Some facts about how NSA stories are reported  - <AUTHOR> https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/03/23/facts-nsa-stories-reported/ <comment><USER2> Why do those people think "it's ok" for NSA to hack Huawei's servers? Is it ok for China to hack Google's servers, then? You can't have it both ways. Also, I remember Obama saying that a "cyberattack" is just as bad as a real world attack. That reinforces the fact it's bad for both China _and_ US to be doing these sort of attacks - unless they are outright calling each other "war rivals".

This is still very much WW2 thinking that you need to have spies within a country and hack into them _at all times_. It also exposes US for its hypocrisy, because until now they've only said about "how bad China is for hacking others". Something tells me they'll shut up about that now.

I also disagree with the Lawfare guy. Here's the thing, if either NSA or CIA starts conflicts abroad, then it's _very much in the interest of the US public_. The people deserve to know when it's the _US_ starting conflicts for various reasons, otherwise they'll only experience the _backlash_ from those conflicts, and they'll _wrongly_ think that country is the aggressor. And of course the US government will do whatever it can to paint them like that, too. This is why it's so important in such cases to unveil the truth, even if it "damages national security".

Governments are often led by corrupt psychopaths, and the people should know the truth so it can stop its own government, before creating a major crisis that everyone will pay for with blood. The American people deserve to know if the US gov is pissing off China with its hacks, to the brink of war, just like the Chinese people deserve to know if its own government is doing the same with its cyberattacks against US. Either way, the people need to know, and secret ops should be kept at a minimum.

<comment><USER3> OK is relative to whoever is making the judgment. US, Russia and China have an imperialistic mindset. They violate sovereignty of other nations to further their own nationalistic agenda, often to increase their influence on the international world stage. Sad to say, the USA now truly believes that controlling the world is crucial for its national security, when in fact this foreign policy invites blowback in many different forms.

Elected officials are known to do backroom deals. However, bureaus and agencies such as the NSA can be even less accountable, since they have YEARS before anyone representing the public would find out. And someone with the technology and incentives like the NSA would OF COURSE go overboard doing whatever they could do and push the envelope because they could do it.

Sadly the system of oversight and checks and balances in empires always gets corrupted.

<comment><USER4> Actually, of the three, China is the only country that has no demonstrable history of imperialism outside of its historically occupied borders. Setting Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan aside (for at various times throughout history, all three of them have been occupied or fallen under the umbrella of Chinese influence), China as a civilisation has operated on a tribute model. Not one of imperialism.

The same can't be said of Russia or the USA.

While it's convenient to portray China as just another modern (western) country with the typical aims of a modern western power, the facts don't really fit this view. For thousands of years China has been content to stay within it's nominal boundaries. Even now, most of the forays China makes that the USA or Russia feels threatened by are economic overtures (hospital ships to africa, supporting less desirable governments, etc) designed to secure raw materials and achieve economic (not imperialistic) objectives.

<comment><USER5> _China is the only country that has no demonstrable history of imperialism outside of its historically occupied borders._

I call baloney on that. (Basis of knowledge: study of Chinese history, culture, and language since 1975 and residence overseas in east Asia.)

China's territory has expanded ENORMOUSLY from the historic regions that were part of the mainstream development of Chinese history and culture. The Chinese language developed a new word for the chief national ruler (皇帝), conventionally translated "emperor," at the time 2,000 years ago when China went on a long period of sustained imperial conquest and expansion. This is still very much part of Chinese geopolitical thinking today. The current occupation of the historic territory of Tibet and Eastern Turkestan by the People's Republic of China regime actually has very meager historical precedent, as those territories and the territories of China proper have mostly only had common rulers during the conquest dynasties of the Yuan (Mongol) and Qing (Manchu) periods of Chinese history. I live in a town with a very large Tibetan diaspora (I see "Free Tibet" bumper stickers all over town, and the Dalai Lama recently celebrated Tibetan New Year here), and I am well aware that Chinese conquest of Tibet is historically recently, naked imperialism, and extremely disliked by the population of Tibet.

<comment><USER4> Hmm, maybe we're simply debating when the Chinese territory solidified? I think it's generally accepted that China's territory has been more or less the same through most of its history (or at least for the last thousand years?). In fact, if anything, today's borders are less than several of the most recent dynasties. Yes, if you go back to several thousand years BC, you'll find the civilisation concentrated quite a bit more, but so was every other people group.

Here's a nice illustration:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Territories_of_Dynasties_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Territories_of_Dynasties_in_China.gif)

Yes, you can make an argument that Tibet and Xinjiang are not part of the mainstream Chinese territories, but I think it's hard to argue that other regions aren't or are recent imperialistic expansions. At what point does it cease to be "imperialistic" and start to become "the way it has been for most of history?" Compare this with almost every other empire: American, Roman, Russian (Soviet), Greek, Persian, etc - all of them expanded in a short time and collapsed (USA maybe not so much, but still lost colonies and concessions in...China! for example) in a short time, and don't today enjoy anywhere near the territory they did after their big imperial outings. Their presence today mirrors their presence before their big imperial thrust.

Today, if you visit most places in China (again, Xinjian and Tibet excluded), you're not going to find really anyone who feels the borders are out of place.

Wheras China's claims to both of those provinces has always been "to get back to the way things were" (for instance, in the Yuan dynasty), there isn't any other territory other than Mongolia for China to really claim based on history. It is unlikely that China would therefore have ambitions beyond it's current borders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A big takeaway is in the second point:

>By publishing yesterday's Huawei story, the NYT obviously made the editorial judgment that these revelations are both newsworthy and in the public interest, should be disclosed, and will not unduly harm "American national security." For reasons I explain below, I agree with that choice.

>But if you disagree – if you want to argue that this NSA story is reckless, dangerous, treasonous or whatever – then have the courage to take it up with the people who reached the opposite conclusion: in this case, the editors and reporters of the NYT (indeed, as former DOJ official Jack Goldsmith observed[1], the _NYT's Huawei story was "based on leaks other than the Snowden documents_ ").

[1] [http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/03/the-nyt-on-nsas-huawei- pe...](http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/03/the-nyt-on-nsas-huawei-penetration/)

</comment><comment><USER7> It's not just "US Journalists Against Transparency" up in arms about this release, apparently popular opinion is mixed too, as evidenced by the reddit comment section on the NYT article submission [1]. This firstlook.org article is important in that it highlights how journalists and editorial boards are deciding what to publish.

However, this safeguard is made more problematic by the fact that journalists outside of the US have access to the same set of documents and don't have the same degree of concern over exposing US national security interests.

I can't decide whether or not I think this info should have been published. I liked the irony of the NSA deeming it necessary to compromise telecom equipment while simultaneously declaring said equipment unsuitable for use in the US since it may have back doors. On the other hand, this does seem like an expected function of the NSA best left implicit instead of explicitly exposed.

[1][http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/2139b3/snowden_do...](http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/2139b3/snowden_documents_reveal_nsa_breached_servers_of/cg98hcl)

<comment><USER8> Many of us over here in Europe lost a lot of respect for the NYT when it failed to denounce the complete garbageness of the Saddam-WMD connection, which was widely reported on over here.

Personally, I was also disappointed when Cablegate happened. I still own all five newspapers that collaborated in the dissemination and back in the day I read through the reporting of every single one of them.

Only one did not apologize for reporing on the cables (El País). The NYT, on the other hand, was the most apologetic by far.

A free press should report on all the secret shenanigans. Clearly, in the past, most major newspapers in most countries were not free in that sense, as they have refrained from reporting certain things on the intelligence agencies of their home countries.

This includes the Western World. In my home country, Germany, we recently were made aware of the fact that the West German intelligence agencies had opened and read all correspondence between citizens of East and West. Best detail: If they couldn't re-seal the letter in such a manner that you wouldn't know it had been read, they would just throw it away!

Somehow, this was kept a secret for decades, even though a massive amount of people were involved. So much for free press.

I guess the Americans have to decide. Do you want to be West Germany? Or do you want to be the United States of fucking America?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The book, apparently soon going to be published in Germany, from which Der Spiegel and the NYT took the Huawei story for their last articles:

[http://www.amazon.de/Der-NSA-Komplex-Edward-Snowden- Überwach...](http://www.amazon.de/Der-NSA-Komplex-Edward-Snowden- Überwachung/dp/3421046581)

The article by Der Spiegel:

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-spied-on- chine...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-spied-on-chinese- government-and-networking-firm-huawei-a-960199.html)

The information is already internationally known no matter what the NYT decides to cover. The NYT was only able to decide if they are going to be the first to report it or to leave it to some other (U.S.?) media.

