Solving Tech Addiction Is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity - <AUTHOR> https://loupventures.com/solving-tech-addiction-is-an-underappreciated-market-opportunity/ <comment><USER2> Having worked on a product for 3 years that attempts to target this market I can tell you the sad reality, is that nobody really cares. Sure, there are clickbait headlines and companies/parents will feign interest, but when it comes to actually paying for a product or making any tangible change to usage habits, our numbers prove that nobody even tries.

For full disclosure our product turns the Internet off until they complete goals like studying, completing quizzes, commiting to GitHub, etc.

Our first launch was a DNS only solution which we assumed lacked usage because people had to change their DNS address to one we spun up for them. It lacked usage and we assumed it was because it was "too technical" for parents.

Next we create an iOS app that worked out of the box as a VPN without any setup. We don't even ask the users to register in any way or pay anything.

Lastly we created a Chrome extension because it's the easiest way for tons of kids with Chromebooks to use.

Long story short, after multiple re-launches and trying to get feedback the overall result is that it's an almost impossible task to get parents or kids to change their habits, even if they "want" to. They will make up excuses and quit nearly instantly.

<comment> Paul-ish Maybe your product worked too well, and people don't actually want to change their behavior. They just feel like they should. Same with eating right or exercising.

<comment><USER3> In which case the real market is for things that seem like they help. Ideally as a subscription that you can forget about like a gym.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How many businesses can I remember around addictions? What s the most famous anti-TV addiction company? Anti-cigarettes? Anti-sex addiction? If it's none, then the opportunity is not underappreciated.

Making an anti-addiction product is by its nature the opposite of a sellable product. And the people who have the frontal lobe to willingly go against their addiction, have already solved their problem.

<comment><USER5> Nicotine Patch/Gum

<comment><USER4> I thought about it , but those came about recently, when cigarettes are known as an active health hazard. So it's more like a health product. We are not yet at the point that tech addiction is considered a health hazard, and imho it will never be, because tech adapts, evolves and improves productivity, and at any give point tech-less life will be a poorer alternative.

<comment><USER6> Tech is absolutely a health hazard. Driving while texting is measurably as dangerous as driving drunk. It kills people.

<comment><USER7> Not that you're wrong, but doing _anything_ while driving, besides driving, is a health hazard, so I'm not sure that's a great example.

<comment><USER6> It's a great example, because it's actually measurably affecting accident rates.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, but: [http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/eating-driving-80-car- ac...](http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/eating-driving-80-car-accidents- study-shows-article-1.427796)

But then on the other hand: [http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation- infrastructur...](http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation- infrastructure/too-many-pedestrians-injured-by-looking-at-their-phones.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In my own experience struggling with addiction I've found that it is a symptom rather than a cause. Once you craft a life that is actually stimulating the tech loses its hold over you pretty quickly, if not instantly (for example when you go on a weekend outing in nature and completely forget your phone). Of course, the time and energy wasted due to the dysfunctional behavior presents a chicken-and-egg roadblock against making this happen.

I recall the studies showing the difference between Vietnam veterans who got hooked on dope and those who didn't, as well as Bruce K. Alexander's Rat Park experiments.

The other thing I've learned is that control or blocking tools can be self- defeating, since they transform fighting the addiction into a perpetually unfinished task ("It's been Y time since I did X") that naturally remains to the forefront of your brain and leaves you vulnerable if you end up in an environment without those restrictions. It's ultimately easier to address the underlying causes of trying to escape through technology.

<comment><USER9> Yeah I dunno about that.

A month or so ago, I took a two week trip across France and Spain, it was one of the most lovely experiences of my life, staying in great places, eating amazing food, etc. It was honestly about as wonderful and stimulating of an experience as I've ever had.

About halfway through it I started to realize that I was still attached to my phone. I was sitting on trains reflexively checking Twitter for the disastrous updates in American politics instead of looking out the window at the Pyrenees, or in a museum constantly reaching for my pocket.

In my personal story I took drastic action. I added parental controls to the phone, deleted some apps, made a commitment to keep the phone out of the bedroom, and other stuff, and have noticed a drastic improvement in mental health.

I don't discount your experiences, they likely work for you and I believe you. Just like how many people can go into bars without becoming alcoholics, but there are other people who need to take affirmative steps towards abstinence, and avoid certain people places and things, as they say.

But that's the nature of an addictive cycle. Not sure it actually in fact matters how great your life is, once you've acquired that addiction it's a habit that requires being affirmatively broken.

<comment><USER10> > _A month or so ago, I took a two week trip across France and Spain, it was > one of the most lovely experiences of my life, staying in great places, > eating amazing food, etc. It was honestly about as wonderful and stimulating > of an experience as I 've ever had._

But were they really?

The thing I'm no longer afraid to admit about myself - I don't enjoy such stuff. I don't derive much pleasure from views of nature, don't like typical tourist destinations (for instance, last year I went to Pripyat, and liked it _much_ better than Lviv or Kiev). I don't enjoy eating local cousine, I prefer regular commercial-grade pizza, thank you. I tried pretending that I like "normal" things for a long time, but this cognitive dissonance isn't worth it.

I still agree with GP here - if the things you do are fulfilling, you'll be less inclined to pick up the phone. For me, it won't be France or Spain, but it will be a programming side project. It won't be hiking, but it will be going out with an air gun and shooting a bit. I don't feel an addiction to tech then, but get me back to the office, and suddenly the addiction is back too.

To be clear: I'm not discounting the addictiveness of consumer-oriented tech - but I do feel that it's often easier to break the feedback loop by fixing the other end of it.

<comment><USER9> Yes they were really. It really was, literally, the thing in life I like to do the most. I live to travel and see new places, it's the favorite activity I ever engage in.

I just disagree with this whole idea that there HAS to be some "missing hole" that phones fill. These apps are addictive, that's not really a secret they are designed to be by teams of brilliant people.

It's possible that many heroin addicts have "holes" in their life that they fill, but it's also pretty much a certainty that if you take a random person and unwittingly feed them heroin for awhile telling them it's harmless, they're going to have withdrawal symptoms if they stop.

I'm aware of the Rat Park study and it's interesting but it's pretty isolated and hasn't been replicated, and either way it's just one intriguing counterpoint, not dispositive.

It's often a misconception that 12 step programs talk about getting to "root causes" first. They do, to some extent, but they always focus immediately and completely on total abstinence until that has been achieved.

Then, the "root causes" stuff is really better described as picking up the pieces of a broken life, and specifically a ton of broken relationships, since the one thing all addicts have in common is a large number of close relationships with people that they have ruined.

Sobriety in that context really isn't about getting to and fixing "root causes" to be honest. It's more about setting up a set of current habits, and social support, that are based around non addictive behaviors.

<comment><USER11> _It 's possible that many heroin addicts have "holes" in their life that they fill, but it's also pretty much a certainty that if you take a random person and unwittingly feed them heroin for awhile telling them it's harmless, they're going to have withdrawal symptoms if they stop._

What point are you even making here? You know there's a difference between physical dependence and addiction, right? Someone who isn't a heroin addict can easily stop taking it if they are weaned off. And heroin addicts relapse all the time after physical withdrawals have subsided.

<comment><USER9> > Someone who isn't a heroin addict can easily stop taking it if they are > weaned off.

That's a bit dubious as a blanket statement. Perhaps you're creating a distinction without a difference?

My point pretty much sums to "addictive things are addictive"

Yes, addiction is more nuanced than that, some people are exposed to addictive things and don't get hooked.

But it seems like people in this thread are trying to advance this idea:

 _addiction = addictive thing + preexisting problem_

Therefore, the solution is to get rid of that preexisting problem and voila, addiction is fixed.

I'm not sure I buy that. I'm sticking with the idea that certain substances, or technologies, are inherently likely to create habits and dependency in most humans who are exposed to them.

I count social media and heroin in that category.

<comment><USER12> >Perhaps you're creating a distinction without a difference?

There is certainly a difference. Your body, physically, will be fine without heroin. But emotionally, you feel empty without it, and as soon as some emotional trauma - stress, sadness, fear or despair rears its head, you relapse. I guess you could argue that emotional need is no different than physical need, but I don't think that's quite the point you're trying to make

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From Why Haven't We Met Any Aliens [http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_an...](http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/why_we_havent_met_any_aliens/)

"I suggest a different, even darker solution to the Paradox. Basically, I think the aliens don't blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they're too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don't need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today. Once they turn inwards to chase their shiny pennies of pleasure, they lose the cosmic plot. They become like a self-stimulating rat, pressing a bar to deliver electricity to its brain's ventral tegmental area, which stimulates its nucleus accumbens to release dopamine, which feels…ever so good."

