UK Investigatory Powers Bill: Politicians exempt themselves from new laws - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/investigatory-powers-bill-a7447781.html <comment><USER3> Normally this would be a positive feature, since it (in theory) serves to protect politicians from being coerced or blackmailed. However, I can't help but think it's the same gutless people that voted this in simply protecting their own interests above all else.

On the other hand, the protections may serve useful some day should they suddenly locate their spines—or perhaps a wave of vertebrate politicians somehow takes office. Either way, the protections would make it easier for the newly-granted surveillance powers to be revoked. Wishful thinking, of course.

At least the UK doesn't waste time on charades like we do here in the US—serving up deprecated or redundant surveillance programs on the altar of political sacrifice while other, more compartmented programs (usually broader and more invasive in scope) seamlessly take their place. Then again, perhaps there's just not enough public opposition to justify the effort in the first place.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure how it's a positive feature at all, why should they be treated differently from the rest of us.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure why anyone would expect the agencies to actually adhere to these laws (they didn't before anyway). Having a nice bucket of kompromat on every relevant politician is rather enticing.

<comment><USER3> The ultimate justification for spying on politicians is under the guise of counterintelligence. Have to make sure they're not under the influence of foreign powers, or leaking classified information.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Harman#2009_wiretap.2FAIP...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Harman#2009_wiretap.2FAIPAC_allegations)

Of course, sometimes it's just easier to poorly fabricate supposedly- intercepted communications, do the political damage, and then refuse to divulge any evidence citing either classification grounds or the absence of an investigation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Before anyone looks down their nose at the UK. This is really common in the US as well. If the law is onerous, then there will be exceptions for the politically connected. If the law is helpful or permissive, then it will apply to the politically connected first.

A good barometer for deciding if proposed legislation is helpful or harmful: figure out who the law applies to first and who it applies to last.

<comment><USER7> I am very curious about this phenomenon. Do you have any examples or references?

<comment><USER8> Insider trading not being illegal for congress comes to mind. Immunity from prosecution for revealing classified information on the house floor as well. Those are the two I always think of when pondering this subject.

<comment><USER9> But we don't even have insider trading laws. Insider trading is something the courts came up with based on an expanded meaning of fraud.

<comment><USER8> Wait, are you saying insider trading _laws_ are actually just extended use of fraud laws, but no laws specifically for insider trading? If so, I find that very interesting.

<comment><USER9> Yes. There is no law against insider trading, just the SEC and judges thinking it's really bad so we should punish it even if Congress never got around to passing an actual law against it.

See here for one example [0]. The SEC does have rules against it, so it's not entirely on a case-by-case basis [1]. It's just the SEC isn't supposed to write law.

[0] [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-12-11/whats- nex...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-12-11/whats-next-for- insider-trading-law)

[1] [http://www.sec.gov/answers/insider.htm](http://www.sec.gov/answers/insider.htm)

<comment><USER10> > See here for one example [0]. The SEC does have rules against it, so it's > not entirely on a case-by-case basis [1]. It's just the SEC isn't supposed > to write law.

It isn't really.

[https://www.sec.gov/news/testimony/2011/ts120111rsk.htm](https://www.sec.gov/news/testimony/2011/ts120111rsk.htm)

> There is no express statutory definition of the offense of insider trading > in securities.3 The SEC prosecutes insider trading under the general > antifraud provisions of the Federal securities laws, most commonly Section > 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act") and Rule > 10b-5, a broad anti-fraud rule promulgated by the SEC under Section 10(b). > Section 10(b) declares it unlawful "[t]o use or employ, in connection with > the purchase or sale of any security . . . any manipulative or deceptive > device or contrivance in contravention of such rules and regulations as the > Commission may prescribe as necessary or appropriate in the public interest > or for the protection of investors."4 Rule 10b-5 broadly prohibits fraud and > deception in connection with the purchase and sale of securities. As the > Supreme Court has stated, "Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 prohibit all > fraudulent schemes in connection with the purchase or sale of securities, > whether the artifices employed involve a garden type variety of fraud, or > present a unique form of deception," because "[n]ovel or atypical methods > should not provide immunity from the securities laws."5

Congress wrote some very broad anti-fraud laws, never amended them, and left it up to the SEC to exercise its discretion on what qualified as such practices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When they say records are not able to be accessed without a warrant, do they mean that or do they mean it's illegal to access the records without a warrant?

<comment><USER3> That is an excellent question.

The NSA developments in recent years have shown that while privacy protections do exist that limit access to collected data (e.g. FISA warrants), they're still collecting everything on everyone regardless. The intercepted data then rots in a huge database for years at a minimum—in practice probably indefinitely.

In what was one of the the most brilliant legal/public relations plays in recent history, NSA decided to play a shell game with the definitions of the terms "collection" and "targeting", redefining them (when convenient) as the _accessing_ of data—by humans—that's already been intercepted and stored.

<comment><USER12> With _accessing_ further defined as an actual human looking at it, not a computer parsing it or generating statistics over the collected data of individuals in aggregate.

<comment><USER3> Updated my comment to reflect that, thanks.

A good example of the distinction is the raw audio of a domestic phone call in the US. First it's intercepted in bulk, then automatically sent to DSP hardware for transcription into a searchable text log.

That wouldn't qualify as "collection" as the NSA defines it until a human analyst actually listened to or laid eyes upon the data.

Automated analysis programs looking for keywords or specific patterns of behavior within the data probably require legal authorization as well. However, it's unclear if the legal authorizations such programs operate under are broad in nature, or issued individually in a more explicit manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell "Internet connection records – a history of every website that someone has visited, but not every page – will still be collected for MPs"

So at least if a shifty employee feels like taking a look at the data, or leaks the data, or an ISP gets hacked, our MP's browsing history will be exposed too.

<comment><USER13> Unfortunately I don't think that the retention aspect will be revoked - <USER2> matter how much it's detested - but I do believe the only way that the government will tighten access is when a few people inevitably leak at best embarassing data on members of the political class.

The lack of technological literacy amongst the populus and the utter contempt which the government has towards privacy and anonymity is very disheartening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Slightly related question, does anyone know if these laws are backdated. I.e a year's worth of data retention is that available to the list of access from now? As in have ISP already been collecting?

Has the data collection started? Is it about to start?

<comment><USER15> 'Has the data collection started?'

I think we can assume it's been going on for years already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> _We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world.

This should not actually be a complicated inquiry._

[https://archive.org/details/EbenMoglen- WhyFreedomOfThoughtRe...](https://archive.org/details/EbenMoglen- WhyFreedomOfThoughtRequiresFreeMediaAndWhyFreeMedia)

Surveillance is not an end toward totalitarianism, it is totalitarianism itself.

</comment><comment><USER17> Seriously, bring out the guillotine.

We are WAY overdue for a culling of the ruling class.

<comment><USER15> Revolutions are always followed by a new set of leaders, often worse than what was there before.

<comment><USER17> Often, not always.

I'm under no illusion that revolutions are bloodless, but I believe that sometimes they are the the only option when system becomes so corrupt and rigged in favour of a small, wealthy, ruling elite.

The French Revolution for example which was grisly as all fuck and the years of instability afterwards can not be understated. Yet I do believe that what eventually came out of it (the French Republic) is far, far better than what came before the people started chopping the heads off the insane, greedy, oppressive aristrocracy.

There are of course counter-examples. The Russian revolution. Though was the revolution itself the problem there, or the people that commandeered it for themselves in the years afterwards (e.g. Stalin)?

I cannot see a way to fix the current system. The populace is so suppressed in ways that are sometimes subtle as fuck. Decades of demagogue politicians playing on fears, dividing the demographics into us-versus-them tribes out for blood, fostering the paranoia and fear of the foreigner, engaging in massive orgies of deregulation of financial services that cause crash after econimic crash, where the average schmuck picks up the bill and those reponsible get to carry on as normal.

Repealing basic services like welfare and healthcare, fostering resentment between age groups, racial groups and classes as a misdirection of attention from the actual cause of our current ills, socially irresponsible banks and financial services that have no tangible value to society other than to move money around.

Intelligence services and police forces focused on inward threats from their own people lest they somehow upset the status quo of funneling up the wealth of nations into the hands of a few oligarchs at the top of the pyramid.

Western democracy is completely fucked. It has been corrupted and made a sick facsimile of what it was intended to be. There is no fixing this system without massive civil unrest, and that impending civil unrest is why (I believe) we are witnessing the insance lurch towards authoritarianism and watering down of basic rights all over Europe and the US, it's those with a lot to lose preparing themselves.

And they are winning. They will continue to fuck us all as long as we keep falling for the whole 'terrorist', 'immigrants', 'paedophile', 'hackers' bullshit as a reason why they must keep taking away our rights and liberties.

We are frogs slowly boiling alive in the cooking pot.

<comment><USER18> From a discussion of _1984_ :

 _" beginning with the historical observation that societies always have hierarchically divided themselves into social classes and castes: the High (who rule); the Middle (who work for, and yearn to supplant the High), and the Low (whose goal is quotidian survival). Cyclically, the Middle deposed the High, by enlisting the Low. Upon assuming power, however, the Middle (the new High class) recast the Low into their usual servitude. In the event, the classes perpetually repeat the cycle, when the Middle class speaks to the Low class of "justice" and of "human brotherhood" in aid of becoming the High class rulers."_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oli...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oligarchical_Collectivism)

<comment><USER19> People forget two things when they quote Orwell as evidence for perma- cynicism:

1) Orwell as himself a democratic socialist, writing on behalf of democratic socialism.

