Ask HN: Why is it wrong to steal?  - <AUTHOR>

I have been wondering / struggling with this for a while now. I more often than not have enough for myself, and any dependents, however I find myself stealing from X, (X = shops, mom and pop store, chain stores, offices, friends' houses). The things that I pick up are more often than not objects that catch my fancy for a while, and sometimes it is just to feed the rush to steal something. I understand that it is not socially accepted behavior, and there are various religious/moral arguments against this. I got suspended from my high school for something similar, and went in for counseling. I have been diagnosed with Kleptomania, and talked with the lady more about it, but she wasn't able to give a definitive answer about why it was wrong, beyond the fact that it wasn't accepted by society and some other obscure reasons.<p>I tried looking up stuff on the internet, and well it wasn't really clear to me. I know that reddit or quora might be a better forum for this kind of a question, but HN is the only forum that I use, and so this is most convenient for me. So I am struggling to answer why this might be wrong ? <comment><USER2> Property rights extend from the benefit of society as a whole. If you accept this, all that follows will make sense. A farmer produces apples because he hopes to sell them in a net-positive value transaction. The buyer gains an apple, and the seller receives cash to trade for whatever he needs. Both parties are better off. If all parties in a society behave similarly with their produced goods, the net benefit is positive utility.

If stealing were acceptable behavior, the farmer would have no incentive to produce apples, or he would only produce apples for himself, and devote more of his resources into protecting and defending the apples he invested in producing. Investing time in protecting the apples by building a wall is a waste of a resource, because he could have instead grown more apples. Producing only enough for himself is also wasteful because eventually the farmer will be sick of apples (diminishing marginal utility) and it is impractical for the farmer to create EVERYTHING he needs on his own (economies of scale, learning efficiencies, and opportunity costs all cause this).

When you steal, you are influencing this entire ecosystem of producers and consumers. Although your actions may seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, if everybody were to behave the same way, our society could not survive as it is. Ethically, this is can be seen as a utilitarian issue. Who benefits the most from your actions? You obviously benefit, but are there other actions where more parties could benefit, or the net benefit could be greater? If there are, then under this model stealing is unethical. One could argue that stealing is ethically OK if the benefit you get from stealing (the use of the object plus the rush you feel) is greater than A: the loss by the owner, and B: the total utility that could have been had by a standard transaction between a buyer and seller. In fact, this is why people typically don't feel as bad for extremely poor people who steal to feed their family. Sure, the baker might be out a few loaves of bread, but the thieve's family gets to eat a warm meal. Is the warm meal worth more than the bakers loss?

Get help. Regardless of how you decide to rationalize your behavior, society will condemn your actions, and you will be punished. Learn to deal with your impulses.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, it depends on your theory of property, but basically stealing violates the principle of property rights.

The theory of property that I happen to subscribe to is based on the tragedy of the commons. Imagine if there were no property rights and you could appropriate anyone's property for your own use. Then there would be no motivation to produce, because the fruits of your labor could be taken by anyone else. What you did produce- you would be inclined to consume what you produced as soon as you produced it... The global effects of that sort of a society on, say, the environment would not be so good.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why is anything wrong? Perhaps the simplest form of morality is that of the Golden Rule.

Thus, how would you feel if you were stolen from? If something of yours went missing? It might be anything from a small little toy to a family heirloom. It's not just the physical loss that matters, but also potential emotional loss and further damages.

</comment><comment><USER5> From <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shantaram_(novel)> -

What is good and what is evil? When wondering whether a particular act is sin or not, ask yourself a question - what will happen if everyone does that? Will the universe move towards God or it will move backwards?</comment>


Fries of the Future - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/transcripts/772775254 <comment><USER2> Malcom Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast did an episode[0] awhile back on how much better McDonalds fries tasted when they were cooked in beef tallow. Now that the "fat scare" of the 90s is over, would this be a good time to switch back? I don't know if frying in tallow improves their longevity, but it may be worth trying instead of yet another chemical additive.

[0] [http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/19-mcdonalds-broke- my...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/19-mcdonalds-broke-my-heart)

<comment><USER3> If you need fries fried in beer tallow, Popeyes is a national chain that uses beer tallow to fry everything, including the fries.

You'll find they are nothing special.

<comment><USER4> It isn't exactly special, but it tastes good and it doesn't make you feel like you just ate something that came entirely out of a factory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can make french fries incredibly easily at home, using just a microwave. They taste a lot better than anything bought commercially.

Just buy a big potatoe, cut it into thin strips. Place it on a regular dinner plate. Add seasoning. Microwave for 5 minutes.

Take out, shuffle the strips around, add oil (regular olive oil works fine) and normal, non-processed cheese. Microwave for another 3 minutes. Its done when you can poke a fork through the fry without any resistance.

Total prep time: about 10 minutes.

<comment><USER6> Why are you adding the cheese?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Text-only version: [https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=772775254](https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=772775254)

<comment><USER8> I only see three lines of text, more than I saw coming from the nag screen (nothing).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > DIHEL: So back then - almost 20, 25 years ago - Lamb Weston invented a > coating called Stealth, which was their secret coating that you couldn't see > and you couldn't tell was on the french fry, but it lasted - it was crispier > longer, up to 12 to 15 minutes.

Costco sells Ore-Ida "Fast Food" frozen fries that have a coating on them. I hate them. You drop them on the pan for baking and your fingers get oily. They are supposed to come out crispy, and the best I can say is that they don't come out limp & soggy.

I'd much rather have fries au naturel. No coatings - just the sliced potatoes, deep-fried. And then a sprinkle of salt. Sam's Club sells a frozen waffle-cut fry that is pretty good.

McDonalds fries are actually cooked twice. And have a coating. They're briefly fried at the factory to keep them crispy, and then of course fried again at the restaurant just prior to selling them to you.

[https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/mcdonalds-reveals- beloved-f...](https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/mcdonalds-reveals-beloved- fries-made/story?id=28382592)

<comment><USER10> They're actually par boiled, then fried once at the factory, then frozen, then fried again.

Strangely, following this exact process results in a fantastic french fry made at home. I started doing this after reading about it in the Food Lab book by Kenji Lopez-Alt. Highly recommend that book btw.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _> If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses._

</comment><comment><USER12> Just fry them on the way to the customer. Just bake the pizza on the ride over to the customer. Self driving, potato fryin future.

<comment><USER13> Spoiler: At the end of TFA, they actually reveal that they are already working on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've experienced lots of limp-chip scenario in delivered food.

I find it's worst with American McDonalds-style french fries - they're very thin, and steam themselves into a soggy mess very quickly, pretty much no- matter what happens.

Australian/English style chips seem to have a better longevity if they're cooked properly (double-fried, and a more developed golden colour than pale/white). The best chips for delivery are battered (light tempura style), although it's rare to find them. They remain crisp and crunchy even long after they've gotten cold.

Packaging is also a serious concern, too - plastics are right out, as steam will be trapped and condense on them much more rapidly - even if the packaging isn't closed tightly. Paper or cardboard are best. Foil can be okay as a backup option for a short period, if it's kept hot.

</comment><comment><USER15> Archived copy of the transcript (without GDPR nag screen):

[https://web.archive.org/web/20191121194422/https://www.npr.o...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191121194422/https://www.npr.org/transcripts/772775254)

<comment><USER16> Why the downvotes? Many US pages are increasingly annoying to read from the EU, this is genuinely helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> nice, it would be nice if this could be applied to any sort of batter, so I could order fish & chips and have both of them crisp and non-soggy :)

</comment><comment><USER18> This is super cool! I'd never considered literally changing the fry formula to keep them crispy - that's clever.

Years ago I daydreamed about this problem (it was never a serious endeavor but fun to think about). I'd thought the key would be to make a cheap container that optimized for crispness. Maybe something that absorbed moisture but had a reflective inner coating to insulate and keep the heat.

Anyway, it's always fun to read about more-serious folks who tackle the same problems and find good solutions!

<comment><USER19> By the time the moisture is available to the container, it's soaked the (formerly) crispy outside of the fry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I believe there was a pizza startup that cooked the pizza in a wheeled oven, as it was delivered. You could do the same with fries.

<comment><USER21> I would love to see the gymnastics required to keep boiling hot oil safely transported by Uber drivers.

<comment><USER22> Air fryer?

<comment><USER23> in the article they said the self driving robot fry making cars would use air fryers

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does China not buy potatoes from the US? I don't understand why the executives wanted to wait...

I'm sure we've all had soggy fries before in the US so its not a new problem isolated to fast food delivery...

<comment><USER25> China is the largest producer of potatoes in the world, accounting for 26% of the world total.

According to this, only Alaska is currently allowed to sell fresh potatoes to China. [https://www.potatopro.com/news/2019/united-states-potato- ind...](https://www.potatopro.com/news/2019/united-states-potato-industry- hopes-export-china)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can someone be kind enough to provide a TL;DR

<comment><USER2> People are downvoting but I appreciate this request because the transcript is very disorienting to read.

Planet Money used to be a great source for learning about the economy but has recently become unlistenable. For example, I tried listening to their Halloween episode about recessions but gave up after ten minutes of bad jokes and audio "fluff".