</comment><comment><USER14> The idea that you can "fix" or "solve" software addiction with more software is silly to me.

First, This requires users to setup this software. Then, there is nothing stopping them from working around or disabling it at anytime. If the software can't be disabled then the user will switch to another product.

If someone is really trying to curtail their software addiction, actual dedication will be required, not just the activation of some tool that they can easily disable with a few taps.

And because these tools will likely not work for the majority of people, Apple and Google have every incentive to incorporate them into their operating systems and gobble up the market share (which they are already doing in their latest operating systems).

A more traditional and therapeutic approach to the problem makes more sense to me, though it won't scale well and the market doesn't seem very big

<comment><USER15> You position sounds incredible uncreative to me. The article says "we need people working on that". Your response is "blocking won't work, thus software can't help". Someone else already commented that it might does, indeed. But I'd expect there to be way more stuff that might help. Just one thought on the spot: look at fitness or weight loss helpers. They use tons of psychological tricks to motivate you. Tracking alone could have a huge benefit, both to show what's wasted ("you spend x hrs on reddit this week. Instead, you could have y") and to measure improvements. Just imagine what other options there are.

<comment><USER14> My point isn't that blocking won't work, it's that any software solution provided probably won't work for most people because it's too easy to quit with no accountability and then because it won't work for most people, Apple and Google have every incentive to implement it in their operating systems (which they are already doing) and your business is gone

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> We used to have far more focus rooms - they were called offices.

Tech is a convenient scapegoat for environments unconducive to focus and lack of interest in the task. It can also help with emotional state management which is useful over just banging your head against the wall. One use I find for HN is that it is usually pretty good at getting me in a rational and focused state of mind - it is similar to the benefit of a dedicated office vs your home PC. Productivity research in general suffers from a beancounting mentality in treating everything like it is turning an oar.

<comment><USER17> I definitely notice that. In my cube farm it's so loud that I often can't focus so I start reading Hacker News or stare at my phone as distraction. When I work from home I actually work because it's nice and quiet.

<comment><USER18> I also find that I can read Hacker News far better at home ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This problem cannot be solved by "market"

1\. Get a kitchen timer, use pomodoro technique.

2\. Realize that overcoming something is a not a viable longterm solution. If you overcome something once you have to keep overcoming it. Better option is to spend your energy figuring out how to achieve your goal by not overcoming, eg: to replace netflix, develop a passion for cooking, replace netflix with cooking.

</comment><comment><USER20> The idea of productizing tech addiction recovery funded by the VCs which fund tech addiction enabling products seems slightly disingenuous.

<comment><USER21> VCs invest to make money, and I just can't see what the revenue model would be. There's no ad revenue to be had in convincing people to stop looking at their phones.

Get people to pay for an app? Any price other than free means crossing a pretty major psychological barrier.

<comment><USER22> Parents would pay. I'm a parent and have already paid for services to help me manage my kids phone addiction

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think thesis is absolutely ridiculous: "we need a group of new businesses to rise up and make money off of solving tech addiction"

There's not a lot of money to be made in stopping people from self-abstaining from pleasure. If someone wants to quit drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes, then they can do so without having to pay for much (assuming they're not vulnerable to D.T. health wise). And while there's marginal amounts of money to be made off of nicotine patches or AA literature, these products pale in comparison to the amount of money generated by the alcohol and tobacco industries.

</comment><comment><USER24> Is the problem to be solved actually "tech addiction" or is it really "feeling like time was spent in a way that was unsatisfying or even self-destructive?" In other words, the market opportunity isn't really "tech that curbs tech usage," it's more "helping me to feel like doing something restorative, meaningful, or rewarding, whether it's tech-based or not." Addiction itself rarely is treated simply by removing the substance: there's psychological reasons why a person is attracted to checking out versus being present or mindful. Treating the cause is quite a different proposition.

</comment><comment><USER25> smartphones are in their smoking is cool so do it everywhere phase. the novelty will wear off. i enjoy patiently waiting in silence. if i am travelling on public transport, or sitting in waiting room, or standing in a long queue, i find my personal quiet contrasted by the various background noises relaxing and beneficial. i can remain aware of my surrounding/map, people and objects, clocks and time, scenery. i can play memorization, prediction or pattern games, revisit some old problem or simply turn my brain off and let the time pass without incident.

am i a silence addict? if i enjoyed striking up conversations with strangers everywhere i went and talked their ear off in a friendly manner, would i be a social addict? some people enjoy looking at text and images on a screen during downtime in their day, it's a habit. a potentially useful one that helps connect to a world outside of immediate physical space, should _we_ disincentivize public escapism? what about reading or drawing in public then? perhaps it's dangerous if people look at each other too much. and why don't _we_ standardize clothing so that everyone feels more equal. and do _we_ really need so many words, how about _we_ reduce it down to a few hundred useful ones and just stop teaching the others. who is we, we is us, and us is we.

if you give people freedom to do a lot of different things, they may not make good individual choices which can lead to bad collective actions. if they were individual choices they will be individually self-corrected. do you value freedom or outcomes? because you're going to need a big hammer to get all your outcome nails nice and flat. alternatively you need to build your civilization on a different moral foundation, something like social harmony or public good. you might find a strong central government, no immigration, with an insulated and culturo-ethnically homogeneous population with a tendency towards being socially and fiscally conservative, family oriented and not prone to large unfunded liabilities in domestic ponzi schemes and international military escapades; as pre-requisites to your social engineering utopian fantasies. america is about fuck you and fuck you too.

</comment><comment><USER26> "While Apple, Google, and Facebook are beginning to offer tools to better understand how much we use their devices and services, those companies can't viably fix technology addiction because their businesses prevent them from doing so."

Apple's business doesn't. I think Screen Time and App Limits will likely become two of Apple's main competitive advantages going forward because of it -- there's no way Google or Facebook could offer such a product for their services in any meaningful way without destroying their core business.

<comment><USER27> Not sure about Facebook, but Google is already beta testing exactly what you're talking about:

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/6/17655520/google-digital- we...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/6/17655520/google-digital-wellbeing- beta-now-available-dashboard-app-timers-wind-down)

I have it on my Pixel 2 and it works great.

<comment><USER28> I'm curious whether the data is stored locally or if it's also sent to Google, possibly to be used against your interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's what Paul Graham was saying back in 2010... [http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html)

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm glad to see this getting ridiculed on this forum. I would be happy to see more critique of the attitude that the problems created by irresponsible technology can be solved with more technology.

The driver of the "phone addiction" problem is obviously direct economics. Companies are organized around profit, and more phone time means more profit (especially in ad-driven models like Facebook).

So how about addressing the problems by looking at root causes?

<comment><USER30> There is also the question of how many people who have a tech addiction really care. Some people like staring at constant news feeds of garbage as opposed to leaving their couch and interacting with the world. Just like some people like smoking, and similarly there will always be companies more than happy to profit from your addiction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I wouldn't say I am "addicted" to tech more than most people my age (26) but I was using my phone a lot more than I liked so I have taken some steps lately. The early results are encouraging that you can in fact use software to control yourself (no particular order).

Here are some things I did and the results.

1\. Hacker News "noprocrast" setting. This is something underrated in HN, but I have set it so I can only visit every 6 hours and that my session can only be 20m long. That basically means one visit per day. I find myself not going on as much because I am "saving" my one visit for later.

2\. Android "Digital Wellbeing" timers. I set a timer on my phone to limit me to 1hr of Google Chrome per day. This is my #1 most-used app. The first few days I was always hitting my limit. After a week or two my brain subconsciously started knowing about the limit and now my natural usage is < 1hr.

3\. Work Profile + Do Not Disturb + Grayscale. At night my phone goes full grayscale and turns off all non-urgent notifications. My work profile also turns off. The combination of these three things makes me much less likely to engage after 9pm and get ready to wind down for bed.

4\. I made an app ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.habosa.not...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.habosa.notificationbox)) that helps me take control of notifications. Instead of blocking them, the app puts them in an inbox-like format. I can check them all at the end of the day without missing them entirely or letting them bother me at work. I do this for apps like NYTimes that surface interesting things but that I don't need to know about urgently.