Can anybody really imagine supporting U.S. doing censorship like this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_19...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989#Censorship_in_China)

</comment><comment><USER10> > these journalists argue that these revelations are unjustified, even > treasonous, because this is the type of spying the NSA should be doing

No, the NSA should NOT be doing this. It's not done to prevent any attacks on the US, it's simply economic espionage. It's economic warfare. It doesn't belong in any "democratic" country.

<comment><USER11> The NYTimes article provides some valuable context. This isn't economic espionage in the sense that the NSA wants Cisco to have Huawei's plans and technology in order for Cisco to compete better. The US government has concerns about how independent Huawei is of the Chinese government and the PLA. They want to know whether China is able to use Huawei's networking equipment to spy on other countries or conduct cyberwarfare. They want to use information from Huawei to assess China's larger plans. They want to be able to target Huawei's customers, many of which are not friendly to the US (specifically cited: Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kenya, Cuba). All of these seem like fairly legitimate intelligence goals.

[[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/world/asia/nsa-breached- ch...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/world/asia/nsa-breached-chinese- servers-seen-as-spy-peril.html?hp)]

One of the frustrations I have with the Snowden leaks is that we see some of the process of intelligence gathering but we don't see the results. We don't see what the intelligence community found out about the relationship between Huawei and the PLA, for instance. It's difficult to assess tactics without knowing their effectiveness at answering broader questions. It's also concerning that because of these leaks, the US government may not be able to answer these questions. Understanding the Chinese military's capabilities and goals (not to mention understanding what's going on in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan) is a strategic necessity.

<comment><USER12> > They want to know whether China is able to use Huawei's networking equipment > to spy on other countries or conduct cyberwarfare.

The answer is yes, they are able to. If we got into Huawei, the Chinese government could too (if they wanted to).

I really dislike the "we have to spy on them because they might spy on us" argument. Especially when we point fingers at how everyone else is doing wrong and then come back and while forgetting when we have committed the same wrongs and while we are still committing those wrongs.

We give billions of dollars in aid to Israel, who refuses to stop expanding their settlements into Palestinian territory. We condemn Russia for reclaiming land that was theirs not so long ago, land that has more Russians than Ukrainians living there.

The hypocrisy is starting to drive me insane.

<comment><USER13> The Chinese hacking narrative seemed to stop entirely once the leaks started. The US were victims and China were villains. Suddenly...silence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I found these parts interesting:

> _Now, obviously, anyone is free to agree or disagree with Snowden's > framework for how these materials be handled and reported. I personally > think the process of government consultation is often used to suppress > newsworthy information, though for the NSA stories I've worked on, > government arguments to suppress information have been rejected in at least > 99% of the cases; I also think non-traditional outlets such as WikiLeaks > have done a superior job in many cases with reporting classified documents > than government-loyal traditional outlets._

Ok, so mention how people can disagree with Snowdens framework, mention suppression of information through traditional media outlets (NYT, Guardian, etc), mention the superior job non-traditional outlets have had when it comes to classified documents with WL as the example, and some how trying to put Firstlook on the same pedestal indirectly if we ignore or are ignorant of the conception of the two identities/orgs? Amusing.

> _But what you shouldn't feel free to do is ignore that this is the framework > on which Snowden insisted. You shouldn't demand that journalists violate > their agreements with him (by publishing all the documents) unless you are > willing to admit that this is what you're advocating. And you definitely > shouldn't pretend that it's Snowden, rather than these media outlets, who > are making the choices about what gets published in order to demonize him > for the latest disclosures you dislike while cowardly refusing to criticize > the media outlets that actually made the choice to publish them._

Because amongst this "public service" that is to determine what is "public interest", there remains the profiteering of the "leaks" (that have been mentioned to the public by Binney, Drake and many others in the past to some degree), kind of makes this moral argument to the sanctity of an agreement between multiple parties (founded on treasonous grounds if you would ask the Five Eyes) pretty laughable.

</comment><comment><USER15> If I were to export a single chip to Iran, I would be a legitimate target of NSA. When Huawei sold network monitoring equipment to Iran -- knowing full well that equipment is used to target and kill people, and in contravention of US export laws -- they made themselves legitimate targets of the NSA.

<comment><USER16> Lets say you're exporting a single chip to the US. You know full well that your chip will end up in a drone. That drone then obliterates an innocent child in some godforsaken backwater in Africa or somewhere. Does that legitimize their making a target of you?

<comment><USER15> If exporting chips to the US were against Chinese laws, yes, of course.

<comment><USER17> Your argument makes sense. However, let us take into account the fact that there are all kinds of laws passed[0] that frankly shouldn't.

[0]Under the disguise of national security concerns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You know guys, to be fair... with all these stories coming about Snowden revelations, it's not very clear how this information is obtained or revealed. Until now I had been actually wondering why the stuff is coming out piecemeal. If I, a person who is interested in this kind of stuff and reads HN quite a bit, could have missed the mechanism of how NSA stories are reported -- for months, mind you -- then so can other more vocal people. Including journalists.

In short ... this info should be more widely disseminated.

<comment><USER18> _with all these stories coming about Snowden revelations, it 's not very clear how this information is obtained or revealed_

It's been written about quite a bit. Unless you want it mentioned in every single article that reveals another document, it's pretty well out there. I don't even think this is the first time Greenwald has written a clarification article about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Greenwald quotes Goldsmith in saying that this information was received from sources "other than Snowden", while the articles that both cite (the NYT and der Spiegel) state expressly that the information did come from Mr. Snowden's releases.

I'm not sure what to make of the argument that by releasing the trove of documents to journalists (instead of, say, as a big torrent) Snowden is absolved of complicity in any releases of information. That almost sounds like doublespeak. It also suggests that he either didn't know what he was releasing or didn't understand all of its ramifications. Both could be permissible (and, indeed, given the things that we have learned from the releases, is probably laudable from at least a utilitarian perspective), but it complicates the idea of Snowden as a brave truth-teller. Then again, that whole thought is filtered through the lens of this particular piece, in which Greenwald seems to be trying to separate a part of the leaks and recontextualize it separate from the other, definitely necessary stories.

<comment><USER9> Daniel Ellsberg also released a trove of the material about Vietnam: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg)

"In 1967, he contributed to a top-secret study of classified documents regarding the conduct of the Vietnam War that had been commissioned by Defense Secretary McNamara.[7] These documents, completed in 1968, later became known collectively as the Pentagon Papers. It was _because Ellsberg held an extremely high-level security clearance and desired to create a further synthesis from this research effort that he was one of very few individuals who had access to the complete set of documents._ "

Do you also question he being a brave truth-teller? Ellsberg has no doubts about Snowden:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1vahsi/i_am_pentagon_p...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1vahsi/i_am_pentagon_papers_leaker_daniel_ellsberg)

"I am Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. Edward Snowden is my hero. (...) I believe that _Edward Snowden has done more to support and defend the Constitution—in particular, the First and Fourth Amendments—than any member of Congress or any other employee or official of the Executive branch, up to the president_ : every one of whom took that same oath, which many of them have violated."

The oath of the president is:

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

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, _preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States._ "

<comment><USER19> Largely, yes, I believe he's done some great work bringing to light constitutional abuses. I am glad Mr. Ellsberg believes him to be his hero. I believe he is a flawed hero, though I also believe that all humans have their own flaws.

However, this is somewhat tangential to my post. Whether you want to call him a criminal, a miscreant, a hero, or even a minor deity on account of his actions, you cannot do so while simultaneously claiming that the information the public receives from these leaks is, morally speaking, completely removed from Mr. Snowden because he handed it off to media outlets. That's what Mr. Greenwald is arguing, and it's confounding.

Finally, Greenwald's post was literally written to respond to the claim that the info released about the NSA compromising Huawei has little to nothing to do with the upholding the Constitution. If that's what the leaks are about (which you seem to be suggesting), this is the wrong place to use that as a basis for calling the leaker a hero.

<comment><USER9> Ellsberg also leaked a lot of material to the press. The press then decided what to publish. Snowden did the same. Do you believe Snowden had to leak only a few pages? It simply wouldn't work. It is doubtful if even the attention the topic received up to now is going to result in any change to the politics. If the political conditions present now remain even after the future articles covering Snowden's material then Snowden still leaked too little and not too much and the press failed to make the change using what he leaked. The world is still in the middle of the attempt to induce a change, we certainly can't consider it done, even if the particular agencies would prefer that.