<comment><USER26> I appreciate very much for the summary, thank you! For one, I haven't heard about Planet Money before. You summary gave me context what the post is about and I subscribed to the podcast because of your reply. I bet many others would find it useful too. Thanks again!</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Dash Button - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-button/ <comment><USER3> Harper's Magazine, September 1996:

> From an interview with Kurt Vonnegut in the November 1995 issue of Inc. > Technology. Vonnegut was asked to discuss his feelings about living in an > increasingly computerized world.

>> I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I'd never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterward I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, "Are you still doing typing?" Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, "Okay, I'll send you the pages." Then I go down the steps and my wife calls, "Where are you going?" "Well," I say, "I'm going to buy an envelope." And she says, "You're not a poor man. Why don't you buy a thousand envelopes? They'll deliver them, and you can put them in the closet." And I say, "Hush." So I go to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it's my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately. I get my envelope and seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of Forty-seventh Street and Second Avenue, where I'm secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely poker-faced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it. Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home. And I've had a hell of a good time. I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different.

<comment><USER4> In reality, this man of privilege bounds into the store on a cloud of positivity, only to be met by the sullen face behind the counter, 12 hours into a double shift on a day that she wasn't even supposed to be here. At the Postal Convenience Center, the object of his affection barely registers his presence because she is fears going home to her abusive boyfriend who is probably halfway in the bag already. When the letter arrives at Woodstock, Carol has to go through the painstaking trouble of scanning in his chicken scratch, and she'll spend the weekend fixing that which OCR cannot unearth.

The whimsy of Vonnegut betrays the truth that too many of us suffer from too little time in the day to create genuine, shareable moments with one another. Technology can help beat back that tide by simplifying the tedious, and little by little, we may find ourselves making time to be more present in our everyday lives.

Technology should be celebrated, and not feared.

<comment><USER5> Why don't we have more free time?

It is precisely the post-industrialized culture of consumption, and economy of progress that is robbing individuals of our free time.

When did laundry and cooking and doing work at home cease to be a social function and instead move into the sphere of "work"?

[http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html](http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society)

<comment><USER6> > When did laundry and cooking and doing work at home cease to be a social > function and instead move into the sphere of "work"?

Do you realize that you're basically implying that housewifes were chilling at home while their husbands were doing the real work? Home work has always been real work, but us men didn't really feel it before we had to do more of it due to gender equality.

<comment><USER5> I didn't mean to communicate this.

housework is indeed real work, real labor. But post-industrialized societies have worked to strip joy from all chores. The idea of of a housewife is a good example of this — A woman alone in a house cooking for another person, cleaning a vast amount of things that endlessly collect dirt. So long as we don't reach the singularity there will be chores to do, mouths to feed and things to clean. Is it easier to spend all our waking hours devising "technologies" to "simplify" life or is it easier to re-evaluate what a simple life is and embrace that labor is a part of life.

<comment><USER7> Definitively devising technologies. I don't envy my great-grandparents lives in their pre-industrialized society. The idea that chores were generally a joyful activity sounds like rose-colored glasses to me. And the idea of the housewife is much, much older than industrialization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This makes me envious of you Americans.

Here in Norway online shopping involves finding an online store that sells what you need (there's no site that sells everything, like Amazon, here), going through a cumbersome sign-up/payment process, paying a lot of money for the shipping costs, waiting several days and having to go to the post office unless the package is really small (or if you're willing to pay even more for premium shipping).

I really don't get why so many people here dislike the idea behind Dash Button. Buying essential shit isn't fun, it's a burden that needs to be done. I can't understand why removing the hassle of purchasing stuff like toilet paper and detergent is "dystopian consumer hell". Dystopian consumer hell is what we have here in Norway, where we need to physically go to the store and buy the same stuff over and over and over again.

<comment><USER8> I think it's ridiculous just because it clearly involved a lot of effort to solve a problem that doesn't really need solving. The choice isn't between a button and the massive hassle you describe. The choice is between a button and ordering the product on your smartphone in ten seconds, or picking up the product at the grocery store the next time you're there.

How often do you need laundry detergent? Every two weeks? If this button saves you ten seconds each time, that's a total of 4.3 minutes per year saved. And that assumes you buy the stuff one at a time instead of getting a bunch at once.

Amazon as a whole is great because you can use it for so much stuff. Saving time on a rare purchase is almost pointless, but saving time on _all_ your rare purchases put together can be significant. But this button thingy is inherently single-product.

This is basically the ordering-side equivalent of when you buy three small items from Amazon and they get shipped to you in three separate gigantic boxes filled with vast amounts of padding. Maybe it makes sense when you see the big picture, but I can't help but scream "why??"

<comment><USER9> This button isn't about saving time, it's about preventing the instances of not having something when you need it. The moment when you realize you need more of something is typically when you're using it. If you can literally just hit a button to order more, that's a significant change from having to _do something else_ to order more.

<comment><USER10> > This button isn't about saving time

... it's about creating a barrier to exit so that your customers won't comparison shop for different brands of detergent.

<comment><USER11> The increased switching cost isn't by force, though. Customers are less likely to switch because of convenience -- you're paying for the conveniene which, I think, means that Amazon is providing a service that consumers want.

<comment><USER10> Naturally. I'm just saying a few months down the road, you forget to care exactly how much that convenience is costing you.

<comment><USER12> I never care. I don't comparison shop. I always tick the "Prime only" button, even if it costs me extra. It's one of the nice luxuries of earning enough money that prices for consumables generally does not matter.

I don't know what the things I used in the dinner I just prepared costs. I only know roughly how much my weekly grocery bill comes to (it's all delivered - the order is auto-populated by Ocado's algorithms, so if I don't do anything I get a reasonable default set of products based on what I usually buy). And I _like it that way_.

<comment><USER13> You're living post-scarcity. Let's hope everyone will be able to, at some point.

<comment><USER14> Everyone who pays $100/year to get free two-day shipping for Amazon products lives post-scarcity.

<comment><USER15> Exactly. The ability to just tap some buttons on your phone and have an item show up doorstep is magical. The dash button is just another step in that direction. Its ultimate in convenience for people who want it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's a intermediate step towards absolute frictionless purchasing.

We went from physical in-store cash payments to online 1-click delivery. The purchasing experience has continuously been quickened, to close the gap between the intent and the action.

Nowadays, running out of coffee capsules (for example) still requires some interaction, via your phone or your laptop. There's at least a dozen of seconds between the intent and the action.

Having a button attached to the products container doesn't only remove that intent/action gap _physically_ but also _mentally_ , because you're actually consuming the product at that exact moment.

The ultimate frictionless experience would be for coffee capsules to be delivered _before_ running out of them, through a prediction system _à la_ Google Now. But that would require some kind of physical tracking system...

Some people think it's an April fools joke. I'm not so sure. It makes sense to me.

<comment><USER17> I don't currently feel any "friction" to purchasing laundry detergent.

<comment><USER18> As someone without a car, it is annoying buying new detergent along with the week's groceries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's not just a physical button — it's an API. If you develop a hardware product you can apparently integrate with Dash to order supplies from the embedded controller.

Information is here: [https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-replenishment- service](https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-replenishment-service)

Apparently, Whirlpool washing machines and Brita water filters will be using it. This doesn't help for basics like paper towels, but it would work for paper towel holders (if it's true). The IoT is here.

<comment><USER20> Great, so now when I buy a Whirlpool washing machine it'll be hardcoded to use <brand name> products with its reorder button. Gross, gross, gross.

<comment><USER21> Or you'll have to set up your MyWhirlpool account on their website so that you can pair their app on your iPhone with your washing machine so you can search their incomplete list of detergent brands and add your second choice to your MyWhirlpoolBrandSelect Favorites List and then give up when Amazon seems to stop supporting that brand.

<comment><USER22> The MyWhirlpool website will also require the Silverlight plugin and you'll have to connect your washing machine with an USB cable in order to do anything.

Every once in a while the button will just randomly stop working and you'll have to go through the motions again.

<comment><USER23> Finally, after several months of struggling against the sunk-cost fallacy that forces you to spend more time working with auto-ordering than you would simply manually ordering detergent because this washing machine cost $700 more than the non-connected model, you concede defeat and return to ordering from your phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A lot of negativity posted on this by a lot of people, including myself, just to be negative.

But here's why I (and I bet many others) _really_ dislike this: it tightly couples purchasing everyday things to Amazon.

What would be better?

I would have rather seen a third party come out with these little buttons, with an open API such that they could be connected to things like:

\- Todo/grocery list apps that adds the item as a reminder the next time I run to the store

\- Tech savy B&M grocery stores that I could place an order for easy pick-up

\- Online sites -- including Amazon -- where I could place an easy order

 _This_ would have me excited. This would allow others to benefit, and me to have more choices.

But as it is, if this is successful, then it means people are even more bound to Amazon than ever before.

<comment><USER25> This. Dash removes any type of "shopping" from the conversation.

Platform lock in for consumables. My bet is they'll just give them away on the containers themselves to get you to use it.

<comment><USER26> Or just start mailing them at random a la AOL.

<comment><USER27> I would be SO okay with this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This looks a little too elaborate for an April 1st joke, but they can't possibly serious?

I mean, who will scatter these "buttons" all over their house, which will inevitably need new batteries at ever shorter and diverging intervals...

<comment><USER28> Stick a nice Duracell button beneath every one of them.

<comment><USER29> Use Dash to order new batteries when they run out. Simple.

<comment><USER30> Seriously, if a button can order new coffee, it can let Amazon know that it's running low automatically.

