The Middle East Friendship Chart - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/07/17/the_middle_east_friendship_chart.html <comment><USER3> This chart is at the very least incomplete and inaccurate if not blatantly false. To accuse Iran of cooperating with Al Qaeda while claiming that Saudi Arabia does not is audacious. Saudi Arabia spreads the most violent branch of Islam (Wahhabism/Salafism) through indoctrination as well as direct funding for terrorism. Just look at the perpetrators of 9/11, all of whom were Sunni Arabs, most of them from Saudi Arabia. The same goes for Qatar, which is missing in the chart. Hamas and Iran broke up because the former (Sunni) joined the fight against the Syria government, which is supported by Iran. Iran is neither Sunni nor Arab, groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS would love to commit genocide against Iranians. They don't have any real allies and have propped up a few Shia proxies in Iraq and the Levant. Others are missing, like the Kurds, so is the the link to Central/South Asia as well, i.e. AfPak. Without Pakistan Al Qaeda and the Taliban could have not existed. It should be noted that the Pakistani government and military are bought and paid for by the Arab states in the Persian Gulf, where Pakistani mercenaries protect the Monarchs from their civilian population, Bahrain being a notable example: the majority of Bahrainis are Shia and they are naturally friendly with Iran/Iraq. Their government, however, is run by the same kind of Sunnis that control countries like Kuwait and the UAE.

<comment><USER4> I think this chart reflects the position of county's government. The Saudi government doesn't support Al Qaeda and has a careful relationship with Wahhabism (as they see both as potential threats to their powerbase).

Al Qaeda (the core part anyway) has never really had an anti-Shia bent (or, interestingly, anti-Israel) and Iran _did_ tolerate some movement of Al Qaeda and Taliban through their territories.

Iran did have a real ally: the Syrian government of Assad. Even that was a difficult relationship prior to the fall of Hussein in Iraq because Assad was a Ba'athist (which is a secular ideology opposed to Iran's theocracy) and Hussein was also Ba'athist (Iraq and Iran were enemies since the Iranian revolution for those who missed that bit).

Ba'athism is pretty much irrelevant today, but until the 1990s it was one of the factors that shaped the Middle Wast we see now.

Edit: I assume the downvotes mean I'm factually incorrect about something. I'd appreciate enlightenment.

<comment><USER5> Your "The Saudi government doesn't support Al Qaeda" sounds like a joke in bad taste, I mean come on? the CIA confirmed the majority of ISIS are Saudis, 9/11 had many Saudi terrorists, Bin Laden was Saudi, ISIS is being funded by Saudi and Qatar, to mention Saddam in the current situation sounds like an intentional misleading propaganda to say the least.

<comment><USER6> You write as if it doesn't matter that ISIS have been kicked out of AlQ?

(The last I read, ISIS was fighting with all the other rebel groups in Syria? I thought that included AlQ? Also, is that really Saudi policy?! [Saudi A do send weapons to other rebels!] )

(sam88 is a three hours old account.)

<comment><USER7> ISIS seems mostly to be western "idealist" muslims, recruited by extermist imams where those can operate (ie. in the west, mostly Europe, in Saudi Arabia, and not very many other places). The locals found them, well, what everyone finds them : cruel, extremist morons.

(Imams are tightly controlled in places like Iran, Turkey or Egypt. Why ? Well let's put it this way : "mosque" does not mean house of prayer. It means fortress (house of prayer is masjid. Keep in mind that that arabic is weird. Masjid by itself means house of prayer, but combined with other words it means different things, sort of like latin). The states there, well, it's not like there's anyone in them that doesn't know this. So recruitment of locals there cannot easily happen, except by the "state" (which may be a lot more local state than a map would have you believe))

The problem is what western agencies are pointing out, but nobody's listening. Currently Syria and Iraq are the targets. Mostly because they're in the middle east, and allow "other" religions (Shi'a islam is "other" to these guys, as is Druze religion, Alwite, hell, they're not all that fond of wahhabism (too many compromises for the state and the oil, first and foremost of course, the alliance with the United States, and "with Israel") ...). That won't last. We, as in you and me, England and Sri Lanka, Japan and Alaska, are on their list. They're just having some trouble with numbers one and two (Saudi Arabia and Israel).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I suspect there could be some more insightful ordering of the entities to make the situation slightly less clusterfuck-like.

edit: [http://i.imgur.com/PgXt8Md.png](http://i.imgur.com/PgXt8Md.png) is bit better, there arises two kinda clear clusters of friends.

<comment><USER7> Your chart could be summarized as Sunni versus Shi'a, and muslims versus the world, with the religious cleansing in Sunni-Shi'a warfare taking priority.

Which is kind of accurate.

<comment><USER9> Or more accurately. US foreign policy objectives and military aid versus independence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Frankly it's not really accurate. And with most things in the Middle East, you could make this chart a ton easier by just labeling every relationship as Yellow/It's complicated

<comment><USER11> Props to them, though, for adding comments to each cell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The chart highlights one big problem - how on earth do you label each faction? On the one hand, it includes whole countries, yet many have powerful factions within them that have vastly different views. On the other hand, some countries are ignored entirely (where is Lebanon? There are more factions there than just the included Hezbollah).

Since they added the US, it might be helpful to stick Russia (and perhaps China) in there too.

<comment><USER13> Especially Russia. They are not a minor player in the area as evidenced by the Syria conflict.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> From an arab: overly simplified but a good start for most people who just have no idea and talk nonsense (which are a lot).

</comment><comment><USER5> The chart is over simplification and lacks any depth for such relationships, for example, Jordan and Saudi, both friendly with Israel and have been funding ISIS, yet there is no mention of Jordan, Qatar too, too tiny yet playing a very big role in this mess, not there at all. The main player in all relationship in the middle east is the US and Israel, the rest is not much.

<comment><USER5> I think the best thing that has been written on the Middle East is Walid Khalidi, ed., From Haven to Conquest. But as a rule of thumb,"When governments are loyal to the US (Israel, Ukraine, etc), the US calls for disarming of all militias and groups that are opposed to those governments. But in the cases of governments that are opposed to the US (Syria, Iran, Cuba, etc) the US funds and arms militias against those governments."

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Countries don't have friends or enemies, they have interests - which (at the moment) may happen to align or cross each other.

<comment><USER16> When the conflict of interests is too fundumental, they consider themselves enemies :)

And of course there are countries which are enemies due to ideology.

<comment><USER17> Either way, congratulations to Slate for reducing politics in the Middle East to three types of smileys. Their readers must love that kind of stuff.

<comment><USER18> Simplification is a good thing. And the middle east desperately needs some. Sure, the foreign ministries of the world shouldn't use this chart, but that's not really the audience here.

<comment><USER17> I disagree. After more than a decade of "good vs. evil" and "either with us or with the enemy" propaganda, what the audience needs is the precise opposite of this type of chart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It would be interesting to find the "basis vectors" of issues, if you will, underpinning this matrix.

They seem to be: Israel-Palestinians, Syria's Civil War, Egypt's Overthrow, and the new Iraqi state.

So, if the issues would be resolved in the most peaceful way, namely:

Egypt's current government continuing to exist

Israel and Palestinian Authority defeating Hamas and working towards a peace deal

Iraq getting stable borders (with Kurds using political struggle only)

Syria - probably the overthrow would maximize peace at this point, esp given the resolution above ousting Hamas

      The big winners would be:
      USA
      Israel
      Palestinian Authority
      Egypt
      Rebels in Syria
      Iran (even though Assad lost)

      And the big losers would be:
      Hamas
      ISIS
      Hezbollah

Meanwhile:

Al Qaeda and USA will keep fighting

Turkey has recently had its own set of protests against Erdogan, and it's unclear where its future lies

With ISIS gone, Saudi Arabia and Qatar will continue to have stable states favoring Sunni Wahhabism

Iraq will probably become one of the fastest growing economies in the middle east

Iran will go from being polarized to roughly moderate in its connections, esp if a peace agreement is reached with Israel, the Assad regime is ousted, and Iraq is a stable and friendly state

Jordan would enjoy further peace and the Palestinian Authority's new confidence since the ouster of Hamas etc. may prove a strong factor for Jordan's relations with its Palestinian majority, which would take away focus from Israel-Palestinian conflict

The new Syrian government would aspire to join the Arab League but may consider giving Palestinian refugees citizenship, which will play a factor in Israel-PA deals

<comment><USER20> Hamas won free and fair elections. Peace must come from negotiations with Hamas; it can't be predicated on their destruction.

<comment><USER19> Ummm how about the part where after these fair and free elections they eliminated the rest of the government through killing them or running them out of town?

Would you mind addressing what part of legitimate democracy that is?

<comment><USER20> I didn't say that there was a legitimate democracy in the OPT- I said they won elections.

By the 4th Geneva Conventions the security of Palestinian civilians rests with the occupying power. Gaza is similar to Area A - the PA has policing powers but the Israeli military retains ultimate control, as evidenced by control of borders, airspace, and shipping routes. By international law Gaza is still occupied, so the occupying power has at least as much responsibility for protection of civilians as any other entity.

The PA has little if any practical influence over areas B and none over area C. So in very real terms the OPT is occupied, and I wouldn't call any occupied state a free democracy, because occupying militaries aren't elected by their subjects.

I mention the elections because they do represent a poll if not a census of popular opinion in the OPT. If you want to maintain legitimacy and support for any accord, it makes sense to include them. Otherwise you're just gearing up for an agreement between the occupying power and their puppets, which is pretty meaningless.

<comment><USER19> Hamas was elected in 2006 because they had better social programs than Fatah. This was a more major factor than their position regarding the elimination of a Jewish state.