2) The level of stratification between high, middle, and low varies massively across time and place. _More_ egalitarian societies _have_ actually existed.

<comment><USER18> For what it's worth I probably have very similar political views to Orwell - my reaction wasn't "perma-cynicism" but deep skepticism that a violent revolution that calls for "culling" and capital punishment would actually make things any better for the average person - just replacing one ruling class with another.

<comment><USER19> Well, to go back to cynicism for a moment, I think it partially depends on whether the ruling class has the basic sanity to relinquish enough of their power nonviolently that life for the masses can return to a tolerable norm. The French Revolution did not merely happen because inequality was too severe, but because of the "let them eat cake" attitude on the part of the elite. The English, in contrast, were once-upon-a-time willing to reform their system to reduce inequality rather than suffer yet another civil war.

<comment><USER18> I'd have said that the best example of a reform in the UK system was the post- war Attlee government that introduced the NHS. However, that required a desire for change that was driven by the "total war" exertions of WW2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Politicians making one rule for the plebs and one rule for themselves? Well I never!

<comment><USER21> Politicians are the new noble class, it's like middle age but instead of count/dukes and the rest we now have politicians. Maybe we need another french revolution.

<comment><USER22> Please, enough of this nonsense. What we need is for _people to vote for better politicians_. To my mind, the main obstacle to that is the awful UK press, and the increasing extent to which the BBC is a government broadcaster rather than a public broadcaster.

<comment><USER23> It will be hard for people to vote for better politicians, so long as those politicians who are allowed to represent an existing party have to be selected by the party itself.

<comment><USER22> A large part of the problem is some of the existing parties, sure. But in Brighton, for example, we have Caroline Lucas, who is a wonderful MP.

<comment><USER20> Jeremy Corbyn for example is actually a decent human being (can vouch for this as work with him a bit in Westminster), despite some of his policies. However he is hounded out by the media and political class.

<comment><USER24> Maybe. But where was he, and where were the rest of his party when this abomination was being shoved through parliament? Abstaining in the commons and cheerleading it in the lords. So pardon me if I don't buy him being a decent chap having any bearing whatsoever on this issue.

<comment><USER25> He is clearly not in control of his MPs in the commons, and even less so in the Lords (which are now stacked with Blair cronies). He has to pick his battles very carefully.

Mandatory reselection after boundary changes should see to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Next up, Politicians exempt themselves from losing office.

</comment><comment><USER27> Whilst at first glance this doesn't look altogether fair, I can understand why its been done.

The government should not be able to use the tools of state to suppress legitimate parliamentary opposition. There would be nothing to stop the party in power using the law to specifically target opposing parties.

For the rest of us here in the UK, your traffic is already being collated and probably has been for some time.

<comment><USER28> > The government should not be able to use the tools of state to suppress > legitimate parliamentary opposition. There would be nothing to stop the > party in power using the law to specifically target opposing parties.

Why not introduce a law that further decouples intelligence agencies and the government. It could be made mandatory that information released by agencies are released to _all_ members of parliament. This way, the government gets more transparency, and the people also get more transparency indirectly.

Just my 2 pence.

<comment><USER29> That would require all MP's to be vetted :-)

<comment><USER28> We could start by disclosing only (detailed) meta-information.

Or we could choose 1 MP per party to be informed.

<comment><USER25> The Leader of the Opposition is already in Privy Council, which (I believe) means he'll get most of the security briefs he wants to. He should probably be in COBRA too, but I don't think that's the case at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The UK is as corrupt as everyone claims Russia is, starting with the BBC. Theresa May has turned out to be a tyrant. As a Brit, I don't know if I'm more disgusted by the arrogance of the ruling class, or the apathy of the subservient working class. Dystopia is here. Talk of bloody revolution is not necessary - the first cyber revolution?

<comment><USER31> Please. This is hyperbole of the first order.

[http://www.transparency.org/country#GBR](http://www.transparency.org/country#GBR)

[http://www.transparency.org/country#RUS](http://www.transparency.org/country#RUS)

<comment><USER32> "Corruption perception index"

That's the problem. Corruption in the UK isn't perceived as such, because they go to greater lengths to hide it. That doesn't change the fact that UK politics are rotten to the core and their politics have a much bigger global effect. Remember when London bankers recently manipulated the stock market and got away with it?

And let's not ignore that Transparency International themselves are somewhat shady. They gave Hillary Clinton an award for integrity and that's only the funniest of their failings.

<comment><USER33> The fact that people feel compelled to go to greater lengths to hide it is itself a net positive, no? The higher the costs of doing X, the less X there will be.

<comment><USER32> >The higher the costs of doing X, the less X there will be.

That's a very simplistic and primitive way to look at it. For one, there are more and wealthier people involved so the costs are shared. Profits are also bigger, because the UK is better connected, so the increased investment costs are acceptable.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Basecamp circa 2004 - <AUTHOR> http://web.archive.org/web/20040328155222/http://www.basecamphq.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Does anybody remember if the design was like this (without layout of any sort) or is Archive.org missing some file?

Also notice, the website is in PHP</comment>


Adobe Releases BlazeDS, Open Source Version of LiveCycle Data Services - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/12/adobe-releases-blazeds-open-source-version-of-livecycle-data-services/ <comment><USER2> Here's some interesting benchmarking:

[http://www.jamesward.org/wordpress/2007/12/12/blazebench- why...](http://www.jamesward.org/wordpress/2007/12/12/blazebench-why-you-want- amf-and-blazeds/)

compares Ajax/JSON vs. Flex/XML and Flex/BlazeDS speeds of serverside processing, packet size, parsing and rendering.

</comment><comment><USER3> Finally Adobe admits that AMF3 isn't a secret -- months after it was reverse- engineered. I wonder if they'll also decide to "open" RTMP after RTMPE comes out.

</comment><comment><USER4> can anyone find a link for this stuff on the adobe website, I want to read the tech specs and work out if I can get anything out of it. Mainy I am wondering how many connections you can get at the same time from a standard setup.

<comment><USER5> It's over at Adobe Labs: <http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/blazeds/>

<comment><USER4> ta, I feel a bit of a donut for looking there :p</comment></comment></comment>


How hackers abused satellites to stay under the radar (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/09/how-highly-advanced-hackers-abused-satellites-to-stay-under-the-radar/ <comment><USER2> This beautiful exfiltration technique of _actively_ sending packets to an IP address that will be routed on a link you can _passively_ eavesdrop on -- in this case, a satellite link -- is one that appears in the leaked Snowden documents: (warning, classified document) [https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/greenstone/collect/snowden1/...](https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/greenstone/collect/snowden1/index/assoc/HASHfae2.dir/doc.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I love the last slide:

\- do "the right thing" (whatever you the analysts think that is)

\- Let me guess - you want everything, don't you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've done a significant amount of research on these threat actors. Despite the high tech exfiltration method and nation state support, researchers were still able to easily find their infrastructure. Satellite communications were encrypted via self-signed ssl certificates. Using internet scanning, we could track their IP addresses and associated domains using the SHA-1 of their certificate (map certificate to hosting IP). Happy to answer questions, but you can also read more here. [https://blog.passivetotal.org/snakes-in-the- satellites-on-go...](https://blog.passivetotal.org/snakes-in-the-satellites- on-going-turla-infrastructure/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Are these satellites in geosynchronous orbit? If not, and you've got a copy of the malware, you ought to be able to narrow the location of the C&C server using its orbit and a correlation analysis of when the malware receives comms from the C&C. Depending on the orbit, I'll bet you could bracket it to a few degrees. Since the attackers can't stop answering C&C calls or their network collapses, merely publishing that you're doing such a search might be enough to disrupt their operations.

Then again, maybe this blog post was just such an announcement.

EDIT: I'm willing to bet that satellite downlink performance degrades in bad weather, so even if the sats are in geo-sync, you can just wait for inclement weather to mask a region of the cone.

<comment><USER6> $DAYJOB is about deploying satellite equipment.

> Are these satellites in geosynchronous orbit?

Yes. Satellites in other orbits require tracking antennas. A typical one has a four-figure cost at the very least. And if you need uninterrupted connection, you need to have at least two of them, one for tracking the one that sets, and another for tracking the one that rises.

> I'm willing to bet that satellite downlink performance degrades in bad > weather

Ku band, as deployed, is highly resilient to bad weather. The SNR will drop, sure, but it will be well above the threshold where it will be unintelligible to the receiver. These things are designed with worst weather conditions in mind. If ever you lost satellite tv during bad weather, that's due to your antenna shaking because of the wind, not rainfade.

DVB-S2 in particular supports adaptive coding modulation (ACM). The standard supports between 4psk and 32psk which can be changed by the ground station when fade is detected in their reference terminals scattered around the footprint region.

You can't really do that for TV links where the bandwidth allocation is more- or-less constant, but you can definitely change modulation for data links which are actually designed to handle such fluctuations in available bandwidth.

<comment><USER7> >If ever you lost satellite tv during bad weather, that's due to your antenna shaking because of the wind, not rainfade.