<comment><USER31> I'd bet you'd just get a whole new button in the mail when the battery is close to dying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The most interesting part of this is the "Dash Replenishment Service" linked at the bottom of the page. Looks like they're building APIs to insert the service back-end into appliances - they give an example of a coffee maker that automatically orders beans when it runs low.

They list several partners who are going to release products using it - <USER2> water filters (buys new filters), Whirlpool washer/dryer (detergent), Brother printers (ink/toner) and Quirky who seems to have several products that all re-order consumables.

Looks like Amazon's investing heavily into the "Internet of Things" with this.

<comment><USER33> What you need is RFID and smart garbage cans. When you throw something out, it orders itself for you to be on the doorstep the next morning.

♫ _The cat came back, the very next day_ ♫

<comment><USER34> no, i don't want auto ordering I wat ordering when i say so a button that i can push is perfect

<comment><USER35> Well how about automatically compiling a grocery list of things you need for you... and a web interface that has a one click order for each item you need restocked?

<comment><USER36> You might like this: [https://github.com/danslimmon/oscar](https://github.com/danslimmon/oscar)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Not sure why there's so much doubt about itss use. This is amazing for things like detergent.

When I run out of detergent, I don't want to add it to shopping list. I don't want to remember when to buy. I just want it outside my door before I run out! This applies to any item that I don't feel like buying but have to buy regularly.

<comment><USER38> This would be perfect for my pets items. I always buy the same products for them, and the pet store is always a detour from my typical shopping routine. I would even like to have a macro button, that combined hard food, soft food, and litter all in one order!

<comment><USER39> Or like a storage container for kibble that when it gets to a certain weight, orders a new bag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> To be clear, this is not for 20-somethings. This is for parents that have screaming babies or have many competing events for their attention. For all you non-parents, there is a distinct possibility that things get forgotten between the time you realize something this out, and the time it takes to pull out your smartphone, navigate to Amazon or Google Express, and order whatever you need.

<comment><USER41> The use of this by parents immediately had me thinking about how one could child proof this.

Imagine how much it would suck if your kid got hold of one of these buttons thinking it is a toy and accidentally ordered 200+ bottles of detergent (at a cost of $1000)? I foresee this being a hilarious potential problem of the future: accidentally buying too many things due to user error or a malfunctioning button.

<comment><USER42> You mean like this? [http://tv.adobe.com/watch/whats-your-marketing- doing/click-b...](http://tv.adobe.com/watch/whats-your-marketing-doing/click- baby-click/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Next they'll partner with OkCupid and we can just push a button when we want the next date to show up.

<comment><USER44> Or maybe it'll go past button-pushing...

Knock, knock. "Hi, I'm Alexa, and my OkCupid profile is a 94% match to yours. Because of that, OkC unlocked your pre-selected social profiles for my perusal. Google Now alerted me to the opening in your schedule right now, Uber took me to your house, and plus I saw you like that Thai food joint down the street based on your FourSquare, so I brought some. Oh, and I thought we might as well watch a comedy flick you've been wanting to see according to your Netflix."

I'm sure someone (more creative than me) could write a better one

<comment><USER43> Nah, no need for her to say all that, because that info will be pushed to your phone while she's on her way over. That will give you time to arrange Homejoy to come tidy your place up real quick, while you use the new Facebook Advanced Analyics to find out that there's a very strong correlation between how long she lingers on a guy's page and how short his hair is. So you Magic over a hairdresser for a quick buzzcut, while turning up some music you think she'll like (based on her Spotify account).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Remember what I was saying yesterday about Amazon throwing things against the wall?

Can you see how this idea is ill considered? IT doesn't make much sense.

I predict in 5 years nobody will remember this and it will be gone from Amazon's site.

But for this press cycle it's PR that makes Amazon look "innovative" and like a "tech company".

Just like the Amazon fire phone did... for a little while. How much was wasted on that idea?

<comment><USER46> I'll add one more to the list- whatever happened to that ridiculous device that sits in your living room and listens to your every word, responding when it happens to hear something it recognizes? I think it was called Echo?

Basically everything you get with any modern smartphone, only larger, more expensive, and probably technologically inferior!

<comment><USER47> How is it more expensive than a modern smartphone? It's $100

<comment><USER46> It's $200 and if it only performs a small fraction of the functionality at what is almost certainly an inferior implementation that's a tough sale to make.

<comment><USER47> It's only $200 if you don't have prime. Presumably the intended customer is a prime member.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This looks awful. Imagine a house full of branded buttons. Yuk. Though I'm sure my toddler would love pressing them endlessly. And all that packaging in the video, the horror.

It must an April fools joke.

<comment><USER24> The timing is terrible. Even if it's not a joke, they've just set themselves up for this exact comment.

Surely someone would have thought of this? Just seems like a really bad choice -- _too_ bad for a company like Amazon to make (the timing, that is, coupled with a highly-branded product like this).

<comment><USER49> April Fools jokes don't happen until tomorrow, no? I can't remember any jokes happening on March 31.

<comment><USER24> That's sort of my point. Most people, with April Fools just around the corner (and already here, for some), it will still be used in mockery comments about the product, even though they know it's a real product.

<comment><USER50> Its a great marketing opportunity. Get out in front of the other advertisements... i mean pranks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This would work great in an office environment. If it's an API, it would be great if there is a chance for an office admin to manage requests as well (i.e. still easier to buy milk from the store; additional coffee cartridges may be in storage locally somewhere.)

</comment><comment><USER30> The video reads like some kind of dystopian consumer hell. Everything comes in a packet from a trusted brand who is taking care of you. Consume! Consume! Consume! See you useless you are when you can't consume! Your whole day is ruined.

Good job we've got your back. We'll send you some more of those precious packets.

<comment><USER52> >Everything comes in a packet from a trusted brand who is taking are of you.

And how is this different from the present ? Everything comes non-packets ? From an untrusted brand ? That dystopian future sounds better somehow.

<comment><USER30> Depends on your present. I like to make a choice before buying things. Especially coffee.

<comment><USER53> That sounds exhausting. I need my decision-making-juice[0] for more important things.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Consumer_behavior](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion#Consumer_behavior)

<comment><USER30> Interesting link. Suggests that presenting unnecessary choice leads to passive behaviour. I'm thinking of active choices rather than seeing a row of a dozen different identical kitchen towel brands at the supermarket. Like, what are the ethical standards of this shop, how does it treat it's suppliers, does it exploit it's workforce etc.

Every decision is important, and every time it is automated for the sake of convenience is a little bit of disenfranchisement.

Again, it depends what you consider important. Purchasing decisions arguably dictate much transnational economic concerns. For example palm oil, the fair trade movement. As a global citizen I would say that was well spent decision juice.

I'm sitting higher up on my high horse than I started, but discussions tend to polarise / crystallize views!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Showing this around the office, the best answer I heard was "Someone made the Staples Easy Button a real thing"

This extends the 'Subscribe and Save' model to products that people are unsure about how often they will need it. You put a Dash button on the shelf where you store toilet paper, and you know precisely when to hit it.

This seems like a small thing, but it's not. There are metrics that measure easily measure how much you forget simply by moving between different rooms in your house.

I love it. The IoT just got a killer application!

</comment><comment><USER54> They say that the full API for this will be openly available in the fall. Am I correct in understanding that this means that I could make my own service to order things (for myself only) I'd like at the push of a button? Like could I set up my own button that buys something I like (regardless of whether the brand does anything with this? Or will only vendors be able to use this for their own products? (Maybe my scenario is already possible and I just don't know.)

</comment><comment><USER42> Am i the only one who's reminded of Idiocracy's hospital scene? [https://s3.amazonaws.com/lardbiscuit/pix/idiothospital.jpg](https://s3.amazonaws.com/lardbiscuit/pix/idiothospital.jpg)

Consider me old fashioned, but what is so hard about a shopping list, or a problem that's not already solved by amazon subscriptions? Especially on essential items, usage rate is pretty static, and its not like hitting "OMG IM OUT OF BOUNTYS!" button will make them instantly appear.

Perhaps this is their implementation of Adobe's "encyclopedia" commercial? (ok im done with TV references)

What WOULD be cool and useful is a way for me to say "hey, send me this subscription item a week later/earlier because my usage rate is not what i thought it would be.

<comment><USER55> If Amazon is successful with drone deliveries, it might end up being "press the button and X magically appears"

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> this actually reminds me a bit of the amazon echo in that it is completely and totally household dependent.

i have an echo and think it's completely amazing. my friend, basically has siri in his pocket and doesn't understand my crazy-love. the difference is that he's a single guy with his own apartment who always has his phone or computer within reach. i'm not.

my house is a family of four (me, the beautiful wife, a couple pre-teen boys) with a large common area filled with lots of traffic and commotion. the kids don't have phones. my wife and i have phones and computers, but they're not always in reach. whether she's making everyone's lunches in the morning, i'm playing munchkin with the boys, she's helping them with homework, i'm washing dishes after dinner, etc. -- it's rarely convenient (not to mention the poor social etiquette around the dinner table) to whip out a phone and do any 60-seconds-or-more task. with a family, you are kind of forced to be fully engaged most of the time.

this means we use the heck out of the amazon echo for the shopping list (also the music player, weather check, and timers for the boys) out of pure, unadulterated convenience.

in a busy household, it may sound cliche, but it's EXTREMELY convenient to just say "alexa, add sandwich bags to the shopping list" and the like while you're elbow-deep into putting away leftovers.

but having a free, physical button that magically reorders trash bags or detergent or paper towels placed in the very location where you would consume such things? magical!

because, again, in a busy household there are about a thousand other things you need to get to by the time you notice "oh, we're almost out of toilet paper" and inevitably, you'll catch yourself standing in costco next week trying to remember all the things you were almost out of.

and these are just the benefits to me -- for tide? this seems like a huge opportunity for brand lock-in and is probably even a joint venture between them and amazon.

