Age of surveillance: the fish is rotting from its head - <AUTHOR> http://non-linear-response.blogspot.com/2011/01/age-of-surveillance-fish-is-rotting.html

<comment><USER3> A long-held conspiracy theory of mine: While 99%+ of those watching broadcast or cable television never have the opportunity to buy Cisco equipment for their business, and much better suited advertising channels exist (IT magazines, even TechCrunch), Cisco spends a LOT of time & money advertising on TV. (Until recently, Cisco used other brands for consumer products, e.g. Linksys!) But if it's not to reach the consumers, why do it? Simply to "purchase" journalists and networks. If they start criticizing Cisco for its role in oppressive regimes' censorship and e-terror campaigns, they lose a significant percent of their ad revenue.

The genius of it is, the financial ramifications are so obvious to these networks & publishers that not a single explicit word needs said; it's not a bribe, it's just making it lucrative to keep one's figurative mouth shut.

<comment><USER4> Oh come on. My completely non-technical boss looked at me a while ago and said "We should get a barracuda spam filter."

Why? Why does he even know what this is? Why does he even know that spam filters exist?

Because barracuda has their ads all over every airport I've ever been in.

The same goes for cisco. If I put in a request for funding for some network gear, my boss wants to feel like he knows a bit about what I'm spending money on. Cisco helps him feel that way. When he signs off on it, he gets a warm fuzzy because the television told him that cisco gear is the best gear and cisco gear is what he _needs_.

He might even object if I told him that we're going to get juniper stuff instead of cisco because juniper doesn't have ads on the TV and he's never heard of them. What are they, some _generic_ brand? No! WE need cisco!

<comment><USER5> Another great way to reach your boss is to fund a Cisco Professor of E-Democracy just like Cisco actually do, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This post should be required reading for anyone in West working on this technology. It's one thing to spend your life working on something of dubious benefit to humanity, it's entirely another to be directly, actively working against freedom and democracy globally.

I know of one company that used to (maybe still do?) recruit aggressively at my university, who shall remain nameless for the sake of civility, and cannot understand the students that chose to go work there despite knowing full well the business they're in.

<comment><USER7> Sadly, money motivates, and I can understand that. I still think that way about people who go to work on guided missiles and so forth. Perhaps it's a stretched simile, but I think it's like selling crack to kids to feed your family.

I don't think it's that civil to omit the company's name, it's more like letting them win. I find it interesting and useful to learn which companies are behind shady activities, as done in the article:

> The equipment, produced by Alcatel, Siemens, Cisco and others is then sold > to Iran, Myanmar, Belarus and other repressive regimes, as part of normal > network operator procurements.

<comment><AUTHOR> To be frank I listed those just as examples: no idea which of those have their equipment installed at Beltelecom, but they are commonly used in similar setups. There is little point in being accusatory: the surveillance features were developed as a part of legal compliance to their respective jurisdictions, then spread worldwide.

IMHO it is best to treat corporations as a force of nature, which however can be loosely directed by legislation. People staffing them might be all fine as individuals, but the requirements of market and governments can produce socially unwelcome outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think one of the most well known and egregious example of large scale surveillance outfit is the Stasi. It's reported that there was one informer per every 6 and a half people. Possibly the highest ratio of all known examples.

Stasiland <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasiland> is a fascinating read. And of course "The Lives of Others" is a must watch. If for no other reason than to experience an eloquent demonstration of powerful yet understated acting.

<comment><USER9> Oh, it's not limited to the GDR. Switzerland in the eighties had the "Fichenaffäre" when it came out that the Swiss federal police did surveillance, and kept records on, about 10% of the population.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal>

The Stasi is a fascinating example because the fall of the GDR was quick enough that they couldn't destroy most of the existing files and evidence and we have a relatively clear picture of what happened there. For the Swiss files from the 80s, an official archive exists but access to actual data is relatively difficult. If other democratically elected governments practice Stasi-style surveillance, it would be extremely hard to find out (and would, arguably be the bottom of an iceberg ranging from regular law enforcement to espionage and counter-espionage, to proactive intelligence gathering to find likely terrorists, to proactive intelligence gathering on random citizens who are not terrorists but may have rented a car from a suspected terrorist's relative).

<comment><USER10> But it's quite a difference what happens with such 'fichen' info to a citizen/politician in Belarus and in Switzerland (or Germany or (probably) US).

<comment><USER9> There's definitely a large spectrum, between countries where the government uses violent means to suppress political oppostion (including but not limited to Belarus), over governments that deport people who met with a "person of interest" to third-party countries where they get tortured (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar>) to countries where people just feel that preemptive intelligence gathering without concrete indications is more a cover-your-ass thing than a useful technique to fight crime.

Note that Lawful Interception (i.e. interfaces for government agencies to siphon off data from internet providers), as it was established by US and Europe, was never a focused effort to provide data for criminal investigations but started out with different groups of users in mind (i.e., espionnage and possibly other uses that the average citizen would find spooky).

And, as the article explains, the same technology that is used to guarantee Lawful Interception in Germany/US/other countries is used for political suppression in countries that would perhaps lack the technical sophistication but have a budget and corresponding sources for these. (Although I'm reasonably certain that companies in China and Russia will be happy to provide similar technology to potential buyers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The battle for privacy was lost during the last decade - as in "we lost the war".

[http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2005/22C3-920-en- we_lost...](http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2005/22C3-920-en- we_lost_the_war.html)

The best we can hope for in future is a transparent or sousveillance society where an informational balance of power is maintained. Currently the main bottleneck is ISPs, and these are points of weakness where top-down control can be introduced to a greater or lesser extent.

<comment><USER12> The end of privacy was a foregone conclusion: with such rapidly falling cost for video and audio hardware, the only way to _keep_ privacy would be totalitarianism.

<comment><USER13> Oh, the irony...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "While the liberty movements in the West are busy enough doing good job fighting off the surveillance wave at home, the totalitarian customer segment remains steadily serviced, by the virtue of civil opinion there being discarded and silenced."

That's a bold statement. I agree that liberty movements are fighting. But I don't think they are winning. We've definitely taken a few steps back in recent years. There are more cameras on every street corner and more companies are using facial recognition software to spot people as they go about their day to day business. I don't think that's progress.

<comment><USER15> I don't think the author claimed that the liberty movements are winning, just that they don't have the resources to fight both at home and abroad.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. That said, any setback of surveillance in the West trickles down to less options available to dictators everywhere. The technology is developed first and foremost to the "home front" of developed nations, as they are the biggest market by far. Thus even local efforts of activists have potentially global impact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I really doubt the US would be inclined to limit its own options by condemning such acts by other countries and banning certain parts of the process.

<comment><USER17> You mean like pushing for other countries to not use land mines and cluster bombs but still using them itself?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's a matter of fact that every vendor of telco equipment has to provide a lawful-interception interface when doing business at a serious scale (say, enabling services for >10k end-users). That holds true in countries with questionable political systems, but even more so in Central/Western Europe and especially in the US. It's really just how the technology is handled and used.

Regarding conspiracy theories: there's a popular saying in the telco/network industry, going like "Nobody has ever been fired for buying Cisco equipment". It's just a matter of taking personal risks for your CTO.

<comment><USER18> We at Sipwise implement VoIP switches at major ISPs in Europe, and the most uncomfortable question, which is ALWAYS asked (mostly just as a side-question, like "Btw, I suppose you support it anyways, so how does your solution work in that regards?") is the one of lawful interception.

There's a specification defined by the PacketCable consortium ([http://www.cablelabs.com/packetcable/downloads/specs/PKT- SP-...](http://www.cablelabs.com/packetcable/downloads/specs/PKT-SP-ES- DCI-I01-060914.pdf)), and I'd say that almost every major vendor has implemented it in one way or the other in order to be deployed at cable ISPs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "some services allow to downgrade from SSL gracefully" - Is this true? Does this ability not defeat the point of SSL? Why would this technology be built in?

"Traditional wiretapping of phone networks was combined with GSM location services: thousands of people are now getting subpoenas and are dragged to police stations for being on streets in the vicinity of protests." - <USER2> towers keep location logs?

<comment><AUTHOR> Most notably Gmail allowed downgrading to insecure connection until the China affair. There are other mail, messaging and social services people use there, some of them regional (e.g. Russian), where perception of security threats is low.

