Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36013/mexican-drug-cartel-now-assassinating-its-enemies-with-improvised-explosive-toting-drones <comment><USER2> As I read the article, there was not actually a single confirmed death by explosive armed drone.

I suspect that ultimately it's likely impractical To kill people by drone as compared, on a cost basis, to other more pedestrian means of killing people.

Drones may be cheap, but drones that can lift more than 2 kilos aren't. The logistics of getting a drone near enough to the intended target to kill them are going to be hard. While the "cool" factor is high, I suspect guns, bombs, hard men, threats and bribes are more efficient.

<comment><USER3> Honestly, the only explanation I can think of is that it is easy to see a quadrocopter fly and do its thing but it is actually hard to actually notice its real life impracticality unless you own one of them.

I don't know what specific model is shown in the picture but if it is a DJI Mavic Air 2 then it only weighs 570 gram and can only fly for 34 minutes.

When you compare a quadrocopter with a real life bomber then practically no bomber on earth is lighter than the bombs it is carrying. A B-52 can carry 30% of its weight in payload. So that would give us at most 171g for the bomb the Mavic Air 2 is carrying but even this is optimistic because it was not designed for this use case.

The idea of "cheap" drones carrying bombs is basically an urban legend. You can certainly build a good bombing drone for $5000 to $10000 and fly many missions and thereby kill hundreds of people with it but that same money can also buy guns and lots of ammo as well.

<comment><USER4> I understood it as they dont intend to get the drone back.

I did some searching, letter bombs were using 50g of RDX [1] and were able to kill a person so driving (and exploding) a drone with 171g of RDX into someone is more than enough.

If you take its 18km of reach (while I doubt the controls are able to go that far although with a 4g sim card this could be doable) you get a poor mans cruising "missile" for $1k. And there is nothing preventing (except the price) launching few of them.

I think that those drones are posing a real threat even more as probably the drug cartels have the money to realize it, if they can afford to build parallel cellular network [2], they surely can also perform this.

Their use case probably is not killing an average Joe but rather assassinations on high profile targets that are heavily guarded. And quite frankly I am really interested how bodyguards can tackle this as drone can literally fall from the sky, without any electricity being used so jamming (or frying electronics if feasible) wont work here. I think this is going to become a real nightmare in the future.

[1] 4g of RDX: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Qj1qSZDKg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Qj1qSZDKg) or 100g of "something" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_664jlLwqI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_664jlLwqI)

[2] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-telecoms- cartels-s...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-telecoms-cartels- specialreport/special-report-drug-cartel-narco-antennas-make-life-dangerous- for-mexicos-cell-tower-repairmen-idUSKCN24G1DN)

<comment><USER5> Hmm, isn't the idea of letter bombs that the bomb is literally within arm's length, whereas that sort of proximity for a noisy drone, keeping it close enough to a possibly moving target, while setting it off may not be super practical. It may be more realistic to get within, say, 10 meters?

Also, no way the FAA would issue waivers for this sort of mission. /s

<comment><USER4> Yes, this is certainly a part of problem constructing it.

I would imagine that replacing the motors and adding larger battery while keeping the control system shouldnt be an issue.

Also within an article there is a picture of a box with 4 motors, if lower part would be made from something like copper, it could be used as shaped charge [1] or adding shrapnel would also be an option. Or just make it to carry the normal hand grenade. The noise is surely an issue if you dont keep the distance, so I would imagine that you fly high over the target and then go into free fall.

In either case, this has a potential to become something really nasty.

Anyway, enough of this talk, it is surely an interesting technological challenge and interesting debate, but there are some really sick people on this planet and I dont want to give them any ideas. Also I bet there are some red lights blinking in some 3 letter agency somewhere :D :D :D

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I actually work in the drone detection/jamming field.

My only surprise is that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often. We already see drones used for drug smuggling and privacy violations, as well as the use of drones to carry IED payloads.

Drones are an amazing tool but as with any tool, they can be used in nefarious ways.

<comment><USER7> Has there been any progress with coming up with a system that can _reliably_ jam them?

<comment><USER8> I don't know if you could ever stop a low cost drone short of using a shotgun. Even if you had some sort of directed EMP technology, the drone could position itself along the correct precomputed vector from far away, cut off electric, and glide the bomb to the target silently.

<comment><USER9> > the drone could position itself along the correct precomputed vector from > far away, cut off electric, and glide the bomb to the target silently.

An octocopter/ordinary drone can't do this - their electric goes out and they fall from the sky.

For a glider you'd need an actual flyable airplane model (something like this: [https://laughingsquid.com/a-15-foot-long-radio-controlled- ai...](https://laughingsquid.com/a-15-foot-long-radio-controlled- airbus-a380-model-plane-taking-off-and-flying/)), and these are _expensive_ as fuck - a single engine alone will run up _well_ into four digit range, if not five digits (something like the JetCat P1000). And at that point, you could also go ahead and buy an outright RPG, should be far cheaper to acquire depending where you are, or buy a couple junker cars, load them up with fertilizer bombs, and distribute them where one expects the target.

<comment><USER10> This is wrong.

ISIS used[1] the X-UAV Talon. This is a off-the-shelf 1.7M wingspan drone plane available for about $150 without electronics (which are around $50-$200 depending on how elaborate you want to get).

It's capable of 100km+ flights[3].

Here's a pic of one after being shot down in Iraq[4]

[1] [https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/commercial- dro...](https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/commercial-drones- privitising-air-power)

[2] [https://au.banggood.com/X-UAV-Talon-EPO-1718mm-Wingspan-V- ta...](https://au.banggood.com/X-UAV-Talon-EPO-1718mm-Wingspan-V-tail-FPV- Plane-Aircraft-Kit-V3-p-986526.html?cur_warehouse=CN)

[3] [https://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/100km-in-the-x-uav- talo...](https://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/100km-in-the-x-uav-talon)

[4] [https://armamentresearch.com/islamic-state-unmanned- aerial-v...](https://armamentresearch.com/islamic-state-unmanned-aerial- vehicle-shot-down-in-iraq/)

<comment><USER11> Glad you posted this, was also going to post the images of the Skywalker X8 discovered in Syria and Mosul.

[https://dronecenter.bard.edu/files/2016/12/Drones-in-Iraq- an...](https://dronecenter.bard.edu/files/2016/12/Drones-in-Iraq-and-Syria- CSD.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The next worst case scenario is autonomous drones, that do not require radio or gps inputs. Navigation can be done with crude inertial navigation systems and advancing AI can identify and fly to targets with increasing accuracy. Causing general chaos or exploding in crowds will not require AI though.

The only counter measure against those will then be an EMP system, Blinding lights to disable cameras, etc.

The next evolution for public speakers or gatherings would probably be completely online.

<comment><USER13> SLAM is already functional for drone navigation, more or less. As for blinding lights, that can be fixed by using many different sensors and wavelengths, as well as high-quality optics and imaging sensors with high flare resistance and high dynamic range.

As for EMPs, a drone that isn't remote controlled could feasibly be put in a Faraday cage. I'd make a prototype, but I don't really want to contribute to future assassinations.

There just aren't any good countermeasures, I'm afraid. I'd imagine fully online works well but even that is seriously limited.

<comment><USER14> There are plenty of countermeasures, but they're all _active_ countermeasures - ex. a couple guys with shotguns, trained falcons, or your own anti-drone drones.

<comment><USER13> Yes, but kinetic countermeasures scale really badly. The definition of "drone" is also quite flexible here, a couple guys with shotguns, falcons, or your own anti-drones work fine against a few slow drones, badly against a few dozen slow flying drones, not at all against a few hundred slow flying drones, are essentially useless against one jet-powered drone (microjet engines are very cheap!) don't have a hope against a dozen fast flying drones, and are non- existent to a few hundred fast flying drones.

You'd pay around 2500$ for a 60lbf jet engine, and around 3000$ tops for the rest of the drone. That's around 5500-6000$, so for a hundred drones you'd pay 600 000$, or about 60% of the cost to train one soldier, and around one 0.8 millionths of the yearly US defence expenditure. For 100 drones. That means with the US defence budget you could make 120 000 000 such drones.

Sure, against the current crop of electric consumer drones, it's not much of an issue. But there's the tech to make a 500km/h drone that's fully autonomous and encased in a Faraday cage for less than 10 000$ a piece. That scares the crap out of me.

<comment><USER15> Bigger isn't necessarily better, here. There's a term for "small jet turbine powered autonomous suicide drone" already - "cruise missile" \- and it's something that the US military has put a lot of work into stopping.

Small drones aren't really part of the same threat profile, near as I can tell.

<comment><USER16> Cruise missiles currently target large things, these would be anti-personnel drones. I guess we could call them "knife missiles"?