<comment><USER19> Let me make this explicit: I am not trying to address whether Snowden is lawful, chaotic, good, bad, or neutral. That is left as an excercise to the reader, though I guess I've proposed some of my ideas above, since that's apparently what you think I want to talk about.

I am talking of Greenwald's argument. His argument, again, is as follows: once Snowden handed off the documents, he was absolved of moral responsibility in the matter because he gave the authority to release information to [a list of publications apparently excluding the NYT, but not in such a way as to prevent the NYT from collaborating with the institutions]. This argument seems willfully off-base, because without his participation - or, actually, his instigation - the journalists wouldn't have papers to release at all. He is obviously, then, the prime mover, and so trying to pretend that he doesn't exist as a moral agent is an exercise in willful ignorance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> We need less journalism more information. We need less journalists more Snowdens.

<comment><USER21> As the article describes Snowden's decision to leak to journalists rather than directly to the public, this isn't a coherent argument. If we had "more Snowdens" we'd potentially need more journalists to cover the leaks.

Even if you had said "more Mannings" instead, how many people would have heard about anything she leaked without journalists?

<comment><USER20> The reason we haven't heard most of it is journalists. Snowden should have just posted it all to 4chan.</comment></comment></comment>


The Ning Content Store: Ning's highly scalable, object-oriented storage system - <AUTHOR> http://developer.ning.com/wiki/The_Ning_Content_Store:_A_Primer

<comment><USER2> Why do people hate SQL so much?</comment>


Comcast internet speed improved with non-Comcast hardware - <AUTHOR> http://www.jeffreymartens.com/blog/2017/4/is-comcast-intentionally-ripping-you-off <comment><USER2> Comcast ripped me off much more than that. My HOA signed a (incredible bad) deal with Comcast to provide basic channels (the ones nobody wants) for $35/unit* * for 3 years. Then, Comcast's rep allegedly* forged the contract to last 8 years instead of 3.

The stupid manager lost the emails, Comcast insisted on the (allegedly* forged) 8-year contract and so the HOA paid it until the manager found the original signed contract (years later) and compared it to the forged version. Then Comcast still pressured the board on the 8-year until we hired a lawyer.

I estimate that this alleged* fraud was worth $378,000.

* It was never proven in court but the evidence is pretty strong. The forged pages have inconsistent numbering, scanner marks, wording, and date format.

* * It was actually a rate that increases over years. $35 was last year's rate.

I'm not under any NDA so I'm exposing it but making sure all my details and wording are correct so I don't get sued. Please forgive the edits.

<comment><USER3> Another reason to never live somewhere with an HOA.

<comment><USER2> As an HOA board member, I approve of this comment.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. I became HOA president of my loft building as a defensive measure.

<comment><USER5> Great move!

I wish more of us would run for government office as a defensive measure!

<comment><USER6> Look no further than POTUS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is interesting. I had the same experience in Mountain View - paid for 100mbps+ service, and only got 30 - and even that was haphazard.

I went through a series of support requests. I eventually complained to the FCC and cancelled service. Once I involved the FCC, I had a rep call me, say they absolutely understood why I would cancel given my experience and wish me well. They provided me a partial refund for service levels that they never provided me with, and for days which I received no service.

I'm on Sonic now and I've been happy with them. The few times I've had problems they have been very responsive, and you definitely get the sense that their techs know what they are doing. They scoffed at the idea that they would ever sell their customer's data after the recent bill passed, and pointed out that although they resell AT&T service, their contract prevents AT&T from selling it either. It's the only ISP that has made a statement about their intentions publicly. I get a lower service level than what comcast promised, but I actually get that speed, and sometimes burst higher than promised.

<comment><USER8> Thats where competition benefits the consumer, its unfortunate that for large areas of the US, there isn't any competition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Pretty poor coverage" sounds like the author was relying on Wi-Fi for connectivity. I wouldn't trust an ISP-provided combo modem/router to do anything more than the bare minimum when it comes to wireless, most likely a single chain 2.4 GHz network (and 5 GHz if you're lucky). Replacing it with Google Wifi which is a Wave2 802.11ac 5 GHz device with Beamforming will make a world of difference.

Intentionally supplying old hardware that can't reach high speeds (eg a DOCSIS 2 modem) is actually bad for them as it wastes frequency.

<comment><USER10> In many apartment buildings the 2.4 Ghz spectrum is just too crowded. Just using a cheap 5Ghz 11n without breamforming would likely solve the problem. I've got at least 40 bss's on 2.4 and I'm the only one on 5Ghz. It's crazy.

I'd say Comcast should use 5Ghz but then that spectrum will get crowded too.

<comment><USER11> All devices going forward (especially isp routers) _should_ use only 5ghz.

Consumers should have to spend extra on 2.4 AP gear to support legacy client devices. 5ghz has reduced propagation and there are so many more channels available that it is actually optimal to use in dense evvironments. Mesh wifi is pretty much a requirement for a lot of users to keep the same coverage with multiple rooms compared with their existing 2.4 ghz network.

<comment><USER12> 5GHz isn't a panacea, at least in my experience. It doesn't penetrate walls well enough to reach to the edges of my (quite small) apartment, so my laptops and other devices drop down to an acceptable rate on 2.4GHz.

In addition, I think Sonos still sells devices without 5GHz radios (and probably plenty of other companies).

<comment><USER10> Maybe you have thicker walls, but 5Ghz should really be able to work in a small apartment.

Lack of support is a huge problem though. Tons of devices are sold without 5Ghz support.

<comment><USER12> I live in NYC with old, thick walls (and a lot of interference, even on 5GHz). Even though my apartment is small, there are 3-4 walls separating where my AP is (at one end) and the other end of my apartment (the bedroom).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used my own modem from the start with Comcast (bought specifically for their service), but after about 6 months I was having problems with the modem being disconnected multiple times per day, and sometimes unable to reconnect for hours at a time.

Comcast support insisted that my modem was unsupported, despite it being present on their supported modems list. After about 3 calls I gave up and started researching on my own, and eventually discovered that some of the incoming signal strengths were way off what they should be. Crossed my fingers and checked the box outside the house, and yup, Comcast had wired it up with a single cheap 6 way splitter. Replaced it with a quality 2 way splitter, and now I can at least get decent service for the absurd price I pay.

<comment><USER14> Ran into a similar problem with my modem -- the website clearly said it was supported, but three different phone service reps said it wasn't. I went out, spent $100 on a new surfboard modem, didn't help. When they finally sent a tech out, he said my original modem was fine.

<comment><USER15> This is a part of their sales playbook. Even if you have a top of the line modem that just came out and is on their support list, they will tell you its either unsupported or about to become unsupported and push you to rent garbage from them instead.

You can never trust anything a phone/chat rep tells you because they're aggressively pushed by management to integrate sales into support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Don't use Speedtest.net. The major providers all prioritize their traffic and it gives unrealistic results.

I built a graphical console-based speed tester (client+server) that you can run yourself to get a more accurate picture and test between your home and servers you actually use:

[https://github.com/chrissnell/sparkyfish](https://github.com/chrissnell/sparkyfish)

<comment><USER17> Netflix's fast.com speedtest uses Netflix's nflxvideo.net CDN servers and HTTPS so it should be a good model for real-world Netflix video usage.

[https://fast.com/](https://fast.com/)

<comment><USER18> Sadly still only providing download speeds, as Netflix (understandably) doesn't care about upload speeds.

<comment><USER19> I like fast.com for friends and family since it's so unambiguous, and then [https://speedof.me/](https://speedof.me/) for anything requiring more detail.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for the recommendation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Comcast supplies any new customer with a D3.0 modem from one of their suppliers (Arris, Cisco (now Technicolor) or Technicolor). Some of these models are known to have horrendous wifi. If you get one of the old models, Please please turn to "BRIDGED" mode and buy a decent dual-band 802.11ac router.

OR

go ahead and purchase one of the retail modems and a seperate. If you want option of upgrading the Firmware and controlling your Router, buy a separate modem and separate Router. A customer CANNOT upgrade any Firmware on the modem or if is a Combo device. If one of the Favourite vendor has a bug with Portforwarding or something, your modem is pretty much paperweight unless Vendor is willing to fix it quickly and Comcast can push the FW to you quickly. All this can easily take 3+ months for Urgent bugs.

If you are buying new modems and are on service tier > 100 Mbps, Please buy 16x4 Bonding Modems as minimum

If you are on extreme 250 or 300 Mbps package, Please buy atleast 24x8 or 32x8 modem. 32x8 modems based off INTEL puma6 had a critical latency bug but I have heard it is fixed in the field now.