Huh, my observations have been different. I lose TV even before the rain and wind starts (trees make any wind quite visible), just because the dense dark rain clouds are blocking the signal path. The rain typically starts a couple minutes later.

For digital TV there's an incentive to maximize bandwidth. So they're going to trade off signal:noise to get 99.99% (1-10 minutes/mo), but not 99.99999%. Especially since as you say, the wind will result in some signal interruptions anyway!

<comment><USER8> You might not have the most optimal angle on your satellite antenna so it's very sensitive.

<comment><USER9> Yes, very likely. I used to install and service satellite TV systems. You probably have low signal strength to begin with. If not, perhaps there is a tree that only blocks the signal when it's windy.

I once had a customer that lost signal in the rain. After much investigation, I found a splice in the cable...in the gutters, which filled with water when it rained.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ok, that is pretty interesting. I wonder if this will lead to an encrypted signal or deeper analysis of the uplink firewall logs.

I would guess you would defeat this once you know the C&C is operating by doing traffic correlation on 'bad' connections (connections which should not exist given the failed TCP handshake). Presuming you have core router access at the ISPs then you would tell your sniffer to capture all traffic after a C&C sequence detect and then work it backward to correlate related traffic. It would require participation on the part of the ISPs.

<comment><USER11> Proper reverse path filtering would also work. The C&C servers should not be able to spoof the IP of the legitimate satellite internet user to reply to the eavsdropped packets. One day.

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2827](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2827)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't get it. It is impossible to identify who receives the packets but TCP/IP requires an acknowledgement that the packets have been received before sending more packets. Surely the C&C could be tracked from this acknowledgement? Or were they using UDP?

<comment><USER2> UDP for everything would be workable and would remove the need for any sort of spoofing on the uplink.

<comment><USER13> That would work for exfiltration, but not for the whole "command and control" part of C&C.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The last time I had read about this technique was in 2010. [1] Those slides are a very good explanation. Back then I thought about it as a way to either sniff confidential data from the downlink or as a way to have an anonymous internet connection provided your ISP doesn't filter spoofed ips. Very interesting to see it used in the wild and for a C&C.

[1] [http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh- dc-10/Nve_Leonardo/...](http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh- dc-10/Nve_Leonardo/BlackHat-DC-2010-Nve-Playing-with-SAT-1.2-slides.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER15> Dan Goodin has been writing articles about technology for many years now. How does he manage to keep doing so in such utterly incomprehensible fashion? I mean, I get that it's not intended for an audience of seasoned network engineers, but I don't see how it would leave a layman with a useful impression, either...

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't understand how this allowed them to conceal their location. Surely whatever connection was being used to send commands could be traced back to the attackers. Could someone explain why this isn't the case?

<comment><USER17> The spoofed traffic theoretically could be traced back, but at the level of internet routing it would impose a huge cooperation and monitoring requirements on a number of networks. (As we can presume the origin network that's letting spoofed traffic onto the internet isn't going to notice, and/or would be uncooperative to someone investigating the source of the traffic.)

And that monitoring would have to have been active while the traffic spoofing was ongoing. If an ISP has confidence that incoming traffic is spoofed they'll just drop the packets instead of routing. So we're now talking about storing metadata on traffic for after-the-fact analysis, which could be prohibitively expensive considering the amount of traffic transiting networks, and has privacy implications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So this has to be some sort of state sponsored hacking right? I can't think of a non government group who would have the knowledge, money, or motivation to research this just to mask their origin when there are far simpler ways of receiving transactions (ie. bitcoin)

<comment><USER19> Not necessarily.

I briefly pretended to be a criminal, mostly for fun. (Most readers will go "Uh huh" at this, but it was just a game.)

Say you're developing the next Silk Road. Say you have perfect opsec, and you never reveal any personal info. What are your risks?

The #1 risk is discovery of your physical location. Before every action, you must ask yourself: Will the next keystroke get me caught?

It takes immense discipline. I think rtm could probably do it if he put his mind to it. Maybe tlb. Few others seem to have the personality for this.

Solving the location hiding problem is the first step toward doing anything untoward. It's not as simple as "just use Tails." Try to build a service and you'll discover all the reasons.

Money is the other half. I guess I may as well tell the story. You need money in certain situations, and bitcoin isn't always good enough. You need untraceable cash that you can spend online. You also need burner phones that can't be tied to your physical location in order to sign up for all the normal services. If you use Tor, you'll quickly discover that ~every service prompts you for a phone number during account creation.

I solved this in a simple way: I waited until the middle of winter, then went to goodwill and bought a bunch of clothes, old shoes, and a facemask. I stuffed all of this in a trashbag, then paid a taxi in cash to drop me a couple miles from a certain store that had both prepaid visa cards and burner phones.

For the first half of the walk, I looked like a normal person walking along at night, carrying a trashbag. I ducked into a neighborhood whose streetlights were out, and went in between two houses. It was nearly pitch black as I put on the clothes from the trashbag. I left the bag plus my old shoes hidden there, then continued for the rest of the walk to the store. I bought $400 worth of $50 gift cards and two prepaid phones, then did the whole operation in reverse.

Why? Because when your opponent is a nation-state, you have a risk of being found via any other method. You can't drive anywhere because of license plate trackers. You can't show your face at the store thanks to facial recognition. You can't wear the same outfit without being picked up on CCTV's near your home base in the same outfit that you were wearing at the store.

The same care has to be taken when activating and using the burner phones. Every usage has to be treated as an operation, not an errand, or you're caught. You have to assume one mistake => caught.

It was very satisfying having $400 in untraceable cash to set up an untraceable service, complete with an online persona with gmail, twitter, github, and every other normal service.

The reason for this level of paranoia was that in addition to being a game, one of my main ambitions has been to fight against drug cartels. I wanted to use technology to do this.

My hypothesis was that right now, the main reason cartels are so powerful is that nobody is in a position to talk. Say you're a peon in a cartel: someone who unloads the drug buses that run from Mexico to Chicago, for example. You have very valuable knowledge: what times the buses will arrive, where they're unloading, who's involved. But even if you wanted to snitch, you'd suffer a fate worse than death if you're caught. What are you going to do? Keep submitting this info as anonymous tips to the FBI's website? There's no organized resource for peons to report activities like this. That's why I wanted to build one. It's like SecureDrop for fighting cartels rather than governments.

As you can tell from me posting this casually, nothing ever came of the experiment. But if it had, I would've slept quite soundly knowing my location was untraceable even with government-level resources aimed at tracking us down.

All of this is to say that the "location problem" is very relevant to pretty much any serious activity, government or not.

<comment><USER20> \- did you have a cellphone in your pocket?

\- where did you get the cash?

\- by talking about it you negated all the advantages you built up

\- if you walk into a store wearing a facemask you run the risk of being arrested or even shot because they assume you are robbing the store

\- you may have left fingerprints in the store

\- the cabdriver has seen your face and knows your home address, you should have walked to the spot where you changed your clothes

\- the clothes bought at the goodwill, did you pay cash for those too?

\- what happened to the clothes afterwards?

\- how did you summon the cab to your change location?

\- you're lucky that neither of the houses you changed next to had a dog

<comment><USER21> I'm not even GP but I think I can answer a lot of these. Are you maybe trying a little too hard to play devil's advocate?

\- did you have a cellphone in your pocket?

After going through all of this, do you honestly think he forgot that detail?

\- where did you get the cash?

That's a good question. Hopefully he withdrew a different amount of cash on a completely separate date, otherwise bank account and transactions surely could be linked.

\- by talking about it you negated all the advantages you built up

He said he is only mentioning it now because he didn't actually go through with his plan i.e. he doesn't care.

\- if you walk into a store wearing a facemask you run the risk of being arrested or even shot because they assume you are robbing the store

What country do you live in where you're shot for wearing a facemask? Holy shit.

\- you may have left fingerprints in the store

Let's hope he wore gloves!

\- the cabdriver has seen your face and knows your home address, you should have walked to the spot where you changed your clothes

Why does he know his home address? Taxis drive around in many cities. In most cities in Europe (regardless of size) there are taxis everywhere and also taxi parking spots, where there are usually a few taxis waiting.

\- the clothes bought at the goodwill, did you pay cash for those too?

Is this a serious question? After all that other work and thinking the process through, why would he all of a sudden use a traceable ATM/credit-card?

\- what happened to the clothes afterwards?

Hopefully burned. Or thrown away in a trash can far, far away. I would assume GP knows better than to throw them in his own trash.

\- how did you summon the cab to your change location?

As mentioned above, taxis (in Europe at least) are everywhere. No need to summon. Just walk around for a few minutes.

\- you're lucky that neither of the houses you changed next to had a dog

Why? Because the dog will bark? And? Dogs bark all the time, because there's a bird, a cat, leaves in the wind, etc.

<comment><USER20> > I'm not even GP but I think I can answer a lot of these

If you can, then he's failed even more. So no, I don't think that you can answer _any_ of them.

The point I'm trying to make is that the best made plans of men and mice fail due to overlooking some small detail. I could easily make that list 10 times as long. One or more slip ups could allow someone to tie 1-and-1 together to make 3 and it is game over. The funniest part of this whole discussion is that it starts with utterly underestimating the enemy, which is a serious mistake right from getting out of the gate.

