AT&T's GigaPower plans turn privacy into a luxury that few would choose - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2014/05/13/atts-gigapower-plans-turn-privacy-into-a-luxury-that-few-would-choose/? <comment><USER2> To be honest, I'm not so concerned about them looking at my packets. Well, more specifically, I take it as a given of the modern web that any data which people can mine they will mine.

What is more concerning is how AT&T actually serves those targeted ads. Are they injecting ads into pages and modifying HTML? That seems like an incredibly disastrous procedure which would hopefully get them into trouble with content providers and even the FCC. I surely hope that's not the case.

<comment><USER3> More likely than not, they are talking about selling your browsing history to major ad networks that already have ads embedded on the sites you use rather than injecting their own ads into others' content. I assume this to be the primary difference between the "snooping" and "non-snooping" plans, because many ISP's already internally keep some amount of browsing history but don't sell it to third parties.

If they are doing ad injection, it is unclear whether or not they could be successfully sued. Some browser plugins with very large user bases inject/modify ads, and although some have received cease and desist letters from content providers, and some have been sued and settled out of court before trial, I don't believe any have gone to trial and lost. The law is murky at best on that issue, and as the ISP, odds are that AT&T would be in a far stronger legal position than even the browser plugins that have been doing this for years.

<comment><USER4> Not only can they sell your browsing history, they are in the unique position to _associate your current IP address with your browsing history, and sell real-time access to that information_. If I open up an Incognito window right now and go to a site I've never visited before, they couldn't serve me targeted ads, because without cookies they'd have no reliable way of knowing that I was the same 188.8.131.52 that connected a few days ago. But now, AT&T could set up a server that ad networks can call out to, that can return a browsing profile if queried with an IP address. You've given them permission to do that. As far as I know, Tor is the only way to circumvent this... and with the forthcoming FCC rules, Tor traffic could be significantly rate- limited. This is a pretty big deal.

<comment><USER5> This highlights the importance of obfsproxy development for tor. Not only can it allow tor's use in regimes that employ deep packet inspection to prevent tor traffic, it could also prevent throttling of tor traffic, as it would look just like normal traffic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Or you could pay an additional $5/month for a decent VPN. In fact, I have a number of close contacts who work in the industry who tell me that this type of practice is of heavy interest and routine on the wireless end of things. Companies are tracking not just your browsing habits but your location data based on cell tower triangulation.

This is why we need to decentralize the ISPs and move to local mesh networks.

<comment><USER7> Personal (non-company) VPN still doens't fully work on smartphones. It needs to be manually activated each time, making 'all-traffic-behind-vpn' impossible for now. It _is_ possible for coporate VPN's so we know iPhones can do it. A choice by Apple HQ?

<comment><USER8> I don't know how they're accomplishing it technically, but [http://getcloak.com](http://getcloak.com) manages to auto-enable my VPN on my iPhone every time I connect to a non-whitelisted wireless network.

<comment><USER9> I'm a Cloak user. Connect on Demand in iOS has a great design, but unfortunately it's buggy. About once a week, I will catch it not using the VPN (and not blocking traffic nor trying to reconnect). I even connected my iPhone to Apple's desktop utility that allows reading the device logs and I correlated the behavior to certain log errors. This problem started in iOS 7.0 and remains up to 7.1.1 (iOS 6 was fine).

As a result of this bugginess, I'm no longer willing to use untrusted wi-fi networks even with VPN. It's really too bad that Apple is not fixing this, because it renders the Connect on Demand feature useless from a security point of view, and it nullifies the functionality of Cloak. Cloak is otherwise an awesome app and service, and it's not their fault as they can't control this code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a recent Austin subscriber to AT&Ts GigaPower, I opted to let them snoop on my traffic for the discount. I really didn't see the difference in what they were doing versus Google or any other search engine. That, along with the significant price reduction ($320/mo versus $140/mo - they didn't let me bundle any services without the deal) led me to allow this.

As another poster mentioned - if I get really paranoid, I will eventually set up a VPN, and tunnel all of my traffic through that.

I did want to add that once Google Fiber comes to my neighborhood, I will be jumping ship though. We have had two significant outages in the first month of GigaPower.

<comment><USER11> The most obvious difference is that they get to see _all_ your traffic, not just those websites which integrate google analytics (which can be a sizeable chunk).

If your smartphone also uses AT&T they see that traffic also. The only place where you are hidden from them is at work.

<comment><USER10> >The only place where you are hidden from them is at work.

Of course, at work we have Gigapower as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Even if we had a more competitive market, what could really be done about this? It seems people tend to flock towards lower price, particularly when the difference is something that's not immediately tangible. I worked retail years ago and I know that people would sometimes come in, get help from our staff, and then go to Walmart to buy the same printer a few bucks cheaper. In the end, the incentive is for the retail outlets to have as little service as possible.

<comment><USER13> Is AT&T really making $30/month from people's browsing histories? I suspect that data is worth dramatically less, so in a competitive market the premium for not being spied on ought to drop.

<comment><USER12> I have my doubts on that figure as well, but if it's worth a lot less, why give the customer such a discount?

<comment><USER14> It may not be a discount. The higher fee is to discourage the more expensive service. We're assuming that the baseline cost is the lower one, but what if it isn't?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How can AT&T target ads, if they don't run ads? Are going to be intercepting our pages and feeding their crap into my HTML?

<comment><USER16> I was going to ask that same question but decided to read all the other comments first. That practice should be illegal IMHO. That is altering content. Creating derivative works? It'd clearly be anti-competetive if the replaced others ads with their own.

<comment><USER17> IANAL but it seems they could lose safe harbor protections provided by DMCA and be liable for ALL copyrighted material going over their system:

"Section 512(a) protects service providers who are passive conduits from liability for copyright infringement, even if infringing traffic passes through their networks. In other words, provided the infringing material is being transmitted at the request of a third party to a designated recipient, is handled by an automated process without human intervention, is NOT MODIFIED IN ANY WAY, and is only temporarily stored on the system, the service provider is not liable for the transmission."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_L...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act#.C2.A7_512.28a.29_Transitory_Network_Communications_Safe_Harbor)

<comment><USER2> I would absolutely love AT&T and copyright holders to get into a long and protracted legal fight over this. Let the demons tear each other to bits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The prices seem insane - are they representative of the US broadband market?

I'm currently paying 15 EUR/mth for a 100mbit service, more bandwidth would be more expensive, but not extremely so.

<comment><USER12> No, they're much cheaper. I pay $50/mo for 18Mbps. The more rural you are, the worse it gets. I know people paying $35/mo for 2Mbps.

<comment><USER19> I live in a "rural" place on one of the nation's fiber backbones, one of the top in the country due to nearby military/government facilities, and we don't even get the full 7Mbps bandwidth we pay for. And that's still $30-40/mo.

And all that is because Verizon won't upgrade their equipment to handle the congestion that happens at night. It's not that they can't, but that we're "rural".

<comment><USER20> I live on a farm in Texas. We pay $100/mo for 5mbps internet and rarely get one. (Our landline is bundled with it) Our whole internet has gone down for days multiple times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am a bit confused by this.

What do people think the ISP does with the packets? Who thinks that their browsing habits are hidden from the ISP (without using a VPN)?

So is this just an expensive opt out of targetted ads, or is it actually providing extra privacy features?

<comment><USER22> It is an expensive opt out of targeted ads.

AT&T refers to the ad targeting as "Internet Preferences": [http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB421828&cv=812&...](http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB421828&cv=812&_requestid=290890)

Sounds like they gather your full browsing history, and then assist 3rd-party ad networks in targeting their ads at you. Or, worse yet, just hand over your browsing history for ad networks to process. Their marketing materials don't seem to make this clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm sure most corporations suck (it's inherent in their size, structure and purpose). But I __know __AT &T sucks. I've loathed them, ever since their backing of the Clipper Chip.

I'm currently using tethered wifi cellphone as my only home internet because I refuse to give money to either of my only two broadband options, AT&T or Time Warner.

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't like this whole trend of collecting user data, but at least AT&T offers a way to pay extra to opt-out of targeted advertising, unlike, well, nearly ever other entity on the internet. I'd happily pay $62/month for spyware-free Facebook.

<comment><USER25> Paying someone extra to _not_ do something you don't like is commonly called paying protection money.

<comment><USER12> Sounds similar to having to pay the phone company to NOT put your phone number in the phone book. I once heard it described as "Corporate Blackmail".

<comment><USER26> > Sounds similar to having to pay the phone company to NOT put your phone > number in the phone book.

Shocking how something coming from _AT &T_ seems a lot like well-established, if unwelcome, practice of "the phone company".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Will they start doing that to my phone line too? Selling my call history to third parties?

<comment><USER28> Don't they do that already? Except they call them "partners" and it's "anonymized".

At least for wireless users they already do. It's only a matter of time before they do the same with land-line users.

[http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732346370...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323463704578497153556847658?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424127887323463704578497153556847658.html)

[http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/privacy/our-updated- privacy-p...](http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/privacy/our-updated-privacy- policy-2/)

<comment><USER29> My cellular provider monitors data traffic to sell off to advertisers. Everyone is opted in by default - no price increase for opting out though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Now we know why common carrier will never happen.

</comment><comment><USER31> If they've been giving a copy of our packets to the NSA for years, this isn't really that big of a deal with all things considered.

Personally, I would never use AT&T for broadband at home again. I'll always go with their competitor and I wish other people would do the same. Their motto should be: monopolize and do evil whenever possible.

<comment><USER32> Except said "competitor" is most likely Comcast who is no different.

