How Many People Are Wrongly Convicted? Researchers Do the Math - <AUTHOR> http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/28/how-many-people-are-wrongly-convicted-researchers-do-the-math/#.U17c6RcradY.twitter <comment><USER2> IF you want to do something, you could support The Innocence Project: [http://www.innocenceproject.org/](http://www.innocenceproject.org/)

Or support this defense attorney (former NYC prosecutor) who is working to educate people about the justice system by drawing The Illustrated Guide to the Law: [http://lawcomic.net/](http://lawcomic.net/) [http://www.patreon.com/nathanburney](http://www.patreon.com/nathanburney)

<comment><USER3> I worked at The Innocence Project for 2 years. When I was working there, our exoneration rate for cases that made it to DNA testing was 50%. Imagine that - 50%. This kind of failure rate is unacceptable. This is a compounded by the fact that the majority of cases we saw never made it to DNA testing because evidence was so old that it was typically lost.

The Innocence Project still has a huge backlog of cases. Legal cases are incredibly long and expensive. A single DNA test costs thousands of dollars. Donations mean everything here. Thank you.

<comment><USER4> Wow. This leave me think two different things - 1. How much can I donate to help and 2. What can I do to help with getting DNA evidence out of old samples. How many people are languishing in jail because we have not using the best science available?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think what goes on in plea bargains is more of an issue. If I am arrested for a minor crime and the prosecutor decides to pile on dozens of parallel charges such that I am now facing 50 years to life if convicted, but offers me 3 month if I plead guilty, then no matter how innocent I am I am going to take the plea. Unless you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that you are innocent what rational person can afford to take the risk of going to trial.

<comment><USER5> It annoys me that people keep saying in such cases "yeah, but you won't _really_ get 50 years, even if they succeed".

Imagine yourself talking to those prosecutors and being threatened with 50 years, and then given that 3 months deal. What would _you_ do? Would you think "yeah, I'm not really going to get 50 years" \- or would you be scared as hell about spending the rest of your life in prison?

So yeah, I think such threats _absolutely_ do matter, and the system should be changed so this doesn't happen anymore. I've also recently heard that something like 98 percent of people charged take the plea deal (I think it was from some documentary). That's INSANE. That's not how the justice system is supposed to work.

Everyone should be getting a fair trial, regardless. I mean, even if the guy is guilty - wouldn't you rather have him in a _fair_ trial to make sure he gets what he deserves, rather than have the prosecutors offer him a much smaller prison time?

<comment><USER4> >It annoys me that people keep saying in such cases "yeah, but you won't really get 50 years, even if they succeed".

If convicted you can certainly get 50 years because the of minimum sentencing rules. This is where you get juries saying after the trial "I had no idea he would be sentenced to 50 years - I thought he would only get a couple of months".

As a defendant your lawyer can't tell the jury the sentence you face if convicted - apparently if the jury knows you face a minimum of 50 years for a minor crime they might not be so keen to convict you!

<comment><USER6> That's why jury members _shouldn 't_ be the average, possibly dim, possibly outright stupid, possibly just apathetic person, but actually be required to posses at least a modicum of intelligence, so as to be able to research minimum sentences etc.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but if we make it easy for anyone who can fog a mirror to get out of serving in combination with throwing anyone off who the prosecution thinks might be able fog a mirror, then we can expect that who ever is left will have few problems.

My feeling is serving on a jury it is a bit like voting. I know it is unlikely that I am doing any good, but it is my duty to do my best in both circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The 4.1% wrongful conviction rate mentioned in this article is interesting, but doesn't come close to displaying the gross injustices perpetrated by our "justice" system. First, prosecutors routinely overcharge defendants in an effort to extort guilty pleas. Second, 3 Strikes and other anti-recidivism laws have produced barbaric sentencing results for relatively minor crimes. Examples: In California, 30.1 percent of inmates are serving _life_ sentences. Utah, 29.2 percent; Nevada, 21.5; Massachusetts, 19.4; New York, 18.8; Alabama, 16.6, and Washington, 15.4.

Sadly, there is no relief in sight. The Supreme Court has ruled that "the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of 'cruel and unusual punishments' was aimed at excluding only certain modes [or types] of punishment, and was not a 'guarantee against disproportionate sentences." This ruling came down in a case where they upheld the life prison sentence of a California man convicted of shoplifting three golf clubs priced at $399.

In short: the US justice system is out of control, and the Supreme Court has no intention of stopping it.

<comment><USER8> Your math is all wrong: if at a given moment in time 30% of inmates are serving life sentences, it really doesn't mean 30% of prison sentences are life sentences! Look at the population of inmates in a year ago and now, and the subset of life prisoners is probably mostly the same people (they don't get out much), while a much larger percentage of the rest of the inmate population isn't the same people.

<comment><USER7> I edited the comment and removed my confusing commentary, but I wasn't suggesting that 30% of all sentences are life sentences. I just said that if you are in prison in California, you have a 30% chance of dying there (which is in fact mathematically correct). Regardless, the numbers are off the charts vs. the rest of the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What is outrageous, but unfortunately not shocking, is those responsible for such a critical process are not rigorously measuring its accuracy. Android app developers know more about their success rate. It's from a pre-scientific age, where something that seems philosophically correct (a defense lawyer and a jury of your peers, an independent judge, dehydrating and bleeding sick people, the function of the pineal gland) is assumed to obtain correct outcomes. QED.

What is shocking is that the public, especially the great many who have interacted with the law enforcement system, continues to have faith in it. As long there is no political pressure from the public, the judiciary won't change.

Off the top of my head, two methods might better measure accuracy:

METHOD A

1) Take a random sample of prisoners

2) Re-examine the evidence in their cases in a highly rigorous way (the judicial system does not do this unless the defendant can afford it).

3) Most cases will be inconclusive (I think). From the conclusive cases, you can infer something about the accuracy of the judicial "method"

METHOD B

1) Identify kinds of evidence that meets scientific levels of accuracy, such as DNA

2) Start with the population in jail for which that evidence is available. Because most cases are settled by plea bargains, I expect it will be most cases.

3) Again, most cases will be inconclusive (I think). From the conclusive cases, you can infer something about the accuracy of the judicial "method"

</comment><comment><USER10> > _Rarely, at least according to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In > a 2006 opinion he cited an approximate error rate of 0.027 percent, based on > [...]_

I laughed out loud. 1 mistake per 3700 cases. The software industry averages 1 bug every 50 lines of code [1]. Microsoft hits ~1/2000\. The space shuttle achieved ~1/20000, but that takes serious dedication and cost [2].

Doesn't matter what the "based on" is. Deciding court cases is not easier than writing a line of code. That estimate is off by at least two orders of magnitude. Which is funny until the fact that it was a supreme court justice who repeated it sinks in.

(The article itself gives a false positive rate of 4.1%, which is much more reasonable.)

1: [http://amartester.blogspot.com/2007/04/bugs-per-lines-of- cod...](http://amartester.blogspot.com/2007/04/bugs-per-lines-of-code.html) 2: [http://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right- stuff](http://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff)

<comment><USER11> While that number also seems low to me, comparing the failure rate of a court case with a single line of code is a ludicrous analogy. I, a distracted and harried developer, will write hundreds of lines of code a day and not think twice about them, whereas each criminal trial is, for some period of time, the subject of undivided attention of at least one judge, two lawyers and a jury.

Errors certainly happen, but they're almost certain not to be dominated by errors of simple oversight, which explain the vast majority of bugs.

<comment><USER10> I agree that the style of the typical errors differs, although there are definitely cases decided by some stupid mistake made when collecting evidence.

But even when I _try_ and _test_ I don't hit 1 bug per 2000 lines of code. For example, I wrote a collapsing futures library for obj-c [1]. It only has about 1000 lines of non-test non-header code. The code is tested, I've used it in projects, and I re-read it now and then trying to come up with ways to break it. Is it reasonable for me to lay 50:50 odds on a bug being present? I don't think so.

(Are you the owner of the github repo statsd.net [2]? `someGraphiteLine.Equals(null)` returns false but `someGraphiteLine.Equals((GraphiteLine)null)` throws an exception.)

1: [https://github.com/Strilanc/ObjC- CollapsingFutures](https://github.com/Strilanc/ObjC-CollapsingFutures) 2: [https://github.com/lukevenediger/statsd.net](https://github.com/lukevenediger/statsd.net)

<comment><USER11> Nope. I'm [http://github.com/levand](http://github.com/levand).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This 4% error rate (which doesn't necessarily translate to other kinds of cases, particularly ones with plea bargains) would mean the US had approximately 91,000 people incarcerated who were innocent (using 2011 numbers). If you count in people on probation and parole, the number raises to 290,000 people (using 2008 numbers).

I don't know what the error rate actually is in these cases, but the numbers are staggering if even approximately correct - an entire city of innocent people are tied up in the criminal justice system.

<comment><USER13> I think the 4% rate refers to inmates on death row, only. Not to the criminal population as a whole.

<comment><USER14> The criminal population as a whole is:

* subject to far less stringent controls

* much less likely to be participating in a lengthy appeals process

* subject to corrupting influences such as for-profit prisons

* vastly dominated by "plea agreements" in which people are convicted via coercive influence rather than any evidentiary process (and far worse if socioeconomically disadvantaged or non-white).

