81-year-old man driven to death by phone scammers - <AUTHOR> http://q13fox.com/2015/10/07/81-year-old-man-driven-to-death-by-phone-scammers/ <comment><USER2> Once the relatives get wind of this, there is a simple solution. Get a _new phone number_ for the person in question. And even more critical _don 't cancel the old one_.

Put an answering machine on the old one, and have a "safe" relative check it every other day or so. Give the new phone number to family and friends.

After a few weeks of getting nothing but answering machine messages, the scammers will go away.

If the old number has been cancelled, the scammers know you're on to them. And look for the new number. If the old number still works, they won't look for a new number. Mostly.

<comment><USER3> > Once the relatives get wind of this, there is a simple solution. Get a new > phone number for the person in question. And even more critical don't cancel > the old one.

Or an even better idea - transfer the number to a reputable VOIP provider and setup the number so that it rejects calls from all numbers except for the ones you specify. Your loved ones can still call but any other scammer would get a busy signal or whatever you specify as the destination. You could even direct unknown calls to you (you can setup a time condition) - and that would give you the ability to add that number to the whitelist if it was a legit caller.

Added benefit - the service will be vastly cheaper.

> If the old number has been cancelled, the scammers know you're on to them.

I can guarantee you that they don't care if you are "on to them". They just stop calling because no one is picking up the line.

<comment><USER4> We could build this with Twilio.

<comment><USER3> No offense but I didn't mention a specific VOIP provider on purpose.

However, callcentric already has it built and much easier to understand than twilio. I'm not saying that service is bad - but the average person doesn't know what API, cloud, or SIP means (or care). Callcentric makes it pretty obvious what their service is and provides and how to use it.

<comment><USER4> I specifically mentioned Twilio because anyone can build a custom solution to address this problem.

Someone already has done this (with Twilio) to win the FTCs RoboCall Challenge: [https://www.twilio.com/blog/2013/04/twilio-powered- nomorobo-...](https://www.twilio.com/blog/2013/04/twilio-powered-nomorobo- wins-ftc-robocall-challenge.html)

I also like Twilio ;)

<comment><USER3> > There are no infrastructure changes, or hardware required. This was one of > FTC's guidelines for the contest.

> Unfortunately, Nomorobo is not available on traditional analog landlines or > wireless phones at this time.

Sounds like he failed the challenge...

I don't think his idea is revolutionary - one could setup Asterisk to do what he did.

<comment><USER5> One is welcome to ship an Asterisk implementation of it any time one feels like doing so. One has not shipped an Asterisk implementation. One may underestimate to which degree ideas, revolutionary or otherwise, are improved by actually shipping concrete instantiations of them which actually work.

Incidentally: NoMoRobo gains some utility specifically because Twilio exists. A trivial example: phone numbers have a history to them. Most customers of Twilio want to buy phone numbers with a relatively clean history, i.e., ones that were not widely distributed prior to their life with that customer, to avoid misdirected calls or e.g. reputational issues. NoMoRobo wants precisely the opposite -- they literally ask Twilio to provision them with phone numbers which are otherwise unsaleable to customers, for example because those numbers are actively getting spammed to death. (Twilio has an entire team of people whose job is telephone number quality. Things you wouldn't have guessed existed in the world, right?)

This works great for NoMoRobo's use case, because a phone number getting spammed to death is perfect for them -- it lets them cheaply capture a lot of phone numbers which one has a high confidence are spam rather than ham.

<comment><USER6> Fun/rude anecdote: We (a VoIP provider) once got a number that was getting 250K calls every week. Not because telemarketers were calling it, but because that ID was being usd to make a lot of outbound calls. So people would call back, upset, trying to figure stuff out. We dumped the number (no sense paying for all that traffic), but not before shunting it into a conference call (and playing a message telling them so).

It was rather interesting to see how people reacted together. One person would call in, angry, another person would call in, soon there'd be 4 people all yelling at each other "Well _you_ called _me_!" "No I didn't!" "Now listen here, I think maybe the wires are crossed" and on and on. Sometimes they'd gang up together and try to sort problems out, but often it'd just degenerate into name calling.

Anyways, it's sad that NoMoRobo exists. The FCC could trivially put an end to scam calls, robo-dialing, etc., with a couple days of drafting a new regulation, and then a few months to implement it. Source: I've handled billions of calls, much of which were dialer traffic. I've worked on both sides (trying to block traffic, trying to get upstreams to take traffic).

<comment><USER4> > with a couple days of drafting a new regulation, and then a few months to > implement it.

How would they enforce the regulations though without NSA style SS7 taps throughout US telcom network infrastructure?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My 85 year old grandfather didn't commit suicide, but he was taken for every penny of his meager life savings by the Jamaican lottery scam. My dad discovered what was going on, called the police, but was told there was nothing they could do. My grandfather firmly believed and probably still does that he had won the lottery and was just waiting for a payout. We basically had to revoke his phone privileges to keep him from giving them more money, because he was so convinced. He does't have Alzheimer's or dementia. The scammers are just very convincing.

<comment><USER8> I really think there is some other maybe even unidentified kind of mental issue going on with this kind of scam. I say that because I know of some people who are locked into the Iraqi dinar scam and simply cannot see what is going on in spite of being otherwise ostensibly smart and intelligent people. Maybe it's "greed" , but it seems to me that it's more of a vulnerability due to hopes and dreams not matching topic sophistication.

<comment><USER9> I don't think it's greed. I think it's hope. Most of the people I know who fall for these scams are not any dumber or greedier than other people I know. They do seem to be much more optimistic and positive though.

Think if this same person has late stage cancer and believed they were gonna make it despite all odds it would be an inspiring lifetime movie. But unfortunately I think these are the same people who also believe that a Nigerian prince needs them to transfer some money before they will be handsomely rewarded against all odds.

<comment><USER7> I agree. In my grandfather's case, he was keeping this all a secret because he wanted to surprise his family with financial help from his "windfall." Something I think he always wished he could do, but never had the money to do.

<comment><USER10> Man, that's incredibly heartbreaking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In Indonesia, a particular scam is calling people (esp. parents) very early in the morning, when people are still sleeping, "We're cops. Your son/daughter is arrested for drugs possession. Send us lots of money NOW or we'll send him/her to jail." followed by what sounds like someone crying in the background.

Since you're barely awake, and your son/daughter is indeed away (eg. on night shift or staying with friends), and the fact that some cops _are_ corrupt, and _somehow_ you can't call (busy line) your son/daughter to verify, make people fall prey to this scam.

The interesting part is: how do they know the _relationship_ of the victims, and the location (i.e away from home) at that point in time, considering the scammers are sometimes from different island?

<comment><USER12> _" how do they know the relationship of the victims"_

Probably they don't. If the victim says "but I don't have a son" they just hang-up. Scattershot approach, not targeted.

<comment><USER13> or start with "your child has been arrested" when they say "what Mary Lou?" you respond with "yes we have your daughter".

<comment><USER14> At which point you can relax, because you have a boy called Josh.