<comment><USER57> > but having a free, physical button that magically reorders trash bags or > detergent or paper towels placed in the very location where you would > consume such things? magical!

I don't get it. I keep tens of such things in my kitchen alone (paper towels, napkins, dish sponges, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, etc, etc). Does anyone really want a bank of these buttons lined up inside each cabinet? Wouldn't it be about 1000x more convenient to just have an app for this with all my Dash buttons running on the little computer that's always within arm's reach?

<comment><USER56> more convenient? no.

i would certainly rather have a small bank of interchangeable buttons for the 1/2 dozen items below my sink (dishwasher pods, 408, windex, sponges, trash bags, dish soap) than having to (with wet hands) find my phone/app/screen/button/click. those, of course, would be different than the small bank of buttons near the shelf in the garage. which would be different than the small bank of buttons in the laundry room.

would it make the inside of the sink cabinet door nicer-looking to have an app in my pocket? probably. also, this isn't a zero-sum thing. we can have both!

<comment><USER57> We'll have to agree to disagree then. I don't want a bank of buttons anywhere. Do you really want 30 different devices to set up and then worry about whether they've lost the connection to your wifi or run out of battery life or had their contacts corroded by your ever-soggy button presses?

 _I 'd_ like an app with a lineup of Amazon Dash consumables. If my hands are filthy or wet I'll try to keep a single intention in my head for 30 seconds until that's no longer the case. And if I don't feel like doing that I can just write a note on a pad.

<comment><USER58> Luckily along with the buttons they're putting out an API for doing exactly that ([https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-replenishment- service](https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-replenishment-service)). I wouldn't be surprised if some apps pop up soon that do exactly what you described. The buttons are just easier to market to the general population.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> This is an April fool right - just leaked a day early.

<comment><USER60> It has to be. It's such a provocative product that they wouldn't risk releasing it so close to April 1. Or would they? :)

<comment><USER61> Gmail was released on April fools day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I can't help thinking about the internals of this thing. Does it communicate via WiFi or Bluetooth? What about battery life time and manufacturing cost per unit? The form factor looks pretty slim.

<comment><USER63> It says right there you have to setup your wi-fi password on the device, so that's (kinda) clear.

Manufacturing cost can be off-loaded to the product makers: the buttons look branded, so if you are Tide you are paying something like $20/40 bucks to get a constant Tide logo inside my cupboard _and_ getting the path of least resistance for purchases... if you've ever dealt with marketing numbers, that's not bad at all!

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> They have removed the last piece of the hassle of shopping. Now you don't need to even get your computer out and search your past orders.

In all honesty, I don't think I would use the buttons though. The API is the important piece. I could see me configuring this with IFTTT do button or something. Do things like order a week of groceries when I know I'm going to be home for a week, etc.

I'm sure people are going to hate on these buttons, think of the API here.

</comment><comment><USER65> My wife likes to order some detergents, soaps, and other supplies from Amazon, but one rather cumbersome aspect is all the extra packaging that has to be torn down and recycled or thrown away. Since my wife doesn't like to bother with such things, I end up spending 5-15 minutes a week deconstructing Amazon packaging. I would rather pick up these types of supplies while getting groceries, but for some products Amazon is cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER66> Those branded face-plates are magnetic and swappable... right?!

Also, knowing Amazon, they will pack a Prime box and ship it with just that one *$%! bottle of laundry detergent or an envelope with just the pack of razors. Short press for "some time in the next week", long press for "tomorrow", and 12-rapid-clicks for "I'm naked and have no clean clothes, send it on the drone!"

</comment><comment><USER67> I am conflicted by this. On the one hand the EE in me is excited to see how technology is making our lives easier by allowing us to spend less time on mundane tasks. On the other hand I have this nagging feeling about all this e-waste. I think about all the electrical components being used for a device that has a single use and is likely (at this price point) will be very disposable

EDIT: typo

<comment><USER68> I'd like to hack one of them to do something more interesting. I suspect it's probably quite capable under the hood and could be re-purposed. Sort of a double edged sword though, what if you got malware on your Tide button?

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I have to say - this actually looks like a great idea for products like detergents, etc. I can see how this can work on a laundry machine. Apart from that... Where would I put the button for Bounty? Or Gillette?

<comment><USER70> Wherever you store the product would be my guess. In my case, the paper towel/toilet paper one could go in the closet where I store these things.

The razor one could go on the side of my medicine cabinet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> This is clearly an April fools campaign. This approach is simply not the most viable. How many buttons are you going to have in your household? How are you going to protect it from kids etc!

<comment><USER72> Are you willing to bet it's an April Fools' joke? If you're not willing to bet, you don't really believe in it. I'll wager $200 against your $20 that it's not an April Fool's joke.

Before you give me your money, consider:

* You can have as many buttons as you want. They want you to have as many buttons as you can have. They have hooks and adhesive, which means you can basically have a button physically on every product that needs to be replaced. Your toilet paper holder can have a button. Your shower can have a button for shampoo and conditioner. Your mirror can have five buttons on it. Personally, I would fucking love for my house to be covered with buttons that I can just push to get things sent to me. That's the future I want.

* The button generates a notification on your phone and doesn't respond to subsequent presses, so you can cancel the order on your phone if your kids press the button. But the real solution here is to not have children. The world is overpopulated enough, and with the money you save by not having kids, you can just get more stuff from amazon. Which would you rather have: A new gaming PC, iPad, and iPhone every year, or some brat that won't appreciate you, won't call you more than once a month after you spend the best years of your life trying to raise them into a halfway decent person and failing because their snot-nosed friends ruin them, and keeps asking for money? The choice is obvious.

<comment><USER73> You had me convinced at 'real solution is to not have children'. While this is a compelling social message, I don't believe Amazon would knowingly, consciously, commit to such a message.

Quod erat demonstrandum ... it's an April Fools'.

<comment><USER72> If it's an April Fools', think it'll be announced as such in a month? Willing to take $200 of my money risking only $20 of your own to put a stake in that belief?

If you won't even risk the price of four Starbucks coffees on your belief, do you really have it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> This is really cool! But for price-conscious consumers like me (I'm cheap) it may not be an option. I'm sure this is going to cost more than if I just buy whatever is on sale at the grocery store. However, if this becomes ubiquitous, it may mean the product is even cheaper than it is at the store.

</comment><comment><USER75> I think this is great! Some may complain about all of the branding in their house, but the branding is already there. You have packages of Tide, Bounty, Clorox, etc. You can just place these buttons where you store the products. I'd imagine a column of them stuck to the inside of a cabinet door.

<comment><USER76> I have started removing the labels from branded products as much as possible: shampoo, face wash, soap, bleach. I like the simplicity. I avoid wearing branded clothes as much as possible. The last thing I would do is put an advertisement for P&G in my home, but I am clearly in the minority.

<comment><USER75> Interesting. I'd say you're definitely in the minority :) Clothes I can understand, but removing branding from something like a bottle of bleach that spends most of it's life out of sight seems like wasted effort. That could just be me though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> For a minute I thought they were getting rid of the Amazon Dash ([https://fresh.amazon.com/dash/](https://fresh.amazon.com/dash/)) and replacing it with the button. Looks like both products still exist.

</comment><comment><USER78> If I have one for toilet paper next to my toilet.. how fast can they get here?

Or condoms next to my bed? Awkward!

<comment><USER33> You joke, but...

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/condom-ambulance- se...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/condom-ambulance-service- _n_2250898.html)

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3775771.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3775771.stm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> I can see this being really cool for some products but for a number of the ones they show on that landing page I already use subscribe and save. If you aren't using S&S you should check it out. I use it for items that I am going to buy no matter what (needs more or less) and things I have pretty consistent need of. Currently I get the following through S&S which means I just don't even have to worry about them anymore:

* Paper towels

* Toilet Paper

* Shaving Cream

* Razor Blades

* Body Wash

* Shampoo/Conditioner

* Tissues

* Deodorant

* Some K-cups

* Dryer Sheets

* Dish Washing soap

* Laundry Detergent

* Dishwasher powder-stuff

And I'm sure there are a few more I'm forgetting. It's awesome to never have to worry about these things and have them just show up. If I start piling up with too many of certain item I just go online and adjust how often they send it to me. I highly recommend it!

<comment><USER80> My problem with S&S is that I travel a lot and don't want stuff to pile up when I'm away. It's a good concept but just doesn't work for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> I'm really late to the game on this one, and there are too many places I want to put this comment, so hell, I'll just drop it here at the top level.

This button prevents you from playing the "specials" game.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but in Australia, our groceries are put on special once month for a week or so 30-50% off regular retail. (I would love to see this graphed out somewhere.)

I assume the reason is so that, people that don't care how much their groceries cost, or don't have the foresight to buy in advance pay 30-50% more than somebody who buys things when they are on special.

I like to think the special price is the actual price, and the regular price is the suckers price.