<comment><USER31> Sadly I'd choose comcast over ATT. Let's hope we have more options than that in the future though.

<comment><USER32> Difficult situation. I've already decided I will never move to any location, anywhere, where AT&T, Verizon (even FiOS), or Comcast are my only viable options. I hate all of those companies and will never, ever give them a single penny.

Even CenturyLink (my current ISP, who happens to be the only choice here besides Comcast) is starting to piss me off lately, but what the hell am I going to do about it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> comcast charges netflix for interconnects, not prioritization, and everyone is up in arms, but AT&T performs NSA-style deep packet inspection to fuel ads, unless you pay a ransom, and everyone is basically ok with it.

This is why I don't think we're ready to pass net neutrality legislation.

</comment><comment><USER34> While I'm not a fan of the telecoms, AT&T shouldn't be getting flak for this. Google is snoop-by-default (not holding it against them, they are a company looking for profit just like any other), at the very least, AT&T is making the choice here clear.

Fiber's privacy notice: [https://fiber.google.com/legal/privacy.html](https://fiber.google.com/legal/privacy.html)

It looks like the same snooping that's in all the other google apps (whether to serve you ads or otherwise). I'm glad that it's out in the open, and hopefully it causes people to think about the value of their privacy (and feel a little bit more paranoid about their lack of it)

I'm not sure who said it first, or where I heard it, but the belief that "everything google does is a loss leader for adwords" holds true here -- this is why I believe they're going to snoop-by-default, and not think twice about using your data as it flows through their fiber.

<comment><USER35> I agree that it's ok to give users a discount for giving up privacy. The problem, in this case, is how hard to tell: what level of privacy you're giving up, how they'll deliver the ads and that there's "private" option. Google does not have to meet the same standard as they do not have a "private" version (except google apps).

If AT&T presented this as $179 + $50 for normal, or $150 + $0 "with special offers" (think kindle model), I think people would be much less worried.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> So unless you win the Google lottery you have a choice between having AT&T watching your every packet or Comcast's Standard "Oil" Cable monopoly in progress. No Google for me so it's essentially a Hobson's choice for me.

<comment><USER37> I don't know why people think Google will be any better.

Sure, now they're all about unicorns and rainbows, and talking the good game to get into what is a very capital heavy market. I can easily see Google switching to this exact same model to inject Adwords and extract even more money from subscribers once they're hooked. The difference is Google won't let you opt out.

<comment><USER38> I'm not even clear on whether ATT lets subscribers opt out. Does the offer say you can opt out of the wiretapping or that you can opt out of only the targeted ads? If you care about privacy, the DPI is the enemy, and the ad- targeting is irrelevant (you already have the ability to not retrieve ads, just blacklist the ad servers). But if what ATT offers for the higher price is only to not target ads, they'll trick most people into thinking they still have privacy, while the DPI is applied to everyone.

It's the difference between tracking only by server/client tricks (IP, cookies, hit logs etc.) vs. tracking by the ISP. The former can be avoided by client config, the latter only with a VPN.

Even if they let you supposedly opt out of the DPI, who trusts a corporation like this? And as adestefan notes, where do people get the assumption that Google is not doing the same?

Edit: I finally found ATT's (semi-) disclosure about this: [http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB421828&cv=812](http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB421828&cv=812)

It says that if you don't opt out they collect " webpages you visit, the time you spend on each, the links or ads you see and follow, and the search terms you enter" \- but there is no statement that they're not collecting that info if you opt out. All they promise for opting out is not targeting ads with that data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Or you can just not subscribe to AT&T. Austin's a great example of a place where customers have choice. Cable provider(s?)/AT&T/DSL/Google Fiber/LTE/LTE/LTE/LTE.

</comment><comment><USER40> Google might be doing the same thing to everyone with Google Fiber. The solution is to encrypt everything. Smother this business model in the crib by making packet inspection worthless.

</comment><comment><USER41> We're working on municipal fiber optic internet in Omaha and this is fantastic ammunition for a project like ours.

</comment><comment><USER42> The endpoints may not be interested in the network, but the network is interested in the endpoints. At least in Murka.

</comment><comment><USER33> "In their defense I should have probably read the fine print"

Nope.</comment>


Ask HN: Searching for the answer to improve the online video streaming service - <AUTHOR>

DeafTV's mission is to help people find and enjoy the world's premium signed video content when, where and how they want it. As DeafTV pursue this mission, DeafTV aspire to create a service that users, advertisers, and content owners adore as their own. DeafTV will be the primary broadcast network devoted to signed content, reaching viewership via broadband video systems, websites, mobile applications, videophones, and web TV applications. Right now, www.deaftv.com use Wowza Streaming Server, Rackspace, and Amazon S3 and use custom made video player from Flowplayer.   And, we combined our videos with embeddable videos.  I gave you the url to see our video player, instead of searching for it.
I admit it doesn't work well.  The loading time takes longer to start the video.  We do have issue to be able to stream all browsers and certain video files, and we need to improve the ability of uploading the video to our database servers.  Also, we are seeking a way to incorporate pre-, mid-, and post-roll video ads that use geo-targeting service.  How can we improve this service?  Do you have recommendations of certain services?  Better video player?  We are open to anything.   We want to be just almost fast as YouTube/Vimeo.  We would like to use video ads during the film.   Your advice will be greatly appreciated. <comment><AUTHOR> <http://deaftv.com/film/DeafPod-How-to-Ruin-A-Date/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, I do use adap.tv for the video ads and companion ads.</comment>


Travels with a Pi (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://petergarner.net/notes/index.php?thisnote=20180202-Travels+with+a+Pi <comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing this.

So you don't run Xorg at all, right? And you don't carry around any persistent video output?

I am running Raspbian Desktop on RPi0w, using Vufine+ head-mounted display and Twiddler 3 as a keyboard.

It is cool, it can even run heavyweight web stuff like Slack in Chromium, and VLC with 720p video. Has some reliability issues with graphical stuff - <USER2> to restart lightdm sometimes after such heavy exercises. I wouldn't imagine RPi Zero could do that much with so little, but the man always want more, so I am considering more powerful computing core for my wearable computer. Trimming down use of GUI apps is another venue for progress, of course.

<comment><USER4> > I am running Raspbian Desktop on RPi0w, using Vufine+ head-mounted display > and Twiddler 3 as a keyboard.

Wow! I had no idea you could get something like that. Can I ask what's your use-case? Do you us it when on the move, commuting maybe? Do you get a lot of stares? Can you realistically type on the Twiddler or is it more of a remote control for accessing some predefined shortcuts?

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your interest.

Yes, this is mind-blowing that you can do this today with affordable off-the- shelf devices. I did this after reading [https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2017/7/...](https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2017/7/27/16035508/diy- wearable-computer-google-glass-raspberry-pi-instructions)

Use-case... Original idea was to do whatever I like to do on my Linux laptops, carrying less weight on the go.

I try it out on different things, like working on my calendar in web UI, writing a diary, being on Slack and Jabber, navigating with maps app (Marble), watching conference talks... I expect it will be pretty good for terminal apps like vim and mutt, but unfortunately I haven't found time to try out working with mail this way yet, and I am still slowly getting better at speed typing on the Twiddler, so I haven't wrote much text. By the way, there are great opportunities for text to speech and speech to text applications, just use a bluetooth earpiece.

It is a nice ultra-portable general purpose computer, but I haven't found a strong "killer app" where such configuration beats both laptop and a smartphone. But I'm still exploring what I can do with it.

One solid usecase for carrying RPi0W on me or in my backpack is getting calendar events notifications to my MiBand3. But this doesn't involve keyboard and HMD.

There are constraints of all sorts - RPi performance, limited clearly visible area, level of brightness is not adaptable (unusable in darkness and in bright sunlight). It's hard to use this stuff, but it's fun to learn and master it. I hope this kind of computing grows its niche and we see new generations of hardware and software with this usecase in mind.

<comment><USER5> It's pretty neat what you can do these days off-the-shelf. I've got a Twiddler 3 although I haven't used it much. The Vufine looks like quite a display for $200 compared to what you could get 10 years ago (when I last played with wearable computing).

I vacillate between wanting a wearable computer and wanting absolutely nothing to do with a wearable computer. In my most optimistic moments, I envision a useful note-taking device and (given a camera) a way to document interesting things. In my less optimistic moods, I consider how I already waste so much time reading bullshit on my phone! I think the best way to do it would be to script up particular activities (take a picture and tag it, make a text / dictated note, refer to a wikipedia article) and make those easy, while making it as hard as possible to bring up Firefox :)

How often do you wear it?

<comment><USER3> It's pretty much impossible to waste time reading bullshit on Vufine. Focusing on the display and moving the eyeball takes some effort. So it's tiresome to read on it for long time uninterrupted. But it is good for occasional glancing. Basically, it is a bad fit for content consumption (watching optimised videos from local disk is ok experience, tho), but is promising for other uses including writing text. Which is compelling to many HN people!

I use it as rarely as 1-2 times a week, just so I explore the possibilities and practice a bit. Not much time to work on perfecting wearable workflows, but I have some plans.

<comment><USER5> Interesting, I'm rather glad to hear the Vufine isn't suitable for reddit/youtube/other bullshit! Makes me more likely to buy one :)

One more quick question, what do you use to power the RPi and the display? USB power bank?

<comment><USER3> Yes. Look for one which sustains stable uninterrupted power output during charging and charger plugging and unplugging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like this idea, but not the idea of having to find a TV with HDMI to use it.

What's a good small netbook with HDMI out, for when you do you have a TV/monitor available?

