it is true that we need to "import" innovators and entrepreneurs this is a sign that our approach to education (and other areas) need a serious pivot. With over 300 million people this country should not need to import entrepreneurs or well qualified candidates. Tech companies would not be crying for qualified people if our educational system was doing a good job.

How many high school kids graduate with a solid understanding of how business, money and finances work? Virtually none.

Our kids graduate with, for the most part, a binary view of the world ahead: Enlist in the military or be a good employee for life. The vast majority of them have trouble calculating a tip at a restaurant and couldn't tell you what simple interest is if their life depended on it. They know more about Kim Kardashian than they do about business, finance, investment and career building.

How can this be good for the US?

And we blame the rich for a gap in equality? How about we stop living in fantasy and address real problems?

Interestingly enough, another thread on HN today [2] echoes some of the issues with education as it pertains to opportunity. A quote I like from the current top comment:

"At the same time, we have a public school system that after 18 years with a child...has not actually prepared them to get a job. That's borderline criminal IMHO."

Clearly some understand the realities of where we are failing while others prefer the simpler path of blaming others for all problems.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13847775](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13847775)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13858508](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13858508)

</comment><comment><USER29> This article is from 2016.

</comment><comment><USER78> I think immigrants are good even when they don't found billion dollar companies.

</comment><comment><USER79> Persons with Brown eyes founded 51% [XX%] of Billion-Dollar Startups.

</comment><comment><USER80> *LEGAL immigrants.

</comment><comment><USER62> "Immigrants" also destroyed Southern California.

Try making distinctions.

</comment><comment><USER81> Proof that immigrants are stealing our unicorn jobs!

</comment><comment><USER82> Why is a study from a year ago being brought up now?

</comment><comment><USER83> Immigrants founded 100% of U.S.

</comment><comment><USER84> which of those were illegal immigrants? isn't tha particularly what trump wants to stop?

</comment><comment><USER41> so since when wsj compares legal immigrants to illegal immigrants, there is bias right there.

</comment><comment><USER85> Title says it all. That is why the US is kicking immigrants out.

</comment><comment><USER86> I wonder if this is true in China and Japan as well.

<comment><USER87> Fair point. It's plausible that the act of immigration selects for more motivated people.

<comment><USER88> What alternative explanation would their be?

<comment><USER87> Well, there's always the cultural one. Personally, I think attributing the cause to culture is sloppy research.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> Therefore, we need unbridled in-migration of Hispanics and Arabs!

</comment><comment><USER90> Thwarted by paywall but why does there need to be a "study" on this? Can't you just gather this info from govt databases?

<comment><USER91> 'study' doesn't always mean collecting primary data.

<comment><USER90> Shouldn't all news articles start with the word 'Study' then since all of them require some sort of data gathering?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> This is true but it needs perspective, and I am by no means anti-immigrant. I'm actually a pretty open border person, and am 100% against Trump's proposals (though perhaps there are some instances of H1B being abuse [see Disney].) However, this study should have a big caveat, for starters there are significantly more tax benefits for starting a business if you are an immigrant. Secondly, immigrants don't have entrenched interests or preoccupations that would otherwise give them a very high opportunity cost to starting their own business. So the start-up industry is a bit skewed in favor of immigrants naturally.

I would love for us to equal the playing field, not by blocking immigrants, but by leveling the field on tax benefits and subsidies (ideally getting rid of subsidies and flattening the structure) and have reforms that lower the opportunity cost of all Americans that allows them to start their own business. There are way more reforms needed too outside of that, which everyone already has to deal with in regards to starting a business.

So, imo, the complaint or point here shouldn't be that immigrants are better, or Americans are worse or there's only so much of the pie etc...it should be that we need reforms that makes it easier for everyone to start a business.

<comment><USER93> Can you please share the details on the tax benefits? I am an immigrant and have started and sold companies and I didn't find any tax benefits.

<comment><USER92> I should clarify, there's no -direct- tax benefits. It's largely to do with capital (immigrants generally pool capital better) which they can write off for years. Most Americans don't put up as much personal capital. There are also grant programs and guaranteed loans which immigrants can utilize which regular citizens generally don't have access to. Though on a whole the raising of capital is similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> By attracting and immigrating the best and brightest, the US actually does injustice towards its citizens.

And then its also an unfair act against other countries. The other countries that send immigrants technically stay poorer and weaker - because their talent is gone!!!

Make a choice - Do we want to keep pouring in the best and brightest from the globe - or Do we want to keep our citizens employed? - Can't have both in longer term. Keep it unsolved and something extreme might happen to resolve it.

