Go Ahead, Sell My Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.kevinjcurtin.com/home/2011/10/18/go-ahead-sell-my-data.html

<comment><USER2> This is addressing the wrong problem, at least in my view. I don't really care about what Facebook does with the data I consciously give them. And ads are just an side-effect.

My main problem is that they actively try to get their hands on data I don't want to give them. Like, my constantly actualized GPS coordinates, or my browsing history. And that they store it. And process it. And store me into some kind of box.

Oh, and it candidly considers that Facebook, or any other person to whom it sells the data, won't do anything nasty with it. Just serving ads might be okay. But ultimately, they _could_ do much more.

Do you want to know who the gay people are around you ? We could sell you that list ! Do you want to know who votes for your opponent ? We could sell you that list ! And so on.

The day Facebook, or Google, or anyone with a comparable database actually decides to do something evil, it will look ugly. Will they ? Don't know. Don't want to find out.

As a side note, I might pay for Facebook. Or I might have paid. Now, they will just get my money and sell my data anyway, so why bother ?

<comment><USER3> I also hate the tagging.

For instance you do not usually opt-in to a group by yourself. Instead somebody else includes you in that group, without your permission. This is bad because opt-out of a group is an explicit statement that you don't want to be in that group, versus just ignoring a request which could just say that you don't have the time for that or you missed the invitation ... and people know you in those groups and opting-out is just rude.

This is not how real-life works btw.

I also got tagged several times in pictures that I do not like. Those pictures automatically appeared right on my "enhanced" profile page. When I untagged myself the person that did it thought it was some kind of technical problem and tagged me again. Then I untagged myself again, and got tagged again. Then I told that person that I don't like that picture and she got upset. I don't want other people tagging me - I want to tag myself in pictures that I approve of and this is something that Facebook won't allow me to do.

And talk about automatic tagging -- fortunately Facebook allows me to deactivate automatic tagging (for now), but this feature is just plain evil IMHO, as it encourages people to tag other people, even though that's not something they really want to do.

This list could go on and on and yet Facebook provides no means for me to automatically download the contact details of my friends. How fucked up is that? These are my friends, and many of them I invited to Facebook myself.

Basically these days I'm only using Facebook when I want to get in touch with somebody and I have no other way at my disposal OR if I want to spam people I don't care about ... but the real social networking that I'm doing these days is through my phone or through my email address.

<comment><USER4> There is a privacy setting forcing all tag requests to come to you for approval first. Obviously it isn't easy to discover, however.

<comment><USER5> Lot of things are hard to find (like deleting your account). And there is the issue of Facebook periodically changing the settings, knowing that meaning people won't bother figuring out what the changes mean and how it effects them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > There is certain information (address, account numbers, ss #, etc.) that if > obtained by a third party, could result in some real world problems that > will negatively impact my life. But information social networks sell to > advertisers doesn't fall into this category.

That's both wrong and incredibly short-sighted.

First, Facebook collects way more data than necessary. In fact, they try to collect data of people _which aren't Facebook users_. And what's more, in some cases (facial recognition), _there's nothing you can do against it_. But wait, you can! Guess how? By _registering on Facebook_ , to remove tags. I don't know what to call this, but it feels awfully similar to extortion.

Second, the unnecessary data that Facebook collects is dangerous by virtue of existing. Yes, that data might be safe now. We cannot guarantee this to be true tomorrow, next month or in five years, actually, we cannot even be sure if it is safe right now (which is a matter of transparency again). Besides, I don't see how a detailed (which might be an understatement) biography of my life is necessary to sell targeted ads.

Third, as rwolf pointed out in another comment, it's not like targeted ads are the only option. Yes, it might be the best alternative in terms of making profit, but we cannot ignore the side effects.

Besides, I seriously ask myself when in the hell "profit" became an argument to infringe on basic rights and liberties (of which privacy and control over your own data is - or at least should always be - part of). To present a hyperbole: slavery was very profitable as well. I don't see people arguing that we should allow slavery again.

</comment><comment><USER7> While there is nothing inherently wrong with making a profit from data about users, there is quite a bit wrong with the way it's being done on Facebook, and much of the rest of the web/mobile for that matter.

For one thing, services fail to properly inform their users of what they're doing. It's quite common for ordinary users to either not know that their data is being collected and used in those ways, or the extent of the data which is being collected (e.g. Location, Phone Identifiers, and sites visited across the web).

For another, opting out is generally designed to be quite difficult. Unless you're vigilant enough to know which hosts to block (among other things) it's almost impossible to keep your browsing history out of the hands of the hands of third parties (especially with all the different ways browsers can store information, see, <http://samy.pl/evercookie/>). This is the case _even if you do not sign up for or use a service like Facebook_.

Also, as someone noted below, there is an issue with the simple fact of the data's existence, since from that point on it is out of my control, and can be used by anyone who can get their hands on it, in any way, which may well be harmful to me.

</comment><comment><USER8> I guess the problem isn't targeted advertising per se. It's that you don't know what your personal information will be used for in the future. Maybe it will give you better, more targeted advertising. Maybe it will be used to deny you an insurance policy or be sold to a recruiting firm that will reject your job application. I guess Facebooks terms don't allow that, but those terms can change at any time.

Maybe not next year, but what about 30-40 years from now? Facebook or Google might not even exist then, but you can be pretty sure that your data will exist, along with your social graph. That's a tangible asset that can be sold, no matter what happens to these companies. Or seized by some government, for that matter.

Is this just being paranoid and obsessed with privacy? Lets hope so.

A german friend put it this way: Most jews in pre-nazi Germany didn't mind having their religious affiliation listed in their passport. Many were indeed proud to be jews.

Would anyone of them have been able to imagine what this information would be used for just a few years down the line? Wouldn't anyone worrying about this collection of data have been laughed at and called paranoid?

<comment><USER9> I do understand concerns over what happens to your data moving forward (changing laws, organizational/management changes etc.). But again, I can't think of any of the information on a social networking site being all that damning. The information that I share on say Facebook or Google+ (at least for me) never really consists of ultra-private information.

And I think your example is a bit extreme.

<comment><USER10> > _I think your example is a bit extreme._

The problem is, extreme eventually happens.

Nazi Germany has been such a commonplace rhetorical device on the Internet for so long [1] that we end up easily dismissing it when it's indeed a useful comparisson. This, for many reasons, would be one such case (we can debate that through email if you want), but let's dismiss it anyway.

The important fact here is that bucket loads of (your) personal data are being processed, correlated with each other and stored into centralized server clusters — which have become very tangible assets.

If someone ill-intentioned — a government, an interest group, a company — gets a hold of these assets — through power, through craft, through acquisition — they can use it to target you for whatever their purpose.

In a warfare scenario, that could mean targeted, granular misinformation; targeted terrorism through AI-generated blackmailing, tailored on an infividual level; mass identity hijacking. It could make war a _personal_ matter like it has never been before.

(And on the other side, there's the Nazi Germany scenario where, unbeknownst to you, you are being blacklisted for a genocide to come — after all, the first step is classification. [2])

The fact that we're living rather peaceful times doesn't mean that a potential weapon like these databases should go unregulated; and the fact that we see no storm in the horizon doesn't mean we shouldn't care about the possibility.

As long as you can imagine what sorts of bad things could be done with that personal data, the argument is: you should care because you don't know for a fact what tomorrow will look like.

[1] If Wikipedia is to be believed, it's been 20 years now since Godwin's Law was first formulated!

[2] [http://www.genocidewatch.org/aboutgenocide/8stagesofgenocide...](http://www.genocidewatch.org/aboutgenocide/8stagesofgenocide.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I will give you one example. Somebody uploads my picture to Facebook and tags me in it. Facebook now matches my face to my name - forever. I can't ask them to forget that they know me, I can't ask them to delete that data, and I can't get a new face (although sometimes I would like to).

Facebook now has that information forever and I played no part in them obtaining it. They could launch a feature tomorrow where you can take a picture of a stranger at a bar and be given their 'closeness' to you, or their name. Or that data could be stolen, or misappropriated.

This is about companies over-reaching and then either the data accidentally leaking or intentionally being used without user permission. Most people don't have a problem with it, until something goes wrong.

<comment><USER12> I met your friend yesterday and he was showing me some pictures from a camping trip he took last week. I asked "who's that guy standing to your left" and he told me it was you. Now I know what you look like, forever, and you can't ask me to forget or delete that either. I don't see the problem here.

<comment><USER13> You don't see it because you aren't looking for it, and are probably not interested in it. You're just unilaterally opposing a viewpoint.

I'll make it easy - you're not an oracle on the identities of 500 million people, no matter how many camping photos you look at. When you are, we'll be uncomfortable about you as well.

<comment><USER12> Why would you be uncomfortable in that case? How do the potential drawbacks of such an oracle existing outweigh the potential positives?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >While it is true that "we pay with our data" for many of the free (as in no monetary cost) social networks we use, what is the alternative? People don't want to pay money for these types of services and this is a business model that allows companies to operate and thrive while providing a valuable service to their users.

That strikes me as a pretty weakly supported argument. Facebook is in a position where they could do something very similar to Github. Free accounts that are publicly searchable and paid accounts with strict access controls. Many people would in fact pay for that, probably to the point that they could ditch ads on the free version.