</comment><comment><USER82> My 1.5 year old will be excited to see this button in our dishwasher. Every time we goes that side, he will make sure to press it at least 11 times. More so, if he gets a good music feedback when the button is pressed.

</comment><comment><USER83> I have no need for this, but I signed up anyways to play with it and hack it, if possible. Imagine hooking up these buttons to call the kids to the dinner table... :-D

Added later: is anyone else reminded of CueCat, from the 90s?

</comment><comment><USER84> It has a full Terms of Service, but I still refuse to believe this is real.

<comment><USER85> You thinking this is one day early?

<comment><USER86> Depends on your location, it's already April in the far east. What does the oc stand for anyway?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> While this rendition of such a concept seems... odd, I can picture something similar on a more flexible scale with, say, a cheap e-Ink-based touchscreen (or maybe a column of physical buttons to the left or right of the screen) tablet of sorts dedicated to being a sort of household ordering kiosk; just preload it with the sorts of products you might need for a particular room, then set and forget. When you need to restock on something, just press the button.

For example, in my bathroom, I'd load up my preferred choices of, say, soap, shampoo, hand soap, toilet paper, toilet bowl cleaner, toothpaste, etc. onto this cheap tablet, mount it somewhere in my bathroom (maybe on a wall somewhere near the sink or something), and forget about it until I realize I'm nearly out of shampoo, at which point I'll hit the "Head & Shoulders" button on my little bathroom kiosk and Amazon will have a bottle of seleniumy alien- invasion-stopping goodness delivered to my front door within 2 business days.

My laundry room would then have a similar little e-Ink kiosk loaded with options for detergent, dryer sheets, and the various cleaning supplies I store in there. The kitchen's kiosk would have buttons for things like dishwasher gel, soap, and some commonly-purchased food items like Top Ramen and Deschutes porter and glass-bottle Mountain Dew.

Basically, I can see a future where such a concept of integrating restocking with day-to-day activities can be reality, and while these Dash buttons ain't perfect, they're a step in the right direction in ways that current smartphone-centric methods can't easily replicate.

</comment><comment><USER25> Linking yourself to a brand in this way completely removes any power you have as a consumer. I don't understand why people do it. And to be honest it seems more prevalent the younger you are.

If you like a brand, you should really be doing a quick c/b analysis prior to making any purchase. Why? Because it changes often.

A seller's entire goal in life is to extract maximum profit, so they tinker endlessly, with formulas, package sizes, prices, etc, etc.

As a consumer, you should be looking at how this movement affects your personal cost benefit analysis. At some point, the price may become too high, the formula not ideal, etc. for you.

Simply disregarding that and saying "no matter what, I buy Tide" is a sure way to be taken to the cleaners.

This is a genius bit of technology for businesses that want to maximize profits, so I'm sure they will be all over it. P&G would love to sell you Tide without you even looking at other brands, or the size of the package, or the price. It's a seller's dream.

It's horrible for a consumer though. I'd suggest all consumers give careful thought to relinquishing any bargaining power they may have in an already unbalanced equation.

Case in point: Disposable razors.

EDIT: Heh, didn't think this would be a popular post. Go figure.

<comment><USER88> Here's why people do it... If you have something you like, it's frequently easier not to have to rethink the purchase decision every time. We have finite attention spans. We can spend it on price shopping staples, or programming, or being with our families. For many people, the $10/order of rethinking prices isn't worth the hassle of 15 minutes and uncertainty in a less important decision. They'd rather invest the time picking software, clothes, cars, schools, or whatever. It's the same reason people won't drive an extra 15 minutes to Walmart.

<comment><USER89> There are people (perhaps not the denizens of HN who make high 5/low 6 figure salaries) who are very sensitive to price. This really screws them.

<comment><USER90> How does it screw them? Is the gov't requiring people to use it?

As far as I can tell you can decide if you think the price/convenience tradeoff works for you.

As it stands right now, when I go to get replacement razor blades from Amazon, I don't price compare anyways. I know what the ballpark price is, and if its in that ballpark I order. I could spend 2 hours on SlickDeals and other various sites finding the best price, and doing auctions on EBay, but I decided that saving a buck or two isn't worth it (especially since half the time I'd end up saving no money).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> I think what we may have here is Amazon using hardware to simulate interest and jump-start eventual software. While this seems really cool, it also seems so wasteful that I'm not sure I can bring myself to really use one of these. What I think would be good though is an Amazon quick-list of essentials that you can access in a very streamlined way through the Amazon phone app.

A quick list of purchasables through the phone app is something essentially have, or could have with very minimal work. Getting people to use what essentially doesn't sound like that interesting of a feature is the problem. A cool swizzy new hardware device fits that need, and once people are using that, the App just pre-fills the quick list with items they are using through hardware. People can then decide whether they want a new button for a new essential, or just to add it to the app, and eventually people are just using the app more because there don't exist certain buttons or waiting for them is a hassle.

Not the kind of thing just any company could pul off, but it is the kind of thing I think Amazon could.

</comment><comment><USER92> A Swedish startup launched the same product last year: [http://flic.io/](http://flic.io/)

</comment><comment><USER93> It being so extremely single-purpose makes me think it is a joke.

But it could easily be made real: Add a camera and you could have something to either scan a bar code or recognize the product label. Press button, hold the item in question still for a second, done. No need for 2 rows of buttons in the kitchen ;)

(I've actually seen something like this for shopping list creation as a DIY project somewhere, years ago)

<comment><USER94> That is effectively what the Amazon Dash (stick) does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> Like google glass this seems almost more interesting in a business or office environment.

There are many situations where your inventory runs low of something fairly obscure. Having the employee press the "order more" button and have shit show up is productivity boost. Sure, you could accomplish the same with a barcode and scanner app, but it is a little bit more automation.

</comment><comment><USER96> This is incredibly cool. I love the way it blurs the line between the physical and the digital. I very much dislike the trend towards touchscreens on everything, I personally like physical controls that have a single purpose, like a volume button.

I could easily order laundry soap on my phone, but this is far quicker and easier, and a genius move by Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER97> I still can't help but think, tomorrow is April first. It's a odd but interesting idea, however, the timing....

</comment><comment><USER98> I imagine April the first starts at noon on the 31st March. Those Pacific Islanders are the first into the future.

</comment><comment><USER99> Apparently not an April Fools Prank: [http://nypost.com/2015/03/31/no-april- fools-joke-amazon-test...](http://nypost.com/2015/03/31/no-april-fools-joke- amazon-tests-tiny-push-to-buy-buttons/)

</comment><comment><USER100> I think it will surely be useful for many people and in the end that's what really matters here. But will I use it? unlikely. I'd much rather have something on my phone, a bunch of icons for things i order frequently, and single tap there.

How long until these light up and start talking to you, begging you to press the button whenever it senses motion near it?

But whatever - they're pushing the ball. If this takes off, eventually you'll be able to build your own - something I have been waiting for at a reasonable price point. It also means other market engagement - things like food or medical monitoring - some good possibilities there.

But I don't think this is an april fools joke. If it is, they're the fools. It's only march 30th.

<comment><USER101> Not in New Zealand or Australia it isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> Not much of an opinion on this, but a step beyond this seems like it could be interesting.

1) You register all the products you reorder with any frequency (detergents, napkins, whatever)

2) Each package comes with a remotely readable electronic tag

3) A device periodically scans for inventory (I'm assuming very little intelligence in the tags, so an evented system is out)

4) When the number of packages per type reaches some critical threshold, you receive an email/app alert asking if you'd like to reorder

Some refrigerators have this, but it would be much more interesting to have it be all products. One of the first steps would be to have some kind of open standard for the tags so any manufacturer could include them.

<comment><USER103> I tried for about 5 minutes to find it, but I was unable: there is a startup that does this. It ships you things in a box, you keep them there, and when an item leaves the box, it will reorder that for you (so the box is always stocked).

Bummed I couldn't find it, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER104> My 2 year old and 5 year old will be clicking this button like crazy. I'll come home one day and find 20 boxes of Tide and Toilet paper and a bill for $900.

"Button! Must Click it! What does it do? I don't know! Click it again!"

<comment><USER105> As well as the one click limit, there's an easy fix for this assuming your kids aren't aberrantly tall for their age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> Works over Wi-Fi? Is there a screen on the back and a keypad to type the password and select the network? Wifi takes a lot of power. Does it use AAAs, or do you have to periodically recharge the batteries? That surely would be impractical. Especially if you have a button for multiple products in your house, as shown in the video - maintaining five or six of these things would be a pain. A separate Amazon app or a component of the Amazon app with a list of products you plan on reordering periodically seems much more practical.

Just doesn't seem plausible. April Fools is tomorrow.

<comment><USER107> The app on your phone uses wifi. I'd expect the buttons use Bluetooth's low- energy variant.

<comment><USER108> My reading of it is that the app on the phone is used to configure the button, and the button from then on operates independently (which would be good in that it would allows others to use it when the original person isn't around). It's ambiguous, though, and could go either way.

Given that it would literally only have to connect to the wifi and do the API calls when the button is pressed, the power usage would be minuscule.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> IMHO, this is a long game. What if every branded product (or ones that cared enough or could afford it) shipped with a dash button or was given one at checkout? What would brands pay for that? Customers wouldn't have to. And yes, I see the anti-incentive for a Safeway to disintermediate themselves unless Amazon was the delivery agent anyway. I can see brands willing to try this out. Given the amount of money spent on promotions and coupons with no clear, trackable value, this seems like something they would get behind once some basic metrics are in place.