<comment><USER33> > Keep it unsolved and something extreme might happen to resolve it.

Why not speak openly about what you have in mind wrt "resolving it"?</comment></comment>


Lynis – Security auditing tool for Unix/Linux systems - <AUTHOR> https://cisofy.com/lynis/ <comment><USER2> This is the same kind of thinking which has not changed since 1990 when _Improving the Security of Your Unix System_ ¹ was published. It was good in 1990, but even five years later seemed to be an obsolete kind of thinking, and today seems positively archaic. If there are known security problems, they should be fixed in the operating system itself. If there are known bad defaults in software as distributed, this should be fixed by the packagers for the distributions.

All talk of "hardening" and "scanning" is symptomatic of this faulty way of thinking.

However, I fear that these kinds of things will continue to exist, for one simple reason: Running these programs and applying these fixes manually feels _useful_ to the sysadmin. It gives the sysadmin a little boost of self-esteem, merely for, essentially, _pushing a button_. If instead these fixes were applied upstream, there would be no need for hardening or scanning, and the program would be useless, but this would deprive sysadmins of their free feeling of usefulness.

① [http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/secpubs/curry.pdf](http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/secpubs/curry.pdf)

<comment><USER3> As the author of the tool, I can share that these tools are still very much needed. Why? Upstream vendors will never set values that are strict. Because in that case, people would have too much difficulty to get things working.

The tool exists to simplify testing many individual tests. We don't simply use existing benchmarks or guides, but also have tests of our own. For example, if you have configured at least two name servers, or that your time is properly configured, and no false-tickers are present. Things which no upstream vendor even can configure for you.

Another common use case: you are the new system administrator and have to deal with the "great" work of the previous one. The tool helps to determine the quality of the previous person, in just a matter of minutes.

<comment><USER2> > _Upstream vendors will never set values that are strict. Because in that > case, people would have too much difficulty to get things working._

If the upstream software author won't fix it, and the Debian Maintainer (packager) won't fix it, and if the Debian Technical Committee chooses not to overrule the Debian Maintainer, then it's probably not actually a problem.

> _if you have configured at least two name servers, or that your time is > properly configured, and no false-tickers are present. Things which no > upstream vendor even can configure for you._

This, on the other hand, _does_ sound like a nice set of features, but this is then no longer a "Security audit" tool. Ideally, of course, these kinds of checks should be integrated into their respective programs/packages.

> _you are the new system administrator and have to deal with the "great" work > of the previous one._

Either you know that you can't trust the previous sysadmin, in which case you have to reinstall anyway, or you start out trusting them, in which case you wait until you actually find something bad, and only then reinstall. I don't really think this use case is very useful.

<comment><USER3> Not everyone comes with the same skill set or expertise. If you work at a big multinational, reinstalling hundreds or even thousands of systems, is no option. Lynis, free to use, simply helps you determining the sanity level in a quick way.

The main focus of Lynis is security auditing. Since some parts are so important for integrity of the systems or forensics, we do check them. Proper timing is one of them, proper DNS configuration is another one. Some things you want to put into your monitoring system as a regular test, other will be handled by the tooling itself. What we find, is that Lynis often detects incorrect configurations. That is exactly the purpose of the tool. Helping those, who didn't know, or thought things were fine.

Appreciate your stance, understand it and even agree with most of it. The tool is there to help to achieve what we both see as an ideal world: secure permissions by default, proper configurations, correct monitoring and integrity of data. Till the time we achieved that, I'm glad to see many were able to move up a few steps to this ideal world. Till then, happy hardening :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Arch package available in AUR at [https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/lynis/](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/lynis/)

</comment><comment><USER5> With only a quick glance at the checks/code, this will suggest stupid things on Solaris. Solaris 11 has configuration compliance checker that is far more complete (and uses the correct interfaces) than this.

On solaris 11.2+ man compliance, and follow one set of the vendor recommendations (normal, high assurance, pci-dss).

The SCAP ecosystem exists, I see no need in this day and age to use shell scripts for configuration parsing.

<comment><USER3> Appreciate the honest opinion. While you have valid points, not everyone wants to install SCAP for example. Besides that, the related SCAP might even not be available for your OS version. If the OS has a great compliance checker built- in, we definitely will advise using that as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Host based scans provides more in-depth audit."