Almost immediately upon coming into power they destroyed the rest of the government, killed people, ran Fatah out of town and proceeded to impose growing Talibanization efforts in Gaza, restricting freedom of women, gays, etc. They also trained kids to become fighters, etc. It is against the Geneva conventions to fire rockets from civilian areas, and against many international laws to use civilians as human shields. So no, Hamas is not a legitimate government, and they commit international war crimes. I am not sure how you support the idea that "Peace can't be predicated on their destruction".

That said, if the international community cares as much about Gaza as it now seems from the rhetoric, I say they should form a coalition to go into Gaza and help them build a real, independent sovereign state there. When the UN inspectors can confirm that the smuggling tunnels have been closed and there are no more Qassam rockets, scud missiles, or whatever else they've got lying around, then Israel and Egypt can lift the blockade and Gaza can have freer trade. Note that all this can be done without Israel's involvement.

But the international community would have to find willing partners in Gaza, and I doubt the semi-theocratic, ideological Hamas regime would make for good partners. But after Israel takes out Hamas, maybe the international community can form a plan to step in there. Here's hoping. But then again, let's face the sad truth: no states really care enough to help the Gaza people. The Arab League states deny Palestinian refugees citizenship -- even the ones fleeing Syria. And the same NATO countries that went into Iraq to nation-build are not likely to do it in Gaza, even though it's much more readily possible to build something there. There's no oil or other stuff to support "American interests".

Other people that international coalition didn't really try to help get their own state or avoid genocide: Kurds, Tutsis, Black Sudanese in Darfur. So how do we get them to actually stop talking and start helping provide security and nation build?

<comment><USER20> I didn't say they were a government. They are a resistance movement in an occupied territory. I suppose you could consider then a stateless government, but they most certainly aren't running a state. They're running something closer to a semi-autonomous reservation. Yes, they've violated international law, repeatedly, and so has Israel.

Negotiations take place between two or more parties and they result in changes to what they're all both doing. If you predicate negotiations on capitulation, you aren't negotiating - you're demanding. Israel refusing to talk to Hamas until Hamas has managed to stop all the rocket fire (I'll point out one of the early targets in this round of Gaza shelling was the Gaza police chief, so the idea that the political wing of Hamas even _could_ stop the rockets requires quite a bit of faith in their wartime occupation political integrity!) would be just as boneheaded as Hamas refusing to talk to Israel until Israel agrees that refugees can return and not live as second class citizens in the land of their ancestors.

Hamas has put forward proposals for medium to long-term cease fires and/or peace agreements before, and has agreed in principle to focusing on the creation of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders. Meanwhile, Israel proclaimed East Jerusalem as annexed and routinely states that Jerusalem will remain an undivided and eternal capital of their state, all while expanding settlement construction in the West Bank.

"We have no-one to talk to because the other side is doing bad things" is a position both sides could take on reasonable moral grounds, but practically, it's stupid to think that any sort of peace could come from a refusal to talk.

Talking isn't the last step, it's the first, and Israel certainly has no less blame for the absence of talks than Hamas.

Also, re: use of human shields, despicable behavior, and not unique to a side. [http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/israeli- sol...](http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/israeli-soldiers- speak-out-on-abuse-of-palestinians-1.1837193)

<comment><USER19> While I agree with the sentiment, I think for whatever your proposals are worth Hamas has in fact been the party that refused to participate in an egyptian brokered ceasefire and talk to Israel:

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/egypt-no- negoti...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/egypt-no-negotiations- gaza-ceasefire-israel-hamas)

It seems like they'd rather have their last stand "to the last human shield", because they are "hard liners".

During this time Israel had enforced a ceasefire and invited Hamas to do the same while they talk, but nothing changed on the other side.

Are you seriously advocating that Israel live under hundreds of rockets being fired into their cities because they now have enough bomb shelters and anti missile defenses (where each anti missile is like $50k) that its population can endlessly run to shelters and pray no one gets hurt? And just wait until Hamas happens to feel like talking?

For any real peace agreement to occur, both sides should be able to enforce it. For a couple years Hamas was able to restrain the other groups from firing rockets. I personally think this is not good enough. When you have terror groups right on your country's border able to fire in at any time, who try to dig tunnels for the sole reason to attack you, and when your country is 25 miles wide around that area, wouldnt you have an obligation to protect your people?

By the way the critics of Israel did far worse intheir day. USA committed genocide against native americans who are lucky to live reservations after their brethren have been exterminated. That great new critic Erdogan denies the Kurds an independent state TODAY, besides having to live down the massacres of Armenians, Greeks and others by the Turks. These are real genocides and massacres. What we have at this point is as you said a "reservation" which COULD become an independent state if they only renounced violent methods, recognized its neighbor as a state, and focused on using their money to help build up their own people with international help. They knew exactly what would happen when they fired into Israel.

I agree with Bill Clinton's statements on this: [http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Bill- Clinton-...](http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Bill-Clinton-says- Netanyahu-could-and-should-clinch-peace-deal-363168)

For what it's worh I also agree with Clinton's remarks to Israel regarding letting the west bank be its own state: [http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/18/so-what-did- bill-...](http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/18/so-what-did-bill-clinton- say-in-his-500000-speech-in-israel/)

But when it comes to Gaza literally ALL THEIR LEADERS HAVE TO DO IS CARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE OF GAZA more than their ideology. You mentioned refusing to talk - yes, they have been doing that for years.

Hamas didnt agree to this ceasefire because it was brokered with the Palestinian Authority but also refuses to participate in talks during the ceasefire!

Four years ago during the settlement freeE in the west bank Hamas and Hezbollah actively undermined the peace process by threatening to unleash violence if any agreement was reached!

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_negotiations_between_I...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_negotiations_between_Israel_and_the_Palestinians_\(2010%E2%80%9311\)#2010-2011_Israel- Palestinian_peace_talks)

 _During the direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Hamas and Hezbollah reaffirmed to threat peace talks if both sides were matriculated towards any possible agreement. A Hamas-led coalition of 13 Palestinian militant groups initiated a violent campaign to disrupt peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. A series of attacks killed and wounded eight Israelis, including two pregnant women, between August and September 2010. Israeli and Palestinian Authority security forces responded with raids that resulted in the deaths and arrests of militants involved in the attacks. Rocket and mortar attacks from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip also increased in September._

Reas what you wrote and tell me how it applies to Hamas.

Hamas doesnt recognize Israel and wouldnt talk to it. They engage in [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_diplomacy](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_diplomacy) but their previous partners hate them also (Egypt). Egypt participates in the blockade of Gaza!

Hamas are hardliners who still think along the lines of [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khartoum_Resolution](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khartoum_Resolution)

2008: They refused to recognize Israel as a state and honor any previous agreements and said they could generously offer a 10-year truce if Israel goes back to pre 1967 borders. Although they refuse to stop calling for the elimination of the Jewish state: [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24235665/ns/world_news- mideast_n_a...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24235665/ns/world_news- mideast_n_africa/t/hamas-offers-truce-return-borders/)

2012: Hamas says it will recognize and talk with Israel if Israel withdraws completely to pre 1967 borders with no swaps and gives a full right of return to ALL Palestinians. Asked whether this will lead Hamas to have peace with Israel, they refused to state. [http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2008/04/20086150983...](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2008/04/2008615098393788.html)

In short: [http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3471/hamas- moderation](http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3471/hamas-moderation)

I am not even sure how anyone can seriously argue in favor of a Hamas regime without also being in favor of the elimination of a Jewish state because that's pretty much what they are after. Just because it sounds crazy doesnt mean they arent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Relevant (and funny): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vZLWbqpDyQ&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vZLWbqpDyQ&feature=youtu.be&t=2m25s)

</comment><comment><USER22> 1\. Egypt is not "enemy" with Syria. Morsi last year did call for a Jihad against Bashar al-Assad but this is one of the few reason he got overthrown. Egypt's policy toward Syria is non interference. 2\. Egypt is not "enemy" with Turkey. The relationship is definitely strained but marking the relationship as "enemy" is wrong.

<comment><USER16> I think the word 'Hostile' would've made much more sense in many cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is a matrix plot the best way of visualizing this when all of the relationships are reciprocated in kind?

<comment><USER24> I added a graph using graphviz here [https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByAekPg2AgZoQUFGdl8yd1h3SWs](https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByAekPg2AgZoQUFGdl8yd1h3SWs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's pretty simple. Any country which is receiving massive US aid is friends with other countries receiving massive US aid. In some cases the frienship is a sort of "secret" (eg. Saudi Arabia and Israel) or "complicated" because officially, for appearances sake, they should align on religion or something.

Iran used to be part of the USA club when it had the brutal murderous dictator. But now it's enemy to the USA club as soon as they overthrew the dictator.

</comment><comment><USER25> Basic takeaway - the relationships between players in the Middle East is much more complicated than state-state relations, and stated positions of the players are not necessarily comprehensive in summing up the relations. Also - this chart seems like it could change incredibly frequently (Iran's friendship with Iraq is relatively recent, 6 months ago ISIS would have far more friends, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER26> Since when did Iran and Turkey become enemies?

<comment><USER7> Different religions. Turkey is "sunni"/secular. Iran is Shi'a/secular. (but the other way round, Turkey's population is "moderately" sunni muslim, the state is aggresively secular. Iran, the population, I think is fair to say, is secular, the state is aggresively Shi'a muslim). The sunnis are the ones that are organising things like ISIS, and the religious cleansings ISIS is doing.