<comment><USER17> I take it that's a culture reference, if it isn't then congratulations, you are in good company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Insert obligatory reference to Slaughterbots (2017)

[https://youtu.be/HipTO_7mUOw](https://youtu.be/HipTO_7mUOw)

<comment><USER15> I think that might be a reupload of this? [https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA](https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA)

3x the views, at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Short-range air defense (SHORAD) is going to be a huge growth area for defense contractors over the next several years.

<comment><USER20> I wonder if we can repurpose mm-wave 60GHz panel antennas and SDRs for cheap short-range radars. Then combine with a commercial infrared camera for multi- mode target acquisition. Put those on a mount with servos to control a PKM or M240 machinegun, and mount the whole setup on the roofs of buildings. Critical infrastructure anti-drone air defense guns at fairly low cost.

<comment><USER21> Then you just get stealth drones (fixed wing). Bondo, styrofoam, electric ducted fans, frequency hopping radio links, all easily doable. Only hard part really is range. For that, I could see hybrid electrics that power down the gas/nitro engine for stealth.

<comment><USER13> Or even just a gas turbine, as RC people already use. 10:1 TWR, relatively cheap. Quite loud, but works at high altitudes.

<comment><USER22> Small gas powered drones for the military are already pretty common.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Israel's "Lahav Or" (Light Blade) can

> Said to be the first defense system of its kind in the world, the Light > Blade system will target incendiary balloons and kites, which have started > countless fires in the southern border vicinity communities in recent years, > as well as drones.

[0] [https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/08/12/israel-deploys- first-...](https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/08/12/israel-deploys-first-of-its- kind-laser-system-to-gaza-border-to-fight-incendiary-balloons/)

</comment><comment><USER24> I remember someone flying one full of meth into the side of the Tijuana Costco.

[https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja- califo...](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja- california/sdut-drugs-drone-crashes-2015jan21-story.html)

I always thought drones would bring down the violence in Mexico, since it would be easier to keep your distribution network under the radar.

If you don't have to recruit hundreds of people to actually drive the drugs across the border, and can fly it over the fence in the middle of the night, what would be the reason for anybody to be shooting anybody.

Whoever's turf you were operating in wouldn't even know you were operating on their turf because your whole operation could be just two white-collar-type guys keeping a really low-key presence. The rise of the narco-technocrats.

But, I guess it didn't go that way.

<comment><USER25> How come they don't use artillery to launch? Does it damage the product? Too hard to aim? Wonder if you could ship drugs by just mortar with radio transmitter embedded. Way greater capacity and practically undetectable at landing site unless you have the receiver.

<comment><USER24> I know they've used catapults.

[https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/us/marijuana-catapult- trnd/in...](https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/us/marijuana-catapult- trnd/index.html)

<comment><USER26> > This is just the latest example of drug smugglers' ingenuity, or more > accurately, the ingenuity of the authorities who caught them.

Talk about blowing smoke. Border patrol saw these guys using a catapult to hurl drugs over the border and took their catapult. Where's the "ingenuity" on the part of the authorities?

I think a catapult is a great idea. Now I want to design a pumpkin chucker that hurls a steerable projectile for extra precision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Small armed drones could be the game-changer the AK-47 was. Before the AK-47, revolt against an army with machine guns was almost impossible. "Whatever happens, we have got ... The Maxim gun - and they have not." Post AK-47, the guerillas usually win, or at least can keep the struggle going on indefinitely.

The combination of drones for assassination and Bitcoin for payment could force everyone with money or power into a bunker or armored vehicle for the rest of their life.

<comment><USER28> Drones are easy to jam. The communication link and GPS are most obvious targets.

<comment><USER27> Progress marches on. Autonomous visual navigation have been available for some time. Face recognition can be done with smartphone hardware. Inertial guidance for drones is available but still a bit pricey.[1]

This is going to be a major problem for the golf industry. It's the ideal target environment - high-value targets, no place to take cover.

[1] [https://www.uavnavigation.com/products/ahrs- imu/polar-300](https://www.uavnavigation.com/products/ahrs-imu/polar-300)

<comment><USER29> Nah, golf industry will be fine. If a technology is so advantageous, then it will eventually become the counter to itself. Imagine several drone swarming around you like a body guard and you would have several orbital layers for short/medium/long range protection.

Imagine a drone being so sophisticated that it can calculate the sniper shot gunning for you and can even deflect the bullet or take the direct hit for you. Same for suicidal bombs. If the enemy drone explode on impact, your drone can kamikaze theirs.

<comment><USER13> That can just never work. Several drones swarming around you do will do bugger all against enough shrapnel, or against a shaped charge, or just a sufficiently heavy drone going fast enough. Or the drone could carry a chemical agent and kill you.

The economics of defence are such that kamikaze anti-drone drones won't work. Either they'll miss the vast majority of the time, or they will be hideously more expensive than the drone they're defending against.

<comment><USER27> "The bomber will always get through". That remark was made about the big bombing campaigns of WWII, and the planned nuclear attacks of the 1950s and 1960s. Drone attacks are the same concept in miniature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Heh there was that killerbot video back in the day, swarm of small bomb drones hunting via facial recognition. Cartels are quite innovative when it comes to killing

<comment><USER31> That video where a terrorist group successfully stole a military weapon shown to be at or above the level of importance of a Predator drone...

Then decided to kill a specific person instead of just bombing the entire building where they apparently knew that person would be

I never bought into the premise that it should be more scary than if a terrorist group was to steal a sophisticated military strike weapon today.

We have drones carrying missiles that can kill a person in the passenger seat of a car without killing the driver by deploying _swords_ after launch, I think we leapfrogged DJI drones with facial recognition and grenades in terms of brutality

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I assume that an attempt on assasination on a really relevant figure, president and so, could end with the entire cartel city nuked in retaliation. There is always a bigger fish, so there is a limit to what you can do with this.

My bet would be that this is a PR stunt and what they are really trying is to discourage people from catching drones that transport thousands of dollars in drugs to steal the cargo. Beware!, They could have a bomb included! so let them pass without shooting down it, specially in urban areas. Once the police and population take the message, the delivery drones will be safe.

<comment><USER33> Slightly baffled by this comment; Mexico is not a nuclear-armed state and is not going to start responding to its cartel problems with genocide? Or are you suggesting that the US would engage in a first strike genocide in response to a single quadcopter bomb?

<comment><USER32> Is just an metaphor that there is always something with a bigger drone. Change nuking by bombing and city by hacienda if you prefer.

Of course the concept of drone-bomb, once released, is like pandora's box. A double edged sword that could harm both parts.

The natural answer from the enemy cartel after being bombed would be to intercept as many enemy drug-delivery drones as possible with a, lets name it, "falcon-fly drone", attach a package bomb and a postcard with a magneto and let it to continue their route.

And if you are the police you could attach a beacon instead to convert it into a "Judas drone" and release it. Even better if you can catch again the drone in route or release the beacon automatically after a few minutes, the narcos wouldn't suspect that now you have a velocity and a vector. That would help you to trace a possible point of origin and maybe delivery over the same straight line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If this kind of thing keeps up it wouldn't be much of a stretch for drones to be banned from civilian ownership in many parts of the world.

<comment><USER35> The issue will be enforcement of these laws.

How will you regulate the possession and distribution of IMUs and electric motors?

Hell most of the parts you need to build a drone are available in a used cellphone and many of the rest can be 3d printed.

<comment><USER24> To underscore your point, here's an example of how easy it is to get god-tier military hardware in Mexico from one of the many people breaking bad across the border in the US.

[https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture- features/arming...](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture- features/arming-mexican-cartels-inside-story-of-a-texas-gun-smuggling- ring-866836/)

This fella in Texas was selling .50-cals and miniguns straight to the Cartels for years. There are likely many, many more like him.

Mexican think tanks have spent years trying to figure out how the hell to stop the massive flow of weapons into Mexico from Texas and Arizona.

[https://www.mexicoevalua.org/mexicoevalua/wp- content/uploads...](https://www.mexicoevalua.org/mexicoevalua/wp- content/uploads/2019/08/000PolicyBrief_Seguridad.pdf)

US think tanks too, notably David Shirk at USD has done a bunch of work on this.

[https://catcher.sandiego.edu/items/peacestudies/way_of_the_g...](https://catcher.sandiego.edu/items/peacestudies/way_of_the_gun.pdf)

<comment><USER36> There was an absolutely trivial solution: send a few fighter planes to blow up the haciendas and spray herbicide on the plantations. But the US government prefers to profit and make political hay from the drug war.

<comment><USER35> Dude that's how you get the child of American senators kidnapped andmailed back in pieces or another 9/11.