 _If_ you are going to do something as audacious as going up against a drug cartel you have to keep in mind that these are the kind of groups who would hesitate at absolutely nothing if they feel that you are their enemy. Informants and undercover police and other infiltrators (for instance from rival gangs) are routinely murdered, and their families too if that's how the wind blows.

Before you start on a job like that you begin with laying the groundwork over the course of several years, any step along the way that can give away the game will endanger you and those around you. This is not something you cook up one find winter evening and put in motion without some extremely careful planning and creating multiple levels of cut-outs for any kind of activity that might point at your real identity.

The only thing buying a couple of burner phones with cash is going to do is raise suspicion, it is not going to do much in terms of protecting you.

If the OP would put his plan to go after some drug related criminal organization in motion the most likely outcome of the adventure would be 3 lines on page 12 of a newspaper mentioning a disfigured body found floating in a river or a missing person report.

Life is not a video game, you do not get 3 lives and the same player does not get to try again in case of failure.

If you didn't come from a life of crime or from a life of being in law enforcement then your best strategy is to avoid at all costs to get mixed up in this sort of thing.

Even the Unabomber eventually got caught and he was a lot better at tradecraft than sillysaurus here.

<comment><USER22> Wait. I thought the Unabomber got caught after he made people publish his manifesto online/on TV. From what I remember from reading on the internet, his relatives identified certain key points in the manifesto and immediately tipped the FBI telling them about him and his similar ideologies.

<comment><USER20> Yes, exactly that is my point.

So after all that careful work he still managed to blow it by not thinking of one obvious thing and he's been rotting in jail, ironically after he swore he would stop his bombing spree if they published his writing. He could not have been more right about that, his writings definitely made an end to his life as a domestic terrorist.

Staying alive and free while you are making powerful enemies is hard. The Unabomber was one of the smartest terrorists ever (IQ 160+), had a really long time to prepare what he did, was a lone wolf (which is a huge advantage compared to a larger number of people) and in the end blew it completely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So then how was this discovered?

<comment><USER24> I assume by looking at the command and control ips and looking for what is common. (IE that they were from satellite ISPs)

You can read the original post here: [https://securelist.com/72081/satellite- turla-apt-command-and...](https://securelist.com/72081/satellite-turla-apt- command-and-control-in-the-sky/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't understand how this works. The article doesn't go into much depth.

They listen on data coming from a satellite for certain IPs, then connect to those IPs directly? How does that allow two-way communication?

<comment><USER26> If I understand this correctly:

1\. Infected system sends packets to a decoy

2\. The decoy ignores the fake packets (dropped by firewall)

3\. The real command center which is located in the same region as the decoy accepts the packets [1]

4\. Real command center can still send commands to infected system via landline, but receive data by satellite.

[1] Satellite downlink data is sent to a relatively large area.

<comment><USER25> Infected system sends packets to a decoy what? Satellite? And then the satellite forwards it.

<comment><USER27> Lets say John lives near (200 miles away) the C&C server and that John's IP is 192.168.7.2. John is the decoy, so the malware sends requests to John's IP. John doesn't get the requests, due to his firewall blocking them, leaving these lingering open tcp connections. So the C&C server is free to finish the TCP handshake spoofing their IP to be 192.168.7.2

As far as anyone can tell they are John, but when you go to John's house to shut down the C&C server you end up at a dead end.

<comment><USER25> 1) How does the satellite come into this.

2) How does the C&C server complete the request. Are the hanging ports on the victim's side?

3) If the C&C server completes the connection, how do they carry on talking? Just like spoofing IPs, you can't ever get a reply. Or do they do the John decoy thing for every packet?

<comment><USER28> 1) The satellite system system broadcasts to everyone (apparently poorly/not encrypted) in the area, so it isn't necessary to take over any upstream routing in order to get a hold of the incoming packets. They just arrive at your doorstep, and since you configured them to be rejected by normal clients you know you won't have to compete for the response.

2) The C&C just responds over regular land-line. (Since the satellite service is download-only, this isn't any different from the service's normal clients.)

3) The reply keeps coming back over satellite and they keep grabbing it?

<comment><USER29> I believe you are correct in your understanding. Mine was a little different. I thought this was a classic asymmetrical routing scenario on the Internet with a cool eavesdropper twist.

I'm assuming that because the sat system broadcasts unencrypted, you can sniff all the packets for all hosts on that network just like you can on a wifi network with the proper promiscuous mode receiver. An unencrypted shared broadcast medium.

So packet flow is routed inbound from victim as such

(victim SYN to decoy IP) to (internet) to (sat broadcast to geographic area decoy and attacker C&C)

But packet flow outbound from C&C to victim is handled differently via landline

(spoofed decoy IP) to (landline/internet) to (victim)

So packets come in via sat link but go out via spoofed source on a landline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What satellite internet provider isn't doing egress filtering on their customers land-line connections?

Asking for a friend...

</comment><comment><USER30> tldr: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=Du3rBVZqKkk](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Du3rBVZqKkk)

</comment><comment><USER31> why pharmacutical companies I wonder?

</comment><comment><USER32> Is this how /pol/ found Shia's flag?</comment>


My new blog: combines Statistical Analysis with Pop Culture. Thoughts? - <AUTHOR> http://amorphousblog.com/

<comment><USER2> You need a layout change - this looks more like a news aggregation site than a blog. News sites are designed to lure you in with a grabbing headline. With articles such as yours, you really need to put the text in front of me immediately - the title alone isn't going to get me interested. Unless you have a compelling reason to eschew the standard blog look, I'd stick with that.

I'd also suggest moving the google ads to the far right of the page. They were the first thing I saw and I was immediately annoyed by them.

As far as the content goes, you need a lot more explanation as to what sort of analysis you're actually doing, and what the graphs mean. Many of your graphs and charts are extremely cryptic, and they're frequently put at the end of the post with nothing following them.

Furthermore, you've got the unfortunate combination of writing in a stilted, scientific style (which really, you should never do) with posts that really don't have much scientific content to them.

Overall I'd say you need to focus more on your actual writing and less on everything else.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great - thanks for the comments and insight; very useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Most of the articles aren't in depth enough compared to what my expectations are from the title nor the blog name. I'd love to see you work your way up to OK cupid style analytics, (though, they have better data than you).

Did like "Foxii" though :)

</comment><comment><USER4> If this ISN'T intended as "The Onion" meets "Stat Class" then you're doing something wrong. If that IS the intent, you're spot on.</comment>


Software Updates: Courgette (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/software-updates-courgette

<comment><USER2> From 2009. Here's the blog post announcing it: [http://blog.chromium.org/2009/07/smaller-is-faster-and- safer...](http://blog.chromium.org/2009/07/smaller-is-faster-and-safer- too.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> What happened to software patent litigation against Google concerning Courgette?

[http://lwn.net/Articles/359939/](http://lwn.net/Articles/359939/)

<comment><USER4> Good question. [http://www.law360.com/articles/236158/google-dodges- injuncti...](http://www.law360.com/articles/236158/google-dodges-injunction- in-web-browser-ip-suit) shows that in 2011, Red Bend did not get a preliminary injunction.

What happened after that is a good question. But [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=504624](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=504624) includes a comment dated 2013-09-24 12:57:04 PDT saying that things are sorted out, and Courgette can be used.

So apparently some sort of private settlement resulted with little publicity.

<comment><USER5> I was thinking the same when i saw Opera will be using Courgette for update too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is bandwidth really the limiting factor for updating desktop applications?

If you had asked me I would have guessed the limitation would be QA time. Surely they need to do some manual QA before pushing a release to prod, and surely that is more expensive than bandwidth.

That being said, it's a really cool project and I'm not at all arguing it shouldn't exist because it does improve the user's experience.

<comment><USER7> I think the argument is that users are more likely to be happy with software updating itself if the updates are un-noticeably tiny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I note there are quite a few recent commits with fixes to what could be security vulnerabilities.

e.g. Robust ELF header parsing, NULL pointer access, memory leak, undefined behavior.

So probably should update if you use it!

What is the bet someone has been stressing it with American Fuzzy Lop.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder how useful this could be for large-scale server-side code deploys?

<comment><USER10> Courgette is a very CPU-intensive transformation. It pays a large time/space tradeoff to minimize bandwidth required.

Server-side code deploys are usually not so bandwidth limited.

Facebook used a BitTorrent-based approach for a while: [http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/04/exclusive-a- behind-t...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/04/exclusive-a-behind-the- scenes-look-at-facebook-release-engineering/)</comment></comment>


Worst reporting ever on the Google earnings leak - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219751/Google-shares-suspended-20-drop-profits-accidentally-revealed-early.html

<comment><USER2> That _was_ a big drop though, it was almost as high as the whole image!</comment>


Japanese camera buff builds 130-megapixel scanner camera for next to nothing - <AUTHOR> http://www.bouncingredball.com/2009/05/30/japanese-camera-buff-builds-130-megapixel-scanner-camera-for-next-to-nothing/ <comment><USER2> This and the linked page don't show _how_ , only _that_ he did it. They should have went into more detail.

<comment><USER3> He mounted the lens so that its focal plane was on the scanner element, and sealed the thing to keep light out. That's pretty much it. It's a clever hack, notwithstanding the 4-5 second "exposure" time.