If 4% only refers to death row errors, the overall error rate for wrongful convictions is likely in the double digits.

Also, the error rate probably goes up again for non-incarceration results which let the system "slap people on the wrist" since that is seen as less serious (despite high incidental cost to life, career, mental & physical health). It's the legal system's equivalent of closing a support ticket.

And this is only classifying "correct judgement" vs. "wrongfully convicted." It fails to model cases where a criminal conviction was a really stupid way to deal with the problem, which could have been addressed via non-criminal means.

<comment><USER13> I agree w/ the stupidity of treating certain issues as criminal. This is, I think, where the bulk of the problem really lies. The judicial system is overstressed and trying cases is very expensive, leading to lower quality investigations and the plea situation you mention.

I guess what bugs me about this is that the wrongful conviction issue is always presented alongside the capital punishment issue. They are separate issues and, I think, related only in that both deal with the criminal justice system. Wrongful conviction is awful no matter what the sentence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> And this is why most countries do not have the death penalty.

The chances of getting it wrong are never 0 and it's impossible to undo or make reparations if you get it wrong.

<comment><USER16> I honestly find the idea of spending decades of my life in a prison facing daily verbal and physical abuse from guards and inmates to be far more terrifying than death.

No, you can't un-execute somebody, but you can't give someone years of their life back, either.

<comment><USER17> I might not get hacker news in prison, but I would probably get some books that I would enjoy even more. Prison can be really bad, but on average I think it is far better than death.

<comment><USER18> Dunno about in the US, but at least here in the UK the Government has stopped allowing people to send prisoners books full stop as part of their campaign to get tough on prisoners.

<comment><USER19> Tell me you are quoting The Onion? That is begging for the human rights court. Not allowing prisoners to read is both cruel and unusual.

<comment><USER20> The ban targets sending many articles, including books, to prisoners:

Justice Minister Chris Grayling defends prisoner book rules [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26726864](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26726864)

Ministers defend ban on sending books to prisoners in England and Wales [http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/ban-books- pri...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/ban-books-prisoners- england-wales-authors)

The government's argument is that prisoners can still use prison libraries or buy books from approved suppliers using their earnings from work tasks. However, libraries are often very limited in the choice they offer, access can be arbitrarily restricted, and their earnings (average £9.60 in 2008 [1]) are likely to be insufficient for book purchases after paying for more essential items.

I agree that this is cruel. It's part of an effort by the government to make prison appear tougher to appeal to its core (right-wing) supporters.

[1] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7275026.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7275026.stm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Related:

* Non-profit: Measures for Justice ([http://measuresforjustice.org](http://measuresforjustice.org))

* Book: "Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court" ([http://www.ordinaryinjustice.com](http://www.ordinaryinjustice.com))

Plug: I'm putting together a list of developers and data scientists who are interested in working with Measures for Justice to do something about this. If you're one of them, let me know.

</comment><comment><USER22> Don't forget that the lunch break can have an impact on the outcome:

 _The [research] team found that, at the start of the day, the judges granted around two-thirds of the applications before them. As the hours passed, that number fell sharply (see chart), eventually reaching zero. But clemency returned after each of two daily breaks, during which the judges retired for food. The approval rate shot back up to near its original value, before falling again as the day wore on._

[http://www.economist.com/node/18557594](http://www.economist.com/node/18557594)

If something as simple as a lunch break can have this type of impact on judges, then imagine how other circumstances of their personal life can impact longer trials.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's worth mentioning that prosecutorial immunity, a form of qualified immunity, is a relatively recent creation (20th century, possibly as recent as Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents[1], 1971), and not the eternal concept some portray it as.

More on this: [http://www.section1983blog.com/2009/09/brief-summary-of- pros...](http://www.section1983blog.com/2009/09/brief-summary-of- prosecutorial-immunity.html)

________________________________

Notes:

1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivens_v._Six_Unknown_Named_Age...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivens_v._Six_Unknown_Named_Agents)

</comment><comment><USER24> I did jury service in the UK once. It would terrify me being in court for something I didn't do.

We were clearly instructed to base our decision on the evidence, which there was very little of - just one word against another. At the end the judge seemed to sum up, and it to me seemed that he was advising a non-guilty verdict, based on exactly that lack of evidence. Yet a large proportion of the jury still seemed to base their decision on tabloid headline style judgements and non-evidence.

"OK, the times didn't add up for that bit of the story, but maybe he should be found guilty of that other part, just in case."

Its not some sort of bargain, there is either evidence or there is not. In this case there was not any real evidence.

As I say I would be absolutely terrified to be in that position.

</comment><comment><USER25> What I find most hideous about every single wrong conviction is that it could not just have prevented most of the time and that it was contrived by overeager prosecutors - for every one wrongfully convicted the real culprit is walking freely!

Just watch "West of Memphis" ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2130321/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2130321/)) and see how the state solves the issue of three wrongfully convicted boys - with something as rediculous and stupid as the Alford plea ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea)) - nothing more than a sophistry with the very practical effect of that the police doesn't even have to solve the crime anymore.

I am from Germany and we have a less extreme contemporary example of wrong conviction of Gustl Mollath - he was basically fucked over by a network of Bavarian judges, prosecutors, bankers and expert witnesses for denouncing the HypoVereinsbank of fiscal evasion.

</comment><comment><USER26> So what is an acceptable percentage of false positives for criminal convictions resulting in incarcerations?

From "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" I'm guessing it's at most 10%, but that already seems unrealistically low.

</comment><comment><USER27> Impossible to calculate considering "truth" is not fact.

Also war on drugs: [http://boingboing.net/2014/02/27/us-prison-population- up-800...](http://boingboing.net/2014/02/27/us-prison-population- up-800-s.html)

</comment><comment><USER28> It may work for death row, but extrapolating it to other convictions doesn't seem very rigorous. With such high stakes, could there be an unaccounted greater prevalence of framing someone else in capital crimes compared to lesser crimes? To put it another way, how much of the design of a crime comes down to making it look like an innocent person is guilty?

</comment><comment><USER29> there are also the people who are innocent, but plead guilty because it is the less worse option. [1] 1\. [http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1116&context=clsops_papers)</comment>


Open Web Foundation Launches to help Open Specifications like OAuth, OpenID - <AUTHOR> http://openwebfoundation.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> It was great to see this launch at OSCON. We are going to be some interviews about it on YDN as soon as my video guy edits it next week.</comment>


OnePlus 5T review - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/oneplus-5t-review-an-outstanding-combination-of-specs-design-and-price/ <comment><USER2> Why do device designers continue to put the on/off button at the edge distance as the rocker on the opposite side, so that pressing one naturally, accidentally, presses the other!?</comment>


Intuit Launches Quickbooks 2009 for Mac  - <AUTHOR> http://about.intuit.com/about_intuit/press_room/press_release/2008/0918.jsp

<comment><AUTHOR> they also have a new logo, which is odd.</comment>


Anyone find apartment setting not ideal for start-up work? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> I know sitting in the apartment coding all day, eating cookies while watching the Daily Show sounds like a dream moment. But it was one of the first lessons I learned when I entered college: it doesn't work for me.

I like to take each morning as a new work day--shower, hit the library, make calls, hit a class or two, continue work on start-up.

I'm assuming YComb doesn't provide office space. So I'm curious if there have been YC companies that came together to get some space to create a collective work environment away from their apartment?

<comment><USER2> This past session (w2007) several of us have been working from home (Weebly, Zenter). OTOH, the crystal towers situation is quite nice, it beats any office i know of hands down. Several other startups chose to go to an office b/c they were used to that (heysan), so i think it goes both ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I find that even though my desktop environment is geared toward productivity (i.e. I can switch quickly between vi, the shell, firefox, etc), I actually get more work done from on campus when I VNC to home. That is, I waste less time doing things like reading random posts on this site, and actually do what I set out to do. Even now, I have a homework assignment due in about 10 hours that I can't bring myself to work on.

So I must agree that at least having some sort of separate workspace must help somehow. I think the real root problem, however, is to layout a schedule for yourself and follow it. Going to an office forces you to do that; writing a schedule down and being committed to following it could feasibly accomplish the same goal.

Note to self: make a schedule.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't know how long you guys have been working from home but I'll provide a little insight from someone who's been doing it mostly for about 12 years. I've been working at home with various projects/jobs since I was about 24 (36 now). For the first 2-3 years, it was all part-time of 2-4 days a week but, for the past decade, it's been full-time.

I tell you - even 12 years on, it is still hard to do. I do a lot of traveling as a consultant and trainer and these are usually Monday through Friday gigs. When I get back to the "office" and start to work again on Monday, I've totally lost the groove lol. That's it - it only takes a week of me getting out of the mindset of working at home to lose it. When I come back to the office on Monday, I want to read reddit, catch up on all the stuff I missed and I almost always find that Mondays have a lot of wasted time in them lol.

It took me probably 2-3 years initially to get the mindset down and learn how to separate work from play. Distractions are huge at home but, for a 20-something with no significant other, they are less so. Now, I have a spouse and a fun little three year old at home - those are more distracting than all the strip clubs and PS3s in the world lol. But you manage.