The Pinebook is $100 [https://www.pine64.org/pinebook/](https://www.pine64.org/pinebook/)

On the higher end there's GPD mini laptops [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MMSQ9ZM/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MMSQ9ZM/)

I wonder if a tablet with attachable keyboard could get around the laptop in carry-on bans.

<comment><USER7> There's also the Cosmo [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmo- communicator](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmo-communicator)

It's expensive and in prototype stage, but looks like a promising project.

<comment><USER8> If we're allowed to list products in the prototype stage, the Pyra Handheld deserves a mention. Of course it's been in prototype stage for a lot longer than Cosmo, and its raw specs look a wee bit dated for a premium device (although still quite generous for a mobile device), but at the current point in time it's the closest mainline-Linux mobile device to production, in a race with PinePhone and Librem 5 (both of which are very exciting, but compared to Pyra have inferior specs and no keyboard).

[https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/](https://pyra- handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those who didn't notice, there are two follow-on posts that I also found interesting:

[https://petergarner.net/notes/index.php?thisnote=20180511-Tr...](https://petergarner.net/notes/index.php?thisnote=20180511-Travels+with+a+Pi+%282%29)

[https://petergarner.net/notes/index.php?thisnote=20190205-Tr...](https://petergarner.net/notes/index.php?thisnote=20190205-Travels+with+a+Pi+%283%29)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Please excuse the slowness of my site - it's running on a Raspberry Pi... ;-)

<comment><USER10> Really? Do you have static IP?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do indeed - I'm guarding that IP address carefully :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love this kind of stuff! I don't travel for work, so I never had a good excuse to set something like this up.

Not having a screen is a bit of a downside, you could use your phone as a screen but that would defeat the purpose as you can SSH into a box at home/work from your phone.

I personally have a cheap (200 euro) 11" Acer ES1 laptop with Linux installed that I leave in my car or suitcase for those moments that I am not willing/able to take my work laptop. It runs for about 14 hours on a charge and can be charged directly from my car's 12V outlet. It can boot from a SD- card or even boot straight from the internet. The keyboard is actually really nice.

<comment><USER12> If I left a laptop in my vehicle it'd turn into a taco in the Phoenix summertime...lol! Where do you live that you're able to do this?

<comment><USER11> Europe (Netherlands). The climate here is quite mild.

I drive a saloon car, so I can keep the laptop in the trunk, which is quite well insulated. I won't recommend keeping a laptop (or anything for that matter) in the cabin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very cool. I use RPis when I travel as gateways, device interfaces, and sometimes just for a remote shell. You've given me some good information and ideas to make my experience better.

One request, though, from your snippet of Python: _print GetCPUserial()_

C'mon, man... we've got to kill Python 2. Everywhere.

<comment><USER14> Get a gl router and put openwrt on it. Much better as a travel device. Add an RPi for pihole. Cracking little kit.

<comment><USER13> Why much better? More performance? Is OpenWRT on it a stable Linux with as good package support as I get with Raspbian?

A router probably isn't going to have HDMI on it, which is nice to have in a pinch.

I also use RPis for various GPIO needs.

There's something to be said for having one device that fills a bunch of needs. You get really familiar with that device (and its quirks) and then you can use it in many different contexts.

<comment><USER14> Because, iirc, USB and networking share the bus - it was impossible for me to create a private WiFi network with an RPi alone. Performance was horrendous.

<comment><USER13> Oh, okay, so you're talking about being able to use it as a "travel router". I normally don't need that, although I have a usb wifi stick on order just in case.

True, performance could be better. I wish it were more in line with the odroid family.

<comment><USER14> Yep, it's awful - they really do need to fix that issue on them. I've happily bought every revision of the RPi and use them in a multiple places for different tasks, so it's not like I'm too critical of them. I've had them monitoring my UPS, time servers, pi-hole, amateur radio, retro-gaming, etc. The GL AR150 is a smaller form factor than a standard RPi and compliments it brilliantly when travelling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is there a "laptop shell" type of product that one could put in a pi and be done with it?

Something like,

1\. Buy laptop shell, pi, portable battery

2\. Open the shell, put pi in, connect it to the laptop shell's keyboard, trackpad, display

3\. Put in the battery, connect to battery

4\. Close the shell

5\. It's a laptop.

<comment><USER16> Pi-top (but has built-in battery).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A Pinebook is basically a dev board close in size to a RPi in a laptop style case.

<comment><USER18> It sure is. I love mine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Get a Banana Pi M2 Zero for the same price and much faster. Yeah not as much support, but will still run a desktop.

SBC's are getting better and better. I am just waiting for better storage and usb3 on the tiny ones (some have it)

<comment><USER4> Agreed it's faster but it's not the same price in the UK. The Banana Pi M2 Zero costs ~£20 compared to ~£12.50 (delivered) for a Raspberry Pi Zero W.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> My laptop (from 2012) might die soon and I'm thinking to replace it with Raspberry Pi 3B+. These kind of computers can be an option for light computing while traveling. I just wonder if it can run Sublime.

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably not - I don't believe ARM is supported. See [https://www.reddit.com/r/SublimeText/comments/9p7xxd/can_sub...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SublimeText/comments/9p7xxd/can_sublime_text_work_for_raspberry_pi_arm_64_bits/)

<comment><USER21> Those Intel Compute Sticks are pretty cool and can plug straight into a hotel room TV. Pair that with a bluetooth keyboard/mouse and it can be a solid experience. I don't know if they still update them...

<comment><USER19> I have an intel compute stick that came with Widnows 10. It has 32GB of internal storage, the issue is the newest windows update wont fit on the silly thing. I got around it buy attaching a usb drive for the update and that left very little romm for ANYTHING. I did put ubuntu on it and it is better. But still tight.

Still cheap and fun to play with.

<comment><USER22> You can supply your own 64 GB SD/eMMC card and set the bios to boot from that.

<comment><USER19> Mine is a cheap one, it does not have an external sdcard slot. It just has the internal 32GB, 1 usb3 and 1 usb2 slot and the HDMI port (and wireless and bluetooth). So i could boot from an external USB, but that kinda kills the point of the computer stick :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I missed the screen part ... what is he / you using as a display? Am I missing something?

<comment><AUTHOR> I use anything with an HDMI socket, or now that I have an HDMI-VGA adapter, VGA.

<comment><USER23> Ah. I once had a plan to make a train / coach laptop - keyboard on my lap, screen hung over the seat in front and commute time coding was a neck-pain- free idea

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is a really interesting article. I'm going to take some of your ideas and use them at home. Thanks for sharing!

I should note that during the workweek I'm using a Raspberry Pi 3 as my primary PC. (just to save power, and keep internet tasks productive.) And, just as you guessed there are no problems with the GUI on the Pi3.

</comment><comment><USER25> Nowhere near the price point, I know, but getting something like Intel's Compute Stick or its knock-off would result in much more pleasant experience - it's standard Atom CPU with 2GB of RAM plus enough storage, and 2 USB ports. They usually sell around $100, second hand.

<comment><USER6> I was going to say, the Pi Zero seems like an odd choice given there are many much more powerful SBCs for not _that_ much mores or that much larger.

<comment><AUTHOR> I considered quite a few SBCs when I was mooting this project, but I had a spare Zero in the drawer at the time. Battery life was a big driver too, and the Zero is great at this. Lastly, in its original configuration it cost about $10/£10. If something with a similar spec comes up, but is maybe smaller I'll look at the that as well.

<comment><USER26> For something smaller and lower power consumption, you might check out the Arietta board: [https://www.acmesystems.it/arietta](https://www.acmesystems.it/arietta)

It's about half the size of the Pi Zero, and can enter an ultra-low-power mode consuming only ~5 mA (and resume in 160 ms).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> _> I decided early on to edit the menus to remove a lot of the "junk" and replace it with my list of apps, so I fired up the Main Menu Editor app. Normally this is quite responsive, but on the resource-challenged Zero it had worrying lags and pauses as changes were made. Ultimately, it meant that my ad-hoc menus were corrupted and worse still, the default Pi menus had been reinstated._

If I understand Raspian's portability correctly, this could be mitigated by preparing the system disk on a Pi w/ more resources, e.g. a Pi3– run Main Menu Editor w/ system disk in Pi3, then put system disk in Pi Zero W when menus are edited to satisfaction.

</comment><comment><USER28> How do you achieve FDE on a Pi type device? The author states the companies strict data policies, but seems the solution is carrying unencrypted data, and a modifiable boot environment in their wallet?

Not trying to point out any shortcomings, I honestly want to know if people reading this have a solution. Many people are relying on Pi(s) to self host data to keep it secure, despite the Pi as a platform not offering any protection in this regard.

EDIT: (Forgot to mention the Microsoft folding keyboard as the "best" of the super portable keyboards, which is still not that great, but has saved me when my MacBook has developed stuck keys)

<comment><USER29> It runs Linux, you achieve FDE the same way as any normal Linux system with LUKS aside from a few minor complications.

[https://robpol86.com/raspberry_pi_luks.html](https://robpol86.com/raspberry_pi_luks.html)

<comment><USER28> Thanks! Wasn't sure if any of these solutions were easily achieved on all of these ARM devices. Would love to hear any experience on performance, although when you are on a Pi Zero, that doesn't seem too important. At least I can move my PiHole from docker to a fun little device that can display stats on an OLED screen!

<comment><USER29> The original Pi and Zero can only hit about 3MB/s with LUKS. The newer models can do around 10. Might be usable if you only encrypt your home folder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> >My hatred for Bluetooth grows...