Problem is that one of the values of islam is to militarily dominate, so aside from Lebanon (and formerly Iraq), there is no example of a state with powre sharing. Even in Lebanon there is only power sharing between Christians and muslims, not between different sects of muslims. (the difference being that Christians don't see the need to exterminate muslims (just convert them, eventually), nor do muslims want to exterminate Christians, just dominate them (talking about the values of the religions here). Sunni's do want to exterminate Shi'as and vice-versa. To put it bluntly: sharia is pretty clear on the need to kill any muslim who is not the same sect as you are. But Christians/Jews can get the choice dhimma or death. So Lebanon will not blow up as easily as Iraq will)

<comment><USER4> Turkey is probably about as strong an opponent of ISIS as there is in the middle east.

Edit: the parent comment was edited while I was writing that. There is a lot I disagree with now, bit the biggest factual problem is the idea that Lebanon "won't blow up like Iraq" seems to ignore 2 decades of civil war in Lebanon.

<comment><USER7> Not really. Let's say that Erdogan and ISIS agree on goals, absolutely not on means, and Erdogan stands to lose a LOT if ISIS doesn't back down. They are not enemies, even if you have a point that they're absolutely not friends either.

You're right of course that Lebanon hasn't been very stable.

<comment><USER4> You think Erdogan wants an Wahhabist caliphate centered in Bagdad that claims parts of Turkey? Not likely!

I'm trying to imagine what goals they share?

I guess Turkey probably doesn't want an Iranian-dominated Iraq (and nor does ISIS of course!), but Turkey can probably accept that to some degree provided Iraqi Kurdistan remains autonomous and provides a buffer zone. Beyond that I can't see anything they really have in common.

<comment><USER7> Of course not. I think he wants the ottoman empire back. He wants a non- wahhabist (but still quite strict) caliphate centered in constantinople. Most of all he wants the basic property of the caliphate : a theocracy.

He has, after, said exactly that. Cost him votes, but not enough.

As I said, he's quite sympathetic with what they're doing, he's doing the same. He's just behaving like any Ottoman vasal did a mere 100 years ago. He agrees with the need for a caliphate, probably even with the method. He just disagrees on the caliph and the capital. Like any ottoman vasal, tough, he sees them as competition as well as potential allies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Could someone explain the first couple of principal components of this conflict to a historically illiterate like me?

<comment><USER12> It all comes down to 'Whose land is it anyway?'

<comment><USER28> Some of the issues go back thousands of years. In a sense, it also shows the genius of Prophet Mohammad. From a historical point of view, one of his greatest achievements was to unite the Arabs. That's something that was never done before or since. So, simplifying it as just a land dispute isn't right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Huh, where's Afghanistan? Or do they kind of not matter any more in this scheme of things?

<comment><USER30> According to Wikipedia, Afghanistan is not a part of the Middle East

<comment><USER10> According to Wikipedia, the United States is not a part of the Middle East either. Odd...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This chart is deceptive because it focuses on details of micro relationships while ignoring alignment of factions with global powers vying for control over resources and political influence, which has been stirring this pot on and off for thousands of years.

The western media portrays these battles as isolated internal disputes, and while there are very serious regional disputes, they are influenced by external powers like the US and Russia. Similar to the way in previous epochs groups like Muslim or Roman empires affected outcomes or took advantage of regional conflicts.

It is a crucible. I believe that the biggest driver is still fossil fuels. Yes, solar and other systems are rapidly replacing a portion of the energy demand, but still, the critical need for oil cannot be understated. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_consum...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_consumption). You can see that this is quite an unequal distribution. The need to maintain that is what puts pressure on that region and causes regional animosities to be taken advantage of in order to move power over to groups siding with dominant forces.

Even though solar and other energy sources are gaining ground, the industrial reliance on fossil fuels is a much tougher nut to crack, and I actually believe that creating viable industrial production processes based on bio- fuels or significantly different chemistry is the key to 'peace in the Middle East'. Obviously, bad blood between groups going back thousands of years does not go away just because someone invented a non-fossil-fuel-based industrial precursor, but the motivation for stirring up those conflicts in order to further political power of one group gets reduced.

There are other aspects to this aside from fossil fuels. The fire for the crucible is fueled generally by the global power struggle which has other aspects like currency domination. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_hegemony](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_hegemony) or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Great_Game](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Great_Game).

For some people, for example, those who read western media which is full of talk of local "evil dictators" and "terrorists", framing things this way will be very controversial. My next paragraph will probably be even more controversial for everyone.

I believe that hegemony and centralized control (at least on a physical regional level) could someday be supplanted by global cyber-states. In other words, the borders are not dictated so much by the map or actual physical areas, but by alignments with global systems of political power and organization, connected by internets. There will likely be multiple internets controlled by different global factions, since controlling these internets is key to controlling the global organizations.

Technologies like advanced 3d printing (eventually moving into the area of programmable matter), and free information flow may democratize force so that power over life and death, and therefore ultimate political control, moves from central authorities into the hands of individuals and more regional groups. At the same time, this type of technology could enable the global super-cyberstates as it would enable any group with sufficient control of a net to nearly instantly muster military assets at any point around the world.

I can go so far as to frame all of this as a need for good tools and systems for knowledge management and securing human needs, with the two interacting.

One of the core problems for knowledge management systems is how to promote an efficient, integrated, holistic view of the system, while still providing a strong capability for the evolution and maintenance of divergent branches or systems which evolve in new and beneficial directions. Or just, divergent branches which allow localized freedom in the knowledge graph, which may later lead in beneficial directions.

An example of this is different standards or platforms competing for dominance in technology. Based on a certain platform of solutions and set of common assumptions, a set of new problems arises, and many different groups and individuals solve those problems in relative isolation. In order to move on to solving the next set of problems, or for the overall group to gain the advantages of the new solutions in a way that integrates with previous efforts, a certain solution set is selected.

The particular process by which solutions are selected and integrated into the system, or multiple interacting systems, affects everyone working towards the advancement or maintenance of the systems greatly.

Github is a concrete example of this.

There seems to be a tendency towards a very small number of systems which exhibit high coupling and low cohesion. But maybe that view is too mechanistic and low-level, and a higher level view which better incorporates abstraction has a different problem.

Creating an abstraction prunes redundant solutions but also often discards less generally relevant information that may however be important in certain circumstances. Abstractions are powerful because their hierarchical structure allows individual nodes to leverage aggregate powers of branches. This hierarchical structure is also a disadvantage though in terms of the reliance that leaves have on the integrity of each branch.

Compositional rather than hierarchical structures can provide the same power of abstraction without the brittleness and central-point-of-failure that hierarchies have.

It seems though that more compositional networked structures tend to converge towards what are effectively hierarchies.

Anyway, I think that there must be some tools or processes or perspectives that would provide for somehow more optimal evolutions of structures. Probably some that are not discovered or in common use. In case anyone read all of this and knows of some relevant links, please let me know.

</comment><comment><USER32> As a middleastern, I find this very incorrect and stereotypical.

</comment><comment><USER33> Just execute Floyd–Warshall algorithm for transitive closure :)

</comment><comment><USER34> Iraq: The most friendly country in the middle east.

<comment><USER35> Obviously the more friendly countries in the Middle East aren't mentioned here: Oman, UAE, Qatar, because they aren't involved in any conflicts or political standoffs.

<comment><USER7> Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are only friendly because they have done religious cleansing 30-50 years ago (all three used to have significant Shi'a populations, Saudi Arabia still has some), and back then nobody was watching. So not that much is really known about those events. Currently, yes, they are mostly peaceful.

Bahrain and UAE are peaceful, but certainly have political standoffs that could explode.

<comment><USER36> Bahrain smashed their Shia rebellions during arab spring with tanks, but that was blessed by USA as opposed to the attempted smashing by Syria and Lybia of their own rebellions.

<comment><USER7> With Saudi Arabian provided mercenary tanks (because Bahrain's own army is at least partly Shi'a), and this was definitely not "blessed" by the USA. Tolerated, maybe, in the sense that the US was not going to create a shooting war with Saudi Arabia to stop this, yes.

Don't oversimplify it. The USA is constantly pressuring Bahrain into allowing the Shi'a a voice in government, and every 6 months or so, Bahrain expels yet another American diplomat for mentioning the Shi'a.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> TL;DR everyone pretty much hates everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER38> So, no love for ISIS in the Middle East?

<comment><USER39> You might consider it a ... Danger Zone?

In fairness, I wasn't aware what the real ISIS was myself until a couple of weeks ago.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_L...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Where's Jordan in all of this?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> wow. Didn't expect this much of a response.

</comment><comment><USER41> lol! ISIS has no friends at all

<comment><USER13> Ya they do. Some very powerful ones. Or else they never would have been allowed to get to the point they are at now.

If they get big enough they will get a haircut. They won't be allowed to actually rule for long probably. But as long as they keep causing trouble for the enemies of enemies they might be allowed to keep taking over caches of weapons (whoop!..but hey, we aren't arming terrorists! they just stole them!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I don't know anything about this stuff, but I wonder - is it completely improbable that "Al Qaida" could actually be a group of agent provocateurs invented by some part of the military/industrial complex to scare up support for their actions?

</comment><comment><USER36> According to chart, Iran is "its complicated" with Al-Qaueda, haha.

Yeah sure. Iran is enemies with terrorist groups, except for hezbollah which are somewhat less terrorists than hamas, but not in the same league as al- qaueda, or various terrorists sponsored by USA in Syria.

And according to chart ISIS has no friends only enemies, which is not true, as Saudi Arabia is at least complicated with them unless their friends.