Last bit - I would suggest that, when you are looking for a spouse/significant other, make sure that person is okay with a comment like, "Honey, I'm going into work now. I want you to think as though my office is 30 miles away from you and you can't just walk in and ask me a question. Send me an email or phone me if you have a question. Also, don't ask me stupid shit during the day because I'm dealing with complex stuff and inane prattle takes me out of the mindset I need to work." If you have a great spouse who understands this, you'll be able to work from home much more efficiently.

</comment><comment><USER5> At such an early stage, I think an apartment works quite well. My cofounder and I share an apartment (with a couple other friends) and things get done. Integrate your startup with your life because the startup _is_ your life if you're serious. But it really depends on you as a person. If it's just that you're somebody that needs to be supervised/forced in a specific environment to be productive, then you might reevaluate your ambitions in starting a company.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't see it as black and white. Everyone has their conditions under which they work at their optimal level.

Identifying those conditions and finding a way to make it work I think is more important than forcing yourself to work under difficult conditions SIMPLY because you are a start-up. There is a huge misconception that just because you are a start-up you HAVE to make your life difficult. It already will be difficult; if you can find ways to make it easier you absolutely should!

<comment><USER6> I'd agree. The more environments you can work in the better, but often will power is as much about being smart enough to give yourself the ambient conditions you need to succeed as it is about just mandating how you are going to behave.

This only goes so far though. Daniel's probably right that you're in trouble if you require _another person_ to motivate you to do work, but I don't think that's what you meant in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't work effectively from home. To many distractions to devote large blocks of time. I'm up in Seattle so I ended up renting out some industrial space from ActivSpace (<http://www.activspace.com/)> for $250 a month. It's not a large space but it serves my needs nicely. Two desks, couch, fridge, white boards, and we can paint on the walls if we get bored.

</comment><comment><USER8> This really is a personal choice. We were lucky with our startup because we got desk space at the Obvious corp building in South Park (Obvious are the guys behind Twitter, Evan Williams et al). It's a fantastic working environment with lots of smart people around and great productive atmosphere.

However there were certain days when I actually found myself getting into the zone of productivity just sitting on the couch and working my laptop. If you find yourself in one those zones is it worth breaking it just because you've programmed yourself to think you're more productive in an office/library/wherever? I don't think so.

While there are just a couple of you working on your startup, I think you should just work wherever you think you'll be most productive that day. The majority of the time I work at Obvious, sometimes I work on my couch and sometimes in a random coffee shop or bench somewhere nice. I can only do this for so long before we start hiring and then we all need to be in the same place so I may as well make the most of it now.

</comment><comment><USER9> I get where you're coming from. I just recently graduated and moved into an apartment complex with fewer college kids which definitely helped as things are quieter. I think whats ideal is to work out of a small house where you can live just with your co-founders. But the issue is cost.. Renting a house is usually considerably more which will increase your burn rate.

I think it is pretty key to work out of the same place where you live though. Separation of living and work is not ideal for a startup, and PG even talks about this some. Your life needs to BE your work; They need to coexist.

As far as distractions go, I think this is another reason why living with a co-founder is so important in the early stages. Its kinda like a checks and balances. You both keep each other in check and on track.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can see pg's point about making startup your life. But I think you can still have startup as your life even while you work out of your office until 11pm, come to the apt, grab some food over some TV and work few more hours before hitting bed.

That's how it is for me anyway and it has been more productive than staying in apartment all day.

Again this is something that must vary from person to person. So I'm not necessarily out to do a philosophical debate about whether one is better than the other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> An apartment works well _if_ your co-founders are around (as roommates, or in the living room with a big table)

But it's important to have the right kind of crowd around. If you are hard at work and all your rommie does is play XBox all day (no fingers at you pranav!) then it gets crazy.

So definitely depends on the roommate situation.

I'm doing this right now ... have a 1 bedroom and getting work done on the dining table! And it works great!

</comment><comment><USER11> I've found that too. Sometimes it's hard to get into the flow while 'working from home.' An office that is seperated somehow can really make it easier to work.

</comment><comment><USER12> I know I found (during my Summer of Code work last year) that I had to get out of the house to get any real work done. It's well-known advice to have a separate "work" area of the house if you want to succeed at working from home, and I'd have done that if I had a spare room.

</comment><comment><USER13> The first thing that comes to mind is cost. You're already paying for the apartment. If you can avoid it, why pay for office space as well?</comment>


Count the people around you by monitoring wifi signals - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/schollz/howmanypeoplearearound <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I work at Density ([https://www.density.io](https://www.density.io)) building an anonymous people counter.

MAC address tracking is a good simple way to get an approximate number of people: it's very easy to install, it requires only a WiFi antenna, and the data is easy to translate into a count. However, there are privacy and legal concerns which have prompted phone vendors to obfuscate this data. And there can easily be zero (or more than one) broadcasted MAC address per human, even when filtering by OUI.

Retailers have been using specialized "people count" technology like infrared break-beams, thermal cameras, and CCTV+CV systems for a long time. CCTV is the most accurate by far, but it's also commonly considered to be an invasive level of surveillance (and rightly so). It's also not particularly accurate in adverse situations. At Density, we looked at (and tried) many of these technologies - but ultimately found them lacking because they were either too invasive or too inaccurate. The device we've built uses a lower-resolution depth-only sensor because it can return extremely accurate results, without having the capability for facial recognition or other analysis techniques that are harmful to privacy. So far the technology is working very well - with an algorithm based on a deep-learning "human classifier" we're seeing accuracy above 99% in many of our deployments.

Here's a cool (and in-progress, excuse our dust) summary of some issues that the technology has to navigate: [https://faq.density.io/algo/](https://faq.density.io/algo/)

<comment><USER3> What do you think about a radar approach like Google's Project Soli?

<comment><USER4> Isn't Soli more for natural user interface (NUI) detection via radar wave disruptions? I'm not sure it would provide very granular detection and he'd have a lot of false positives.

I was thinking more in terms of lidar tracking of people. It's been around for nearly a decade and works quite well.

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, as far as I know LIDAR is still prohibitively expensive for this. Someone did invent a solid-state LIDAR system recently, which seems like a good sign.

<comment><USER4> Fair point. I was solely thinking from a technical solution not the practicality around deployment. My employer has biased my bubble on thought process. "Oh, yes, this is easy to solve, and I see it on campus (Disney - imagineering office).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It sounds like a lot of people aren't too familiar with the "people counter".

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

It's commonly used by some retail and shopping malls to "estimate" traffic and conversion. It's great for determining peak times and visit duration. This kind of technology has been commercialized for some time now.

<comment><USER6> My wife manages a retail store and they use this tech to track sales conversions by the hour. Gross sales / Number of people walking in the store broken out by hour. Each conversion rate for each hour is tied back to the manager on duty for that hour so they can see how effectively the store is managed. They also take weather into account since that has a strong effect on foot traffic for an outdoor mall.

<comment><USER7> I'm now considering building a battery powered RasPi device that'll rapidly switch the MAC address on the WiFi adaptor and masquerade as extremely busy periods as I walk through a shopping mall...

<comment><USER8> > Pry-Fi comes with a War mode, which when enabled tries to make your Android > device appear like dozens of people. Just wandering around an area under Wi- > Fi location surveillance for a few minutes can ruin the tracking data for > the period of your stay.

[1] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.p...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.pryfi&hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > It may be illegal to monitor networks for MAC addresses, especially on > networks that you do not own

Isn't it odd that you can't read electromagnetic signals penetrating your walls without your consent?

<comment><USER10> It's like if they said "Fuck" on the radio and then decided to arrest anyone that possibly heard the transmission.

<comment><USER11> It's a great example of the breakdown in understanding of a system. People envision WiFi as a wireless pipe or cable whereas in reality you're broadcasting in every direction out to infinity.

When reality doesn't match peoples' expectations they legislate a 'fix' (making listening illegal) rather than fixing the fundamental technical issue (with encryption, randomized IDs, etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Our research group also had a similar idea to this back in 2006, though looking at laptops (since this was before smartphones really took off). This was also before MAC randomization, as many other posters have pointed out. Here's our research paper if you're interested: [http://cmuchimps.org/uploads/publication/paper/86/putting_pe...](http://cmuchimps.org/uploads/publication/paper/86/putting_people_in_their_place_an_anonymous_and_privacy_sensitive_approach_to_collecting_sensed_data_in_location_based_applications.pdf)

Two ideas to consider for next steps, if you're interested. One is to crowdsource the data, to build out a map of places and how busy those places are. You would need to add in a lot of privacy mechanisms though, e.g. only sharing data of mostly public places vs homes. You could also build out a map of interesting places based on this (e.g. we used foursquare data in our past research to build out clusters of places, see [http://livehoods.org/](http://livehoods.org/))

Another is to estimate how busy a place really is based on traffic, in terms of #people, and #seats or #tables available. This could be especially useful for campuses (where is a good place to study?) or cafes. You might need some crowd-based approach to label ground truth, and it's unclear what the incentive would be.

We did consider commercialization back in the day, but never came up with a plausible business model. It's not clear why business owners would want this, and they might even have an incentive to cheat. Though I would definitely say that cities would be interested in this data, e.g. urban planners or depts of public works. They have so little data about what is actually going on in a city. For example, we spoke with people who wanted to know the effects of closing a bridge or closing off a street.