Same. It was completely missing from the device manager on my laptop for 4 days. Now it's back. Nothing bloody changed??

And now I've got a BT dongle in the post which apparently I no longer need. wth

</comment><comment><USER31> I find it rather cute he knows of gopher, but doesn't seem to know about running multiple consoles on separate ttys at once and using the function keys to toggle between them. Sure, tmux arguably is better, but still ironic to me.

</comment><comment><USER32> Strange for the author to say about gopher. But it is an important step. Sadly I think the forward and backward are hard to use.

</comment><comment><USER33> This seems like an annoying bodge to carry around. I would prefer an Android phone with some kind of Linux solution[0]. Built in display and battery, and you can use video out if you need a bigger display. Built in cell modem too, you could SSH to a server somewhere and not even need to download the SD card image.

[0] [https://maruos.com/](https://maruos.com/)

<comment><USER34> I think my travel setup would be something like this:

* Android tablet plus stand, running Termux+SSH+Tmux. * SIM card of some description * USB Hub * Big Ol' Battery >=20,000mAh * Small Mechanical Keyboard * Wired Mouse

That would also allow me to connect to my Amazon Workspace for work email, but mostly I'd be VPN+SSH to a dev VM somewhere.

While it wouldn't be quite as useful as my work Macbook, it would be much safer since no work information would be traveling with me, nor would TSA be able to do me any significant harm by searching through those devices.

<comment><USER35> This is kind of where I am. My job requires I carry an iPad around. I have a keyboard and mouse and use Jump Desktop to remote into a Windows 10 VM and Mosh, Blink, and tmux to remote into the Linux server itself.

I still find I'm wanting more though. Having a locally available machine would solve a lot of issues with bandwidth. For example, iOS is capable of using Cryptomator but using it with WebDAV on my server at home means every file needs to download each time it's opened. Or say I capture some great video and want to move it to the VM for editing or download content from server for local editing. This takes forever on LTE or WiFi.

I've been looking at the WD My Passport Wireless but I think longer term a better choice may be an ODROID-HC1 with a large SSD. Think of it as like a mobile cloud. It could act as the WiFi gateway for all devices, run through a VPN, provide local storage via SMB, SFTP, or WebDAV, run a Plex server without needing connectivity, and provide a local Linux environment for or the times you don't have connectivity. Additionally nearly any tablet or phone like device could be setup to access it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It seems like a neat hack but for an actual computer to travel with, getting a real ultrabook (or better yet a nice 2-in-1) will make your life immeasurably more pleasant. Maybe I'm becoming less of a hacker. :/

<comment><AUTHOR> Aha! Look at it this way - I can afford for my "computer" to be lost, stolen or confiscated by Border Guards at whatever territory I happen to be in, safe in the knowledge I can put my microSDHC card into any Raspberry Pi I can lay my hands on. Another Zero is okay, but it will work in any of the other models. My job doesn't require the luxury of a GUI, so it's ideal. Now, where to hide that microSDHC card...

<comment><USER36> Fair enough, but if the secret sauce is your micro-SD card then there's no reason to stop people looking at your computer, so it's not at risk of being mugged by a customs agent and so it might as well be a nice one.

I can definitely see other scenarios (staying in ultra poor areas with high crime, maybe?) where having an ultra-cheap and easily replaceable device would be good though.</comment></comment></comment>


PDF killer - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/ipaper <comment><USER3> I took a look at the FAQ page and then the idea began to make more sense - <USER2> could see where it fitted into the web ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER4> You know Adobe has a similar product, right? FlashPaper? Maybe you've seen it before, like on Scribd yesterday...</comment>


How I Learned to Program - <AUTHOR> http://rdegges.com/how-i-learned-to-program <comment><USER2> The one point I really disagree on is Linux.

Sure learning Linux will most likely teach you something about the platform on which anything you write will probably be deployed but that's really marginal (IMHO).

You get things done (programming included) by getting all the roadblocks out of your way. Linux is (IMHO) a roadblock. The OP claims it teaches you researching skills by giving you problems everyday you need to find solutions for. This is true in the same way that refusing to buy food of any kind teaches self-sufficiency.

To get things done you need to get in the zone. This means eliminating distractions. Trying to figure out why copy and paste doesn't work (and it turns out that it's because you're using OpenJDK instead of the Sun JDK) very much takes you out of that zone and then wastes time to boot.

This might be more useful later on (maybe) but learning to programming? No way.

To me, the best development platform is OSX. Why? Because it's (BSD) UNIX that is a pleasure to use that (mostly) doesn't have the aforementioned problems. My only real beef is that if you're used to using a program on Linux or Windows the keyboard shortcuts will generally be different on OSX (due to following the OSX conventions).

And as much as people (myself included) like to rag on Windows (in my case: the complexity), the fact is that modern Windows (Win7) is actually a pretty pleasant experience. Some things (eg git) suck but Cygwin can ameliorate a lot of those problems.

<comment><USER3> To my taste, Linux puts a lot less roadblocks in my way than MacOS does. Maybe my complaints that follow are simply due to my ignorance, in which case I hope you will take the time to correct me, but as far as I know they're real roadblocks.

I want to see the source to the ls command? dpkg -S /bin/ls; apt-get source coreutils. I have no idea how to do that on MacOS. I want to be able to compile it? apt-get build-dep coreutils, which IIRC will install the compiler. The equivalent on MacOS involves signing up for a developer account with Apple, signing a contract that promises God knows what, and downloading a multi-gigabyte disk image. Even after installing, gcc still isn't in your PATH, and won't work properly with the platform SDK without a verbose -isysroot option. I want to make executable the file named gooba somewhere under my current directory? chmod +x $(find -name gooba). Apple's find requires an explicit `.` and maybe an explicit `-print`, I don't remember. Got performance problems on your machine? On Linux you have htop, dstat, iotop, powertop, and latencytop, none of which have MacOS equivalents as far as I know. Even plain old top has keystroke commands to switch between sorting by CPU and sorting by resident set size. As far as I can tell, doing that on MacOS requires restarting top with different command-line options. And there's no package-management system, so if you're building a server-based app, good luck installing the same versions of the same libraries on the server that you tested against in development. Or on your new dev box. And the server's probably running Linux anyway. Also, where the fuck is strace? Dtruss is a fucking piece of shit.

Admittedly XCode is a pretty nice IDE, but there are a lot of nice IDEs out there, and most of them run on Linux too. And I'd love to have dtrace on Linux.

<comment><USER4> If I had to choose between a pretty and easy to use OS (that lets me write programs in peace and not have to manually fix everything from Terminal), and the ability to manipulate my OS's "ls" command, I'd choose the pretty OS every day. I wish we could have both, but now that we _have_ to choose, that's my decision.

But that aside, I'm not sure about the rest of your complaints. I just created couple new folders and 5-6 files named gooba and gooba2 and typed 'chmod +x $(find . -name gooba)' and everything worked (gooba's are executable and gooba2's are not). I don't think that extra _dot_ is that bad and I actually like it better (it's more logical).

Also, you can install package managers such as: MacPorts[1] or Homebrew[2] or Fink[3] (I prefer Homebrew). Then you can install htop, iotop, ftop, and a million other unix apps.

in 'top', if you press 'o' (order), and then 'cpu', it sorts them by CPU usage. You can even set a secondary key by pressing 'O'. And you can always "alias top='top -o cpu'" in your .aliases.

[1] <http://www.macports.org/ports.php>

[2] <https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew>

[3] <http://www.finkproject.org/>

<comment><USER3> > If I had to choose between a pretty and easy to use OS (that lets me write > programs in peace and not have to manually fix everything from Terminal), > and the ability to manipulate my OS's "ls" command, I'd choose the pretty OS > every day. I wish we could have both

Fortunately, you can: just use a current Debian on well-supported hardware. (Until a year ago I would have recommended Ubuntu.)

> I don't think that extra dot is that bad

There are a zillion things like that in MacOS that are just that little bit harder to use, for no good reason. Requiring five extra keystrokes in `top` to get an actual list of the top processes is another example. You can come up with justifications for why the roadblocks are there, or rationalize that they're not that bad, but they really add up.it

It's like Apple's vaunted relentless focus on user experience just doesn't extend to programmers.

> Also, you can install package managers such as: MacPorts[1] or Homebrew[2] > or Fink[3] (I prefer Homebrew). Then you can install htop, iotop, ftop, and > a million other unix apps.

If you're comparing MacPorts, Homebrew, and Fink to Debian or Ubuntu, I think you haven't used Debian or Ubuntu. I didn't realize iotop and htop had already been ported to MacOS, though. That's cool. Thanks for letting me know. Powertop, latencytop, strace, and dstat no, though, I guess?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, I never had any post summarize my growth as an engineer so well. Except for the writing and community bit, that's come a bit late.

I remember the day I realized that I could have windows and play heretic all day, or install linux and tinker all day. Linux quickly won.

The biggest skill I learned from linux is to never expect things to work, and to expect the internet to fix things. My round trip time from not working to google and back to working is by far my most valuable asset as an engineer.

And still, almost every day I leave work I think "God that was awesome!". I hope that never goes away.

Oh, and so +1 for 2 hour nr epic SC battles! Except it was under wine, and man did it quake!

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice read. Did you also always wanted to open things to see how they work? When I was 6 or so, I asked my mother if I could open our hamster to see 'how it worked inside'. Maybe if I were allowed that, I'd be a surgeon now instead of a software developer!

</comment><comment><USER7> The author speaks of writing some small scripts. I write some small scripts for my use for small tasks, if I come across any problem. Just in case, does anyone know a place(website,book etc.) where such small task scripts are collated so that anyone can use them like small assignments?