Where is Qatar, Bahrain etc, and the various groups that were smashed with tanks during arab spring?

<comment><USER7> No ISIS is Sunni, Hezbollah is (mostly) Shi'a (and works mainly in a country that has a long history of religious toleration). Hamas is sunni. Egypt is also Sunni, but hamas and the muslim brotherhood are somewhere between allied and the same thing, and the muslim brotherhood is the mortal enemy of the current Egyptian state (they got control of the state, and used it to start to kill some groups and loot, at which point the army saw the risk of food supplies to the country getting interrupted, and started shooting the muslim brotherhood - not that they were friends before)

So ISIS want to kill every last Iranian. Iran, by contrast, shares it's religion (and half of it's government), with the dominant faction in the Iraqi government. So Iran is naturally allied with the Iraqi government, and, for the moment, with America (they have toned down the rhetoric at least. And keep in mind they are allied with America for short-term strategic reasons - <USER2> Iraq from falling over. They very -very- much disagree with America's proposal to share government power between factions in Iraq, they'd rather just subjugate the sunni's like they've done in Iran, you know, force their kids to go to Shi'a schools and the like (which isn't nice, but keep in mind those sunnis would like to murder them)).

Keep in mind ISIS represents the majority sunni in Syria and the minority sunni in Iraq, and wants to exterminate all other factions in both places. That's what they're fighting for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Uh, this is what happen when you practice data visualization abuse.

<comment><USER24> I translated it to the following graph. No nodes, bad relationship. You can copy the source to: [http://graphviz-dev.appspot.com/](http://graphviz- dev.appspot.com/)

Image at: [https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByAekPg2AgZoQUFGdl8yd1h3SWs/...](https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByAekPg2AgZoQUFGdl8yd1h3SWs/edit)

digraph g{

AlQaida -> Iran [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

AlQaida -> Hamas [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> Egypt [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Egypt -> Iraq [arrowhead="none"]

Egypt -> Israel [arrowhead="none"]

PalestinianAuthority -> Egypt [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

SaudiArabia -> Egypt [arrowhead="none"]

US -> Egypt [arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Hezbollah [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Iran [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Iraq [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> SaudiArabia [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hamas -> Turkey [arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Iran [arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Iraq [arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Turkey [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Hezbollah -> Syria [arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> Iraq [arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Iran -> Syria [arrowhead="none"]

Iraq -> PalestinianAuthority [arrowhead="none"]

Iraq -> Syria [arrowhead="none"]

Iraq -> US [arrowhead="none"]

ISIS

Israel -> SaudiArabia [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Israel -> Turkey [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Israel -> US [arrowhead="none"]

SaudiArabia -> PalestinianAuthority [arrowhead="none"]

Turkey -> PalestinianAuthority [arrowhead="none"]

Syria -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

US -> PalestinianAuthority [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

Syria -> Turkey [style="dashed" arrowhead="none"]

US -> SaudiArabia [arrowhead="none"]

}</comment></comment>


Kaspersky: "Apple is 10 years behind Microsoft in security" - <AUTHOR> http://www.neowin.net/news/kapersky-apple-is-10-years-behind-microsoft-in-security <comment><USER2> Kaspersky: "Boys, we are 10 years behind in selling security software to Apple users. Bring on the scare tactics"

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3896699>

</comment><comment><USER4> yep. The only thing that's presented as a difference is a regular periodic update cycle, which is not really necessary as Mac security vulnerabilities are few and far between at this point. The other difference is code auditing, but given that OSX was re-written using UNIX ( designed as a multi-user OS from the ground up ) as a base, I don't think the criticism applies.

</comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr -> "Buy my product"

</comment><comment><USER6> Kind of an obvious press release, no?

</comment><comment><USER7> I just had to clean a windoze machine of spyware.

One that was running a fully paid version of kaspersky.

With a combination of malwarebytes and spybot, I was able to remove a shit-ton of stuff that kaspersky was ignoring. There is probably loads still on there however, but at least it runs now.

Will be reinstalling it with linux mint and a de-networked windoze sometime next week.

That said, the apple culture is probably far too overconfident on this stuff, as is the linux culture. Because the architecture is better, I think that people come to rely on it too much and forget a lot of good practice.

</comment><comment><USER8> All FUD, no real data.</comment>


AT&T Free Wi-Fi For Everyone - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1067

<comment><USER2> Blatantly copied from the macforums for tweaking safari to use "iphone" user agents:

"to make the develop menu show up, you have to go to:

preferences>advanced tab>check "Show develop menu in toolbar"

then go to Develop>User Agent>Mobile Safari iphone 1.1.3"

</comment><comment><USER3> Well of course it is. The iPhone at this point doesn't support any sort of advanced "infrastuctury" things that make it any different than a 400mhz laptop with a wifi card.

</comment><comment><USER4> _I will not tell you the user agent that your iPhone uses_

Why do people do stuff like this? Why should a zdnet columnist care about AT&Ts image?

<comment><USER5> The answer is simple, AT&T is a potential sponsor of their site.</comment></comment>


Acer exec says Apple's 'closed' iPad will drop to 20% market share - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/23/acer_exec_says_apples_closed_ipad_will_drop_to_20_market_share.html <comment><USER2> See, at LessWrong we have a saying about this sort of thing, which runs, "How much are you willing to bet on that, at what odds?"

</comment><comment><USER3> Wishful thinking, it sounds like one of Balmer's pronouncements over the years. You don't see Apple trash-talking potential competitors (well not until the antenna thing) in the run up to a product launch, they just quietly polish up a better product than everyone else, and people buy it. Maybe another company could try that.

<comment><USER4> Apple has trash-talked Microsoft for decades now including in the run up to OS X launches.

As for wishful thinking, I may be that but it might also be history repeating itself.

<comment><USER5> Well, if history (iPod) repeats itself, I am thinking Apple will do ok.

<comment><USER6> Or the post-OS X mac, for that matter, which is a very profitable and growing line of business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's easy to talk, harder to release stuff. Hundreds of interesting tablet ideas have been "announced" over the last year, most of which haven't been released. No matter what Apple gets wrong, one thing stands: they actually ship products they announce.

<comment><USER8> > they actually ship products they announce

I'd argue that—most of the time—Apple announces products they're ready to ship.

This has been somewhat less true for the iPhone because of FCC certification requirements, and iPad because they needed developers to build compelling apps in order to sell the device.

<comment><USER7> You're right, though the result, as compared to others, looks the same. Apple releases what they announce. Not everyone does, as anyone who keeps an eye on the e-reader or tablet markets will be sadly aware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 20% market share, 60% profit share, 90% mindshare... which is more important?

<comment><USER10> Obviously profit share is the most important, but in consumer electronics it is very hard to keep high profit share with low market share. Electronics have a lot of efficiencies of scale so the people with higher market share will eventually start making their stuff much cheaper and thus they will be able to both lower prices and improve their margins, which will really squeeze your profits.

And eventually you will have to be content with selling the same hardware as your competitors with your brand and your own software on it. Sound familiar?

<comment><USER9> Although iOS will have lower market share than Android, the iPad will probably have _higher_ market share than any _individual_ Android tablet, and thus the hardware economy of scale actually goes to Apple.

Also, is there any _additional_ economy of scale beyond, say, 10M units per year?

<comment><USER11> Exactly. This is why HP can have so much more of the laptop market, yet Apple's laptops are much better engineered. Apple sells so many units of each SKU that they can afford to spend more designing each one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What I really want to see is a fold up tablet. In fact I'd say the two most important things to improve with iPad is weight and outdoor visibility. I imagine they'll improve that with the next version or at least within the next few years. But for a longterm 10 year target, I think someone will come up with a iPhone sized device that folds out to iPAd size.

See how much better can phones really get? Tablets are a more interesting prospect at least physically. Competition should be more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER13> Isn't that what he said eight years ago about the iPod? Apple will be lucky to get 20-30% marketshare max. Didn't turn out that way did it?

<comment><USER9> OTOH, Apple is not following the same playbook. They haven't introduced the iPad Nano or the iPhone Shuffle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow, the story should actually be that a journalist manages to create a 300 odd word story out of a 90 word article. That's a lot of hand waving for no real substance.

Original story:

[http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=PB000...](http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=PB000000000000000000000000005090&query=APPLE)

A hell of a lot has probably been lost in translation here.

</comment><comment><USER15> By that same logic Linux should rule the desktop and Windows would never have had 90%+ market share.

<comment><USER16> Windows is a remarkably open operating system for users and integrators. While Microsoft doesn't give out the source, they don't have to -- you can dramatically customize virtually every part of it, install whatever you'd like, do whatever you'd like, etc.

I don't think the Windows analogy flies at all, except perhaps to support Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> They said the same thing about the iPod and the iPhone.

<comment><USER18> They are correct about the iPhone, and will be correct about the iPad - it's not really about closeness in this case, but price.

Cheap Android tablets are already popping up and Apple will probably prefer maintaining their domination of the high end rather than compete with $150 (and in a few years $35?) products.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure but given the choice of buying let's say a acer tablet or the rumored 7" iPad for a little more (guessing the price is going to be 200ish less than the current iPad).

Apple has a good knack for keeping ahead of the market and their competitors.

<comment><USER18> If the price is comparable I think Apple will maintain leadership, regardless of platform openness (at least in the short term).

It remains to see if Apple would be interested at all in competing at the low range. They mostly avoid it in the desktops/laptops market, but do compete with iPods, so who knows.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I agree on the low-end aversion thing. I just don't think it's a matter of 'low-end' versus 'high-end'; I think it's more about brand awareness and pricing accordingly.