<comment><USER13> > Another is to estimate how busy a place really is based on traffic, in terms > of #people, and #seats or #tables available. This could be especially useful > for campuses (where is a good place to study?) or cafes. You might need some > crowd-based approach to label ground truth, and it's unclear what the > incentive would be.

Google Maps does that. Search for a popular cafe on your area and you should see the "Popular times" graph with live data.

<comment><USER14> I assume they do that by tracking how many Androids are at a given location; so that doesn't count those who are using iOS. Given Android's dominance though, not counting iOS devices might not be even skew the results significantly.

<comment><USER15> The pervasiveness of Android would mitigate _random_ errors. It alone can not, however, mitigate systematic errors. Apple Stores (and, employing stereotypes for maximum effect, art galleries and organic food stores) would be undercounted.

But, wait: Google only gives you relative data over time, where that error is irrelevant. Never mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great, now it's possible to create a "party detector" that will change the music and lights if there are enough people at home or in specific rooms.

<comment><USER17> Get raided by the police ...

Clippy: "It looks like you're having a party, I'm switching on the disco lights and music."

<comment><USER18> i've seen twitch streamers get swatted and their viewers start their lights/play "fuck the police" via alexa via paid donation TTS software. this just removes one step in the process

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I did something similar for macOS, my aim was to see how effective deauthing a router is (turns out it's incredibly effective, the readme has more details) and as a side effect the app shows a list of all WiFi traffic. It was a pretty fun project.

1 - [https://github.com/dom96/deauther](https://github.com/dom96/deauther)

<comment><USER20> The readme doesn't seem to say - how does one install/run it?

<comment><USER19> Uploaded a binary to make the usage a little easier. Haven't used it in a while but should work, give it a try: [https://github.com/dom96/deauther/releases/download/v0.1.0/d...](https://github.com/dom96/deauther/releases/download/v0.1.0/deauther_macosx_0.1.0.zip)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A very common way of measuring traffic volumes is via bluetooth MAC address broadcasts. The Wisconsin DOT even makes the traffic counts derived from this data interactive and public: [https://wisdot.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?...](https://wisdot.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2e12a4f051de4ea9bc865ec6393731f8)

<comment><USER22> Interesting....evermore vehicles being BT enabled == traffic's always increasing?!

Sounds like great job security for DOTs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Thought about this too a while back. If I remember correctly the "issue" (actually I consider it a feature) with most modern smartphones is that they will randomly change their MAC address in order to prevent exactly this kind of tracking.

<comment><USER24> Do you have any idea how often they change? Like if you were only looking counts of distinct MAC addresses, could you shorten the listening window so that an individual phone would have the same address?

<comment><USER25> On probe requests this can be very often(< second or within 50 frames), especially in the case of IOS. On Android MAC randomisation is implemented only on a handful of specific devices and some vendors dont at all. Mac randomisation is flawed at the least and can still be used to identify an individual in some cases. The paper below lists techniques explored by the US Navy published in 2017. [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.02874.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.02874.pdf)

<comment><USER26> But the nature of Probe Requests make tracking very easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I thought I remembered schollz (the GitHub user that this is under) from something else, and sure enough, I did! They did another interesting thing with wifi that I believe I discovered from hackernews years ago (appears to have evolved somewhat since then):

[https://github.com/schollz/find3](https://github.com/schollz/find3)

</comment><comment><USER28> I did something similar using my jobs open network, a raspberry and nmap. I was able to correlate devices to people, and depending on which floor they were on they had different DHCP IP ranges. I then made a webpage out of it that let me see who was where. People changed devices too often and I was lazy, but if I could have figured out how to get people's hostnames I could probably make the process a lot simpler.

<comment><USER29> Not the least bit creepy.

<comment><USER28> I know, I know. To my defence it was more to see if it could be done than anything else. I have actually used the very same nmap technique in an argument with a "I have nothing to hide" coworker.

It is a great example of how a simple concept like "I can see other devices connected to the network" can be transformed into "I can log who is at work when". This could be done with a $45 device. With $500 I could make something much more nefarious with regular arduinos.

<comment><USER30> How would the arduinos make it more nefarious?

<comment><USER28> Several devices,camera at the entrance, Bluetooth LE, not having to do obvious network monitoring. We have loads of good places to hide them, and I suspect they would go unnoticed for years

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I carry 2 phones and use an iWatch. Will I register as 3 people?

<comment><USER32> I'm sensing bold new avenues for Citizens United.

<comment><USER15> "Yes, my plus-one is all of Microsoft. If corporations are people, corporation is person, my friend"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I did something similar[1] in C++ (on Windows - I know, I know...) but I feared that the rate of the scan requests could inadvertently cause me to be "interesting": even though I was only storing the IDs in memory - due to GDPR - which, from the wording of another comment[2], sounds like _could_ still land me in trouble.

It's interesting (and a bit frightening) to see just how many devices (e.g.: APs, mobile phones, dash cams, etc.) there are discoverable out in the wild.

[1] - [https://github.com/felsokning/Cpp/blob/master/Public.Cpp.Res...](https://github.com/felsokning/Cpp/blob/master/Public.Cpp.Research/Public.Cpp.Research/WlanObtainBssids.cpp)

[2] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18932906](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18932906)

</comment><comment><USER34> I wonder if there are any studies on how reliable this is, especially in a crowd. This can be very useful, but I see many ways how the assumption of "MAC addresses" = "people" can be broken:

* As stated in the docs, not everyone has a phone, they estimate it being 70%, but I wonder how accurate this is in different regions for different crowd sizes and applications (cafe visitors vs a parade)

* As stated in the comments, some individuals carry multiple WiFi capable devices and it can be much more than 1 per person

* How large can a crowd get, before signals get jammed to a point this method stops being useful?

* Many people prefer mobile data and sometimes even don't turn WiFi on

So, I mean, it obviously can be used practically, but I struggle to estimate, how much should I believe what the device reads w/o actually seeing the crowd.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've been researching and working with this for some years now. There's a lot of stuff that can interfere with the quality/accuracy of the numbers (e.g. MAC randomization). I found out that there's also various ways to circumvent and improve upon those problems.

<comment><USER36> If you have found a way to circumvent the latest iPhone MAC randomisation I would be very very interested to talk to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It would be fun to connect several receivers and use multilateration to estimate positions and make a heat map over the local area.

</comment><comment><USER38> Retailers and government do this, sometimes they track you as you move around. Pry-Fi is a great little app if you have an Android phone and root :D

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.p...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.pryfi)

Basically just blasts thousands of MAC addresses into the air flooding their counters and ruining their data.

<comment><USER39> [https://github.com/wi-fi-analyzer/mdk3-master](https://github.com/wi-fi- analyzer/mdk3-master) might be a better tool for the job

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The arpa-e SENSOR [1] program is working on several technologies for people counting for sake of doing Demand Controlled Ventilation (DCV)[2]. People counting is part of the ASHRAE 62.1 calculation [3] for demand controlled ventilation. Also, simple N>0 occupancy counting is useful for home HVAC system setbacks.

I sat in an ASHRAE technical session presentation the other day about the program. All of the technology goals intend for the people count results to be anonymous, and for the technology to be "open source."

Cost goals are <$0.06/ft^2 for residential and <0.08$/ft^2 for commercial systems.

[1] [https://arpa-e.energy.gov/?q=programs/sensor](https://arpa-e.energy.gov/?q=programs/sensor)

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

[3] [https://ashrae.iwrapper.com/ViewOnline/Standard_62.1-2016](https://ashrae.iwrapper.com/ViewOnline/Standard_62.1-2016)

</comment><comment><USER41> There is also [https://github.com/cyberman54/ESP32-Paxcounter](https://github.com/cyberman54/ESP32-Paxcounter)

"Wifi & Bluetooth driven, LoRaWAN enabled, battery powered mini Paxcounter built on cheap ESP32 LoRa IoT boards"

</comment><comment><USER42> I've long been curious why McDonalds (and the like) don't have automated license plate readers, similar in concept to people counters (though more invasive I suppose) on their drive-throughs.

I'd think they could very quickly & automatically begin collecting data about income, repeat vs new customer, even streamlining the order process by recalling past orders or upselling, etc.

It seems like an area that is incredibly ripe for data collection & analysis; I almost wonder if there isn't a business in here, selling this feature-set as as B2B service.

For the record, I prefer not to be 'tracked' \-- I don't know that I can realistically say it would actually impact my fast-food selections though. The concept does intrigue me nonetheless.

<comment><USER43> I feel like fast food needs to stay focused on keeping the food they are serving fresh and on quick service.

Those factors should completely swamp anything that can get teased out of reams of data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Thats cool. I wanted to do something similar with ESP-8266 to track visitors in a tourist attraction I worked for. But as it turned out it was illegal by law because a law forbids to track people through "electromagnetism". As it turned out it the reason for the law was to not make it possible to track people in their apartments by registering wherever they where watching TV and similar stuff.

We never wanted to track an individual person and would have hashed the MAC, nor did we want to get any data from them (phone brand or whatever). We wanted to be sure to not have more than 1000 people in the building (another law) and for security reasons we did not have turnstiles at the exit.

At the end we had to use cameras that counted heads...