Overall I am seeing a lot of progress! I find myself more able to, for instance, wait for the bus without playing on my phone. Hopefully over time I'll get better and better.

</comment><comment><USER32> It seems inevitable to me that as ML-based algorithms get better at exploiting the quirks in our monkey brains and keeping us on platforms for longer and longer periods, somebody will need to develop a counter-algorithm that lives in a browser extension or (somehow) on your device and is able to recognize unhealthy engagement patterns and make you aware of them.

Actually implementing such a thing in a way that's performant and trustworthy and marketing it to people who maybe aren't consciously aware of how easily the brain can be manipulated involves a number of tough challenges, but it seems like it'll have to happen eventually.

<comment><USER33> I predict that one day we'll all have our AI best friend. They'll teach and socialize us when we're young, guide and consol us as we grow, and protect us from misinformation and adversarial AIs throughout our lives. Picking the brand of AI for your kid will be the most important decision you ever make for them.

<comment><USER21> The ultimate bubble. Your "friend" won't ever disagree, nor share any viewpoint other than what parents want the child to hear. The only interesting point will be to see what the "friend" chooses to do when the parents and the child disagree.

AI "friends" could be terrific in teaching children, but there is a danger in consumers taking the short-sighted approach and buying the A.I. which is most likable. Imagine how spoiled kids will be when most of their "friends" always agree and serve them like butlers. People love to pay for indulgence, but never want to pay for tough-love.

<comment><USER33> >there is a danger in consumers taking the short-sighted approach and buying the A.I. which is most likable.

There are far more dangers than just that, but what if you've been brought up by an AI that taught you the self-control to avoid them?

The AIs will fight over their ability to influence you. The hope is that the ones that use truth and reasoning will have an advantage, but there will always be the groups that are stuck in some fantasy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Would anyone care about an OS (probably Android) that specifically limited the ability to use the time-suck apps (like snap/gram/tube), but still left the ability to use other things (like music/maps/camera/texting/etc)?

I tried disconnecting a while back, but felt like those were the things i was lacking because I was using a flip phone and was really frustrating. I have actually been considering picking back up this idea to focus on modifying to allow for curated list of allowable apps.

<comment><USER35> Freedom synced with my phone and laptop does something close enough to this for me to suffice. The shame of turning off their timed blockages is enough to keep me away from time sinks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> A lot of people here are skeptical, saying basically "if people don't want to be addicted to technology they should just stop using it", but I think that's simplistic.

You could say the same thing about eating, "if you're not happy with your weight then just stop eating so much" The fact that's technically true doesn't mean there's no market for diet books or people should have to do it all on their own. Weight watchers, for example, has a 4B market cap.

</comment><comment><USER37> They've already solved it in China [https://www.techly.com.au/2017/10/30/china-military-style- bo...](https://www.techly.com.au/2017/10/30/china-military-style-boot-camps- internet-addiction-rehabilitation/) Pictures are priceless! Too bad, it won't fly with the entitled brats that we have here!

</comment><comment><USER38> What do you guys think about a bar/club that's inside a big Faraday cage?

</comment><comment><USER39> 1) How can a business model be created whose incentives align with their customers in the addiction-treatment market? Curing addicts permanently means losing customers. Ineffective treatment could mean repeat customers and therefore more business. How do existing rehab centers handle this conflict of interests?

2) Personal Anecdote. There's no way I can stop using the internet right now and keep my livelihood, but I've had some success over the last week cutting my reddit usage down to 0 non-productive minutes.

Every time I navigate to reddit, unless it is very explicitly work-related, I close the tab immediately and log the incident in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet records date, time, duration, how I got there, and (most importantly) what I'm going to work on instead.

This is my second time quitting reddit. The first time was cold-turkey with no process, lasted over a year before I got sucked back in via the subreddits. This method gives me more a feeling of control and forces me to be mindful of my usage.

Wish me luck.

</comment><comment><USER40> The market opportunity is in finding these people, and exploiting their problems. F2P games seem to have it covered though.

</comment><comment><USER41> More broadly, I think we need an analogy to the "Primary Care Physician" for mental health (would include addiction treatment here). I'm in SF, and 1) having a hard time finding therapists that my insurance covers and 2) when I do find one many are completely booked and not accepting new patients.

</comment><comment><USER42> Thanks for posting this. I've believed for a long time that tech addiction is a solvable problem and technology itself can be part of that solution. I have lots of ideas about how this would work, if only I could break my own addiction to technology and start implementing them.

</comment><comment><USER43> > An application could provide a user frequent alerts to get back to work or > put the phone down if they've been using it for 10 minutes or more. Taking > the idea further, there could be some financial or other incentive (maybe > the user escrows some money toward buying something they want) if they hit > their goal.

I recall an application made for college students that rewarded them for not using their phone during their lectures. I believe it it called Pocket Points [0].

[0]: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-points-college- reward...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-points-college- rewards/id908136685?mt=8)

<comment><USER44> I used Pocket Points briefly in college. Their main selling point was the integration with businesses around campus: if you accrued x number of "points" by locking your phone with the app open while on campus, you got discounts or occasionally free products at stores/restaurants nearby.

However, it was really susceptible to being gamed. I remember walking to campus right before bedtime, locking my phone, and then going to sleep, giving me points all night. Eventually they tried to fix this by giving more points during "peak" hours (normal class times) and drastically reducing points given during off hours, but it was still pretty easy to game.

My college self really appreciated the discounts, but I don't think it was a great business model (I have no idea how they profited off the app) and I'm not sure if they're still around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

<comment><USER46> Not so easy with those powerful texting thumbs

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I built an app to help people take a digital detox ~ 3 years ago ([https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/01/12/need- unplug-...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/01/12/need-unplug-there- app-for-that/goAD2TP3rjiQNTWA8qg3YP/story.html))

The biggest issue we ran into was that we didn't have API access to build something effective (at least from limiting smartphone access). We had to hack something together and it didn't work out long-term.

If the tech giants cared enough about this, they would create APIs and empower devs to build stuff to help.

</comment><comment><USER48> > Dieting may be the most helpful analogy here. In the US, many of us have > poor diets either on occasion or frequently. Few of us have the discipline > to eat well for long periods of time to optimize our health. When we gain > too much weight, we pay for a personal trainer or a diet program or a book > or an app to get us back on track.

I agree that food could a useful analogy, but I thought the consensus was that diets don't (in general) work. Paying for a personal trainer isn't scalable, and I don't see creating a job as a Personal Anti-Technologist as a salable solution.

<comment><USER49> Diet in this sense might be different.

If you want to gain weight, you'd have to change your diet to eating more for a specific period. Vice versa for losing it.

If you want to change the way you eat, that's not to diet - that requires a lifestyle change in the way you see food. Meaning, you have to discipline yourself to eat well for life (generally).

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> > "Dieting may be the most helpful analogy here."

Considering the massive flimflam industry around dieting, deceptive food company practices to make unhealthy food seem healthy, and the proliferation of 'food deserts' or parts of the country where finding healthy food at the grocery store (let alone a restaurant) is a challenge, dieting seems like the worst possible analogy.

Unless it is an analogy for how to create an industry to profit off of human weakness and struggle without actually solving the root issue. Then it is an excellent analogy.

</comment><comment><USER51> Unfortunately, we're in a system with asymmetric incentives for product development. Products that addict us get more of our time and attention, and therefore higher DAU, VC funding and ad dollars. Products that help us fight addiction are in a negative feedback loop. The better they work, the less we need them or pay attention to them. The gains that users realize from addiction-fighting apps are external, often in the analog world, and by definition harder to monetize and monitor, because they have left the platform.

</comment><comment><USER52> I leave my phone in airplane mode most of the day and only use 4g in emergencies. I have e-books and podcasts downloaded, but the interactive stuff like forums I only do when I have wi-fi. This means when I'm out and about I'm off wifi and only listening to podcasts or reading ebooks at least. If someone wants to call me when I'm out of the office, they can schedule a call. Picking up the phone is annoying because I get a couple of spam calls a day.

</comment><comment><USER53> It's hard to deal with addiction when the opposition has _armies_ of psychologists working together to make the experiences you have online as addictive as possible.

<comment><USER17> Exactly. People always treat things like addiction as a sign of a weak character but there are many, many very intelligent people working on exploiting very weakness of human personalities. Things are totally stacked against the individual.