Advanced Bash Scripting Guide by Mendel Cooper(<http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/>) has some good scripts which I have come across for some practice but it isn't ordered. Any others ?

<comment><USER8> <http://bashcookbook.com/>

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the suggestion. Another O'Reilly book to read!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No offense to the author, but I was expecting more of an in-depth process article rather than an overview. Every "How I Learned to Program" article is fluff filled and really only inspiring rather than action orientated. I've never read a truly step-by-step guide on how someone has learned to program. Maybe I'll write it.

<comment><USER10> Step by step guide?

Get something you want to program. Get a reference. Program.

I am actually happy that someone told me pretty much this. It took a while until I realized how true this was. Just get something you want to do and keep that in mind when reading the reference. I know most people will start making tons of mistakes and writing really crappy code, but that's exactly what learning is about. Starting out with nothing and getting better. One learns from mistakes. Somehow people tend to forget this. Lots of people seem to be embarrassed making a mistake, causing them to don't do anything at all or not giving in that they are making mistakes. One can't learn that way.

I think the article sums it up pretty well and every programmer I know did it that way, well other than learning programming in school, which I myself don't really consider "learning to program", because I never met any person that actually learned programming ins school, meaning if they did they didn't ever program again.

<comment><USER9> Yes. A step-by-step guide. It can be done. I'll prove it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is probably going to raise some ire, but am I in the minority of people who are tired of "How I learned to program?" type posts showing up on HN?

You learned how to code. Great, I am legitimately, truthfully happy for you. It's a very cool skill/career path and a wonderful feeling when you have the ability to create something on your own.

But...do we really need to read that on the frontpage? Am I the only one that finds these types of posts uninteresting?

It has almost become a cliche to wake up and find a frontpage _"How I learned <language> in <time> as a <non-programming profession>"_

<comment><USER12> _This is probably going to raise some ire, but am I in the minority of people who are tired of "How I learned to program?" type posts showing up on HN?_

You're probably not the only one, but I rather like many of these posts, and I think they're useful for the large minority or small majority of HN readers who don't program. They're also handy encouragement to non-programmers in general: someone says "I could do it," describes how, and perhaps that'll act as an impetus and example.

Sometimes I learn something new from these kinds of posts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been using linux for quite a time, and I personally love it. But I'm afraid average person(non-programmer)reading this blogpost will think that linux is something so fundamentally broken, you need to accomplish such trivial tasks as copy/paste throug hours of pain and suffering. Its not like that. Linux provides both normal and advanced modes of accomplishing stuff, which is an advantage over other OSs like for example windows, which only gives you one way to do stuff (which is almost always rudemtary for a power user).

</comment><comment><USER14> Great article. I especially like the focus on writing. I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I used to spend time between assignments in class and homework writing short stories when I was a kid. That is partially why I became a programmer as well. Started out writing little TI-83 apps and moved on to Windows apps and now I am a full-time web developer (mostly Ruby on Rails stuff) and I absolutely love coding.

</comment><comment><USER15> I started with - don't laugh - a TI-55 calculator. It had no conditional jumps (that would be the TI-57) or jumps other than to step 0. It also had, IIRC, 32 steps. I managed to program it to solve second-degree equations.

Then I moved on, briefly, to a Sinclair ZX-81 clone and then stayed with an Apple II until the late-80s. I rented an MSX from the phone company as a videotext terminal. It was a steal at about US$ 7/month.

</comment><comment><USER16> Well, all this is a bit of a fairy tale to me. Sure programming on my free time with friends, always wanting to know more, to go further, that's true it _is_ fun and I'd say it's a way of life. Now consider: process, deadlines, the annoying management guys.. All this is exhausting and boring, it takes away creativity and fun. Not everything is bright and shinny like that article seems to state. The guy actually designing apps is not necessarily the guy who will code them, etc. There's a lot of frustrating realities out there that are better to be known and accepted than ignored.

Also, see [http://developers.slashdot.org/story/11/05/11/0358233/is- pro...](http://developers.slashdot.org/story/11/05/11/0358233/is-process- killing-the-software-industry)

<comment><USER17> So it's not the fault of programming or any other activity per se, but that of the stressful (work) environment.

<comment><USER16> What I'm saying is that programming for fun on your free time is _absolutely_ not the same as programming to pay the rent, and this is not straightforward when you start learning computer science (and that's what this article is about, right?). You _have_ to respect a lot of things that stops you in the creation process, because the goal here is not to do cool things but do as you're told, to take decisions not for your entertainment but for your boss. Sure there are people that do whatever they want at work, but it's relatively rare. And this, my friends, is just my humble opinion.

<comment><USER18> Let me put it this way. On a regular week day, I spend around 12-14 hours a day programming (that might change with a kid on the way), only 10 of which are done for my boss. The point is I don't program to make a living. I just make a living by doing what I do best.

In other words, programming to me means so much more than what I give my employer. Just like the article says, it defines a way of life, that puts knowledge, learning and improving on top of everything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nice article, I second that programming is a way of life. Although I'm in my early 20's right out of college, I look forward to how much knowledge & experience I will amass, and the radical transformations this industry will go through, 10 - 20 years down the road.

> "On linux, if you want to copy a file from one box to another, you use scp > or rsync"

No, not really... I just SFTP at the moment simply cause I find it more convenient (granted, I'm not a Linux power user in any way).

<comment><USER20> yes rsync for single files is over kill

<comment><USER3> That depends on the size of the file, the size of the updates, and the speed of your connection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What about <http://www.codecademy.com> ? Modern day way to learn to program or waste of time?

<comment><USER22> Looking at this for about 10 minutes, it seems pretty intuitive. I don't know much about javascript though, so someone with more knowledge would be better answering your question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Thanks for writing this up. Read the whole thing, took it to heart. Right now I'm making the leap to web developer in a year, without prior experience.

Was wondering what milestone achievements I should hit in Linux, given my goals? Goal details here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3552656>

</comment><comment><USER4> Completely off-topic: Shouldn't the title be 'How I _Learnt_ to Program'? It's a serious question (I don't live in an English-speaking country and my English is not great).

<comment><USER24> You may be interested in [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071010132314.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071010132314.htm)

tl;dr - infrequently-used irregular verbs get "regularized", frequently-used irregular verbs, e.g., "be", "think", will likely stay irregular forever.

(I remember reading about changes to the English language that happened to be underway about the time the printing press arrived, and how the press "froze" that process, leaving us with the mess of pronunciation, spelling, and verb endings we have today, but I've been unable to find an appropriate reference, so I offer the article about the Lieberman study in its place.)

<comment><USER25> Would that be a sign Americans have been reducing usage of the _learn_ verb? I guess that correlates with the amount of posts here about the problems of American education.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Ah, to be young and naïve again.

</comment><comment><USER27> I learned by typing in BASIC program listings from computer magazines on my VIC-20 in the mid 80s. That slowly transitioned to modifying programs to see what would happen. At some blurry point the trial and error shifted to me actually understanding the language - and more importantly, the realization of programming logics - and starting to use it intuitively to write my own programs.

<comment><USER28> Similar story for me, except after BASIC it was Forth and 6809 assembly (and I had a TRS-80 Color Computer) and after a while I grew obsessed with data compression algorithms. Man, I used to love browsing old copies of _Byte_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> i agree, but how can one write passionately about being a programmer and programming without giving due respect to one of the most influental and dedicated programmers of all time - richard matthew stallman - by speaking an entire article only of "Linux" and not of "GNU/Linux"?

<comment><USER30> I never had to #DEFINE RESPECT_STALLMAN before I allocated memory or some such, but maybe that's why my programs were always so inefficient and pasta- like this whole time!

<comment><USER29> hm, i do this #define in every program, but mine look the same as yours.</comment></comment></comment>


A Coder Who Became a Crime Boss - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/mastermind-excerpt/ <comment><USER2> Longer version of this story here (2016): [https://magazine.atavist.com/the- mastermind](https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind) \-- fascinating story and these articles captivated me. Have had them bookmarked for ages :-)

<comment><USER3> Incredible read indeed, someone needs to make a movie about this.

<comment><USER4> So the inevitable factual errors in that movie will become mainstream opinion until the truth falls into obscurity?

Happens every time Hollywood makes a movie about any topic that would be better served by a documentary. It's never not infuriating.

<comment><USER5> > _Happens every time Hollywood makes a movie about any topic that would be > better served by a documentary. It 's never not infuriating._

As if documentaries were accurate.

I wish there was a genre of movies that take it as core principle to not abuse artistic license in service of making the plot flow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those who are interested in TrueCrypt history, here (it is in Russian) [https://news.softodrom.ru/ap/b19702.shtml](https://news.softodrom.ru/ap/b19702.shtml) ([https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.softodrom.ru%2Fap%2Fb19702.shtml)) author did a small research and came to conclusion that TrueCrypt most likely was created by a Czech guy named David Tesařík.

Update: IMHO this research is the most comprehensive one which I saw regarding TrueCrypt authorship

<comment><USER7> His Wikipedia page explains that connection to David Tesarik: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Le_Roux)

In short, Le Roux was the original author (under the name E4M) was later hired by Hafner to write a commercial disc encryption system together with Hollingworth who authored ScramDisc. Later Le Roux released E4M under its new name TrueCrypt, and the commercial team (with Tesarik as its maintainer) sued him.

<comment><USER6> Thanks, I was not aware that Wikipedia mentions David Tesařík.

From what I can see in Wikipedia article, there is nothing about David Tesařík's legal dispute with Le Roux, actually it says that Le Roux had a dispute with SecurStar (a company which wanted to develop commercial disc encryption system).