Everything sounds simple in theory until you think of the consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> When the technology improves sufficiently maybe there will be a drone the size of a dragonfly that land on targets and inject them with ricin or another poison. That requires a lot better targeting than a plastic container loaded with explosives and ball bearings, which just has to get close to the target. Still, it would make a great assassination tool.

</comment><comment><USER38> Well, it will be 3 years next month since the first open source kinetic attack by non state actors using commercial off the self drones was conducted.

Frankly, I'm surprised it has taken 3 years for them to be used for kinetic attack by exceptionally well funded narcos.

Illicit use of drones has happened and will continue to grow.

<comment><USER39> I'm surprised that it has taken this long for all of it. I remember reading the news several years ago about how some small drones got close to Merkel. My first worry was about assassinations. Quadcopters aren't expensive or even very difficult to make.

How do you even stop something like that?

<comment><USER38> There are a range of options to defeat drones that include kinetic(birdshot and specialist shotgun rounds, netguns), non kinetic(electronic attack), as well as anti-drone drones(Anduril Industries). There have also been trials on using falconry to counter drones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I've been ghoulishly interested in the various US poorly-regulated militia since Malheur, and rationales behind their fetish for twentieth-century weaponry.

Reading that the "counterforce" against which they train resembles a BATF unit more than a military unit made me guess they might be hoping to contract for cartels, but that supposition was dashed upon finding that (at least on US soil) the cartels are far fonder of the bomb than the bullet.

Sixteenth-century vehicle borne improvised explosive devices: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellburners](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellburners)

<comment><USER41> Bundy & Co. are a militia in the same way the James Gang was, or for that matter, the Wu-Tang Clan are. Disgruntled armed rural whites have been the bete noir of the urban reportorial class for so long that any crime, no matter how absurd, committed by guys in pickup trucks wearing cowboy hats is treated like the Austrian Anschluss.

Guaranteed acre-feet of press coverage; for the titillation of Euros who exoticize && Other the culture of the rural America.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The pattern to discern from articles like this is that they highlight the threat and not the difficulty of actually realizing the threat.

When you put two layers of improvisation into a weapon the odds of it working are very low. Building an effective homemade grenade is difficult. Delivering it with a noisy machine that limits the size of the grenade multiplies the odds of making a spectacular but ineffective attempt that will only get you noticed.

But it does increase the odds that some consultant will get hired by DHS to write an unreadable report about this supposed threat.

</comment><comment><USER43> [https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/36910.Langston_Hughe...](https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/36910.Langston_Hughes)

[https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=8f1BNgtfthU](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=8f1BNgtfthU)

ysk [https://www.painting- analysis.com/logo_guernica_colour500.jp...](https://www.painting- analysis.com/logo_guernica_colour500.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER44> No mention of the software?

What worries me is that in a close future they might develop their own autonomous Software to do the assassinations and sooner or later the software "leaks" to outside world. Then with a few thousand dollars you can program your own assassination tools. More sophisticated entities will develop the swarm version to do mass damage.

Will there be a proliferation fears of software similar to nuclear proliferation?

<comment><USER45> The Black Mirror episode _Hated in the Nation_ kind of touches on this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> "group opposed to dictatorial Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro"

Gee what great, totally-not-editorialized analysis from yet another military think tank pr writer.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm still somewhat surprised there have been no prominent terrorist attacks in Western countries by means of drones with payload.

<comment><USER22> Isn't that just because the drone bit is easy and the payload bit is hard. Particularly in terms of procuring explosives, and making them effective and light enough for a drone to carry? Then you need a target that actually needs a drone to attack it versus doing something simpler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Another example of how humans turn good tech into bad shit. Could all of this be solved by blowing up every explosives factory?

</comment><comment><USER7> Drone swarms will definitely be a go-to standard in warfare soon. It has already been in use for a few years over in the ME.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm reminded of the failed assassination attempt against Venezuela leader Nicolas Maduro

</comment><comment><USER50> Can someone make a new series of Robot Wars with drones? That would be fascinating viewing.

</comment><comment><USER51> Interesting map, its crazy how often these groups fracture and splinter!

Really wish one of these would go publicly traded and report revenue, leading to real price discovery of these operations and ability to manage risk.

There are permissionless systems they can use now to list shares, and if they have a liquidity issue they just need to take over a dam and generate some electricity for themselves for their crypto mining hardware which will convert to currency.

I know I know, multiple topics for people to disagree with so I don't expect this to lead to a conversation about solutions today, I'm just making a note publicly that I perceived the possibilities before it happened.

<comment> dane-pgp If these groups effectively control territory, then maybe formalizing that control rather than trying to fight against it makes sense. That way, instead of a cartel trying to infiltrate and bribe the local law enforcement, the law enforcement could be paid a competitive and transparent monthly fee in return for helping to protect the cartel's territory. (This would mean arresting competing cartel members caught there, and giving immunity to members of the locally approved cartel who are caught in shoot-outs with their rivals).

<comment><USER24> Part of the issue is that the cartels have always provided a sort of summer camp for psychopaths.

Charles Bowden wrote a bit about how absolutely terrifying it was to be anywhere in the proximity of these organizations.

By formalizing it, you would be essentially giving a formal role to guys who cut people's limbs off with chainsaws and post videos of it on LiveLeak.

Fighting the cartels leads to unimaginable violence, and leaving them alone just leads to them infiltrating every single level of the Mexican government, and carrying on with the violence anyway.

It is the sorrow of the country to be situated by an accident of geography between the single biggest market for meth and cocaine on the planet (who also happens to sell lots of military-grade weapons to anyone with a pulse), and the largest cocaine producing region on the planet.

<comment><USER51> There are countries that routinely chop peoples heads off in a form of due process that we would not recognize or respect for seemingly minor actions. Even the most developed nations have laws to chop off the hands of thieves.

We vilify and drone people with the same belief systems merely because they are not associated with an existing state, non-state combatants.

There is simply no distinction I can lean on that would lead me to avoid formalizing reality. The concept of the state simply isn't legitimacy to me, it is just consensus. Cartels already have that consensus and act like public enterprises in their region.

Do notice, I'm not arguing for anything to occur, I am recognizing that nobody has to ask permission to achieve access to the capital markets and noticing how that fits types of organizations that are not welcomed in established capital markets.

<comment><USER24> If I understand correctly what you are saying, you are arguing that we take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. I very much respect that position.

However, I would argue that there is definitely not a consensus. The Mexican people are fighting with their lives against these organizations.

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

Mexico has a central government that is weak in some respects. Their judicial system is not what it needs to be. Certain transnational criminal organizations have taken advantage of this to establish enclaves of power.

That does not mean that they are recognized as legitimate political entities by the Mexican people and should be given some formal recognition of authority by the Mexican government or the country's neighbors.

Say my neighbor is in my front yard waving an AR-15 and screaming at me that trash day was yesterday and I need to bring my garbage cans in. I'm sure as hell not going out there to talk to him, but that doesn't mean I recognize him as the new de-facto mayor of my front yard. He's just the lunatic in my front yard screaming at me who I'm going to do my best to avoid, and hopefully at some point the cops will show up and get him out of my yard.

<comment><USER51> Right. Its a good message and diverges a bit from my point:

All organizations can access the capital markets now. It a waste of public resources from the "legitimate" states to try to whitelist transactions so stop burdening everyone over that because its pointless. The end.

I am curious how the market will value these enterprises if they begin giving steady dividends. The price discovery is fascinating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I've been worrying about this for years.

What's next is micro-chemical attacks. Drones that can cloud an individual or small group of people. They'll think it was just dust or something, the thing zips off into the sky, and the linings of their lungs starts dissolving and they die.

<comment><USER53> Russia attempted to kill a dissenter in England with a toxic agent and all of Europe went up in arms. Presidents and prime ministers put out condemnations. Public opinion sharply turned against Russia.

The backlash to what you're suggesting would be insane if it actually happened.

<comment><USER54> How does this stop the next one? It's not the first time Russia has done this — and they have done it in European countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Yeah, not the worst way to go about assassinations

</comment><comment><USER56> Man I knew it was just a matter of time for this to happen, to easy to do and to many intelligent people with no morals (or just desperate, threatened etc.).

Anyway thinks like this make it more likely for unreasonable regulations, like even small drones being tracked when used or similar. But the bad joke is it's pointless as:

\- The "bad" people can always circumvent such measurements (it's illegal but you plan to do illegal things anyway)

\- Even if drones are banned it's not too hard to build them yourself from parts your will always be able to get one way or another for not too much money.

<comment><USER57> Is it unreasonable for small drones to be tracked? It's way too easy to get footage of private property or through otherwise obscured windows with drones.

Regulation doesn't have to be unreasonable.

<comment><USER6> I work in this field. There's two components to this.