It's pretty sad that a lot of the best and brightest software engineers of our generation are working at places like Google and Facebook whose ultimate purpose is to push as many ads as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> For solutions in this realm you could go to the non-profit Center for Humane Technology [0] (formerly Time Well Spent) and join their community [1] (I did). The organisation led by Tristan Harris (ex Google) is influential on high levels of government and corporations.

[0] [https://humanetech.com](https://humanetech.com)

[1] [https://community.humanetech.com](https://community.humanetech.com)

</comment><comment><USER55> _> The real answer to solving technology addiction is the answer to sustainably solving most problems: innovation spurred by capitalism. A new group of businesses needs to emerge that gives us the choice to help ourselves and rediscover the benefits of disconnection._

 _> Dieting may be the most helpful analogy here. In the US, many of us have poor diets either on occasion or frequently. Few of us have the discipline to eat well for long periods of time to optimize our health. When we gain too much weight, we pay for a personal trainer or a diet program or a book or an app to get us back on track._

Is this article real, or a brilliantly crafted satire of Silicon Valley VC culture?

The weight loss industry is worth $66 billion and obesity in the US has never been worse than it is today. Arguing that we should let unfettered capitalism solve tech addition like it's solved obesity is... I don't even know how to finish that sentence it's such an inane fly-in-the-face-of-reality statement.

 _> People that use those solutions to effectively curb negative habits will end up happier and more prosperous than others, just like it's always been. How's that for incentive?_

Completely insufficient is how it is. If long-term incentives were enough to prevent people from making poor short-term decisions, we wouldn't have addiction or obesity in the first place.

The tool that has been effective at getting a large number of people to make choices that favor long-term outcomes over short-term ones is _culture_. By attaching a heavy negative moral weight to a poor short-term choice, we leverage the emotional wiring people already have so that they are able to push against their urge and do what's best for their long-term health and for society as a whole.

Cigarette use has cut in half over the past fifty years. That didn't happen because tobacco startups invented innovative technology, and it didn't happen because we outlawed them. It happened because we shifted the culture. Instead of cigarettes being cool, sophisticated, and intellectual, they are gross, selfish, and dirty.

<comment><USER56> > The tool that has been effective at getting a large number of people to make > choices that favor long-term outcomes over short-term ones is culture.

I'm not sure about that. Seems like most developed countries, with all their different cultures, are following the obesity trend. Obesity became more accepted after it got more common (because shaming every obese person became non-viable), it seems, not the other way around.

<comment><USER55> _> Seems like most developed countries, with all their different cultures, are following the obesity trend._

Well, sure. But I don't think it's useful to compare obesity in one country that has a surplus of easily available food with other countries that don't.

Hypothermia is rare in Samoa, but I don't think Sweden can learn much from them about that fact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> The fact that they called this "tech addiction" rather than "smartphone (app) addiction" was rather disappointing, given the latter was the entire focus of the article.

I clicked the link wondering how they were going to differentiate addiction from reliance; as in, if we were all EMP'd tomorrow and set back to agrarian days, a lot of people will die, and not just from starvation.

</comment><comment><USER58> Ironic reading this during an undeserved HN binge...

</comment><comment><USER59> I feel like the article missed something: the tech companies often design their apps to be addictive. It's part of their product.

</comment><comment><USER6> I dunno about "market opportunity", but I think very strongly about what Cal Newport said... that we have to train ourselves to be comfortable with boredom.

The device is very attractive at boring moments, like standing in line at a grocery store, or waiting for someone. Which causes a habit, when then interrupts you when you're actually doing something useful.

</comment><comment><USER60> What solved my tech addiction was losing my phone and buying a $50 phone at Best Buy to replace it until I could get a new iPhone. Using it was so aggravating that I started using my phone rarely. So I kept it. And hardly use the piece of shit at all.

</comment><comment><USER61> Thoughtmaybe has a 2013 documentary called Web Junkie that shows how the Chinese handle it for their teenagers:

[https://thoughtmaybe.com/web-junkie/](https://thoughtmaybe.com/web-junkie/)

</comment><comment><USER62> "The real answer to solving technology addiction is the answer to sustainably solving most problems: innovation spurred by capitalism."

I find that when capitalism spurs innovations, those innovations work toward the sustenance of capitalism as a system, which I take some issue with. If some plucky startup solves tech addiction, it will be in a way that makes you a more effective worker or consumer.

<comment><USER21> >If some plucky startup solves tech addiction, it will be in a way that makes you a more effective worker or consumer.

Well, that might not be ideal, but it might be better than the alternatives. My last employer paid me a dollar for every day that I tracked a workout meeting certain criteria and synced it with the insurers app. Employers save on insurance by having healthy employees, so they pass on the incentive. Not exactly utopian, and there are privacy concerns, but overall it was positive, even if the motivation behind it wasn't really because they care. But now try to think of an alternative. No one else has the incentive to do it, except government. And if government did it, it would probably end up being a complicated tax deduction only taken by wealthy people who hire accountants or would involve some Orwellian government-backed tracking app.

I'm not really afraid of capitalism doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. The beauty of capitalism is how often self-interested people are incentivized to work for mutual benefits. If the free-market actually has incentives to fix smart-phone addiction, that's great. If the incentives aren't strong enough, then we'll probably end up with a government solution involving GDPR type clumsiness, but that might be the best we can do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> It could be as simple as not owning any devices with shiny colored screens, which are addictive to the eyes, and instead owning only grayscale e-ink screens. I wish laptops and phones like that were easier to get.

</comment><comment><USER64> How come the article that has "market opportunity" in the title doesn't use the term "marketing" even once? Shouldn't that be the central theme of this - how do you sell this to people?

</comment><comment><USER65> App application helps you to stay focus [https://www.forestapp.cc/en/](https://www.forestapp.cc/en/)

P.S Not advertisement

</comment><comment><USER66> The cynical part of me thinks that they're only doing this to make themselves look better in the face of reducing the quality of life of their customers.

</comment><comment><USER67> Meditation apps aren't doing the job apparently.

</comment><comment><USER68> example of underappreciation: chrome no longer respects /etc/hosts so I can't block my addictions the simple way

<comment><USER69> Version 69.0.3497.100 (current at time of writing) on MacOS still respects the /etc/hosts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I am going to create a Digital detox Startup and I am going to call it Camping. Hahahaha....

I promise no phone signal for 30 days.

<comment><USER71> Funny ... they have it for teens, and they call it "Wilderness Therapy." (To be fair, it also involves focused therapy from professionals).

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> As with all addictions, peddling the drug is going to be far more lucrative than peddling the cure.

</comment><comment><USER72> years ago i wanted to create a restricted version of android for this purpose. so i downloaded the AOSP source. it turns out it is not so easy though and quite intimidating for your average coder. but maybe some sv wizards will create such a 'restricted device'.

</comment><comment><USER73> very famous investor once said, unless your startup has one of "Seven deadly sins"; its hard to be sticky (or successful). So if one is planning around tech addiction, make it about, pride & envy not about how its good for your life overall....

</comment><comment><USER74> Gaps in the market are unfortunately not the same as gaps in the psychology landscape.

</comment><comment><USER75> I disagree. Here's why:

This is a problem I've been toying with for more than six years, ever since I realized that tech's purpose is to gain control of as much attention span across the planet as possible. It can't help it.

Since I teach how to organize project/product/org information, I played a little mental game: what is the minimum amount of tech I would need and still stay connected to the rest of the planet?

My answer? A piece of hardware that displays plaintext, in e-ink format (to prevent the necessary communications around "upgrade your device now!"). Plain lists of stuff I consume that I can manipulate with my fingers (to prevent keyboards, audio sensors, kinnect, etc from getting their foot in the door). No visible O/S or apps. (No updates, patches, app-store chicanery etc.). Important: no way to install anything or to consume any other content besides what's on the app. No links, no follow-ups. Just what I have predetermined I want to see.

UI? A plain, unadorned list and for each list item some more plaintext.

But what about conversations? Saving stories? Doing research? Well, most of that is social-media addictive nonsense (you really don't need to Tweet "OMG!", but some it is required. For that we have buttons and a microphone. The microphone (and WiFi) have real, wired switches to turn them off and on that can't be disabled by software. (More telemetry problems here).

Four buttons. That's it. The device should try to sort your list and associated text, so you need a way of saying "I like this kind of thing" and "I don't like this kind of thing" so it can learn. You need a way of saving something for later to download, research, study, reply, and so on.