Cell towers per se do not maintain any logs, it is just transceiver equipment connected to communication line. However telecom datacenters provide location services based on signal strength from the handset to cell towers in the area. Many operators make these services available commercially to customers, and the data is nearly always accessible to law enforcement upon request.

Wikipedia provides a good summary of the process: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking>

<comment><USER19> Criminals are smart enough to remove the battery, or not carry a cell phone during a major crime. So this mostly just enables the government and telecom companies to track law-abiding citizens.

<comment><USER20> Really? All criminals? I'm not a big fan of developments in surveillance, but it's crazy to think that some criminals won't be caught. The fact that they're petty criminals or benefits cheats makes the exercise of debatable value, but not for the reason you state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Even if the Western countries did do as the OP proposes, it would simply result in a shift to non-Western suppliers such as the Chinese-owned Huawei.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a good point. I am aware of Huawei, although to my knowledge it is not used in Belarus to a noticeable extent. No doubt of course it could change if this hypothetic embargo is introduced.

There are however subtleties. The government and network operators use services of big system integrators in the region: Baltic states, Russia and Ukraine. The proximity of many vendors creates competitive situation, but if only Chinese vector is available, the only viable option would be Moscow-based Huawei suppliers. This is bound to create many problems with maintaining the existing infrastructure, and the vendor will be able to dictate the price, driving up the costs of enforcement and reducing its scope. If Ruissian dealerships are used, it also creates a dependency on Putin, relations with whom for Lukashenko have not been friendly at all lately.</comment></comment>


Ebay Opens Up Seller Tools As A Platform - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/15/ebay-opens-up-seller-tools-as-a-platform/

<comment><USER2> eBay has seen the light???

<comment><USER2> As mentioned in the article, this is analogous to Facebook, and although the idea is it will help Selling Manager take off as a platform (those who have used it know how bad it is) and at the same time remove the appeal of other third-party selling tools/services, the question I want to know is how does eBay intend to rewards these developers?

Will it offer commissions, access to user data, allow advertisements in the tools (like facebook), as it is notoriously monopolistic, greedy, and uncompromising and from my experience of eBay it is not in its nature to do such things.</comment></comment>


Cornell Natural Language Visual Reasoning Dataset - <AUTHOR> http://lic.nlp.cornell.edu/nlvr/ <comment><USER2> SHRDLU, anyone? [http://hci.stanford.edu/winograd/shrdlu/](http://hci.stanford.edu/winograd/shrdlu/)

For almost 50 years, we've been talking to computers about blocks in a box!

<comment><USER3> Pretty amazing.

It seems today people write off those demos as showy, shallow and misleadingly optimistic. But if you think about it, the exact same thing can be said about modern ML demonstrations. A lot of them hint at nearly human-level intelligence, but that's often achieved through careful restriction on the problem domain and by choosing the most successful examples.

Considering that old-school AI was operating on laughable hardware with tiny hand-made datasets, with no crowd-sourcing options... I wonder, did attempts to generalize some of that research fail because the approach was fundamentally flawed, or was it because such efforts themselves weren't as good as initial projects?

I mean, the article on Wikipedia talks about "more realistic level of ambiguity and complexity", but the demonstrated domain is already more complex than 90% of all programming problems I solve on day-to-day basis.

* * *

I though Minsky also did something similar, but with physical blocks and a robotic arm, and without the NLP interface. Anyone knows about that? Or am I making it up? I was looking for info about this recently and couldn't find anything.

<comment><USER4> If you're talking about human-level intelligence, I think you're on to something. Old-fashioned AI was probably closer to the right track than we are now.

> did attempts to generalize some of that research fail because the approach > was fundamentally flawed, or was it because such efforts themselves weren't > as good as initial projects?

In many cases there haven't _been_ attempts to follow up on that early work. It's more like the zeitgeist just shifted to other things. For example, SHRDLU was just a couple years before the first AI winter, and when spring came (~1980) people had largely moved on. (Which isn't to say there weren't also flaws with the approach.)</comment></comment></comment>


Implementing a clone of OpenBSD pledge into the Linux kernel (French) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXgxMDglxVM <comment><AUTHOR> The slides are in English.</comment>


What do you think of my upcoming color matching game for iOS? (work in progress) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGpvGgjztq4

<comment><AUTHOR> Horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines connect circles of the same color.

A move is made by selecting a column. Any color match with at least one of its two circles in that column will have them shrunk.

Roughly, circles in between will change to that color and gaps in between will create circles of that color.

When a stack of circles lands, it will be automatically selected with behavior as above.</comment>


Cliff Stoll, the mad scientist who invented the art of hunting hackers - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/meet-the-mad-scientist-who-wrote-the-book-on-how-to-hunt-hackers/ <comment><USER3> At work, we give Cliff's Klein bottles as the quarterly award for engineering excellence. When I ordered the first batch, I called the number on the Acme Klein bottles website to ask whether they could be engraved (the site states the CLIFF won't engrave the bottles but I wanted clarification if ANYONE would engrave them). It rang and went to voicemail. I started leaving a message with my question when suddenly there was a lot of noise as the phone was picked up (apparently it was a real answering machine) by someone shouting "don't hang up! Don't hang up!". It was Cliff. I was briefly star-struck, told him what an influence The Cuckoo's Egg had on me when I was younger, and then received a 15-minute oral history of engraving methods and why none of them would work on his Klein bottles. An absolute highlight of my year, and I think they've been well received as engineering awards...even if we have to use a label-maker to add the recipient's name :)

<comment><USER4> Did he say why laser engraving wouldn't work? I can see the curves causing some distortion but you should be able to compensate for that.

Edit: He answers the question in his FAQ

> The borosilicate glass laughs at laser beams

..which makes sense. Seems like sand blasting would be the best way.

<comment><USER5> In short - engraving borosilicate is difficult, because it does not expand very much when heated. So when hit by an infrared laser beam, the glass doesn't locally expand and spall off a tiny speck of glass .... instead, the glass locally _melts_. When the beam moves on to the next pixel, the first site either solidifies or sometimes dribbles away. Laser engraving of borosilicate just doesn't work well. And, because of the compound curves of the Klein bottle, you need a big depth of field as well as a rotary bottle holder. All laser engravers that I've played with have a very short (10mm or so) depth of field. Diamond engraving doesn't work well because of the curves. Sandblasting with a rubber mask works, but making the mask is a pain. So, after lots of attempts, I've given up on engraving these guys. Also: mistakes are expensive -- this is hand-blown glass.

<comment><USER6> Can't acid be used to etch glass?

Also, why not use glass that's easier to etch?

<comment><USER7> With quartz glass, it's going to be hydrofluoric acid and I invite you to read up about its toxicity and lethality (user stories like: splashed a few ml on a leg, did all the emergency procedures exactly right, got quick emergency care, leg amputated, died anyways).

<comment><USER8> HF is also used to wash cars by people wearing no protection, [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5779585/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5779585/)

E.g. "As a case example, one worker (case 1) splashed his left leg while transferring a cleaning solution of HF and sulfuric acid between containers. He did not irrigate the area and continued to work for approximately 1.5 hours with soaked pants and shoe until he developed an uncomfortable burning sensation" ...

<comment><USER9> " _...Upon evaluation, the patient was reported to have a quarter-sized brown necrotic area on the anterior left ankle and burn to the anterior left lower leg. Emergency medical technicians irrigated the area with calcium gluconate and transported him to a burn unit, where he received a calcium gluconate injection. He sustained a small area of full-thickness skin loss requiring excision and debridement with a skin graft. The worker received outpatient burn therapy and returned to part-time work 6 weeks after the injury. A foot paresthesia developed, and the worker received a permanent partial disability payment._ "

I'm going with "things I won't work with", Alex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sometime in high school (middle maybe?), I had to pick a non-fiction book to read for school, and picked Cuckoo's Egg by Stoll. I was already in to computers, but had no idea what was possible or where that interest in computers would or could go, and this booked changed my view for the better. I distinctly remember my teacher questioning it was non-fiction when reading the jacket, but sure enough, it was. It's an great memory and amazing book, well worth reading still.

<comment><USER11> Check out more recent interviews with him. Interesting guy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU)

<comment><USER12> He's my neighbor. I went over to his house and received this exact experience. It's very practiced and pretty amazing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I find this remarkable:

      This is the other ingredient to Stoll's hacker-hunting obsession [...] a kind of low-burning moral outrage.

because I notice the same in a lot of other people worth listening to. In general you won't notice it until you spend some time with them. There is some internal moral compass influencing all decisions subtly, even in the knowledge most of the world doesn't care. Its different from SJWs etc in that its mostly silent, internal, invisible, doing instead of saying.