There is the possibility to track devices from the manufacturer via serial numbers etc. Regulation will help here. This isn't useful until after the fact for evidence gathering.

The second is to track them in the sky. DJI has a product AeroScope that tracks their drones, my company has a competing product (this isn't a plug so won't mention the name). The issue with this is you need hardware to do it, or use existing hardware. This is expensive, so only really feasible for specific assets (pipelines, corrections and sports facilities etc).

<comment><USER58> > There is the possibility to track devices from the manufacturer via serial > numbers etc. Regulation will help here. This isn't useful until after the > fact for evidence gathering.

From where I'm, sitting, I can see one drone which can readily be "tracked via the manufacturer" (A DJI Spark). There are two more which came assembled - from random AliExpress (or maybe GearBest) vendors, which have nothing resembling a serial number nor any way to "phone home" to the manufacturer. There are another 5-6 which were completely assembled from parts (some of which I 3D printed myself) and which run open source software on ubiquitously available flight controllers. (And probably enough parts to assemble another 3 or 3 at least).

Most of those can be set up to fly completely autonomously, where jamming of the control channels and/or video link won't affect the completion of the flight plan. (Jamming GPS would fuck them all up though, but I might have enough parts on hand to make a machine vision and lidar and IMU capable SLAM platform, that'd be able to fly a mission plan even in the absence of a good GPS lock...)

(I'd be fascinated to know how your company's system fares against a reasonably creative "white hat" amateur drone builder who's intentionally set out to beat it...)

<comment><USER6> Yes there's plenty of difficulties with home-grown devices. Fortunately most people aren't capable of designing an over-the-air protocol like lightbridge, and there's a limited selection of chips to choose from.

Vision/IMU/Lidar are obviously much harder

My email is in my bio

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Obligatory video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM)

</comment><comment><USER60> Gibson's Slamhounds are here.

</comment><comment><USER61> Legalizing all drugs would kill these cartels almost instantly. People who do drugs do them anyway and find a way to even if they're illegal. If drugs weren't illegal all that money wouldnt end up in mexican cartels pockets.

<comment><USER62> This is absolutely not going to be the case. Assuming both the US and Mexico simultaneous legalized all drugs, what happens to all the illegal jobs the cartels currently have?

Their people, money and weapons don't vanish and what we see when cartels take a hit income is violence increases and the cartels look to other methods of making income using they're existing tools. Protection rackets and kidnappings are already used as supplemental income, these would only increase.

Now a long approach of gradual decriminalization and legalization may work, with the ability to operate legally the need to utilize violence decreases over time as it's generally bad for business.

<comment><USER61> If their main source of income is cut off they will have to immediately downsize or it would all eat into the boss's accumulated wealth. Reestablishing the cartel on kidnapping and other violent crime is not as lucrative as selling sniffy gold. If they start kidnapping in America is a different thing all together but doing it in Mexico would not yield enough money to keep the current operations - unless they kidnap every Mexican citizen or something like that... Closest move is to get involved directly into politics

<comment><USER63> Or they get into the "protection" and kidnapping racket even more than they are currently. Sure their size would probably decrease but the amount of violence would skyrocket. At least for several years. The basically control whole swathes of that. They wouldn't give that up without a fight.

<comment><USER64> Is that what happened at the end of prohibition? (Genuine question, I'm not well informed in this area.)

<comment><USER65> Hard to disentangle effects from other stuff that was going on. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, in the depths of the Depression. It was also the year before FDR signed a comprehensive crime-fighting bill that allowed FBI agents to carry guns and make arrests.

By pure numbers, crime did hit a 20th-century high in 1933, right after prohibition was repealed, and they didn't pass those numbers until the 1970s-early 1990s (and only just barely then). But this was also the economic nadir of the century. And the mechanism for the decline in organized crime was that many crime bosses were killed or imprisoned, so it could've been the crime bill. So yes, it is what happened at the end of prohibition, but it's hard to draw firm conclusions between the two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Silicon valley must love articles like this, the more to fund their Reagan "Star Wars" style digital border wall follies. Nothing like fear to direct billions of dollars in the wrong direction.

</comment><comment><USER67> As humanity gets access to higher and higher technology, more and more smaller scale, non-governmental actors will get access to weapons that can cause asymmetrical damage. We will definitely get to a point where a single determined person can destroy an entire city.

I strongly believe this is basically the great filter faced by all intelligent species in the universe.

Only way to overcome this great filter is by adopting policies that provide equal opportunities to each member of the species and create a non- divisive/united society where everyone practically helps each other. Aim would be to colonise other planets as soon as possible to decrease risks of civilisation destruction by technological offshoots.

I strongly believe that most of the alien species that achieve interstellar flight and escape the great filter must be benign, united, and highly intelligent for these reasons.

I also believe humanity's chances of escaping the great filter is ~0%.

<comment><USER68> _Only way to overcome this great filter is by adopting policies that provide equal opportunities to each member of the species and create a non-divisive /united society where everyone practically helps each other_

How does this utopian ideal address the lone nutcase who would actually _do_ something like destroy an entire city if he could? The Unabomber wasn't standing up for BLM or fighting income inequality, you know.

<comment><USER13> Having a social structure where everyone is checked up on, and people who seem to be up to no good can be talked about.

Alternatively and additionally, automated, limited, algorithmic surveillance and controls over some technologies. It's certainly difficult, but not completely impossible. There really aren't that many lone wolf nutcases that have the resources and ability to do such damage. It generally turns up warning signs and and/or takes coordinated groups.

The Unabomber also wasn't a completely mad act, he had some method to his madness and his crimes ultimately came from his perception of the modern world as a horrible place to live in and a destruction of the environment.</comment></comment></comment>


Coin Card Teardown - <AUTHOR> http://www.bitsofcents.com/post/124593977646/coin-card-teardown <comment><USER3> I had the beta and a final Coin and neither one were reliable enough to to trust. You HAVE to carry backup cards which more or less defeats the purpose. Then there is the slightly embarrassing, extremely annoying "Your card didn't work/Do you have another card this one isn't swiping". I've stopped carrying my coin altogether because if you have the cards you might as well use the real ones (I tried for 7+ months to use coin first).

<comment><USER4> They probably didn't have the ability to test it on nearly enough readers, given that there are literally thousands. They may also be running into some timing issues based on how people swipe. Those are things you sometimes just can't work out barring wide scale testing and adoption.

<comment><USER5> Right. But file this away in the "not my problem" draw. You can make all the excuses you want, but this is ultimately up to them to resolve, not for the consumer to deal with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      The specs aren't listed on the FDK site but the safety
      data sheet shows it is a 3V battery although amperage is
      unclear.

All lithium-ion batteries have a nominal voltage of 3.7V, like how all alkaline batteries have a nominal voltage of 1.5V. It's just how the chemistry works.

( _Actual_ voltage can vary quite a bit, depending on where you are in the discharge curve: [http://i.stack.imgur.com/UkodS.gif](http://i.stack.imgur.com/UkodS.gif))

And to be somewhat needlessly pedantic: you want "amp-hours" there, not "amperage". Amp-hours is the unit of capacity, amps is how much current is being drawn at that very moment. In the automotive metaphor, amp-hours (or watt-hours) is how big the gas tank is, while amperage is engine horsepower.

<comment><USER7> Lithium is not lithium ion.

Single-use lithium batteries are made in a variety of voltages. This chemistry is in fact three volts.

<comment><USER6> Whoops, guess I'm wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _What Coin has managed to do in such a thin package is really impressive. It's a shame they weren't able to do it more reliably._

It's a really cool idea. I actually wonder what the technological hurdle was that held them back - mechanical (reliably magnetizing the coils, easy-to- break components due to narrow size), software (programming issues), or QA (reliable SoCs, reliable builds, reliable solders)?

<comment><USER9> I suspect flexing the PCB caused the usual problems of hairline cracks in solder joints, resulting in intermittent faults.

<comment><USER10> If that's true, I wonder if something like a paper circuit would work? e.g., [http://www.instructables.com/id/Paperduino-20-with- Circuit-S...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Paperduino-20-with-Circuit- Scribe/)

<comment><USER9> Flexible substrates are not a problem - the industrial solution is polyimide (Kapton) or just really thin FR4. The problem is inflexible components. As soon as you bend a curved surface attached to a small flat rectangle (IC), it pulls at the joins.

You might get better results with bare die+wirebonding, then encapsulating with slightly flexible epoxy. That would allow the bondwires to flex and take up the bending. Doesn't help with the discrete components or the battery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was so damn excited to use my Coin - the idea was brilliant. I tried to so hard to use it, but with a 30%+ failure rate, it became completely useless. Simply not worth the embarrassing "Sir, your card didn't work" or "Is this real?". And if I have to carry backups anyways, what's the point?