The fourth button was controversial. I felt there were times when an immediate response was needed. So you push the button and speak. No writing. No speech- to-text. You say in your own words what you want. (Lots of problems here about nuance in text and non-verbal communication) Somehow that gets to the other person. Never worked that out.

At this point you have enough features that I'd argue you could support 80%+ of the activity people use the net for. Would you still need to research stuff? Sure. Play games? Sure. Converse in realtime about things you're interested in? Sure. But those are different _physical units_. You need to make both a mental decision and a physical effort to do those things. It should be apparent visually to yourself and others that these are the types of activities you are now engaged in. There can be no confusion, either internally or to an outside observer.

Tech is supposed to be about helping others. Instead it's become about making more tech. This was a fun exercise. Made me realize how far we are, and continue to go, from what we really need.

It may be an unappreciated market, but a lot of other folks have tried and failed. I got zero interest in this, aside from people who also had a problem with tech addiction. I believe the problem for most is: where's the payout? To be done correctly, this may work best as a philanthropic effort, not a startup. This isn't an under-appreciated market. This is the place with the greatest current gap between human suffering and people willing to help end it.

( This is when I started writing about the problem: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349447) I even made a crappy demo video as part of my first "real" F# project: [https://vimeo.com/14460868](https://vimeo.com/14460868) )

</comment><comment><USER76> It is at least funny how therapy is not even mentioned in the article...

</comment><comment><USER77> "Solving Heroin Addiction is an Underappreciated Market Opportunity."

Even for the hyper-capitalists of HN this is beyond the pale

</comment><comment> steve-benjamins It's an opportunity— not sure it's a market opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER78> > The real answer to solving technology addiction is the answer to sustainably > solving most problems: innovation spurred by capitalism.

On the contrary -- innovation spurred by capitalism is what sublimated the addictive aspects of human nature into a profit-making mechanism for the tech giants.

</comment><comment><USER79> We need more tech to solve tech

</comment><comment><USER80> > On Instagram, we're bombarded with beautiful people living perfect lives. On > Twitter, we're bombarded with short, angry arguments about politics among > other things. On YouTube, we're bombarded with endlessly interesting videos > that keep playing until we stop them.

On Instagram you can pilfer videos by sending them to Telegram and downloading the MP4 straight to your device. On YouTube you can pilfer videos by downloading them with NewPipe. On Twitter you can collect the best GIFs from @archillect by forwarding them once again to Telegram.

Once you're outside the grips of the ad industry you can once again enjoy this tech without feeling bad you haven't hit your 5000 friend limit on Fakebook.</comment>


Thought this was impossible? IP address failover across cloud/provider networks - <AUTHOR> http://blog.vcider.com/2012/04/multi-cloud-ip-address-failover-with-heartbeat-and-vcider/

<comment><USER2> It's an interesting use of an overlay network but the title of this post is misleading.

This is the failover of a private IP behind a virtual network gateway. The failover happens at layer 2 using the same gratuitous ARP you might send to a local switch but over a virtual network. The resulting network has properties that might be interesting to a private network service (especially one that cannot easily be proxied) but less so for public-facing services.

If your application speaks HTTP, a health-checking proxy server like haproxy on the gateway could perform the same service.

If your application is used by the public internet, your gateway machine(s) and network(s) between the gateway and application become the weak links. The traditional fallback would be low-TTL DNS.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't exactly say the title is misleading, because it still is an address failover between cloud networks. But your points about the public addresses is of course correct.

The key application here is for those who wish to establish hybrid clouds, want to "cloud burst" their enterprise capabilities, or - as the opening sentence of the article explains - about "[organizations] moving part of [their] network and server infrastructure into the cloud".

And especially for those internal enterprise applications, running an HTTP proxy is not always possible.

<comment><USER2> You're right. I read the article through a public-internet lens -- a difficult bias for me to shake. :) I can definitely see the value for enterprises. I do very much like that the application servers are using the same tools they would if they were neighbors in a rack.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Am I misunderstanding, or does this still have a single point of failure at the gateway machine?

<comment><AUTHOR> In this simple example, you would have a single point of failure for the enterprise machines. But not any more than your enterprise's routers or Internet connection represent single points of failure.

However, you can have multiple gateways (and thus alternative routes). Furthermore, the IP address failover will instantly be noticeable to any other machine you have in the virtual network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is still the issue of replicating content, but that's something that can be handled in a number of different ways, depending on the requirements.</comment>


Node.js Emerging as the Universal Development Framework - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/node-js-emerging-as-the-universal-development-framework-for-a-diversity-of-applications-c2e788290f5f <comment><USER2> Node is lovely, and I use it daily, but I don't think the fact it has a healthy ecosystem really means very much. A decade ago the same was true of PHP, and a decade before that it was true of Perl. Software engineering changes _very_ quickly relative to other disciplines. In 2027 there'll be a new language de jour.

I'd recommend learning Node to anyone, but I'd also recommend learning _anything_ you find interesting and useful, and keeping up with how things are changing, and changing language when the project calls for it.</comment>


Ask YC: Online Text Editors. - <AUTHOR>

Ok, I've been looking for an online text(code) editor.
For WYSIWIG there are many options, and a few leading free ones, but I can't find anything in the Code Editing realm.
Preferably it'd be open source, secondly; if not, something that I can host/integrate and not a hosted thing.
I know you have apps doing on-demand code running etc around here, so surely somebody else is using something similliar to this.
Thanks <comment><USER2> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Javascript- based_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Javascript- based_source_code_editors)

EditArea has a lot of features and works well, if it displays properly in your browser: <http://www.cdolivet.net/editarea/>

CodePress does pretty well in FireFox: <http://codepress.org/>

I think CodeMirror has the most potential -- I like the parser design in particular: <http://marijn.haverbeke.nl/codemirror/>

</comment><comment><USER3> are you looking for something like this? <http://www.cdolivet.net/editarea/>

<comment><AUTHOR> YES. If I could give you another point for this I would. It's been ridiculously hard to find something that is matureish in this area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just curious, why do you want one? It seems to me that a code editor is almost uniquely unsuited to be a web app. You need to keep your data locally anyhow, unless your whole toolchain is a web service. Furthermore, my editor is a tool I want absolute control over: I don't want its behavior changing unexpectedly when a new update is released.

<comment><USER5> The closer the average textfield's behavior could be to that of emacs, the happier I would be.

Mac OS X supports a decent batch of emacs-style keybindings -- C-a and C-e work, C-k and C-y work, the cursor-movement keys work. Give me C-s and C-r and I would be even happier, though. Or C-x C-w to write half-written drafts of news.yc posts to files for backup. Or C-x C-i to import text from files on disk. The list goes on and on.

I type an unfortunate amount of text into browser fields during the course of a day. It would be nice to be able to make these fields work more like a decent editor, and by that I don't mean TinyMCE.

<comment><USER6> If you're a Firefox user, check out the "It's All Text!" extension. It lets you edit any text area in the external editor of your choice. For instance, I'm composing this comment in vim.

The download page at mozilla.com claims that it's hard to get working on Mac OS X, but that's actually not true. Skim through the comments... someone explains how do to it.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, this is just the kind of comment I was fishing for!

I was scared off by the claims that the OS X install was tricky. That and the fact that I don't use Firefox for anything but Firebug at the moment... I find Safari to be more stable and faster. This might tempt me to switch back to the Fox, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not sure how easy this is to integrate, but this is an interesting read about implementing a continuation based syntax highlighter in JavaScript.

<http://marijn.haverbeke.nl/codemirror/story.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> Here is one amy-editor (<http://www.april-child.com/amy/amy.php>). If you are doing ruby on rails, Heroku also has an online editor built.

</comment><comment><USER9> appjet.com has an editor (written in javascript, for javascript)

</comment><comment><USER10> Not sure if this will do, but you if you're on OS X you can use TextMate's 'Edit In TextMate' to edit code in any text field in any web browser.

</comment><comment><USER11> tinyMCE is the big one, there is also FCKeditor .

list: <http://geniisoft.com/showcase.nsf/WebEditors>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, those are WYSIWIG, I'm looking for Code editors. (like textmate, EMacs, etc</comment></comment>


The 6502 CPU's overflow flag explained at the silicon level - <AUTHOR> http://www.arcfn.com/2013/01/a-small-part-of-6502-chip-explained.html

<comment><USER2> I loved that chip!