I would love to hear how a host-based scanner is more in-depth than a Nessus or Rapid 7 scan running on a sudo account.</comment>


Why I'm The Best Programmer In The World - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/08/why-im-the-best-programmer-in-the-world.html

<comment><USER2> _"When interviewing candidates for programming positions, I always look for someone who is brave enough to say "I don't know" when they need to. Candidates who can't or won't do this get red flagged; those types of programmers are dangerous. "Can-do" attitiudes have a superficial allure, but they're actually poison in our field."_

I think this might be misleading. I never like saying "I don't know" by itself. Most of the time in real life situations, it's "I don't know, but I'm happy to find out" or "I don't know, but I'd love to learn how." To me, my attitude as a programmer is ALWAYS can-do, meaning, there is nothing that I can't or won't figure out or learn if it needs to be done. I think that helps me constantly push my technical limits.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you, but I still like people who can say just plainly "I don't know". This reminds me of PG's "How to Start a Startup" [1]:

"When nerds are unbearable it's usually because they're trying too hard to seem smart. But the smarter they are, the less pressure they feel to act smart. So as a rule you can recognize genuinely smart people by their ability to say things like 'I don't know,' 'Maybe you're right,' and 'I don't understand x well enough.'"

"This technique doesn't always work, because people can be influenced by their environment. In the MIT CS department, there seems to be a tradition of acting like a brusque know-it-all. I'm told it derives ultimately from Marvin Minsky, in the same way the classic airline pilot manner is said to derive from Chuck Yeager. Even genuinely smart people start to act this way there, so you have to make allowances."

"It helped us to have Robert Morris, who is one of the readiest to say 'I don't know' of anyone I've met. (At least, he was before he became a professor at MIT.) No one dared put on attitude around Robert, because he was obviously smarter than they were and yet had zero attitude himself."

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html>

EDIT: formating

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Its funny I backed into programming by starting to do web development in the mid 90s. I was completely self taught, as most people were at that time when the technology of the web was changing so fast that a CS degree was almost obsolete the instant it was printed. I got my first web development job with little more then a desire and an "HTML for Dummies" book (which for years was the most borrowed book in my library)

It made me always question if I was "doing it right" so I quickly learned to eat any pride I had and ask questions of people. When I look back at it I always say that was one of the keys to any success I had. Even as I move a ways from development to building a business I still find myself constantly asking for advice even at risk of looking a bit naive, because I always felt that asking for advice and help was the only way to get better.</comment>


Ask YC: An old topic, compiled vs interpreted? - <AUTHOR>

Okay, before I even say anything, I am pre-emptively sorry, because I KNOW that this has been discussed, rediscussed, analyzed, reanalyzed, and in general talked about to death all over the internet.
Essentially, my question is: Is there any advantage to having a language be interpreted?
I don't mean the current interpreted languages vs the current compiled ones. What I mean is, all else being equal, how important is the mode of execution?
Another question: when is reflection really useful? (I'm asking this because I think it would be rather difficult to create a compiled language which would support reflection, although it'd be easy for an interpreted language.)
Thanks <comment><USER2> Compiling means changing something from one source language into another. The traditional meaning is compiling a high level language into machine code which is then assembled into opcodes. That's not the only way to do it though, Python is first compiled into a bytecode (a more compact representation of the source code checked for syntax errors) and that bytecode is interpreted.

Interpreters are easier to write because it is not as much work supporting different architectures compared to compiling the code. Also, interpreting small amounts of code that will only be run once is typically faster than compiling it and then optimizing and executing it.

Compiling however has much greater potential speedups. A compiler can make a decision at compile time once, and that decision never has to be made again. In an interpreted language that decision might have to be remade on every iteration of a loop.

As you move up from more powerful languages than C, the languages get harder and harder to compile because you know intrinsically less at compile time. In C for example, every variable is known at compile time, so every variable lookup can be translated into a read from some offset from the stack frame pointer, which is very fast. The C compiler will keep a hash table at compile time to keep track of these offsets, but at run time that information is no longer available. In Python, you don't know all the variables that are going to be looked up at compile time, so you have to do those expensive hash table lookups at run time.

In the end, naively generating code for a dynamic and reflective language won't yield that much of a speedup without some serious optimization passes, which was typically not very helpful because the higher level languages were used as glue code to high performance libraries or programs. As people become more interested in using these languages for more intensive work expect to see more effort at compiling then, although most will probably be compiled into a virtual machine bytecode and then compiled to native machine code by the JVM or CLR.

<comment><USER3> [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/05/dynamic-languages- st...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/05/dynamic-languages-strike- back.html)

With the exception of some lisp work done a long time ago, no one has seriously worked on making dynamic languages fast.

<comment><USER4> Huh? You need to get out more.