<comment><USER12> I like it because it got me down from several cards (debit, credit card A, credit card B, business card, business debit card) to two (debit card, Coin). The debit card is my backup to Coin.

<comment><USER11> I formerly did the same, but it became insufficient.

There are at least 4 cards that I need working at all times: (1) Debit card, as you mentioned, to be able to withdraw cash in a pinch, (2) Chase Sapphire Preferred - card with no FX fee, (3) Corporate Amex for charges I don't want to take on personally, (4) Starwood (SPG) card to amass a non-negligible amount of points on hotel stays. And maybe a 5th on which I'm trying to spend a large amount on quickly (for example - I might be planning to put $1500 on a random card with a big signup bonus, and it might be critical for me to get points I need for an upcoming reservation)

I of course have all of these loaded into my Coin, but each has failed enough times (forcing me to use the debit) that I started carrying the others as backup. Then I found myself carrying 5 cards....plus the Coin. And if Coin is targeted to users like me (who carry multiple credit cards, optimizing for different uses)....then what's the point?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fcc photos of the coin pcb here [1]

I think that the coils that drive the magstripe are only activated when the buttons to the left or right of the stripes are depressed (e.g. by the process of swiping).

Also, I believe coin only transmits track 2 [2]. Why it looks like there's 2 coils is curious to me as well.

[1] [https://fccid.io/document.php?id=2397353](https://fccid.io/document.php?id=2397353)

[2] [https://support.onlycoin.com/hc/en- us/articles/204263414-Coi...](https://support.onlycoin.com/hc/en- us/articles/204263414-Coin-Compatibility)

Some merchants require your full name (also known as Track 1 card data) as a part of the transaction process. Coin does not transmit Track 1 data and may be rejected at the point of payment.

<comment><USER14> It seems like a logical thing to do, especially when you're trying to a) save power and b) time the speed of the coil's "stripes" to make the reader think it's seeing a physical card. It's probably also the source of a lot of rejected swipes.

Conductive rubber pads and/or membrane switches are always a bad thing. Necessary for this design, but they'll always fail you in the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I received my Coin about 2 months ago. I was excited to test it out after preordering almost 2 years in advance. The concept of having all my cards on one central card was a great idea. But having it not work at some locations was rather embarrassing and frustrating. I have decided the Coin was a fail and I will not carry it anymore. But, Coin, keep innovating. You tried.

<comment><USER16> It sounds like just another startup hardware offering with a spotty launch. But I've always been confused about the perceived "embarrassment" of a card not working at the point of a transaction. This seems to be a common marketing trope in payments, but I don't know what it comes from. It's a piece of technology, and tech often doesn't work quite right. Sometimes my phone restarts itself. What's the big deal?

<comment><USER17> I have been super broke and unable to pay bills at two points in my life - just out of college and trying to find a job after the dot-come bust, and again when my startup failed. During those bad times, I'd lose track of my finances and a few times couldn't pay for my groceries.

I can't describe in words how much I felt like a total, utter failure. All the fears I had about how I was going to pay my bills that month, the pressure from family to pay them back for money borrowed, the pressure from roommates to come up with rent - all came bubbling up in those moments.

After all, I was the first kid in my family to go to college. I was the smart one who was supposed to have his shit together, but there I was - <USER2> broke. It creates a fear that is not rational and hasn't gone away (at least for me).

About a year ago, I forgot my bank card at TJ's and only had $20 bucks on me. I was embarrassed in ways I can't describe. I was cold sweating to the point I was soaking my shirt. I had to leave everything except for some essentials I needed for that night. One of the cashiers lent me $5 to help me pay for my groceries (I paid him back). I feel weird that I accepted the $5, but I wasn't thinking rationally. I wanted to scream "no, really, I have my shit together now." I kept telling myself that this is not a big deal... chill out... But I just couldn't calm myself down. It was like poverty PTSD.

Even though I now have paid off all my debt, school loans and have a healthy nest egg, I still have these fears. Whenever my card won't go through on the first try or I type in the wrong pin number, my heart jumps.

It's entirely irrational.

<comment><USER18> I can relate to your feeling, and this ONE WEIRD TRICK will greatly increase your positive feelings: get a credit card with no fees that you pay off every month. Once I got my Amex, I never again wondered if that swipe would go through -- it just does, every time. That of course comes with its own set of problems (ahem, budgeting).

<comment><USER19> Doesn't really solve OP's problem of forgetting their card, or my own of 'the network is down.'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If the mag-stripe emulation is just a simple electromagnet, I'm curious how they detected the position of the read-head in order to modulate the magnet correctly to emulate the data that would otherwise be read at that point of a traditional mag-stripe. Or is it more sophisticated still?

<comment><USER21> My guess is that this is why they have so many problems. I'd guess that there's probably an accelerometer somewhere to give them an idea of what the swipe velocity is, so they can know how fast to play everything back.

But ultimately the way they've chosen to do this seems to be very difficult, especially if those are two very long single coils. It feels like it would be much easier from the software side if they had made them addressable somehow so that they could control every bit individually by either energizing or not energizing a particular coil. Then you'd have eliminated the swipe speed variable from the equation and a lot of complexity would drop right out.

Honestly looking at this teardown I'm surprised it works at all.

<comment><USER14> Doesn't seem to be any accelerometers anywhere. There _are_ two hidden membrane switches to either side of the coils. The card is probably using the press and release timing of that button as it travels through the reader to guess at the speed of the physical card.

There are patents for dynamic magnetic stripes that have individual coils for each bit. That is probably way too costly for this design, or perhaps too expensive to license it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Pretty cool.

I'm interested in knowing which component failed? did the second card fail in the same way? or was that remedied in the revision?

Did the display and button still work?

Hopefully the issue was with the coil, flex PCBs and displays are more or less a solved problem, batteries not so much.

With the Nordic 51822 they're lined up well to roll out NFC after the mandated phase out of mag-strip in the US (p.s how are they still a thing?).

It'll be interesting to see if they'll survive if a chip-and-pin foothold overshadows NFC.

</comment><comment><USER23> Was I the only one who canceled their pre-order after they asked for your social security number?

<comment><USER24> I cancelled my preorder after I got the app and saw that silly tapping security code.

I decided to try out Plastc after that. We'll see what that's like.

<comment><USER25> After being burnt by Coin at $50, I'm not jumping at the chance to waste $150 with Plastc.

<comment><USER24> I hear you, I got my $50 refund, got some credit for finding a share link for Plastc and felt $100 was worth it for my single attempt at using the tech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is the first time I am reading about this product but why mag stripe over smart cards? isn't it less secure and deprecated technology? it seems very useful but relying on mag stripe isn't the best move, no? Perhaps they couldn't "switch cards" while using smart cards so mag stripe was the only solution?

<comment><USER27> > isn't it less secure and deprecated technology?

Uhhhh...no? I've lived in the US my entire life, and while I've seen pin and chip readers, I've never had a pin and chip card, never known anyone who has ever had one, and never seen one used. Ever.

<comment><USER28> That'll change very shortly, first of my US credit cards was just reissued with a chip and you can expect that all of yours will be within the next year or so.

Note that it is Chip and Signature though, not chip and pin.

<comment><USER27> My bank card expires in a couple of years, so we'll see if my next card is chip and pin (or chip and signature). Hopefully, things will have changed by then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> >I was surprised by the number of test pads exposed on the Coin - all those small metallic squares are programing points / test points. This suggests to me that Coin is still going though some debugging since it's rare to see so many pads still exposed on a shipping product.

Perhaps their tester just couldn't probe the smaller pads/components. In general, any shipping product these days is going to have a significant number of test points, it is just that they are often not explicit.

</comment><comment><USER30> > It doesn't look like there are many other products using the 51822

Actually the nRF51822 is starting to pop up in a lot of products, especially those that use BLE. The BBC Micro Bit will be built around it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Bit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Bit)

<comment><USER31> How's the toolchain support / dev environment for the Nordic parts these days? I remember the "other" popular chips (TI CC2540 and friends) had a gross and expensive requirement on "IAR Workbench".

<comment><USER30> Luckily GCC works great with it as it's an ARM Cortex M0. I use the GCC ARM embedded toolchain here and haven't had issues: [https://launchpad.net/gcc- arm-embedded](https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded) The only gotcha is that you need to sign up with an account on Nordic's site to get access to their SDK and libraries, however I'm pretty sure that's just a formality and it's free to sign up (just can't distribute its firmware source, etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm curious to know whether given proliferation of the NFC alternatives available now like Apple/Google Pay is there a problem that Coin Card addresses which the former don't. Is paying in the restaurants one of those use case or will we see table side point-of-payments in near future which would make it obsolete.