This kind of setup would actually be useful in practice for things like rare book scanning, where you can't flatten the pages for fear of damaging the object.

<comment><USER4> But how does that accomplish a 130 MP? What's special about a scanner vs a camera that lets it do that?

<comment><USER5> Size. Scanner is 8"x10" or so. The actual DPI of the scanner is lower than a traditional camera CCD, but there is so much more space. Your exposure time is how long it takes the scanner to traverse a "page".

Focusing seems painful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We need a name for this thing. Something like scancam or scamera.

<comment><USER7> <http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Scanmera>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For his next trick he's building a 160GB SD card...</comment>


Google launches a podcast app for Android with personalized recommendations - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/19/17475878/google-podcast-app-android-download-launch-date <comment><USER2> wow! go google!</comment>


How We Got Started:  Michael Dell    - <AUTHOR> http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/success1/ch53.html <comment><USER2> "I soon realized that there were two kinds of people who were buying newspapers: people who had just moved and people who had just gotten married."

I wonder how he figured this out as all he initially had to go by was the phone numbers. For example, did he casually chat up his cold calls and make mental notes about what they talked about and who was buying or was he being more methodical in some way?

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's the thing that I've read about - really good entrepreneurs start at a really young age. Its like they've got it flowing in their veins and embedded into their thinking as kids.

Another example worth reading up on is Sir Richard Branson</comment>


Junk Science or the Real Thing? – 'Inference' Publishes Both - <AUTHOR> https://undark.org/article/junk-science-or-real-thing-inference/ <comment><USER2> My first impression: The author seems to be obsessed with Peter Thiel's involvement with the magazine and sees everything through that lens.

<comment><USER3> When he is the sole funder of the magazine, I don't think that's an invalid lens to be looking at it through.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Further: what's wrong with publishing articles that challenge evolution?</comment>


I want role models who are happy, not rich - <AUTHOR> http://codercofounder.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/i-want-role-models-who-are-happy-not-rich/

<comment><USER2> first we have to come to some kind of consensus about what is happy. It's not easy to define or all agree on what happiness means.

I work at Oracle and one of the things that took me by surprise when I joined (besides that the coffee in startups is usually much better) was how happy people are. People walk around in small groups laughing and smiling, taking about their projects. I can't talk for everyone, but coming from startups for a long while where happiness is confused with being idle (you're smiling, stop that and code) I am pleasantly surprised at the environment.

I want role models that advance ideas, rather than caring too much about how happy they are. Their ideas are the public side of their persona, the part that interests me, their personal mental well being I leave to them. Was Picasso happy? (Maybe when he had Brigitte Bardot in his studio) - but he still took the art world by storm with pieces like Demoiselles d'Avignon. Was Salk happy, maybe, but a lot of kids born around 1955. I really don't care about rich or famous, but give me role models that do something meaningful.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with your observations. I was using "happy" as a placeholder for enthusiastic, passionate, driven, etc, i.e. fulfilled in what they do, whatever that might be.

Startups don't have exclusivity here. I am sure people can be all of those things at a big company, although my own experience differs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This guy created a trampoline in his home, built a chain mail to keep him fit, built his own windmill, etc: <http://jamius.com/>

More (including his wife announcing the baby then): [http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/e5qgr/so_this_guy_li...](http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/e5qgr/so_this_guy_lives_in_the_woods_and_is_video/)

He's pretty open about his life if you go through his personal site.

<comment><USER4> That guy just became my hero.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Such people are less likely to be promoting themselves hard on the Internet, instead being content not to have "profile".

<comment><AUTHOR> I think there is plenty of both types out there on the interwebs. It's just a matter of filtering the right ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shigeru Miyamoto is quite an inspriring figure for the techie generation. To say he has reached the top of his profession would be an absurd understatement, the man is practically a legend - yet he works for a large corporation on a fixed salary and sounds totally content with life. (read: he could be a hell of a lot richer if he wanted to be)

<comment><USER7> I'm a fan of Miyamoto. Something I read recently mentioned him make a distinction between the money he gets paid, and the money he gets to spend as part of his job. I'd imagine being able to build crazy expensive prototype device's on their employers dime would make many round here smile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> rich + happy > (rich || happy)

rich is not XOR with happy

<comment><USER9> You could argue that if you're happy, you're already rich :)

<comment><USER8> You could argue that right up to the moment when you try to buy a Tesla sports car and they say, "Sorry, we don't take Happiness Express." ;)

<comment><USER4> That only applies if a Tesla sports car makes you happy.

The things that make me happy, don't exist as commercial goods. I have to create them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hmm. Appears to be happy? Is actually happy? Looks stern but is secretly happy? Passionate but deadpan and serious? Passionate but deeply unhappy? Rich and passionate but secretly unhappy while appearing to be happy and unmotivated while being secretly broke but publicly rich?

The examples don't matter because there is no x = y = z relation here. Do what makes you happy, try to get rich doing it. Try getting rich and seeing if you're happier. etc, etc, etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> How does one share their happiness with other people in a way that makes sense? "Today, I am happy. The world is lovely." [then what?]

Why would you admire and want to learn from someone whose main appeal is that they are happy? What would bring a great deal of people to their blog/site?

That said, there are some lifestyle blogs that do exist like Zen Habits.

<comment><AUTHOR> In this context I am primarily looking for role models who are happy/passionate in what they do, i.e. they are fulfilled through their craft whether that's coding, marketing, or embroidery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was thinking the other day that if one is going to be an online addict, that Hacker News is a good drug of choice.

<comment><USER13> I can quit any time I want...

(clicks new)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't think being rich and being happy are mutually exclusive, so why ask for one and not the other?

</comment><comment><USER15> The two don't have to be mutually exclusive.

</comment><comment><USER16> Abraham Lincoln.</comment>


Ooh Ooh My Turn Why Lisp? - <AUTHOR> https://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2008/02/ooh-ooh-my-turn-why-lisp.html <comment><USER2> He has written the ambitious Celtk package but it does not seem to be maintained anymore. He also seems to have moved to Clojure.</comment>


Against Productivity - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/message/against-productivity-b19f56b67da6 <comment><USER3> Fantastic piece.

I believe in similar things. Here, where I currently live, we spend so much time working and being productive that we forget to ask questions. "Why am I doing this?" "What is the meaning of it?" "What is _really_ important?" Then we end up lost, depressed and what not. Not all of us do, but some? Certainly. We do it because others do it. Because we believe that pursuing a different venue is not realistic. Others have that? Hell, I should have it too.

"I should totally run a startup."

Anyways, it happened to me. Went to SEA for four months. Dreamed. Life is amazing. I can do whatever I want. I don't need money to live. yadi. yada. Then you come back, and no one understands you. You are a hippy. I'm not.

In periods of doubt, I write things down. Then I remember what I believe. Then I remember I'm going back soon. That it is what I should be doing.

Being productive is ok. It's fun. But, in the end, it's not important. People are. At least, that's the conclusion I came to.

I guess I'm just rambling. Carry on.

Note: when I write "We", I mostly mean "I".

<comment><USER4> Sometime I wonder about the "meaning of life", but the real question is "what is the purpose of civilization?".

Cynics could argue that civilization is like a cancer, thus we should make sure civilization grows as fast and as big as possible to survive a cataclysm or to make sure one's country wins a future war.

That's the only argument to have higher standards and incentives to be productive, just so that society can be fatter and faster. There is no incentive to be happier at all when you want to be the strongest. Modern, developed capitalistic societies is just about scoring money. You just can't be happy in a society like this, because everything, to economical policies to the customs, are now made towards bigger faster stronger.

Sometimes it seems that the poverty and the crisis of the 30s scared one generation, and set a whole mentality of never being poor and unproductive ever again. Economics and scoring are now the highest priority. We're not individuals, we're just scores.

<comment><USER5> There used to be multiple civilizations. There still are, but there are less of them. Connecting the world is turning us into a monoculture, and as biologists know, monocultures are extremely vulnerable to diseases wiping them out.

I think we should encourage localized micro-civilizations, if only to keep the species safe. For example, capitalism has become the system that the world runs on. Pretty much all of us exchange currency for goods. But there are lots of failure modes for this system. To keep ourselves safe, we should encourage enclaves with alternative economic systems like bartering and collectivism.

Unfortunately, in the US at least, if someone suggests that capitalism might not be the best for everybody, they get labeled as a "socialist" and shunned.

<comment><USER4> Do you think communism, in some way, was a different form of civilization, and that the fall of the berlin wall increased this phenomenon of "monoculture" ?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I think so. I'm not a fan of communism as it was practiced by the USSR, but I think in smaller communities that collectively agreed to it, it would work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This post is full of mistakes and unclear thinking. I can't figure out what the author is arguing against or for. Is she against quantifying wealth? I'm not sure. Is she against working hard? Maybe. Does she think it impossible to quantify happiness and well-being? I get the impression she does.

First, the author made a _huge_ mistake when talking about GDP. Her comparison used absolute instead of per-capita values. India and Canada may produce the same amount of wealth, but India has 35 times more people. Of course per- capita GDP doesn't fully capture quality of life, but it's easy to measure and hard to fake. That's why it's used.