</comment><comment><USER110> I like going out shopping the essentials, i like to pick up my own coffee and maybe check what else is on the shelve...this product looks a bit depressing "just stay home and order from amazon"

</comment><comment><USER111> I'm not from the United States, so forgive me if I don't understand how Amazon works. But does this system imply that orders through this system will be delivered in individual mail packages, with delivery fees paid (either explicitly or implicitly) for every package? When a normal human makes an order, she will group several items in one delivery package most of the time. Especially for the inexpensive and non-urgent stuff like the laundry detergent. Will it cause more wasted packaging materials and more fuel spending overall?

<comment><USER112> With Amazon Prime (required for this, at least for now), you pay one time per year and get free two-day shipping for the year (along with other benefits like Amazon's Netflix-like video service and free delivery of diapers/nappies). With Prime, you generally don't think about combining shipments, since there is no benefit in doing so _.

_ Except for those intangible benefits like reducing carbon footprints. I tend to feel guilty purchasing one-off small items and tend to group those purchases, even though I don't have to.

<comment><USER113> The cost is at least another box to fold, move along a conveyor belt, fill with padding, attach a label, route for shipping, gas/diesel/electric energy to deliver from end-to-end and waste to recycle.

<comment><USER112> Those aren't costs I pay. Anything it costs Amazon is absolutely meaningless to me; I've already paid for it in my Prime membership, and I already brought up the point about the intangible costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER114> This disruptive solution really helps me solve my only remaining excuse to not get out of the house. Buying detergent at the store nearby every 3 months was such an ordeal. Thanks Amazonistan.

</comment><comment><USER115> Was ever a product more obviously invented by someone without children?

<comment><USER56> i suspect you don't actually have children.

as a parent, the places these buttons would need to be for me are already child-proofed. if it's sitting next to where i keep my laundry detergent, that space is already child-proofed. if it's under the sink next to my bottle of 409, it's already child-proofed.

know what i mean?

</comment></comment><comment><USER116> Anyone know where you can buy hardware like this (a wifi button) that you could then use for your own stuff? Eg. Using your own little web server: Press to order an uber etc.

<comment><USER117> It sure looks like Amazon's hardware team has optimized the package size, but for tinkering you could start with some of the products from Spark:

[https://store.spark.io/](https://store.spark.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> This seems like a cool idea, but in my experience Amazon's prices for household goods fluctuate dramatically. Sometimes things are a great deal, but a month later they could be more expensive than purchasing at a local store (and I'm in NYC, the stores I'm comparing them to certainly aren't cheap).

So I'd be willing to use a button like this for a store with consistently low prices like Costco (or even WalMart), but not for Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER119> I can't wait for Amazon to release the Amazoniotic Sac, a revolutionary new technology to make everyday hassles easier for the common man. You just step inside the goo-filled sac from Amazon, place the Nutrient Nozzle like a scuba mask over your mouth and nose, place the Dross Duct (Rubbish Funnel? I haven't market-tested these) you-know-where, sit back, and relax comfortably until the inevitable heat death of the universe.

</comment><comment><USER120> I'm still holding out that this is an April fools joke

</comment><comment><USER121> Am I alone in thinking that it's already more than easy enough to buy things? E-commerce is great the way it is and sometimes I enjoy going out into the world to shop at a real store.

All this lock-in to Amazon does is obscure that these days you can find the same deal or better elsewhere with a little bit of looking. Especially with groceries and household items Amazon has never been as competitive as they consistently are with media.

</comment><comment><USER122> Did you guys see this one?

[https://fresh.amazon.com/dash/](https://fresh.amazon.com/dash/)

</comment><comment><USER123> Brilliant idea! I can't tell you how many times I've gone to do some chore around the house and didn't have paper or a smart phone with me to make a note. I only hope they don't patent it such that a generic version of this can't be done. Like, using a few cleverly placed Rasberry PI's that wirelessly update a TODO list on my computer.

</comment><comment><USER124> I predict about 10 minutes before my asshole friends have ordered me 100 boxes of Tide by pushing this button about 100 times as a gag.

<comment><USER125> Did you read it, it only activates once until the product has been delivered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> It's being reported on as if it's not a joke, so I'm now assuming it isn't: [http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/31/8316775/amazon-dash- button...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/31/8316775/amazon-dash-buttons-turn- homes-into-shopping-carts)

</comment><comment><USER127> Can't we machine-learn when people need new items based on past order history, instead of requiring them to push a button?

</comment><comment><USER128> So people have to authorize the purchase via their smartphones anyway, so why not just have a simple amazon app with the list of your frequent consumable purchases and have a 1 click shop button for what you need? That way you can order it even from work if you remember you are about to go out of laundry soap. Less e-waste waste.

</comment><comment><USER129> April fools?

</comment><comment><USER130> Reminds me of Evian's Smart Drop back in 2012. [http://www.danoneaunaturel.fr/espace- presse/nos_marques/evia...](http://www.danoneaunaturel.fr/espace- presse/nos_marques/evian/smart_drop_la_goutte_qui_va_connecter_votre_frigo.html)

</comment><comment><USER131> This has to be an April fools joke, right?

</comment><comment><USER132> I hope this is real.

It feels like a joke, but I could use this. I already have Amazon Subscribe- and-Save set up to deliver products on a regular basis, but the available schedules don't always meet my usage patterns. Having a button for "I took the last box of diapers out of the closet" would be perfect.

</comment><comment><USER133> I can see the headlines now, "Boy Racks Up $15000 in Shaving Cream on Dad's Amazon Bill"... :)

<comment><USER134> Do people ever read the articles before commenting? It specifically says this isn't a thing. It only responds to a push until the item is delivered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER135> This is an april fools' joke right?

</comment><comment><USER136> Assuming this isn't an April Fools joke, it would be interesting to discuss this idea in the context of a growing shut-in culture. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9265817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9265817)

</comment><comment><USER137> I might find this more interesting when and if they connect this to brands and products I would buy. Linking this solely to major brands owned by mega- corporations is a significant turn-off.

I want to be able to modify it to buy the things I want, not just from the limited set it confines me to.

</comment><comment><USER138> I think that if they are remotely serious (being almost April 1st) I think I'd like to see them offer to bundle NFC stickers with each product purchase, so that I can place them near the product's point of use should I want to replace it at some point in the future.

</comment><comment><USER139> Well, if they can beat the prices I pay for baking soda and vinegar at the grocery store, I'm in.

</comment><comment><USER140> All I want is to know what products are offered for same day delivery. That way we can make services that empowers the consumer to purchase items they may need on a weekly basis or need by days end. If there is currently such a way, by all means please let me know.

</comment><comment><USER141> What would be really great is if it could _learn_ how often to order refills. Then I don't even have to think about buying essential goods at all, and it could optimize, e.g., how to package goods together to minimize the amount of wasted shipping costs.

</comment><comment><USER142> You can hate this all you want, but the next time your office is out of coffee, imagine having a button that makes it show up.

This doesn't have to be for the home. There are thousands of things that it won't be good for. There are more that it will be good for.

</comment><comment><USER143> I think announcing a product on April 1st is a genius strategy. They can see if customers want it or think it's a joke; if nobody likes the product, they say it's for April Fools, if, on the other hand, people like it, they launch it for real.

</comment><comment><USER144> I can never tell if an Amazon product is an April Fools Day gag or not. I'm guessing yes.

</comment><comment><USER145> Often, it doesn't register that I need a household item replaced until it's gone. In this case, going to the store would fulfill my needs immediately whereas ordering from amazon could cause me to wait two days for a roll of toilet paper.

</comment><comment><USER146> Can't wait for my 2-yr-old to try and push all the buttons around the house...

<comment><USER147> Does your two-year-old also turn on your stove burners? That seems a lot more dangerous. Put them out-of-reach. Worst case: they press the buttons anyway and you have to open an app and cancel the orders.

<comment><USER148> I can easily go behind my two-year-old and switch the burners off. I can't as easily return 42 jugs of Tide and get refunds.

<comment><USER122> You can cancel the 42 jugs of Tide before it gets even shipped as you get a notification when someone presses the button.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER149> Beautifully done Amazon. No one will ever comparison shop. They won't price check. They will happily order whatever the button is linked to for the rest of time.

Next up, buttons for kids, to get em hooked early. A Cheerio button! :)

</comment><comment><USER150> It seems like for a lot of products a less gaudy solution would be a recycling bin with a barcode scanner. Combined with reorder thresholds, that would seem to also have a seamless process without the fugly.

</comment><comment><USER151> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMacTuHPWFI#t=8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMacTuHPWFI#t=8s)

Apparently amazon likes their mac and cheese a little dry...

</comment><comment><USER152> Interesting idea. Seems like having one button per item would be overkill.

Maybe have one generic button that opens an app on your phone to choose an item from your 'frequently purchased' items.

<comment><USER153> That would actually be the same amount of steps as the current situation.

I often leave re-stocking items till later and ultimately end up forgetting.

<comment><USER152> True, I guess I imagined it more as building a shopping list throughout the day/week and ordering once at the end of the day, not separate orders for every button click.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER154> Whatever you do, keep it out of the reach of kids...

Thankfully by default it only registers the fist press, till delivery resets it. But if you have one for many things and a kid goes on a tear...