 _Team member David Tesařík stated that Le Roux informed the team that there was a legal dispute between himself and SecurStar, and that he had received legal advice not to comment on the case. Because of this, he was unable to confirm or deny the legitimacy of TrueCrypt, keeping its development in limbo.[13][14] A new version was released in June,[15] but with a different digital signature and the developers now being referred to as "the TrueCrypt Foundation". The project received funding, the source of which is equally unclear._

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

Altogether, it is still unclear how much Le Roux participated in TrueCrypt development (except E4M legacy), but it is clear that David Tesařík was one of the main developers of TrueCrypt

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only one who found this to be very poorly written? Its like the author keeps telling me how cool and mysterious this story is, why doesn't he just tell me the story and I'll decide if its mysterious or not?

"Like a handful of random jigsaw-puzzle pieces, each one was incomprehensible without an understanding of the larger picture."

He keeps going on about how unrelated these events are, and how mysterious it is they are happening all over the world - well if you don't know whats going on of course you will not know that two things are related?!

<comment><USER9> Don't forget a full page about that Filipino garbageman, that ends in him basically knowing nothing, seeing nothing and being completely irrelevant character to the whole story...

<comment><USER8> Oh man that part was ridiculous. Its like, you could spend a whole page talking about some guy taking a dog for a walk and talking about how he bagged up the dog poo and put it in a bin. Then say "little did I know this dog poo was actually related to the murder of a journalist in Australia... The dog belonged to an infamous hitman who hired a dog sitter to look after his dog while he was in Australia on a job".

The whole thing sounds like it was written by a 15 year old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I hate that they put that list like that:

"Private jets full of gold. Missile-guidance systems. Unbreakable encryption. African militias. Explosives. Kidnapping."

One of the things in this list is not like the other.

<comment><USER11> I propose a game, given a list, find a way that each item is not like the others:

\- Kidnapping - It's the only action.

\- Explosives - It's the only thing that is illegal to make.

\- African Militias - It's the only one about using people.

\- Unbreakable Encryption - It's the only thing that is used by regular people on a regular basis.

\- Missile Guidance Systems - It's the only thing that's not unique.

\- Private jets full of gold - It's the only thing most people would trade an arm and a leg for.

<comment><USER12> > Explosives - It's the only thing that is illegal to make.

doesnt the US restrict import/export of encryption over a certain keylength as well?

<comment><USER11> Uh, I don't think so? Pretty sure they either gave up, decided it was unconstitutional, or both.

Either way, "make", not "export". I'm almost certain it's illegal to export missile guidance systems under ITAR.

<comment><USER13> > Uh, I don't think so? Pretty sure they either gave up, decided it was > unconstitutional, or both.

I think it's technically still a law that's on the books and the American federal government did try to claim PGP was "munitions" at one point in the 90's, but the feds were skirted by PGP being printed in a book which is protected by the 1st amendment.[0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_investigation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Haha I was _sure_ this was going to be about PLR. Alright, story time.

Around 2007, when I was in undergrad, I started getting really interested in cryptography. At the time TrueCrypt was a very popular project in crypto circles, and I spent a lot of time hanging out on the TC forums, soaking up as much information as I could.

As a journalism major, the extreme secrecy of crypto-geeks naturally piqued my curiosity. I started digging into who ran TrueCrypt and its forums. After a bit of googling and whois, I hit a brick wall in the form of LLCs in the Cayman Islands. I therefore did what anybody in my position would do: I just asked people on the TC forums what was going on.

Within _minutes_ , a very popular poster whose handle was `plr` reached out to me, essentially saying "yeah... that _is_ weird! What do you know?". I told him everything, which wasn't much, but he still seemed super interested. We exchanged messages for a few weeks and followed up on a few leads. After a while, plr stopped replying to me. I figured he got bored.

Years later (= 2016, I think), this came out: [https://magazine.atavist.com/he-always-had-a-dark- side](https://magazine.atavist.com/he-always-had-a-dark-side)

tl;dr: I was internet friends with Paul Le Roux.

<comment><USER15> Why not write to him.

<comment><USER14> He's not exactly the kind of person I want to be around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why did he do it? It must have been like a video game for him. He rarely interacted with people directly. Most of his dealings were through employees. The pharmacy business gave him a lot of money within its first 4 years (before the FDA caught wind) so he had a lot of game fuel to play with. And his criminal dealings seemed to occupy him every waking hour, just like a game addiction. Maybe that's why he surrendered so easily, it's just another part of the game, and it interests him.

<comment><USER17> You're describing a cartoon character, not the psychology of a human being.

<comment><USER16> If you read the full story, you'll see that many investigators were perplexed by his motivations and the sheer scale of his enterprises. His underlings described their duties as being like something from a James Bond movie. It was all so much larger than life, and erratic. So why did he do it? Not for money, which he didn't seem to care about. If you think about it as playing for rewards as in a video game, it makes a _lot_ more sense. [https://magazine.atavist.com/the- mastermind](https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > ...this series of events ... each seemed like a kind of message from an > adjacent reality that few of us experience directly.

This nailed it for me. By the description this was a combination of sophistication and ad-hoc, all conducted in what is indeed a parallel world (e.g. the confusion and corruption helps them where it would get in my way).

In a movie or novel everything lines up to make the storytelling crisper. Which ultimately makes it implausible. This was quite gripping.

</comment><comment><USER19> Paul Le Roux, 46 (1972), born in Zimbabwe and raised in South Africa.

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

</comment><comment><USER20> I read a book called [Acid Alex][1] with a very similar story. Also born in Zimbabwe, also moved to SA. Became a drug dealer.... - great book btw.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/Acid-Alex-Al- Lovejoy/dp/1439249407](https://www.amazon.com/Acid-Alex-Al- Lovejoy/dp/1439249407)

</comment><comment><USER21> Evan Ratliff (the article's author) has a book on this subject coming out in February: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JVBNCS7/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JVBNCS7/)

<comment><USER22> Right. This article is an excerpt from that book. Or that's what it says at the top of the article, anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting, the authors of TrueCrypt was always a mystery

</comment><comment><USER24> > Pure methamphetamine manufactured in North Korea. Yachts built to outrun > coast guards. Police protection and judges' favor. Crates of military-grade > weapons. Private jets full of gold. Missile-guidance systems. Unbreakable > encryption. African militias. Explosives. Kidnapping. Torture. Murder.

What is unbreakable encryption doing in that list?

</comment><comment><USER25> I was expecting an article about Ross Ulbricht. Although this other story is even more fascinating!

<comment><USER26> Pretty sure Paul La Roux regarded Ulbricht as a small-time, attention- grabbing, useful idiot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Reminds me of Ross Ulbricht.

</comment><comment><USER28> Definitely a true believer on free market!</comment>


Manna, Chapter One - <AUTHOR> http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm <comment><USER2> Dreadful - absolutely dreadful. It starts so well, then just turns into a thinly veiled rant/diatribe/spiel about an overly optimistic forecast of what the future could, but won't, be like.

Bad writing, bad philosophy, bad predictions. Just awful.</comment>


Play the Point, Not the Score - <AUTHOR> http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/02/play-the-point-not-the-score.html <comment><USER2> This is a 'great' line because "the point" and "the score" can be anything you want it to be, and you can change contexts whenever you want to, so nothing ever really disproves it. But this analogy breaks down I would argue even within tennis, but certainly amongst other games and absolutely in life.

Tennis is a game of endurance: if the score is 30-love and you can expend a disproportionate amount of energy to get it to 40-love or hold back, store that energy, and let it go 40-15, you should if you'll need that energy later. On the other hand, if it's 40-love and you can clinch the game, there's a far higher payoff for that effort.

Similarly in football, if there's 48 seconds left in the game, 4th down and 1 yard on the 20 yard line and you're behind with a score of 13 to 14, you better be "playing the score" and kick a field goal, not go for a touchdown pass.

Strategic concessions and strategic fights are the true key to success. If you're in the battle, be in it to win it.

<comment><USER3> I think a big part of Nadal's game is his incredible endurance. Thus, it is to his advantage to contest every point, because the longer the match wears on, the greater his edge over his opponent. You might think of it as though Nadal has unlimited resources relative to his opponent. In that case, conservation is a worse strategy than playing every point because it fails to exploit one of his advantages.

<comment><USER2> I agree. In that case, he can fight for every point because he has 1000 units of energy, everyone else has 500, and, well, there you have it...he can fight for the "pointless" points.

But let me suggest that outclassing your opponents to such a degree in the real world is far less likely. In golf, for instance, Tiger Woods' early career exploited his far superior drive. As golfers altered their game / exercise approach, Tiger upped his game elsewhere to stay on top. Similarly, if Nadal faces an opponent with equal stamina, I think you'd see a far more strategic game. Or, to phrase it differently: the strategy he employs now (strategic use of endurance) will continue, but become more apparent as he is forced to make tradeoffs. That is, he currently 'picks his battles', but his superior reserves means he can pick each point. Against someone more equally classed, he'll continue to 'pick his battles', but more equal reserves mean we'd see different effects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think tennis can be a great place for analogies. But I dispute. Tennis has a great scoring system. At any point in the match, you can win. You're chances are never bad until it's over. All you need to do is play from now on at least as well as your opponent has played up till now. The only thing required of you, is known to be doable because it is exactly what has just been done _to_ you. Half-time never ends. Not till the last point. Couple that with being a one on one game, & it's very psychological.

But the fact is that once a player establishes dominance, they can be very hard to beat.