<comment><USER15> If you have enough on the ball to do something like that, instead of operating on pure emotion, you're not going to fall for a lot of these scams anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just a heads up, this is a CNN wire story. The original, properly attributed to Wayne Drash, is here: [http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/us/jamaica-lottery- scam-suicid...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/us/jamaica-lottery-scam- suicide/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Here's what I did to stop various scammers calling, I talked to them endlessly. They seem to almost never hang up, they'll just keep going and going. So I was bored one day and decided to see how the scam played out:

[http://41j.com/blog/2015/08/phonecall-from-a- scammer/](http://41j.com/blog/2015/08/phonecall-from-a-scammer/)

They did call again, I picked them up on the fact that it was a scam and asked them how they justify their actions to themselves and ask questions about how the scam works. I'll see how it goes but I seem to have got myself on some kind of blacklist as nobody has called in a month (used to get some kind of scam call at least one a week). It's unfortunate that wasting their time is the most effective defense I can think of.

<comment><USER12> I once kept a "Microsoft tech support" scammer [1] on the phone for over 30 minutes while I pretended to download and install some bit of malware he was trying to foist on me. When he finally realised what I was doing, I owned-up and politely asked why he was trying to rob me. He gave a loud scream of what sounded like pure frustration and hung up. I was laughing so hard I almost passed-out.

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

<comment><USER18> I was under the impression that many times, the "scammer" is not even aware that they are in a scam. They're a contractor following a script. But I just did a search and I can't find the article (maybe from wired) where they talked about that.

<comment><USER12> This one? [http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-04/11/malwarebytes](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-04/11/malwarebytes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The lessons is not to "be wary of scammers" or "hack your phone"... That's totally missing the crux of the scam.

The lesson is that, as you approach old age, and if at all possible, you should give a trusted relative or close friend a durable power of attorney over your finances. In addition, (or as a second best), put your money in an irrevocable living trust assigning yourself as a beneficiary, and laying out strict rules for retrieving money.

<comment><USER20> The problem is that many senior citizens, especially men, will fight tooth and nail against this. They have a self-image problem. They can not see themselves as frail and vulnerable.

I lived through this with first my grandfather, then my grandmother.

<comment><USER21> Indeed. And it's absolutely understandable. Our seniors have been productive members of society for long decades, and as they reach their old age they suddenly find themselves not needed by anyone - the society doesn't want their services, their sons and daughters have already started their families and have little time for parents. No surprise they'll fight tooth and nail to keep the last bits that make them feel human - holding responsibility for their own actions, managing their own resources.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone know what happens to the people when they get old, so they become gullible? Is there some physiological mechanism, or is it just that older people are less sophisticated about those issues?

<comment><USER23> "Wizard's First Rule: people are stupid."

Richard and Kahlan frowned even more. "People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool. "Because of Wizards First Rule, the old wizards created Confessors, and Seekers, as a means of helping find the truth, when the truth is important enough. Darken Rahl knows the Wizard's Rules. He is using the first one. People need an enemy to feel a sense of purpose. It's easy to lead people when they have a sense of purpose. Sense of purpose is more important by far than the truth. In fact, truth has no bearing in this. Darken Rahl is providing them with an enemy, other than himself, a sense of purpose. People are stupid; they want to believe, so they do."

— Chapter 36, p.560, U.S. paperback edition of Terry Goodkind's awesome book with the same title.

<comment><USER24> That's an offensively trite and simplified viewpoint on a very complicated and heartbreaking topic.

<comment><USER25> I made the mistake of reading this book once: the rest of it is similarly awful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >" _targets nearly 300,000 Americans a year, most of them elderly, and has enticed them to send an estimated $300 million annually_ "

In this case, the scammers took advantage of an elderly man, inflicted with Alzheimer's and diminishing mental capacity. Sad.

But that can't be the case for the majority. How on earth do "normal" people fall for this? I can see, _maybe_ , when the internet was young and this was new. But it's a pop culture joke now. Those numbers are staggering.

<comment><USER27> Why do people fall for the "work for a startup and get rich" scam?

<comment><USER28> Probably because some people get rich. Also, many people appropriately view the options as a lottery ticket and just like to be in a company building something new.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't understand why Western Union et al aren't being held accountable, at the very least in the form of a class action lawsuit. It seems that either the money transmitters aren't obeying the "Know Your Customer" laws (are they somehow exempt?), or they are knowingly allowing people to be victims of fraud to increase their profit.

Making it much harder to transfer money anonymously seems both helpful in these cases, and lucrative for lawyers.

<comment><USER5> Western Union is not exempt from KYC requirements. Most agents of it, however, sound something like "the owner of your local bodega." They'll satisfy themselves of your identity, either via personal knowledge or asking to see an ID. They'll then ring up your transfer. The person on the other end of the transfer is "Some person in Jamaica." That doesn't automatically scream FRAUD unless you say "Lottery" \-- the overwhelming majority of Americans wiring money to someone in Jamaica are, in fact, supporting family or friends there.

Fraudsters also tend to get pretty decent about instructing their marks to structure payments to avoid the obvious controls, for example by using mules [+] or by striping a $5,000 transfer into multiple smaller transfers on different days to different recipients controlled by the same operation. This is explained to the mark as something like "Oh, different tax bureau than last time" but it's operationally to avoid having velocity checks tripped at WU.

[ + ] Witting or unwitting co-conspirators who receive money in their own name and then forward it to the criminals, often for a cut of the profits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> There is a solution to this problem.

1\. Change the phone number system to require 207 digit phone numbers instead of the current 10 digits.

2\. Assign random phone numbers to everybody.

Now the only people who can call you are the people who know you. You have to actively share your number with people. If people call random numbers they will get "not in service" messages all day long.

We have 20 years of experience with NEW communication systems with NEW addressing systems where people can't connect without knowing your email address or IM handle. It can be done, i.e. it is workable to require people to share contact info before you can communicate. People will find a way.

<comment><USER20> They are not calling "random" numbers. They are buying lead lists from telemarketing firms. I would bet they may even have demographic data on the people they are calling to be sure they are dialing susceptible people (the elderly).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I used to get calls like this on my work phone when I was working as a mechanic. The scammer would tell me to send him money with some sort of green dot card or something. He kept saying once I send it I will be enjoying financial freedom. I don't think they specifically target old people, maybe just people that are more likely to jump at opportunities before they process how ludicrous they are. I was in a blue-collar environment, maybe that was part of it, though I'm not sure how they would have known that.

</comment><comment><USER32> Well a close relative of mine recently got tricked by a phone scammer who claimed to be from Microsoft. They did the virus alert scam, claiming CRSS.EXE was a virulent virus and needed immediate attention. Hence, they request to connect, using TeamViewer and promptly change his windows account name to a phone number (CALL-XXX-XXX-XXXX) and put a password on it. They immediately disconnect.

Fix, 300+ for two years protection or 400 or so for three years. Needless to say fixing a password locked Windows computer is beyond the majority out there. Apparently its pretty common to declare themselves from Dell, Microsoft, or similar.

The modern day roofers, driveway sealers, and such.

on a side note, who do you report these guys too?