If you are on Gigabit, you kind of stuck with Comcast modem for now until they let people active DOCSIS 3.1 modems. They can activate for other tiers but NOT gigabit.

edit: grammar

</comment><comment><USER21> The best thing anyone can do is swap out the junky cable modem + WiFi router combos they rent to you. They're horrible under standard usage, bad when lots of clients are connected, bad wifi range, low memory, require frequent reboots, etc.

For about $70 (about 5mos of rental charges) you can get a Surfboard barebones Docsis 3 modem that will vastly outperform whatever junk they rent out.

After that you could get a TP-Link Archer C7 for sub $80 that will have good range and performance for that price point.

So within about the first year you've broken even with vastly superior components and you'll be able to take them with you to any cable provider you wind up using in the future.

I get why most people don't do this, they don't even know it's possible, but I'm amazed when colleagues in the industry are still running the company hardware.

<comment><USER22> This is a thing I would kind of want to do, but I've never bothered to figure out how. Like how will I know if it's a compatible modem, or better than what's there? How do you configure it?

So those are my reasons.

<comment><USER21> The beauty is that (as far as my experience for the last ten years with Comcast for home and business in Seattle and Portland) I've never once had to do any configuration other than plugging it in while on the phone with support and reading off the various IDs.

The only thing I've ever needed was the serial numbers and such that are printed on the bottom of my modem.

Pro tip, the chat is much faster, tether to your phone for internet and do it via their web chat.

<comment><USER23> I replaced my router a few weeks ago (lightning!) on Comcast and the configuration was completely automatic. Maybe I had to enter my comcast id and password, but I didn't have to call anyone and it was done in just a few minutes. This was in Knoxville, TN.

<comment><USER21> I've been back on FiOS since we moved back to PDX last summer, so my last cable modem switcharoo was about 5 years ago in Seattle. It's likely they could've made it easier.

To that end, I've done the modem switch probably a dozen times for myself, family, or friends and I've never encountered any resistance from Comcast during the process. Though they did fat finger a MAC address or serial number one time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is definitely not a reliable test. You're doing a speed test, over WiFi on an iPhone 6s. There are so many factors that could contribute to slower speeds including frequency, interference, range, and devices connected (If they went from 802.11n AES+TKIP it can be bottlenecked to 54Mbps.) Also if they're on 802.11b/g/n compatibility mode and a 802.11g device is connected it can also bottleneck the device. I'm sure there are issues with Comcast but this blog post identifies none.

<comment><USER25> This is not a widespread, comprehensive test but that doesn't mean it's not a reliable test of the limited situation described in the post.

The major different I have with your comment isn't the technical aspects but the fact that the average user isn't – and arguably shouldn't be – aware of any of those details. If everyone can get significant speed improvements simply by swapping out the access point because the defaults on the ISP- managed equipment aren't appropriate for normal usage, that's a big deal — especially since they charge $150 + $10/month for that service, which would more than cover some basic config management.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is it possible your wireless channel was overused? Most of my neighbors have comcast, as do we. I've had poor coverage and connection also, couldnt even get our wireless printer to work anymore. I used a program called WifiInfoView and viewed how many nearby wireless networks there were, their signal strengths, and set my router to a channel that wasn't being used.

Cleared up all of our problems instantly. I would check this, perhaps his google modem was preset to another channel.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is likely just the difference between a DOCSIS 2 vs DOCSIS 3 modem.

Regardless of which modem you use, Comcast pushes its own firmware patches that likely have rate limiting built in.

</comment><comment><USER28> On the subject of class actions: it's most likely impossible.

In their terms of service they will undoubtedly state that you agree to go to arbitration rather than court, and they have you explicitly waive your right to a class action.

Also the terms of service makes it very clear that the speeds they quote on their ads are essentially entirely theoretical.

<comment><USER29> > they have you explicitly waive your right to a class action

Almost certainly not going to be upheld by a court if there is evidence of fraud.

> Also the terms of service makes it very clear that the speeds they quote on > their ads are essentially entirely theoretical.

Completely irrelevant if you can prove that they purposefully implemented a scheme to throttle your speeds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm with you, my Comcast bill is now $160 a month for internet and TV. However perhaps the old modem was not DOCSIS 3.0 and the new one is? I'm guessing the new modem is just better hardware thus the increased throughput. No grand conspiracy.

Go buy your own DOCSIS 3.0 modem from Amazon and stop paying the monthly rental.

<comment><USER31> I just decided to jump on the cord cutting bandwagon. My bill was ~$180 and I was able to get it down to $97 for the "best Internet". My cost for PlayStation Vue is $29.99 plus $15 for HBO. It streams to the PS4 and Amazon Fire TV. I am very happy with the change simply because I am not giving Comcast more money than I have to.

<comment><USER30> I need sports though, that's the problem.

<comment><USER32> You can opt for the league-provided services, or if you look on the internet you'll quickly find services that are better than the officially-provided ones themselves.

<comment><USER33> In my experience the league sources usually black out local teams, which makes them useless for fans of local teams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's almost hilarious how cheap and bad the Xfinity modem/router combo is. Any kind of configuration via the web interface is a dice roll on whether or not the settings actually take. If you're lucky, your configuration changes get applied, but don't expect them to be displayed.

I guess whatever little money it cost to build went into the annoyingly bright white LEDs on the front of the case.

</comment><comment><USER35> Not really sure what the author is trying to achieve with this one - first off appears to be comparing wifi speeds which we all know is a fairly poor way to test a connection.

Second of all the speedtests shown are 3 months apart...

</comment><comment><USER36> Switching to 5 GHz instead of 2.4 GHz has made this magnitude of difference for me in the past.

Today, at home, I haven't had dedicated internet connectivity for 4 years. I log in to the xfinitywifi SSID that some of my neighbors in my apartment complex are probably broadcasting via my parents' comcast account and get good speeds. I'm on it right now and speedtest.net shows 30 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up. Plenty enough for my purposes, including Netflix.

I switch to tethering on my AT&T device if needed for 15-25 GB 4G data each month; the "unlimited" plans offered by carriers today don't provide more than 10 GB of high speed data in contrast. Not sure how much longer this setup will work, but I plan on continuing it for as long as I can; the cost savings really add up.

A side-effect of this that I've noticed is increased operational awareness on my part. Comcast MITMs any unencrypted HTTP traffic and injects in a "powered by xfinitywifi" banner that is a great reminder to not trust the network. :)

<comment><USER37> Yes, this "xfinitywifi" public hotspot is enabled by default on many (all?) leased Comcast router-modems. Seems like many people in my complex are unaware or leave it open. I turn mine off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> You can find the best channel to use using one of these techniques: [https://www.howtogeek.com/197268/how-to-find-the-best-wi- fi-...](https://www.howtogeek.com/197268/how-to-find-the-best-wi-fi-channel- for-your-router-on-any-operating-system/)

Although, that article says you need a jailbroken iPhone to find the best wifi, it is possible to identify high traffic networks with your iPhone using the Airport Utility - [https://forum.music-group.com/showthread.php?6603-TIP- Choosi...](https://forum.music-group.com/showthread.php?6603-TIP-Choosing-the- best-WiFi-channel-using-iPad)

</comment><comment><USER39> I was in CA for a summer. My girlfriend at the time lives in SF. She was using AT&T until she had enough of the DSL performance, so I helped her switch to Comcast. Comcast would even charge us for WiFi, but we were able to keep the Wifi off the modem. Luckily we had a nice rep from Portland to work with us. The price has only gone up since signing up with Comcast, and service hasn't been good.

I live in NYC so TWC (now Spectrum) is a choice in my area. The service has been pretty good since their first major service line upgrade (probably around 2013, 2014). I get to speak with a customer representative and get a discount promo price every 12 months (very known trick for ISP, just call and tell them you wanted to cancel your ISP account, they will likely offer you a promo price). TWC even have a mobile app which I can use to check service status and even chat with the representative directly from the mobile chat! The app itself is slow kind of a crappy version, but hey, it's amazing.

When I moved to my new home, I bought motorola sb6141 modem instead of the stock version. I can tell you that the speed is consistent and noise level is low compared to my old modem. I understand environment (where I live) may matter, but I am happy with my own equipment.

TWC let me keep the factory modem in case I needed a replacement which is a nice touch. I have more faith in TWC than in Comcast. Just another customer rant.

</comment><comment><USER40> Replaced my Motorola/Arris SB6121 with a Zoom cable modem, going from 4 channels down to 16.