Nadal's strength, as any great player's is learning from the past but not being influenced by it.

<comment><USER5> I love tennis and agree this method is "the way" to win at tennis. Its a good skill to leverage in other aspects of life as well.

However, I have seen this skill zealously applied to a startup and the person that uses it so well alienates others (internal and external to his company) by using it too religiously. It is just one skill and needs to be carefully balanced with the simple fact that in life and startups the overall score is many times more important than a particular point.

Be careful with applying a tennis stratagem to life. You will get burned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I agree that this sounds great, but really is a bit short sighted. As an entrepreneur one of the things it seems you need to be able to do rather often is realize that something you're pushing is wrong, drop it, cut your losses and refocus. There's a really delicate balance between not giving up and not wasting time being bull-headed. (I certainly struggle with dropping things sometimes even if it's counter productive for "the score".)

<comment><USER7> Hey man I agree with you and I said a similar thing. Doesn't seem to be what people want to hear at the moment. Seems the gung ho crowd have this topic all sown up. I'd like to play them in a 5 set match.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is a scene in 'The Legend of Bagger Vance' where the golfer is playing an important championship hole and the camera strips away all of the championship environment, the crowd, leaving Bagger Vance with himself, the ball, and the hole.

<comment><USER9> Golf is a different sport. And there's the great scene from "Tin Cup" that is the counterpoint to the point of this article. That would be the scene where Kevin Costner hits the ball into the water over and over trying to make the perfect shot. Searching for perfection on that one shot cost him everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think Nadal actually differs from most players in that he 'plays the point'. Most of the great players are said to lift in important situations such as service break opportunities or tie breaks. Perhaps if you have such amazing stamina that you can go flat out all the time then this might be the best strategy. But for most mortals (including many greats) prioritising is an important skill that should be used.

</comment><comment><USER10> I fenced epee in university. One match I was fencing to five points, and went down 4-0 vs. someone I really should have beaten. This is particularly ugly in epee, because if you strike simultaneously, you both get a point. So all he has to do is hit me at the same time on one of the next four points to win. As a fencer, this isn't a hard proposition.

But I said something along the lines of, "Fuck it, I'm _not_ losing here" and focused more intensely than maybe I ever have. It's like I wasn't even looking at my opponent any more, the world just kind of blurred and I just kind of acted.

I got the next touch. 4-1... and I knew I had it. I put everything into retreating and defense, never counterattacked into an attack (too high risk of both connecting), bit and nibbled down to 4-4.

At 4-4 tied, I could feel the fear in the air. He was frustrated, angry, violent - _this shouldn't be happening to me_ was his vibe. I'd been defensive for the last four points because I couldn't afford for us to both hit - now I could, and I fleshed (charged) straight at him. He was advancing as I charged, I raised my epee, locked the blade against his, scored the touch, and he actually got knocked entirely over onto the ground. I jumped in the air, screaming and waving my arms and weapon. One of the biggest rushes of my life, and a permanent lesson.

</comment><comment><USER11> Only if you're not constrained by time.

</comment><comment><USER12> karma</comment>


Show HN: Best iPad app for academics - <AUTHOR> http://www.papershipapp.com/?zotero

<comment><USER2> Are you planning an Android app?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not quite yet, but we're definitely considering it. Windows Phone is also an option.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Suggest a simple and free team management software - <AUTHOR>

I have to manage a group on 5-6 people. Most of these people do not have any engineering background and hence not so good with technology.<p>I am looking out for some web based software where I can assign each of them task on weekly basis and track it ? I looked at software such as Projekt and all but most of them are too complex to use. <comment><USER2> 5-6 people?

Completely seriously, even though they are not technical, use github's issue tracker. It's so simple and elegant.

Even though they are not-technical, you can start with the tags:

        bug, to-do, need-advice

And then add different project domains or whatever else you please.

In a ten minute presentation you can teach them how to make issues, close issues, assign people to issues, and tag other people in the issues, and you're pretty much done with the learning curve.

Have everyone make an issue, tag it as something, assign it to someone, have that assignee close it out, and they've completely gone though everything there is to know themselves.

The caveat: It is only free if you allow the project to be public. If you want it private, it will be 12 dollars a month. I would urge you to give it serious consideration regardless. If you're making any sort of money at all, 12 dollars a month is peanuts compared to the peace of mind of a simple online system accessible from anywhere.</comment>


Warner Bros. to Rent Movies Digitally on Facebook, Starting With 'Dark Knight' - <AUTHOR> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/warner-bros-rent-movies-digitally-165218 <comment><USER2> Link to watch: <http://www.facebook.com/darkknight>

Fascinating move by both Warner Bros. and FB. I wonder if this is streaming from FB datacenters or Warner Bros? No wonder Apple hates FB, they just went up against Apple, Netflix, Amazon and Google/Youtube (EDIT: Also, Hulu) in the video rentals space, and social is one aspect that affects movie watching the most. Very smart.

EDIT: Ooh, they also launched an iOS app that allows you to buy the movie: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-dark-knight-app- edition/i...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-dark-knight-app- edition/id401016418?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4)

Also, Imagine being able to use facebook credits earned in Farmville to rent movies...

<comment><USER3> I'm seeing an embarrassing SSL is not enabled message from their heroku app :)

[https://img.skitch.com/20110308-8ps8aam6fx8fw1eqhp67tnyss.jp...](https://img.skitch.com/20110308-8ps8aam6fx8fw1eqhp67tnyss.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sadly my region doesn't support credits for Milyoni's payment system. Still, this is very very interesting.

It's times like this when I'm sure the movie studios must at some point think, "Streaming all this bandwidth is expensive, if only there was some way we could put all this on the user, maybe split the film up into chunks and have them stream it from each other in some sort of friend-to-friend way."

</comment><comment><USER5> Out of curiosity, can anyone describe the experience for the rest of us: How well does it work? Does it require Silverlight or some other plugin? How is the resolution? Etc.

I think this is pretty huge. Facebook is obviously exploring several avenues for platform use and WB can pull in a ton of demographic information from this.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hate this. Still region specific and on Facebook.

The Last thing I need in my life(or at least one of the last things) is more apps/companies/etc. trying to make me use Facebook.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. And $3 to "rent" a movie online for 48 hours is outrageous. Netflix killed this idea before it happened.

<comment><USER8> Netflix has a pretty weak first-run movie selection.

<comment><USER9> That's true, but compared to a single nearly-3-year-old movie, they're way up on this new venture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's amazing how the internet allows people and companies to tap into different markets, almost seamlessly, making the "indirect competitors" from Porter's five forces, truly the ones with the most potential to attack a business.

</comment><comment><USER11> TIL it is correct in American to use the verb "rent" for both parties.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hold on just a minute, all this time/money should be spent on more lawyers and drm. Replacing an antiquated business model, now that's just crazy!</comment>


The real google calculator  - <AUTHOR> http://thisismyrobot.blogspot.com/2009/06/real-google-calculator.html

<comment><USER2> I thought he was going to interface the calculator to work with google's calculator. Checking your e-mails is cool too I guess.

<comment><USER3> That's what I thought at first too... It's a cool project though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder what would happen if he had 999999999999999 emails, and then he read 999999999999997 of them?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=782985></comment>


Ask HN: How to Implement DevOps for Alexa Skills? - <AUTHOR> It seems like there is a lack of information on how to build a production-ready CI/CD pipeline for Alexa Skills using Jenkins and AWS Lambda. How would one approach setting up a dev, stage and prod environment for testing your skills on Alexa Developer Console? <comment><USER2> Sounds like a good idea for a blog post!</comment>


Interview with Xavier Leroy - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~popl-interviews/leroy.html <comment><USER2> Nice interview. What a tremendous achievement to formally prove the correctness of a C compiler! It boggles my mind why more people are not involved in this direction.

I hope to live to see the day when lots of commercial software will be written with formal proofs and zero tests. It may just be that we don't have the right tools at this point. If theorem provers could figure out details for themselves for the most part and the programmer has to only specify a few key invariants and rough sketches of the hypotheses and the end guarantees then I cannot begin to imagine how much more productive programming can become.

<comment><USER3> > _It boggles my mind why more people are not involved in this direction._

Because only a vanishingly rare amount of the incorrectness in compiled C programs comes from a bug in the compiler.

Also, some code coaxes a desired behavior out of the object code while bending the rules of the language.

The compiler being proven over correct code (i.e. free of any undefined behaviors) is useless in that situation, unless the prover actually works with an extended language definition (specific to that compiler) which defines those behaviors.

<comment><USER4> Formal proof of behavior is hard and probably specious.

There cannot be a formally logical explication of code for even "common sense problems", like, say, how to safely drive a car. It doesn't exist because it's probably impossible but it's at least not feasible. Instead we use sampling of real world data to train models to solve this problem. This is the story of Data over Logic.

<comment><USER5> > Formal proof of behavior is hard and probably specious.

Utter nonsense. Formal proofs are specious because you can't do a formal proof of problems that are so ill-defined, we don't even have algorithms that solve them in enough cases to be road-safe yet? If you restrict your focus to software that actually exists, almost all of it is amenable to formal modeling.

<comment><USER4> You're making a philosophical argument about problem definition being the reason why we can't use formal proofs for many common sense problems. I wish you the best of luck.

My claim is that proving that software is correct using formal logical proofs is tautologically specious unless you extend the software to the problem it's trying to solve. Once those problems are of sufficient complexity (or interest, I might add), logic fails.