</comment><comment><USER155> Just tape a Mountain Dew button to the back of my xbox controller.

</comment><comment><USER156> Eventually these buttons may be on the boxes themselves somehow if there was a way for a new box to read from a master device in the house and know which account it was tied to?

</comment><comment><USER157> This would be great until one of my kids pushed it like 50 times.

</comment><comment><USER97> The timing is a bit suspicious to me. Tomorrow is April first...

</comment><comment><USER158>
      O brave new world, That has such consumers in't!

</comment><comment><USER159> Really, I'm not sure if this is April 1st joke...

pro: It's kind of absurd, impracticably too many products/buttons

con: It's 3/31, no one else is thinking it's a joke...

</comment><comment><USER160> I am so putting one behind the toilet paper roll to enable "the button press of shame."

My hope is that this is for April 1.

I can't believe this isn't already built into Keurigs.

</comment><comment><USER161> This device is an intriguing idea. I wonder what other cool things can be done around the house with a single purpose wireless button connecting to the internet.

</comment><comment><USER162> Is there also a button with which you can order the batteries to put in all the buttons? Do they also provide the service of replacing all the batteries for you?

<comment><USER163> Battery life is probably a few years, and it looks like the device is designed to be disposable then.

<comment><USER66> I hate taxes beyond respite, but if this exists, and is disposable, it should come with a landfill tax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER164> It seems like automation gone too far? There can simply be dash button(s) in the smartphone app itself like a quickdial list, but for pre populated Amazon items

</comment><comment><USER165> Wait...this isn't an April Fools' joke?

<comment><USER166> That's what we're hoping at my office. Yikes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER167> Amazon sure is innovating with the internet of things. I just don't think they've hit on anything with their innovation.

</comment><comment><USER168> How easy will it be to reverse engineer these and use them for other purposes? And is anyone else old enough to remember Cue Cat?

</comment><comment><USER169> Why not just make a smartphone app? Maybe customize which virtual buttons you have based on what you need? Am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER170> Somehow I feel like this would actually be useful! For things like toothpaste or my favorite snacks, this is exactly what I want!

</comment><comment><USER171> I skimmed quite a few comments and didn't see a mention of it...but does this not scream April Fools to anyone else...?

</comment><comment><USER172> I'm honestly more excited about whether I can hack up these buttons to do things _other_ than talk to amazon.com.

</comment><comment><USER173> I wonder how hackable these will be. I'm sure people could find plenty of uses for a simple WiFi-connected button.

</comment><comment><USER174> Convenient, but I think this should be made a standard and configurable so that consumers can easily switch vendors.

</comment><comment><USER175> I wonder if it's just an April fool joke. In some countries it's already April 1st due to time zones...

</comment><comment><USER176> Wife's reaction - "Creepy."

</comment><comment><USER177> Didn't Dominos do this a few years ago with a pizza delivery button? It was pretty cool but I never got one.

</comment><comment><USER178> Am I the only person that buys sensible amounts of things?

I don't buy one bottle of detergent. I buy 5. When there's two left or whatever, I have weeks to get another 5. If the item has high shelf life and I know that I need it for essentially forever, I might even get 10 or 15 or more.

And no, my home isn't especially cluttered.

Boggles my mind. Why is pasta even sold in 500g bags?

</comment><comment><USER179> This is a placebo button for subscribe and save. I guess whatever works (I plan to sign up).

</comment><comment><USER180> I like novelties just like the next guy but one thing that gets me wondering is:

Are we really that lazy now?

</comment><comment><USER181> April Fools?

</comment><comment><USER182> Never run out of toilet paper again.. and don't forget to put the "Innovation" badge.

</comment><comment><USER183> I really hope this is true... my fiancee thinks it's an April Fool's joke.

</comment><comment><USER184> When I clicked I was expecting some kind of custom hardware interface for AWS...

</comment><comment><USER185> This is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Nice work innovating, Amazon!

</comment><comment><USER186> This is truly awesome! Incredible how technology is advancing, quickly. :o

</comment><comment><USER187> Imagine that you could buy cigarettes with that... Cancer button literally

</comment><comment><USER188> If this is an April Fool's joke, then it's brilliantly done.

</comment><comment><USER189> So, it's about Dash + Home Services + Goat Grazer.

That beats Pacmaps for sure!

</comment><comment><USER190> "Honey, did you press the button to order more coffee?"

</comment><comment><USER191> I just can image kids clicking on it over and over again...

<comment><USER54> I believe it said the default setting is that it will only register a click as an order after the previous one was delivered. I could have misread that, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER192> so, the conversation is all about how useful/useless this.

Anybody know what stack are they using ? For e.g. Paypal Beacon used some combination of Go running on Arm5

</comment><comment><USER193> Is this real or is this an early April Fool's joke?

</comment><comment><USER194> It would get dirty, it would be another thing to clean.

</comment><comment><USER195> Just don't put it where your kids can reach it.

</comment><comment><USER196> I would venture to say this is an April fools joke

</comment><comment><USER197> Cats and toddlers are going to go nuts on these!

</comment><comment><USER198> Are we sure it is not another April fools joke?

</comment><comment><USER199> April fools leaked early or is this for real?!

</comment><comment><USER200> Geez I cannot stand april fools anymore.

</comment><comment><USER201> Watch kids press these uncontrolably.

</comment><comment><USER202> Isn't the 1st of April tomorrow?

<comment><USER203> It's already 5 hours into april the first in australia. This is surely a cross-branded april fools joke. I'm just shocked that so many people are taking it seriously. It's testimony to the insane state of the industry/world.

If it's real then I might need to go and have a little cry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER204> April Fool's joke comes early?!

</comment><comment><USER205> Good luck to the people with cats!

</comment><comment><USER206> April fools!

</comment><comment><USER207> Will this be delivered by drone?

</comment><comment><USER208> Is it April 1 already?

</comment><comment><USER209> I had to check to double-check to make sure it wasn't April 1st today.

</comment><comment><USER210> April Fool's

</comment><comment><USER205> good luck to the people with cats.

</comment><comment><USER211> April Fools?

</comment><comment><USER206> April Fools!

</comment><comment><USER212> April fool?!

</comment><comment><USER213> April Fools

</comment><comment><USER214> I wanna know the tech behind this button. is it sending 3g signals to amazon?

</comment><comment><USER215> This must be the most elaborate April Fools joke I have ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER216> I wonder if they're pulling a Gmail by announcing this on April Fools Day (it's April Fools Day somewhere, right?).

(Like most stuff coming out of Amazon, I can't actually tell if this is a good idea)

</comment><comment><USER217> There has been a Radiolab episode about the slave-like conditions the workers at Amazon face:

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/brown- box/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/brown-box/)

<comment><USER218> As someone who has worked in a warehouse facility as a picker - though not Amazon. I find the 'slave-like conditions'a bit unfair.

Now I can't speak for Amazon themselves, most of the complaints seem to stem from the fact that being a picker IS a skill. Not everyone can be good at it. It's physical - which I personally found fantastic, getting paid to stay fit, and on company time. You need to have somewhat a good memory, but more importantly an analytical brain to process the information on the scanner. Whilst the locations of the items might not have any seemingly logical order, the layout of the facility does. If you can process the bin locations immediately then you save many seconds of your target. Which brings me to the targets. It may seem 'slave-like' to have a timer between picks but each and every one is achievable (through analysis of every other pick ever made), and even if you miss a pick by 5 seconds, you've probably saved 5 seconds somewhere else during that same day/week/month (depending on how they evaluate your performance). Again though that's no to say that everyone has the skill to do so.

The episode you highlighted mentions that employees at Amazon tend to enjoy their work. If you can do the job, there's very little stress, pay can be good - we're talking about a generally unskilled job, certainly more than most retail stores. Decent benefits - vacation, healthcare etc. Shifts can be very favourable depending on the facility - 4 in 4 off can mean long weekends and plenty of opportunity for family time.

Some days I wish I was just picking.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: A Colombian Developer in the US / EU - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I'm a Colombian developer who has 4+ yrs experience, two and a half as a Java developer (JSP, Servlet 2.0, ZK Framework) and another 2 years (actually) working with SOA Middleware (IBM WESB, IBM Integration Bus / Message Broker). I will get my degree in april but i want to grow, and i'm sure of something: Colombia has a bad C.S. education and the software development companies uses a lot of "Anti-Patterns". Developing software for Colombian companies is more based on a "political subject" (Managers putting a lot of pressure in projects bad planned, bad executed) than a well planed and developed projects. Well, i want to work outside Colombia, in US / EU, explore another possibilites and grow my skills.
The exact question is: if you are an employeer and i say to you: "Well, i'm in diapers, i've worked with Java and i've worked with middleware but i want to learn and i want to really work in a foreign country", is there any possibility, based on my skills?
It could be sound absurd, but i'm asking this because i see that most startups - software companies really need high skilled persons rather than my skillset, so, is there any possibility? Any advice for a young programmer with my education and experience to work abroad?
Thank you <comment><USER2> Well, your skills are a lot into corporate world, there is little application for all this in startups, so keeping focused on these will mean you will stuck in politically-laden, bad planned, bad executed projects forever, in Colombia or elsewhere. Go learn Javascript or Objective C, and freelance, starting with odesk.com then moving on to some better sources of work, then you will be probably hired to a U.S. startup (or even find youself in such a comfortable position freelancing that you won't wish to move on elsewhere).