For an other example, here's what Neil Gaiman says about Terry Pratchett:

      There is a fury to Terry Pratchett's writing: it's the fury that was the engine that powered Discworld

[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry- pratchet...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett- angry-not-jolly-neil-gaiman)

<comment><USER14> >Its different from SJWs etc in that its mostly silent, internal, invisible, doing instead of saying.

You lost me right there. At some point enough tinder on the lowest burn turns into fire. The end of the interview suggests much the same on the part of the subject.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I bought one of his Klein bottles and on top of being a great piece of work, he sent along with it fantastic pictures of him putting it in the box for shipping. Probably my favorite experience buying anything ever.

<comment><USER5> You bet, MusingSole ... customer service is easy when you run a zero volume business.

<comment><USER3> Just caught the "zero volume" joke, upon second reading.

<comment><USER16> Hah, I hadn't until your comment. That's a good joke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The book is completely fascinating from multiple perspectives and I suggest anyone who wants to get a feel for the era read it. It's quite enjoyable, as well. The Internet, today, feels very metropolitan in some ways, but then this was something of a wild frontier.

Reading _The Cuckoo 's Egg_ gave me a frisson of recognition, as I was similarly torn between the abstract world of physics and the (comparatively) more concrete world of computing, as well as running into people mucking about where they had no business being during a time period when law enforcement had yet to develop a solid framework for responding to those sorts of issues.

I have considered contacting him purely for some hourglass work, or at least tips as to what to look for.

<comment><USER18> Back when I watched the original NOVA episode, I noticed they showed his UUCP email address. Since I had recorded it on VHS, I paused it so I could write it down. I emailed Cliff, apologetically, but thanking him for the story. I was quite surprised when he replied. Super nice guy, great story well told. It was probably a decade later that I read the book but somehow his narration in the NOVA episode is very personable and real, it just nails the story; and the interview with the actual hacker is great.

<comment><USER5> UUCP email? Ouch! Sends me back several decades...

<comment><USER18> At least anyone who watches the episode today can't use that as a hint to bug you like I did nearly 30 years ago. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> His follow-up book "Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway" was also a great read [0]. It's a shame that collectively we couldn't heed some of his warnings about the hype we were being sold about the Internet. In many ways the future he hinted at turned out to be substantially worse than he predicted.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385419945/ref=dbs_a_def_r...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385419945/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2)

<comment><USER20> +1 for a silicon Snake Oil.

There are many hucksters out to make money from overstretched school budgets by pandering to parents' tech anxiety, and no money in sage warnings, and in our marketing-driven attention economy, that means the latter is ignored to the detriment of the common interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am perpetually happy that Cliff Stoll figured out how to be his normal weird self in the world.

That unselfconsious joy about stuff is exceptionally wholesome.

<comment><USER5> Zooks! My normal-weird self. I gotta parse that...

<comment><USER21> It is seductively easy to become jaded and "too cool" to show how into something one might be. Kids are allowed to, but starting at about age 14, I've found that society tends to do its best to tamp this exuberance down.

The other trap is to figure that even if you're really into something you somehow have to be "serious" about it in a way that means you can't admit that you're having any fun -- or that you have to work on "serious problems".

You avoided the traps! You are an inspiration, as a direct result. The very best people I know all have this trait -- a very early mentor in my life, my graduate advisors...

So, thanks. :)

<comment><USER5> And thank you for your kind note, Protagonist of H. Funny you should mention it ... round 14 years old, I stopped watching TV. I was too busy building a ham radio set; I'd come home and dive into electronics. And, well, I've not watched television since then. I've missed an enormous amount of popular culture & goodness knows what else. On the other hand, it's a bit like being given a few hours every day to build stuff or figure out how things work. I guess this tends to make my 'normal' into 'weird'.

<comment><USER22> Cliff, it's neat to see your jumping in here. Thanks for sharing your time with us. I have enjoyed periodically re-reading _The Cuckoo's Egg_ since my sister gifted the book to me in the early '90s. I didn't know you were a ham though; may I ask what was/is your call sign? And are you still active in the hobby? Just curious & thanks again. 73

<comment><USER5> K7TA ... got the call when I was in grad school in Tucson Arizona. But I don't get on the air much ... a little bit of CW on the low bands, just to keep my fist in order.

<comment><AUTHOR> Check out FT8

<comment><USER23> I love FT8, but I think Cliff would probably find it a bit boring. It's too automated, it's basically computers talking to each other.

To an introvert like myself, it's cool. I love seeing how far I can get (with my 40m Z-dipole mounted in my single story attic -- i.e. too low, and hiding inside a building -- I've gone 5150 miles on 10 watts).

But it doesn't offer the challenges (and rewards) as CW, or even SSB phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The Cuckoo's Egg is a great read. For another great hacking story from the same era, see "An Evening with Berferd: In Which a Cracker is Lured, Endured, and Studied": [http://www.cheswick.com/ches/papers/berferd.pdf](http://www.cheswick.com/ches/papers/berferd.pdf)

From the abstract: "On 7 January 1991 a cracker, believing he had discovered the famous sendmail DEBUG hole in our Internet gatewaymachine, attempted to obtain a copy of our passwordfile. I sent him one. For several months we led this cracker on a merry chase in order to trace his location and learn his techniques."

<comment><USER25> It's absolutely one of my favorite reads ever. In fact, I think it's about time to read it again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I had the immense pleasure of seeing my childhood idol Cliff Stoll on stage at a conference organised by my company. They had invited Cliff as the keynote speaker. He brought honest-to-god slides and a projector, his talk ran over due to popular demand and he was a stark contrast to the otherwise "corporate" atmosphere.

What impressed me most about Cliff though was the level of interest he displayed in everything. In what our company did when talking to the execs before the talk and in everyone who came up to him after the talk. He stayed in the conference room to take photos with each of the dozens of fans lined up one by one. Eventually we were kicked out since the next event was about to start.

15-year-old me would never have dreamed of meeting my childhood idol, but when I finally met him it was like he just had finished writing the book and walked onto the stage. Thanks Cliff!

<comment><USER27> I can one up: I actually _worked_ with the guy on a contract. The people we did the work for were kind of jerks, but Cliff was amazing. Old school mad scientist. Except he radiates a saint-like benevolence and good-heartedness which is all too rare these days. Like a cross between the professor on "back to the future," Yoda, and a Catholic saint.

LBNL should have given him a lab, a quarter million bucks for equipment he might find interesting and permanent access to the machine shops and library. The fact that they didn't is ... one of the reasons I no longer work there and why modern science and its culture is a trash fire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The Cuckoo's Egg and Silicon Snake Oil were life changing for me. I was in middle school, snowed-in in upstate New York, on my computer most of the time. And the writing tips at the end of Silicon Snake Oil have stuck with me to this day.

Cuckoo's Egg is a great thriller. Silicon Snake Oil was ahead of its time. The thing I liked about both is that they showed me what a rich life could be like beyond computers. And what was this magical place called Berkeley?

Cuckoo's Egg is also something of an anecdote to 'imposter syndrome'. It showed how someone who was coming in to the field from the outside could trust their instincts and do something important. As others have said, a lot of us have come into this field from a wide variety of backgrounds. Stoll's books showed me how that can actually be an asset.

</comment><comment><USER29> If you're into podcasts there is a biographical interview with Cliff Stoll here [https://www.numberphile.com/podcast/cliff- stoll](https://www.numberphile.com/podcast/cliff-stoll)

<comment><USER30> Possibly the best single podcast episode ever. I cried.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Someday I want to be as excited about something as Cliff Stoll is about everything...

<comment><USER32> IMHO the key is removing empty media calories and replace them with load bearing subjects.

<comment><USER33> How do I do this?

<comment><USER34> Step one might be "stop reading Hackernews so damn much".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why call Cliff a "mad" scientist? He's a polymath possessing diverse skills, some of them esoteric (glassblowing), but there's no evidence that he's even eccentric, much less "mad". Sure he built a robot, but it doesn't even have weapons. Seriously, would you have called Feynmann, Heinlein or Minsky mad? There's this trope that if you are smart and do anything unusual you must also be "mad". Smarts, curiosity, and hard work are not an illness.