<comment> slipstream- Low-tech winlocker ransomware! That's interesting. Never heard of that being done before by fake tech support scammers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Someone called my grandma when she was still alive and tried to convince her that I was in trouble with some bad people or in jail or something. They were really well researched and convincing. I wasn't in either of those situations. It's insane that people prey on the elderly since it's not like most of them work at all and need the money to live.

<comment><USER34> Lions rarely go after the strongest, sharpest, healthiest gazelle. Why it should be any different in the human realm?

What we need is not stop denying there are populations at risk from the overwhelming disclosure of private information into the public, and start taking measures to educate the most vulnerable people, and if need be, isolate them from the (public?) online world. I know walled gardens are taboo, but they did make - and continue to make - a lot of sense once the Internet began to fill with lay (as in, not part of the technorati) people.

<comment><USER21> As a society we also need to start doing something more against it. Blanket ban on telemarketing and _very_ high sentences for confirmed scammers would not be uncalled for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> [https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+tech+support](https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+tech+support)

Google still takes ads from iYogi. If you call iYogi they will try to scam you, over and over again. This has been going on for years. Has no one complained to Google about this? What about Apple, aren't they concerned about their brand being tarnished over unwitting seniors typing "Apple tech support" into their browsers and running into a tech support scam?

<comment><USER36> I don't seem to get any iYogi ads - could you share a screenshot and I'll share it with the bad ads people?

<comment><USER35> Here you go. [https://www.dropbox.com/s/8i7t0bci8w7z80c/iyogi.PNG?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/8i7t0bci8w7z80c/iyogi.PNG?dl=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> In a documentary, I saw lately (in Europe), one person did not kill himself, but did loss weight and was sent to hospital for inquiry, but nobody did find out what was wrong ... after he died, they found out, that he simply did not have the money to buy food and was so ashamed, that he did not tell anybody.

It was a different scam, where the victims where enrolled in regular lottery gambling (with a monthly rate) and the twist was, that when they found a victim, it was enrolled in more and more games (every game costing maybe $50-100) which where just automatically drawn from his bank account. Even when the victims objected ... the letters where simply not read by anybody.

</comment><comment><USER38> In the UK, it's charities that hound people to suicide: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- bristol-32748923](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-32748923)

</comment><comment><USER39> My father, from whom I'm mostly estranged and who doesn't live in the same country as I, has given over $100K to Nigerian scammers. They hooked him on a Christian dating site. It's incredibly angering to watch all of this.

</comment><comment><USER23> Sad sad story. The first thing i'd would do is to change the phone to a voip system where i could control which numbers are allowed to call.

</comment><comment><USER40> Stories like this are why I support capital punishment for crimes beyond murder (at a higher burden of proof than "beyond a reasonable doubt").

I'd like to see these scammers hanged on national TV without hoods over their faces.

</comment><comment><USER41> Just for their case in particular...Can't they block phone numbers from certain area codes? Or even request a new number and have it private? It seems strange that they can't do anything about 50+ calls a day.

</comment><comment><USER42> Anybody have a solution for endless calls to a cell phone with a myriad of "google registry" or "small business whatever" scams? The calls started right around when I switched from being a Sprint customer to a Verizon pre-paid customer, but I can't definitively say Verizon sold my number. I ignore and block every call, but I receive anywhere from one to three calls a day.

Switching numbers isn't really an option I want to explore since I'm unconvinced it wouldn't just start on my new number if my carrier was the origin of the calls.

<comment><USER43> I started getting those after creating an LLC. I've tried to screw with them but they seem pretty good at sniffing that out and they just hang up whenever I tell them I "need to go find some paperwork" and leave the phone muted on my desk.

I also started getting letters that look like bills for my LLC but are actually just junk mail for SEO services. Those ones really pissed me off. Looks just like an invoice with "This is not a bill" in tiny font at the bottom.

<comment><USER44> I think this should be actionable offense. But its been going on for years in one form or another. Used to get a big ad packet from a local dept store - with the bill mixed into the middle. They were hoping I wouldn't notice, and my balance would roll over so I'd pay charges. Instead I took the reply envelope, put my check in and stuffed it full of the ads too.

<comment><USER43> It wasn't an _actual_ bill, it was an SEO guy trying to trick me into thinking I'd already hired him for my new company by sending me something that looked like an invoice for services rendered.

Whoever sent it is still an asshole though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> V-2 _" The Jamaican lottery scam is a cruel, persistent and sophisticated scam that has victimized seniors throughout the nation"_

What's so sophisticated about it? Honest question. Seems like the oldest trick in the book, as primitive and crude as scams only get. One that couldn't possibly work against anyone but most senile people. It's a sad story, I'm just missing the "sophistication" element.

<comment><USER45> The sophisticated part is getting the phone numbers of old people to begin the scam and then laundering the money at the end.

<comment> V-2 As far as I know these can be simply bought on black market... it's not like these scammers get them by themselves, hacking into databases etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I don't understand why his son or someone couldn't change his landline number. It is heartbreaking to see old people being bullied like this.

</comment><comment><USER47> There was a great TV show from Belgium called Neveneffecten a few years ago. One of the things they did was take the bait of email spam scammers. One of the scam gangs arranged an in-person meet in Belgium and tried to convince them to take a plane to Nigeria with a large sum of cash to buy gold. I don't know what the gang's plan was, but I doubt they would get a warm welcome in Nigeria.

</comment><comment><USER48> There's a delightful website that showcases the work of so-called "scam baiters" who aim to waste the time of scammers and lead them into compromising situations -- [http://www.419eater.com/html/letters.htm](http://www.419eater.com/html/letters.htm)

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra It's kind of depressing that they wage war on drugs, and then they try to put journalists in jail for nonexistent hacking, but they are incapable of going after phone scammers. I don't think they ever try.

If I would say I expect real protection from police & court, I'll get laughed at these days.

<comment><USER49> [https://www.google.com/search?q=phone+scam+sentencing](https://www.google.com/search?q=phone+scam+sentencing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Since the NSA is by default monitoring calls, I wonder why they cant do anything about this? (:p)

<comment><USER51> With all the data they have and considering the degree to which they have violated our privacy, it's a shame they do so little with it.

<comment><USER45> And they are calls from foreigners, to boot. They may not even need to ask the secret courts for permission to record those.

Even the metadata, which they definitely collect, would be very useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Similar things happen in China every day. Government, police, banks warn people many times, but there are still some people believing they will win a lot of money. They forget "No pay, no gain".

<comment><USER53> In Japan they've gone so far as to install phone jammers at ATMs to aid against the scam that's common here where people will call elderly people claiming to be their sons saying they need money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Wouldn't all this be effectively prevented with either blacklisting all numbers outside the US or a whitelist on the elderly person's phone?

</comment><comment><USER51> Interesting that a lot of data was stolen by call centre workers. Shows one of the perils of outsourcing abroad to incredibly impoverished countries.

<comment><USER55> The course for cost lowering is crossing lots of diminishing return points nowadays.</comment></comment>


Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system - <AUTHOR> https://www.qubes-os.org/ <comment><USER2> Joanna's (Qubes OS Founder) blog [1] is a gold mine when it comes to hardware- software boundary security. Especially "State considered harmful" [2] and "x86 considered harmful" [3] papers are eye-openers.