 _If_ Apple has a comparable product at a similar price (read: slightly more than everyone else), they are going to clean up. Most people are going to pick a brand they know well and is publicly very highly regarded over a similarly priced, 'cheaper knock-off'. And sure Apple didn't invent the 'tablet' but as far as mainstream buyers are concerned they did.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Reliability of Theories 04/14/2014 - <AUTHOR> http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_reliability_of_theories/ <comment><USER2> I'm a graduate student in physics, so I'll reply with a physics perspective on this. Concerning modern physics (the quirky stuff like relativity and quantum mechanics), I would not say that any part of it has "disproven" any of the old concepts (which we collectively refer to as classical physics) since Newton. For example, special relativity does not "disprove" classical, non- relativistic mechanics. Newton's three laws are still valid, it's just that the old theory is not as general as we once thought it was (once you move close to the speed of light, things look different to you vs. how it looks for others).

Of course, it goes without saying, what a theory fucking is is experiment. Special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics, QED, all these theories are theories because they gave predictions which were confirmed by experiment. Newton's laws, universal gravitation, these too have so much experimental backing so they are theory too, it's just that they are valid for non-relativistic, non-quantum systems. Just because you found that light bends around stars doesn't mean that all the basic experiments you did on the earth that didn't seem to show that bending 50 years ago were all a lie. Your old experiments were still valid! You just weren't looking at a scale where such effects were important: those mirrors and lenses didn't have enough mass to make the light bend enough for you to measure it (the deviations were but small fractions of the markings on your ruler) so you simply didn't see such effects. When you do look at that scales*, however, you'll see divergence from theory, and thus the cycle repeats, and the boundaries of understanding are pushed forward.

We never forgot the old theory, we just find where it fails and how it really was only correct for a smaller scale than we thought it was. Think about science as the old explorers of Columbus' day; they had a very small view of the world, but as they explored, they found that they could add new features to their maps. Nothing about their old maps of Europe had changed though! May be new technology had made the maps more refined, but discovering the West Indies didn't make Germany south of France! It's similar for science. Nothing about modern physics makes us doubt a lot of Newton's results, we just know he wasn't 100% correct.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Evolution is a scientific fact. Climate change is a scientific fact.

This kind of talk can only hurt science. The single most important principle in science is that any theory must in principle be falsifiable by new evidence. No falsifiability, no science. Therefore there are no scientific facts, there are only scientific theories, some very good, but all potentially falsifiable by new evidence.

If you want unchallengeable facts, ideas cast in concrete, join a religion.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability)

"The concern with falsifiability gained attention by way of philosopher of science Karl Popper's scientific epistemology 'falsificationism'. Popper stresses the problem of demarcation—distinguishing the scientific from the unscientific—and makes falsifiability the demarcation criterion, such that what is unfalsifiable is classified as unscientific, and the practice of declaring an unfalsifiable theory to be scientifically true is pseudoscience."</comment>


Ask HN: How do you get people to do things without money? - <AUTHOR>

You have exactly $0 but have an idea you want to test but the idea is too complicated for you to work on alone.  What do you do? <comment><USER2> Learn how to do it yourself - or at least get a good start so that when you present your idea to others they take you seriously (or at least more seriously than if you only have an idea). Ideas in themselves are worthless, it all comes down to execution.

I believe this is what Drew did with Dropbox and YC (if I'm not mistaken, in his application he said that he was going to follow through with Dropbox whether he got into YC or not). Granted, he is technical person, but (IMO) the simple fact that he was ready to finish his product, no matter what, showed a lot to the YC panel.

</comment><comment><USER3> Local colleges have students willing to work on something for free as an internship (for college credit) that will help them hone their skills or give them experience. You might sort through several students to find the one with enough skills to hold their own in executing an idea, but there are definitely several diamonds in the rough there.

Some universities have classes that need real projects to work on too. If you get into a community college, there is probably a shortage of real projects for them to tackle while at a large university there will likely be a long waiting queue unless your idea is so above par (or you're famous or cool to work with) that a professor or dean moves it to the top of the queue.

If you're looking for more of a cofounder, there are websites or marketplaces for that: <http://www.techcofounder.com/> or <http://www.cofounderslab.com/> \- I'm sure you can Google "find a cofounder" to find more.

</comment><comment><USER4> Fake it.

Let's say your app is a marketplace of sorts. Your app need "buyers" to input data, store to a database, perform magic algorithm voodoo to find matches and then query "sellers" on the opposite side of the marketplace.

Don't do any of that to start.

Let a "buyer" input data, which is directly emailed to you. You then use your brain ("algorithm") to find matches and manually email those "sellers" manually with their matches. Further, don't program any of this. Use Wordpress for the site, WuFoo for the forms, etc etc.

People get way too hung up on the tech. Make everything as manual as possible to start, because that is the fastest way to realize your idea probably sucks (or, if you're lucky, only needs serious tweaking to make work)

</comment><comment><USER5> The easiest thing to do is to sketch it on a piece of paper and show it to someone. Thats perhaps one of the most basic ways to validate a concept. I've read some stories where an entire app was sketched on paper and demonstrated to other people by moving around the pieces of paper. If people can easily grasp the idea, find people to partner with. There are a lot of great developers willing to contribute to a project if they see value. However, you will need to contribute something as well as an idea is worth $0. But if you have some talent (biz dev, design, etc.) that would be your contribution to it and it won't cost anything.

</comment><comment><USER6> Even before building the product, I would suggest you validate that the idea is good in the first place. You can do that without creating any product at all and without depending on anyone else. It takes nothing more than creating a signup page and setting up adwords & analytics account. Look into this HN post - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3167676> and many other blog posts out there. Once you have validated that the idea is good, you might have an easier time convincing people to work with you.

</comment><comment><USER7> Get people excited about it; start with what you actually can accomplish, show it off and then ask for help.</comment>


What's up dock? Apple to shrink connector for iPhone 5 - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/23/us-apple-connector-idUSBRE86M07320120723 <comment><USER2> I'd like to imagine that most of the concerns about the design and size changes here are off the mark. Sure, new business for accessory makers, and tradeoffs for consumers. But shouldn't a change of this nature reflect more technological innovation and a strategic play on Apple's part for the future of the device? Perhaps the new dock allows for stronger TV Out capabilities, or a better capacity to interface with other technologies, along with the advantage of adding more room for other components. Focusing on the accessories and design doesn't provide a solid rationale for the change.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I cannot count the number of reviews of Android products by Apple oriented writers that have singled out the head phone jack on the bottom as a flaw. Now what will they say?</comment>


Walk Monster (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0005 <comment><USER2> A thread from 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17771217](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17771217)

</comment><comment><USER3> I get it, he likes the name and enjoys the opportunity to pay homage to Quake and illustrate his having played an early beta of it.

But what insights did the name inspire? None as far as I can tell. I fail to see the claimed significance naming had in this effort.

<comment><USER4> How about him killing the walk monster?

[https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0032](https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0032)</comment></comment>


Bluffing Could Be Common In Prediction Markets - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080714141308.htm

<comment><USER2> This is an interesting but fairly esoteric point. It requires the following to be true

1\. The bluffer knows some secret information that is not known by other participants.

2\. All other market participants must believe the the bluffer is acting on secret information by their bet.

In a market with many users and anonymous trading I can't see it being worth the risk to bluff. There are bound to be traders out there who will simply accept your money when you bet for the 'impossible' result and any money you make by betting the other way is not likely to compensate.

With non-anonymous trading it is possible that a trader with a high reputation could pull this off but they would damage their reputation in the process.

<comment><USER3> Apparently, Nathan Rothschild used this gambit on the London Stock Exchange. He had a trusted confederate observe the battle of Waterloo, then rush to London the moment he determined the outcome of the battle. (Some hours before it ended.)

Nathan then received this news, then acted _as if the opposite were true_ in order to manipulate the market to his advantage.

[http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi- bin/archive.cgi/noframes/re...](http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi- bin/archive.cgi/noframes/read/39506)

<comment><USER2> Interesting information. So it can work once. He obviously had a significant reputation before this and I'll bet people were a lot more suspicious of his moves in the future.

<comment><USER3> His reputation suffered in one respect, but he made so much money and gained so much power, it was worth it. In the eyes of many, his reputation as a shrewd and canny operator was confirmed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've done a lot of research/consulting in prediction markets. I'm not totally surprised that in theory bluffing is possible. I've seen cases of market manipulation in my research.

But I think everyone should look at the results in a different light: Are they correct??

If the results (either probabilistic results or index results) are accurate, then if there are minor cases of manipulation who cares? I don't believe that prediction markets are that different than any other marketplace with minor concerns of manipulation.

As for accuracy, I've written about that here:

[http://blog.mercury-rac.com/2008/01/25/how-to-interpret- pred...](http://blog.mercury-rac.com/2008/01/25/how-to-interpret-prediction- market-results-on-elections/)

(most people, and virtually all journalists, just don't get the math when it comes to probabilities.)

</comment><comment><USER5> PDF of the actual paper: <http://www- personal.umich.edu/~rsami/papers/manip.pdf></comment>


Restoring Y Combinator's Xerox Alto, day 3: Inside the disk drive - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2016/07/restoring-y-combinators-xerox-alto-day_11.html <comment><USER2> Ah the RK05 (that was the DEC version of the Diablo drive). I used to have a replacement set of R/W heads for one but gave them to a friend who was restoring a couple of drives for a PDP-11 project. Fun times.

I've wondered what it would take to build a drive and its media from scratch. DEC used to do it all the time of course but given today's tools and tech. Could you build a 5MB removable platter drive? What sort of seek rate could you get on it? Clearly one of those projects that people that build their own vacuum tubes would get in to.