<comment><USER5> A best-in-class, hard-real-time, preemptible operating system has been formally verified (along with many other components). CompCert exists. Iris progresses apace. Every day, newer and more complex formal systems are proved correct. I don't really buy the "logic fails at sufficient complexity" argument. By all accounts, it's succeeded where people have put in the effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I learned caml in France during my studies, as stated in the article. But it's far from being the language "everyone teaches in french schools". It's only taught in a specific specialization (computer science) before engineering school, so that's about 1000-2000 students every year.

I think the most taught languages are still Java and python by far.

I really liked this language though, it's very elegant and concise to write cs-related algorithms, and to do symbolic manipulation.

<comment><USER7> _I learned caml in France during my studies, as stated in the article. But it 's far from being the language "everyone teaches in french schools". It's only taught in a specific specialization (computer science) before engineering school, so that's about 1000-2000 students every year._

I never understood this. OCaml is a world-class language, if the French threw the weight of their education system behind it, mandated it as the language for government IT work to build a critical mass, they would have a killer advantage. But I guess the demise of Le Minitel has made them afraid of home- grown technologies, it is a huge missed opportunity.

It's the same as if the British government had had the foresight to back the Acorn ecosystem. We would be 15-20 years ahead of where we are now. An Archimedes on every desktop...

<comment><USER8> Maybe they're once bitten (by Minitel) twice shy.

<comment><USER9> Why do you say Minitel was so bad? From an outside perspective it is brilliant. It was late '90s before the internet had anything like the penetration of Minitel. Arguably, the French should have continued inovating Minitel. Re-written the terminal software in OCaml.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Might be important to mention (in the title) that Xavier Leroy, is the lead OCaml developer

Not everyone might be familiar with the name

<comment><USER11> On the other hand, anyone in PL academics should be familiar with his name.

<comment><USER12> On the other hand there are scores of people not in PL academics that are interested in OCaml. People that might have heard of Reason for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > I also wanted to talk about how OCaml came about. Did you expect it to be > the language everyone taught in French schools?

Since 2012 most students learn Python, which is a shame IMHO. Learning OCaml will make you a better programmer for the rest of your life, while learning Python doesn't teach you much about programming.

<comment><USER14> Yep, Python made me productive, Java made me collaborative but only Scheme made me understand.

(In fact it's another way around : I learned basic at 10, assembly at 14, pascal at 16 then I learned Scheme (continuations, tunks, parallelism, etc) at 22 at university and realized "now I understand what I've been doing the last 10 years)</comment></comment>


NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Team Reveals Mission Details On Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/mars-curiosity-rover-team-spills-mission-details-on-reddit.php?ref=fpnewsfeed <comment><USER2> Actual reddit IAmA: [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ybmmh/we_are_engineers...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ybmmh/we_are_engineers_and_scientists_on_the_mars/)</comment>


NASA engineer invents physics breaking new space engine - <AUTHOR> https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2019/10/nasa-engineer-invents-physics-breaking-new-space-engine.html <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21250577](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21250577).</comment>


Julie Ann Horvath names harassers - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/459375982013468672 <comment><USER2> This seems to have turned somewhat juvenile at this point, I'm starting to lose more respect for people the more mud they've started slinging. (This doesn't just apply to Julie Horvath, Theresa seemed somewhat bitter in some of her posts but this article [0] does seem to come across as somewhat churlish

[0] [http://valleywag.gawker.com/ims-and-email-support- allegation...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/ims-and-email-support-allegations- about-the-toxic-cultu-1567175545)

</comment><comment><USER3> For what it's worth there are a ton of details in a blog post that keeps being killed in HN's new thread queue. Probably autokilled by hostname. [https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/459405044920500225](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/459405044920500225)

<comment><USER4> Yeah, Valleywag is on the list of autodead domains. Which is a shame, because they occasionally cover important stories.

<comment><USER2> What does that mean the list of autodead domains, can it be posted in comments? can we look at this list?

<comment><USER5> Here's a list from a few years ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=499044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=499044)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a PR train wreck and so far every single thing I've seen about it has been "he said/she said".

These screen-shots (unless I'm missing something) don't show much of anything.

<comment><USER7> One thing they do show is the HR rep not willing to be present in a meeting. That at least is evidence that their HR department should have been functioning better than it was. Not necessarily evidence of anything else, though.

<comment><USER6> It's not even evidence of that, all you can conclude from that screenshot is that HR is out of the office for much of the next week and is suggesting someone else agreeable.

Everything else is pretty much speculation (but then this entire thing has been like that).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> so so messy ... not sure that it really accomplishes that much either, except to make Ms Horvath seem really undesirable as an employee. I just feel like this could have been handled more maturely.

<comment><USER9> I'm curious to know specifically what makes you think she's undesirable as an employee?

<comment><USER10> I'll be honest and say I am now beginning to think the same as @trustfundbaby. The situation has turned almost farcical, and without knowing the absolute truth (which we don't) I think it would be a difficult decision to hire Horvath, knowing her persistence.

Nobody can legally admit to it, but behind closed doors I'm sure there would be a lot of managers who would disregard her Resumé knowing what might happen when someone fumbles, or appears to fumble, regardless of who is telling the truth.

Edit: I'll pose it as a question

You are the CEO of a company, and you come across Horvath's C.V. for a position, you are aware of what is happening between Horvath and GitHub. Do you hire her, knowing that an overheard (and likely innappropriate) comment could be all it takes for her to resign and start a PR campaign against your company's culture?

<comment><USER11> Yes, even explicitly because of that. I expect to be held accountable for any actions I take, even the seriously horrible ones.

<comment><USER12> What about something seriously horrible like watching someone hula hoop?

<comment><USER12> I thought my comment was obvious, but it looks like I got a downvote so I guess I need to explain it _sigh_.

The point I was making is that there doesn't seem to be any real evidence of any wrongdoing at Github. All the allegations seem to disappear once we hear more details:

\- The hula-hooping seems pretty innocuous. Some people start hula-hooping in the office, so other people start watching. It would be a pretty unusual thing to hula-hoop in the office, so it seems natural to watch it. There should be no reason to think the hula-hooping would cause male excitement (and if there was reason to think that, it probably shouldn't have been done). It sounds like nobody else had a problem with it.

\- The rug incident seems like a non-event. Why should 'meritocracy' be divisive? The only problem it seemed to cause was preventing Horvath being accepted into a "feminist hackerspace".

\- The 'harassment' against JAH from Heather and Tom now seems to disappear given the facts from JAH herself in valleywag. It seems that JAH was accused of starting the rumour against Tom's wife, and that is why JAH was called into the HR office. JAH says that she was harassed because she was accused of starting the rumour, and Heather sat silently. It would seem very appropriate to talk to a worker accused of starting a vicious rumour, and get all the facts. Did JAH actually start this rumour, or was it a lie? That is a bit unclear at the moment.

\- The IMs in the valleywag article just seem like a vicious rant from JAH against Tom and his wife. So Tom's wife set up an office at Github. Perhaps not the most sensible idea given that she wasn't an employee, but certainly not harassment.

\- Regarding the allegation against Ted Nyman: she now says he reverted her edits because she wouldn't date him (previously it was "fuck"). So all we know is that Nyman asked her out on a date, she refused, and he reverted some edits. Were those two things linked? To be honest I have my doubts, based on JAH's other "false positives".

Overall it looks like JAH is the bully and harasser here. It's also ironic that she has achieved the exact opposite of what she wanted to achieve (advancing the position of women in the industry). Perhaps the lesson - unfortunately - is that it isn't a good idea to hire a feminist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What I don't understand is why, (presumably the only HR person at GitHub) wouldn't be at a meeting as requested? Isn't this a rather important function of an HR position? Why would she suggest someone else be there? Didn't she have the authority to say, "under no circumstances will a meeting take place between employee x and employee y without my presence"?

<comment><USER13> From the leaked convo, HR person wasn't sure to be in town and suggested Preston-Werner was the one who could decide to postpone the meeting or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Stop giving me orders. I feel harassed.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've been subjected to worse in the past, and I'm a male. I've seen other men subjected to worse. I know multiple people who left the tech industry altogether after suffering actual psychological abuse.

Regardless of everything else, her continued absurd attempts to link this to gender are disgusting, obviously ridiculous, and thoroughly demonstrate that she's not honestly interested in speaking for people who have suffered abuse by employers.

<comment><USER16> Stating that the same thing happens to males isn't actually justification for taking an issue with what she is saying. It shouldn't be about gender at all.

However, I agree with you in thinking that the attempts to tie this to gender issues are way off base. When I first read the reports on the issues (which are not the whole truth, I understand), none of them read like gender issues. They read like issues between employees male or female, that didn't work well together. Would we have had the same reaction if Tom's wife had interfered in a male employees relationship? We should. Would we have had the same reaction if a female employee was reverting changes from a male? We should.

From what I've seen, it looks like this became a gender issue because JAH is a female, not because there were specific gender harassment issues.

<comment><USER15> It's about gender because she is directly claiming it's about gender and has done so from the beginning. As valleywag quoted her saying today:

 _" Would this happen to a man in the same situation? No."_

She is _wrong, wrong, wrong._ Things happen all the time to men in the tech industry that are worse than what she claims happened to her. Even famously so:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-color-employee-files- lawsu...](http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-color-employee-files- lawsuit-2012-11)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> She just made herself completely unemployable, and she'll get sued for millions unless she can prove her allegations (and maybe even then).

She's very smart.

<comment><USER18> Why are you not brave enough to use your normal HN account, why hide?

<comment><USER19> You mean besides for the tidal wave of downvotes?

<comment><USER19> Thank you, anonymous downvoting coward, for proving my point.</comment></comment></comment></comment>