<comment><USER33> For what it's worth, all of my banks have already replaced my credit cards with chip-and-pin capable ones in preparation for October's rebalancing of fraud liability between merchants and banks. I can't imagine merchants will be too keen to accept these Coin cards.

<comment><USER34> Are you sure? I ask because the majority of US card issuers have opted to use chip&signature, not chip&pin cards. In my wallet I only have one chip&pin card (Well Fargo). The rest are chip&signature. Whether or not they send you a PIN is a good indicator of which auth method the card supports.

<comment><USER33> Hmm. Perhaps not... I hadn't heard of chip & signature until your comment. I set the pin online during card activation, and hadn't thought about it closely. So, it obviously must be chip & signature.

Anyway, that doesn't change that you can't clone the chip's contents. Perhaps you could punch the chip out (like a sim) and array a few of them inside a next-gen type of Coin card.

Chip & signature answers the "Amazon laughs at your chip&pin card" loophole I had been sort of half puzzling over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I actually have the Nordic NRF51822 / NRF51 development board and it is super fun to play with. I come from a web dev background so getting into hardware is rough.

The toolchain for building firmware is crazy. It's kind of like in webdev we dynamically generate css through sass and then put it through all these different stages (minification/etc). Except this is all old school Makefiles. Made me cringe a bit.

</comment><comment><USER36> Does cloning your card to a Coin make you liable for fraudulent transactions? I assume it would be against the ToS for most cards to allow cloning.

<comment><USER37> That is what signature is for, isn't it? If bank can't prove it is your signature then it is a fraudulent transaction. Technically cashier/clerk should not accept the transaction if signature doesn't match but I've rarely seen them check it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> can we make eddystone beacon from this chip [http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Bluetooth-4-0-BLE- Bl...](http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Bluetooth-4-0-BLE-Bluetooth- Low-Energy-CC2540-chip-Module-Iphone-4S/417006_819192101.html)

<comment><USER39> feels like it should be possible Eddystone is just a message format Some embedded coding skills will be needed thou

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> My Google Wallet card does the same thing this does.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm amazed that this idea actually caught on in the first place. "Wait, you mean I can put every single source of (non-cash) money in a single card, for a single point of failure? And if it breaks, I'm effectively penniless? WHERE THE FUCK DO I SIGN UP?!"

<comment><USER37> Also imagine it gets stolen, good luck remembering all the cards you had in there and banks you need to call. Payment gateway route, like paypal, gives same convenience and less headaches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Coin is an interesting idea, but I figured [https://www.dynamicsinc.com/](https://www.dynamicsinc.com/) would sue the pants off of them for patent infringement once they went to market. Dynamics CEO is a former patent attorney.

dynamics seemed to have all the pieces in place to do the same thing.</comment>


Microsoft's PhotoDNA: Protecting children and businesses in the cloud - <AUTHOR> http://news.microsoft.com/features/microsofts-photodna-protecting-children-and-businesses-in-the-cloud/

<comment><USER2> Why are Microsoft so restrictive about giving access to this service?

<comment><USER3> Looking at the documentation, it appears that Photo DNA is available as a REST service, once they vet the requester. So you have to set it up on Azure, but it appears that you could run your application on Amazon Web Services (for example).</comment></comment>


FRP in Rust, still a bit early - andrew-lucker https://medium.com/@andrew_subarctic/functional-reactive-programming-in-rust-affebba6ebeb#.mjy56n5s5 <comment><AUTHOR> > The Rust Evangelism Strikeforce tries to convince web programmers to care > about their cult.

<comment> andrew-lucker If Rust ever breaks out of just Servo, I'd be pleasantly amused. Somehow I could never imagine a Node programmer suddenly reaching enlightenment and choosing to take on the burdens of "ownership checking" willingly.

Rustaceans are called that for a reason, and that usually involves some level of PTSD from multithreaded C++ security audits or worse. Pick your poison.

<comment><USER2> We have a lot of Node people successfully using Rust; npm even uses Rust in production these days.

(It's also being used in production outside of Mozilla, last I counted we had over 50 companies on our "Friends of Rust" page.)</comment></comment></comment>


Free or very cheap CRM - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
Does anyone have any recommendations for CRM software that is either free or just a couple hundred bucks. We have very basic needs. For the most part, we're just looking for contact management more than process flow, so that we can get off of excel and shared google docs. Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks! Avi <comment><USER2> Check out iFreeTools CRM : <http://crm.ifreetools.com>

Or you can build a custom CRM app, using iFreeTools Creator : <http://creator.ifreetools.com> .

With iFreeTools Creator, you can either import the entities and attributes which you require from the CRM data-model : <http://code.google.com/p/crm- apps-datamodel/> or define your own data-model too.

// I write code for this app.

</comment><comment><USER3> SugarCRM has a community version that is free to download and install.</comment>


Request PG: Could we please have the black bar out for Steve Jobs? - <AUTHOR> I don't know what to say. It's a heart-numbing moment. <comment><USER2> Looks like pg might be busy trying to keep the site up and running.

<comment><USER3> And yet it's up. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For the unenlightened (or perhaps just me), what do you mean by "have the black bar out"?

<comment><USER5> When a member of the community, or a popular figure in the hacker community passes away, a black bar is put at the top of HN in memory of that person.

<comment><USER4> Ah! Thank you very much. It looks like the black bar is now up there, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks PG.

</comment><comment><USER7> +1

</comment><comment><USER8> +1

</comment><comment><USER9> +1

<comment><USER10> There's a button for that...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'll say what nobody else seems willing to say: I don't think he deserves it. De mortuis nihil nisi bonum and all that, but let's face it: Steve Jobs was a skilled salesman, nothing more.

Let's keep the black bar for people who have actually made a contribution to computing.

Edit: 2 minutes and already voted down to -4. Oh well, I knew this would be an unpopular opinion...

<comment><USER12> I don't see why this is being downvoted. Is it because people disagree? Because that isn't a reason to downvote.

It seems accurate to say that Jobs was a salesman. He didn't design or write any software or hardware that I know of.

<comment><USER13> The downvotes are because his post is highly disrespectful in tone, and frankly ignorant in substance.

It would be just as accurate to call either Einstein or Feynman "just a physics teacher". The title, while technically accurate, fails to fully encompass the magnitude of the work.

<comment><USER14> A closer analogy, for better or worse, might be someone like Carl Sagan.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


United States of Innovation - <AUTHOR> http://unitedstatesinnovation.co/

<comment><USER2> I didn't go through all of their links, but I found their first, the Benjamin Franklin NYT post, quite interesting.</comment>


I could do that in a weekend - <AUTHOR> https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/ <comment><USER2> Note: From 2016.

For those who are interested, here's the discussion of the original post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12626314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12626314)</comment>


Why NPR will have a tough time duplicating its broadcast success online - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/03/24/npr-broadcast-audience-surges

<comment><USER2> True, NPR can't compete in the internet for information, because the internet itself is the source of much of the news they synthesize.

I can also add that what _I_ value most about NPR is hard to translate to a la carte online format. You see, NPR fits into my daily schedule: I'm doing a certain thing when Morning Edition is on, another thing when Diane Rehm or Kojo Namdi is on, yet another thing when it's time for Market Place or Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, or This American Life or All Things Considered.

During those times I'm probably driving, at the office, or doing household chores. NPR on the radio allows me to multitask. NPR on the Internet will have to compete with my work, which is on the computer, my visual entertainment (Hulu, Netflix) which is also on the computer, and also compete with incoming mail and other electronic chores. Allocating an specific time for "NPR" and hearing my news programs out of order at different times isn't just the same.

I listen to NPR when I'm overseas, and my listening schedule mimics the exact broadcast times of WAMU, my local Washington DC NPR affiliate. Morning Edition just doesn't make sense to me after 9AM :-P</comment>


Cool #webperf tools for free |SpeedAwarenessMonth - <AUTHOR> http://www.speedawarenessmonth.com/performance-tools/

<comment><USER2> Awesome stuff</comment>


Current State of Scientific Funding: Research Lab to Venture-Backed Company - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencevest.com/posts/the-current-state-of-scientific-funding-in-america <comment><USER2> Please email firstname.lastname@example.com so we can scold you about what looks like astroturfing and then invite you to repost what looks like a good article.

You definitely don't want this thread to get on the front page; HN users would only complain about all the promotional comments by new accounts.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great project! We should start valuing and throwing money at something more impactful for our future than stupid snapchats and food delivery services.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great article. Crowdfunding can bridge Biotech's Valley of Death. ScienceVest.com is a great site to see this in action

</comment><comment><USER4> Great comment. Crowdfunding can breach Biotech's valley of death. ScienceVest.com is a great site to see this in action

</comment><comment><USER5> I wish you good luck guys ! Can't wait for that in France

</comment><comment><USER6> Great project! I Wish you the success you deserve.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very impressive project!