Also, note that the majority of the optimizations that e.g., HotSpot does are as applicable to "dynamic" languages as they are to "static" languages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yegge has just addressed this, and I think he has a beautiful point: Compiled apps are dead, unfeeling, unable to adjust. Compiled apps are like the ones you buy in a box at the computer store and install on the piece of plastic in front of you. They are completely unable to interact with the user (or other other computer or whatever) beyond their specific implementation at point of compilation. They're just the paper tape with a starting point and an ending point.

OTOH, dynamic languages are designed to interpret conditions as they occur at runtime. Up to this point, we really haven't been able to exploit this powerful capability to its fullest extent, but hardware is now cheap, and massive collections of hardware (like at Google's The Dalles plant) now exist to provide what is essentially a virtual environment that provides units of computing power as needed. Dynamic apps can adapt to take advantage of this. For example, modify an app in the REPL as it's running, or hot swap code in an Erlang app, or send lambdas wherever you want on a network running q/kdb+.

Now take that notion a step further. Why do humans have to initiate any of that day-to-day dynamism? The answer to that question is the future of computing and it's why we have to have interpreted languages for dynamic environments. Compiled apps (and OSes, IMO) are not part of the future. The next frontier after that will involve the hardware itself going dynamic.

<comment><USER6> Uh, what? All of the major dynamic languages are compiled, not interpreted. "eval" != "interpreter".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It sounds like you're asking these questions because you're stuck inside the scripting language box. There's a much greater range of choice open to you than Perl/Python/Ruby on the one hand, and C/C++/maybe-Java on the other.

For example, Common Lisp implementations often compile functions as they're entered at the interactive prompt. From your perspective, you see an "interpreter" that runs code on the order of 100 times faster than it should. I'm told popular OCaml and Haskell implementations work this way too.

If you're interested in portability, there are efficient Scheme compilers that target ANSI C, which gives you portability, good integration into just about any environment, and access to lots and lots of library code. My favorite of these is Chicken Scheme, which you can read about at <http://www.call-with- current-continuation.org>.

<comment><AUTHOR> So... it's compiling it, but acting as an interpreter. So even the macro- evaluation step is compiled?

I seemed to think you'd have to have a Lisp interpreter (so that the macros would have to be interpreted) and optionally a compiler. So you can have the 'interpreter' just be a compiler which is followed by a call to the generated code?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Doesn't Common Lisp support reflection quite well normally, even when compiled?

<comment><USER9> Yes but CL might not be the easiest language to implement either.

<comment> mark-t That's strange. I seem to recall watching Sussman write a Scheme interpreter in about an hour.

<comment><USER9> Sussman is not your average guy, scheme is overall simpler than CL, implementing a compiler is harder than an interpreter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interpretation of some kind (including compiling to bytecode and interpreting/JITing that) offers a chance that the code can be verified for safety/"correctness", something that's practically impossible for compiled native code for real, mainstream instruction sets. That's not to say it's actually impossible: just currently infeasible.

Other than that, I can't think of much else: as others have said, it's no longer a discrete choice, it's become a continuum of choices with hybrid solutions that come very close to the ideals of both extremes. Except for that of the simplicity of an interpreter maybe. :)

Reflection is useful whenever you need any kind of dynamic features in your system. Even for rigidly static languages, compile-time reflection can be useful ("metaprogramming"), although there's a serious danger of constructing cathedrals. As it has been said before, compiled code doesn't exclude reflection. Reflection is just metadata that gets compiled in, plus a mechanism for accessing it.

<comment><USER4> Re: verification

Your comment is only arguably true for completely statically compiled languages which have very weak (or no) processing model that can be enforced (by e.g., the loaders).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Compiled vs Interpreted is more like a continuum in reality than a binary choice.

In theory there is no reason for one model to be less powerful than the other. And as compiler/interpreter-writers get to be more knowledgeable this seems to hold up in the real world more and more.

Though interpreters are generally easier to write.

</comment><comment><USER4> The quick and dirty approaches are to write a simple interpreter or a simple source to source compiler to another language which (has tools, etc.) which handle the heavy lifting of the backend. For example, look at all of the languages built on top of the JVM.

In terms of the hardcore, there's still a lingering fight between the static compilers and the dynamic compilers. Though, even that is starting to erode because the best static compilers only generate the best code by using profiles created during instrumented, previous runs of the application (which basically makes them poor-man's dynamic compilers). Dynamic compilers such as HotSpot and the best Lisp implementations generate pretty good code and yet still handle the realities of eval, dynamic-class-loading, etc. well.

</comment><comment><USER11> From the OP: "Okay, before I even say anything, I am pre-emptively sorry, because I KNOW that this has been discussed, rediscussed, analyzed, reanalyzed, and in general talked about to death all over the internet."