<comment><AUTHOR> It's true. My main field of work is the Enterprise world (and i'm feeling stuck on it). I will take in account such recommendations.

Thank you</comment></comment>


Tesla auto-braking saves two families from falling tree - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8012215/Tesla-Model-X-automatic-brakes-stopped-two-families-crushed-tree-Storm-Dennis.html <comment><AUTHOR> As I understood it, self driving cars are designed to ignore objects when traveling at speed, because there is a risk a car could slam on the brakes for a plastic bag floating in the wind? Can somebody smart explain what happened here?

And is Elon's "Glad you're all ok" a way of accepting credit where credit is not really due?

<comment><USER2> I would guess these objects were too large for that heuristic (which, if given 100% control, is fairly bad, by the way. A plastic bag is quite different, safety-wise, from a plastic bag containing 100kgs of concrete).

It makes sense to put a size limit on that heuristic. If a 3M meter plastic bag were to blow onto your windshield, braking is in order.</comment></comment>


Human gravity generator invented at Facebook HQ - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10153913267825623&set=vb.520255622&type=3&theater

<comment><USER2> ... and the April Fool's posts have already started.</comment>


Old woman's face in pure CSS (and a script to make your own) - <AUTHOR> http://codepen.io/briangonzalez/full/AvrGI

<comment><USER2> This is really cool. I feel like this would be a great "tech" piece for a personal site/portfolio.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I have been playing around with the script all night and getting some really neat results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is pretty amazing ! Kudos :)</comment>


This is the MagSafe to MagSafe 2 adapter - <AUTHOR> http://www.onefoottsunami.com/2012/06/20/the-magsafe-to-magsafe-2-adapter/

<comment><USER2> "....shown next to an oversized novelty quarter for size comparison." Was a novelty foam finger not available?</comment>


LastPass Now Checks If Your Sites Are Affected by Heartbleed - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lastpass.com/2014/04/lastpass-now-checks-if-your-sites-are.html <comment><USER3> Notably some sites are using fresh certificates that have the same (months-in- the-past) starting-validity date as their old certificates. For example, Heroku has done this.

(I can think of a few process and fee reasons this approach might be picked. Perhaps a CA might offer a free new cert and revocation, if and only if the new cert has the same validity range as the one it replaces. An ops team might prefer one consistent time of year for the ceremony of non-emergency certificate rotation.)

I didn't notice any field in the cert-viewers of Firefox or Chrome that could reliably tell the true issue-date of a new certificate.

Is LastPass just looking at the start of the validity, or does it have some way to know if the certificate is truly new?

<comment><USER4> We haven't found a way to do this -- we're using openssl s_client to get the start date, but one of our own certificates for LastPass.eu also reissued without changing the date so we know it's a problem.

We wish we had all site's certificate fingerprints from before this started so we could utilize that data -- if anyone has it, an email to email@example.com would be greatly appreciated.

<comment><USER5> I believe if you use a new private key but sign the same CSR the dates will not change. Ideally the old certs should be revoked which should provide some info on this. I saw this explanation on the discussion of the herokuapp.com's cert's dates not changing.

<comment><USER6> This is entirely up to the issuing CA's process. Thawte, for example, happily revokes-and-reissues certificates for free (perhaps only for "enterprise" customers?), and the newly issued certificate has the same end-validity date as the revoked certificate but the start-validity date is set to the time of issue.

I notice herokuapp.com's CA is DigiCert, so perhaps they have the opposite policy, of giving the reissued cert the same start date as the revoked cert.

I don't think there's a standard field in an X.509 cert for issue date.

It's possible to download a CA's CRL and look for revoked certs, but all you get are serial numbers and revocation dates, not subject names.

<comment><USER5> I think this explains what we've seen best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been meaning to switch to a password organizer rather than rely on my browser's built-in one (I know)... I've seen a few discussions on here but I haven't seen a clear victor. In your opinion, is LastPass the one I should go with? Or Keepass or OnePass or one of the others?

Edit just to say I think this is a very nice feature by LastPass and thanks for posting.

<comment><USER8> OK I'll bite ... why should I not use my browser's built in pw manager? (e.g. Safari on OS X Mavericks)

I can see an argument about cross-platform use but is there another reason or reasons?

thanks,

<comment><USER9> This is why: [http://raidersec.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-browsers-store- you...](http://raidersec.blogspot.com/2013/06/how-browsers-store-your- passwords-and.html)

TL;DR Firefox with a strong master password was considered safe at the time of that article's writing (June 2013). That + Firefox Sync is what I use - <USER2> would also be interested in anything more up to date on why this is or isn't a good idea.

<comment><USER10> It's not the job of the browser to secure your data against OS-level adversaries, that's the job of the OS (e.g. by using file permissions to protect against other users and ideally also MAC to protect against other software). It's not even the responsibility of the browser to protect against someone else walking up to your computer while you're using the toilet, that's the job of the screensaver.

It is, however, the browser's job to protect your passwords against other websites and the like, and I would be worried if there were bugs in that area, but your link doesn't say anything about them (note also that using a password manager with an extension for protection against someone taking over the browser is useless, as that someone also owns the extension and hence can impersonate it towards the seperate password manager).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wish there was (or maybe there is) a protocol for updating your password. Then managers like lastpass and 1Password could more easily update your password. Maybe, behind the scenes they could rotate your password every x days automatically. Having a protocol in place would also make breach notices an easy "update all passwords" click away.

There's probably a reason this is a bad idea. Let's hear it! :)

<comment><USER12> It discourages two-factor auth for password change requests (such as site username and access to your email account), it adds an additional point of failure, and it would make it easier for attackers to lock you out of your account once they gain entry.

Plus, if any changes are to be made to the authentication process it should be migrating to two-factor auth across all services.

<comment><USER13> Authenticator tokens are pretty robust systems. I'd like to see more services start to make use of them.

<comment><USER14> Definitely, as long as there was a common standard (and open source, of course). Have a keychain token that you can link to accounts, then enter a password on that and it gives you a (time limited) key to use to login.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wait. When I click "Security Check" in my LastPass Tools... menu (this is in Chrome), I get taken to an internet-hosted web page where I'm prompted to enter my master password. [1] I am not taken to a chrome:// page or some other client-side tool.

I take this to mean that I'm giving LastPass's web server my actual master password, and that they will do _server-side_ decryption of my Vault and have server-side access to my passwords in cleartext.

Is that accurate?

[1] [https://lastpass.com/index.php?securitychallenge=1&lang=en-U...](https://lastpass.com/index.php?securitychallenge=1&lang=en- US&fromwebsite=1&lpnorefresh=1)

<comment><USER16> LastPass is proprietary closed source software. For all you know they've never _not_ had access to your vault.

<comment><USER17> If you wanted to, it's not too tough to extract the source code of their browser add-ons to verify for yourself that your vault is encrypted before being sent to their servers, and that your master password is not sent. (And of course with this tool it's relatively trivial to look through the javascript to verify the same.)

So while you can't look at the code running on their servers, it seems to me that you certainly _can_ know they don't have access to your vault.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How does their "Updated Cert?" check work? If it's just checking notBefore, it's going to have a ton of false negatives, as a lot of CAs are just re- issuing certs using the original notBefore.

</comment><comment><USER19> There really should be a disclaimer that this tool is useless when checking certificates re-keyed with the same starting and end dates. It could create a reputational risk for sites that are otherwise safe or patched.

</comment><comment><USER20> BankOfAmerica, perhaps my most important site from a security point of view does not seem to care: [https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/?h=bankofamerica.com](https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/?h=bankofamerica.com)

</comment><comment><USER21> I've love to see an actual list, officially backed, with website's URL and whether it has been fixed or not. Also with the ability to submit URLS. Seems this would be more productive than to let everyone look up their own sites manually.

</comment><comment><USER22> Apparently LastPass is still vulnerable: [https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/?h=LastPass.com](https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/?h=LastPass.com)

<comment><USER23> perhaps it has been updated in the last 12 minutes, but that doesn't say LastPass is vulnerable. They are using a new cert, it's just saying they _might_ be vulnerable because LastPass can't detect the server's operating system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is very cool and answers my, and i'm pretty sure many other's questions about what passwords are safe to change.

Thanks guys!

<comment><USER25> If I were you, I would change ALL of your passwords. Regardless of what lastpass says.

<comment><USER26> The point is, there's no point changing them until the site fixes their certificates.

<comment><USER4> Exactly!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is awesome and I love the auto-prompting in the latest version of LastPass for Android. Great work guys!

</comment><comment><USER28> does heartbleed effect bog-standard ssh as available on your average linux/ubuntu system?

</comment><comment><USER29> Note: this is illegal in the UK.

<comment><USER30> [Citation needed]

<comment><USER29> Computer Misuse Act 1990, section 1.1. The test for the vulnerability requires running the exploit, whose only function is to secure unauthorised access to data held on the remote machine. Seems fairly clear-cut to me.

<comment><USER31> [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18)

I think you're wrong:

Unauthorised access to computer material.

(1)A person is guilty of an offence if— (a)he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer [F1, or to enable any such access to be secured]F1 ; (b)the access he intends to secure [F2, or to enable to be secured,]F2 is unauthorised; and

Lastpass is not trying to secure the web wervers with the check

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> awesome. that was fast. I love lastpass!!</comment>