[1] [https://blog.invisiblethings.org/](https://blog.invisiblethings.org/)

[2] [https://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/state_harmful.p...](https://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/state_harmful.pdf)

[3] [https://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/x86_harmful.pdf](https://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/x86_harmful.pdf)

<comment><USER3> That's why I don't get Qubes. She knows what a steaming pile PC hardware is, and decides to write a spinoff OS for it???

Seems like she'd have more effect designing hardware.

<comment><USER4> I believe I remember reading she aims at solving the issue of hardware and software vulnerabilities. I can't find the source, but she mentions that there's too much code out there that it would be impossible to secure everything.

Qubes' design means hardware and software are all separated so a vulnerability in one doesn't mean exposing another.

I like that in their docs they mention an approach they take and when it isn't secure[0]

That being said the main point of security contention is the admin (dom0).

[0]: [https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/copy-paste/](https://www.qubes- os.org/doc/copy-paste/)

<comment><USER3> But those two things are not independent. If your hardware is fundamentally broken, hypervisors can only paper over so much.

Between the twilight of Moore's law, and the success of open-source software, I just don't see that much long-term value left in x86+PC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm very excited that Microsoft is moving in the same direction. The feature Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG) runs Windows applications, right now only the Edge browser, in a virtualization isolated container[1]. Under the hood it's using what Microsoft calls "Hyper-V Containers", which are lightweight virtual machines that share some host resources such as a read- only filesystem. The closest open source analogues to that are Intel(R) Clear Containers[2] and Qubes.

The closest you can get to Qubes on Windows would be to follow Microsoft's Privileged Access Workstation (PAW) guide, but it requires a lot of additional infrastructure[3]. That infrastructure allows you to do remote attestation of the virtual machines, but makes it costly to deploy in a SMB or homelab environment.

I don't expect it'll be very long before PAW and WDAG are usable at the same time, with colored window borders indicating the origin virtual machine. I hope this is on Microsoft's roadmap.

Video on privileged access workstation use, starting at a demo: [https://youtu.be/3v8yQz2GWZw?t=41m48s](https://youtu.be/3v8yQz2GWZw?t=41m48s)

Video on privileged access workstation setup: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPhfRTLXk_k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPhfRTLXk_k)

[1] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/threat- protection/w...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/threat- protection/windows-defender-application-guard/wd-app-guard-overview)

[2] [https://clearlinux.org/features/intel®-clear- containers](https://clearlinux.org/features/intel®-clear-containers)

[3] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows- server/identity/sec...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows- server/identity/securing-privileged-access/privileged-access-workstations)

<comment><USER6> I'm only half-excited about this because I worry Microsoft has no intention to do either one of these:

1) Support anything other than Edge/its own apps

2) Allow the feature to be accessed by users of all Windows editions

I understand for now it's still experimental and whatnot, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I'd really love to see is a marriage between NixOS and Qubes, allowing for full-system declarative configuration, including the various systems which will be running under Qubes.

NixOS has containers that show how this could work, but they're only via systemd-nspawn, so not as jailed as Qube's domUs.

<comment><USER8> Me, I'd like to see such a marriage between NixOS and GenodeOS (which provides capabilities management and has the advantage of using a microkernel as base, so much smaller attack surface, aka TSB, than Xen + Linux)

[http://www.genode.org/about/index](http://www.genode.org/about/index)

<comment><USER9> Genode now has its own package management system with the 17.05 and 17.08 releases, informed/inspired by the work from Genode/Nix (linked in the other comment).

This means you can run Genode on NOVA with VirtualBox 5 fully integrated as the VMM, all with the improved Noux/POSIX interop components in place, and have a decent package management solution (that handles API compatibilities, multiple version installs, src vs binary deps, packages, and more). There's also Xen support with the most recent release (for cloud appliance work with Genode)

What's more, based on the roadmap and challenges, they should be bringing VirtualBox5 support to the seL4 kernel, and they even have a goal for being the virtualization foundation of QubesOS. [https://genode.org/about/challenges](https://genode.org/about/challenges)

With the recent toolchain update and new package management system, its easier than ever to cook up your own Genode-based systems.

<comment><USER8> Interesting, thanks for the info! Though from the article about the system ([https://genode.org/documentation/developer- resources/package...](https://genode.org/documentation/developer- resources/package_management)), it's not clear to me how to:

a) tweak compilation flags of libraries & apps

b) describe full set of runtime config files of an app

and thus build a single full configuration of a whole system, like in NixOS.

Hm; or can this maybe somehow be solved with the "run scripts" mentioned at the end of the article? I'm even less than a noob with regards to Genode, so I'm not sure about that.

Or does the package manager only provide Nix-like functionality, with no way for NixOS-like features?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been running Qubes 3.2 for about 10 months on a intel skull canyon nuc. I love it.

I have separate vms for media and browsing, for music (spotify), development (python, rust), skype, personal email, work email and password manager.

It needs 16gb of ram to be able to run all of these at once and about 150gb of disk if you actually create separate template vms.

My only real pain was coping and pasting between all of these vms (you need to ctrl+c then ctrl+shift+c for copy and the ctrl+shift+v, ctrl+v for paste [1])

I solved that with a custom solution that automatically distributes the clipboard contents (for text only) to multiple vms (depending on the source of the clipboard change). I know it defeats the purpose of isolation for the clipboard but it's ok for my use case.

[1] [https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/copy-paste/](https://www.qubes- os.org/doc/copy-paste/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I ran Qubes on a laptop for a while. 1) It's a huge battery hog. 2) It's a real pain to run a non rolling release distro (i.e. Arch). Some dependency is going to try and upgrade itself that can't and it will brick your whole distro. Even being locked to a specific release proved a bit of a pain. It just adds a lot of complexity to your day to day operations (i.e. opening a program is a tiny bit more complicated) that turned out to be a huge drain for me.

<comment><USER12> Running an HVM with a separate kernel should alleviate those problems. Qubes is phasing out PV support anyway.

I encounter an equal amount of complexity in my KVM workstation as I did in my Qubes workstation, and _more_ problems.

For example, lack of a secure copy/paste mechanism, meaning I must type passwords by hand to avoid every VM being exposed to the clipboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Their weakest point is the hypervisor, Xen, which while a better choice than Linux/KVM, is still extremely bloated and has a poor security history.

Thankfully, better designs such as seL4's VMM do exist, although it might need a little more work [1] until usable for the purpose.

[1] [https://sel4.systems/Info/Roadmap/](https://sel4.systems/Info/Roadmap/)

<comment><USER14> Xen's hypervisor's size is very small. Qubes is about security and trustability of the whole system. In operating systems for measuring the trustability of the system, one very important measure is the lines of the code. Xen has a smaller footprint in the hypervisor part. Additionally, Xen has a robust model isolation for the drivers. That's why they went for Xen not KVM. But boy I wish to see more seL4. It was sad to see Gnu Hurd/seL4 didn't make it.

<comment><USER15> The problem with Xen is that no major industry player is backing it, especially with Amazon going KVM now.

(disclaimer: working at Google on virtualization security)

<comment><USER16> Any chance Google will sponsor secure processor architecture standards?