</comment><comment><USER45> I could think of interesting use. In India currently mini Kumbh Mela([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbh_Mela](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbh_Mela)) is going on. Police and organisers can use this technique to estimate and monitor crowd. I bet they are already using sophisticated crowd monitoring techniques ([https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/technology/ku...](https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/technology/kumbh- mela-becomes-a-lab-for-tech-industry-to-study-crowd-management/51804234)) but more the merrier.

</comment><comment><USER46> It would be worthwhile to also scan bluetooth discoverable devices and try to normalize the two for cases where:

* you usually see entry and exits of both and can start to map them as "one" user. * you see only wifi entries and exists without corresponding bluetooth (maybe user usually has bluetooth turned off or is out of range of BT capture). * You see only BT with no corresponding wifi (user has discoverable bt but wifi off).

The normalization is complicated as wifi/bt range are pretty different (unless you have hardware to extend the pickup for bt) -- but if you deal with a time window slide (and repeat event correlations) it should be possible.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm currently monitoring for Wifi probes with a RPI 0W and external Alfa USB adapter.

Interestingly, some parcel services use handheld barcode scanners that don't even try to randomize their MAC or hide their name.

(German blog post [https://blog.rolandmoriz.de/2019/01/08/eine-flasche- metadate...](https://blog.rolandmoriz.de/2019/01/08/eine-flasche- metadaten-2-wifi-probes/) )

</comment><comment><USER48> To avoid the privacy issues around MAC addresses, etc, is there any way to simply count the number of "variations" of signal in the area? So rather than having to process any data, you base your count on things like signal strength and other indicators of a "unique" signal?

</comment><comment><USER49> I wrote a similar program 2+ years ago (it is very rough around the edges).

I used ARP-scan to log and monitor the MAC addresses of the people on the network.

Had a lot of fun at the time !

[https://github.com/louismerlin/spydeer](https://github.com/louismerlin/spydeer)

</comment><comment><USER50> Sounds like this might just be more reliable than a tally counter [1] :) the future is here

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

</comment><comment><USER51> Does this get around MAC anonymization done by iOs and Android? Researchers have shown it can be defeated, but curious if this takes it into consideration

</comment><comment><USER52> Do most people have WiFi active on their phones? I usually leave WiFi off (nuisance factor), but maybe that's just me.

</comment><comment><USER53> Do someone have a dataset about how do behave micro/radio waves when they interact with matter ?

</comment><comment><USER54> Although there is a remark about the potential legal issues in the US, it should also be noted that capturing and storing MAC addresses without explicit consent is not GDPR compliant, and not legal in Europe.

<comment><USER55> Couldn't almost any WiFi router, and thus the user of that router, then be in violation of GDPR simply by logging which MAC addresses attempt to connect to that router? Even connections by accident (selecting the wrong SSID).

I know my Netgear router has a history of basically any connection attempts and their MAC address; it does this by default, not sure I can even turn it off.

And how would you even present a GDPR notice to the user prior to logging that kind of information?

<comment><USER56> Sticker on the window?

There is an issue with retailers tracking shoppers movements in a store.

FTC take on the issue: [https://www.ftc.gov/news- events/blogs/techftc/2015/04/privac...](https://www.ftc.gov/news- events/blogs/techftc/2015/04/privacy-trade-offs-retail-tracking)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Wrong thread :(

<comment><USER58> Did you comment on the wrong topic perhaps?</comment></comment>


Opera, Brave, Vivaldi to ignore Chrome's anti-ad-blocker changes - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/opera-brave-vivaldi-to-ignore-chromes-anti-ad-blocker-changes-despite-shared-codebase/ <comment><USER2> The problem at this point isn't whether chrome will disable it... It can be added back, probably fairly easily as google intents to keep it around for "enterprise" anyway, so it's probably just gonna end up changing/removing one if-statement. If not, then the code already exists and has to be merged back in.

The problem is distribution of the actual extensions, as Vivaldi kinda pointed out, as the other browsers mostly rely on the Chrome Extension store. If Google really decides to pull the plug here they could start rejecting extensions using the old, removed-from-Chrome APIs. And then what? Each browser such as Vivaldi, Brave, Opera has to implement their own app store just to host the old-API ad-blockers. And implementing such a store is a major feat. And the walled garden strikes again.

Vivaldi already indicated they might create a "limited" store, meaning not a real store open to the public, but one where they list hand-picked old-API extensions such as ublock origin. Of course, innovation is still stiffed as you in such a "chrome-store + limited vendor store" scenario cannot just develop new extensions using the old-API because you'd have no chance of getting listed in the chrome store, and essentially no chance in the hand- picked limited vendor ones.

<comment><USER3> My gut feeling is that Google won't pull this stunt with chrome, this is some kind of scare mongering or a PR tactic, I dunno.

It doesn't make a logical sense because if they are banning the ad-blockers, it means they accept that chrome is largely used by power users who can install these blockers (otherwise, what's the need?). But they should realize that a power user who installs an addon can just as easily move to another browser like firefox/brave. And the PR repercussions will ensure that a lot of newbies will leave too (because they usually follow the power users on youtube) which will essentially kill the advertising income that they wanted in the first place?

<comment><USER4> Maybe think about it in a different way. Right now, there is a kill-switch within googles primary product that could essentially destroy their business model.

This is not about google wanting to harm the current power users. It is probably the idea that someone could come along and destroy their business.

If such an extensions goes mainstream that could seriously harm them.

They may also want to get rid of paying Adblock Plus money for their highway robbery.

Now that I think about it, getting rid of ABP may be the primary reason for this move. They have to basically pay a third party to get access to their own users.

Either way, the battle is not over the power user minority, but over the average user.

The idea is to make the API just powerful enough for the most annoying ads to disappear. Most users would probably be content with this. They will probably make it so they won't lose all of their power users. I think what they really want is increasing the amount of works it takes to have full adblocking functionality to the point where the average user has no access to it.

<comment><USER5> ABP is compatible with the new API and will not be affected.

See: [https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetReques...](https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/declarativeNetRequest#type- Rule)

This is API that ABP can use. But with the new API the rules list will be limited to 30 000 rules vs. for example 42 000 EasyList is using, and an update to the rules will require a full update of the plugin.

See also comments from gorhill: [https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock- issues/issues/338#iss...](https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock- issues/issues/338#issuecomment-456171375)

<comment><USER4> ABP released a statement to german news site golem.de, saying that they "prepare for the worst case".

This means they anticipate Google to target the Acceptable Ads program.

Originally I thought 30,000 rules wouldn't be enough to cover things, but according to this research, only a couple hundred rules are enough to block >90% of the ads: [https://brave.com/the-mounting-cost-of-stale-ad-blocking- rul...](https://brave.com/the-mounting-cost-of-stale-ad-blocking-rules/)

So maybe there's another limiting aspect of the declarativeNetRequest API I don't know of.

<comment><USER6> 90% of the ads right now, but its trivial to design adtech so its only possible to block a tiny percentage of everything with only 50k rules.

(register 50k domains, use 50k different subpath/subdomains and mix content+ads on something like youtube where you cant wholesale block youtube, etc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Damn Google! This is so short sighted. People/everyone just installed Chrome on whatever systems they could find and that's how Chrome become so prevalent. Not because it was a superior product, not because of technology but because everyone was anti IE. Google is painting Chrome into similar corner. In a way, this is a good indicator of decline of Google. Revenue not through innovation but by coercion

<comment><USER8> I think that's rather revisionist. At a point in time Chrome was way better than not just IE, but way better than Firefox. The performance was leaps and bounds ahead.

<comment><USER9> I've been using both Firefox and Chrome since they came out and they have always felt near each others performance. It would be interesting to see some data on the subject.

<comment><USER8> One huge advantage Chrome had was it's multi-process model. This was back in the day when stuff like Flash would often nuke your entire Firefox session.

<comment><USER10> Firefox has had this for years.

<comment><USER8> But it didn't until years after a chrome did

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I tried opera a while back, and while it's fast and looks good, it has a new tab page with "recommended" sites that you can't turn off - I tried, but it's protected by DRM (opera will refuse to start if the file doesn't have a valid digital signature).

So if I'm going to switch browsers because of privacy/advertising concerns, it's not going to be Opera.

<comment><USER12> The new tab page has a list of bookmarks you can customize. It starts off with some "recommeded" sites in there, but you can just remove them once and they never come back. The only thing you can't remove from the new tab page is the Google search bar, which never really bothered me. Either way, it seems like you're implying that Opera will populate the new tab page with sites it chooses, but that's just not the case.

<comment><USER13> Opera does allow you to remove the Google search bar (actually, it's not tied to Google).

Go to browser settings -> advanced settings -> Start Page.

This is what I use [https://i.imgur.com/GpF0sQt.png](https://i.imgur.com/GpF0sQt.png)

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I feel like things would be easier if Firefox could be embeded in another browser just like chromium can.

Let Google cripple their browser for themselves, and Mozilla provide the good and strong de facto browser engine.

<comment> yoz-y What is currently stopping its adoption? Iirc there were several browsers based on Gecko engine. Is it drm?

<comment><USER15> Firefox is probably still a legacy mix of XUL, cpp and migrating to rust. I'm pretty sure chrome is easier to adapt.

<comment><USER16> XUL was replaced quite some time ago.