Now, they would have to stop rewriting the code that manages access permissions every six months, but I would bet they could totally do that if they stopped treating ad revenue as _the only way._

<comment><USER15> That would be extortion unless they allow you to completely delete an account and opt-out (or better yet, require opt-in) of data collection. Because if not, then the only way to hide your data from the public would be to pay FB.

<comment><USER16> The phone company has been blackmailing the public with its White Pages for decades. Unlisting a number costs money.

Nothing new under the sun, just bigger and worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I agree that Facebook and other social networks have a right to make money through their business model. As the article puts it, if they didn't make money, they wouldn't exist and that would be a loss for many people.

However, there's nothing that says Facebook has the right to become a $100B company through extreme invasion of privacy and other distasteful tactics (whatever they may be - I sure don't know what fully goes on over there). Send me some targeted advertising if you have to, but I will protest against you if you make new "share-with-others-additional-information-about-yourself" features a confusing opt-out hassle.

Just recently my wife shared a photo album via Picasa and Google+, and she couldn't figure out how to restrict who could access the album, though it was very simply prior to Picasa's integration into Google Photos. Do you think Google+ engineers couldn't keep the same Picasa privacy functionality as before or is it because they want to force people to share more than they're comfortable with?

No one is saying that social networks shouldn't make money through advertising and most people are probably okay with some personal data being used for targeted advertising. But given past invasive practices and privacy concerns, there are definitely valid concerns with regards to the extent to which social networks are commoditizing/selling users' personal information in an effort to maximize profits. Furthermore, who knows what happens to sold personal information down the line?

Simple question: If changing social networks was as simple as changing your online shopping preferences, do you think Facebook could get away with what it does? Facebook can obviously take advantage of the fact that its users cannot easily leave to appropriate user data that other sites could not.

</comment><comment><USER18> The evilness comes into play when companies are not transparent about what user data they are collecting and how there are monetizing this data.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's not clear to me that ad-supported == targeted ad-supported. The claim that there is no alternative is false--the alternative is less effective (and therefore less lucrative) ads.

If you ask a HN-reader to choose either 1) less intrusive data collection or 2) more profits to the website, I think it's clear why the user prefers door #1.

<comment><USER9> Facebook using the information we have made available on their network ("intrusive data collection") doesn't really have a negative impact on us as users. At least not in any tangible way.

<comment><USER20> Absolutely. A class-action lawsuit against a mobile analytics company I own a chunk of was thrown out of court recently for exactly that - failure by the plaintiffs to establish actual injury or harm.

If there's no injury, there's no standing, and therefore there's no case.

<comment><USER19> I refer you to the Beacon advertising adventure. Where Facebook was "just using the data we make available on their network," and users fought back and won.

You last sentence starts with "If there's no injury," which seems to be the topic of discussion here.

<comment><USER20> Users won, did they? How much were they individually compensated? (No need to look up the answer - users received nothing.)

Facebook settled that particular lawsuit, so no judge had an opportunity to determine whether there was an actual injury or not. Facebook itself admitted no wrongdoing - settling this sort of thing usually means you've done a cost- benefit analysis and it's cheaper and easier to just pay off the lawyers.

As for the independent privacy foundation that Facebook was required to fund - anyone here heard from it lately? (Anyone here heard of it at all?)

And as for Beacon itself being closed - well, it certainly doesn't look like it slowed down Facebook much, did it?

The Beacon lawsuit did nothing for anybody, aside from the plaintiffs' lawyers. Arguing that 'users won' is delusional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I agree, but most people probably haven't thought it through, or if they have considered it, they're stuck on the revelation that they are the product, not the customer. Perhaps some of these companies should be more up front about 'the deal' to their users, and what its boundaries are.

<comment><USER9> What is wrong with being both? To me it seems like a mutually beneficial relationship. I am getting tremendous value from using their site to interact with and stay connected with friends. They are using my data to make money by serving me unobtrusive ads that don't really negatively impact my user experience.

I do think that being more upfront and more transparent would be a good thing, there are alot of misconceptions out there.

<comment><USER22> If Facebook were simply showing me ads for stuff I mentioned, or something like that, I would have no objection. "Hmm, this guy keeps posting about hats. He must like hats. Let's show him some ads for hats!" No problem. That's basically what I thought would happen when I signed up.

I did not expect that when I visited cnn.com, after having logged into Facebook a week earlier, Facebook would log which articles I read. There was no reason for me to think that clicking "remember me" when I logged into Facebook also implied "and also remember my browsing history on all of your partner sites."

That's the behavior that pisses me off, not the targeted ads that you mentioned.

(I assume it's obvious why logging a subset of my browsing history without my consent pisses me off, but let me know if that seems odd and I'll explain more.)

<comment><USER12> It's not obvious to me. How were you harmed by facebook logging this data?

<comment><USER22> I'm not actually asserting that the logging itself harms me, just that it pisses me off.

The reason it pisses me off is that my browser history reveals things about me that I'd rather keep private. Facebook is taking that from me without my consent. I would feel approximately the same if I discovered they were stealing stuff out of my garage without my consent-- it wasn't part of the deal I thought I agreed to.

Without getting into the details of my particular situation, I'll just say that I have political and religious views that I think are unpopular, and I don't trust the rest of the world to treat me fairly were those views made public. Also, even my views weren't unpopular now, I want to be judged for what I do, not what I read about on the web.

(I should also add that I don't think any of the private stuff that I mentioned is creepy; it's just my private business. For example, I might feel the same way if I were gay and lived in Mauritania (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Mauritania>).)

Seem reasonable?

<comment><USER12> Not really, no. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding facebook's tracking system, but I don't think your browser history is being captured here. You are viewing pages that have a facebook widget on them, and if you have a facebook cookie that says "pingswept", this tells facebook that pingswept visited a page with a specific widget on it (and thus, which page). Facebook is not taking anything from you that you are not sending them - the issue is that a website that is not facebook is passing your information on to facebook. Aren't _they_ the ones that deceived you, not facebook?

<comment><USER22> I believe you have explained the mechanics of the system correctly.

As to who is doing the deception, I think you're right that (in the example we're discussing) cnn.com is being deceptive. That's a good point; I hadn't really considered the complicity of the partner sites.

But in the end, Facebook is producing widgets, building a system to receive data from those widgets, and working with their partners to deploy those widgets. This system of data transmission is in no way obvious to normal people; if I weren't a web developer, I'd just think I was seeing a "like button image," and that's it. That's the part that pisses me off-- I think it's sneaky, not just me complaining about something I originally agreed to.

Just out of curiosity, and assuming you actually have a Facebook account, this really doesn't bother you at all? Should it be obvious to me that buttons I'm not clicking may be transmitting data to other sites?

<comment><USER12> This may not be a realistic expectation now, but I think that as the general population becomes more technologically literate, for the average person, the presence of such a button should indicate "this website has some kind of relationship with facebook/reddit/google - if I care about what data they are sharing, I should probably check their privacy policy." And I think that 99% of people won't care. My admittedly idealistic belief is that the solution to this "controversy" is for everyone to recognize that we shouldn't try to apply pre-internet expectations and beliefs about privacy to the modern world.

<comment><USER22> That doesn't seem crazy to me as an expectation for the distant future. Right now, I'd estimate that 95% of Facebook users would be at least irritated if they knew the full extent of the data that Facebook collects. I wouldn't be surprised if that dropped down to 25% 50 years in the future (assuming some new Facebook-like entity that pulls similar bullshit then).

The good news for me is that I'll probably be dead by then, or at least most of my friends will be, so Facebook will be of no interest to me.

I'm curious about why you describe your belief as idealistic. Specifically, what is ideal, or even good, about Facebook logging a subset of my browsing history? I understand it's potentially profitable for them and their partners, but that's not a benefit to me.

My idealistic view, which is substantially in conflict with yours, I think, would be that Facebook just serve me targeted ads and forget about the rest of it. Why would your ideal future be better? (I'm assuming you don't work for Facebook or one of their partners.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think what irks me most about this is the laziness in relying on user data as a means to sell advertising to fund their "services".

The writer poses the question "what's the alternative?" to this business model. My answer, "Stop being lazy about it and come up with a new model. I have."

It might work it, it might not, but we all have to keep trying if we don't want what there is now - and the implications.

We are uniquely positioned to come up with another avenue of generating revenue so it doesn't have to be this way.

I'm sure if you work at Facebook or Google you see no harm in gathering and cross-polinating the data, I can see the sheer power of what you can do must be quasi-orgasmical, and it must almost have a life of it's own. Just how much can you gather, from how many different methods? It's like a college project with no limits but it won't last forever, someone somewhere with something different, will come and take that crown, and maybe, just maybe, it won't be as clandestine as it is now.

</comment><comment><USER24> Selling data is not the problem; the problem is the emerging social norm whereby letting data about your life be aggregated and mined proves you are a trustworthy person. We are already at the stage where simply not having a social networking presence makes you suspect.

Eric Schmidt's "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" and Randi Zuckerberg's "I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away" are some choice quotes that should give anyone pause.

"Go ahead, sell my data" doesn't bother me. "How come you aren't putting yourself out there and letting your data be sold like the rest of us" bothers me.

</comment><comment><USER25> All the arguments that defend Facebook e.a come down to: "making money trumps human rights".

There's no arguing about this subject with people who believe that people should not have the right to control their own data, just as there is really no arguing with people who don't believe in the value of free speech or the right to vote.