Including YC: <http://www.google.com/search?q=>(compiled+AND+interpreted)+AND+(speed+OR+ease+OR+portability)+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com

</comment><comment><USER12> Your question is hard to answer, since in real life, "all else IS NOT being equal". In my life as a programmer, about 90% of my work was compiled, so I certainly have a bias. My personal perception was, that when working with compiled languages (mostly C++), I felt like building something. With interpreted languages (mostly Perl), I felt more like hacking something.

</comment><comment><USER13> vaque question

it depends on the problem solves, and the trade between perfomance and RAD

</comment><comment><USER14> Both. Best to have a language which is initially interpreted and then gets compiled just in time. With JVM as a prime example.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the sites which you visit regularly? - <AUTHOR>

For example I lurk upon reddit, hacker news, quora, and productHunt. <comment><USER2> Besides must-haves social networks I visit only HN and Reddit on daily basis.

</comment><comment><USER3> HN, Seth Godin blog, Zenhabits, James Altucher blog, Swiss Miss

In that order :)

</comment><comment><USER4> hacker news, designer news, 9to5 mac, macrumors, gizmodo, lifehacker, jalopnik, kotaku, engadget, highscalability, hackaday,themeforest, medium

<comment><USER5> What is your opinion on gender bias on Kotaku?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> hackernews, producthunt, quora, mangareader, stackoverflow, youtube, medium, linkedin

<comment><USER5> What do you do on LinkedIn?

<comment><USER6> Some of their articles on a few groups I have subscribed to are decently good to read and a few friends keep publishing stuff on their publisher/writer platform as well from time to time so I do end up clicking a lot of links they send in emails towards these...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Stackoverflow, producthunt and betalist.

</comment><comment><USER8> google, HN, techcrunch</comment>


Ask HN: How to calculate value of my Startup? - <AUTHOR>

Recently I got an acquisition offer, but the amount looks very small to me. How should I estimate how much does it cost? I found some calculators but couldn't calculate it properly. So I give the details:
It's a small startup with 12 workers, 1 founder, bootstrapped. Started 11 month ago. Least Profitable Month: 7000$ Profit Most profitable month: 32.700$ Profit
With growth next year Potential monthly profit: 50 - 100.000$ Profit (my calculations) <comment><USER2> Number one valuation factor is growth, and how much you can assure the growth. Ultimately the buyer is looking at future cash flow versus risk of getting there, plus some compounded discount based upon where else he could park his money and earn a return.

In simple terms, the value will be some multiple of profit. The best blue chip companies get about 10x plus dividend. You are not a secure bet so you might get 3x to as little as 1x. Plus someone might have to manage the business which eats into profit.

But, the best growth companies could get 20, 30, 50x+. So your job is to argue growth.

Ultimately however, you shouldn't calculate a value. The above should just determine a minimum. You need to figure out what your business is worth to the acquirer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can you define "workers"? How much are you paying them? What's the total monthly overhead? Can you reliably predict next year's revenue, or is it just a back-of-the-napkin estimate? Do you need to hire more "workers" as the site grows? How much work would it take for a company to replicate your current offering from scratch? How much are the assets (domain, website, etc) worth? Will the website remain profitable indefinitely or is it reliant on a current trend? How much time does the founder/owner need to spend monthly to run it?

You need to take a ton of factors into account before you can ask for any advice. You could also try your luck at listing it on Flippa.com or something similar.

<comment><AUTHOR> On Flippa you would sell very cheaply. Actually I don't want to sell my startup but if someone will offer a good price, I think I can sell it, because I'll have an opportunity to build a better one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You need to choose a target P/E and go with that, the problem with startups is the lack of a well defined trend in revenues.

That said, determine the earnings (if you can) and set a P/E of at least 30.

Let's say your earnings in 2012 were 1 million, 30 million sounds like a good price for the company, keep in mind that value is a measure of interest or the need for something.

</comment><comment><USER5> Good will of your business should be your monthly gross * 24 (two years). I am curious to know what kind of startup you have.</comment>


Show HN: GoLinks – Enterprise, team shortlinks, go/ links - <AUTHOR> https://www.golinks.io <comment><USER2> Interesting. We already use something in our company that gives us "go/" links, but I'm not quite sure what it's powered by :)</comment>


Ask HN: Suggestions for a current /etc/hosts DNS blacklist? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking for a simple UNIX solution to blocking connections to ad servers.  I am trying to minimize useless bandwidth usage, among other things.  I have used Adblock+, Ghostery etc before but I'm looking for a simple, /etc/hosts-based solution.  Of course, keeping a blacklist up-to-date is a small challenge.  I have found:
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/
https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
StevenBlack's repo looks most promising, as it combines various sources, but I was curious if any HNers had better suggestions.  Do you use a /etc/hosts blacklist?  When was the last time it was updated?  How many hosts does it block? <comment><USER2> I'm not concerned with ads, exactly, but with analytics. That is I'm completely cool to look at an ad, provided it doesn't look back at me.