I mean, the US government no doubt had influence on the Trusted Computing Group (too bad the EFF totally shunned it), and through the magic of product binning and chip fab costs, we all have trusted platform modules.

ASLR currently seems wimpy.

I'm certain you are in a position to accomplish a great deal, no matter where you are in the hierarchy. Maybe the future is x86 hardware emulation for user mode processes.

<comment><USER17> It's Intel pushing that stuff forward, with SGX.

<comment><USER16> Then from recent Defcon and Black Hat talks, they are an absymal failure. ( [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR0nh- TdpVg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR0nh-TdpVg) Memory Sinkhole - Unleashing An X86 Design Flaw Allowing Universal Privilege Escalation ) (I don't understand it beyond what everyone says it can achieve)

Intel should be considered to be totally unreliable and incompetent.

I mean, no one buys office store safes and expects their things to be secure in them. But a processor is a little more expensive than a cheap safe and holds more valuable things.

Edit: and besides, Fortezza is an SSL protocol option.

<comment><USER16> >SGX is designed to shield software against SMM exploits.

Perhaps if we add one more thing, x86 will finally be secure. You are right, Intel should be left to their own devices.

<comment><USER17> I'm not arguing that x86 will ever really be secure. However you handwaved a hypothetical "secure processor architecture". Realistically the way you do that is by making a very simple CPU, however, that would then be too slow to be usable for many applications. As a consequence nobody is doing so.

SGX is at least a middle ground - it integrates the memory access checks very deep into the memory access circuitry, sufficiently deep to block all other privilege levels on the CPU. Whilst there may well be implementation flaws in SGX itself so far most attacks have been mounted via side channels, not directly exploiting CPU bugs.

In this sense my original statement was correct. Intel is pushing secure CPUs forward more than any other vendor.

<comment><USER16> I think a secure processor is very complex, not very simple. The smartest person's working memory cannot operate on more than a few hundred lines of code. A high performance processor that induces a fault when a programming error occurs is certainly very complex.

It is the wrong sense. Intel is playing catchup more than any other vendor and are selling a product that is nothing more than a bunch of cobbled together features, my opinion in the view of the statement that AMD is glued together.

<comment><USER18> They're actually pretty simple if you're mostly trying to defeat software/firmware attacks. You just add some part to run in parallel with the processor, which can be arbitrarily simple or complex, that checks certain things about the data such as length or data type. The first one was implemented in 1961 hardware with it being secure from code injection until the invention of ROP. That's a long time. I'll add a modern take on that which led to a flexible mechanism that can do a dozen or maybe more policies.

[http://www.smecc.org/The%20Architecture%20%20of%20the%20Burr...](http://www.smecc.org/The%20Architecture%20%20of%20the%20Burroughs%20B-5000.htm)

[http://www.crash-safe.org/papers.html](http://www.crash-safe.org/papers.html)

A more complex one is below that was also designed by one person for his dissertation. Knocks out all kinds of issues without modifying the processor. It has stuff to improve for sure but it think it proves the point pretty well. The stuff corporate teams were designing comes nowhere near this because they don't know much about high-security design. A critical part of that isn't features so much as a balancing act between what protection mechanisms do and don't that tries to minimize complexity to low as is possible.

[https://theses.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-10112006-2048...](https://theses.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-10112006-204811/unrestricted/edmison_joshua_dissertation.pdf)

And one open-source one on MIPS for capability-based security that runs FreeBSD:

[https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/cheri/)

A company or group of hardware volunteers could develop this into something at least as usable as a multi-core ARM CPU on RISC-V or OpenSPARC. It wouldn't take tons of money esp if they worked their way up in complexity. The hard stuff is already done. People just need to apply it. They could even pay these academics to do it for them with open-sourced results. They even get a huge discount on the EDA tools that can be six digits a seat.

You're right that Intel is screwing up and playing catchup cobbling together features. There was stuff in the available literature better than most of what they're doing. They even have a separation kernel from Wind River they're not employing. Managers without security expertise must be pushing a lot of this stuff.

<comment><USER19> Ain't no problem that couldn't be solved by adding another layer of indirection, eh?

<comment><USER18> Maybe in web or application software. In hardware, it all runs in parallel. The mechanism of something like SAFE becomes another component receiving input in the CPU pipeline. A conditional of sorts is added so the final write back to whatever memory doesn't happen unless the safety/security checks passed. The failure mode might also do an interrupt for OS so it could log the where and why of the failure. As in, application flaws could be patched quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Note that while Qubes OS uses full-disk encryption, it runs on Xen, which does not support hibernate.

This means that, if you use this OS on a laptop, you'll be vulnerable to cold- boot attacks, even after you close your lid, unless you configure it to shutdown on lid close. (I.e., if a highly skilled adversary steals your laptop then, even if your laptop lid is closed, they will be able to read your RAM and therefore decrypt your entire hard drive.)

Despite the major security implications, it doesn't sound like a fix will be implemented any time soon. [1]

[1] [https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes- issues/issues/2414](https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/2414)

<comment><USER21> If a highly skilled thief wants to break into my house they could jimmy the latch on the window and let themselves in.

I don't have any bars on my windows to prevent that.

You need to draw the line somewhere.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, I'd say it depend on if you're a normal user or Edward Snowden. Do you have really sensitive data that could cost you your life? Then you have to worry about these edge cases. Are you a normal guy who wants to browse for porn safely, then this is already pretty good privacy.

<comment><USER20> Do you consider your credit card number sensitive? Your username and passwords to all of your, bank accounts, social media accounts, and email accounts? Your personal photos? Your personal notes with personal information about your family? Your track record of your interests and hobbies?

I do. And, if I have a choice, I'd rather not have to wonder if this data is in the hands of a stranger after my laptop is stolen.

<comment><USER22> It has to be stolen a) while it's on, and b) by someone who immediately knows what to do.

I'm quite sure if you look at your average thief and multiply these to chances together that's less than one in a million chance to happen. Assuming you're not some high profile person where the right person is out to get you and knows which OS you use, and knows how to steal from you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Whatever happened to the Qubes-Purism marriage? They were on track to start Qubes-certifying Librems, and selling Librems with Qubes pre-installed ... then they cancelled the plans, and I never heard why?

<comment><USER24> FWIW, it seems that when you buy a Purism laptop there is an option to include a Qubes live usb in the deal. I just came across it while skimming through their website[1], not sure about anything else.

[1] [https://puri.sm/shop/librem-13/](https://puri.sm/shop/librem-13/) \- see the Operating System choice

<comment><USER23> Thanks. I know about that. They used to sell Librems that had Qubes pre- installed, and they were on-track to get Librems to be the first officially certified hardware for Qubes. Then they canceled the whole thing, and now, as some kind of consolation/compromise, they offer Qubes-on-a-stick purchase option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can it also protect against key-loggers, i.e. if i'm running an app in a qube, can an app in a different qube read my keystrokes?

<comment><USER26> Yes, it will protect against keyloggers. Unless you install the keylogger on both qubes.

You can have a separate "qube" that is not connected to the network where you would store your passwords, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> 10 years ago, I helped design a similar system. It was a capabilities based OS on a formally modeled microkernel.