This is not meant as an insult. Believe what you believe. But if you want to argue the reality of negative consequences, please pick up some history books first. And if you do business in my part of the world, respect the local law.

<comment><USER15> > There's no arguing about this subject with people who believe that people > should not have the right to control their own data,

There's no inalienable human right to data about you unless you want to argue that it's somehow your property. (Or that it relates to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness). More likely data about you is just information on a public stage.

If I see you walking around town and write it down, is that illegal? Am I steeling something from you? Is that illegal search or seizure? I'm creepy, yes, but I'm not infringing anyone's rights.

So we're all just creeped out by Facebook. As yet no one is being harmed.

<comment><USER26> You seem to be, as are many others in this online debate, using the fallacious assumption that all of the world is the US.

> There's no inalienable human right to data about you

Eh...yes there is. Maybe not for you, but I, and others who were born in the EU have quite inalienable rights to data about us.

EU laws quite explicitly state that, yes, I _do_ have an inalienable right to data about me, unless I explicitly (and possibly temporarily) grant a company access to it.

A company is legally obligated to provide me a list of all data they have on me, plus the ability to change this data, including me demanding all of it to be deleted.

Is this relevant in dealing with US based companies? No. But of course the EULA of Facebook specifies that European users have an agreement with Facebook Ireland, meaning all these EU laws apply to this relation.

> If I see you walking around town and write it down, is that illegal?

No, but writing down and storing that you saw me walking is...

Now, maybe you don't care about what right you have to your data. But I do, and I endorse any action forcing big companies like Facebook and Google to comply with the EU law, which firmly puts _me_ back in control about my data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What if your "private" data were sold on the open market?

What if your boss checked which sites you visited before hiring you? What if you wanted to keep something from your wife or your children? What if the person you just met at a bar wanted to find out all the pages you visited? What if a stalker wanted to know where you shopped and what you bought?

All of the above can easily be done with just the tracking information the Like button has.

</comment><comment><USER28> A typical "evil" example is health insurance companies who may be interested in your participation in health-related facebook groups.

A good rule of thumb is to just assume that anything you post could be made available to any company.

</comment><comment><USER29> Damn right, I don't understand why people are going all up in arms for privacy on the Internet, this is _Internet_, you know, the place where everything is public.

If you want to show your life on the Internet, you have to expect some people taking interest in it, whatever the intention.

What I can't understand is how we are all upset about Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft and our privacy when we have NEVER given a damn about how credit card companies profile their client.

And credit card companies are so much worse because they first sell you credit card (via flat fee or interest rates) and then profile you and use that information to sell you even more stuff.

<comment><USER30> I actually find it a bit funny when people put up personal data for the sake of sharing it with others over a public network, then go on complaining about privacy.

<comment><USER31> These users want to be able to share their information easily with a restricted set of people they know.

I don't see what's funny about them complaining about privacy when their information is shared with people they did not intend it to be shared with.

(I'm a heavy social network user, but I mark everything public and don't trust or expect facebook or google to keep anything private)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I couldn't agree more. Really don't see what the big deal is. In a perfect world, they wouldn't be selling my data, and I wouldn't have to pay for all the services I use.

In the world we have, though, I'll take what I can get.

</comment><comment><USER33> A lot of my peers would say this is just one line of code away from a society in which our every single action or movement is influenced by hyper personalized advertisements. They fear losing control of their own lives.

I say bring it on. I look forward to the day when an algorithm tells me my taste buds prefer extra spicy beef panda express, order now and have it air delivered to you in ten minutes

<comment><USER34> Relevant advertising is relevant. Everything else is a waste of everyone's time (yours and the advertisers). Steps should be taken to safeguard privacy (you should never get a letter blackmailing you because of what you've done in the past), but if the focus is on making sure you only get relevant advertising and everything else is filtered before it gets to you, I consider that a win.

<comment><USER35> One major concern that remains relevant is the prospect of abuse. You can't steal, misappropriate, or abuse what doesn't exist in the first place. You can't subpoena or execute a warrant to retrieve data that was never stored.

Privacy laws and rules provide some projection, but that only goes as far as they are enforced. Nonexistence of data cannot be subverted and is a much more robust protection against the data falling into the wrong hands.

The issue isn't necessarily who has the data now. It's who might get it later.

<comment><USER9> I think the concern over data coming back to bite you in a legal setting is more valid than others, but is still only relevant in very specific cases. Who else falls into the category of the "wrong hands" and what harm could they really do with a list of my interests, preferences and other information I make available on whatever social networking site I am on?

<comment><USER35> Short version: lulzsec and blackmail/public embarrassment.

Intruders count as the "wrong hands". A future buyer/board/CEO with fewer ethical scruples than the current managers of a given data set may count as the wrong hands, or allow it to fall into other wrong hands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I might agree to let companies sell my data if they told me which data they were selling, to whom, and asked me nicely first instead of just doing it.

</comment><comment><USER37> Is this really a problem or are people just reacting to hype? It seems to me that our data has been monitored for years both online and offline. That data is used to target businesses marketing messages but its nothing new. For example, insurance companies collect data on people and re-sell it to marketing companies. They then use that information to send you custom messages in the mail or offers based on your demographics. Data on customers will always be sold to advertisers and frankly, we should encourage this evolution. Instead of watching advertisements for motorized wheelchairs during "Murder she wrote" (I cant help it, I love that show) It would be more enjoyable if I saw advertisements for something like Motorized Dirt Bikes. People will always have to see advertisements so isn't it better to see things that interest you? If the product is free, you are the product and I prefer to be sold to what intrigues me.

<comment><USER38> There would be no problem if advertisements were a good faith effort meant to inform you about a product you may be interested in. As it stands, they are attempts to manipulate people into making irrational choices. Giving advertisers even more tools to get into your psyche and understand how to most effectively push emotional buttons for their own profit is not a comforting thought to me. We're assuming that advertisers would just be getting demographic data, but it would probably go much deeper, and it could be used for broader purposes. For example, Facebook sees that you're upset about losing a football game, here's an ad which says that you're not a man unless you drink this light beer. Or maybe you got dumped by your girlfriend, here's an ad showing a happy couple drinking Corona. They could also analyze broader trends. There seems to be a lot of middle school girls talking about this band, let's use them in our next advertisement for this frivolous fashion. Yes, this is already happening to some extent, but they could be much more effective with a data set like this where people assume they are talking to their friends. I'm not a marketer, so I'm sure someone in the industry could come up with even more "creative" ways to use the data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm not sure the poster understands. The information that is sold can be and is linked up with other information. The big consumer database companies in the United States maintain databases with thousands of fields of data per person in the U.S.A. That's today (or ten years ago). Tomorrow, or ten years from now, it will probably be hundreds of thousands of fields of data per person in the United States. Your consumer profile, readily available for sale, will include not only the fact that your favorite tampon brand is Tampax Ultra with Wings (that's already there) but also that you take medication for incontinence (that's already there) and that you spend 15 minutes every day at the local coffee shop during working hours (beep! This app requests to know your location Y/N?) and that you view a disproportionate number of webpages dealing with alcoholism and depression on days after days in which you have purchased 2L bottles of Wild Turkey.

Facial recognition is shortly going to render every digital photo and video ever uploaded to the net FULLY IDENTIFIABLE as to all of the people pictured. Coming in 2020: a startup (or Facebook plugin) that traces your entire life through publicly available photos and videos.

Kevin Curtin has a very limited imagination regarding the privacy apocalypse that is upon us. The data shadow that follows every person around is already huge, and will become gargantuan. It's already inescapable and out of your control.

<comment><USER20> The first time someone takes facial recognition software and allows the public to easily apply it to amateur porn, there's going to be some fireworks.

That uber-detailed personal profile used without your consent worries me a bit less - while we'll get to the same place, it'll be completely because of _voluntary_ sharing of information. You'll _want_ that profile, because it'll save you lots of money.

People tend to worry that negative things will happen to them if information about them is used without their consent - for instance, your example might worry that his insurance premiums will go up because he's buying Wild Turkey in bulk and surfing pages on alcoholism.

This will never happen.

In reality, _positive_ things will happen to people when they _freely consent_ to share _positive_ information about themselves - and as those people are rewarded, the pool of people who don't share becomes riskier and is therefore economically punished for not sharing.

Two examples that are with us today:

\-- Car insurance. Students with better grades tend to have less accidents, so you can get a better insurance policy from your provider by voluntarily turning over your grades. Since turning over your grades is a simple thing, the result is predictable - if you _don't_ turn over your grades, it's safe to assume you have bad grades (and therefore are an accident risk). You've kept your privacy, but your premiums are still going up.

\-- College tuition. To qualify their kids for student loans and aid, parents have to supply full documentation about their income. Parents do so voluntarily, because it can only benefit them - but this means if you _don't_ submit documentation about your income, the college can safely assume you have a lot of money, and you get charged the highest possible tuition. Keeping your income private could cost you tens of thousands of dollars a year.

When personal information starts being used for things like insurance premiums, Blue Cross won't be creeping through your credit card receipts without your permission - instead, they'll invite users to voluntarily share their web, purchase, or location history, and they'll use it to reward them with a discount. As more and more users do so and are rewarded for the healthy lifestyles reflected in their data, the body of people not bothering to share will get riskier, and their premiums will rise.

Same outcome, no privacy violations.