A month later, I saw that Comcast was billing me $10/month for not returning "their" modem. Called and raised a little hell because I've never rented a modem from them in 20 years of service. Got some minor credits for the next 3 months.

Got the Zoom because I figured it would deliver more consistent bandwidth when the family is doing lots of Netflix at the same time. No real problems with the SB6121.

</comment><comment><USER41> Another way to get the advertised speeds is to regularly call and complain. From my experience, they'll dial your speed up, just to stop you from calling in all the time.

<comment><USER31> You also need to keep in mind if you bought your own modem that you may need to upgrade the firmware (or worse case, a new modem) to get advertised speeds. This generally is advertised as 8x4 channels or better. My old surfboard tops out at 150Mbps.

<comment><USER42> You as the end user can't 'upgrade the firmware' in cable modems, it's all sent from the CMTS.

It's how they enforce "supported modems" \- no firmware for your modem, you can't use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I've had a similar experience with Comcast in the past. The biggest problem with using my own Modem is pretty much every time I call support, they blame it on my Modem. This includes the time when the cable wire outside the building was disconnected by one of their Techs who was working on the neighbor's connection.

Class actions against Comcast should be a dime a dozen.

</comment><comment><USER44> We had a Comcast SMC-D3G on Comcast Business. It's garbage. Once we pushed too many connections through it, it would crash and packet loss would skyrocket requiring a manual restart (unplug/replug). This is because it's also a very poor router that can't be changed to bridge-only. There's still plenty of these pieces of crap in the wild, and they also can't properly route ipv6.

If you're a business class customer that needs static ip's, you're stuck with Comcast hardware. Fortunately all my locations now can get away with dynamic ip's so we run our SB6121's (deprecated, but fine for 50/10 or 75/15 tiers).

The final bullshitty thing that's started in the past year is $100 per on-site visit if they can't prove the issue was caused by their network. I used careful wording there because if this is a peering/intermittent issue they'll come out next day just to pocket that charge and blame you.

</comment><comment><USER45> Why not call for a technician? I mean if you're using their equipment and all, at least give them the chance to fix it.

<comment><USER46> They'll bill you more for an hour of a technician's time than the cost to just buy a new modem/router.

<comment><USER45> Not if it is their fault/equipment.

<comment><USER47> >Not if it is their fault/equipment.

That depends entirely on the technician you get. At least for Cox, it's up to the technician to determine if the customer foots the bill or not and while you might get a competent technician who will happily redo all of the outside wiring while he's there for free you might also get a technician from some third party contractor who doesn't even have the equipment to test anything and is just relying on the customer's modem for troubleshooting.

Just because it's their fault doesn't mean that they'll admit it or even fix it.

<comment><USER25> … and even if the technician does the right thing, there's no guarantee that the charge won't mysteriously show up on your bill next month unless you live in a city/state with very consumer-oriented regulators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This person seems very confused as to how to verify the truth of something before calling for media attention.

</comment><comment><USER49> I know Verizon at least is preparing for the day where each family member is watching their own 4K TV stream: 15.6 Mbps is required per stream for Netflix. It would be interesting how their "quantum gateway" performs, this one:

[https://www.verizon.com/home/accessories/fios-quantum- gatewa...](https://www.verizon.com/home/accessories/fios-quantum-gateway/)

Fios is great, but they were focused on the 4G LTE network for home internet instead of further fios rollout. Here is the router for this:

[https://www.verizonwireless.com/home-office- solutions/verizo...](https://www.verizonwireless.com/home-office- solutions/verizon-lte-internet-and-home-phone/)

</comment><comment><USER50> Never rely on your ISP to provide great wifi equipment. This is not something specific to Comcast. Generally, it seems residential ISPs are only on the hook for providing quoted speeds via a wired connection to their gateway.

This is why I always either disable the wifi from my ISP's modem/router combo and branch off my own wifi router from the modem's LAN or request a modem only device from the ISP and use my wifi router's LAN. The downside to the former case is that your wifi devices are now double NATed (unless you use a wireless bridge) which can be annoying if you want to forward ports (you now have to do it twice). The modem/router combo might not support disabling its LAN to act as a bridge very well.

</comment><comment><USER51> That seems to be common practice, also in Europe, across providers. And a single look at the GPL source code for your cable modem usually offers the reason (ancient kernels, slow CPUs, more security nightmares than you ever wanted to see)... replace your provider-supplied modem by an AVM FritzBox Cable and boom, gone are the wifi and cable speed problems.

Not to mention that AVM has quite a good track record when it comes to security fixes... way better than every other SOHO router vendor I have encountered.

Downside: newer FritzBoxes are way less open than they used to be (no Telnet, no selfbuilt firmware support), and they can't do VLAN.

(Not employed or business related with AVM, just an extremely happy customer)

</comment><comment><USER52> You pay for service, and the equipment is optional - the rental fee can be waived and you can provide your own equipment. The fact that your equipment works better is not a violation of their contract, unless they specifically said you would get 120Mbps with their equipment. Which they would never say, because there is no guarantee _your computer_ can even handle that speed, and it's always been known that cable speeds vary per neighborhood and household.

So, no, there's probably not a class action case. Just stop renting crap equipment and buy a DOCSIS 3.0 modem and a router that does at least 150mbps.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'll counter Jeffrey Martens' anecdotal evidence with my own. I've had Comcast in my last 3 residences, leasing equipment provided by Comcast. In each case, performance was as advertised.

</comment><comment><USER54> I signed up for Comcast basic cable a few years ago because I was hosting a Superbowl party. I signed up in person at an xfinity store because I didn't want to wait around for shipping. Right after I told the dude at the desk I had a brand new HD TV that I was eager to watch the Superbowl on, he tried to send me home with a cable box that only had one output: (standard definition, analog) coax. I don't even know why they would still offer such a thing, but I had to fight with them to get a box that output HDMI.

<comment><USER55> The Super Bowl is available through antenna.

<comment><USER56> ...in HD!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Honestly it's bad everywhere. I'm lucky enough to have U-verse 1Gb fiber. I get around 95% of the speed, which is awesome. EXCEPT for some awful reason I'm required to use their modem/firewall combo. Even if I forward all IP traffic to my own router I still have to keep the AT&T router in front because it authorizes me on the network.

To make matters worse it exposes a management port for who-knows-why. I'm hoping somebody picks the thing apart and dumps the 802.1X certificate so I can use my own modem.

</comment><comment><USER58> If you are in the UK and using Virgin, the very first thing you should do is buy any router other than their garbage SuperHub 3.0. I was getting a ~50ms ping on LOCAL NETWORK, and weirdly high packet loss over internet, after complaining to virgin they sent me another router, was exactly the same - there's plenty of threads on their forums complaining about the same thing.

Just buy anything other than their own hardware and the connection is brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER59> I did the same thing, swapped out an xfinity provided cable modem for my own. I definitely have better speeds now. My modem supports more channels

</comment><comment><USER60> I get 120 Mbps down on a 75 Mbps Xfinity plan. I think.

My bill says I have "Performance Pro Internet", which appears to be specced for 75 Mbps download.

I'm using an Arris (née Motorola) SB6183 modem. fast.com and speedtest.net both report that I'm getting 120 Mbps down.

(I'm pretty sure that I signed up for 75 Mbps down, but Xfinity makes it really hard to figure out what service you're using.)

</comment><comment><USER61> Comcast's business practices aren't great, but I will give them credit. I get every Mbps that they claim I am supposed to get. This is plugged into my router (Turris Omnia) and my cable modem (self-owned Arris SB6190).

[http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/13090043](http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/13090043)

<comment><USER62> Of course, there's always the suspicion that ISPs, including Comcast, give priority to the various speed-test sites...

[http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28685577-Speed-comcast- spee...](http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28685577-Speed-comcast-speed-test- lies)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I can confirm this on my end as well. Switching out Comcast equipment for my item router and modem has effectively doubled my speeds.

</comment><comment><USER64> Umm, they ship a crappy radio in their wifi device. They know this, the technician "installing" it even told me not to use it.

I had nearly the exact same results after disabling wifi and patching in an Apple Airport Express that I could connect to using 5GHz spectrum.. Speeds jumped from 25Mbps down to ~95Mbps down and latency dropped from 20ms to 9ms.

</comment><comment><USER65> I wonder how much of that has to do with their providing "xfinity" wifi to anyone nearby who wants to share your cable line?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfinity#Xfinity_WiFi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfinity#Xfinity_WiFi)

<comment><USER66> I have a limited setback on my house and I swear when I replaced their combo router I stopped having people (late at night eating burgers and listening to loud music while browsing) randomly parked in front of my house (presumably they got signal on the street).