<comment><USER3> For the platter, you'd need a substrate with the ferromagnetic material applied – I'm not sure what process is involved here, electroplating, coating? Some equipment might be borrowed from the tape manufacturing process if that is not considered cheating.

<comment><USER2> I'd go with a spin coating, easiest to create. However coming up with a material that could be easily spin coated that would be a bit harder. There is a lot of math involved [1] :-). There was an excellent "Secret Life of Machines"[2] video about tape which made magnetic tape by sprinkling ferrous oxide (rust) over "sticky tape" (which in the US is often called 'Scotch Tape' as that is the dominant brand).

[1] [http://ecee.colorado.edu/~mcleod/teaching/EandM3400/Lab%20Bo...](http://ecee.colorado.edu/~mcleod/teaching/EandM3400/Lab%20Book/Chp_13.pdf)

[2] [http://www.secretlifeofmachines.com/secret_life_of_the_video...](http://www.secretlifeofmachines.com/secret_life_of_the_video.shtml)

<comment><USER4> Scotch tape is something slightly different to what I'd consider "sticky tape", which is what I'd also know as _Sellotape_. We have Scotch tape here as well (W. European seaboard ;) but it's a neater more refined (cloudy) tape specifically used for paper, whereas Sellotape is a more general purpose clear tape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ah, the joys of 1970s electronics, or "it's full of parts!" Electronics was finally good enough that you could design and build complex systems and have them work. But it took a huge number of 7400 series TTL ICs to do anything.

</comment><comment><USER6> That disk emulator fpga would be helpful for people looking to resurrect other old computers (looking at a couple of closets full of pdp-11/70 boards in my office...) so hopefully the design will be published/open sourced. RK-05s I'm sure are not identical but probably sufficiently similar for the design to be a good starting point.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a MFM disk emulator project here, but I don't know if it's compatible with your drives: [http://www.pdp8.net/mfm/mfm.shtml](http://www.pdp8.net/mfm/mfm.shtml)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd like to see a photo of the linear motor that drives the heads. They come in massive and MASSIVE sizes...

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately the drive motor is underneath the head assembly, so you can't see it without more disassembly of the drive. The servo motor moves the heads via a rack and pinion gear.

There's a (bad) photo of the motor on page 52 of the manual: [http://bitsavers.trailing- edge.com/pdf/diablo/81503-03_Serie...](http://bitsavers.trailing- edge.com/pdf/diablo/81503-03_Series_30_Disk_Drive_Maintenance_Jul78.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> While watching this video, the significance of the advent of SSD really strikes home.

</comment><comment><USER9> Steve Wozniak's disk controller for the Apple II used the same kind of approach: a few simple chips on the disk controller card with all the timing and marshalling done by code running on the CPU. Doing it that way is practical if you have confidence that the CPU speed won't change.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Wozniak would have fit in well on the Alto team; he had the same approach of minimizing hardware as much as possible.

One unusual thing about the Alto is the code to run the disk (and other devices) was in microcode, not machine code. (Are there other computers that used microcode for programming, not just to implement the instruction set?)

<comment><USER10> Wasn't the Alto expensive because they didn't minimize the hardware enough?

<comment><USER11> It was expensive because minimized discrete hardware (not soon enough for any kind of real integration) was still expensive. Even the successor 2901-based D-machines were expensive in absolute terms. By the time Alto-level functionality was relatively cheap to implement, the software requirements had grown well beyond. Hence PARC moving eventually to the likes of ECL for research platform development.

<comment><AUTHOR> To expand on what pinewurst said, the Alto was built minicomputer-style out of TTL chips, so even with minimized hardware the CPU took three large boards of chips. Within a few years, microprocessors took over and Moore's law crushed computers built from discrete chips.

Here are some bonus pictures of boards from the Xerox Dorado, which used ECL chips for higher speed. First is the ALU board; the large chips are ECL versions of the 74181 ALU. Second is a detail of chips from the 10K family, as well as unusual square memory chips.

[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/\--KYoSBUuOhg/V4Rxs7tLB-I/A...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--KYoSBUuOhg/V4Rxs7tLB-I/AAAAAAAA4vM/_HY8Xvkg0DgRjl36M4ZyjY5PYXrvlWh2gCCo/s800/alu.jpg) [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MWYhn7enXdA/V4RxsQ8YHRI/A...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MWYhn7enXdA/V4RxsQ8YHRI/AAAAAAAA4vI/5hAeS8i7ZX8M3DNANpXNrcXStB3_0qZmACCo/s800/square.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I found a drive just like that in a dumpster in Eugene Oregon in 1997. No other parts, and I couldn't get it to do anything interesting, so it eventually went back in the trash.</comment>


Billion dollar weather disasters on the rise - <AUTHOR> http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/billionz.html#narrative

<comment><USER2> What about growth?

Areas that were corn fields 20 years ago now have houses, malls, commercial, mfg plants, etc.

We have a greater population that is spread out. What was one a small crop disaster for farmers is now a very costly disaster for a municipality.

Does the study account for this? Is this a valid concern?

tl;dr: We have more "stuff" to ruin now.

<comment><USER2> Also how do you _really_ adjust for dollars.

A mfg plant built in 1985 is not equivalent to one built in 1995 or in 2005. Same with houses, etc.

Our infrastructure is more advanced, more costly and more complicated.

What about things that didn't _exist_ in 1985, like fiber optics and cell phone towers (or barely existed).

<comment><USER3> Agree with you on infrastructure and more importantly the dollar adjustment.

CPI is a nice handy tool for things that could damage the basket of goods in contained in the CPI but it's wildly inappropriate for weather disasters because the weather disasters primarily cause damage to capital infrastructure rather than consumer goods. Case-Schiller, M3, or DOW, S&P 500, would be much better numbers to use for adjusting damage to capital infrastructure. Even then it's kind of a crap shoot as none of those price indexes really accurately reflects the kinds of property damaged by weather.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is this really climate related? My initial suspicion is that as technology advances, we just have more complicated (expensive) systems and infrastructure that are harder to repair because of the expertise required. We also become more and more reliant on technology every day, but also more and more incompetent when that technology suddenly fails. It is sort of a 'house of cards' effect.

<comment><USER4> A whole bunch of data and graphs and other neat stuff on hurricanes: <http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/>

The part I found most interesting was the points-of-origin graph, and how closely that correlates with the Tropic of Cancer. But, there's also a historical graph there for your edification.

Tornadoes: [http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/severeweather/tornadoes....](http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/severeweather/tornadoes.html)

The historical graph here does not appear to show any upward trend 1950 to present for frequency of EF3-EF5 tornadoes; if anything, they may be becoming slightly less common.

As for droughts, I will link to a report from NIPCC, who are -- to say the least -- climate change skeptics: [http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2011/jul/27jul2011a2.htm...](http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2011/jul/27jul2011a2.html)

In their report, they found no long term trend for drought conditions. I can find nothing that casts doubt on their research.

If I were serious about figuring out whether the cost figures for natural disasters were attributable primarily to increased costs or primarily to increased severity of natural disasters, I'd use earthquakes as a comparison -- if it's an increase-of-cost issue, then I'd expect to see the same increase-of-cost for historical earthquakes. If the increase-of-cost for earthquakes is substantially less than of the natural disasters in this report, then I'd be inclined to attribute it to a greater frequency and severity of natural disasters.

<comment><USER5> * If I were serious about figuring out whether the cost figures for natural disasters were attributable primarily to increased costs or primarily to increased severity of natural disasters, I'd use earthquakes as a comparison -- if it's an increase-of-cost issue, then I'd expect to see the same increase-of-cost for historical earthquakes. If the increase-of-cost for earthquakes is substantially less than of the natural disasters in this report, then I'd be inclined to attribute it to a greater frequency and severity of natural disasters.*

On the other hand, we've got a lot better at building earthquake-resistant structures.

Also, the number of earthquakes causing any significant damage in the United States over the past two hundred years is small enough to be statistically iffy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh my god, in 2010 there are infinity more car related deaths than there were in 1880. Are we getting worse at driving, or are cars just less safe?

There are more people, there is more stuff, and there is a little thing called inflation. People live in areas of Florida that were swamp 20 years ago.

<http://mensnewsdaily.com/images/misc/tipler/a.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER7> A billion dollars ain't what it used to be... With inflation, this bar has been dropping over the years.

<comment><USER4> Immediately below the report preview images:

Note: Billion Dollar U.S. Disaster costs have now been adjusted to 2011 dollars using the Consumer Price Index (CPI), as noted below.

<comment><USER5> This is true, though the CPI is a fairly lousy way of adjusting for inflation, especially over long time periods, and when talking about things which aren't consumer prices.

For instance, the Empire State Building cost $40 million to build. According to a CPI inflation calculator I found, that comes out to $600 million in today's money. But good luck trying to rebuild a 100+ storey skyscraper in New York City for $600 million nowadays. You'd probably spend that much just on Environmental Impact Statements and arguing with the City about whether you're likely to displace any endangered frogs.