<comment><USER36> I think the "mad" in "mad scientist" makes it form a compound word - <USER2> doesn't suggest the person is clinically insane. To me, I hear "mad scientist" and I think:

\- Very knowledgeable across a range of studies \- Likes to build homebrew projects \- Impressive work ethic and devotion to projects \- Does it not for money or fame, but just because it's what they do

<comment><USER37> \- Has crazy hair like Cliff Stoll or Albert Einstein in that one picture

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> For those who want to know more about the Klein Bottle and mathematical side of Cliff Stoll, check out the videos featuring him on this Numberphile playlist [1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt5AfwLFPxWJeBhzCJ_JX...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt5AfwLFPxWJeBhzCJ_JXdaIXi_YJl7Bh)

<comment><USER39> This one is particularly good: every time you think he can't have more glass props, he pulls out another one.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Rxep2Mkp8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Rxep2Mkp8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I find Cliff's closing points extremely relatable.

> "I remember when the internet was innocent, when it crossed political > boundaries without a care, when it was a sandbox for intellectually happy > people," Stoll had told me in our first phone call. "Boy, did that bubble > burst."

> He never imagined, 30 years ago, that the internet would become a medium for > dark forces: disinformation, espionage, and war. "I look for the best in > people. I want to live in a world where computing and technology are used > for the good of humanity," Stoll says. "And it breaks my heart."

Idealism and 'the greater good' are locked in a perpetual battle with human factors, and human factors always seem to win. :(

<comment><USER41> Recently stumbled upon this RMS speech transcription[0] for the first time.

I find it quite relevant to your quoted passages and, I suppose, corroborative of your commentary.

Bit of a long read.

[0] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman- kth.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=CliffStoll](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=CliffStoll)

</comment><comment><USER43> Don't miss Cliffs "robotic crawl space warehouse". Take that Amazon.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw54zsON4MI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw54zsON4MI)

</comment><comment><USER44> I remember watching his TED talk 11 years ago [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj8IA6xOpSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj8IA6xOpSk) and buying a couple Klein bottles afterwards. This brings back memories!

</comment><comment><USER45> I first read this story somewhere, back in the early 90's. It is a great piece of hacker lore, and a lesson (IMO), to not ignore little "rounding errors", as they can often be indicative of bigger problems lurking beneath. That is not to say these issues always need to be fully addressed and resolved, just properly _understood_.

<comment><USER5> Too often, we're driven by getting the right answer. I care more about _understanding_ \-- figuring out what the answer means. As well as the difference between precision and accuracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> A friend gave this book to me during my high school years - in 1995. Cliff's book fundamentally changed my perspective on computers, and at just the right time, is partially responsible for my career to this very day. It's been an interesting career for sure, so, thanks Cliff!

</comment><comment><USER47> I met Cliff Stoll at Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park, CA years ago when his book High-Tech Heretic came out (about computers in the classroom). We had a great discussion about something and he signed my book "I hear you John!".

And I have no idea what we discussed...

</comment><comment><USER48> There's a German movie, titled "23", which tells the story from the point of view of the opposite side.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_\(film\))

</comment><comment><USER49> >He never imagined, 30 years ago, that the internet would become a medium for dark forces: disinformation, espionage, and war. "I look for the best in people. I want to live in a world where computing and technology are used for the good of humanity," Stoll says. "And it breaks my heart."

30 years ago the US phone network was losing about $6 billion / year to toll fraud, operator fraud, and cellphone fraud. Captain Crunch had been arrested in '72\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Draper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Draper)

</comment><comment><USER50> If you haven't read the book, get on it! it's a really easy read and really inspiring. Although it's sad how his obsessions cost him.

</comment><comment><USER51> I remember finding Cliff Stoll's Klein bottle website a number of years ago when I was younger, but of course I didn't remember the name of the person behind it. The concept prompted a lot of interesting geometry-related thoughts. It was surprising to see this come back up while reading about cybersecurity and what sounds like a neat book!

</comment><comment><USER52> Bought one of his bottles a few years ago. I have it right in front of me as a desk toy, next to a Theo Jansen strandbeest model. Every time I look at it I'm reminded of how delightful the whole experience was of obtaining it. I can only recommend everybody buying one of these.

<comment><USER53> I too bought one as a gift for a friend and mentioned in the comment form how much I'd enjoyed The Cuckoo's Egg. The reply was effusive, and the overall "purchase experience" still leaves me with a warm glow.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As part of the security awareness training I gave to each of the software engineers during onboarding. I challenged them to see how things have changed in the years since that happened. The answer is not very much. Except it is worse.

</comment><comment><USER54> I have given away a couple of Klein bottles to collaborators I have really enjoyed working with, as a token of appreciation. He sends emails that show him packaging, and a bunch of eccentric paperwork accompanies the bottle, which are a delight. Visiting him at his lab is on my todo list (his website mentions "You're welcome to stop by for coffee & chat - please call ahead if you plan to visit."), I don't stay very far from his place! Maybe I will get a copy of his book signed too.

</comment><comment><USER55> Nothing beats the Cool Awesome Nerd factor of buying a Klein bottle from him.

[https://www.kleinbottle.com/](https://www.kleinbottle.com/)

<comment><USER56> I have a Mobius scarf and Klein Bottle hat from him. Figured the shipping of a glass one to the UK would be a) expensive and b) likely to end up as glass dust given how godawful our local carriers are.

<comment><USER57> I got one shipped to Ireland and it arrived in one beautiful piece. Cliff also sent on a email documenting the process and I replied with an unboxing photo. It was worth ordering just for the lovely interaction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Yet another site that doesn't load anything for me. Just a bunch of scripts and photo captions.

So what are these people doing to make their stuff so elusive?

<comment><USER59> They're using Javascript, first released in 1994.

<comment><USER58> Good one, there.

But seriously, I have no problem with over 90% of the sites I visit using this Firefox instance. But then there's wired.com and imgur.com, for example, which display just blank pages.

I have no clue what it is. I've made too many changes.

But I'm reasonably confident that it's something evil that they're doing, rather than something silly that I've done.

<comment><USER60> When I visit Google Play Music in Firefox the interface loads about 80% but all clicks result in an error message.

I'm fairly sure it comes down to the automatic tracking protection Firefox touts, but I can't seem to find how to turn it off for one specific site. Or better yet the specific requests that cause breakage on the specific site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Amazing TIL: the famous Berkeley hacker hunter and the Klein bottle guy are just flipsides of the same Möbius strip.

</comment><comment><USER62> I knew Cliff first as my dad's old college buddy, so it's always a little wild when articles about him show up. He's an actual human being and a good person, so I hope the scrutiny and craziness of public attention doesn't give him too much trouble.

</comment><comment><USER63> Just have watched 'The KGB, The Computer, and Me' a few days ago: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTx9h3Sm29I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTx9h3Sm29I)

<comment><USER64> Came to the thread to post this. It's a hacker classic. There is also this German movie, telling the same story from the side of the hacker: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsYD_lmK- KE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsYD_lmK-KE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126765/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126765/)

</comment><comment><USER66> I remember seeing the 60 Minutes interview with Stoll and his girlfriend when his book came out.

Pretty crazy duo. I liked it.

<comment><USER67> > _... with Stoll and his girlfriend ..._

Don't tell his wife!

<comment><USER66> She was still his girlfriend, back then. They were pretty "bohemian."

I think she is now his ex-wife.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> What a fantastic picture! I recognize Ramanujan, Euler, and Turing but I'm not sure who the others are.

<comment><USER69> I think I spy Emmy Noether and Joseph Fourier.

<comment><USER5> On the wall are some of my friends -- people who have taught me good things. From the left - Felix Hausdorff (Who did so much for topology, and who took his life before being deported to a concentration camp) Gosta Mittag-Leffler (complex analysis) Alvin Turing (Computability) /below, hidden somewhat/ Tesla on a blue Serbian banknote, Newton, Stefan (of Stefan-Boltzman fame), Feynman/ Sofia Kovalevskaya (PDE's) Cahit Arf (on the Turkish 10 lyre bill - topologist) Emmy Noether (Rings & Fields) HSM Coxeter (Canadian geometer ... I met him when I was in High School!) Euler (on the Swiss 10 Franc banknote) Srinivasa Ramanujan Felix Klein Fourier and I'm resting on a Friden STW calculator that I've rebuilt.