I'm still not sure than there's a market for this stuff. It must be free, and it's hard to build a business model around that.

<comment><USER18> When Joanna said nothing like Qubes existed, I told her INTEGRITY PC was doing it around 2005 using separatiom kernel approach with stronger security. You must have worked on that one given 10 years remark. Im curious about your experiences with that. Email me if you want details confidential. Rarely meet folks doing the kinds of architectures I research and push for further adoption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wish there was a way I could try it. The hardware requirements ...

[https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/certified-hardware/](https://www.qubes- os.org/doc/certified-hardware/)

Is anyone running this on a laptop? I get the feeling after reading that page that this is really strictly desktop only. Maybe the page has not been updated in a bit?

<comment><USER29> I'm running Qubes 3.2 on my laptop right now (Dell Latitude E5470) and it also fulfills all the requirements to run 4.0.

The _certification_ requirements are higher, but that's basically if people want to stick the Qubes-certified label on their devices, signaling to customers that it measures up to the highest standards of security.

They're not necessary to run Qubes, they're just ideal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> How about Subgraph OS? It has grsecurity patch, tor network, container isolate, firewall. It's another good choice also

[https://subgraph.com](https://subgraph.com)

</comment><comment><USER31> openbsd vs qubes os, which one will you prefer?

<comment><USER32> As an OpenBSD fan: consider Qubes instead if you want a "desktop" experience. OpenBSD works fine, but the open-source desktop is quite vulnerable (consider how many things need to go wrong for [https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.nl/2016/12/redux- comprom...](https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.nl/2016/12/redux-compromising- linux-using-snes.html)), and a lot of OpenBSD's hardening is in the (simpler) base system, not in GNOME / KDE / Firefox / Chrome / ...

Alternatively, consider not running a full-blown desktop or using Windows, which has grown a _lot_ more secure since the Windows XP pre-SP2 days.

<comment><USER33> Wow, your recommendation for desktop security is either not running a full- blown desktop or running Windows? As in, Windows beats the popular Linux distros in desktop security?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Damn, I was really hoping this was an (early) announcement for 4.0 (or at least an -rc3).

<comment><USER26> Same here. I'm waiting for 4.0.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> QubesOS won't protect you from Intel ME though.

<comment><USER36> Purism laptops do.

<comment><USER37> I wouldn't trust that company at all, they lied and misrepresented themselves for nearly three years before finally claiming to make good on what they sold their customers. Beyond that, they didn't fix it themselves as they say, they relied on the work of other projects then claimed they did it alone.

Considering the researchers who actually disabled IME require physical access to the machine[1], Purism's claim that they can do it to previously sold devices with only a software update[2] stinks of BS to me.

[1] [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Sakaki%27s_EFI_Install_Guide/Di...](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Sakaki%27s_EFI_Install_Guide/Disabling_the_Intel_Management_Engine)

[2] [https://puri.sm/posts/purism-librem-laptops-completely- disab...](https://puri.sm/posts/purism-librem-laptops-completely-disable- intel-management-engine/)

<comment><USER38> IIRC they didn't really lie, everything was always worded like "will be free in the future".

Also the post you linked to directly gives credit to me_cleaner and Positive Technologies.

The reason the researchers required physical access:

> Although some systems do allow the full contents of the BIOS flash chip to > be reprogrammed using software tools only (so called 'internal flashing'), > on most PCs this facility is either completely unavailable, or can only > write to the unprotected areas of the flash filesystem (excluding the ME > area), or will only write vendor-signed images. Accordingly, we will > describe the approach of using 'external' flashing in this guide, as that is > the most reliable.

Purism being, uhhhh, the vendor, allowed full write access.

<comment><USER37> > _" Purism being, uhhhh, the vendor, allowed full write access."_

If that was the case they could have shipped IME-free machines from the start. They are selling whitebox machines for an exorbitant markup with their own spin on a Linux distro.

<comment><USER39> That's incorrect. Allowing internal flashing just requires setting certain parameters in the flash to being read-write, and doesn't require any of the flash modification necessary to disable IME.

Disabling IME can have other impacts, and Purism even has a blog post explaining what the issues were and how they resolved them -- once they figured out what IME modules were needed for their laptop to work properly they _could_ disable IME with a software update.

I don't know if that's how they did it, but you're misunderstanding the difference between disabling IME and enabling internal flashing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Version 4.0 should be out soon (at RC2 now):

[https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2017/10/23/qubes-40-rc2/](https://www.qubes- os.org/news/2017/10/23/qubes-40-rc2/)

Some exciting changes are coming:

[https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2017/10/03/core3/](https://www.qubes- os.org/news/2017/10/03/core3/)

[https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/releases/4.0/release-notes/](https://www.qubes- os.org/doc/releases/4.0/release-notes/)

EDIT: Downvotes for providing relevant sources, really?

<comment><USER40> > "EDIT: Downvotes for providing relevant sources, really?"

Sometimes the downvotes on HN make no sense. Looking through your comment history there are a number of recent comments that were unfairly downvoted. Just a guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same people doing it.

<comment><USER41> It would be interesting if HN detected such behaviour... Then it could ignore some downvotes. I know it doesn't sound like much, but undeserved downvotes hurt...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I use [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Portable_Security](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Portable_Security)

</comment><comment><USER43> Fun fact. The developer does not believe in using a password on her private keys.

<comment><USER44> If you have your keys on an air gapped computer with an encrypted hard-disk, I don't see the need to use an additional password on the private keys.

<comment><USER45> If they somehow break the encryption on your hard disk it's just more security.. isn't that what security's all about? Getting the most safety you can get? What need is there to have an encrypted hard drive if your computer is air gapped? It's just a better safer idea, no?

<comment><USER46> Security is not about getting the most safety you can get. Otherwise why stop there? You could store the password protected private key itself as an encrypted file on the encrypted disk, and add one more layer, or double- encrypt it and add yet another layer etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best approach to inheriting an out of control system? - <AUTHOR> I can't find any good advice for managing what is a reasonably common situation, "how to successfully fire fight"
On-prem, cobbled together system, multiple parts that are completely unknown, everyone is afraid of making a change, if it goes down it might not come back up.
Two devs were building a little project on top of a system and adding bits to it as they got new ideas (both quite junior quick and dirty types). Much of the codebase they have never touched, it's just there running with the stuff they have on top.
Deployed it to an OVH remote managed rack (yeah I know!) and offered it to a client. Client loved it, hockey stick growth, huge demand, totally not production ready but it's throwing off cash (lots and lots and lots).
Devs are burnt out and one is taking an offline holiday, they aren't mature about the situation, they are also a self contained business unit away from the rest of the company.
Emergency consultant and senior devs from parent company started to take a look over the evenings this week. Emergency plan is to get a copy deployed and running in azure so there are 2 instances and if the OVH one goes down again we can swap traffic (pending P&L sign off)
Potential for a great product to die and cause reputational damage. Potential to beat it into shape and turn it into a production product and multi million revenue.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> This is more a problem of failed leadership, possibly at multiple levels.

If you are the guy tapped to fix it then own it. The problems occurred before you got there and you are dealing with a legacy mess, but real leadership means having the humility to own that problem like it is all your own.