(Yes, yes, I'm exaggerating. The recent Bank of America tower, which is maybe two thirds the size of the Empire State Building, cost one billion dollars though:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_America_Tower_(New_York...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_America_Tower_\(New_York_City\)) )</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook, Snapchat have their own (zany) ways of counting video views - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2016/01/15/facebook-v-snapchat-what-counts-as-a-video-view/ <comment><AUTHOR> I use the word 'zany' as an euphemism for 'scary'. As someone who's advertised on Facebook using video (hindsight:20/20), to think that I got charged for a video view while someone read the post above / below mine on their Full HD monitor, is kinda gross</comment>


Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship, says packages 'diverted' - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-tech-fedex-exclusive/exclusive-huawei-reviewing-fedex-relationship-says-packages-diverted-idUSKCN1SX1RZ <comment><USER2> Regardless of the cause of this particular set of events, corporate media engagement as resistance against state actors is the only logical development that can be expected following the Snowden revelations which confirmed that long-theorized postal interception methods are in use. This creates additional pushback for FedEx who now have to prove they aren't working for US intelligence, or face losing additional customers. While other state actors remain valid threats, given US involvement was proven by Snowden and FedEx is so global I am kind of surprised that neither Deutsche Post[0] nor ZTO[1] nor SF Express[2] shares are up on the news.

[0] [http://en.boerse-frankfurt.de/stock/Deutsche_Post- share](http://en.boerse-frankfurt.de/stock/Deutsche_Post-share) [1] [https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:ZTO](https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:ZTO) [2] [http://www.szse.cn/English/siteMarketData/siteMarketDatas/lo...](http://www.szse.cn/English/siteMarketData/siteMarketDatas/lookup/index.html?code=002352)

<comment><USER3> > I am kind of surprised that neither Deutsche Post[0] nor ZTO[1] nor SF > Express[2] shares are up on the news.

Why would they be up on the news? They're just as likely to be engaging in the same behavior, only for a different set of government actors.

<comment><USER4> Intercepting it in the US or within their own country is one thing. Rerouting a document being sent from Japan to China to the US multiple times is most certainly not a common thing mail services would do for intelligence agencies.

Getting a private company operating in a foreign country to do your intelligence work so blatantly is certainly news worthy. Maybe not stock price shifting news though.

<comment><USER5> I think it should affect stock price. Espionage is usually punished pretty harshly and you have no guarantee that said private company won't be charged with it in the future when the political landscape changes in the country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not related to this package delivery drama, but the way we are observing the live demolition of the world largest networking equipment maker and second largest smartphone maker (by number) in the name of trade war will never bring back the confidence in those who are flexing muscle.

The illusion of the rule of law, free world, globalization and the reality of control is simply frightening, and worrisome.

<comment><USER7> > _The illusion of the rule of law_

Rule of law has always been national. International politics are anarchic. Huawei quite clearly broke the laws of the United States ( _e.g._ with respect to Iran), repeatedly and wilfully.

<comment><USER8> Huawei _may_ have broken the law with respect to violating U.S's sanctions on Iran. These are still unproven allegations as of yet.

Meanwhile, Société Générale, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, JP Morgan have _provably_ done exactly that.

Yet there is only one C-suite level executive who is currently being held personally, criminally liable for corporate actions. I guarantee you won't be seeing Jamie Dimon threatened with prison time for JP Morgan's 87 violations of Iranian sanctions and Weapons of Mass Destruction sanctions, anytime soon.

Laws which are enforced selectively lack credibility.

<comment><USER7> Very simply, sanctions evasion is enforced differently from other domains. In any case, China is a terrible foil for the rule of law. Meng will get a fair trial in America. Nobody from anywhere would get the same in China.

<comment><USER9> > Meng will get a fair trial in America.

Your faith is US justice is admirable and patriotic. Do you believe Assange would also get a fair trial in USA ?

<comment><USER7> > _Do you believe Assange would also get a fair trial in USA ?_

No. I don't believe secret courts can be fair courts.

Meng, however, is being charged through normal channels by a prosecutor who must make a case in the regular court system. The charges and decisions will be made in the open. (There is a decent chance, due to the difficulty of admitting large swaths of evidence, that she could win.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hanlon's razor applies here. If there was truly something nefarious going on, why would FedEx update the tracking status to say that the packages were re- routed? Why not just say they were held up in the sending or receiving country?

<comment><USER11> Because there was nobody who thought about it.

We had a similar situation in Russia. A mobile operator was cooperating with government to hack into activists' Telegram accounts. They disabled SMS service for a user and then requested a password restore using SMS, intercepted it and got access. But they forgot to delete this information from their internal systems, so when the user called support, they told them that SMS service was disabled, and later even gave a signed confirmation about it.

I don't know whether the story from the article is true or not, but people tend to make such kind of mistakes. Imagine a typical accounting system, written on bunch of legacy technologies during last 20 years, and think how difficult it would be to remove all traces from all the databases and logs and not break anything. And tell every employee that would process the package not to scan it.

<comment><USER12> Why wouldn't an intelligence agency just intercept it quietly? If I were sufficiently motivated and had global assets willing to do my bidding I could probably have found a way to intercept it at a sorting facility or en route or by sending in an "inspector" or social engineering or something.

Why on earth would they do something so obvious to leave such a paper trail when you know they could pull this off quietly?

<comment><USER13> Because they want to be able to do it at scale?

The ideal approach would be to have packages of the "interesting" kind automatically diverted to a scanning location, and then continue on their way...

Dont think of it as them being interested in a single package. They are interested in setting up a mechanism by which ALL packages of interest can be diverted with only very small effort on their part.

<comment><USER14> If they were doing it at scale this wouldn't be the first time we are reading about it on HN.

<comment><USER15> It isn't.

<comment><USER12> It also wouldn't be the first time a shipping/logistics error caused a package to be misrouted.

The obvious and most probable answer is usually the right answer unless you have evidence otherwise.

Not every weird incident is part of some conspiracy.

<comment><USER16> Four packages... And Huawei called Fedex Vietnam customer service. They explicitly said the package was reouted on request from Fedex U.S.

Check this: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/huawei-says-fedex- diverted-p...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/huawei-says-fedex-diverted- packages-to-the-us.html)

According to FedEx's website, the status "exception" means an unexpected event is preventing delivery of a package, for example a customs delay, a holiday, or no one being available to accept delivery. FedEx declined to give details on what the exception was in this case.

According to Huawei, a FedEx customer service representative in Vietnam replied to their inquiry on May 22 when two expected packages did not arrive on time, saying: "Please be informed that FDX SG received notification from FDX US to hold and return the package to US. Hence, the shipment is not deliver to consignee and now being hold at FDX station and under process to RTS it (return to sender)," the representative wrote in broken English, according to an email Huawei showed to Reuters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> the-dude Not to a CIA "load station" ?

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an- nsa...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade- factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/)

<comment><USER12> They were documents. Why wouldn't they have just intercepted them in-place instead of sending them to the US?

It doesn't make sense to be anything other than an error and Huawei being paranoid (rightfully so, but still).

<comment><USER17> Possibly because if the USG were caught reading foreign companies' documents on foreign soil it would be a violation of countless international treaties, which would make the ongoing trade and infosec tensions worse, versus "whoops, this landed on our doorstep, we can do whatever we want on our soil". The fact that this can be easily chocked up to a logistical error is good cover.

<comment><USER18> Let's be honest, America has been violation of so many treaties and rules they themselves have written that it really doesn't matter anymore. Some countries retaliate, but with different methods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Anyone who has shipped with FedEx knows how somehow everything you send goes through Atlanta. I'll bet this was just one of those "logistical efficiency" gone wrong kind of things.

Or US intelligence requested the documents be diverted. Either is about equally likely I'd say.

<comment><USER20> Did you mean Memphis? Atlanta would love to take some or all that traffic away from Memphis since the Atlanta airport is woefully under utilized after midnight.

<comment><USER19> Maybe? I just remember it was somewhere on the other side of the country where my package from SF to LA had no business being.

<comment><USER21> Yes, it's Memphis[1].

[1] [https://youtube.com/watch?v=y3qfeoqErtY&t=1m51s](https://youtube.com/watch?v=y3qfeoqErtY&t=1m51s)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Having done logistics this happens all the time in international parcels. I saw 0.5% of parcels have some massively weird routing error to countries that made no sense.

If this had been a us govt request they wouldn't have scanned the packages at the sorting facilities in the US!

</comment><comment><USER23> Packages were probably getting a free "upgrade". The same upgrade that cost Cisco billions in revenue over the past 5 years.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an- nsa...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade- factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/)

<comment><USER24> Upgrades like what? Spell checking? These were packages of documents.

<comment><USER25> They were just making a backup copy, just in case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder what the backstory is to this.

You don't issue a press release for two missing packages. And since they were "important commercial documents" I am assuming that US intelligence must have intercepted them for some reason.

<comment><USER27> The back story could just as easily be a shipping error and Huawei trying to drum up anti-American sentiment as a counter to all the bad press the US have directed their way.

Sure, it's highly suspicious that a Hauwei shipment end up in America but equally it seems unlikely FedEx would be dumb enough to advertise that fact on their tracking page if they were ordered to divert said documents.

I'm not suggesting there isn't something deeper going on that governments are keeping classified, however if there is then they're doing a good job of keeping it a secret by making this trade war sound like petty bickering.

<comment><USER28> Another backstory is that huwai has long believed to be backdoring to chinese intel just as cisco has since the mid 90s...

We arrested their cfo in canada and have been on attack with them since.

The actual question is - the US has been doing this against them for quite some time now Mr smith.

So...

Did huwai just realize, or do they have enough anomalous tracking that they are leaking public to measure reaction.

Look, dont be a fool - WWIII - as Einstein stated, is not nuclear, its informational - and we are in the midst;

Echelon <— nobody believed this existed in the 80s and 90s

Carnivore <— att guy went to jail for revealing this

Stuxnet <— israel fucked that one up

Duqu <— scary that this dropped off the map

PRISM <— one of many of the trackers

Lots more: too many.