<comment><USER5> Oh - up top is Bernhard Riemann and August Mobius

<comment><USER69> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I was loaned _Cuckoo 's Egg_ by my first CS professor back in 1989. Great book.

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm finding the "mad scientist" cliche more and more offensive each day.

<comment><USER23> Meh, I'd rather own it than waste time being offended by it. To me, this isn't a label worth getting offended about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Watch the Nova episode, "The KGB, The Computer, and Me".

</comment><comment><USER73> Awesome read. I love the Klein bottles!

</comment><comment><USER74> With all due respect to Cliff Stoll, I'm perplexed by the "Don't go screwing with information that belongs to innocent people!" bit.

Seriously, the article is talking about German hackers intruding military targets:

"the hacker's intrusions to the Department of Defense's MILNET systems, an Alabama army base, the White Sands Missile Range, Navy shipyards, Air Force bases, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, defense contractors, and the CIA"

"Stoll's hacker-tracking work at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs inspired its sister institution, Lawrence Livermore National Labs"

This is where nukes are designed.

And after that "Don't go screwing with information that belongs to innocent people!", "You have a responsibility to your colleagues like me to behave ethically", "low-burning outrage", "[the Internet] was a sandbox for intellectually happy people".

Innocent, ethical, intellectually happy people creating means to murder hundreds of million people and pesky hackers who have no right to be snooping around.

<comment><USER75> > pesky hackers

...working on behalf of the KGB, seeking military advantage for the totalitarian police state they served. Yes, let's be on their side instead.

<comment><USER74> "As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."</comment></comment></comment>


Sweden Leaks the Personal Information of Millions of Its Own Citizens - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/sweden-leaks-the-personal-information-of-millions-of-it-1797208092 <comment><USER4> > "Any governmental assurances to keep your data safe have as much value as a > truckload of dead rats in a tampon factory."

Remember this. I expect every piece of data given out to the government or to private organizations to sit in the databases of every major intelligence agency, and will not be surprise if it's all exposed to the public domain through data aggregation companies in near future.

<comment><USER5> also an aspect of a single-payer healthcare plan?

i don't expect _corporate_ databases to be secure. but, if/when single-payer healthcare is implemented in the US, data leaks and breaches will occur often.

i guess the difference is optical: instead of blaming the evil corporations, we'll blame the evil government.

<comment><USER6> > also an aspect of a single-payer healthcare plan?

Note: single payer healthcare systems are about who _pays_ , not who _provides_ \-- it's even in the name. So here, hospitals and clinics provide healthcare while the government pays those hospitals and clinics. There's no reason for the government to know John Doe's enlarged prostate medication because that's between the doctor and patient.

> if/when single-payer healthcare is implemented in the US, data leaks and > breaches will occur often

Can you provide numerous links to stories about Medicare and Medicaid personal data being exposed to the public? And if so, do those breaches outweigh the cost of (in the single payer case) millions of people without healthcare, increased costs, and worse health outcomes?

<comment><USER7> > There's no reason for the government to know John Doe's enlarged prostate > medication because that's between the doctor and patient.

Unless the government is paying for it and expects to know exactly what it's paying for.

<comment><USER8> > _the government is paying for it and expects to know exactly what it 's > paying for_

To embellish on this point, if you have a system where the government doesn't know what John Doe's healthcare providers are billing for and blindly cuts a cheque, expect to have lots of John Does having lots of very-expensive procedures.

<comment><USER9> no in that case you have something like NICE in the Uk

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One guy working in IT at the department in question apparently lost his job for refusing to implement this. He was also the one whom informed SÄPO about this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would be really interesting to hear more about this. Without too much details of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The thing that really gets to me is that I have no way of opting out of having my personal details in the governments databases. Compared to a private company which if I don't trust I simply avoid. It can't leak data it doesn't have. But I'm completetly defenseless against my goverment.

And I know of no serious politician (I'm Swedish) that talks about these issues. Which means I can't vote for better policies. Society is so far behind on understanding privacy issues and the impact of these shoddy practices.

<comment><USER12> > Compared to a private company which if I don't trust I simply avoid.

Good luck avoiding Google.

<comment><USER13> Well thats not to difficult. And besides, the main point is that you can opt to not use Google services.

<comment><USER12> I don't use most Google services, and when I do they're sandboxed, but Google cookies are omnipresent. I have no faith that my incognito efforts are all that incognito.

<comment><USER14> >I have no faith that my incognito efforts are all that incognito.

But incognito cookies are isolated from normal browsing cookies?

also, [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/self- destruct...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/self-destructing- cookies/)

<comment><USER12> Wasn't referring to any particular technology when I referred to "incognito", just my attempts to keep Google out of my life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> TLDR: Databases shipped to foreign soil, used by consultants without security clearance.

This seems to get a bit bigger by the day. We usually do not have scandals and such high profile activities but this is pretty huge tbh. :(

<comment><USER16> This is happening more and more recently, because the US is only signing treaties (even unrelated ones) if they require that countries allow governmental data to be outsourced into the US.

This is getting very scary, and I'm starting to feel like we should stop doing any interaction with the US here in Europe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> No one has been reported of using the data, at least so far. The head of security went out and said this publicly, also that the military forces vehicles aren't registered there, just giving away even more information about national security for free. _sigh_

Some more trivia: the one responsible for the leak didn't even tell the the prime minister for _over a year_. And the security issues weren't even discussed by the team who hired IBM, they got a report from some people (some sort of service desk or something, who have nothing to do with security) that this was a bad idea and that building a cloud in Sweden would be a lot safer, the report they gave "mysteriously disappeared"

</comment><comment><USER18> I think the US losing all the data for everyone who ever got a security clearance is worse (thankfully mine was before they were stored in a modern system). But this is pretty much beyond stupid. When you outsourced control of your information, assume it will become public.

<comment><USER19> Worse, but swept under the rug. I wasn't officially notified of the OPM breach until a year after it hit the news.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Once again Sweden is leading in transparency

<comment><USER21> Best comment I read this year

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What is the point of a government if it outsources its own work, this is exactly the sort of work governments should be doing.

<comment><USER23> I asked myself the same. Besides reduced costs, I can't see any real benefits...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> no one ever got fired for hiring IBM

<comment><USER25> No one is fired yet. Failed agency directors are traditionally sent to 'the elephant graveyard' ie doing some nonsense work in a government department.

A fine has been handed out - the case was handled in a court without any fanfare and it must have been the smallest possible amount for a crime against the security of the state - half a month's salary. This can not be overruled.

Due to the verdict, the employment status is now under consideration in a special governmental body - basically the HR department.

If this seems like a banana republic without bananas but with a monarch, it's because it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Blog posts from Rick Falkvinge (Head of Privacy at Private Internet Access, and a founder of Sweden's first Pirate Party):

\- [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/07/swedish-a...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/07/swedish- administration-tried-glossing-leaking-eus-secure-stesta-intranet-russia/)

\- [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/07/swedish-t...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/07/swedish- transport-agency-worst-known-governmental-leak-ever-is-slowly-coming-to- light/)

(edit: for some reason, the above blog post URLs weren't showing up for me...)

If I'm reading his blog post correctly, Sweden's transport agency sloppily handled the nation's vehicle registry, which does contain data subject to freedom of information laws, but contains confidential data that is not supposed to be out in the wild:

> _Last March, the entire register of vehicles was sent to marketers > subscribing to it. This is normal in itself, as the vehicle register is > public information, and therefore subject to Freedom-of-Information > excerpts. What was not normal were two things: first, that people in the > witness protection program and similar programs were included in the > register distributed outside the Agency, and second, when this fatal mistake > was discovered, a new version without the sensitive identities was not > distributed with instructions to destroy the old copy. Instead, the > sensitive identities were pointed out and named in a second distribution > with a request for all subscribers to remove these records themselves. This > took place in open cleartext e-mail._

Since Sweden is 10 million citizens, about the size of a U.S. state, this sounds like a state DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) accidentally exposing the licensed drivers and registered vehicles database (part of which is public record). But the difference seems to be that Sweden's transport agency also handles aircraft and military vehicles using the same database, hence the exposure of secret military info?