I'll never go back to that configuration again so it's not like I can retest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> She probably had an old DOCSIS 1 modem from a few years ago. You could only get 30MBPS with that. They usually tell you that on the phone when you try to upgrade, but they've been giving free upgrades without you asking in SF. I had to buy a DOCSIS 3.0 modem to get the best speeds.

</comment><comment><USER68> I complained about my speeds and they upgraded my router to a newer one. I find it pretty unacceptable that when I'm renting equipment from them, they don't provide me the equipment that is the speed of the pipe I pay for unless I complain...

</comment><comment><USER69> At a guess this is a result of Comcast using the absolute, most mindbogglingly cheap hardware on the planet Earth. Second to that I would guess some kind of incompetence, and only after that would I seriously entertain what amounts to theft.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are probably right about cheap equipment and incompetence, but isn't it still fraud if they sell you something that they knowingly can't offer?

If I rent a car and pay extra for a 4WD, but the 4WD doesn't work, I want my money back. Is this different?

<comment><USER70> It's the same. You can sue for breach of implied warranty. They may try to get out of it by saying 'speeds up to'. But if the device can't do that then yes you'd have a good argument.

<comment><USER69> Well, that's not quite the same as fraud, which is a much higher bar to prove. I absolutely wasn't disputing that if you're not getting the advertised service, you should seek recourse, I was just disputing "fraud". It's the difference between being sold a lemon car, and being sold a car that someone turned the odometer back on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> The great, vast majority of Comcast users are ignorant and get fleeced constantly (I firmly do believe the great majority are old people with their primary bandwidth "hogs" being an SD-broadcast Netflix TV show, 3 iOS apps / year, and a bank website login), so this practice of under-delivery visible to the consumer will probably never really stop (they're cash cows) until we get the FCC involved across the board showing it's a corporate policy to not deliver an advertised service. Unfortunately, they probably get around this too by putting so many disclaimers and exceptions in ads based around wi-fi inconsistencies and system loads that it makes any lawsuit about service levels impossible to prosecute successfully.

<comment><USER45> I'm not old or ignorant but I am a Comcast customer. Have to be because they're the only game in town.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Before switching modems, try to turn off QoS, its a setting that optimizes for voice and real-time communication... some how optimize for RTC means everything else is slowed down.

</comment><comment><USER73> This happened to my friend too. He was arguing for a new modem. They said no there was no problem. So he replaced it with a non-comcast modem and poof max speed.

</comment><comment><USER74> > "What do you say, do we have a nice class-action on our hands?"

No.

</comment><comment><USER75> Honestly I'd be shocked if comcast isn't ripping everyone off in mulltiple ways. I hate that company.

</comment><comment><USER76> Yes.

</comment><comment><USER77> Yes.</comment>


Ask HN: how should one act differently in the face of a potential bubble? - <AUTHOR>

Who knows if there is a bubble or not? We can only make guesses.
What we can do is prepare for the worst, and not be caught with our pants down.
So how should we behave and act differently in order to be decently prepared if we indeed are in a bubble that's getting ready to pop? <comment><USER2> Save your money. Build your skills. Network, network, network,</comment>


Legible Mathematics: Sketches of interactive arithmetic for programming (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://glench.com/LegibleMathematics/ <comment><USER2> I always enjoy seeing new attempts at visualizing and explaining function composition. Here's something I played around with a few years ago that tried to visualize function composition: [https://taliesin.ai/posts/function- trees/](https://taliesin.ai/posts/function-trees/)

</comment><comment><USER3> So the only take-away I get is that the author does not like to use brackets and really likes writing fractions.

Unfortunately, this does work very badly for long fractions, iterated fractions or, well, anything more complicated than toy examples.

This pops up from time to time with latex and how a/b should give you a fraction instead of having to write \frac{a}{b}. Problem is, this makes one easy case marginally shorter, but something like \frac{a+b}{c+\frac{d}{3}} much harder.

<comment><USER4> {a+b}/{c+d/3}

Still looks much better

<comment><USER3> Hm, reading that it is not immediately obvious whether you mean (c+d)/3 or c + (d)/3\. At that point I think it should be straightforward to implement {}/{} as syntactic sugar for \frac{}{}.

Mathematics notation is basically completely determined by consensus and people come up with new notation all the time whenever they need it. In particular, in order to convince someone that your notation is better you have to show previously how hard stuff becomes easy and not how easy stuff becomes even easier.

<comment><USER5> TeX already has the primitive of {}\over{} that does what you are saying. It is not typically used.

[https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/73822/what-is-the- di...](https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/73822/what-is-the-difference- between-over-and-frac)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The mathematical notation has developed over centuries to __think about and solve problems on __paper ____. Besides it being taught in schools and hence familiar, I think it's not at all a good tool to use in the significantly different digital medium.

Another reason is that the notation is mostly a tool for __oneself__ to think in, but is fairly bad at communicating (think about the level of expertise required to read a math paper vs reading someone's code).

Here's a concrete difference to support these claims. Using math notation we often write large expressions which include many meaningful subexpressions and complex operations. In code we prefer to use lots of names (variables) and simple expressions.

<comment><USER7> Reading math is hard because math is hard. The notation is incredibly powerful, intuitive and flexible. In all my years hanging around mathematicians I've never heard anyone complain about notation. After all, you are always free to use your own notation if you want, and if others like it they will follow.

<comment><USER8> _> In all my years hanging around mathematicians I've never heard anyone complain about notation._

There's likely to be some survivorship bias at play here.

<comment><USER7> No, since anyone is free to invent and use whatever notation they prefer. That's how mathematical notation has evolved so far. People come up with new notation all the time.

<comment><USER9> "Free" here is a bit abstract. In what way is an undergraduate mathematician free to use their own notation, as opposed to the notation of their lecturer, textbooks, and examination papers? You can think in your own terms, but mathematics has to be taught and communicated with some kind of consensus - and unless you're lucky enough to be the first in the field, that consensus has preceeded you.

<comment><USER7> Mathematics is completely meritocratic. If you invent a notation that is better than some existing notation, people WILL use it, without asking for your credentials.

<comment><USER9> I think that's a naive statement, and it's also not really relevant to the original point being made, which is that existing mathematical notation can be difficult to grok.

Inventing new notation does not help with existing material - and that material is what makes mathematicians. People who can put up with old notation, especially if it is bad, are much more likely to become mathematicians: that gives a survivorship bias.

Besides which, you are welcome to invent your own notation, but good luck trying to get anyone to adopt it, particularly if the mathematical field involved is studied enough. Inertia is very strong, even in very abstract disciplines - aren't physicists still treating current as flowing the wrong direction?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone interested in this stuff who hasn't read it yet should check out Bret Victor's Kill Math series of essays and explorable explanations: [http://worrydream.com/#!/KillMath](http://worrydream.com/#!/KillMath)

</comment><comment><USER11> This dovetails to some degree with thoughts that I've been having about language and expression design.

Associativity and operator precedence are ideas that made sense as a shorthand in written mathematics (and have deep roots in the structure of arithmetic) but don't actually add a lot of value in programming languages, except to put a huge mental burden on developers to unpack the precedence.

My thought is just to remove precedence and associativity entirely -- instead of "a + b + c/2" you have to make it explicit -- "a + (b + (c/2))". The only problem that I see is that there are two ways of writing this, you could also write "(a + b) + (c/2)". In my experience, though, especially in programming (though not always in financial programming), there are almost always semantics associated with those intermediate values which makes one of the two groupings preferable.

Taking numeric constants and adding internal separators makes a lot of sense as well (both before and after the decimal point). Ideally this would be enforced at some arbitrary cultural level, (e.g. using the US-standard groupings of three with comma), and would be required -- "2000" is invalid and "20,00" is invalid (so python3's approach of allowing arbitrary _'s in numbers is not really great, because it doesn't protect against typos). The right-of- the-decimal-point separators are not really common, but it would be nice to take advantage of this to make a sensible arbitrary enforced designation, like using "," to the left and "_" to the right, once again mandatory and required to support groupings of three.

Would probably also be desirable to have a convention for hexadecimal numbers and other supported bases -- in particular binary is not supported by many languages, but is very natural for most programming languages, if we had a way of using delimiters -- 0b0100_0000 is more readable and meaningful than 0x40, but 0b0010_0100_0011_0010_0000_0010_0010 is not so good (quick, how many bytes did I just type?).