My first real programming job entailed writing a blazingly macro assembler from scratch for the 6502, using a much slower (and non-macro) assembler from the vendor (Ohio Scientific, for those of a certain age).

I simulated the proposed hashing algorithm in FORTRAN at the community college I was attending, and found that it led to a lot of collisions for the base 6502 opcode set. When I pointed this out to my manager (who's still my friend 32+ years on), he made sure that I got my first raise.

I still have those listings and the original design documents around somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting

And this is 30 year old tech. The 6502, the processor in you cell phone is about 1000x faster than it (and much more capable)

To me the hardest part (apparently) is converting the electronic circuit to the actual chip drawings. Not sure how this is done (how do you route it). And this was done _by hand_ in the 6502, the drawings were done the size of a desk and reduced photographically. (IIRC)

<comment><USER4> How did you come up with 1000x? With Moore's law we are only 3 orders of magnitude better than a processor from the late 1970s?

<comment><USER5> The x1000 is a huge understatement. For example these days CPUs are much more optimal in terms of _cycles per instruction_ and inversely _instructions per cycle_. Back then when multiplication of two word-sized(8 bits back then) values took 24 cycles, these days we can do that in 12 cycles for 64-bit values. Because of superscalar processing and thus instruction level parallelism, we can typically do 2-4 ALU operations in parallel(given that there's no data dependencies) and thus increase the instruction throughput 2-4 fold. Then, because of SIMD features and data level parallelism we can do same operaton on multiple data(say, operate on a vector of 4 elements in a single cycle) and thus we eliminate the need for repeated instructions.

This all gets a bit complicated in modern days because of memory access costs and caches which try to alleviate the costs, but the idea is that modern CPUs are likely to be around 10 times as fast _per-clock_ as 6502 and because of multiple cores and threads that value goes to something like 40-60. Add the huge increase in clock speed and you're a bit south from x100_000 in optimal case.

I would hope every programmer would write some core on a C64 to really learn how much RAM the 64 KB really is. You can actually _waste_ some of it and in some cases it really is "enough so that I don't have to optimize". :) Real hard-core people would go with VIC-20 which as only 5120 bytes of RAM, or Atari 2600 with 128 bytes of RAM. One could imagine there's nothing you can do with them but oh boy how wrong one would be! Heck, a single tweet is 140 characters. And you can fit that in 128 bytes. You really can... :)

<comment><USER6> There days we have kilobytes of RAM on Arduino and other AVR boards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is great. If you enjoyed it, you'll probably really like the (oft recommended here) "Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold.

<http://www.charlespetzold.com/code/>

</comment><comment><USER8> Also a great relevant read:

How MOS 6502 Illegal Opcodes really work <http://www.pagetable.com/?p=39>

I just finished a 6502 emulator, I recommend doing it for everyone. Lots of fun and very interesting.</comment>


Wireguard-docs: Setup, usage, configuration, and a full example - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pirate/wireguard-docs <comment><USER2> Goddamn it, this happens literally every time I post my projects to HN :(

I posted the link myself to my repo, 0 points 14 hours later someone else posts it: 260+ points

No hate towards you axiomdata316, thanks for posting it, I'm just childishly complaining about the unfairness of fake internet points :p

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol. I know what you mean. Congrats on all the attention you're getting however. BTW I went to your original post and gave you a point. ;-)

<comment><USER3> If anyone else wants to... [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20031254](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20031254)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Gotta say, if you just want a VPN to work now, definitely check out Algo or Streisand.

You can get a VPN running in an hour or less. Algo even supports wireguard.

I currently have two VPNs — Algo Wireguard & iVPN.

Anecdotally the wireguard VPN rocks— crazy fast in every way, including connection/disconnection.

Sometimes YouTube is slow.. I just hop on WG and it's fast again. I've achieved faster downloads via WG than my bare internet connection (thanks Linode!)

However, some points to consider:

1\. If you use a VPS to host your own VPN.. you don't gain privacy. Usually your IP can (mostly) still identify you. And your VPS company will hold you accountable for your traffic eg DMCA.

2\. OpenVPN never borks my resolv.conf but Wireguard often leaves my DNS resolution in a state of confusion.

<comment><USER5> My default-config Streisand server was compromised according to Vultr. Just a heads up because VPNs can't really afford this.

<comment><USER6> Per the sibling comments, I'd definitely like to know more detail. I rely on Streisand when in China and so if it's something to do with Streisand itself then I want to be aware of that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone wanting to get WireGuard up and running in a few minutes with zero hassle, I usually use this excellent bash script [0] as my goto.

Can be edited for DNS/subnet config, generates .conf files as needed and also handles QR code generation for adding mobile devices. Pair this with a $5 DO droplet and you're all set.

[0] [https://github.com/its0x08/wg-install](https://github.com/its0x08/wg- install)

<comment><USER8> I typically use Algo for this

[https://github.com/trailofbits/algo](https://github.com/trailofbits/algo)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My first thought is usually to check the Arch Wiki[0]. As usual, it does not disappoint.

[0]: [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WireGuard](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WireGuard)

<comment><USER2> I love the Arch wiki, used it as a reference for a lot of my setup while I was writing these docs. Also linked to it at the bottom under _Further Reading_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Beware all examples in this don't cover ipv6. Should you have an ipv6 address, you are not using the vpn for most of your connections.

Sadly most Wireguard howtos don't cover ipv6.

<comment><USER11> If you give me some sample config I can add it to my howto here: [https://www.stavros.io/posts/how-to-configure- wireguard/](https://www.stavros.io/posts/how-to-configure-wireguard/)

<comment><USER12> I based my configuration on yours. You just need to add another 'Address = <IPv6>' (client and server), and add ip6tables.

The address is going to be static: I'm not aware of a way to simulate privacy extensions with Wireguard. A workaround is to assign ULAs and apply NAT.

<comment><USER11> I see, thank you. Unfortunately I don't have IPv6 on my network and don't know the IPv6 local addresses and ip6tables config, if you could give me the actual config you used I'd appreciate it, especially if it works with both IPv4 and IPv6 together.

<comment><USER12> Sure

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

[Interface] Address = 172.16.31.1/24 Address = 2001:__::1/64 PrivateKey = __ ListenPort = 443

[Peer] PublicKey = __ PresharedKey = __ AllowedIPs = 172.16.31.2/32, 2001:__::2/128

[Peer] PublicKey = __ PresharedKey = __ AllowedIPs = 172.16.31.3/32, 2001:__::3/128

[...]

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

PostUp = iptables -A FORWARD -i %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -A FORWARD -o %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE; ip6tables -A FORWARD -i %i -j ACCEPT; ip6tables -A FORWARD -o %i -j ACCEPT PostDown = iptables -D FORWARD -i %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -D FORWARD -o %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -D POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE; ip6tables -D FORWARD -i %i -j ACCEPT; ip6tables -D FORWARD -o %i -j ACCEPT

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

[Interface] Address = 172.16.31.2/24 Address = 2001:__::2/64 PrivateKey = __ DNS = 172.16.31.1, 2001:__::1 [Peer] PublicKey = __ PresharedKey = __ AllowedIPs = 0.0.0.0/0, ::/0 Endpoint = <server_ip>:443 PersistentKeepalive = 25

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

<comment><USER11> This is extremely helpful, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Author, if you're reading this: thank you.

This weekend I wrote a simple tool to manage a client/server-style Wireguard setup. It's a little less tedious than copying and pasting "wg genkey" and "wg pubkey" output as you're setting up new clients. It's not quite easy enough for someone to use without prior Wireguard setup knowledge, but if you've gotten your first client-server pair running, then you'll recognize where this tool fits into the rest of your workflow.

Hope it helps someone.

<comment><USER14> Where is the tool you build?

<comment><USER15> I'm not the person you're replying to, but I think this is what they were referring to from their github: [https://github.com/sowbug/mkwgconf](https://github.com/sowbug/mkwgconf)

<comment><USER13> Aaaaand I'm awake after a good night's sleep and far past the edit window for my original comment. Thank you for that link; yes, it's the one I meant to post. Sigh.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this tool, I just added it to the docs:

[https://github.com/pirate/wireguard- docs/commit/faaf447868a5...](https://github.com/pirate/wireguard- docs/commit/faaf447868a597825f9889b6999c8c41764901f9)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> >IPSec (IKEv2)/strongSwan: lots of brittle config that's different for each OS, NAT busting setup is very manual and involves updating the central server and starting all the others in the correct order, not great at reconnecting after network downtime, had to be manually restarted often

I don't follow, NAT traversal is integral to IKEv2 and pretty much "just works" [1]. Reconnecting after network downtime is not an issue either, with either on demand connection setup (auto=add) or pretty standard ifupdown scripts/networkmanager. I don't believe I had to restart my strongswan daemons in the past few months either...