Ignoring the current fuckup, it seems like a bad idea to have one national data system for personal and govt/military vehicles, even if it is efficient for a nation of Sweden's size. The Gizmodo article notes that this database was accessible to all of the Sweden transport agency IT workers to access and download willy-nilly, which is a problem independent of the issue of it being accidentally leaked. In the United States, it's a common scandal for state law enforcement to lookup driver information without proper authorization, but at least it's just civilian driver information for their state, not the Humvees registered to SEAL Team 6: [http://www.nbc-2.com/story/25334275/deputy-fired- for-imprope...](http://www.nbc-2.com/story/25334275/deputy-fired-for- improperly-accessing-info-about-governor-nbc2-anchors-others)

<comment><USER27> >But the difference seems to be that Sweden's transport agency also handles aircraft and military vehicles using the same database, hence the exposure of secret military info?

No, according from an article linked to in your reference (via google translate): [https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/svenska- stridspiloters-adresser-hotade-i-lackan/)

The "Swedish DMV" is competent also for civil aviation licenses, the risk is that seemingly in the civil pilot license application form there is the information "working in the army as pilot" or something to the same effect.

So it is a bit "stretched", but surely with a database where you can find is someone has a civil airplane pilot license, possibly a helicopter one, his/her employer is the Army or Defense, is in the "right" age range, to find "probable military pilots" doesn't seem like very difficult.

<comment><USER26> Ah you're correct. The sensitive military identities that were purportedly revealed are described in the PIA blog post as this:

> _Names, photos, and home addresses of all operators in the military's most > secret units – equivalent to the SAS or SEAL teams;_

But the translated story that is linked -- [https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fcornucopia.cornubot.se%2F2017%2F07%2Fbreaking- transportstyrelsen-lackte.html) \-- says this:

> _In Sweden there is a fairly unknown term called qualified protection > identities. Or, if you want, personal data, such as false names. These are > issued to special personnel within the police, Säpo and Armed Forces. Thus, > in practice, secret operators, including employees of the military > intelligence service 's top secret office for special retrieval._

There is mention of a separate military vehicle registry:

[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.svt.se%2Fnyheter%2Finrikes%2Fsvt- avslojar-hela-det-militara-fordonsregistret-lamnades-till-utlandet)

> _SVT has taken note of documents from the Armed Forces which show that data > from the Swedish Military Vehicle Register were included in the data that > the Transport Agency let technicians abroad who were not security-tested > take care of. The Armed Forces now confirm on Friday afternoon to SVT News > that parts of the registry are included in the data provided._

<comment><USER27> Good, though - I believe - the military registry (for vehicles) is not much an issue (at least not for individual privacy).

I mean, in normal "civil" register, you look for a license plate and find who owns the car, or viceversa you look for a name and check whether he/she owns a vehicle and find which one(s), in the "military" registry you look for a plate and find out that the owner is either the Army, the Aviation or the Marine (or similar) and that's it.

I guess that the most you can do with the military registry is to get to know how many vehicles per type are registered.

The "qualified protection identities" seem much more troublesome, but - <USER2> don't of course know anything about that - common sense tells me that they must be very few people, it seems - at least from the translation - like it is an "exceptional" measure, taken or a case by case basis, like for selected Police officer employed in particularly risky undercover operations and some really-really secret-secret service operators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This has happened in Israel in the past :(

<comment><USER29> Correct, the entire Israeli census database has leaked and is now freely available for anyone who knows where to look for it.

I gave a short talk about this leak at 28c3 [1], if anyone's interested in more details.

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow7cvZOzp6w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow7cvZOzp6w)

<comment><USER30> Aren't censuses usually published?

<comment><USER28> This one had addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> we can assume that all data given over to the cloud has been copied and siphoned off to govt "intel" agencies.

Welcome to the modern world. on one hand is digital services that deliver to people, the other hand is all your base belong to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER17> UPDATE:

The entire Swedish government has now been reorganized as a result of this IT- scandal.

</comment><comment><USER32> Got one thing to say.

I - I've

B - <USER3>

M - Molested</comment>


I Created a Coronavirus Tracker App in Just 3 Days with Ionic and Firebase - <AUTHOR> https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-create-corona-tracker-app-in-3-days/ <comment><USER2> The title is a bit misleading, or maybe it is just for me - what I understand by "coronavirus tracker app" is an app that helps with contact tracing (i.e. record who you've been near to), not a dashboard showing number of cases.

Can't comment on the rest of the content, but was a bit surprised by that discrepancy</comment>


New method for 3-D printing extraterrestrial materials - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170412145217.htm <comment><USER2> Very cool work, but one thing that comes to mind is that this approach is still 30% "evaporant, surfactant, and plasticizer solvents, [and] polylactic- co-glycolic acid" by volume[1]. Good for simple tools and fixes that need to be rebuilt, but a long ways off from being self sustainable. Needing to ship 30% of the materials with you means this probably wont be usable for habitat creation or anything long term. I'm curious to see how low we can get that percentage down while still maintaining structural integrity.

[1] [https://www.nature.com/articles/srep44931](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep44931)

<comment><USER3> > Needing to ship 30% of the materials with you

It's 30% by volume, the article mentions 10% by mass.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> what about just terrestrial material here on earth? sounds like a good idea. Is there a 3d dirt printer?

<comment><USER5> There's a sand->glass 3D printer: [http://www.markuskayser.com/work/solarsinter/](http://www.markuskayser.com/work/solarsinter/)</comment></comment>


Business is about Teamwork - <AUTHOR> http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/10/18/business-success-all-about-teamwork.html

<comment><AUTHOR> A good story or good content is what is most important, not how many upvotes one gets.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps you did not detect the sarcasm?

As much as I would like to see more post coming from Indonesia (disclaimer: I am Indonesian), the article feels hollow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Four upvotes in four minutes, huh? Must be a pretty good post.</comment>


Dennis Ritchie, the father of everything - <AUTHOR> http://www.popolony2k.com.br/?p=2248

<comment><USER2> Of course Totally ignoring Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Von Neumann, Turing, Shannon, Backus, Hopper, Flowers and many other giants.

And (this might be herasy) C ins't even a particularly good language when compared to better designed ones like Fortran and Pl1/G.

And i think McCracken is a better language intro than K&R

<comment><USER3> > Von Newman

It's von Neumann. And it's pronounced more like Noy-Man.

<comment><USER2> TY Updated my post

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just started reading K&R coming from a intermediate Python background. Ritchie's style is both simple and engaging. End-of-section practicals are labeled 'experiments', and the hacker spirit pervades the book.

Even better, the tools that I was implementing were useful and it was joyous to use a pipe to redirect the program I had just written to perform a char count hist on itself. How meta!

This may sound trivial for the numerous pundits and gurus who make HN their haunt (salute!), but the feeling of joy and discovery is immediate, and the suscpicion that I will walk away from this book a better coder (:s/coder/thinker) is inescapable.

Ritchie's thoughts lives on, his body is just dead.

edit: %s/Richie/Ritchie/g

</comment><comment><USER5> Dennis Ritchie is certainly an important figure that every computer scientist should know about, but that post reads incredibly slowly and is filled with grammatical errors. Looking at the author's other posts, it appears that English is his/her second language, so I won't fault them for it.

Wired put out a nice, concise obituary soon after his death[1] and there are many other great sources online about his life and influence. I would definitely recommend reading up on him out if you don't already know much about his life.

[1] [http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/thedennisritchi...](http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/thedennisritchieeffect/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Agree!!!

Almost all the modern software stack's components are basically written or build on top C code.

Linux, BSD, WinNT kernels are all build with on C.

gcc and all most all compilers, stdlib are written in C.

python, Java, PhP, lisp, smalltalk, NodeJS, are written in C.

Apache, Nginx source are written with C.

C++ is just add on layer to C.

Chromium, Firefox, webkit are all build on top of C/C++.

I haven't be able to find one core component in the modern OS/web stack that is not base on C.

Can anyone?

<comment><USER7> So that basically means there are security problems everywhere?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If he's the father of everything, then he's to blame for everything being worse than it could have been with Lisp.

He's the Thomas Edison of this story, and I'm with Tesla.

<comment> vezzy-fnord I don't think C is at fault here so much as the fact that register machines are our primary model of computation.