<comment><USER12> > My thought is just to remove precedence and associativity entirely -- > instead of "a + b + c/2" you have to make it explicit -- "a + (b + (c/2))". > The only problem that I see is that there are two ways of writing this, you > could also write "(a + b) + (c/2)".

Or how about... (+ a b (/ c 2))

<comment><USER11> I think S-expressions are annoying in that they tend to infect a language. If you're not careful, every function invocation becomes an s-expr, and you're left with the idea that + is no different from any other function, so we could write things like "plus(a, b, divide(c,2))" if we wanted to make a functional notation. And S-exprs don't save us from associativity, here you've made + associative, which is, fine, I guess, but what does (- a b c) mean, or (/ a b c)? This sort of asymmetry is a burden that isn't worth dealing with in my mind.

On thing that I think imperative languages bring to the table is naming intermediate values through assignment, so we can do things like

        base_index = root_index + offset
        midpoint = length / 2
        final_index = base_index + midpoint

It's rarely useful to be so verbose, but it's nice to have the ability.

<comment><USER13> (Assuming I'm understanding correctly,) I'm honestly curious why `+` _should_ be different from any other function. (Also, AFAIK the ability of naming intermediate values is totally separate from imperativeness; see Haskell's `let` form, for example.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> While I can see where the author is coming from, I have a couple of points where I disagree.

1\. I've yet to see any automatically formatting system that's not extremely painful to work with.

2\. Mathematical notation hasn't just been developed over 100s of years it is continuing to do so.

3\. Units aren't labels.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would like a computer system that can do algebraic reductions. This is the only thing that forced me to go back to pen and paper.

This looks like it does substitutions but I didn't see reductions.

<comment><USER16> This sort of thing is called a Computer Algebra System (CAS) and there are good free ones.

[https://www.sagemath.org/](https://www.sagemath.org/)

[http://maxima.sourceforge.net/](http://maxima.sourceforge.net/)

[https://www.sympy.org/en/index.html](https://www.sympy.org/en/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A big downside of that proposal is that everything takes up much more space, which makes it much harder to keep track of what else is going on. In toy problems it is fine, but in real problems having the answer to "did the code already check for i == j" visible at the same is really important. Let alone context such as "is this the reference implementation for single core validation or the vectorized function" or "is the radius at timestep n or n+1/2".

</comment><comment><USER18> This looks a heck of a lot like Desmos without the graph.

([https://desmos.com/calculator](https://desmos.com/calculator))

<comment><USER9> My thought as well - it's jarring at first to get used to, but Desmos' way of typing in equations, where keypresses really act more like operations on the equation than raw text input, gives a natural easy way to write good equations.

At the very least, typing / automatically makes a fraction with separate top and bottom input areas - which means that brackets for numerator and denominator aren't necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If the labels are supposed to indicate units, they should at least indicate the RIGHT units! rent, electric, and internet are dollars/month. Otherwise the 12480 in the example is dollars*months, clearly not the right units.

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks like a follow-up to yesterday's thread here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22399516](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22399516)

</comment><comment><USER21> The post is from 2014. I wonder what progress was made since.

<comment><USER22> Python3 Allows you to put underscores in numbers for legibility:

a = 100_000 b = 1_000_000

<comment><USER23> That started at least with Ada, in 1979 ([https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/403959](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/403959)).

Traditional FORTRAN ignores all spaces, so one can write a million as _1 000 000_ there, C++14 allows apostrophes ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Data_versus_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Data_versus_mask))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> the first example feels deliberately complicated, where gravity constant can be shortened to G_ = 6.67x10^-11, (G_ * M1 * M2 / Rad^2)

</comment><comment><USER25> Observable.js is like this

</comment><comment><USER26> I guess it is useful if you are teaching kindergarteners. For high schoolers we write

          for(i=0;i<N;++i){
              for(j=0;j<N;++j){
                  force = G*mass1[i]*mass2[j]/radius(i,j)^2
                  // do something with the force
              }
          }</comment>


Too many ads on YouTube? - <AUTHOR> Anyone else notice an explosion of ads on YouTube in the past few months? It seems like every video now has an ad at the beginning ,with some videos having those annoying 15 second ads and ands that appear in the middle of the video. Then you have the annoying adsense ads that cover the video like an ugly quilt <comment><USER2> There was a certain point about 6 months ago when I got intensely angry at the intrusive ads, and looked for adblockers. I have found a few that claimed to work to varying degrees, but none of them actually blocked all the ads. About three months ago, it got worse, and the added motivation made me find the appropriately named _Adblock for Youtube™_ [1]. It's a Chrome extension (sorry, other browsers!). It works.

[https://goo.gl/3bQcha](https://goo.gl/3bQcha)

</comment><comment><USER3> Uh, welcome to the internet? Outside the internet you can vote with your money, on the internet you must vote with your time(youtube's product). Stop selling your time to youtube.

<comment><USER4> you can buy youtube red and vote with your money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> No. I try to stay away from it. When I can't I just let my privacy tools and ad blocker block them.</comment>


Show HN: GrantProxy, Chrome extension that turns browser into a magic HTTP proxy - <AUTHOR> https://grantproxy.com/ <comment><USER2> This really is promising. Well done. The biggest problem will be scalability bottleneck</comment>


Tell HN:I will do design work for your startup - <AUTHOR>

Inspired by http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1831960 I would like to help you with your design work and also I can suggest you what you can do to improve your startup and create better user experience. I had a great experience working with hackers and entrepreneurs from HN. For info contact me at: firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> You don't really list your portfolio, which is different from what Sahil did in his post(his profile lists all his projects). He was pretty well known on HN anyways because of his popular Dayta App + Gumroad etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, but my files are not organized on the web so I thought it's not such a great idea to show multiple links and files that are not organized in any way and that's why I wrote "For info contact me at: firstname.lastname@example.com". I would be glad to show you some of my previous work, just send me an email if you are interested. Thank you very much for your feedback

ps I am just trying to give back to the HN community

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> UPDATE - that's all for today

I will now reply to all emails,thank you for patience. Please don't send any new request today

Thank you all for response

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1831960></comment>


UtahFS: Encrypted File Storage - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/utahfs/ <comment><USER2> Love the idea of this. I've tried to use something similar (at least in function), called Cryptomator. However, Cryptomator would always choke on larger files or directories with thousands of items (e.g. my Google Photos gallery). Will be interested to see if this or another solution is what I'm looking for.

<comment><USER3> Boxcryptor is a paid solution, similar to Cryptomator. I think I gave each one a try out on my phone, but ultimately just went back to using plain Google Drive and Google Photos. It fell into the category of "what is the real tangible benefit of this to me actually?" The real cost was added complexity, decreased reliability, a worse photos experience, and possibly another subscription cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For anyone thinking about playing with this, please make sure you note this line:

> Keep in mind that this system is not used in production at Cloudflare: it's > a proof-of-concept that I built

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right. The Research Team does all sorts of stuff. Some of it ends up as open source projects, some of it as production software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find it difficult to set up a good system for encrypted storage.

1\. Cryptomator: it's immature and buggy, especially the 1.5 version. See comments in forum.cryptomator. The files and folders disappear, vaults crash, vaults fail to mount, etc.

Boxcryptor is the paid version and not buggy. But it's not open source.

2\. EncFS. Has security issues that haven't been resolved.

3\. CryFS. Too slow and immature.

4\. Encrypted backup, like rclone or duplicity. These are not sync tools.

5\. eCryptfs: Used for Ubuntu home encryption (even then somewhat outdated), not for cloud.

6\. AWS KMS: server side encryption; amazon has the keys.

7\. Gocryptfs: It's OK. Reasonably fast. Cons: command line only, and for Linux. Uses OpenSSL library which isn't all that secure.

It seems to me gocrytfs is the best among these.

<comment><USER6> What's wrong with LUKS / tomb?

<comment><USER5> It's one big container. A small change means the whole file has to be uploaded again. If you are lucky for Dropbox blocks are synced only.

Also it lacks authentication. The snapshots of the XTS mode are prone to certain attacks.

<comment><USER6> Regarding your first paragraph, that's always going to be a tradeoff that has to be assessed based on threat model and resource budget, since doing it differently will inherently leak sidechannel information, right?

The second one, TIL and good points!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They should use Peergos [1], which satisfies all their requirements. It's built on top of ipfs, encrypts metadata as well as data, and hides file sizes and directory structure too. A directory is indistinguishable from a small file. We can also use S3 compatible object storage, including allowing direct reads and writes from the browser. Disclaimer: I'm the founder.