Don't blame the junior developers for their lack of direction. Cover for them and protect them. Earn their trust and guide them in a better direction. This is where you will begin to turn the ship around.

Numerous people will be quick to bias you with their opinions. Always bear in mind that bias is misleading. Be firm in forming original opinions from your own observations.

Set a valid plan with realistic expectations. This problem didn't happen in a day and it won't be fixed in a day. Define primitive metrics to identify progress and business health. Use those metrics to determine if you are moving in the proper direction and the speed of success. Be very transparent about your measures to both your management and your team.

Frequently praise your people, work your ass off, and set a positive example.

</comment><comment><USER3> Your leadership will view the situation from a Risk-Reward lens. They know the reward which is the revenue it brings in. They will ask you what is the worst that can happen and then they will decide to continue or shut it down.

I personally think that lifting and shifting to Azure is a good thing. Next you should get Microsoft Premier Support/Premier Field Engineering to analyze what you have. They will give you plan on how to improve reliability and probably reduce your costs as well. You take that plan and explain to your client the good news/bad news. The bad news is that Microsoft says we should perform the following to improve reliability; the good news is that your company will not charge the client extra; you will improve reliability for "free". As reliability improves, your company can direct the senior devs to start designing version 2.0 (maybe).

</comment><comment><USER4> Max's answer to the InfoQ interview[1] question "What is the most terrible code that you ever encountered, and what was your approach to refactoring it?" may be relevant.

In his book "Code Simplicity", Max has a checklist (summarized in point 4 of [https://techbeacon.com/app-dev-testing/rewrites-vs- refactori...](https://techbeacon.com/app-dev-testing/rewrites-vs- refactoring-17-essential-reads-developers)) -- and that's the checklist referred to in the InfoQ interview.

1: [https://www.infoq.com/news/2018/01/q-a-max-kanat- alexander/](https://www.infoq.com/news/2018/01/q-a-max-kanat-alexander/)

</comment><comment><USER5> It sounds like you are understandably worried about it going down. Standing up another copy is a great idea, and a great exercise in making sure your company understands how to build and deploy it from scratch.

When you do that you also need to figure out the data persistence layer. You probably want to either share it between both instances of the application or setup a backup/copy system so the version in the cloud has up to date data and is more of a hot spare than a second set of infra lying around with an empty DB.

Moving on from there, if your only goal is to keep it alive while the devs are on vacation, you should probably implement a deployment freeze. Yes in an ideal world you would make any and all changes to an infrastructure as code template and re-deploy, or at least change config files in a repo and re- deploy those but it sounds like the application isn't that modular.

Most incidents are caused by change, so minimize that until the whole team is back together, including the devs who wrote the service, to start making improvements.

At the same time you need to know or figure out how you can change config to keep it running. Ex: You need to update a cert thumbprint or change a timeout value. It sounds like it's either running on bare metal or on VMs on a physical server you own? If that's the case maybe sshing into the boxes to manually edit config is the least bad way of updating it (again - only until this emergency situation is over). If you go the route of ssh-ing, at least build a tool or script to update the key value pairs in your config store so you don't missing an angle bracket or quote and set your whole system on fire.

If the developers weren't going on vacation my advice would be a lot different. What I have written above is purely tactics to keep the system alive and the business making money until it's a better time, personnel wise, to improve the system.

Lastly for some dev advice, get started on some end to end or "pinning" tests. Yes they are typically the most fragile and slow type of tests but you can get a lot of safety and peace of mind from just a few of them. I personally feel that in situations like these they are the best value per dev hour spent.

If you're using Python, introduce mypy immediately. Same for JavaScript (use TypeScript). Being able to lean on a type system (or if you're in a static language - compiler) when refactoring or making sweeping changes it incredible helpful and lowers the chance of making a mistake by a large amount.

If you want more, I have tons more I can write on this subject but this is getting quite long :)

</comment><comment><USER6> rewrite it from scratch

<comment><AUTHOR> total greenfield, gather requirements, work out what the customer wants, define the functionality of existing system, consider architecture etc? could take months, current staff is 2 burnt out jr devs

This is a black box that is generating $10k a day

Rewrite from scratch assumes you have good devs that know what needs to be built, can't even start looking under the hood of this right now. More interested in this from an ops perspective / management. Any guides / books / war stories about this sort of thing

<comment><USER7> For $10k a day, you can hire a lot better than two burnt out junior devs. If you want that money to keep flowing, plow some back in into getting several more senior people on it.

<comment><USER8> in the OP they mention they already have some much more senior devs looking at it and their big idea is to move it to Azure. [?]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Step 1) Document the system (what currently exists) in more detail than you think you'll need, paying specific focus to the system and module boundaries (if the Interfaces are done well this should be a fairly easy step)

Step 2) Modularise all the things, tuck all those fiddly bits behind the abstractions you pulled out in Step 1

Step 3) Mock and unit test all the things, this is actually crucial because this is where you clarify all the crud that built up due to developer assumptions, you test and check all those Modules and verify the system is doing not only what you think it's doing but _what it 's supposed to be doing_

Step 4) Introduce a good Dependency Injection Framework

Step 5) (This is where you actually fix things) Now you can break up those Modules and refactor their internals - even swapping out entirely freshly written modules thanks to that nice DI framework - with confidence that you won't break the overall system.</comment>


Show HN: The First web site ever programmed in ActionScript 3.0 - <AUTHOR>

     http://www.burrrn.com
 In 2006 Adobe open sourced the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM2), I started to work on the open source project redtamarin on 2008, and now I can finally show a web site entirely programmed with ActionScript 3.0 on the backend.
here the basic software stack:

   - Linux Ubuntu 64-bit for the operating system
   - Apache for the HTTP server
   - Redtamarin for the backend programming
   - CouchDB for the database
 everything is handled by one single ABC (actionscript bytecode) file, I did that at first to keep things simple but in fact it is extremely convenient to have a whole web site logic compile to a single file.
All in all developing a full web site in AS3 has been a great experience and I do hope it will show around that with redtamarin you can build real products and not just toying around. Let me know what you think or if you have any questions <comment><USER2> Where is the code?

<comment><AUTHOR> redtamarin sources can be found here [https://code.google.com/p/redtamarin/](https://code.google.com/p/redtamarin/)

mirror here [https://github.com/Corsaair/redtamarin](https://github.com/Corsaair/redtamarin)

and web here [http://www.redtamarin.com/](http://www.redtamarin.com/)</comment></comment>


Deploying a Group Messaging app in 48 hours w/ Heroku+Twilio+Resque... on a Bus - <AUTHOR> http://getshotput.tumblr.com/post/3793040171/we-deployed-a-group-messaging-startup-in-48-hours-using

<comment><AUTHOR> Vote for us to win the StartupBus competition: <http://startupbus.com/teams/59-shotput>

We'll promise to be your friends :)

</comment><comment><USER2> I like that code is now measured in miles.

<comment><AUTHOR> Modern web services like Heroku and Twilio are awesome, it would not have been possible without them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> very useful service when it takes off. it's got a lot of potential in the event space where to this day signups are often tracked with pen and paper

</comment><comment><USER4> This is cool, but I do wish people would not call a webapp a "startup" -- unless there's a viable business model and at least some semblance of a customer base. Otherwise, it's just a webapp.