Etc

Etc

There are a lot of subs in that list and a lot of ghosts we dont know about...

But only a moron would think that cyber war is NOT in full force

<comment><USER29> I operate on the idea that everyone has been back dooring and breaking into everyone else's stuff forever.

I remember a picture I can't remember the details now but think the East Germans discovered a tunnel from West Berlin into a phone vault in East Berlin with a bunch of taps installed. That was in the 1960's. The Soviets were planting microwave recording devices on the east coast in the 1970's. The US has been tapping under sea cables since the 1970's. Maybe earlier.

Everyone's been trying to spy on everyone else. Commercial companies are either willing partners _cough_ facebook _cough_ or haplessly in the middle. Notable they threw Joseph Nacchio in prison for not playing along.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Fedex diverted huawei's packet through the US by mistake. China telecom diverted internet packets through China because it must be hacking.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385920)

</comment><comment><USER31> Well, it's called FedEx, of course it _ex_ propriates your packages to the _fed_ s,

</comment><comment><USER32> I really hope any US Commerce dept plans against Huawei completely backfire. Imagine in two years if Huawei has a stable, strong alternative to Android that takes over the Asian markets and even gets imported by American enthusiasts through 3rd party channels. I'd like to see someone break the Apple/Google dual-olopy.

<comment><USER33> > I'd like to see someone break the Apple/Google dual-olopy.

I am not sure that will happen here. But it sure does seem like that is the trajectory for China.

<comment><USER34> It's not the trajectory, apart from a reliance on ARM the Android experience in China is pretty independent of anything overseas already, lacking the Play Store and all.

<comment><USER33> [https://www.techradar.com/news/huaweis-os-to-be-rolled- out-n...](https://www.techradar.com/news/huaweis-os-to-be-rolled-out-next- month)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Air shipping from any island in APAC is tricky, speaking as someone on an island in APAC. There are only X number of flights and sometimes things go to places you wouldn't expect based on whatever prioritization rules drive FedEx's optimization algorithm that day. This costs my lab and our hospital dearly, so I sort of sympathize. But I also know a FedEx pilot who flew this area for decades and explained their end of the problem as well. It's a hard optimization problem.

For example: it may have gone to Alaska, but that's actually closer to Japan and China than any of their other hubs.

</comment><comment> munk-a I would assume this is part of the US government's recent attacks on Huawei except... I'm familiar with FedEx and their terrible service, so I assume it's just them being as terrible as they always are.

</comment><comment><USER36> So many US corporations are sacrificing potential billions in global comsumer confidence and flat-out revenue loss backing the "trade war". What assurances are they getting which makes them willing to take the leap, I wonder?

At the end of the day any losses have to be explained to sharebolders, regadless of political loyalties.

<comment><USER37> They aren't getting assurances, they're being threatened with the loss of federal government business.

<comment><USER7> > _they 're being threatened with the loss of federal government business_

Criminal penalties for their executives are the real stick.

<comment><USER38> The CFO and daughter of the founder is currently held in Vancouver awaiting extradition to the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > FedEx spokeswoman Maury Donahue told Reuters the packages were "misrouted in > error" and that FedEx was not requested to divert them by any other party.

Scout's honor. Sounds a lot like Huawei saying it was just a coding error. Would they get away of a spying accusation with this? If it can happen in the US (FedEx, Cisco) it can surely happen in China.

It's strange seeing people defending this as "probably an error" and perfectly acceptable when coming from one side but definitely intentional and totally unacceptable from the other.

The hypocrisy is strong in this one...

P.S. For the casual observer, please note that this comment is _not_ about which company is guilty and how (un)acceptable that may be.

<comment><USER40> The difference is that Huawei has a board of CCP members that sits within Huawei and has say over their actions. While FedEx is an independent company that operates within the US, and has access to US courts to defend themselves. It's 1st party vs 3rd party, when it comes to government influence.

Huawei is assumed to be working at behalf of the CCP because the CCP has management control over the company. It's like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Do you doubt that the US government has control over them? They are "independent" government sponsored companies with oversight by the US government... just like Huawei.

Everyone knows Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac implement policies put in place by the US government. That's their job. But when it comes to Huawei, we're all suppose to ignore the CCP control?

China likes to have state-run companies (far more than the US does). The consequence is that no one trusts you. If they don't like it, and want to build trust with their customers, then they can liberalize their markets (or at least let Huawei be a fully independent company).

<comment><USER39> OK, " _%Government% exerts non-transparent influence over %Company%_ ". Who am I talking about? This is not a China thing, it's not a communist thing. It's a thing, mostly a superpower thing. You can't nail one party to the cross while praising the other one for the exact same thing. I mean you can but not without a strong display of (misinformed?) hypocrisy.

Again, decide for yourself what's good or bad but be consistent, not selective depending on who's doing it: "us" or "them" ;).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> People saying 'just an error tbis ; US doesn't do this' should be reminded that the same scenario played out, nationally, with Amazon routing Jacob Appelbaum's laptop to Langley before reaching him.

</comment><comment><USER42> What kind of sloppy 2 bit intelligence operation informs the customer their packages are being redirected to the US? The article mentioned the packages were in the process of being marked "return to sender"

To me, this is clearly a case of not being able to read the shipping label, damage to packaging, or similar. It would make plenty of sense that manual "human" decisions on what to do with undeliverable packages is handled by FedEx employees in the US. I have had mail returned before and it always ends up going to a random place, likely to be hand sorted, and taking forever to make its way back.

This is likely a non-story trying to throw shade on US companies to distract from negative press on Hauwei. Besides, the mail was shipped using a US based carrier, probably airmail. A plane can make it across the world in 24 hours, so it might make sense to route certain destinations through the US regardless for logistical reasons. If I could ship something to Europe using China Post I would not be fazed if my package ends up in China at some point.

If you don't want something to end up in the US don't ship it using a US based mail carrier that is a private company allowed to send your package in any manner it desires. Hauwei complaining to the Chinese government about how their packages are being routed through the US on the way to their destination by a US based mail carrier, what a joke

</comment><comment><USER43> This is bad for US companies because it will likely result in the rise of a Chinese worldwide Fedex/UPS competitor - you're already sort of seeing this happening in the bulk mail services that are used to ship stuff form Aliexpress

</comment><comment><USER44> Probably happens all of the time. The unlawful spying organizations in the United States have no true bounds, especially not trivial things like borders or corporate integrity.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am Chinese, living in China and have been pro-U.S / democracy my whole life. But the recent actions by Trump government, U.S corporations, Fedex etc., and academics (IEEE etc.) made me angry. The U.S government provided no evidence of Huawai spying or backdoor but acted hysterically to kill Huawei. And your corporations and intellectuals are helping it.

And there are lots of Chinese like me feel the same. Trump and his China haters are pushing away a large group of influential Chinese elites in all different professions, intellectuals, government officials, (yes, there are a lot of pro-U.S / democracy government officials in China), entrepreneurs, engineers, doctors even who used to admire the U.S.

This is far more damaging... There will be cost.

</comment><comment><USER45> Wow, I'm surprised Huawei went to the press with this-- but it's certainly bizarre.

</comment><comment><USER46> Routing mistake?

<comment><USER26> You often get the tracking number either before you send the item or as you are sending it.

I think it would be suspicious if you sent a package and weren't given one.

<comment><USER47> The packages are being delivered in the end, they just seem to be going through the US first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Could you not plant something on these devices then find them like mythical WMDs never found to justify things against Huawei?

<comment><USER12> They were documents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> It looks like Huawei's retaliation to Trump's ban. They must have been combing Fedex deliveries for mishaps they could use to build up a case Fedex is working together with US intelligence agencies.

</comment><comment><USER50> >Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the records. Shown the images of the tracking records, FedEx declined to make any comment, saying company policy prevented it from disclosing customer information. //

So they're confirming that the images are customer data, which makes them authentic. If they weren't authentic then they wouldn't be customer information, no?

>FedEx spokeswoman Maury Donahue told Reuters the packages were "misrouted in error" and that FedEx was not requested to divert them by any other party. //

Which doesn't tell us anything as NSA letters, for example, can IIUC require a company to lie to cover up executive activity.

>The U.S. Department of Commerce did not reply to a request for comment on whether the incident might be related to its move on May 16 to add Huawei to the so-called "Entity List," //

Which is basically "hey are you being a shithead?", "oh, no comment!". Not even bothering to deny it??

>FedEx declined to give details on what the exception was in this case. //

I mean, it sounds a lot like the response of someone caught with their pants down (ie in the act of committing a nefarious offense).

What is clear is that this is more shots fired -- and TBH the message of "you can't trust USA not to be using security letters to pry in to foreign businesses confidential affairs" isn't anything like unbelievable.

<comment><USER51> > So they're confirming that the images are customer data, which makes them > authentic. If they weren't authentic then they wouldn't be customer > information, no?

I don't think that assumption works. Reuters asked for specific customer information: in particular, whether the records were valid. Answering in the affirmative or negative is divulging customer data, and FedEx would be wise to avoid doing so whether or not it's valid.

<comment><USER50> You're right, I skipped over the "decline to make any comment" part.

But still, "this is not a valid receipt" doesn't reveal data about a customer transaction.

<comment><USER52> But then when the reporter comes back a few days later with a _different_ receipt that _is_ valid and FedEx tries to give the canned response about not revealing customer transaction data... they inadvertently have. Because if it _wasn't_ customer transaction data then they would have simply said as much, as they did the last time.

Companies always respond with "no comment" for a good reason: to prevent people from drawing incorrect conclusions by reading between the lines as you are doing now.</comment></comment></comment></comment>