       127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com
       127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
       127.0.0.1 www.hosted-pixel.com

I've got some more I'll dig them up - they're on my other computer.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've seen this mentioned in a few places: [http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/](http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/)</comment>


Integrating AWS CloudFormation with Opscode Chef - <AUTHOR> http://www.full360.com/blogs/integrating-aws-cloudformation-and-chef

<comment><USER2> Integrating Chef or Puppet with CF seems backwards, that only leads to vendor lockin.

Personally I'm using ruby-fog to automate the machine provisioning (alongside with puppet), which makes it easy to mix and match the resources from 6 Cloud providers in every imaginable way.

<comment><AUTHOR> more power to you - its always the most flexible if you are using the lowest common denominator tool. My point in the post (if you read it) is that since we do use AWS, and have code to manage its specifics (which we have to do in fog as well) by abstracting the cloud resources into CloudFormation, our recipes get more portable. YMMV.</comment></comment>


RNA Polymerase Ribozyme Evolved In-Vitro Can Replicate tRNAs - <AUTHOR> http://www.pnas.org/content/113/35/9786 <comment><USER2> The central dogma of molecular genetics may need some rearrangement in the coming future...it would not surprise me to see DNA recategorized as a "memory object" or data storage system _in vivo_ the real work of living is probably an interaction of the nucleolus and the cytoplasmic RNA/proteome complex</comment>


Volunteer for coronavirus Phase 3 vaccine studies - <AUTHOR> https://www.coronaviruspreventionnetwork.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Note: The studies currently being run here are regular Phase 3 trials, not challenge trials, so you don't have to be young or perfectly healthy to sign up.</comment>


Passwordless login done right - <AUTHOR> http://programming.tudorconstantin.com/2015/05/passwordless-login-done-right.html <comment><USER2> I'm intrigued! But a few questions/comments:

* How is this two-factor? I only see one factor (a thing you have, your phone). Email adresses are not secret.

* Again, email adresses are not secret. How do you limit login-spamming? I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night because someone is trying to break into my account.

* What about timing attacks? If i stand over your shoulder while you're in the library - and i try to log in using your email address a few seconds before/after you, wouldn't you think "oh, probably a fluke" and allow my login? How would you differentiate between logins?

* If you're not that security-minded, you could have a desktop client as well - so you don't have to rely on your phone. At that point you could probably just have a browser plugin that does it all for you. (And at this point you're pretty close to what i already do with LastPass, although the site i'm visiting doesn't have to do anything special other that implementing a regular username/password login system.)

EDIT: Also, as far as i can see from the Play Store screenshots, the app only asks you "Do you want to log in at <site>?". A far better solution would be to show the user a number sequence (or a cute cat or dog picture) on both the login page and the phone. If those two mismatch, the login attempt is not from your session.

<comment><USER3> * Once you create an application, you can set how you want your users to provide their identity. You can ask just for the email, email+digits or just their phone number. However, when you deny a notification from your phone, the user is required to provide the second identifier (email requires additional last 3 digits, phone number also requires email, and email+digits requires the full number in addition) * The system only allows a single login per user, so if you have initiated the request first, somebody else would have to wait for you to finish the request until they can initiate it). There are additional limitations happening in the background that prevents spammy logins to reach the user's phone. * We're still trying to improve our UX, so we might take that in consideration for future releases

<comment><USER2> * So if i deny the login attempt on my phone, an attacker who knows my phone number can still log in to my account? Email + phone number is not two factors, it's zero (neither is a secret).

* So what if the attacker started a login request a few milliseconds before i did? How can i differentiate between the attackers login attempt and mine?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Basically, this is an extremely secure, 2 form factor, idiot proof login > system

As far as I know, factors are

1\. Something you know (password)

2\. Something you have (a dongle or phone)

3\. Something you are (iris or fingerprint)

With _only_ pressing a button on a phone, how can this be two-factor? There is no password ("passwords are obsolete" and usernames are _not_ a knowledge factor in multi auth) and nothing of biometrics. Am I missing something?

By the way, not entering passwords is a fantastic way to login. I have been using the Passwordless [1] method for some time and it works great.