Most people make mistakes when it comes to balancing work and leisure, but to claim such mistakes are killing us is preposterous. People in developed countries live the longest, healthiest lives in the history of humanity. The nation with the longest life expectancy is the workaholic Japanese culture so disparaged by the author!

 _Many people, especially in technology, say their productivity is changing the world, and this is irrefutable. But no one seems to know what they're changing it into, because no one can measure the world. When no one can measure the world, how much can it really exist?_

This really irks me. Measuring and quantifying something is a prerequisite to optimizing it. Maybe a lot of people are measuring the wrong things. Maybe they're missing or underweighting a factor. Maybe they just have different preferences than the author. But to suggest that the entire enterprise is bunk is to disregard centuries of progress across a dozen fields of study.

If money doesn't make you happy, then you probably aren't spending it right.[1]

1\. [http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/DUNN%20GILBERT%20&%20WILSON%...](http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/DUNN%20GILBERT%20&%20WILSON%20\(2011\).pdf)

Edit: Pronouns fixed. Apologies, I thought Quinn was a male name.

<comment><USER7> If you're attempting to find a productive rhetorical truth in a piece about shedding productivity as a focus, you're missing the point.

In fact, you're arguing that she should 1) be able to quantify happiness, 2) consider life-expectancy as a proxy for life quality, and 3) pursue optimizing life by quantifying and measuring it. I think you're missing many points.

The whole idea—the wisdom, if you will—is that you lose an extremely precious thing by focusing on measurement and optimization and increasing quantity and productivity. She has an extremely clear and valid point, which lucidly carries _so much truth_ in it, and is not particularly hindered by slight rhetorical mistakes or lack of clarity. It's _that_ true.

In fact, the clarity and style and beauty of this piece remarkably matches almost exactly how it feels. It's so confusing and seemingly contradictory and paradoxical, yet we know it's true. Even so, no one knows what, exactly, to do with it; so we call it unproductive and go on trying to live our highly productive lives. It's so much bigger than we are, this thing, and resistance seems futile.

And this is when you begin looking into Zen, and things become clearer and muddier at the same time, but you have a fleeting chance, at least, of converging on the ability to hold a thing in your head that's both true and false at the same time, and come just a bit closer, thereby, to the reality of things.

<comment><USER8> > and is not particularly hindered by slight rhetorical mistakes or lack of > clarity. It's _that_ true.

Clearly it _is_ hindered by bad writing and rhetoric, because here we are not agreeing with it.

>It's so confusing and seemingly contradictory and paradoxical, yet we know it's true.

Speak for yourself.

>converging on the ability to hold a thing in your head that's both true and false at the same time

That's not impressive. It's called "being inconsistent" and sometimes "being an idiot". A more impressive ability is being able to simulate multiple outcomes in your head without necessarily believing in them, and that has nothing to do with whatever religious dogma you're preaching.

Do you reject the Principle of Excluded Middle?

<comment><USER9> Schrodinger's cat hates the Principle of Excluded Middle.

<comment><USER8> You've touched on a trend I've noticed. A lot of Zen preachers on HN abuse their misunderstanding of QM to attack the PEM and other principles. I've heard "light is both a particle and a wave! Zen:1 Logic:0" quite a few times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Even though some valuable ideas are expressed in this piece, there's a lot of _conflation_ of highly distinct social phenomena that goes on. The author looks at the notion of "productivity", judges that people blindly rush from birth straight to the grave in the pursuit of being "productive", somehow lops that in with GDPs (not per capita, not at PPP?) and the weird way in which we have industrialized pleasure, and concludes... what, exactly?

Regardless, the author expresses a valuable point that suffers from her conflating topics.

I think that point is that there's a certain industrial culture -- a focus on productivity and structure -- that dominates our lives, whether in work or in leisure (see e.g. tourism). I don't think this is necessarily bad, but it's important to be aware of it.

Some people do indeed wear blinders as they race through life, being as productive as they can -- not for themselves, but maybe for society. Or for their boss. Or for someone else, whose interests are not necessarily aligned with their own. Maybe that's a good reminder to carefully define productivity for yourself, however you see fit. The idea here is to have a notion of productivity to strive for that is well-aligned with doing things that make you _feel good_ for the time invested. And then we're right back down to those age-old platitudes, so obvious and ubiquitous that we forget their truth: "spend your time wisely."

<comment><USER11> "and concludes... what, exactly?"

Use your own imagination.

<comment><USER12> I don't really know why you're getting downvoted. That's a great answer to the question.

The article is about how we over-analyze and over-optimize and look for a distinctly obvious _purpose_ in everything in an effort to ensure productivity. I think it's funny that most of the comments here are _doing exactly that_ with the article -- trying to analyze it, refute it, and determine the exact conclusion the author is trying to state. Should we stop being over-productive? Be less productive? Try to find balance? Maybe we should simply continue to pursue productivity, but at least _understand_ what we're doing, rather than pursuing it blindly?

Honestly, it's probably some combination of the above -- and it's probably subjective and dependent on the reader. The author doesn't simply state the conclusion -- because there is no obvious conclusion to the article. It's just a bunch of observations that allow the reader to reach a conclusion him/herself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I liked this essay, but it's also important to point out that GDP is very strongly correlated with health outcomes like life expectancy. It might be that we are starving our souls, but let's not forget about the fairly serious consequences of starving our bodies.

I don't mean to say that I disagree with the conclusion, just that I think the historical context is missing something. We didn't become productive out of greed, we became productive out of hunger. That attitude has run its course, absolutely, and we need to ask: we're not hungry anymore, so what now?

But let's not denigrate how we got here on the assumption that it was never a good idea. We might have climbed past the lowest rungs of the ladder, but that doesn't mean we didn't need them. Indeed, there are many who still do.

<comment><USER14> Then how you explain the fact that USA has one of the lowest life expectancy among the developed world?

I think that what the author tries to explain is that, in some places, societies have gone too far in the seek of productiveness and, ironically, people there is less happy and healthy.

I guess finding the good balance is more important than trying to be the number one.

<comment><USER15> Why is this downvoted? Given that the US is as economically powerful as it is, why _is_ life expectancy lower [0], compared to other _developed_ nations? Check out Canada, Australia, Japan and West-Europe on the map.

[0] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Life_Exp...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Life_Expectancy_2011_CIA_World_Factbook.png)

<comment><USER16> The US is a big country, it's incredibly diverse. Comparing the US as a whole to other countries is not really fair.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_life_exp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_life_expectancy)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita)

But we can of course all pick our own statistics to fit our standpoint. But it's important to keep in mind that the US can be a bit of an edge case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Above all we become interesting [sic] in measuring ourselves. Word count/day, lines of code/day, hamburgers served/hour, steps taken/day, test questions/100, money earned/field's average salary. We got quarterly reviews, job evaluations, and tested certifications."

I've a dilemma:

I've come to believe that this really _is_ a bad thing, not just because we're suboptimizing output at the expense of quality of life, but also because _you get what you measure_ : you can totally get more LOC/day without actually getting anything useful.

BUT, what's the alternative? People need to be rewarded for output; different individuals' outputs are different; still, should we reward them the same? Or should we make it dependent on output (therefore, reward merit, not need)? If so, should the measure be subjective or objective? Can you make it objective without turning it into what the author is talking about? Can you make it subjective while keeping it fair? No matter how much I try, when I try to be fair in rewards/compensation, I find metrics raising their ugly head.

<comment><USER7> Just remove the individual metric. We know they don't work.

Incentivize the entire company for the success of the company. Pay people fairly in an uncomplicated way. Align all the incentives and don't reward anything that is not directly connected to the clear and well-communicated success of the company.

<comment><USER18> So even if I do the bare minimum at work, I should be rewarded the same as someone who worked his pants off? Sure, that's fine. Just one thing, that guy who was working his pants off no longer has the incentive to work hard because his reward is tied to how the company as a whole does. He will begin to do the bare minimum, and the company suffers.

He will eventually become jaded with this and leave to some place that will recognise and reward his extra output.

<comment><USER7> It turns out what you say is not true in reality, but it persists as the myth of individualism in the corporate workforce. It is simply false; it doesn't happen.

When you align the incentives, uncomplicate rewards, clearly guide people in the same direction toward clear and logical goals, and enable them to do good work they can be proud of, all of that individual infighting and politics goes away.

You can still compensate people fairly for their contributions as measured simply and clearly as "contribution to the success of the company," there's absolutely no reason not to; you just remove the complex measurement and competition that results in the opposite of the desired goal. Simplify.

This is well-understood stuff. It is not new. It resulted quite directly in the success of the Japanese economy after WWII, driven by the teachings of statistician W. Edwards Deming.

We, as Americans, ignore it because of the persistence of myths like the one you mention. Because of our fixation on individual gain and protection, and on a pervasive belief in the incompetence and dishonesty of our fellow man. We fail to see the truth: that the failures around us are a result not of poor individuals, but of systems which surround them and stop anyone except a few unicorns from being able to be effective.

Start with W. Edwards Deming: here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming) and here: [http://blog.deming.org/](http://blog.deming.org/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The article states that Karoshi is death by productivity. This is generally not correct. Karoshi is death from over-work.

The distinction concerns quantity of output. Many Japanese will work long hours with little impact on output. Such people are therefore hard-working yet unproductive.