I also disagree that config is 'brittle'. Quite to the contrary, I think strongswan with its exhaustive documentation and a complete test suite which provides configuration for _every host_ in every scenario in the test suite is a great accomplishment and an incredibly useful resource [example: 2].

I think wireguard has a great niche to fill as OpenVPN replacement (which has a lot of issues) but some of its supposed benefits over ipsec are a bit overblown and a confluence of 'I couldn't be bothered to read the manual', failure to understand a difference between host-based and policy-based routing [3] and a pinch of hype-driven development.

[1] [https://wiki.strongswan.org/projects/strongswan/wiki/NatTrav...](https://wiki.strongswan.org/projects/strongswan/wiki/NatTraversal)

[2] [https://www.strongswan.org/testing/testresults/ikev2/rw- cert...](https://www.strongswan.org/testing/testresults/ikev2/rw- cert/index.html)

[3] [https://wiki.strongswan.org/projects/strongswan/wiki/Introdu...](https://wiki.strongswan.org/projects/strongswan/wiki/IntroductionTostrongSwan)

<comment><USER17> > OpenVPN replacement (which has a lot of issues)

Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER18> This. I'm using OpenVPN for ethernet bridging, which Wireguard cannot do.

<comment><USER19> I've done bridging over wireguard. You just set up a gretap tunnel to run over the wireguard tunnel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > ZeroTier: haven't tried it yet, sould I?

Yes. If connectivity to clients behind NAT is important and you don't want to waste effort creating a 'bounce off' server.

ZeroTier makes it really easy to setup a private VPN with minimal config. The real value add with it is the work that's done regarding hole punching and if you have a carrier grade NAT that is tough to get through, it will relay your traffic (albeit at a throttled speed) which can be a great time saver.

The other thing is their online 'Central' where you can add/remove devices, assign IP addresses, set flow rules and more. I really like their service and the best part of it compared to my WireGuard server is I don't have to worry about downtime due to some problem with my server.

</comment><comment><USER21> I looked a bit into Wireguard.

But it seems it's only really useful with static IPs.

Say my "Server" is behind a DDns Hostname and i want to connect to it from my Phone.

So my problem is. I allow incoming from 0.0.0.0 but on my mobile the DDns Hostname gets compiled to a specific IP.

OpenVpn has no problem with this setup. Is it solvable with Wireguard?

wg-dynamic seems to tackle this but wasn't really ready last time i checked

<comment><USER22> Wireguard comes with an example script [1] that does DNS updates for peers, which works well for me in a cron job. Archwiki also has an example for systemd timers [2]. But if your question is specifically about phones, then this might get a bit more complicated to set up.

[1] [https://git.zx2c4.com/WireGuard/tree/contrib/examples/rereso...](https://git.zx2c4.com/WireGuard/tree/contrib/examples/reresolve- dns/reresolve-dns.sh)

[2] [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WireGuard#Endpoint_with...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WireGuard#Endpoint_with_changing_IP)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wish there was good documentation/a tutorial which shows one how to use systemd-networkd and nftables to manage wireguard interfaces. The Arch Wiki has some documentation[0], but I've never been able to get it past the initial handshake (which always succeeds) and no one on the IRC channel was able to help me out.

I don't want to ask for hand-holding, but some more comprehensive and accessible documentation might help me troubleshoot it better.

[0] [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WireGuard#Using_systemd...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WireGuard#Using_systemd- networkd)

<comment><USER24> If you want to enable forwarding then set the sysctl [0] and masquerade [1]. nftables also has a `log` rule which might be useful for debugging.

If you can't even connect to services on the peer then first delete all iptables and nftables rules and try again.

[0] [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WireGuard#Server](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WireGuard#Server)

[1] [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Nftables#Masquerading](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Nftables#Masquerading)

<comment><USER23> Thank you, kind stranger! I know what tomorrow's project is going to be!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is really good. I hope the author considered getting this pushed upstream.

<comment><USER26> If the author hasn't reached out, @zx2c4 will probably see this post. He's pretty active on wireguard-related HN posts.

<comment><USER2> I've already emailed him to discuss it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Use this as a permanent VPN on my phone to my home. It only forwards requests in the 192.168.1.0/24 range and that includes all DNS requests that go to my pihole. All regular traffic is unaffected as my upload at home is slower than my 4G download speed and I don't want to limit it.

Can recommend this setup to everyone, especially on devices with spotty connections like a phone.

</comment><comment><USER28> That's awesome! My suggestions:

* I'd include this research paper. It's the "first mechanised cryptographic proof of WG protocol" : [https://hal.inria.fr/hal-02100345/document](https://hal.inria.fr/hal-02100345/document)

Self-plug right here. There are a ton of bash scripts to install and configure WireGuard. Here's mine: [https://github.com/SirToffski/WireGuard- Ligase/](https://github.com/SirToffski/WireGuard-Ligase/)

It will configure server and clients independent of the OS it's running at. Steps to install WG are provided in the Wiki. On Ubuntu server with pre- installed WG, the quick setup option will make a ready to use server. You can quickly edit the variables to change things up.

Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER29> Looks like a great write up, very thorough. I wrote up a quick guide how to make the mobile setup a little easier with QR codes within the WireGuard mobile apps - when I get the time I'll submit a pull request to get something included. [https://grh.am/2018/wireguard-setup-guide-for- ios/](https://grh.am/2018/wireguard-setup-guide-for-ios/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Just added this link under the _Further Reading_ section.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wireguard is a great solution for a secure, high-performance data pipe. However, it only supports layer 3 static routing by itself, which by itself fits none of my typical use cases.

If you're willing to think of it as a secure control plane where the cryptographic identities of peers are mapped to IP addresses, you can run other tried-and-tested but insecure tunnels over it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Thanks for the docs, very helpful! I'm following Wireguard project and trying to gather all the bits sometimes takes time.

I'm also making a simple program for myself and friend that is able to talk to hosting providers via API, spawn a vps and just installs prebuild image with Wireguard, Pihole and Cloudflared installed and configured + UI to add / remove clients.

</comment><comment><USER31> This looks like a very comprehensive guide with lots of practical examples. Good job!

What I cannot see explicitly mentioned anywhere, is a full example of how to set up a central wireguard server which routes client traffic from the VPN subnet out to the Internet.

Is this done automatically/implicitly? If so how? I don't see enough commands to make this happen.

Am I just stupid? What am I missing?

<comment><USER2> Just add `,0.0.0.0/0` to AllowedIPs on the central server, and `,0.0.0.0/0` on the peer definition for the central server on all the clients.

I'll add an example to the docs as well.

<comment><USER2> Added here: [https://github.com/pirate/wireguard-docs#Forwarding-All- Traf...](https://github.com/pirate/wireguard-docs#Forwarding-All-Traffic)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is great, but if you want something with a web-frontend for creating users, Veeam has a nice free tool for that.

[https://www.veeam.com/powered-network.html](https://www.veeam.com/powered- network.html)

</comment><comment><USER33> Superb, just what I was looking for. The official documentation really is spartan.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've been waiting for UDP support/tunnelling for so long that it makes me think about writing my it on my own.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'd like a tutorial on getting wireguard running with systemd for debian/ubuntu based systems!

</comment><comment><USER36> Is wireguard also able to reach 1gbps on Windows? (Windows performance was my main beef with OpenVPN).

</comment><comment><USER37> Can wireguard be run in docker?

<comment><USER38> The wireguard kernel implementation can't but AFAIK you should be able to run a userspace implementation like the rust version just fine.

<comment><USER39> The Rust implementation is very incomplete, I believe you'll have better luck with the Go userspace implementation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm using it with mullvad, works great on desktop and iOS.

</comment><comment><USER41> It's seriously weird that `Address=10.0.1.2/32` works at all. An Address should have a correct subnet mask (like your IP at home might be 192.168.1.25/24, not 192.168.1.25/32).