<comment><USER40> That's one side of things. Knowing that you drink heavily on weekends might raise your insurance premiums as well... every little bit of data can go one way or the other, and it's not true that they are already assuming the worst about everyone, or we wouldn't be insurable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Very few sensible people are worried about anonymised, aggregated data being sold in return for a useful free service.

But what of the more specific nature of some of the things you and your friends discuss on Facebook?

What if bosses or potential employers could pay to look at your timeline? What if they could ask to see your GPS tracking data? What if Facebook could rent out user info to advertisers based on like button activity? Ever 'liked' anything pretty dodgy?

The point isn't that, obviously, they can't and probably won't at the moment. The point is how far down this route do we want to go and at which point should we draw the line.

</comment><comment><USER42> I agree with OP. People are mostly over-reacting. Trying to regulate the collection of personal data is a waste of time.

We should be focused on limiting the 'evil' applications of personal data, regardless of the source. If an employer, bank, or insurance company discriminates against you on the basis of personal data they purchased from Facebook, Facebook isn't the offender.

We regulate the credit rating agencies and how credit scores can be used. That's sufficient. Why wouldn't a similar model work for personal data?

<comment><USER43> Facebook is the offender for gathering all that un-needed personal data; and then for processing it; and then for selling it without the permission of the data-owner.

To be clear: Gathering too much personal data, and holding it (even when the user has asked for it to be deleted) _is itself an evil application_ , and that is why the EU has laws about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Once consequence of them not being able to sell my data is that these "services" wouldn't exist.

And surprisingly, seeing what they are and are not capable of, I don't have a problem with that.

</comment><comment><USER45> Its simple - FB is not transparent about the value exchange. Why?

We represent top 1% most aware users here.. most users do not understand they are exchanging their data / attention for a social networking service.

</comment><comment><USER46> Is personalized data like browsing habits or GPS info or anything else they collect market on and sell considered intellectual property? If so why can these companies sell it without compensating me?

<comment><USER47> They do, via their services. You visit X site, and read it's content. Your browser makes requests for various files, and the server hands it to you. If site X uses site Y, and you fetch site Y files, you are still using site X.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> the writer must be Canadian to blindly trust the public profit hogs that are our data keepers. he probably also doesn't lock his front door</comment>


Lessons from the 'World's Ugliest Woman': 'Stop Staring and Start Learning' - <AUTHOR> http://shine.yahoo.com/beauty/lessons-worlds-ugliest-woman-stop-staring-start-learning-184400606.html

<comment><USER2> If a recognizable celebrity figure (POTUS, a TV talking head, or a film star) walked into my vicinity, I'm going to stare. I'm going to stare mainly because I doubt seriously that the actual person that I _think_ is here would come to where I am and I'm really trying to discover if that's a look-alike or a mask.

After seeing this woman's photo, I'd do the same kind of staring. Is it a mask? Is she real? When I discover she's real, now I'm curious what causes this particular look. I have large ears and at some point in my life I was curious why my ears were bigger that average. It's pretty much a genetic thing through my maternal grandfather's family. Where the trait originates I didn't particularly care.

When someone looks different enough from the other people you see every day-- ugly, attractive ... doesn't matter --you tend to stare. Apparently you can't just walk over to random people and ask things like "did you inherit those ears or are you a genetic anomaly?" and "you and your friend both have nice round rear ends, but what causes your waist to be so much wider than hers?" - it's considered rude. When our children _do_ ask these questions of others, the child gets reprimanded (even if only by the shocked and insulted reaction by the other party) and learns not to educate themselves in this manner.

So you're out in public and you find yourself staring. Curiosity happens. Now, what's the next thing you do? Start whispering to the group you're with? Laughing? Making jokes? That's the problem. "Stop staring and start learning." Learning what exactly? That we're all humans and deserve the same respect? Yeah, your mama shoulda taught you that years ago.

How about we all just stop being assholes to each other?

<comment><USER3> That's how I deal with it:

I often try to think about it one step further, when you have a funny last name you have heard comments about it endless times already and I keep it for myself.

That also applies to famous people when they are in a casual environment, you look at them twice but that's the downside of being famous.

When it comes to visible things that are not self-explanatory I ignore them unless I want to know this person better. Then I ask directly once and then I am good.

This worked so far and I didn't offend someone so far, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What amazing strength she shows. I find such strength very attractive, and I doubt I am alone. I wonder if people are born with such strength, or if we could all have it if we needed it (and perhaps with helpful guidance).

</comment><comment><USER5> There are hordes of people who will say outrageous things because they think they are anonymous.

It's one of the many ways that the Internet has amplified character issues that already existed in society.

<comment><USER3> I've read somewhere that this behavior is some kind of valve for agression. Similar to laughing to specific kinds of comedy, or cursing at the other team in a stadium.

When you compare that to real violence, this is culturally very advanced.

There is the downside that some take stuff often very personal, they have to learn that these things are more about these people themselves than about the target.

<comment><USER6> Along the lines of- <http://www.microaggressions.com/> and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression> ?

<comment><USER3> Didn't know about that, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> the title of the post is annoying the fuck out of me, because it perpetuates the same shallow bullshit that she has to fight against.

<comment><USER8> I totally disagree. The quote marks around the words "World's Ugliest Woman" indicate that this was an actual opinion that someone expressed but that it isn't necessarily a fact. That's really the point of the story, how she dealt with the hurtful comments of others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Staring is how we learn._ Yes, it's uncomfortable for the one being stared at, but if they truly want anyone to understand their condition they'll first have to accept that being different means being the focus of attention.

<comment><USER10> Except you don't do that to people.

If you want to truly understand someone's condition, first be their friend and earn the right to talk to them about it. Or jump on wikipedia.

But don't stare. People are not here for your edu-porn.

<comment><USER9> Yes, staring is rude, I get that. But you have to understand, our brains are hardwired to stare.

Pattern recognition is so innate that when we perceive something that breaks the expected pattern our first instinct is to keep looking at it until we understand what we're looking at. It's unconscious, and if we're lucky we'll catch ourselves doing it to a person and try to mitigate the circumstance with shifty glances elsewhere, but our eyes will always be drawn back as soon as our concentration wavers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Ugliness" is always from a given perspective and usually says more about the biases of the person holding the view than about the person in question.

This woman is remarkable given the challenges she has had to face. I hope she continues to educate those with small minded opinions.

<comment><USER12> > "Ugliness" is always from a given perspective

No, humans have a pretty converging opinion on what's attractive in other humans. To the point of being quantifiable [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/fashion/09skin.html?pagew...](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/fashion/09skin.html?pagewanted=all)

And, really, come on, the idea of sexual selection is 150 years old. We don't need to be slaves to it but it is real.

<comment><USER11> Humans may have a converging opinion however this is more likely related to the current social norms rather than an anything else.

If you were to transport a person from 400 years ago into the present then you would find their idea of ugliness would be very different from our present opinion.

I agree that sexual selection isn't a new idea, however I would suggest it's more related to what the media and advertising tells us is optimal rather than other factors (e.g. see the changing sexual norms in teenagers due to porn).

<comment><USER12> > this is more likely related to the current social norms rather than an > anything else.

Again, no

>> Studies have shown that there is surprising agreement about what makes a face attractive. Symmetry is at the core, along with youthfulness; clarity or smoothness of skin; and vivid color, say, in the eyes and hair. There is little dissent among people of different cultures, ethnicities, races, ages and gender.

Symmetry works across species. Are zebras influenced by the current social norms?

>> Female Zebra Finches Prefer Males with Symmetric Chest Plumage

[http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/258/1353/267....](http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/258/1353/267.short)

Search for symmetry and sexual in Google Scholar and you'll find hundreds of studies showing that those preferences are obviously innate. Maybe not all of them but a lot of them.

And the resulting judgement is instantaneous — humans can judge attractiveness unconsciously, without noticing it, in 13ms! [http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/04/how-long-does-it-take- to-d...](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/04/how-long-does-it-take-to-decide-if- a-person-i/)

> If you were to transport a person from 400 years ago into the present then > you would find their idea of ugliness would be very different from our > present opinion.

That's not falsifiable.

<comment><USER6> "That's not falsifiable."

Besides that we have some conception of beauty ideals throughout the ages, as captured.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As an aside, I can't read this article on my phone, I get redirected to the mobile version of the frontpage. Very frustrating.</comment>


Highlights from Git 2.19 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.github.com/2018-09-10-highlights-from-git-2-19/ <comment><USER2> Interesting.

Is git range-diff and different than git log --patch A..B (or is it 3 dots?)?

Most importantly: Directory rename detection!

This is a huge help especially in the earlier stages of a project where I can't seem to settle on package names. And add the that the horribly deep directory hierarchies that come with Java src/main/com/company/team/product/factories/impl etc etc.

<comment><USER3> It looks like range-diff is a little bit different than git log --patch A...B . It say it's "[...] a tool for comparing two sequences of commits, including changes to their order, commit messages, and the actual content changes they introduce."

So it's a bit like comparing two separate git log --patch outputs for differences/similarities, and it does it in a semantic way (it knows the difference between commit messages, content changes, etc.). The log --patch would just give you every commit that differs at all from either branch, and all their changes.

I could see this being a very common part of my workflow potentially. Off the top of my head I think I'll be using it to verify that a rebase -i did the actual changes that I meant it to, and no more.