1\. [https://github.com/peergos/peergos](https://github.com/peergos/peergos)

<comment><USER8> Peergos doesn't hide access patterns as far as I can tell.

<comment><USER9> ORAM is pretty costly for a feature that many people don't actually need. Yes it is log(n) for reads and writes, but the bigger downside is that ORAM by design thrashes any cache you happen to be using. I imagine this would be particularly noticeable for filename resolution with deep directories.

Plus, ORAM provides no protection out of the box for timing based attacks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Awesome job! I prototyped a very similar FS for IBM Research a few years back, but I like your design better! They used it for Hadoop.

Love the crypto fs work you're doing at Cloudflare.

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting name for a file system. Reminds me of this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center)

<comment><USER6> Also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahoe- LAFS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahoe-LAFS)

<comment><USER12> While reading this I kept thinking "Isn't Utah the name of Zooko's FS?" Took me a minute to remember it was Tahoe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There a couple of solutions that are fuse based and dealing with folder based encryption and gocryptfs has a page that compares them here[1].

It will be interesting to see how this project does against its competition.

SiriKali[2] is a front end to a majority of these projects and it works on Linux, MACOS and windows.

[1] [https://nuetzlich.net/gocryptfs/comparison/](https://nuetzlich.net/gocryptfs/comparison/)

[2] [https://mhogomchungu.github.io/sirikali/](https://mhogomchungu.github.io/sirikali/)

</comment><comment><USER14> One way to achieve encrypted remote file storage is to combine Linux's EncFS² with some other type of remote storage protocol such as CIFS. The basic idea is to mount a CIFS volume from a server you don't trust with your unencrypted files, then you mount that directory again with EncFS to get to the unencrypted files.

The main drawbacks are that EncFS will not hide your directory structure and file sizes and also that not all of the EncFS vulnerabilities that were discovered in 2014 have been addressed with an EncFS 2.0 release.

\--

² or one of its similar alternatives of course

<comment><USER5> EncFS 2.0 does not seem to have been released. I don't recommend it due to security problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> mtgx - you are dead.

I haven't looked at native OpenZFS encryption... The method I used for a while was having a Veracrypt volume locally of all my files, and zfs-sending it to a remote location. It is a large file, several gigabytes. However, any updates made locally would get synced remotely at a block level vs. a file level, so the whole encrypted file didn't need synced. Much better than rsync, for example.

I did not read the entire F'in article yet, I just stepped in while a CI/CD pipe was running at work :) BUT! this looks like a pretty accessible article about filesystems.

I also wonder if it is named UtahFS because of the NSA facility near Salt Lake City.

<comment><USER12> I don't know about the crypto design of OpenZFS, but I have been running Ubuntu 20.04 with root pool using OpenZFS crypto since it's release. You have to make a small hack to the installer to do it, but otherwise it seems to be working great.

I documented the installer hack at: [https://linsomniac.gitlab.io/post/2020-04-09-ubuntu-2004-enc...](https://linsomniac.gitlab.io/post/2020-04-09-ubuntu-2004-encrypted- zfs/)

Before that I was running my storage server using LUKS on the raw devices and ZFS on top of that, since 2008, and that worked well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> IPFS already has a storage and data layer as well as integrity and other properties. I wonder if it would be a good backend for this filesystem.

<comment><USER17> You'd have to find someone to permanently pin the data (nobody will be interested in random encrypted databoxes without being paid for it). And at that point you're just loosing performance compared to S3 or WebDAV.

<comment><USER16> Yes you can pay to have someone pin it--there are pinning services--but you can also just replicate it among your own nodes. It would be comparable to Dropbox plus encryption.

Another thought less well explored would be to swap space with friends such that you hold each others pins but you can't read your friends' encrypted blocks. This is kind of the premise behind filecoin, which lets you buy space (ie if you want someone to hold your blocks) and sell space (ie, mining is equal to holding someone's blocks).

<comment><USER17> I would point out that IPFS provides no encryption out of the box, you're just layering this below something that encrypts that could equally well work on Dropbox. Filecoin atleast has a integrated payment structure but modern storage providers are pretty damn cheap (I pay ~10$ for 3TB of data including ingress/egress) When I last checked by filecoin they could only barely compete with AWS storage options (which quickly get very expensive)

<comment><USER18> For clarification: IPFS has transport encryption by default. IPFS does not encrypt content itself for you.

<comment><USER17> Transport encryption isn't something I'd mention when talking about "Encrypted File Storage", I'd assume that to either don't matter or be the default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Will keep an eye on this!

</comment><comment><USER20> Dropbox and Google could easily encrypt the files locally with your own key prior to uploading them to their servers. But of course they won't do that, because then how else will they mine your data?

Also, you probably shouldn't trust them even if they did offer this anyway.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Also (and more charitably), I'm pretty sure at least Dropbox deduplicates files between customers.

<comment><USER21> Which allows them to charge many people for "storage space" that they aren't actually using.</comment></comment></comment>


Who Needs Another Startup Blog? - <AUTHOR> http://thestartupcafe.com/who-needs-another-startup-blog/ <comment><USER2> Do it. Create interesting material and we will read it.

The problem isn't the number of startup blogs, its the number of startup blogs that are started and then languish with no content of value.

Good luck with your blog.

Recommendation: Your h1 tag font renders poorly for me -- <http://i.imgur.com/WEtKP.png>

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll always try our best to deliver content that is valuable and entertaining for our readers. We've put together an editorial calendar that I hope everyone will enjoy! Thanks for pointing out the h1 problem!</comment></comment>


How I tried and failed to quit Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-i-tried-and-failed-to-quit-google/ <comment><USER2> So the author makes a concerted attempt at spinning his enjoyment of using Google services as something negative, but based on his assertions I'm not really seeing it. From Gmail to Google Drive to YouTube to Google Translate to Google Maps to etcetera etcetera, every single one of these things provides immense benefits to people's lives and improves the world with some ads being the only cost.

Honestly, I think people take it a little too much for granted sometimes. I'm not trying to call anyone out here, but just try to think about it a bit more. No one owes anyone anything, and especially not to corporations, as to be clear, Google is very much a mutual beneficiary in this relationship. They make massive amounts of money, unimaginable sums, with profit margins that will make your eyes bulge. So don't feel any obligation whatsoever.

Instead, what I think the point is that it can be extremely valuable to be able to take a step back and to try with an unbiased eye, to look critically at the business relationships you make with the various corporations that exist in your life. Keeping in mind that none of them care about you as person, your privacy, or anything at all really except for the dollar number they can extract from you (specifically calling out Apple on this), how do things weigh out?</comment>


How to Be a Great Product Manager with Facebook PM - <AUTHOR> https://www.productschool.com/blog/events/great-product-manager-facebook-pm/?utm_source=hacker_news&utm_medium=content_post&utm_campaign=great_pm_facebook <comment><USER2> AOL's Shingy, product management version.

Buzzwords, pseudoscience, gibberish and few actual content. All within a complete lack of structure, and slides with dense/long text, and a lot of irrelevant self-referencing noise.

\- Want to improve your diet? ask a healthcare professional, not a product manager.

\- Want to improve your sleep? ask a healthcare professional, not a product manager.

\- Got carpal tunnel from typing? Total lifehack, that's so 10x. How about getting an ergonomist to assess your desk? You can get an assessment for free from your employer.

\- Want to optimize meetings? Set an agenda. Make people optional if they're not required. Appoint a moderator that keeps the meeting on track. Write down the minutes of the meeting... If there's no agenda, no meeting.

\- Use 3 monitors? why not 5. Or 10.

\- Want to prototype an idea fast? Use paper. Use powerpoint. Use your goddamn imagination. Don't throw team members at it in an app unless you absolutely need to.

What is a great product manager? Start by managing a product to achieve a material, tangible and significant positive effect on an important product, understand how it happened, and make that success reproducible.

How to not be a great product manager? Do not try to understand why a product is successful. Just assign the credit to yourself.

</comment><comment><USER3> Been thinking about joining Product School. The fee is quite steep, 8.5K or something.

Does anyone have experience with doing their course and actually getting a job as Product Manager at a good company in San Francisco / Bay Area?

</comment><comment><USER4> I thought they interviewed Evan Spiegel.

I guess he would be Facebook head of product.

<comment><USER5> Evan Spiegel... of Snapchat?

<comment><USER6> Didn't he make stories at Facebook before starting Snapchat??? Why else would it be in every product?</comment></comment></comment>