[1]: [https://passwordless.net/](https://passwordless.net/)

<comment><USER5> I suspect some people have started to assume that "two-factor authentication" literally just means "phone/dongle".

<comment><USER6> The very fact that they claim that makes me uncomfortable with their knowledge of security.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This method isn't secure unless both the website and phone display a code (e.g. a short hash over a Diffie-Hellman, or other, shared secret and the session id) so you can determine which session you're authenticating. Otherwise, anyone who can determine that you're logging in (traffic analysis is possible even if it's encrypted) can initiate a timing attack.

I've also only glanced over the API docs, but it looks like the app just provides a secret to the server with each authentication request. So this is still essentially password authentication, you're just relying on your phone being more secure than a potentially key-logged terminal.

<comment><USER3> The system has some built-in rules that prevent timing attacks from happening, so that only one authentication request may be active per user. A few other rules run in the background, preventing other similar attacks. In relation to the communication between the service server and our server, we're currently offering the traditional api key/secret method, but we will roll out RSA- enabled calls.

In relation to the phone, users may pin-protect (for now, we're looking into additional methods) each individual profile. The main difference is that the user no longer uses the same communication channel (browser-server) to send the full set of credentials, with UNLOQ, a separate channel is used (device- UNLOQ paired connection)

<comment><USER7> If you use a PIN, make sure you encrypt the API secret with the PIN and do NOT store a hash or any other means by which to verify that the PIN is correct. I'd also suggest an (UNencrypted) secret device token such that you can actually detect when an app install is being used with a bad (incorrectly decrypted) API key and disable it after N attempts. This will prevent people abusing this policy for DoS against regular friendly usernames.

If you do that, enforce TLS/SSL, and display a session code to stop timing attacks (even if you only allow one login at a time, it's still vulnerable to race), then it's not terrible.

<comment><USER7> You should also add an API for session management, so I can always see what sessions are active under my account and kick them out if they look suspicious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article starts with the words "Imagine you want to try the service offered by a site, but you have to log in to be able to do it." That's a problem statement, and the solution is clear: Let users try your service without forcing them to log in. That's it. It's that simple: Offer a demo. No third- party two-factor-authentication-by-people-who-don't-understand-what-two- factor-means stuff needed.

Once you have people hooked, they _will_ gladly open an account if they intend to return.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. You can always create a demo session with a long-lasting cookie, and then associate it with a new users account when they eventually do register.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I thought this would be a write-up on SQRL [https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm](https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm) that uses QR codes and a secure identity database on your phone to authenticate you. Unlike the article, SQRL is an open protocol that can be developed and used by anyone. It is in alpha stages but I have used a prototype and it works really well.

<comment><USER7> SQRL is worse in many respects. While it uses public key cryptography, which helps in the MITM scenario, it suffers from only weakly addressing the complexities of spoof protection (A malicious site, or a trustworthy but compromised site, can display a QR code for a different website or session). UNLOQ avoids _some_ of this because it relies on direct notifications from the server to your phone (hopefully over TLS, which makes MITM unlikely)

<comment><USER10> But do you know any system that can eliminate a MITM attack?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's not two-factor. Your phone becomes an access card. Which is cool because you don't have to remember a password. But it's not two-factor.

</comment><comment><USER12> The fact that this made it to the front page is concerning.

</comment><comment><USER13> Users understand the Username/Password workflow.

Every attempt I've seen at improving this fails by introducing some new unexpected workflow complexity such as "sign in with google, fb etc" or "use your phone"

I think devs should instead focus their efforts on making that standard Username/Password flow work as effortlessly as possible.

<comment><USER14> Meeting users where their understanding is _now_ and not trying to drag them along to where their understanding should be is definitely a challenge with replacing traditional workflows (like username/password, swiping a credit card, letting the waiter carry your card off for swiping, etc). The issue I see with this is that it's introducing another step into the process instead of removing a step or making it easier. Now, instead of just remembering a username/password combo, you have to 1) remember a username 2) Remember that the website that you're visiting has the option to use unloq.io (because they're probably going to offer both unloq.io and the standard username/password) 3) enter in username 4) find your phone 5) unlock your phone 6) wait for confirmation on your phone 7) hit allow 8) look up, reorient yourself to your monitor and mouse, and continue.

Good UX involves taking away steps and streamlining flow, and until flow is streamlined and easier than the previous process users won't accept it.

<comment><USER13> Couldn't agree more. Brings to mind the "unlocking a car door with a smartphone app" story that I read via HN a while ago

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Well, the above scenario is not science fiction anymore.