</comment><comment><USER8> Exceedingly valuable!

</comment><comment><USER9> clear, precise, well-thought... great article!

</comment><comment><USER10> Fantastic article!

</comment><comment><USER11> Awesome project!</comment>


Microsoft quietly rewrites its activation rules for Windows 10 - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-quietly-rewrites-its-activation-rules-for-windows-10/ <comment><USER2> I got burnt by this. My insider edition of Windows 10 refused to upgrade, so I did a clean upgrade, and now I'm stuck with a very limited Windows partition. I'll probably just wipe it -- I only used it for games anyways, and any game I care about is already on Linux or is coming to Linux soon (Witcher 3). I could reinstall my valid edition of XP, but Linux now has better game support than Windows XP.

<comment><USER3> This article came exactly 1 day too late for me - I literally just blew away one of our test machines yesterday morning, only to find I can't activate it unless I re-install Windows 7. To make matters more fun I chucked the Win7 install disk in the trash thinking, I won't need this again!

<comment><USER4> You can download the Windows 7 DVD from Microsoft here [http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software- recovery](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery)

They used to have it on Digital River but it's been removed from there [http://www.howtogeek.com/186775/how-to-download- windows-7-8-...](http://www.howtogeek.com/186775/how-to-download- windows-7-8-and-8.1-installation-media-legally/)

<comment><USER3> awesome, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If activation per device is stored online, what does this mean for VMs? What kind of "device" does a VM look like?

<comment><USER6> I'm wondering the same thing.

Even trickier: on a Mac using VMWare Fusion, you can have a Windows partition that you can both boot into and run as a VM within OS X.

<comment><USER7> You cannot run windows 10 upgrade on a bootcamp machine that you also use as a VM for the moment.

What has been reported to work is to buy Windows 10 license and then you can use the machine on bootcamp as well as via VM.

More details here: [https://communities.vmware.com/thread/516838](https://communities.vmware.com/thread/516838)

<comment><USER8> FWIW I upgraded to windows 10 on my bootcamp partition 100% through vmware fusion using the official win10 iso.

I got the same error you linked until the latest rollup fix (which put my install into a boot loop due to nvidia geforce creating a phantom user but that's a whole different problem).

Once I installed the rollup it gave a different error and then took a day or two for the activation servers to finally work and activate the install. I only run windows natively to play games so it only runs for 2-3 hours at a time.

It took until yesterday to get it all sorted out. I installed win10 within a few hours of the iso going up.

<comment><USER7> That's great news!

Thanks for the heads up.

If possible please also post this at the forum thread that I referred to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The only downside...well _a_ downside to this: I repurposed my Vsphere machine for games. Do you have any idea how long it takes to update 4 year old Windows 7 install media enough that it'll take SP1, IE11 and qualify for the win10 upgrade? (about 350 patches and 6-7 hours)

<comment><USER10> You probably don't need to bother with 'reserving' your copy of W10 via the 'Get Windows 10' app. I've been told a fresh, unpatched install of W7 SP1 will upgrade just fine if you use an ISO.

<comment><USER11> You can download the Microsoft Creation Tool and upgrade that way. It's super easy and only requires the W7. I'm not even sure if SP1 is required.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That last paragraph, if it's correct, answers a question I've had since the new Windows 10 way of doing things became public: If I have a retail copy of Windows 7 and upgrade to 10, will I be able to transfer my license when I eventually upgrade my PC (including motherboard). According to this, the answer is _yes_. So a retail Windows 10 license (which is what you get if you upgrade a retail copy of Windows 7 or 8) is apparently good not just for the life of the device, but for future devices as well. (One at a time, obviously.)

If true, the retail copies sound like a good deal. Especially while you can buy a retail copy of Windows 7 and upgrade it.

<comment><USER13> Keep in mind that the free Windows 7 upgrade period lasts for one year only. So if you upgrade your PC after that period and invalidate your license, you won't be able to reinstall Windows 7 and upgrade to Windows 10 again. You may be able to phone Microsoft and explain the situation though.

<comment><USER14> Exactly, so essentially you do NOT get a Windows 10 Retail licence by doing the upgrade!

You have a Windows 7 Retail licence and what could be called a Windows 10 "OEM" licence. The Windows 7 Retail can be installed to completely changed hardware, but the Windows 10 "OEM" is bound to the hardware you made the upgrade on. After the free upgrade period is over, you can't upgrade some parts of your hardware without buying a real Windows 10 Retail for the full price.

<comment><USER15> That is incorrect. From the EULA [§4(b)], it is clear that upgrades from retail (stand-alone) versions stay retail - and transferable. No exceptions in there about the one-year qualifying period to upgrade your (now-perpetual) Windows licence:

4\. Transfer. The provisions of this section do not apply if you acquired the software as a consumer in Germany or in any of the countries listed on this site (aka.ms/transfer), in which case any transfer of the software to a third party, and the right to use it, must comply with applicable law. a. Software preinstalled on device. If you acquired the software preinstalled on a device (and also if you upgraded from software preinstalled on a device), you may transfer the license to use the software directly to another user, only with the licensed device. The transfer must include the software and, if provided with the device, an authentic Windows label including the product key. Before any permitted transfer, the other party must agree that this agreement applies to the transfer and use of the software. b. Stand-alone software. If you acquired the software as stand-alone software (and also if you upgraded from software you acquired as stand-alone software), you may transfer the software to another device that belongs to you. You may also transfer the software to a device owned by someone else if (i) you are the first licensed user of the software and (ii) the new user agrees to the terms of this agreement. You may use the backup copy we allow you to make or the media that the software came on to transfer the software. Every time you transfer the software to a new device, you must remove the software from the prior device. You may not transfer the software to share licenses between devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So MS would give a unique ID to every device Windows 10 is installed on and track it.

<comment><USER17> Windows 10 is all about tracking, it would seem.

<comment><USER18> Windows 10 is all about being remotely patched and upgraded for the lifetime of the device, never having to install (or pay for) a new "big bang" upgrade, and never being left behind.

Which sounds like a good idea for a billion or so ordinary Windows users. Obviously there are plenty of geeks who will not like the idea of their PCs being remotely managed ;-)

<comment><USER19> Yeah, until a Microsoft update fries millions of computers into an unbootable state.

Search for "windows update" and "blue screen" or "boot loop" or crashing for numerous examples.

If microsoft would actually spend money and time (real time and serious testing, not a few months of continuous integration testing) rather that using that "good enough to release" philosophy, maybe there would be fewer open hanger doors for malware to fly through.

<comment><USER18> Yep, it's a big risk. (See reboot loop.) Nobody has attempted anything that big before....

Otherwise, I don't recall having a Windows Update problem recently -- certainly not this century -- and I haven't seen any malware either.

I'd be willing to bet that the malware problem will be significantly smaller with Microsoft doing the updating than it is at the moment, even though the majority of malware problems on Windows are down to human ignorance.

(I _know_ I can run Windows 7 with no AV at all, and I'm certainly not the only one. I don't recommend it, but I have done it.)

<comment><USER19> Had microsfot paided the least attention to Dvorak back in the 80's, we might have been able to bypass all of those lovely "benefits" (read as "ugliness") that Mr' Gates's tight OS/App integration bestowed upon the DOS world.

I don't let MS do automatic anything on my windows box. I only use that box for a couple of apps, but when I need them, I really need them and can't afford to be blindsided by a box that won't boot.

I pick and choose the updates I apply and only then after they've been out in the wild for a month or so. I'm not going to let microsoft do any alpha/beta QA testing... errr... I meant "automatic updating," on my production box.

<comment><USER18> Dvorak? Are you serious?

Refusing to install essential updates has cost some companies millions of dollars, conficker being just one example. I think it's better to install updates than not, and that someone who did the numbers could probably prove it.

Otherwise, real geeks keep backups that are tested as working. This is what separates the men from the boys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Let me share my upgrade story: I decided to upgrade my kid's computer from Windows 7 to Window 10 and also replace the harddrive with an ssd drive. So I replaced the hard drive and installed the Windows 10 (home) from an ISO. But the windows 10 doesn't recognize the existing Windows 7 (home)product key. So this weekend I will have to put back the old harddrive with Windows 7, upgrade that to Windows 10, and then put the SSD back in and hopefully the Windows 10 on the SSD will recognize my product key.

<comment><USER10> I would take another tac: Install Windows 7 on the SSD and then, transfer over the existing OEM activation[0], then upgrade it to W10, opting not to preserve settings and files.