<comment><USER5> Imagine distant teams riding several buses, working on different pieces, uniting in a final assembly and launch celebration!

<comment><USER4> Oh, I agree, it's one hell of a hack idea, and it probably could turn into a startup if the hackers really wanted it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You know where the real business is? Not building web apps, but providing extreme startup challenges. People pay you money to participate in coding and building apps in extreme conditions. Heck, you could probably pitch this as a reality show.

If you like Startup Bus, you'll LOVE... * Startup Canoe - Each team get's a canoe and is placed on the river. First one to build an app and finish the river course is the winner... * Startup Skydiving - Build a startup before you hit the ground * Startup Standing - You must build a startup without sitting down. If you sit down, you lose

I tell you guys, this is the Billion dollar idea...</comment>


IIS (.se and .nu TLD) releases DNS zone files for the whole TLD - <AUTHOR> https://www.iis.se/english/press/pressreleases/iis-releases-zone-files/ <comment><USER2> Good idea to find the last remaining three-letter non-digit domains.

A few weeks ago I wrote a whois script but my IP address got kicked soon because of ToS violation. My bad.

It's easier with this zone file: cut -f 1 se.zone | egrep "^[a-z]{3}\\.se"

This lists all taken three-letter non-digit .se domains.

<comment><AUTHOR> As noted in the text: This does not list all registered domains, only those domains which have configured nameservers. Those domains which are registered but does not have any name servers configured, those domains are not listed.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for pointing this out.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Git Time Lapse - <AUTHOR>

I had this idea because I wanted to see the evolution of a web page while prototyping. Please let me know if you have suggestions or comments: https://github.com/johnlucas/gittimelapse<p>A sample video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ktuiceg2yajtmld/video.mov <comment><USER2> Might be nice to overlay the video with the commit comments and date

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I thought of that. It should be cool :)</comment></comment>


High-Performance Networking Programming in C - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9815

<comment><USER2> The article is from 2007, much has happened since then and so it does not cover important topics like poll / epoll / kqueue / IOCP performance let alone networking libraries like libevent and libev. If anyone is interested in more modern high performance networking in C I would recommend you check out -

libevent

<http://monkey.org/~provos/libevent/>

libev

<http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/libev.html>

or if you're doing C++, Boost.Asio

[http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_39_0/doc/html/boost_asio.htm...](http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_39_0/doc/html/boost_asio.html)</comment>


Is ADHD real? Only if you believe in Unicorns - <AUTHOR> http://www.kentucky.com/living/family/article150768402.html <comment><USER2> Seriously?</comment>


Restaurant matching engine - <AUTHOR>

Has anyone heard of a Pandora-like recommendation engine for restaurants?  The premise is that you enter the name of a restaurant as a proxy for the "experience" you are seeking.  The restaurant could be in any city, neighbourhood, etc.  The recommendation engine then gives you the closest "match" within a set of parameters that you define (e.g. price, city, neighbourhood).  The matching is based on the overall experience of eating at a particular restaurant vs. something more specific, such as the food itself.<p>I'm currently working on this as a side project and would love feedback. <comment><USER2> To give you some thoughts:

I've never really heard of anything like this.

I think the trickiest part is going to be defining the "experience" of a restaurant, not the least of which because different people experience different restaurants differently. Pandora has an advantage in that the number of other people listening to a song has little bearing on the sound of the song, but the number of other people eating at restaurant (as well as their loudness, fashion, etc) can have a significant impact on the experience of a restaurant.

I have actually kind of wished for something like this before though. I was trying to search by the absence of a particular feature on Urbanspoon (namely family friendliness; it seems every restaurant in the town I was looking in is entirely filled with youth soccer teams) and found I could not do it.

This also leads to my next question. Urbanspoon doesn't have an API. Yelp is no match for Urbanspoon. Where are you getting your data, if you wouldn't mind divulging?

I'd love to know how things are progressing. Do you have a blog or something going where I can follow your progress?</comment>


T-Mobile pulls plug on Mobile Money effort that tried to take on check cashing - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2016/04/08/t-mobile-ends-mobile-money-push/ <comment><USER2> The payments system in the US is ripe for disruption. There is huge rent- seeking, the merchants are not happy (fees too high), nor are the consumers (who loves their credit card company? Show of hands please!), and innovations like better security or micropayments have been actively sought for YEARS and are hardly any closer.

But I'm not sure WHAT is going to disrupt it. Because many have tried. T-Mobile had an established relationship with a large number of customers, had retail locations throughout the country, and has the in-house technical skills to be capable of putting together a decent product. And they're not even doing as well as someone like Square.

This one is still a wide-open opportunity for someone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. It's amazing that ~3% gets clipped from every credit card transaction. I am surprised that nobody has come in for 2% or 1.5%. All the so-called disruptors I've seen have just attacked the fees on top of the 3%.</comment></comment>


Samsung Galaxy camera. Thoughts? - <AUTHOR> http://www.samsung.com/in/promotions/galaxycamera/

<comment><USER2> Why? Fine detail camera control and the interface will probably be just as bad as a normal point and shoot. The phone side of it will be much less pleasurable than with a plain smart phone. Who wants to talk or text someone on their camera?

This is one of the worst examples of feature creep I have seen in quite a while. It combines the worst of the camera world and the phone world.

I can't wait for the Samsung Galaxy bottle opener though, so I can tweet and facebook what I am drinking and take cool filtered instagram shots of microbrew beers!</comment>


Scalability concepts: distributed ID generation - <AUTHOR> https://avikdas.com/2020/03/23/scalability-concepts-distributed-id-generation.html <comment><USER2> See CUIDs for a widely used and workable solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't heard about CUIDs, but based on the Github repo [1], I see they fall into two of the categories I presented:

\- A large range. It looks like CUIDs support a short version, but the README calls out the short version should only be used for disambiguation, and are "absolutely not recommended for database unique IDs".

\- Encode the partition in the ID. In this case, the partition is either based on the browser or the process ID of the server.

Cool stuff, thanks for pointing it out!

[1] [https://github.com/ericelliott/cuid](https://github.com/ericelliott/cuid)</comment></comment>


Microsoft wins right to sell Word - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8237497.stm

<comment><USER2> The title is misleading here, Microsoft was granted a stay on the on the injunction that would prevent them from selling Word. They still need to appeal or settle the Texas court's ruling if they want to continue to sell Word after the stay.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder, does someone knows why Microsoft developed Office with such a patent infrigment?. ¿Did they hope nobody notices?, ¿Didn't do the homework? or just thought they could give some millions away and everything would be fine again.

<comment><USER4> Given the things that have been granted, no-one can ever be sure they aren't infringing a software patent. As an example, any piece of software implementing markdown would almost certainly infringe this same patent. Google's web spider and search engine would probably be found to infringe this patent.

Microsoft is unpopular and often the 'Bad Guy' in these situations. And i4i isn't your everyday patent troll.

But this is a bad patent. It's an excellent example of how the process for granting software and process patents is deeply flawed and in need of review and reform.</comment></comment>