Proceeds to describe something that is not the above scenario.

Secondly, this ignores the reality that phones in the hands of real users are not a reliable means of identification. People lose or change their phones all the time.

Next, this creates a massive road block for users in trying to sign up. As it stands now, unloq limits itself to a single email for a single user.

This also ties your authentication to a third party service. What assurances does unloq provide should they go the way of seemingly every other startup these days? What happens when Google buys them?

The "Passwords are obsolete" mantra is built around one assumption:

"Specifically, the ability to send an email or SMS to users reliably and quickly."

And the problem with that assumption is that it's wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. 100% wrong. Relying on a system like this _will_ cause problems for your users, and it will be impossible to fix with software.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for the feedback. A few answers:

"As it stands now, unloq limits itself to a single email for a single user." -> We do offer the option to create additional profiles on others email a user might have.

"that phones in the hands of real users are not a reliable means of identification" -> We do agree that phones by themselves are not secure enough. Currently we do offer the option to add a secondary PIN on each profile, but we are thinking to enforce it to the application level.

<comment><USER15> > We do offer the option to create additional profiles on others email a user > might have.

I looked at the API, and it didn't offer that feature.

> Currently we do offer the option to add a secondary PIN on each profile, but > we are thinking to enforce it to the application level.

So a password.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> First of all, thanks for all the great feedback. We've just launched in beta and we are striving to make UNLOQ the simplest authentication system. We know that we have a long way ahead of us so we appreciate all the feedback. Here're a few answers to the comments I've seen above: 1\. We believe it is a two factor: something you have = your phone; something you are = you're fingerprint (for the phones that comes with this option and it is enabled); something you know = you're PIN (you can set additional PIN's on your profile). 2\. Regular two factor provides you with a code to insert in the browser after you authenticated with username and password. We make use of two channels in order to authenticate a user: the browser used to provide the identity and the service's server - UNLOQ server - device to provide proof of identity. We believe that this makes the system harder to break through man- in-the-middle type of attacks. 3\. We know we still have to work on user experience, but entering just your email and then approving on the phone the request seems easier than entering the full set of credentials followed by another security code (as 2fa proposes)

<comment><USER17> Even if it is two-factor, for the reasons you described, it's all over a single channel. There is no out of band mechanism- meaning this can easily be MITM'd. UNLOQ is poor authentication security in more ways than one.

By the way, the founders of Duo Security hold the patent on completing an authentication from a smartphone. Something to keep in mind. [http://www.google.com/patents/US20110219230](http://www.google.com/patents/US20110219230)

<comment><USER18> It looks like that patent had a final rejection in 2013. [http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair](http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair) (13/039,209)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I fail to see the 2 form factor but here's something I found inside the documentation an application can request the last 3 digits of a user phone number + valid email to allow a successful login.

[http://unloq.readme.io/v1/docs/authenticate](http://unloq.readme.io/v1/docs/authenticate)

DIGITS_REQUIRED

Please provide the last 3 digits of your profile's phone number. (Only when application has its authentication type set to email and digits

</comment><comment><USER20> This isn't multifactor. Use an actual multifactor solution, like Google Authenticator or password+SMS.

</comment><comment><USER21> > Think Fort Knox like. We use the same algorithms approved for top secret > information like AES 256, SHA3 and public-private key encryption.

statements like this make me very very nervous as AES by itself is basically useless and the impotent part being _how_ they use AES.

</comment><comment><USER22> Being a bit paranoid, how do I know you won't login as any of my users without their permission? Or in other words, if your systems get compromised, how can I be sure that my system won't get unauthorised logins?

</comment><comment><USER23> I like how "extremely secure, 2 form factor, idiot proof login system" is bold and "once the user has the unloq app installed and configured" is not.

</comment><comment><USER24> [https://unloq.io/#/](https://unloq.io/#/)

It's Free!

(up to 10,000 users)

And what happens then? What does it cost?

</comment><comment><USER25> Cool idea, how is re-authentication handled beyond the initial sign up? Do you get a text message each time?

<comment><USER26> Push notification to your phone. They don't have iOS support yet which counts me out from trying it out.

<comment><USER27> I have quite a few android devices, but the play store tells me that "This app is incompatible with all of your devices". But I'll keep an eye on this, seems nice. I guess it's two-factor enough, because I have a password on my phone.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious, what device/android version do you have?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What happens when you lose the phone?

<comment><USER26> You can easily deactivate it. Would I use this for sensitive data? probably not as I use a password vault, but for non sensitive sites this looks like quite a slick approach.</comment></comment>