Smug Lisp Weenies will be just that though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Goodbye World!</comment>


Codular - Tutorials for New Web Developers - <AUTHOR> http://codular.com/ <comment><USER2> I'd love to collect a small list of sites that cater to beginning web developers like this, could anyone think of a few more?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm pleasantly surprised to see this on the front page. It's a very basic site with very basic concepts. I'm happy to see HN honoring the hard work of a single individual. I used to enjoy sites like Techcrunch and Mashable for this very reason, but they've grown up and disregard the little guys now.

</comment><comment><USER4> this is pretty awesome! i wish i'd read the pagination tutorial about a year and a half ago...

</comment><comment><USER5> A couple of months ago, I bought the full link shortener package from Codular, but didn't get any automatic confirmation email or the actual product. A quick email to the maintainer, and he forwarded me a copy in under 10 minutes, no questions asked. Stand-up guy and a great product to boot. I always love seeing a new article from Codular pop up in my RSS reader.

</comment><comment> ryan-allen Wow, these types of 'learn programming / learn web' sites are popping up everywhere!

</comment><comment><USER6> Jesus, that JSON article is unreal. Probably the best I've read all year.

<comment><USER7> Don't you have any shame?

<comment><USER8> Hopefully, the "best I've read all year" implies he was speaking rather tongue-in-cheek (since, you know, new year and all).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really like this. I'm more of a middleware guy but I need to know these things for my job. I like how things are written: minimal fluff and a lot of "this is an approach on how to do X".

</comment><comment><USER10> Love it!

Writer, if you want some contribution, I've got some ideas and drafts down as I was writing some of this for my own blog.

<comment><AUTHOR> Feel free, email contact [at] codular [dot] com with your ideas. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A bit confused with some tutorials going PHP, others going MySQL, the rest JavaScript.

<comment><USER12> Web development isn't just one language/tool.

<comment><USER11> If this is a set of tutorials for new developers, it needs to be labeled

<comment><USER13> New developers would do themselves a big favor by staying out from PHP. (Saying this as a former PHP coder.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Articles are very well written! Thumbs up Ben! :D

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're mistaken. Ben wrote one article, Michael wrote the others, except for the CodeIgniter one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> maybe you can categorize the articles a bit: client / server / database or so ...

</comment><comment><USER16> Good stuff.</comment>


Ask HN: What you wish you knew before launching your first Wordpress Plugin? - <AUTHOR> I've been looking at launching a premium Wordpress plugin as a sideproject, following the model of having a "lite" version in the official plugin directory and selling premium versions with support and more features through my own website.
AFAICT, the trade-off of using something like codecanyon does not appear worth it. They set the price, they take a significant cut, and I'm not convinced that their marketplace gives you significantly better exposure.
Do any of the grizzly old veterans in this space have any advice for someone starting out (or a tale of what NOT to do)? The plugin would have a fair amount of competition in general, although I'm looking at targeting a specific niche that appears to be under-served. <comment><USER2> I've been working with WordPress for 6 years (so consider me a grizzly old consumer), and launched my first premium plugin 6 months ago.

I wrote a rather rambling article on some of my observations a few months ago here: [http://gelwp.com/articles/a-few-months-after-launching-a- wor...](http://gelwp.com/articles/a-few-months-after-launching-a-wordpress- plugin/)

I still believe the freemium business model, with the free version in the repo and the paid version on your own site, is the way to go. The marketing that comes from being in the repo is unbeatable.

I initially went with Freemius, then looked at EDD. In the end I rolled my own, and I'm happy I did, but I'm a developer that likes re-inventing the wheel, and I wanted the experience. I would encourage most anyone else to buy into a system.

The reason is the amount of code. I now have to maintain the site, the core plugin and the 5 add-ons. It's doable, but takes a lot of time away from everything else you need to do - sales, marketing, etc. For this reason I'd also encourage you to have a single, premium version of your plugin and avoid add-ons.</comment>


Show HN: Deployment Tool Made with Node.js and React (Experimental) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jacted/depbot <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, im currently developing a deployment tool in NodeJS and React.

The idea is to create a platform where you can add your projects and add deployment methods (Git to FTP, Git to SSH) etc.

This is very early stage, i would love to get coders feedback and ideas for this.</comment>


Eve Online alliance leader banned after threatening to cut off betrayer's hands - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcgamer.com/eve-online-alliance-leader-permanently-banned-after-threatening-to-cut-off-another-players-hands/?utm_content=buffer552f3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer_pcgamerfb <comment><USER2> Classic gigX.. Not the first time he's got a "permanent" ban for making real life threats..

More background story is available here: [http://evenews24.com/2017/09/12/breaking-news-co2-loses- cont...](http://evenews24.com/2017/09/12/breaking-news-co2-loses-control-of- thier-citadels/)

EN24 is a dedicated EVE news website run by hobby "journalists", so don't expect much in the way of quality writing.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a game. Isn't betraying people just part of the game? Problem is by the time someone is successful in Eve Online it's more than just a game to them.

<comment><USER4> It's not just part of the game, it's a top-billing feature. The whole concept of EVE is like a libertarian paradise: anyone can do anything to anybody else at any time, the only consequences are what individuals in the community think they should be (plus AI police in the noob areas).

Heck, pretending to play along with someone, and then turning traitor and killing them was in one of the first game trailers.

<comment><USER5> > anyone can do anything to anybody else at any time

That isn't libertarianism at all. Libertarianism is you can do whatever you want, provided you do not employ force or fraud against others. There's more to it than that, but that's the core idea. Another way to say the core idea is people have inalienable rights - life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

<comment><USER6> So what happens when someone employs force or fraud against someone else (in a hypothetical libertarian paradise)?

<comment><USER5> The purpose of government is to protect peoples' rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

<comment><USER7> That's not an answer to the question. _What happens_? Break it down, step by step.

<comment><USER8> 1\. The police arrest them.

2\. They're tried by a jury of their peers.

3\. If found guilty, they are punished and/or imprisoned.

<comment><USER9> It seems that getting a libertarian to explain the fundamental differences between libertarianism and ordinary western-liberal-ish democracy is like squeezing a balloon. You get the same feeling from listening to the candidates of the official US libertarian party. Of course, that hardly makes it unique in politics.

<comment><USER10> The two can coexist side by side.

A moderate libertarian might simply be someone who wants lower taxes, less regulations, and the government to stay out of people's personal lives.

Nothing about those policies or viewpoints directly contradicts a normal western democracy.

<comment><USER9> You can find moderate liberal socialists saying the same thing, at which point it is time to put aside the idealistic rhetoric and do the hard work of talking about pragmatic trade-offs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was there; AMA.

I'm in Test Alliance Please Ignore. I was sitting on coms when this all went down - The Judge stole everything not nailed down, flipped the citadel to Goonswarm, and everything went to hell.

Some background: TEST and Co2 have been best friends for about a year and a half, until recently, when (there's some one-sided propaganda in this statement) the Co2 leadership (really just GigX) decided that having friends wasn't as good as shooting everyone. So, Co2 and TEST reset standings to neutral or hostile, and commenced fighting.

Goonswarm and TEST have been, at various times over the past 10 years, best friends, bitter enemies, and - where we are now - sort of "frenemies", where we are not friendly, and we shoot each other, but we also don't invade each other's space, and we're more likely to fight together against common enemies in big fights.

So... back to last night...

TEST quickly organized a fleet of space-haulers to bring them Test Cultures (an in-game item that we jokingly have claimed as our own - [http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/item.php?type_id=2319](http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/item.php?type_id=2319) ), and tell them that, while we didn't like GigX, we had no problem with most of the Co2 line members and they were welcome to evacuate their assets safely with our help.

(times in pacific)

      (8:44:29 PM) pleaseignore.com:
      Situation developing:

      The Judge stabbed GigX in the back. The 68FT Keepstar now belongs to Goonswarm. Many fortizars across Impass
      belong to Test. This is a huge blow to Circle-of-Two and we hope their line members can see the writing
      on the wall for this war now.

      For now, we are running an aid flotilla, in part for the memes, but in part to sincerely extend the
      olive branch to the line members of Co2 who remember when we were good friends. Feel free to join the
      flotilla and bring a hauler with Test cultures to 68FT. We want to offer them our support, for the shit
      they don't want to asset safety, because we aren't total shitheads. (I'm speaking for other people
      because I'm totally a shithead)

      The war isn't over, but we just got a huge boost. Be ready to burn GigX's sov. Be ready to fleet up and
       finish off our front, so we can help the allies who have been showing up for us.