Japanese business culture tends to respect effort more than result.

</comment><comment><USER20> _What really devastated my generation was the spiritual malaise inherent in Taylorism 's perfectly mechanized human labor. But Taylor had never seen a robot or a computer perfect his methods of being human. By the 1980s, we had. In the age of robots we reinvented the idea of being robots ourselves. We wanted to program our minds and bodies and have them obey clocks and routines. In this age of the human robot, of the materialist mind, being efficient took the pre-eminent spot, beyond goodness or power or wisdom or even cruel greed._

Ouch.

 _We are productive without price. Not because people aren 't dying, they surely are, uncounted lives and families are smothered with despair. There is no price because there's no measure to quantify what we are losing._

This makes me wonder how history will look on our mental health issues, as we look back on alcoholism in early 20th century America.

For those sympathetic to the views of the article, I can't recommend enough Matthew Crawford's book Shop Class as Soulcraft for a fuller and prescriptive discussion of the history and philosophy of these issues of work and meaning and mental health.

</comment><comment><USER21> Increased Pareto is a better thing to aim for than increased productivity.

Doing the one very important thing, the one thing with huge returns or leverage will outweigh all the other probably also important things that really hard working and productive people can do in a day

It however takes wisdom to know what is important and courage to trust your wisdom.

</comment><comment><USER22> Why am I productive? No other reason than I dislike boredom. I had the unusual situation growing up of having completely free summers (including college). To do absolutely and whatever I wanted. Well, long story short, I basically wasted them and didn't get anything accomplished. And I definitely wasn't happy with that much useless free time.

So now I do things because I find them interesting. I "measure myself" and try to improve at things because it's a fun game for me. The results don't really matter in the end, but it keeps me entertained.

</comment><comment><USER23> America is also the country that gave us 'stick it to the man', 'tune in, turn on, drop out', 'make love, not war'. America is a big country, big enough to find a space somewhere to l9ive your life almost any way you like and pobably find others who want to do the same too. In fact I'm hard pressed for think of any other nation on the entire planet that is more diverse. Anyone care to name one?

I speak as an outsider (a Brit) that's visited the US several times and has many friends and acquaintances there.

</comment><comment><USER24> Trying to summarize the post: Free time can increase your wisdom and is necessary sometimes for higher order thinking. Too much productivity, that is not having time for your mind wandering, produces a bad effect in society. To compose that post has taken the author four months.

I think that every great writer has been many times in his life waiting for inspiration. But inspiration only occurs when you are inviting inspiration to come by working a lot, your mind has to be struggling with the problem, at least in a subconscious level, and then, suddenly, inspiration comes to your rescue.

</comment><comment><USER25> If you liked the theme of this essay you will like this book: "How to Be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson. The book starts similarly and expands the idea of idleness to trying to bring it into your life.

<comment><USER17> And more recently, "How Much Is Enough?" by Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I may somewhat agree with the author's case against productivity, but I think it's important not to confuse it with a case against _production_. At the end of the day (or life) I think you do want to look back and think of _what_ you've produced (rather than consumed), and _how_ you did it. Was it fun? Satisfying?

I think it's fair to want to rebel against production/time. It's not bad to think instead of something along the lines of satisfaction/production.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is the major problem when you do things for reasons other then you love to do it. Stop trying to do whats "hip" and find your passion. A lot of the thoughts given in the article have the slight taste of the author wanting to do them because they are intellectual/trendy/response from society. Do what you love, simple as.

Work will never feel like work again.

<comment><USER28> > Stop trying to do whats "hip" and find your passion.

Don't. Don't go overboard with the passion thing. If your passion is origami, you are in for a very rough ride trying to live off selling folded paper on the street.

Find a balance. What's difficult is that life is not black and white, it's in shades of grey. Find something that the market needs and that you like doing. Not something that you absolutely love doing and that nobody ever wants, nor something that the market absolutely wants and that you loathe doing.

Virtue is found in the middle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have always considered productivity to be a measure of production over time where time is the duration a person works at a task and not a constant.

So a highly productive person gets a lot done in a small amount of time.

People who get a lot done and work all the time aren't really high productivity people; they just work a lot.

I see nothing wrong with striving for productivity if this is how it is defined.

</comment><comment><USER30> You wrote about the time when you weren't beating yourself for not being productive enough and you described that past experience in a way that seemed to me like you were happy. What made you want to become productive? What did you imagine 'productive' looks and feels like? Could you track down your most internal motives?

</comment><comment><USER31> that radio tower looks like the one from the movie Golden Eye

<comment><USER32> That's because it is the one from Golden Eye ;)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory#In_Popular_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory#In_Popular_Culture)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This reminds me of PG's essay - [http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html)

Basically, I believe Author would be better off making the claim that many people (himself included) confuse the definition of productivity.

<comment><USER34> the author is a woman

<comment><USER35> To be fair that Medium website doesn't exactly make it clear who is writing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Okay we should spend more time wasting more time. But how to pay your bills in that time? As long as this question is not answered all this discussion is meaningless in my eyes.

<comment><USER37> How about a regular 40 hour / week or part-time job for a decent wage? It's what the vast majority of people do.

<comment><USER36> Maybe I misunderstood the article? I understand that he wants to go to other countries, walk around, watch the rain and think about life in general. Maybe you can do that if you are a museum security guard, but in most jobs that's not possible. And at least I am quite tired after working 40 hours plus taking care of the basics needs I have (buying grocieries, cooking, cleaning) and my family has (spending time together, solving problems of other family members). I'm quite happy if I can manage to squeeze in 7 to 8 hours of sleep.

<comment><USER38> Don't you think there's something inherently wrong with that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is an excellent post because it focuses on a central topic: mankind's behavioral predispositions.

The world today runs on profit and productivity. Morals, ethics and philosophies are irrelevant hindrances, as SV and Wall St. have demonstrated repeatedly. This is all well and good, as the last century apparently demonstrated that all ideologies and philosophies are the devil incarnate (Nazism, Leninism, Maoism, etc.)

But I do wonder one thing...did we quit on ideology prematurely? An ideology which I've always held as my own mission in life is the relentless pursuit of knowledge through science.

Throughout history, there have been times where mankind has focused intently on this goal, and the results were incredible. Sadly, most of these periods were spurred on by major wars.

What I really want to know is this:

Is it possible to built a society whose goal is the advancement of mankind's knowledge?

The profit motive and the free market are undoubtedly the best motivators for mankind, due to our evolutionary predispositions for survival and inherent need to establish status hierarchies. But could we not harness these energies, and direct them to positive-sum endavors such as science and engineering research, rather than a pure profit-driven battle to the death?

Keep in mind, the historical mean society throughout history has been oligarchy. It appears the last century was a brief respite due to massive wars and resultant existential threats. We now seem to be heading right back into the oligarchical paradigm of rich get richer, and poor stay serfs [1].

I can envision a society built around the pursuit of knowledge. The market exists and is regulated to produce needs and wants efficiently, yet without negative-sum behavior (regulatory capture, corruption, anti-competitive conduct, wage fixing, etc.) Education and research are a prime government mandate in addition to infrastructure, defense, healthcare and a social safety net. Citizens are incentivized to hone their skills and education continuously without massive financial downsides (student debt). State sponsored research institutes exist throughout the country similar to Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, JPL, etc. and serve to stimulate the economy through constant research projects, both large and small. The projects provide jobs for low and high skilled individuals (e.g. ITER, LHC). Those who enjoy pure research have a plethora of opportunities to move the state of the art forward. Those who don't, have excellent and rewarding employment.

The challenge in creating this society is a very tough one: humans are not motivated by knowledge. We are motivated by status, sex, and power, though few ever understand it or admit to it. But I hope that one day, knowledge of our inherent weaknesses will become common enough such that we can fight our destructive natures in an effort to transcend our limitations.

Till that day, I remain a dreamer.

1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty- First_Cen...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty- First_Century)

<comment><USER40> >>But I do wonder one thing...did we quit on ideology prematurely?

In reality we quit on the idea that society can be engineered, but we nevertheless retain the notation that individual actors can be engineered. For example, we reject the notation that the communist party can build a stable society but we retain social value that you shouldn't judge people solely on wealth.

>>I can envision a society built around the pursuit of knowledge.

Its hard to say what is and isn't knowledge, I shudder to think of a society based on research publications.

This goes back to my first point. Its very hard to engineer a society. We can only hope to make reasonable actors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This may be far wiser than almost anything that has ever been posted on HN, but you can't feed this shit to people who are not ready for it. It is a lesson which can not be taught. The real truths in life are not something you can read about. Real knowledge can only ever come from within. You can never lead someone to knowledge, but you CAN inspire them to seek their own - <USER2> you've done a pretty good job at that. Thank you.

<comment><USER42> "A decade in the lab will save you an afternoon in the library."

<comment><USER43> Do you know who this quote is attributed to?

<comment><USER44> Frank Westheimer seems to be the one who popularized the expression.

[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frank_Westheimer](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frank_Westheimer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Besides tax contribution topping, and market protection (what's this siphon to p-shares that trade in microseconds doubling my concern's trade overhead, and where is it rubbing the walls;) and citizenship (why is there a regulatory forbidden level where we may want our customers;) it's hard to say there is a forum; and that you don't rent there. Pretty sure I missed it.