(just for clarity: two dots, git log --patch A..B, would just give you the log of commits with changes in that single range, three dots does the same for commits in either A or B but not both)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Quick quiz: if git tag -l is shorthand for git tag --list, then what does > git branch -l do? If you thought, "surely it doesn't list all branches", > then congratulations: you're a veteran Git user!

Ha someone should make a logical git CLI.</comment>


What if everything we know about dark matter is totally wrong? - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.co.uk/article/dark-matter-worth-searching-for-null-results <comment><USER2> Well, it IS totally wrong.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwKT9XqbCI8&list=PLWy9gm0ulp...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwKT9XqbCI8&list=PLWy9gm0ulp7nvCU4p7BrLlhkTAcA2UL2O)</comment>


My Data Done Right - <AUTHOR> https://www.mydatadoneright.eu/request <comment><USER2> I can only select the Netherlands as my country somehow...</comment>


Ask HN: Top univ offering an online graduate degree in pure/abstract maths? - <AUTHOR> I have looking for online graduate course/degree in abtract/pure math. While it is relatively easy to find something in computer science and the applied mathetics, i am having trouble find something around the more abstract/pure subject (eg measure theory, abstract algebra etc...). <comment><USER2> (I have a PhD in pure math — specializing in differential geometry — from a top US university, graduated in the past few years.)

I've never heard of an online graduate degree in pure math. If I were to discover that there were indeed such a thing, I'd predict that:

        * it is not in the US
        * or, it is a masters degree only
        * at a for-profit institution
        * and would have low-quality instruction.

I'd count it much more likely that graduate-level courses exist online in a not-for-credit capacity. (In the usual places, eg MIT opencourseware)

<comment><AUTHOR> Why would be math online degree be neccessarly of low-quality instruction ? How is the job markets for math phd these days btw ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm currently taking all my classes online, but through a brick-and-mortar college (I live too far from campus to attend in person, at least for now), and my school doesn't offer anything above Calculus 2 online, with the justification that the material is too tough to learn without direct instruction.

I have no idea how valid that justification is, but I imagine at least some other schools use a similar reasoning.</comment>


PHP vs. GO - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Is there anything specific you are looking for?</comment>


NSScreencast: Bite-sized Screencasts for iOS Development - <AUTHOR> http://nsscreencast.com/

<comment><USER2> See also: <https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2011/>

<comment><USER3> ....but those aren't "bite-sized" ;)

<comment><USER2> I'd argue that 20 minutes isn't either, but fair enough :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Watched the first episode. I've written some really crappy iOS apps just as side projects and so this helped clear up a bunch of slight misconceptions I had about the way it worked. Great video, super clear explanations, I have a much more solid understanding now. Thanks.

One nitpick is the video kept freezing for me, I'd refresh and it would play another minute or so and then freeze again. Maybe just the HN effect or something.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback! I'm guessing your right about the video skipping, but I'll keep my eye on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good stuff hope to see more videos soon. Also, really good domain name!

<comment><USER6> _Also, really good domain name!_

That depends of course on your cultural and language background. In Germany, "NS" in a standard abbrevation for "Nationalsozialismus", the ideology of the Hitler regime from which the abbreviation "Nazi" derives. For instance, the time between '33 and '45 is typically called "NS-Zeit".

I don't think there's any danger, though, that anyone will confuse this website's content with anything related to that meaning ;-)

<comment><USER3> Wow, kleiba, that's interesting to know

Of course "NS" is a play on Apple's Foundation classes that use the NextStep prefix for pseudo-namespaces.

It's unfortunate that it has connotations from our sordid past.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I thought it was interesting too, but others apparently didn't, or why else the downvote?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great!

RSS feed? How often are planing to release episodes?

<comment><USER3> There's an RSS feed at <http://feeds.feedburner.com/nsscreencast>. It doesn't yet contain the enclosure for iTunes, but I'll get that in shortly.

I'll be releasing a video each week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> These are great: can't wait to see the next one!

</comment><comment><USER9> Great job with the videos. Memory management is sort of obsolete with ARC.

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

I still recommend that everyone learn how memory management works before jumping into ARC. Much of what I do still has to support 4.0. That said, ARC is pretty badass, and I plan on doing a screencast on ARC in the near future.

<comment><USER10> ARC is nearly fully supported on 4.0

<comment><USER3> You're right, ARC is partially supported in 4.0 (no weak references), but learning the hard way is still beneficial before learning on ARC.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How often do you convert code from one language to another? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Pretty often, from Java to Scala.</comment>


I Want to Kill LinkedIn - <AUTHOR> http://www.erickarjaluoto.com/blog/i-want-to-kill-linkedin/ <comment><USER2> While i would really like Linked in dead I would rather like to replace it with something more useful.

I think another good alternative would be to introduce money as a way to connect people. To connect people just pay them to accept you but only allow the flow of money one way. If you know the person you you really wouldn't mind the inconvenience of paying some lunch money and getting it back IRL or via a different service later. Physical connections could be made for free when people are in same location and make phones mate with each other or something. For recruiting this could work as well. If i am really that interested to a recruiter he wouldn't mind paying the equivalent the time it takes to look at it seriously for me to look at his offer. And if his offer was good and a real job hey i might pay him back. If it was just a grab for my CV then tough luck you lost your investment. The website hoster / owner would take his cut from all these transactions.

Additionally it would be nice if you could grant selective information rights to individuals, say you could share your CV with someone while not sharing it with the world. And you could set this up per user. Essentially storing an PKI encrypted copy of a CV / profile for another user that you could revoke.</comment>


Proposed HN Feature: The Cold Shoulder Button - <AUTHOR> So I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed a pattern on this site: Attached to many submissions is a one-sentence comment of the form "This is not for HN" with a certain number of upvotes. I confess to having posted a few such comments myself.
I'm wondering whether this pattern might be a site feature struggling to be born.
Perhaps every single article should come with a tiny button to press, with a label: "I believe this article is offtopic for HN".
I'm not talking about a downvote option, exactly. The downvote button on submissions has been suggested thousands of times by now, and a counter-argument -- a good one, IMHO -- is that enabling the downvoting of articles empowers gangs of organized downvoters to kill content from the site for arbitrary reasons. Everyone knows the kind of trouble that causes.
But that presumes that the downvote button is hooked up to something in the site's software. It doesn't need to be. Just display a tiny number that is the number of accumulated downvotes. Let the people who read each article, and decide whether to upvote it or not, choose whether or not to ignore that number.
In the absence of this feature, the users reinvent it for themselves, as we have seen again and again.
You may ask why the people who wish to express disapproval of an article can't just write a thoughtful post that explains why, instead of clicking a little DOWNVOTE button. The short answer is that to acknowledge a troll is to feed the troll. The longer answer is that some trolls are much more subtle than others: The ones who use rude one-liners are easy to spot, but there are others who will suck you into endlessly circling, long-winded, bad-faith arguments filled with chaff. You'll refute something, and they'll respond with a mixture of inaccurate and irrelevant bullet points; and you'll introduce good points of your own, and they'll be ignored in future posts; and if by some miracle you create a really compelling counter-argument, the troll will go away for two days and then come back, advancing the same argument that he did two days ago, as if the counter-argument had never existed. You can't avoid such people by engaging them -- engagement is what they want. You have to learn their reputations and politely but firmly avoid them.
Which I do. But that doesn't mean I want to sit idly by while effluvia overflows the front page of HN. The site could really use a "cold shoulder" button. <comment><USER2> In all honesty I've found that just ignoring the non-value-add stories seems to work pretty well. Not upvoting them and not commenting on them seems to allow gravity to take effect fairly quickly.

The solution is not any sort of downvote mechanism, by any name. The solution is simply restraint :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm generally inclined to agree with you. That's why I was never really in favor of any downvoting schemes. But what I'm trying to suggest is not downvoting; it's only slightly more than a _placebo_ for downvoting.

(An "irrelevant" flag that didn't even display a vote total would be _purely_ a placebo. If it weren't for the fact that the users here would immediately figure out the trick, I'd semi-seriously propose the placebo idea. Restraint is easy to preach, but sometimes difficult to practice, and one way to make it easier is to offer a displacement behavior. Instead of getting angry, you can forcefully click a button and depart. ;)

And I wouldn't have even brought up the idea of a formal Cold Shoulder system if I hadn't seen so many users -- including myself -- doing it anyway, using comments. Perhaps this _ad hoc_ comment method that we currently use is actually better than a formal system for feedback. I'm not sure. But I figured I'd at least discuss the idea for a minute.

Why don't people show more restraint and just have faith in the force of gravity? I just discussed the irrational reason: they could use a better displacement behavior. The rational reason is that, as the number of off-topic submissions becomes a greater and greater percentage of the submitted stories, one fears that new submitters are increasingly unable to tell the difference between a story that dies because it is offtopic and a story that dies because it's lost in a sea of other submissions. So, they keep trying. I'm not sure I blame them. Why shouldn't users submit the kind of highly-crafted linkbait that works so well on sites like Reddit and Digg? The answer is that many such links don't work well with the culture we're trying to foster on HN, but users aren't born knowing how HN culture works. Experienced folks have to teach them. And one good way to teach people is to have a means of providing subtle corrections: One that's more gentle than a stiff-arm to the face, more polite than a cutting insult, and less work to create than a well-crafted post.