<comment><USER17> >XBL stats update :

>* 28 bindings (9.33% of original bindings)

>* 10517 lines of code (21.02% of original LOCs)

[https://twitter.com/mozxbl](https://twitter.com/mozxbl)

<comment><USER16> Yes, apparently I was wrong. Thanks for the additional data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't see how Chrome's new anti-ad blocking isn't seen as anti-competitive, considering Google basically runs the ad business on non-Google sites, etc. Sure, Facebook and Amazon also serve up ads...but Google is by far the company that is hurt the most by ad blocking. Then at the same time Chrome is essentially blocking "intrusive" ads by default...and by intrusive they basically mean non-Google ads that have the same CPC and CPM model Google has.

<comment><USER19> It is absolutely anti-competitive garbage, and you should be prepared to see more and more of it (and increasingly anti-consumer iterations if it) until people wake up and start demanding that their political leaders do something about it.

"Companies will regulate themselves" is a cute libertarian bedtime story.

<comment><USER20> Google never said they were blocking ad-blockers. It was the hyperbole Firefox crowd who used some post by Raymond Hill from the creator of uBlock Origin as a reason to start another "Switch to Firefox" campaign.

However, Hill admitted that adblockers aren't going away and it is just a proposed change in the WebRequest API to make things more akin to Safari to help adblockers operate in a standard in speedy way.

Mozilla on the other hand did expose a bunch of users to ads and malicious sites recently though when they didn't renew a certificate and didn't push out a fix for over 24 hours in which all addons were disabled in their browser and the configurations were lost as well.

<comment><USER21> Can you link to the site where he says this?

<comment><USER20> [https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/chrome-may-get-faster-ad- block...](https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/chrome-may-get-faster-ad-blocking- while-breaking-ublock-origin/)

<comment><USER22> I said:

> Ad blocker uBlock Origin "can no longer exist" if a proposed change to > Chrome goes through.

First, I never ever referred to uBlock Origin as an "ad blocker", so the article is wrong there. Second, I specifically point out that uBlock Origin can no longer exist, not that "ad blockers" can no longer exist.

<comment><USER23> uBlock Origin isn't an ad blocker?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I switched to Chrome years ago. Recently I switched back to Firefox.

It's changed dramatically. Speed, security, and stuff that you can't do in Chrome, like extensions like Facebook Container.

To me this isn't about Chrome Vs Firefox though. It's about the benefits of a healthy marketplace for software, and the dangers of near monopolies to consumer choice.

<comment><USER25> The world is changing. People are starting to care about things they didn't before. I think the pendulum is swinging towards privacy and I like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This one[1] and the likes will prevent vast majority of ads, regardless of which browser you have chosen to use this morning.

[1] [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/h...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts)

<comment><USER27> Except mobile browsers, arguably the most critical place where you need blocking to get any kind of reasonably decent experience (load times, viewable area, battery life, etc.).

Extensions like uBlock target people who don't want to bother with editing hosts files and keeping them updated.

<comment><USER28> Firefox on Android supports extensions, including uBlockO, and it works perfectly. It can be set as the default browser and voilà, no more ads ever.

<comment><USER27> Agreed. My point was playing with hosts file is definitely not something easy on a mobile, or something most people would want to bother with. Especially when it comes to adding exceptions and getting some sites to work.

For computers and Android devices Firefox and uBO are far more capable solution than DNS blocking, at least when it comes to browsing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I, for the first time ever, uninstalled chrome/chromium from my computers. It pains me because I liked it overall, and firefox isn't happy with my 2009 laptops.

Maybe chrome devs mistake will be the air gap that creates a new leader from another group.

<comment><USER30> I got a new computer recently (old one died), and because of this change I will not install Chrome on the new computer. I'm planning to use Edge for anything Google-specific like Google Docs or Sheets, and Firefox for everything else.

Unfortunately, my wife has a Chromebook and it's hard to convince her that her very cheap, almost-disposable laptop should be replaced with something more expensive just to avoid Chrome. (And no, she did not want me to install Linux on it - sigh.)

<comment><USER29> Buy a second hand machine. I just grabbed a 3rd gen thinkpad x1 carbon for a neighbor and the thing is a ferrari compared to any laptop I have. 390$. Probably less than 300$ for a less thin model (x250~)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I really don't understand why security concerned people use Google's product in spite of knowing that Google steals everything and compromises user's privacy.

<comment><USER32> I think you are confusing security with privacy.

As far as security goes, I trust Google way more than any other site to handle my credentials properly, follow security best practices, use the highest level of encryption where applicable, keep servers up to date and patched faster than anyone else, etc. Outside of Google+, I can't remember the last time there was a major security incident at Google, when they happened, the impact was minimal (contrast this to say the Apple Cloud leak which led to the infamous "fappening", the Marriot leak, the Equifax hack, Target, etc). Breaches and 0-days happen, but as far as I know, Google is going to be the best it gets when it comes to security.

Now when it comes to my privacy, no. I don't trust Google as far as I could throw them.

<comment><USER33> > contrast this to say the Apple Cloud leak which led to the infamous > "fappening"

This breach was not due to missteps or problems with security on Apple's part (though Apple has had issues with security lapses, notably passwordless root login on macOS which was never reported to have been exploited [0]).

In the instance of "The Fappening", the breach that lead to the exposure of iCloud data was "revealed to have been gained via spear phishing attacks". [1]

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/29/macos- hig...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/29/macos-high-sierra- bug-apple-mac-unlock-blank-password-security-flaw)

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICloud_leaks_of_celebrity_ph...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICloud_leaks_of_celebrity_photos)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder if that is sustainable as features are built on top of the new system and their codebase diverges further and further from chrome as a result.

<comment><USER35> I won't worry about that. I'm guessing this effectively creates a fork of Chromium that does not have the anti-ad blocker changes in question, which Opera/Brave/Edge will use instead of the main one.

On that note, are people switching over to Firefox already?

<comment><USER36> > On that note, are people switching over to Firefox already?

Not sure why power users ever left Firefox as their default browser when surveillance tech came along. I sure didn't. Firefox was always the more competent and customizable browser. Happy to see users returning. Among other things, the current "Welcome Chromium/Chrome users!" megathread in the Firefox subreddit[1] seems to indicate there's something going on. :)

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/bvh4pq/welcome_chr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/bvh4pq/welcome_chromiumchrome_users_check_out_the/)

<comment><USER16> I never understood the appeal of Chrome over Firefox in the beginning.

<comment><USER37> It was faster, especially for JavaScript heavy sites... Which is the majority of sites these days it seems.

It took a couple years at least for FF to catch up. I would say for most sites Firefox is now at least as fast while using less RAM.

Now the problem is that Google web apps are tuned for Chrome, so users will complain their gmail is slow on FF.

<comment><USER16> > Now the problem is that Google web apps are tuned for Chrome, so users will > complain their gmail is slow on FF.

I've heard this argument often, but it does not really resonate with me well. I've always used Gmail in Firefox and never noticed it being especially slow. I just tried it now and emails open seemingly instantly when I click on them. It feels quicker than ~100ms on average and certainly not slower than 200ms even for the occasional large email or hiccup. I just don't see how this can be used as a reasonable metric for choosing a browser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> AdGuard will not be affected by these changes - [https://adguard.com/en/blog/chrome-api- comment.html](https://adguard.com/en/blog/chrome-api-comment.html)

<comment><USER39> Apples and oranges. AdGuard is a third party app that runs at the system level. Not the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The main question is _how long_ they will do it. Now it's easy, but google can move the locker deeply inside. If anti-ad-blocker changes will needs 1-2mb patches every release, they will just give up fast.

</comment><comment><USER41> My worry is that because Chrome has become a standard of web-browsing so even after such decisions taken by Google, people would not switch to other(better) options.

</comment><comment><USER42> I looked around but I can't figure out if this affects extensions like Tampermonkey. If not, writing an adblock script for that seems like an alternative.

</comment><comment><USER43> When Chrome did this they quickly highlighted how much control they have over what people view. Privacy focused open browsers will gain marketshare because of it.

<comment><USER20> What did Chrome do exactly? Cause they never said they were disabling ad- blocker extensions. That was the grapevine effect from the Firefox crowd.

<comment><USER43> I was referring to this, but it looks like there was an update to the article saying that it might not block everything [https://www.tomsguide.com/us/chrome-block-ad- blockers,news-3...](https://www.tomsguide.com/us/chrome-block-ad- blockers,news-30206.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> What about Microsoft Edge Chromium ?

</comment><comment><USER45> Good news :D

</comment><comment><USER46> If you don't control the browser you downloaded, do you control the OS you chose to install? Can Microsoft ban Google Chrome from even running on their platform? Where does the 'user gets to decide' line end and the 'vendor knows best' line begin?

</comment><comment><USER47> So not only is Google introducing this change into the Chromium codebase, but it sounds like they aren't putting it behind a Chrome-only compiler flag. And if you're satisfied with Chrome as-is then too bad because the GoogleUpdater will automatically update Chrome and is harder to kill than a cockroach, and Chrome will give you an annoying popup 80-some days after that version's build date telling you to upgrade Chrome even if you have managed to block GoogleUpdater.

</comment><comment><USER48> Tried Opera on Mac OS - half of toggles on the Settings page is not rendered - "Pref not found for element SETTINGS-TOGGLE-BUTTON in SETTINGS-APPEARANCE- PAG". It was so epic trash - removed instantly. They obviously don't test it on Mac OS.