      #### SENT BY Farmstink to All online test @ 2017-09-12 03:44:29 EVE Time ####

Goonswarm, though, hates Co2, and wanted to come and screw with them, now that they owned the big space citadel where all of Co2's assets are. Well, TEST thought that would be funny, too, so I and another titan pilot created a chain of warp-bridges to help Goonswarm get to the Co2 main system as quickly as possible, so that they could play with their food.

      (8:53:30 PM) pleaseignore.com:
      Also, this is kind of a fantasy moment for goons right now. We will be bluing them temporarily and
      allowing them safe passage through our space while they play with their new food for the next
      week or so.

      #### SENT BY Dran Arcana to All online test/allies @ 2017-09-12 03:53:30 EVE Time ####

At one point, we thought that GigX had managed to disband the alliance entirely - which would have dropped all of Co2's sovereignty and left their space wide-open for the taking... which would have been a long night of work for us.

      (10:31:48 PM) pleaseignore.com:
      GIGX DISBANDED CO2

      WOT

      #### SENT BY Lomgrim to All online test/allies @ 2017-09-12 05:31:48 EVE Time ####
      (10:32:17 PM) pleaseignore.com:
      Time to toast boys. Get in fleet 1 mumble, now. Impass is free for the taking and we're fucking taking it.

      #### SENT BY Xiaodown to All online test @ 2017-09-12 05:32:17 EVE Time ####

But that was a rumor - info was coming fast and loose for a while there. What ended up happening was just that The Judge was twitch streaming Co2 Alliance Chat, and when GigX got on, he made real-life threats against The Judge. Which, I mean, the rule is leave it all in-game; shooty-shooty-lasers at people in game, but have a beer at fanfest. Anyway, his twitch stream is here: [https://www.twitch.tv/videos/174199105](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/174199105) but it's long and boring if you don't play eve. I don't know what timestamp the GigX threat is made, but here are some screenshots: [https://i.imgur.com/2vhedbl.png](https://i.imgur.com/2vhedbl.png) (Baekkel is an alt of GigX), and [https://i.imgur.com/g966goh.png](https://i.imgur.com/g966goh.png)

Once everything calmed down, the "Talking in Stations" podcast had all the involved people online and did a long podcast about it: [https://www.twitch.tv/videos/174164252](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/174164252) \- and WHILE GigX, The Judge, and a bunch of notables in Eve were online, GigX announced that he had been permabanned: [https://clips.twitch.tv/AdorableAmorphousHedgehogCopyThis](https://clips.twitch.tv/AdorableAmorphousHedgehogCopyThis)

So, that's how it went down. Just sayin. Sorry for all the Eve Jargon.

<comment><USER12> Those screenshots seem more like ranting and coarse language to me than an actual thread.

<comment><USER11> He ... has a history. Plus, I mean, trying to get out-of-game details like address/name is a big no-no in Eve (and should be in any internet game).

Leave it in game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's Game of Thrones - in SPAAAACE!

</comment><comment><USER14> I've never played Eve Online, but I love reading about it.

</comment><comment><USER15> Given the amount of role play involved in games like EVE, it must be fairly hard to make the call between "real-life death threat" and role playing a character.

In this case, the asking for real-life address seals it, but I'd imagine a whole lot of borderline threats have to be evaluated by GMs.

<comment><USER16> Where are you finding role play in Eve? There is none I've found after hundreds of hours of play.

<comment><USER17> The entire game is role play. You're not actually piloting a ship. You're not actually part of an alliance. In a sense, there is nothing to betray outside of the role play.

Of course, I understand what you're really describing. It's just amusing that you and I don't imagine normal behavior to be role play, and can conceive of a meeting wherein people bring their Eve personas together in a simulated star system and agree that these characters will then engage in a recursive level of role play.

<comment><USER16> > It's just amusing that you and I don't imagine normal behavior to be role > play, and can conceive of a meeting wherein people bring their Eve personas > together in a simulated star system and agree that these characters will > then engage in a recursive level of role play.

Say that to my face in nullsec.

<comment><USER18> > Say that to my face in nullsec.

From a RP point of view I find that amusing, from a RL point of view it's troubling.

<comment><USER16> TBH I was always lowsec trash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> And so the old tale of the internet tough guy repeats itself. Again.</comment>


Monty Python's Terry Gilliam Wishes Comedy Hadn't Changed - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/monty-pythons-terry-gilliam-wishes-comedy-hadnt-changed-11555333940 <comment><USER2> That's... disappointing. It seems awfully tone deaf for him to lament how easy it is to offend people, while himself being easily offended. It's hard for me not to read the headline as "I really liked it when I was in a position to hurt other people and they weren't in a position to hurt me back."

"I'm tired of being, as a white male, blamed for everything that's wrong in the world," he says. But he's missing that white men _have_ been running the world, and running it in a way that favored other white men. Or rather, dis- favored everybody who wasn't a white man. That didn't give him success, but it did mean that success was a possibility that it wouldn't have been for many others.

So Terry, just shake it off, right? You got blamed for stuff you didn't do. We'll all just have a good laugh about it, ok?

<comment><USER3> > You got blamed for stuff you didn't do

To be fair here, once you go past the well known handful of sketches, python did their fair share of punching down that makes some of their episodes difficult to watch today.

<comment><USER4> I only recently watched python for the first time this year and really enjoyed most of it, but you're right. Almost any scene that featured a "Chinese" person made me cringe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another culture war article pushed by the obsessively anti-PC crowd. I'm not interested in yet another "SJWs bad" fusillade.</comment>


Why does Posix have recursive mutexes? Because of a dare.  - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.programming.threads/msg/d835f2f6ef8aed99?hl=en&pli=1

<comment><USER2> _First, implementation of efficient and reliable threaded code revolves around one simple and basic principle: follow your design. That implies, of course, that you have a design, and that you understand it. A correct and well understood design does not require recursive mutexes_

This is quite a startling position for a library author: don't supply convenient constructs that could be misused if they aren't absolutely necessary. Without any desire to be snarky about the hard work that went into POSIX, I'm glad as a discipline we've move on in the last 20 years.

<comment><USER3> Compare and contrast with the Rails attr_accessible kerfuffle of last week, where it was generally held by (I think) the majority of commenters that the library should not have provided this convenient feature or at least should have made it more difficult to enable.

I'm right there with this "startling" (some would say "opinionated") position. And so is my C library, which complains at me every time I compile a program using getwd()

("my" as in the one I have installed here. I am making no ownership claim)

<comment><USER4> Huh? attr_accessible is the whitelist feature; the argument was that it should have been non-optional.

<comment><USER3> Indeed it is as you say. "attr_accessible kerfuffle" was my (apparently, and quite bizarrely, considered inflammatory) shorthand to refer to the whole episode. I'd edit the post to clarify, but it won't let me do that any more

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dear HNers: please stop linking to pages that require visitors to log-in.

Dear Google: please stop requiring authentication to read public google group messages.

<comment><USER6> I'm reading it and I'm not logged in. I think I remember this is a bug in google groups, it will ask you to log in if you have an old google cookie, it used to happen to me too a year ago, try to delete your google cookies.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: "Like" buttons for blogs that respect privacy and ownership - <AUTHOR>

I'd love to have something that allows readers to "thank" me for an article they've read, and I like what Svbtle and similar CMSes offer.
I don't want to use anything awful from the perspective of privacy and data ownership like Facebook, Google+, etc., but just something very simple that increments a number for each post in some kind of database stored somewhere to give me an idea of what people like, and to serve as a simple reward mechanism.
Have you rolled your own somewhere, or is there a service that is as simple and respectful of users as well as blog owners out there? <comment><USER2> I've compromised by rolled my own Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn buttons on my own site: [http://minimaxir.com](http://minimaxir.com)

Although there is still data collection when the article is shared, there is no tracking while the user is simply visiting the page, so it's a compromise in user-friendliness and user-privacy.

I use jQuery to retrieve the counts, since those 3 services have unofficial endpoints for retrieving Share count when given a URL. (Google+ does not. No big loss.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Data collection (for the blog owner's back-end, anyway) is fine; besides, most people probably host their static pages on github.io or S3, which don't really allow for SSL, and as long as we aren't talking about "weird" blog articles, end-to-end encryption isn't a big concern of mine in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have seen this on svbtle blogs called "kudos"

[https://github.com/masukomi/kudos](https://github.com/masukomi/kudos)</comment>