Anyway, perhaps you are right and I just needed further encouragement. I will return to the "restraint" tactic, and we'll give the whole thing another three months and see what transpires.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for clarifying your argument/points.

One of the other things that I think HN has going for it is that pg seems to pay active attention to the site and wants to cultivate it to a particular end. Given some of his previous work in bayesian spam filtering techniques, I am inclined to believe (hopefully not in vain) that the HN algorithm will continue to be adjusted over time to weight down the useless stuff and add buoyancy to the interesting stuff. Because it is still very hard for a program to gauge the nature of comments, the best approach is likely to assume that comments and active discussions == good, while lack of comments == bad.

So, I might have too much faith in "the system" (which is a rarity for me), but for now I am trusting that this issue is being managed transparently, and we can all do our part by acting intelligently. I'll also add for good measure, that there are times I have to remind myself to take my own advice ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> _One of the other things that I think HN has going for it is that pg seems to pay active attention to the site and wants to cultivate it to a particular end._

Yes, I agree that this is the secret advantage [1] of the site: It's being gardened, using hoes and rakes built out of Lisp.

[1] Well, okay, technically it's a secret only in the Purloined Letter sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> My personal mantra on this is to focus on upvoting.

If you see something you like, upvote it! Also, if you're not happy with the stuff you see.. by all means, submit some links that you think are interesting.

A couple of times I've submitted stuff that was perhaps a little off topic or not explained very well.

The frustrating thing was that when a submission got upvoted by other people who obviously found it interesting as well, all the comments were from people who just wanted to point out that the article was not interesting to them.

I'd much rather people just ignore stuff they don't like. Leave it for other people who do find it interesting to discuss.

<comment><AUTHOR> _all the comments were from people who just wanted to point out that the article was not interesting to them._

That was the impulse for this suggestion of mine: I was trying to think of a system that acknowledges the existence of these dissenters without encouraging them to occupy too much space on the comments page.

<comment><USER3> Oh I'm not saying your suggestion is a bad idea. Not at all.. The placebo idea is actually kinda clever. :)

But I think in general it's better just to be mindful that different people have different interests. I'm glad that I'm exposed to a broad range of topics on this site, even if I don't find all of it interesting.

Although, that said.. the obvious link bait type articles "Top 10 ways to blah blah" are pretty annoying. :P

<comment><USER4> I wonder if it would be possible for downvotes to count, not against karma, but only for an individually calculated gravity? This way, you could accelerate the fall of links you don't like, but only for yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Back during the five-or-so years that I read slashdot regularly, I grew to wish that Jon Katz stories weren't there, so I used slashdot's (simple) filtering mechanism to make it so.[1]

Therefore, a feature request: If a large fraction of HN's users hit the "Not Hacker News" button, then the site should use some clustering technique (k-means or whatever) to identify groups of users who agreed[2] on what was on- or off-topic and filter accordingly (for those users). The idea is that if enough of the users to whom I'm similar decide that something is off-topic, then HN auto-flags it for me. What I'd really like is these articles filtered out automatically; then, if we wanted to get fancy, provide a "Show 4 probably NHN articles" link that turns the feature off temporarily.

[edit:] In particular, people who didn't use the NHN button would see exactly the normal set of stories.

But then HN becomes a baby recommendation engine, which could be a nasty path. Just thinking out loud.

[1] I bear no particular ill will toward Mr. Katz; just thought most of his stuff was neither news for nerds nor stuff that mattered.

[2] "Users mostly agreed" means the overlap between the sets of NHN-flagged articles is similar.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like it. It could be the equivalent of those fake traffic light buttons. Even if it doesn't have any direct effect on a submission, it could give "doesn't belong" people an outlet for their frustration, without cluttering the comments.

The problem is that there can't be any universal consensus on what stories belong on News.YC. I've posted "doesn't belong" comments to some stories, while simultaneously being annoyed by the same type of comment for other stories. This inconsistency will never go away.

<comment><AUTHOR> _I've posted "doesn't belong" comments to some stories, while simultaneously being annoyed by the same type of comment for other stories. This inconsistency will never go away._

Yes, "universal consensus" is way, way too much to expect of the universe. But I'd claim that the current contents of the News.YC front page represents a broad, fuzzy consensus, plus a few outliers, and that's what we're trying to signal here.

I actually expect that, were we to implement this idea, the "X users have pressed the Fake Traffic Light button" widget would always register a certain number of clicks for the average front-page article. You're right -- the median submission will always seem annoyingly offtopic to _somebody_. That's why I think it's important that the "Cold Shoulder" widget be very small and unobtrusive, since it will always be there, registering something.

And, of course, for the median submission the widget might well have no value, since it will always register some background noise. But my hypothesis is that the design might pay off by keeping the objections small and inconspicuous, rather than having them eat up space on the main page the way curmudgeonly comments currently do. Meanwhile, for the _non_ -median submission, the feature will come into its own: If you submit a link that recruits people to the Hare Krishnas, and it gets zero upvotes plus 75 "Cold Shoulders", you can't pretend that your article has merely slipped through the cracks. Nope, we're actively ignoring you and hoping you will go away.

Of course, perhaps my idea would just end up encouraging rebellious users to compete to rack up the largest possible tally of Cold Shoulder clicks. If that turns into the game of choice I might have to concede that my idea is terrible. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like it. There seems to be both widespread disagreement as to not only what the guidelines should be, but what they actually are.

dhotson said: "My personal mantra on this is to focus on upvoting." Mine too, but unfortunately it only takes a few people whose focus is instead being community police to annoy the hell out of a lot of other people.

An "off-topic" button might go a little way toward solving this.

</comment><comment><USER8> Oh, I guess that's not what the flag button is for. _facepalm_</comment>


Need recommendations for a markdown/syntax-based editor for creating flowcharts - <AUTHOR> Hi, has anyone come across a markdown/syntax-based online web editor for creating flow charts? I remember using one that had a brown color scheme and had a tutorial talking about pirates and stuff. That was really good for me, but i can't remember the name. Hope maybe someone here may know about it? <comment><USER2> Perhaps one of these?

\- [https://knsv.github.io/mermaid/](https://knsv.github.io/mermaid/) \- [http://flowchart.js.org](http://flowchart.js.org) \- [https://code2flow.com/app](https://code2flow.com/app) (non-markdown dsl)</comment>


AngularJS + Cloud Endpoints: A Recipe for Building Modern Web Applications - <AUTHOR> https://cloud.google.com/resources/articles/angularjs-cloud-endpoints-recipe-for-building-modern-web-applications

<comment><USER2> Its modern to store your data at NSA?</comment>


Source Code Poetry 2015 - <AUTHOR> http://www.sourcecodepoetry.com/ <comment><USER2> The American C* by _Done Lean_ made my day, thanks for it. This reminded me about Black Perl: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Perl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Perl)

</comment><comment><USER3>
       if you_are::new_here(){
           confusion::awaits()
       }

</comment><comment><USER4> What about the ioccc (International Obfuscated C Code Contest)?

[http://www.ioccc.org/](http://www.ioccc.org/)</comment>


Mozilla goes incubator with 'Fix The Internet' startup early-stage investments - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/14/mozilla-goes-full-incubator-with-fix-the-internet-startup-lab-and-early-stage-investments/ <comment><USER2> Hey all, Patrick here & one of the mentors for the Mozilla Builders "fix-the- internet" incubator [https://builders.mozilla.community/](https://builders.mozilla.community/).

We have 3 different offerings for this Summer. All incubator style, meaning you meet weekly or biweekly with mentors and we really try to help drive you from point A to point C.

1\. $75k investment in a startup. MUST be serious about wanting to build something awesome and put in the hard work it takes to do so.

2\. $16k funding in a much earlier stage project (idea stage / MVP stage). MUST be serious about commitment it takes to get to launch.

3\. OPEN LABS: these are open to the entire community and you have access to the mentors. 10 min checkins each week & peer sessions. We've had TONS of amazing projects for our Open Labs in the Spring and we hope to see TONS more for the Summer.

In terms of MISSION and what we're looking for:

We started this new incubator out of Mozilla in order to work with & invest in developers, startups, and technology enthusiasts who are building things that will shape the internet and have a positive impact without needing to hyper focus on the bottom line. We call this our "fix-the-internet" incubator.

<comment><USER3> Here's my "fix the internet" idea: build a search engine that is itself ad- free, and searches over only the ad-free segment of the web. More options: allow users to exclude sites with ads, sites with ecommerce, sites with tracking, or simply allow users to build and share lists of sites to exclude. Rationale: the unmonetized or under-monetized web was awesome, a lot of it still exists under the radar now, and it would be good to reify it as a tangible thing. Bonus 1: competitors probably won't copy your features. Bonus 2: spam won't be a big problem, as most of it contains ads.

<comment><USER4> [https://wiby.me](https://wiby.me)

<comment><USER3> Very cool! Though it seems more like a hand-picked directory than a search engine with a crawler, as it doesn't find quite a few good noncommercial pages that I know exist.

<comment><USER5> Looks like pages have to be submitted here to be included: [https://wiby.me/submit/](https://wiby.me/submit/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The internet could be "fixed" by regulating advertising. In the beginning there were rules. No commercial use. When that was lifted we started the descent into where things are now. It began with a lawyer posting an ad about immigration services to Usenet. It has come a long way since then. All the while, the web browser has supported always advertising, making it easier and easier to consume ads, buy and sell via the web.