Tried Vivaldi - render sites with errors (some images missing). 0 plugins installed. Not acceptable, removed.

Brave - I really hate person who run this project and how he is trying to sell his product by "if you hate google as much as me, use Brave", while using Chromium.

So, for now I don't see any Chromium-based alternative.

<comment><USER49> Edge Chromium maybe? I've been using it and have no complaints...

<comment><USER48> Yeah, testing it right now :) Thanks for the reminder - it's easy to forget MS has a browser for Mac :)</comment></comment></comment>


Apple doesn't like Flash...At all. - <AUTHOR> http://www.digigasms.com/2010/10/20/photo-of-the-day-apple-doesnt-like-flash/

<comment><USER2> Apple feels most threatened by Flash.</comment>


Role of Social Networks in Information Diffusion - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/facebook/d/78445521-Role-of-Social-Networks-in-Information-Diffusion

<comment><AUTHOR> What about the value of diffusing information from one network to another. My social graph on Facebook is very different from my social graph on LinkedIn.</comment>


What if I lost my laptop? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.itlater.com/what_if_i_lost_my_laptop/ <comment><USER2> Does setting a Mac OSX(10.8) FileVault full-disk encryption + strong password obviate most/all of those issues? I have been somewhat cavalier when it comes to laptop security because of that...

<comment><USER3> I would recommend using TrueCrypt volumes so you can open them on machines other than OSX.

<comment><USER4> That really doesn't offer feature overlap with FileVault2's full disk encryption. Though using TC is a great alternative for specific disks and folders -- not an entire system from preboot through log-in.

<comment><USER5> TC can do full disk encryption, but unfortunately not on Mac.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So basically, you didn't lost it. Good for you.

Yet using full drive encryption + daily backups (or dropbox or google drive or whatever webfs) + having a spare machine at home (so that you can spare the trip to a computer store and have a machine readily configured) is necessary if you are a professional.

You seem to have underestimated this last point, with your estimation of a full day to have a new one ready.

Having a machine setup and ready can sure take hours - which might _not_ be ok if you have a client waiting. Also, anything else may happen (car broke, computer shop closed / out of computers). I have noticed that when bad things happend, they tend to spiral out until sh*t hit the fan.

Your $1k is a lowball estimate. Better have a spare one ready and waiting for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a difference between a machine that is ready to help a client and one that has all my favorite xmonad hot-keys setup.

Now a web-based ssh is enough to do 99% of the work.

But true comfort takes time

<comment><USER5> > There is a difference between a machine that is ready to help a client and > one that has all my favorite xmonad hot-keys setup.

Only if you don't take the few minutes to prepare. I have a Dropbox hosted bash profile that keeps all my favorites synced across machines, there's no reason why your hot-keys couldn't be stored similarly.

(I have a real .profile for each machine, but its first line is `source ~/Dropbox/conf/bash_profile` which lets me override if necessary and apply machine specific instructions.)

<comment><USER7> I don't know about a "few minutes", but spending a couple hours putting together some type of system for automatically installing your system configuration is SO worth it - probably one of the most frustration-saving investments of your time imaginable as a developer, if you haven't done it already.

After years of being frustrated at my configuration being different on every system because I was too lazy to invest a little bit of time into doing something like this, I wrote a small Python script that creates all the config files I use (zshrc, tmux.conf, etc.) - it concatenates the 'generic' piece of each config file with an OS-specific part (for Linux/Mac-specific setup) and a host-specific part (for system-specific setup) and writes the concatenated file to my home directory. There are probably much better solutions out there than rolling your own script to do this, but I like it because I know exactly what it does and how to add features myself when I need them.

Now when I start using a new system, I just do 'git pull' and 'make all'. It's extremely satisfying how with this type of setup, in seconds, a brand new system feels exactly like the ones I've been using for months/years.

<comment><USER5> > I don't know about a "few minutes", but spending a couple hours putting > together some type of system for automatically installing your system > configuration is SO worth it - probably one of the most frustration-saving > investments of your time imaginable as a developer, if you haven't done it > already.

My solution of Dropbox synced config files was the few minute solution, but I'm sure I could be more clever if needed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not that these aren't legitimate concerns but unless it's someone like a coworker or a client I'm guessing 99% of thieves would have no idea what an ssh key or software code is. The savvier thief is just going to wipe the hard drive as soon as they can.

<comment><USER9> Maybe , but I could see the emergence of a savvier brand of fence who might pay extra for laptops with intact data on the basis that 1/100 has something worthwhile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Having a full encrypted system solves all of those issues. If not, at least an encrypted home (such as what Debian provides with their default installation).

<comment><USER11> I've tried the both of them and generally I found dm-crypt + LUKS to be superior. The problem of e-cryptfs (which I believe what Debian uses for home directory -- at least Ubuntu uses) limit usable file name length because of the way things are encrypted. While it's not often the case I would exhaust its length limitation, but if I do, it's bit frustrating...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Full disk encryption. This is the first thing I do as soon as I get a new computer. The thought of losing one of my work systems terrified me before. Now I have peace of mind.

</comment><comment><USER13> If I lost my laptop, assuming I would have a backup of the past 15 years on it (like most devices I own), I would worry about the statute of limitations on cyber crimes regarding felonies for unlawful intrusion.

When I was a teenager, we used to toy with trojans/viruses and infecting each other and playing wargames on one another in our group. Out of context, it could seem very malicious and non-educational. There are probably hard copies of this in my backups. (When 200MB hard drives were a luxury, and Windows 3.11 for workgroups was a way of life for poor people, and 20 mile walks uphill in snow to school...punchcards...AOL CD art...).

Things really are so much different now. It seems like a couple of years ago that AOL was dominating the market. The IIS string vulnerabilities seem like months ago.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've told this one before, but I worked for a company that had a "lose your laptop and get fired" policy. They also had full disk encryption and remote wiping capability, but I guess someone up top thought a preventative policy was needed. I don't think anyone ever got fired and the policy was rescinded after a year, but it definitely clarified my focus when it came to keeping my laptop secure on the road.

<comment><USER15> so if you were unlucky and got mugged you would be fired, sounds like a really bad policy...

<comment><USER14> It was a bad policy for all sorts of reasons, but there had been a really careless loss the previous year. Something like a hundred thousand customer credit files were left on an unencrypted laptop in the back of a reeturned rental car. Like I said, they rescinded it before anybody actually got fired.

You can usually learn more about the history of a company by reading its employee handbook than by reading its "About Us" page.

<comment><USER5> The new policy should have been if you have unencrypted credit files on your laptop (or desktop) you are fired. That's the inexcusable behavior, not the loss of a laptop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Quick plug here if you guys don't mind: our security product nCryptedCloud protect at-rest data in your dropbox account. Should you ever loose your laptop and want to make those dropbox files not readable on that device, all you have to do is remotely revoke the access key (from the device). Without access privilege, the data is useless. It's free for personal use. Let me know if you guys have any question or comments.

-V.

</comment><comment><USER17> Encrypting everything at the block level has gotten reliable enough that there are no excuses not to apply it to any and all kinds of mobile devices.

With Ubuntu 12.10 onwards you have the option to use dm-crypt for full disk encryption baked right into the installer. With 12.04 and earlier you have to use the alternate CD, but it's still painless. Android also uses dm-crypt for its FDE implementation, also dead easy to enable.

With a password manager for the rest of your passwords, and an SSH key for remote system access, you can manage everything only knowing three different passphrases.

Using FDE precludes theft protection programs, obviously, since an attacker wouldn't have access to a live OS. But if you're willing to forego a bit of fun (see <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4oB28ksiIo>) and the chance to recover the hardware, you have a pretty solid guarantee that no one will get to your data.

And, of course, daily backups, which is another can of worms. Personally I just rsync to a remote system and offsite that data periodically.

</comment><comment><USER18> Those possibilities are especially embarrassing since doing it a lot better takes little effort:

TrueCrypt container which contains sensible project-data;

.ssh somewhere on that container with ~/.ssh linking to it;

Keepass for passwords, it's quite convinient.

Maybe Pray or something similar, haven't set it up myself yet...

<comment><USER19> Prey really takes seconds to setup. No excuses ;) Don't forget to set it up so that a guest account is created as well.

<comment><USER20> I know that creating a guest account as a honeypot is the recommended technique, but I wonder if there are (Mac OS X) vulnerabilities to get access to your main account from the guest account (in which case full disk encryption would not protect the data).

I guess in the end it boils down to: do you prefer to leak the data, or lose your laptop ? :-)

<comment><USER21> Out of curiosity, could you explain why creating a guest account as a honeypot is the recommended technique? My first guess would be to help identify who has the machine.

<comment><USER22> If there's no way to use the computer the thief will instead wipe the disk making it impossible to track.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Assuming my password is safe, I think keychain (on a Mac) takes care of almost all the issues specified. Except the source code

</comment><comment><USER24> Daily backups, full disk encryption, and something like lastpass, onepassword, or keychain.

</comment><comment><USER25> Might want to take another look at the article to fix grammar/spelling.