The documentation is complete, but I think the most important topic is `AllowedIPs`. The rest is pretty standard and unsurprising (if you have any networking knowledge at all). I had written a bit about AllowedIPs when I switched to WG myself: [https://try.popho.be/wg.html](https://try.popho.be/wg.html) , with examples too.

<comment><USER42> You're aware that /32 is the correct way of specifying one, single IPv4 address using this notation?

There is nothing weird about it at all.

If you've used IPv6 you'll see the equivalent /128 for a single address.

<comment><USER41> Try setting 192.168.1.25/32 on your eth0 interface, you're in for a bad time.

<comment><USER43> 2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP group default qlen 1000

        inet 192.168.101.12/24 brd 192.168.101.255 scope global eth0
           valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
        inet 192.168.1.25/32 scope global eth0
           valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
        inet 192.168.1.32/31 scope global eth0
           valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Seems to work fine, added a /31 just for fun.

<comment><USER41> if you remove the /24 you'll have a nice surprise

<comment><USER43> Not really a surprise. The point is that it is a completely valid address to use, and in this case it just defines a range. /32 are commonly used in routers (even servers in some cases) and /31 for linknets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Could Wireguard have been written in Rust or does it require C for some reason? We've seen CVEs in major libraries (e.g. openssl) and some of the guarantees Rust provides would prevent certain classes of vulnerabilities.

Has the author not learnt from the past or does it actually need to be written in C for some reason?

<comment><USER45> You don't seem to have spent a single minute researching before posting :/

The original implementation is a kernel module. You can find a bunch of (excellent) talks online by wireguard's author which all have a focus on security aspects and avoiding vulnerabilities. Besides, Go and Rust (3rd pty) implementations exist.

<comment><USER44> > You don't seem to have spent a single minute researching before posting

Correct. This is a discussion site after all.

> The original implementation is a kernel module

How does that make it safer if it's written in C? Of course no one likes to think they're writing vulnerable code...

<comment><USER46> If you want a module to be accepted in to the Linux kernel upstream, then you have to comply with the kernel's rules.

The kernel uses various C macros and GCC extensions. Ensuring that a module written in another language was compatible, even given that it would need to be built outside the normal tree would make its maintenance within the kernel tree impossible.

In terms of being written in C++/Rust/whatever, as an external module that complies with the kernel ABI (not guaranteed between kernel releases), go for it.

But if you want to have your protocol/module in the standard kernel tree, C is your choice.

<comment><USER47> > the kernel ABI (not guaranteed between kernel releases)

Even within a single release, the kernel ABI varies depending on several kernel configuration options (for instance, CONFIG_SMP).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ex-smokers, how did you quit? - <AUTHOR> I've been a smoker on and off for a long time. I have managed to quit a few times and stay out for as long as 2 years but I start again mostly due to stress and habit. Those of you who quit successfully, what worked for you? <comment><USER2> I started smoking at 19 and was a chain smoker throughout my 20's. I was a total addict - I hated it. About 10 years ago I read "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking" by Allen Carr. The next day I stopped. For 4 days I felt as though I had got up too early on a winters morning; I felt cold inside and the light hurt my eyes. But after that, it was done.

Many people in the UK at least have reported good results with that book. I can't really explain it - there are no moments of profound revelation, it just sort of quietly convinces you that smoking doesn't really relieve stress, that you don't need it and you can quit. I just read it in the evening before going to bed and decided that the next day I would quit.

At the same time, I took up running and weight training. I started running straight away even though I could hardly run 50 yards. I think this helped enormously because I was focused completely on what I was gaining in fitness and I didn't feel for one moment that I was "giving something up".

All the same there is something I can't quite explain about it. I tried many times before and really struggled, yet when I finally quit it was easy. Now when I look back its like remembering a previous life.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I did try the book a few years ago, but I remember after the first couple of chapters I got bored and gave up. Seemed like there was no actionable advice, but maybe I should give it another shot. I have heard from a few other people that the book helped them quit for good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Chiming in as a data point even though I didn't really "quit".

I was a pack-a-day smoker for about 20 years. Quit and started lots of times.

I replaced cigarettes with a nicotine vape (salt nic) about a year ago and haven't looked back. I still consume the equivalent of a "pack of day" worth of nicotine. I still get the rituals and sense of "stepping away" that I used to have.

I liked cigarettes in the same way I like coffee and probably would have been happy to smoke indefinitely if I hadn't had kids and it wasn't so incredibly harmful.

It's unfortunate that vaping is not "zero harm", but in my life situation I believe it's been a major harm reduction that would have been very, very difficult to achieve otherwise.

<comment><AUTHOR> The thing that kept me from vape is that I'm not sure if it's not worse than smoking although the chances are pretty low. Also I'm hoping that I can leave it completely behind as opposed to replacing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Vape, started off with a strong 18mg or so nicotine...ramped it back to about 6 or so these days. Only use it when I am out drinking now. Took about 3 months to ramp the strength down. and 3 months after I got it to 6mg (during this period I would also alternate vaping same flavour with no nicotine) I stopped regularly using it. Just need to cut nicotine out of my bowl and I'll be sweet. That's a harder process though, mostly just due to difficulty of finding product of quality for long enough that makes straight smoking pleasant.

Edit: I smoked like a 50g pouch in roughly 4 days at my peak....when I started vaping I was back to maybe a 50g pouch every 8 days or so.

</comment><comment><USER5> I guess I got lucky. I quit cold turkey after smoking consistently for 3 years. 2 of those years, I was smoking a pack and a half a day. After about 3 weeks I wasn't craving it anymore and somewhere around the 6 month mark, I found the taste of a cigarette disgusting. I might have part of a cigarette once or twice a year when I go out drinking but I haven't bought a pack of cigarettes in about 8 years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good for you, yeah I have also been successful with cold turkey. I think I'm not much addicted to the nicotine part compared to habit and stress. For example, I go on vacation and don't smoke for 2-3 weeks, with no problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 3 packs per day for 7 years, non-stop.

One day I woke up after an adventurous epiphany that made me realized I could have saved more than $6000 of today's value in a year by literally stop smoking slow and painful death.

That was it, really.

I quit it cold turkey and never look back.

Oh! And by the way, your sexual life becomes very VERY powerful and energetic.

You find strengths you didn't know you had all this time.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sleep through the first 3 days. Chew on ice cubes for the first couple of weeks. After that clear.

The real problem isn't the "addiction" (which is so mild as to be laughable); its the sudden influx of time you have, and the fact that smoking, favors a sedentary lifestyle (typically associated with high stress jobs).

Typical spreads are; 1-3 days discomfort, 7-day relapse, 14-21 day relapse, 6 week relapse. after that, unless you hang out with smokers...</comment>


Show HN: Every footy team's scores ... except yours - <AUTHOR> http://www.dontshowmyteam.com

<comment><AUTHOR> We built this for a mate who loves English premier league (soccer) and tapes all of the Arsenal games. He wanted to know the scores of the other teams without spoiling his match.

We extended it the other day to grab Australian Football scores for another mate.

Are there any other leagues that people want to see represented?

This was built using Twitter bootstrap and the bottle.py web framework.</comment>


SoCal Edison Contracts 770MW Energy Storage Portfolio to Replace CA Gas Plants - <AUTHOR> https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/southern-california-edison-picks-770mw-of-energy-storage-projects-to-be-built-by-next-year <comment><AUTHOR> Highlights:

* Southern California Edison has signed seven contracts for a combined 770 megawatts of battery energy storage projects, one of the biggest single procurements of its kind. The utility also wants to turn them on by August 2021, which would be a record-fast turnaround for projects of that magnitude.

* SCE's single 770-megawatt procurement "tops the entire 2019 US storage market by more than 200 megawatts," said Daniel Finn-Foley, head of energy storage for Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables. The consultancy expects the U.S. storage market to grow by more than 7 times from 2019 to 2021.

* "The storage market is approaching a deployment acceleration over the next two years that will be unprecedented in recent U.S. electricity history," Finn-Foley said.</comment>


Paradox of Achievement and How Motivated Dissatisfaction Fuels Creativity - <AUTHOR> https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/16/adam-grant-originals/ <comment> kiril-me We're driven to question defaults when we experience vuja de, the opposite of déjà vu. Déjà vu occurs when we encounter something new, but it feels as if we've seen it before. Vuja de is the reverse — we face something familiar, but we see it with a fresh perspective that enables us to gain new insights into old problems.</comment>