People in the 1990's who wanted "e-commerce" got their wish. Certain companies and individuals have become wealthy beyond imagination. Companies are hording cash. However it is not an equal playing field.

Governments have heretofore been unwilling to regulate. Some, those who are proifiting from the status quo, might say this is starting to change. Even if this is true, the change is very slow. In Mozilla Corporation's domicile, there has been no significant change.

Mozilla is funded indirectly by advertising. Their funding comes from Google. Google's funding comes from advertisers.

<comment><USER6> That, historically speaking, is not enough. People will find a away to screw up advertising, whether intentionally or not, so long as there is revenue to earn. Perhaps things have gotten better but when I used to dig into that code for work some years ago it was near negligent incompetent.

If you are going to recommend regulation the only thing that works, as exemplified by every other profession, is credentials: licensing and certification. There would be less bad software in the world if there were less bad software developers employed writing software and everybody else held to a minimum ethical standard.

Right now, at least before COVID, there was no motivation to write good software. Many developers, at least web developers whether front or back end, only goal was employability which often meant tooling to a tech stack and trying not to write original software.

Edit: I anticipate this will be downvoted extensively, because regulating minimal developer competence is always heavily down voted. It's curious though that people claim there is a problem they want fixed only until they realize the fix applies directly to them, at which point the problem is no longer worth the effort.

<comment><USER7> I mean I would agree with your position if _most_ institutions were able to produce competent software engineers and didn't cost a life. And even if they did, I wonder how many of them work for an ad network while they certainly can work at any other job with good pay.

On the other hand, other industries with certification and oaths are much more shady. You can't hammer ethics through academics. If anything, current academical culture encourages being unethical and liar while disguising as opposite. In my own experience, people who seem obsessed with degrees and accredition were the most unethical I had seen. They usually are in management position or law/government stuff.

So I downvoted this comment despite agreeing because this doesn't seem practical. This is unnecessary gatekeeping that will disproportionately affect "poor" people and increase status quo for no benefit in return.

<comment><USER6> > I mean I would agree with your position if most institutions were able to > produce competent software engineers and didn't cost a life.

Likewise, not everybody who graduates law school should be a lawyer. Education in other industries is just a prerequisite of a larger process and certainly not a qualifier. Other industries solve for this problem with either broker/agent relationships or through forced internships. Those filtering criteria are built into the licensing process and result in forced mentoring at the liability of a license holder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is completely tangental but I think it is wrong to see the internet as needing another feature in order to be complete. I think we really need a ground up re-think of data.

I remember diligently cataloging my movie preferences in LoveFilm, a UK Netflix competitor (when Netflix was a movie-by-mail company). I think I rated thousands of movies. I did the same in Netflix, certainly hundreds of films before they changed their rating scheme to thumbs up and "preference rating". Yet I have no access to this data.

We often talk about how much companies know about us. Google knows what search terms I search for. Facebook knows what content I slow down on while scrolling my feed. Youtube knows what videos I watch. My cell phone company probably knows the location of my cell every minute of the day. And outside of the horrible interfaces they have been regulated to provide me access to that data ... it is almost completely opaque to me.

Re-thinking data isn't the kind of thing a startup can do. I think we need to find legal mechanisms to really force companies to make data available to the originators of that data. IMO, that is the only way we salvage the Internet.

<comment><USER9> >Re-thinking data isn't the kind of thing a startup can do. I think we need to find legal mechanisms to really force companies to make data available to the originators of that data. IMO, that is the only way we salvage the Internet.

You are completely correct, but unfortunately it's not fun and quite frustrating to work with government, and you're competing with lobbyists that Facebook and Google have a financial interest in supporting.

It's a lot easier and more glamorous to just throw some JavaScript at the low- hanging fruit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The irony of posting this link, when for me the site doesn't even work because techcrunch.com redirects via guce.advertising.com which doesn't dns resolve.

It's annoying, but it's not too bad, because after having looked at their deceptive, user-hostile (and in my opinion illegal in the EU) practices, I'm pretty resigned to never going to another oath/guce site again.

It's sites like techcrunch and their siblings that are breaking the internet.

<comment><USER11> Feels ironic, could be considered "meta", that the link goes to techcrunch and my screen shows:

> uMatrix has prevented the following page from loading: > > [https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers?sessionId=..](https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers?sessionId=..).

Yes, there is a dire need for fixing the Internet.

Oh, by the way, remember, when fixing the Internet tools and protocols... The following sentence was written thinking of aircraft hull design, isn't a browser some kind of "netcraft" that has become too complicated and needs a redesign?

"It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove." (Antoine de Saint Exupéry)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hey everyone, my team is in Mozilla's "fix-the-internet" MVP Lab right now.

We're working on Vngle, a decentralized grassroots news network combatting news deserts across America. We're working in Georgia now and will be moving to other states soon.

Sign up to stay updated at Vngle.com or follow us on social @VngleStories. [https://www.instagram.com/VngleStories/](https://www.instagram.com/VngleStories/)

<comment><USER13> Really trying to be constructive here: consider investing in one or two more vowels. The "vn" is...rough.

<comment><USER14> Looks to be a play on the word "Angle" - in the context of news, this is the point you're trying to convince your readers of. "What's your angle?"

<comment><USER15> I pronounced it in my head as "vungle"...

<comment><USER16> I went with "vingle".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Real talk, Mozilla; would you be interested in funding a privacy-oriented fork of Firefox with all the unnecessary extras (Pocket, etc.) stripped out?

I'm thinking something just like Firefox, except unencumbered by Google or other corporate affiliations, etc.

I think this would be the best first step towards any kind of "fixing the Internet".

<comment><USER18> It's tough.

People at Mozilla care so much about privacy, to the point that (when I worked there 2010-2012), they refused to do "services" the same way Google did (aka a login and a central server). So as a result, Chrome "just worked" and Firefox was completely unusable.

The people at Mozilla really care about privacy. But they also have to build something people can actually use. That means finding a balance between privacy and usability.

To you it's "fixing the Internet", but to most normal people it's "removing features." Like, can you imagine explaining to the average user why they can't just type a search into the address bar and get Google results?

(More specifically, though, what would you strip? Pocket is owned by Mozilla and is just a fancy bookmark manager, but sure. Google is just a default search; data isn't being sent to them. Outside of those, what would you remove?)

<comment><USER19> > they refused to do "services" the same way Google did

What services?

> More specifically, though, what would you strip?

Telemetry and the normandy/shield backdoor first of all. Then remove the google analytics from the about:addons page (or at least let adblockers work on it). Then let adblockers work on the mozilla pages. Then disable things like pings, beacons, etc by default and integrate more tor browser patches.

Firefox right now is the browser that calls back the most [https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480)

As for Pocket, Mozilla promised ages ago to make the server foss, still no luck with it.

<comment><USER17> This is an underrated comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't need money and not interested in founding a startup, but I've been working on fixing the internet at least for myself, in particular, browser history. Have a working app & extension. Anyone wants to take my idea? [https://github.com/karlicoss/promnesia](https://github.com/karlicoss/promnesia)

<comment><USER2> This is really cool!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> How to "fix the internet"? Stop advocating for JS-heavy/required sites (including SPAs) whose use requires browsers that depend on a massively complex specification that can only be implemented fully by a huge organisation, and advocate the subset of HTML that would be usable from nearly any browser --- even one that any reasonably skilled developer could write him/herself --- and the highly accessible and user-friendly "internet as a hyperlinked web of documents" which it was envisioned to be.

To try to "fix the internet" in a commercial way just feels a little awkward.

<comment><USER22> Nothing about that is inherently bad. It leads to bad behaviour, but in and of itself it's not bad. Also, saying that only a big corporation can provide a browser is both the nature of things and a lie. There are hugely complex programs built by "the community" (VLC to give an example).

I want a better internet but I don't want to go back to the past.

<comment><USER21> _There are hugely complex programs built by "the community" (VLC to give an example)._

The complexity of a browser and the complexity of a media player are extremely different. To make a huge generalisation, the latter is far more maths-heavy and less interactive. I have played around with writing decoders for a few codecs, and to a first approximation, they are very similar, so it's not hard to see how something like VLC was created. Media formats are also relatively stable, it's not like a new one comes out every few months.

On the other hand, the modern browser has many different components that a very wide breadth of knowledge is necessary, and on top of that, companies like Google are paying a great many people to do what appears to simply be churning the "standards" and continuously increasing their complexity, making it harder for others to even keep up. They invented the absurd oxymoron "living standard". Their common euphemism for that is "pushing the web forward".

The great diversity of media players vs. the effective monopoly of browser(s) already shows this huge difference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think alt open-source smartphone operating systems like PostmarketOS, PureOS, UBPorts would be a great candidate for this.

The need to breach the duopoly in mobile smartphone ecosystem is now greater than ever if we need to protect the future of mobile computing and the data(lifestyle) of individuals using it; considering smartphone is the first computer for ~ > half of world population.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think the conversation needs to change a bit. People just don't care in the current state. I've been toying with the idea of calling all this (seo/ads/blogspam/content marketing and the auto-twitter-bot-ira-shill-to- cause-controversy-and-mass-media-parroting-it-feedback-loop) "internet pollution" in order to get average joes to think about it differently.

</comment><comment><USER25> What is "fix-the-internet"?