<comment><AUTHOR> My third language..

will appriciate if you can drop me a line with corrections do @ itlater.com

<comment><USER26> Not sure if this is a real email or a bad and rude joke

<comment><USER27> Considering the address is on the domain for the original post and the poster says it's his third language... perhaps, just this once, it's safe not to assume malice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, real email. Not sure what the rude part was..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Thanks for the reminder...now to passpharse my mainframe's ssh keys.

Doesn't help that I have the rsas floating around on my iphone, ipad, putty,...hmmm I need to do a check like this on every device now.

</comment><comment><USER29> You should always use disk encryption and shutdown(hibernate) your notebook while traveling. There is no noticeable performance degradation on modern hardware.

Windows: Truecrypt

Linux: dm-crypt + LUKS

FreeBSD: gdbe

MacOS: probably FileVault

<comment><USER30> On FreeBSD you are probably better off using geli instead of gdbe. Geli supports both XTS and CBC (similar to ESSIV) modes, features data authentication, and can operate on the root file system. I've used it to encrypt both UFS2 file systems and ZFS pools (see <https://web.irtnog.org/~xenophon/blog> for my notes on combining ZFS and geli).

<comment><USER30> Er, sorry, the old one is called gbde. My fingers must be hardwired for "gdb". ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am being nitpicky but I couldn't find what that asterisk

> * Yes we do all those and more, do you ?

is referencing to.</comment>


Ask HN: How to exit as a co-founder? - <AUTHOR>

In the last 2 years I have been working at a startup which I co-founded. The company consists of 2 other guys, me and a business angel. Everybody put some money in, with the business angel the most. From the very beginning, the atmosphere in the group was often tense and there were discussions/arguments. I got more and more frustrated and lost my motivation. Now, I am at a point where I realize that I should quit: I feel bad and demotivated most of the time... it's not like my sanity is at stake, but I have to change something. I want to work somewhere else/do my own project, where I can contribute in a better way.
Problem is: Our site launched about half a year ago and it's not going too well. On the other hand, we have planned a big promotional "campaign" for the next 2-3 months. Past performance of our other activities indicates that we should gain at least enough users to survive as a company, maybe more... and with a small chance the site will really take off. If it doesn't work, then the company is dead in 7 months (more or less). So, the next 2-4 months are a critical stage.
I talked to the team with the following proposal: I leave and give them a (probably significant) part of my shares in the company. I am allowed to keep some shares because of the work that I have contributed in the last 20+ months.
Their side: They feel that I am letting them down in the worst moment (which is understandable). They also feel that my work and my productivity could have been better, which I don't deny. Therefore, they would let me go if I give away all of my shares. For them, being a shareholder is tied to being a part of the team. If I stop being part of the team, I cannot have shares anymore.
I feel that there should be at least some compensation for the work that I did (even if it could have been better/more productive). They cannot compensate me now, because the company's finances don't allow that. But even if I give away all my shares... I would like to get at least a small (percentaged) bonus if the company really takes off.
What do you think:
1) Keeping a percentual share/bonus... is that greedy/unrealistic of me? (given the current problematic stage of the company) How would you see the situation if you were part of the team and I left?
2) What do you suggest I should do? (I don't want to do behave like a jerk towards the rest of the team... one of them is a good friend)
For explanation:
a) They cannot simply fire me/take away my shares. I cannot leave without their consent either. So, we have to find an agreement. If I stayed after openly talking about leaving, it would be very uncomfortable for everybody.
b) There is an especially strong conflict with the 3rd guy. He feels that I don't deserve ANYTHING if I leave... if I get the rest of the team to a more favorable agreement, the 3rd guy might bring the whole project down!!
c) anonymous post for obvious reasons <comment><USER2> This makes no sense to me:

> I cannot leave without their consent either

What does that mean? Have you signed something saying that you can not quit?

Regardless, the correct framework to think about this is BATNA

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiate...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiated_agreement)

If you can't get the deal you want, and you're forced to abide by what you've already signed, what do you give and what do you get? It sounds like either (i) you work for 1 year and get 1/4 of the company, or (ii) you walk away today with 1/4 of the company, but no ability to sell the shares.

(We need more data on what that means - are sales of the shares restricted until a certain date? Forever? What?)

You are absolutely (both legally and ethically) entitled to some sort of compensation for your work. If you've already got shares, the company can't take them back (unless you've signed a repurchase agreement). The company can, both legally and ethically, dilute you afterwards. They can't issue everyone else 1 million shares each, thus diluting you to 0.00001%, but they can pay each person 2,000 shares per month, in lieu of salary. Over time, you'll end up with a smaller percent ... but that's fair. If they work for no salary for an additional year, they SHOULD have more stock.

It's really hard to say more without knowing exactly what you've signed.

</comment><comment><USER3> How are your shares granted/allocated? Do you have a vesting schedule? Are they "yours" or the "companies"?

It seems that there is a legal answer here, as well as a philosophical answer.

Figure out who really owns the shares and what you are legally entitled to, and then process your decision.

<comment><AUTHOR> The shares are already mine, but I have to work there for one more year before I can sell. A year that I'd like to avoid. So, legally, I am asking for an option that is not part of the contract yet... therefore I need their consent in the decision.

<comment><USER3> Sell them to who? Back to the company?

<comment><AUTHOR> Back to the company or any willing buyer. Of course, my shares are only worth something if the company does alright or better.

<comment><USER3> How much are the shares likely to be worth in a year?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> why not try and ride out this campaign to see where things go. whats another 2ish months?

then if the direction doesn't change, tell them that you can't keep going and want to quit. if you explain politely that you feel you should be compensated for your work, they'll hopefully understand.

if not, let them know that it really comes down to two options -- either you're quitting with a cut, or you're not quitting but you'll be keeping all your shares and just not doing any work anymore.</comment>


Code readings: Crockford's approach for building strong software teams - <AUTHOR> https://blog.zachwf.com/2020/01/code-readings-douglas-crockfords-secret.html <comment><USER2> Would pair programming with frequent pair rotations be better than Code Readings? It seems you get all of the value of Code Readings, but throughout the entire process.

<comment><AUTHOR> That definitely seems possible, but I feel it might be harder to implement at an organization that wasn't already doing a lot of pair programming since in my experience pairing elicits almost philosophical support or opposition. Maybe you could start with readings and work up to pairing if it felt like the right transition?</comment></comment>


Get advice on YC from alums - <AUTHOR> http://askolo.com/ycalumni

<comment><USER2> I wonder if these subreddit as a business ventures have any legs. They've got a market verification, but are they viable?

<comment><USER3> This is pretty much the same as Quora in my opinion. People love to show off their expertise which is what 99% of people do in Quora.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We invited a few YC alums to answer questions on Askolo - ask them about experiences going through the YC application and interview process, what YC is like from a founders point of view, and anything else you'd like to know. They are not speaking on behalf of YC, but rather to offer personal thoughts and perspectives.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good info. Thanks for sharing</comment>


WWW Creator Tim Berners-Lee Leads W3C to Establish Online Payment Standards - <AUTHOR> https://bitcoinmagazine.com/21644/world-wide-web-creator-tim-berners-lee-leads-w3c-establish-online-payment-standards-including-bitcoin/ <comment><USER2> Finally a use for the HTTP 402 status code: [http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html](http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html)

<comment> andrew-lucker And about as useful as HTTP 302. fork fork fork... what standard?</comment></comment>


Behind the Scenes: The Hardware that Powers Basecamp, Campfire and Highrise - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3202-behind-the-scenes-the-hardware-that-powers-basecamp-campfire-and-highrise

<comment><USER2> Not a huge fan of the blade chassis vs. individual servers. Cleaner cabling, but software/firmware problems can kill the whole chassis, and you're locked into a single vendor.

I rarely run out of RUs before I run out of power on anything. Maybe it would be different with ARM-based blades.

Real hardware, though, vs. cloud, pretty easy case to make for a stable load app.

<comment><AUTHOR> (I'm the author of the post).

These aren't blades and I dislike blades for the hardware/vendor lockin reasons you mentioned. Blades usually share power, network, etc. These only share power + baseboard management controller. We can lose a single power supply and still keep on going. We've distributed the applications over multiple chasis, just in case though.

<comment><USER2> Ah, I haven't messed with these things yet. Do you like them?

<comment><AUTHOR> The BMC is horrible. It needs a cold reset frequently, and it often doesn't work at all when access from a non Windows machine. Otherwise they work really well. I like that the sleds are able to be removed from the front too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are we really getting back to the "post everything from 37signals.com" track? Blargh.</comment>


Ask HN: Should my startup use Slicing Pie equity methodology? - <AUTHOR> I and my co-worker plan to start a side project, and want to turn it into a start-up eventually. He raised out the methodology of Slicing Pie equity split. I think the methodology is pretty suitable to dynamic start-up environment. I have read some discussions about the pros and cons of Slicing Pie method. But I would like to hear more real experiences. Does anyone have experiences of using this methodology in your start-up?<p>Any share of experiences and thoughts on the method is very much appreciated. <comment><USER2> Short presentation how Slicing Pie works (I haven't seen the term before) [https://www.slideshare.net/plumtucker/slicing-pie-perfect- eq...](https://www.slideshare.net/plumtucker/slicing-pie-perfect-equity- splits)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I read the slides. Slicing Pie looks very good and useful to me, especially start-up from 0 to 1. Would like to get thoughts before using it.</comment></comment>