</comment><comment><USER46> 805 million people on earth don't have enough to eat. 783 million don't have access to clean water. 1.9 million die of diarrhea every year. 176 million African adults can't read.

And this guy sits around the first world for a couple years with the back of his hand nailed to his forehead.

If he can't bring himself to do more than write a couple essays and snap some photos over a couple years, I would suggest a refreshing visit to Mozambique or Syria. People there could surely use help with the basic necessities of life.

<comment><USER47> Wouldn't you be using your time more productively by not reading HN?

<comment><USER48> Not if he convinces me that this article is a bit whiny and re-orients me towards industry for the sake of human good.

One short quip for renewed vigor. That's productivity!

<comment><USER49> Clearly then our best path forward is to spend all our time convincing others to do things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is bullshit. Just continue to work 16 hours a day, increase your productivity and your startup will succeed. After that you'll be happy forever. And your investor too.</comment>


Kids can't use computers and this is why it should worry you - <AUTHOR> http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ <comment><USER2> This article is as valid and good today as it was in 2013 when it was created.

Thanks for reminding us of our recent history!</comment>


Developer Survey Results 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019 <comment><USER2> _We asked respondents to evaluate their own competence, for the specific work they do and years of experience they have, and almost 70% of respondents say they are above average while less than 10% think they are below average. This is statistically unlikely with a sample of over 70,000 developers who answered this question, to put it mildly._

[https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#developer- pro...](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#developer-profile-_- all-of-the-developers-are-above-average)

<comment><USER3> I'm not so sure about this conclusion. I feel that below-average developers are less likely to answer stack overflow surveys at all. In my anecdotal experience, below-average devs usually have little interest in interacting with the overall "developer community" or reading about development more than the absolute minimum needed to finish their assigned tasks.

<comment><USER4> That was my takeaway as well. It's also somewhat ambiguous; who are you comparing yourself to? All coworkers, everyone in your graduating class, people the same age as you?

I'm sure that we're seeing at least a bit of everyone thinking they're more skilled than they are, but it's more slight than that caption would lead you to believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Drupal and jQuery are now the top two "Most Dreaded Web Frameworks," with Ruby on Rails and Angular.js trailing.[0]

[0] [https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#technology-_-...](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#technology- _-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-web-frameworks)

<comment><USER6> Interestingly Rails is also high in the "wanted" and "loved" section. To each their own preference, right?(;

</comment></comment><comment> w-m Will People Born Today Have a Better Life Than Their Parents?

> Respondents in China are the most optimistic, and those in regions like > Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East are especially hopeful > compared to those in Western Europe. This is especially notable in countries > like France and Germany, which are the 4th and 7th largest economies in the > world, respectively.

[https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#developer- pro...](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#developer-profile-_- will-people-born-today-have-a-better-life-than-their-parents)

The bottom fifteen countries in this question are all European countries + Turkey + North America + Australia.

(France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, UK, Canada, Turkey, Austria, US, Sweden, Australia, Denmark).

Yikes. Didn't realize so many people around here do think that things are going downhill.

<comment><USER7> It makes sense that more developed countries would have lower optimism. If the previous generation already had a decent quality-of-life, there's less reason to assume that the next generation will have it even better. Developing countries are more likely to have significant recent salient difficulties that the next generation will no longer have.

<comment> w-m > If the previous generation already had a decent quality-of-life, there's > less reason to assume that the next generation will have it even better.

I do agree that the rate of improvement may be lower for already highly developed countries. And that the difficulties solved in developing countries may have a much larger positive impact then small steps in more developed countries.

But there's no artificial upper limit to quality-of-life. You wont hit a barrier and be forced to stagnate and go down: there's so many issues in today's societies that need solving.

<comment><USER8> I imagine you are both right: the apples are farther up the tree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wish the full CSV results were available already as I use them to negotiate my salary since they're much more reliable and up to date than Glassdoor.

<comment><USER10> I think I'm about to go into the offer phase with a company. I've already been told by the recruiter that the salary is 80k. Looking at the Python results, I'm honestly thinking about sending them this dev survey. Like, "just so we're clear, you are intentionally underpaying?"

<comment><USER11> It doesn't work like that. There are so many variables that go into compensation like experience and location that you can't really look at the average for an entire country across all experience levels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The adoption of Visual Studio Code by a large part of the respondents in just a few years is impressive (initial release was in April 2015).

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting to see a static typed language growing on the frontend, while Python is now the most popular backend language.

<comment><USER14> Maybe because the backend is getting dumber and dumber (micro/nano services) while the frontend is getting more complex (SPAs, almost like desktops apps).

And I say this as a backend developer who makes these dumb backends that are little more than a glorified layer over postgres.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's interesting to see VSCode come to top in every section.

<comment><USER16> Phase 2 is nearly complete.

<comment><USER17> And what would the Phase 2 of your pointless FUD be? You do realize that LSP was created by Microsoft, right? And it's pretty much the standard for language and editor integration right now.

<comment><USER18> Just explaining, not taking a side: it's probably a reference to "embrace, extend, and extinguish". So "phase 2" is "extend".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

<comment><USER17> I understand, which is what I call FUD by the parent commenter. There is no such policy going on.

<comment><USER18> Oh, sorry. You asked what Phase 2 would be and I didn't pick up that it was a rhetorical question.

<comment><USER17> No worries! Thanks for trying to help in good faith! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bittersweet to see how much "distracting work environment" is reported to reduce productivity, given that companies abjectly refuse to provide private & quiet workspaces despite it being unequivocally cost effective to do so even for most start-ups in dense urban centers.

I continue to find the discussion of salary disappointing though. The survey provides a good opportunity for more detailed information.

<comment><USER18> People selling stuff (to clients, to investors) think having a big open room full of developers using computers is impressive enough to help them sell. The developer zoo.

A normal professional office with hallways and doors doesn't look that impressive, or might but only if dedicated lobby and (client) meeting areas have had some real money & space dedicated to them.

<comment><USER20> In recent consulting scenarios, the clients seemed to feel that leaving developers alone in quiet areas was preferred. Though they had a direct connection to the software being built for their needs compared to someone who is looking to be woo'd & awed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It is probably worth pointing out that this survey is very web/mobile developer centric. If you surveyed systems/core developers -- the people who designed/wrote many of the tools used by developers in this survey -- the survey results would distribute quite differently.

<comment><USER22> Laughably so...I once spoke to a software engineer that wrote systems for fighter jets and I didn't recognize any terms or acronyms of any tech he used on a daily basis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Very interesting. I wish there was an easy way to compare results with previous years.

Surprised to see BSD usage at only 0.1%. I know it would be a small percentage but I'd expect 1-2%.

<comment><USER24> Presumably, the people who fill out the survey are a very specific cross- section of the industry. Those who use a BSD are much less likely to answer a SO survey than a survey from a site with more BSD users, which makes it virtually impossible to get reasonable data.

<comment><USER25> Why would that be? Stackoverflow is pretty broad forum and have BSD questions and answers as well. In opinion it's that BSD is very rarely used by people. Linux is doing majority of work better than BSD so it's required only by very small part of the market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Really surprised the sentiment towards blockchain is so positive. Just goes to show how much of an echo chamber HN can be.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Over half of respondents had written their first line of code by the time they were sixteen, although this experience varies by country and by gender."

This really surprises me. Is it that common to take programming classes in high school? I suppose nowadays it is, but can anyone else confirm that was the case 10-20 years ago?

<comment><USER21> In my experience, virtually all people who learned programming as children were self-taught. This was definitely the case 10-20 years ago and I don't think it has declined that much.

Maybe this is an American perspective, but I was surprised that anyone would assume children are primarily learning programming in classes. Even today, I know several elementary school children who have programming as a hobby -- they are learning on their own using the Internet for the most part.

<comment><USER11> I went to a magnet middle school in small town south GA in 1988 where we had an Applesoft Basic programming course. All of the public high schools also had elective Basic courses while I was in school.

From the best I can tell, teaching programming in was a thing in the mid 80s to mid 90s and then declined

[http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/09/01/kappan_kafai.ht...](http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/09/01/kappan_kafai.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Would be better visually if bars' lengths were interactively changing as you switched tabs, like what Hackerrank does.[1]

[1] [https://research.hackerrank.com/student- developer/2018](https://research.hackerrank.com/student-developer/2018)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is an error: "About 65% of professional developers on Stack Overflow contribute to open source projects once a year or more."

The data above it adds up to 35.5%.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think they really dropped the ball by grouping Angular and AngularJS together.

</comment><comment><USER31> I found it quite surprising that Azure is the least used and most dreaded cloud of the three major cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure) among all respondents, despite Stack Overflow being heavily C# and .NET biased.

<comment><USER20> SO was heavily C# & .NET biased in its earlier years. I'm not sure that is still the case in platform usage. Also not sure if that's the case on this survey as C# was just barely above PHP & was less than half of JS in terms of respondents. JavaScript, Python & Java were all higher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Advice on moving over to dev ops from web dev?

</comment><comment><USER33> surprised how few people use Microsoft SQL Server. I guess most people don't work with databases at all?

<comment><USER34> Microsoft SQL server ain't free to use in production.

<comment><USER35> Express edition is, but it's core, memory, and DB-size limited.</comment></comment></comment>