I am going through Patrick's post here, and the website but still really no clue what is "fix-the-internet"?

Wordpress, DDG, Kickstarter have very different purposes. If the definition is so broad then I could surely fall into it. How does one know?

</comment><comment><USER26> previous post by mozilla employees: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23182232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23182232)

</comment><comment><USER25> I find it funny that Mozilla mentions GitHub on the top messaging but I think GitLab fits better. Saying this even as an active GitHub user.

</comment><comment><USER27> About that prison call thing: My understanding of these prison calling companies in the US is that they give a split of the revenue to prison administrators. If that's true, prison admins wouldn't have an incentive to switch to the free system. Can someone confirm or deny that?

</comment><comment><USER28> I missed this... Is there still an opportunity, anyone know?

<comment><USER2> hey @kristopolous! yes we are JUST starting our new summer program. Applications are due June 5th.

[https://builders.mozilla.community/](https://builders.mozilla.community/)

LMK if you have any questions!

<comment><USER28> Great! thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I thought Mozilla was a non-profit fundation?

<comment><USER30> There is Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation. The foundation owns the corporation.

<comment><USER31> Mitchel is now the CEO of Mozilla Corp ([https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/04/08/mitchell-baker- name...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/04/08/mitchell-baker-named-ceo-of- mozilla/))

<comment><USER30> Thanks for pointing it out. Seems she's also still foundation chair so the two can't be differentiated by their leadership. I've edited my comment to remove the mentions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Like everything that Mozilla did for the last decade or so this is far more likely to produce false choices than actual alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER33> I thought Mozilla was already on financial life support itself. How do they have money for this?

<comment><USER34> Don't they get half a billion per year from Google?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Here are some thoughts from Walter Isaacson [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/internet-broken-starting- from...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/internet-broken-starting-from-scratch- heres-how-id-fix-isaacson) :

My big idea is that we have to fix the internet. After forty years, it has begun to corrode, both itself and us. It is still a marvelous and miraculous invention, but now there are bugs in the foundation, bats in the belfry, and trolls in the basement.

I do not mean this to be one of those technophobic rants dissing the Internet for rewiring our brains to give us the twitchy attention span of Donald Trump on Twitter or pontificating about how we have to log off and smell the flowers. Those qualms about new technologies have existed ever since Plato fretted that the technology of writing would threaten memorization and oratory. I love the internet and all of its digital offshoots. What I bemoan is its decline.

There is a bug in its original design that at first seemed like a feature but has gradually, and now rapidly, been exploited by hackers and trolls and malevolent actors: its packets are encoded with the address of their destination but not of their authentic origin. With a circuit-switched network, you can track or trace back the origins of the information, but that's not true with the packet-switched design of the internet.

Compounding this was the architecture that Tim Berners-Lee and the inventors of the early browsers created for the World Wide Web. It brilliantly allowed the whole of the earth's computers to be webbed together and navigated through hyperlinks. But the links were one-way. You knew where the links took you. But if you had a webpage or piece of content, you didn't exactly know who was linking to you or coming to use your content.

All of that enshrined the potential for anonymity. You could make comments anonymously. Go to a webpage anonymously. Consume content anonymously. With a little effort, send email anonymously. And if you figured out a way to get into someone's servers or databases, you could do it anonymously.

For years, the benefits of anonymity on the Net outweighed its drawbacks. People felt more free to express themselves, which was especially valuable if they were dissidents or hiding a personal secret. This was celebrated in the famous 1993 New Yorker cartoon, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

Now the problem is nobody can tell if you're a troll. Or a hacker. Or a bot. Or a Macedonian teenager publishing a story that the Pope has endorsed Trump.

This has poisoned civil discourse, enabled hacking, permitted cyberbullying, and made email a risk. Its inherent lack of security has allowed Russian actors to screw with our democratic process.

The lack of secure identification and authentication inherent in the internet's genetic code has also prevented easy transactions, thwarted financial inclusion, destroyed the business models of content creators, unleashed deluges of spam, and forced us to use passwords and two-factor authentication schemes that would have baffled Houdini.

The trillions being spent and the IQ points of computer science talent being allocated to tackle security issues makes it a drag, rather than a spur, to productivity in some sectors.

In Plato's Republic, we learn the tale of the Ring of Gyges. Put it on, and you're invisible and anonymous. The question that Plato asks is whether those who put on the ring will be civil and moral. He thinks not. The Internet has proven him correct.

The Web is no longer a place of community, no longer an agora. Every day more sites are eliminating comments sections.

If we could start from scratch, here's what I think we would do:

Create a system that enables content producers to negotiate with aggregators and search engines to get a royalty whenever their content is used, like ASCAP has negotiated for public performances and radio airings of its members' works.

Embed a simple digital wallet and currency for quick and easy small payments for songs, blogs, articles, and whatever other digital content is for sale.

Encode emails with an authenticated return or originating address.

Enforce critical properties and security at the lowest levels of the system possible, such as in the hardware or in the programming language, instead of leaving it to programmers to incorporate security into every line of code they write.

Build chips and machines that update the notion of an internet packet. For those who want, their packets could be encoded or tagged with metadata that describe what they contain and give the rules for how it can be used.

Most internet engineers think that these reforms are possible, from Vint Cerf, the original TCP/IP coauthor, to Milo Medin of Google, to Howard Shrobe, the director of cybersecurity at MIT. "We don't need to live in cyber hell," Shrobe has argued.

Implementing them is less a matter of technology than of cost and social will. Some people, understandably, will resist any diminution of anonymity, which they sometimes label privacy.

So the best approach, I think, would be to try to create a voluntary system, for those who want to use it, to have verified identification and authentication.

People would not be forced to use such a system. If they wanted to communicate and surf anonymously, they could. But those of us who choose, at times, not to be anonymous and not to deal with people who are anonymous should have that right as well. That's the way it works in the real world.

The benefits would be many: Easy and secure ways to deal with your finances and medical records. Small payment systems that could reward valued content rather than the current incentive to concentrate on clickbait for advertising. Less hacking, spamming, cyberbullying, trolling, and the spewing of anonymous hate. And the possibility of a more civil discourse.

</comment><comment><USER36> Can someone please sue Apple for anti-trust violations on the grounds that forcing me to copy and paste all my fucking links instead of setting a default browser on iOS is a direct attack on health competition in the web browser space?!

The fact that this issue has gone unresolved for this many years is completely unacceptable.

<comment><USER37> While you're waiting for someone to do that, you could always stop giving them your money, time, and attention; stop using their products.

<comment><USER36> Working on it... it's not quite so simple though. I did however quit working for them, despite the promise of a nice desk in the space ship.

Apple is in no way the worst offender, but they are in many ways the largest.

With great prominence comes great indifference it seems.

How can anyone defend the decline in quality Apple's entire line has suffered in the past years. Qualities that enabled my personal development as a software engineer, creative hobbyist, and overall human being are now trashed like yesterdays news. Ideas critical to the foundation of the industry, now forgotten or unlearned.

I'm becoming desperate for action, but remain paralyzed by the scope. Please forgive me for not throwing away my iPhone sooner.

<comment><USER37> It definitely doesn't help that there's really only one other ecosystem for smartphones, currently.

I think we're probably all desperate for action and paralyzed by the scope, in a number of ways. Don't beat yourself up about it, there's only so much control you have over the situation. What I suggested is not simple, but it is possible and may be the only control you have in the end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> _> Developers in a variety of domains were invited to apply, as long as they fit the themes of empowerment, privacy, decentralization, community and so on._

Funny. I'm seeing how the Web is being fucked over in exactly these areas, and yet I don't see Mozilla doing anything to stop it. Quite the opposite, they contribute to it and follow Google's lead on most of the issues.

Here is the simplest and incredibly impactful user empowerment idea. Assume I have a computer with Firefox and an internet connection. Can I open the browser, press "make a web page" button and create a page with a stable URL (probably a GUID) accessible to other people? Without creating an account some or doing some nerdy shit. Nope.

Well, the fact that this basic idea still isn't implemented in the age of "cloud computing" tells you everything you need to know about whether major player in the market (which Mozilla will soon cease to be) want to empower their users.

<comment><USER39> Who will host the webpage in your scenario?

<comment><USER38> Really, this is the question I'm being asked on Hacker News? Are we at the point where an average user here never heard of BitTorrent, Tor and other similar systems? Or is it a way to demand for me to post a complete description of the protocol that would support the feature above? It doesn't matter what the specific protocol is. What matters is that _this is not even a goal_ and it should be.

<comment><USER40> > Are we at the point where an average user here never heard of BitTorrent, > Tor and other similar systems?

Tor hidden services don't provide permanent storage. It's just a routing protocol.

BitTorrent doesn't guarantee storage, either. A popular site will remain de facto stable, but the long tail is a different story.

Every. Single. Time. This idea comes up, and it always fails because the economics just don't work out. Someone needs to take care of all those terabytes of data. Routing is pretty cheap, and can basically be thought of as solved by Tor, I2P, IPFS, BitTorrent, etc. If you're willing to keep your PC on 24/7, it's easy, but nobody can expect that.

The closest you can get is FreeNet. Kinda. It's better than BitTorrent, but still worse than S3, because of course it is, it's free.

<comment><USER41> Well put.

A much more sensible response would be "That button lets them pay $2/year for a basic hosting account which makes the service self sustaining".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>