It will only take marginally longer, and you can preserve the HDD in case it all goes awry

[0] Use ABR beta from [http://directedge.us/content/abr-activation-backup-and- resto...](http://directedge.us/content/abr-activation-backup-and-restore)

<comment><USER21> And this is the point at which I'd just grab a Linux/BSD LiveCD and be done with Windows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The article doesn't mention what I think is more of a problem than activation. It's the ongoing check to see whether Windows is "genuine".[1] This used to be called Windows Genuine Advantage, then renamed to Windows Activation Technologies.

Activating is a one-time thing. Either you succeed or you can try again. But the ongoing check is IMO a serious problem. Basically the software can deactivate itself on a whim (not really, but it's magic unless you understand exactly what's happening).

Does anyone know if this is still enabled? Once Windows is activated does it declare itself "non genuine" unless it's able to phone home? (excluding Win 10 phoning home for spyware reasons, let's not discuss that again).

If so, that's a problem. A Windows computer can degrade its functionality any time it feels like?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advantage#Spyw...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advantage#Spyware_accusations)

</comment><comment><USER23> So how does this work with identically configured VMs?

<comment><USER24> Even identically configured VMs have different MAC addresses, etc (otherwise they'd never be able to communicate via ethernet).

<comment><USER23> Oh that's a good point... but those are usually configurable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't want to install 10 right now, and may not want to switch fully in the next year, but I do want to have a free copy available for the future. How do I go about doing that? Do I need to fully install it on a spare drive, or can I make an install ISO that will still work after the one-year grace period?

I apologize for being obtuse. I'm sure this info is in here somewhere, but I'm not feeling well today and I can't quite wrap my head around it.

</comment><comment><USER26> This new activation process didn't work for me. My Windows 10 upgrade started doing some weird stuff on my work laptop late last week, so I decided to do a full format and re-install. When reinstalling, Windows 10 did not automatically activate (and I couldn't use my old Windows 8 key), so I ended up having to get a separate Windows 10 key from our BizSpark account.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm one of those who experienced (and continue to do so) the useless "Something happened" upgrade failure on my laptop. I wonder what Microsoft are going to do closer to the end of the one year of free upgrades. After all it is their fault I can't upgrade to Windows 10, but unless the upgrade happens I can't get the free upgrade.

<comment><USER28> When do you get the something happened?

It helped me to create a USB installer and start the upgrade from there.

<comment><USER27> After you start the upgrade process running. I am doing it from a USB stick. You can see a screenshot in [http://rogerbinns.com/blog/developers-should- work-in-support...](http://rogerbinns.com/blog/developers-should-work-in- support.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Well, I lost the key I used to install my windows 8 machine - I built it myself, it didn't come with a sticker. I was wondering if there was a way to recover it, but apparently I won't have to bother.

I expect to sell that machine in a couple of months, so it's a better deal for the buyer, than it is for me.

<comment> X-Istence Google Search: Recover Windows Key

Brings you to this page: [http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html](http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html)

It pulls your product key out of the registry for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Microsoft could be found to be sacrificing babies and it wouldn't make a jot of difference to their bottom line.

<comment><USER31> And HN would be filled with Microsoft apologists, saying it was better that the babies were sacrificed by Microsoft, rather than a FOSS equivalent.</comment></comment>


Urgent/11 – Zero Day Vulnerabilities Impacting VxWorks - <AUTHOR> https://armis.com/urgent11/ <comment> java-man Wow, I was going to comment "IoT, the 'S' stands for 'security'", but this is about VxWorks, a battle proven (literally) RTOS.

This illustrates a point that now, in 2019, there is literally no OS designed for security. I mean, security was never a _real_ goal. Even software specifically written to address security requirements could easily have gaping holes (re Heartbleed)...

<comment> java-man I wonder if there is a company that's really interested in developing a secure (by design) operating system. Apart from you-know-who?

<comment><USER2> Take a look at seL4 [1].

That it has never taken off is more evidence that there's no money in securing software, just cleaning up the mess insecure software leaves behind.

1\. [https://sel4.systems/](https://sel4.systems/)

<comment><USER3> Is it true that seL4 has never "taken off"? And might it be too early to tell?

I am under the impression that the people behind seL4 have managed to successfully commercialize earlier other versions of L4 before seL4 was created.

Anyway, even if we grant the premise that seL4 has not taken off, that does not seem to justify saying that there is no money in securing software.

<comment><USER4> seL4 just celebrated its 10th anniversary. seL4 isn't widespread in COTS systems but rather in high assurance government systems as explained in this blog post: [https://microkerneldude.wordpress.com/2019/08/06/10-years- se...](https://microkerneldude.wordpress.com/2019/08/06/10-years-sel4-still- the-best-still-getting-better/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems WindRiver also adding[1] VxWorks support in the Rust language. There should be more efforts into bringing safer and secure languages, toolchains, even OS themselves into IoT, IIoT, and even RTOS worlds.

[1] [https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/61946](https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/pull/61946)

<comment><USER6> Savvy safety oriented developers already have a few options, it is not only about Rust, although it is nice to see it doing progress there.

[https://www.mikroe.com/](https://www.mikroe.com/), Pascal and Basic

[https://www.astrobe.com/default.htm](https://www.astrobe.com/default.htm), Oberon

[https://www.aicas.com/cms/](https://www.aicas.com/cms/), RealTime Java

[https://www.ptc.com](https://www.ptc.com), RealTime Java and Ada

[https://www.ghs.com](https://www.ghs.com), Ada and INTEGRITY RTOS

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The scale of this is baffling! And from what I've seen in the industrial side of things I doubt that everything will be patched anytime soon sadly.

<comment><USER8> On the industrial side all these devices are in completely segregated airgapped networks. Obviously someone could strike havoc via USB, etc., but it's not as bad as it could be.

<comment><USER9> A buck shot approach of mailing malicious USB devices would likely be devastating.

<comment><USER10> Depends on the org. For some companies, you could drop a few USB devices in the parking lot and they'd be toast. Others fill the USB ports on their computers with epoxy.

<comment><USER9> > Others fill the USB ports on their computers with epoxy.

How do you plug in a mouse or keyboard?

<comment><USER10> You plug those in and epoxy them so they can never be removed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Everything old is new again: "WinNuke is an example of a Nuke remote denial- of-service attack (DoS) that affected the Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows NT and Microsoft Windows 3.1x computer operating systems. The exploit sent a string of out-of-band data (OOB data) to the target computer on TCP port 139 (NetBIOS), [...]" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinNuke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinNuke)

<comment><USER12> We used to win nuke the computer labs in high school after playing the first 15 seconds of blur song2. It got to the point where just playing the song would cause Ethernet dongles across the room to get ripped right out of laptops. Ahh the old days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Completely random aside, but the site's scrolling is horrible. Clicking near the edge randomly starts scrolling when the bar isn't visible and I can't middle click and drag to scroll the page at all.

</comment><comment><USER14> Not at all surprised.

Busy kitting out my place with (consumer - jikes) IoT...and basically just connecting the stuff long enough to get it online via Home Assistant.

...next step...firewall all the IOT IPs. Once they're connected to Home Assistant they don't need internet access.

<comment><USER15> Just don't use a NetApp or Sonicwall firewall...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Off topic:

Why are web developers constantly reimplementing native browser functionality? This site for instance has their own scroll implementation that's laggy, adds unwanted smoothing, and of course has _less_ functionality (middle-click scrolling doesn't work, nor does autoscrolling). Fortunately I can get the native implementation by disabling scripts, but I've seen sites that are `overflow: hidden` so you're forced to use their scrolling logic.

<comment><USER17> Project managers/product designers that don't understand their problem domain paired with developers that won't say no.

There's a couple extensions that are supposed to target and disable this behavior, but I've found them flakey at best.

<comment><USER18> aren't you forgetting the 'developers' who want to be 'cool' in this equation?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> vxworks ... have you ever tried to implement something with that ugly hack? -- and seen how nice it can be with other, proper operating systems?

as many already said: not at all surprised.

<comment><USER20> Yes, I have. And why do you call it an ugly hack? For what it does, it does it quite well. If that's what you need, then it's a very nice system. If you need something else, use something else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> There's a reason it's often referred to as "Internet of Shit". I highly doubt anything is going to change until someone figures out how to use an internet- connected power outlet to burn down a house. It's going to be a decade-removed version of the wireless router issue: huge botnets will go on for years and years and maybe eventually manufacturers will slowly close security holes and institute better practices. Even that I doubt, since routers are made by a handful of major companies and IoT devices are made by hundreds of fly-by- night outfits who're likely to be out of business in five years.

<comment><USER22> VxWorks is a serious, long term player in the embedded space. This is the operating system you'll find on the moon. Not really related to the fly-by- night internet of shit.

<comment><USER21> Indeed they are, but I refer to the legions of no-name products that make up much of the consumer industry. Smart lightbulbs, power outlets, rain meters, etc. The original headline was much less specific before it was edited.</comment></comment></comment>