The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/08/a-twisted-history-how-a-reagan-era-executive-order-led-to-mass-spying/ <comment><USER2> You can't make this stuff up. According to TFA:

1\. CIA created black propaganda in USSR linking Soviets and international terrorists to foment dissent in Russia.

2\. Somebody picked it up from outside and wrote a book about Soviet-terrorism links.

3\. CIA director read the book, took it seriously, freaked out, lobbied for more powers.

4\. CIA and NSA got more powers.

It's clearly not the first time in history that an intelligence organisation engineered a privilege escalation from fraudulent circumstances, but doing it by accident seems almost funny.

<comment><USER3> As retold by Adam Curtis in the excellent BBC three-parter "The Power of Nightmares":

3a. CIA people told new director, "er, boss, that was actually us".

3b. CIA director does not believe his own people.

And of course the whole "Team B" episode (Rumsfeld etc.), where the complete lack of evidence that the Soviets had <weapon-of-choice> was reinterpreted to mean they MUST OBVIOUSLY HAVE <even-worse-than-weapon-of-choice-even-if- physically-impossible> and perfect secrecy, otherwise how could we not have found any evidence?

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

[http://vimeo.com/84414208](http://vimeo.com/84414208)

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

<comment><USER4> Curtis wrote also wrote a great piece about the role incompetence played in the formation of intelligence agencies, titled "BUGGER: Maybe the Real State Secret Is That Spies Aren't Very Good At Their Jobs And Don't Know Very Much About the World".

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER)

<comment><USER3> Yep, that was also excellent. Some confirmation from the highest places:

Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt recounts that he _never_ read the BND reports, because anything they wrote was tainted. He just asked other world leaders directly instead.

[http://www.zeit.de/2013/45/nsa-abhoeraffaere- gelassenheit](http://www.zeit.de/2013/45/nsa-abhoeraffaere-gelassenheit)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This quote struck me:

"After the United States faced another existential threat in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks...."

I'm amazed at how accepting the media is of the threat of terrorism. That statement implicitly compares al Qaeda to the Soviets. The Soviets who, if they had had a bad day and decided to say "screw it" and wipe out capitalism for good could have done so within an hour. A country which, at any moment, could have pressed a button and killed a billion people. (And to be fair, the US of course had/has the same ability.)

 _This_ is being compared to a loose organization of fanatics where the worst- case scenario was pretty much, "What if they crashed the fourth plane into the White House and killed the President!"

I think we need an enemy. The country is built on it. After four decades of the Cold War, we needed something to put in the "USSR" slot. Terrorists are a terrible fit, but it's the best we could find.

<comment><USER6> Any given couple of days more Americans die from heart diseases than those who died by the 911 attacks, I have yet to see someone call those "an existential thread for America".

But we never learn. The best thing that could happen right now for the NSA and the military in the mist of this criticism is another attack on US land, the former will say " see! This is why we need to spy today more than ever! " and the military would get another major money injection for decades to come and it gets to invade any country where they think the enemy might be.

<comment><USER7> I am so tired of this specious argument. Committing suicide is not the same as being murdered.

<comment><USER6> I'm not talking about suicide. If you eat for sake of pleasure and NOT in order to die, it may be stupidity but it is not suicide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The same offensive narrative repeats itself.

\- The government is bulk collecting data on foreigners.

\- Meh...

\- They're also incidentally spying on US citizens in the processs.

\- SAY WHAT?!

If the USA could try to acknowledge the human rights of non-US citizens, that would be really nice.

<comment><USER9> And your same indignant stance will get largely ignored by me, because it ignores a core fact: The US doesn't have imminent jurisdiction over you. You likely aren't ever going to run for political office in the United States. The US probably doesn't share data with local Japanese law enforcement.

In short, the practical threat is much lower for you than it is for an American. The CIA spied on the Intelligence committee charged with the agency's oversight. The NSA and CIA and FBI all likely have dossiers on every state and federal politician in the country. That means a heck of a lot more than them doing legit SIGINT on adversaries across the world.

And frankly, even if I completely agree with you, we're still talking about the U.S. Constitution being blatantly ignored. I know canonical legal documents of a country aren't as big a thing in other places, but here, it tends to mean something.

<comment><USER8> That is a good point! But the same attitude does not stop at surveillance. Detaining people (or, should I say folks? lol), or executing them by drones, without any trial, are also things that don't cause too much fuss in the US public, because the targets are not US citizens... Granted, the scope of these issues is minute compared to the scope of NSA surveillance.

But all of this together makes the famous words "all men are created equal" sound hollow.

You also stated their abuses against your government, and I agree that those are the truly worst offences they made, completely undermining your democracy. But that is off topic from my comment. US media react strongly to any US citizen being spied on, not just politicians, while implicitly condoning bulk collection of data on ALL non-citizens, not just adversaries. I presume adversaries are most targeted, but nobody really raises that issue or asks for that kind of oversight. Non-citizens are just not created equal.

P.S. Constitutions are a big thing in many other places, not just in the US. I hope your phrasing was just an accidental mistake, because you sounded as if you think no other country respects it's constitution...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Figures that the cause for one of the biggest government abuses in history is the extension of the president's power. It's like humans never learn. Never give a single man too much power.

AUMF is just as bad, too. Did you know US is effectively still in a "state of emergency", today? - and will probably continue to be for long, long, LONG time, if nobody does anything about it.

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/gregorydjohnsen/60-words-and-a- war-w...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/gregorydjohnsen/60-words-and-a-war-without- end-the-untold-story-of-the-most#2028b1w)

<comment><USER11> What's interesting is that the "office" of president has grown into countless agencies and sub-agencies, each with their own motives, political will, and desire for survival. It's like Daenerys with her dragons: completely under command, yet good luck ordering them not to eat the local children.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I recommend that anyone interested in the topic watch this film: [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of- sec...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/)

It's incredibly detailed, though focusing primarily on executive action post 2011.

<comment><USER13> That two part documentary should be required viewing. For everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The real issue here is that the public has no control over the spying. Imho, many would probably be fine with other people listening in on their phone calls, or going over their browsing history, if the only effect of that would be terrorists getting caught.

The problem is that currently there is too much potential for the surveilance data to be comercialized or abused for trivial legal matters.

I think much of the debate could be settled by alowing the public to scrutinize the surveillance process, and putting any abuse of the data (i.e. its usage in non-terror-related situations) under extordinarily humiliating punishments (like denationalization).

</comment><comment><USER15> End to end encryption for everything. Anonymizing technology especially when you need it. Governments always tap everything.

</comment><comment><USER16> Reminds me of the spy novels that led the British to create MI5.

[http://graemeshimmin.com/william-le-queux-and-british- spying...](http://graemeshimmin.com/william-le-queux-and-british-spying/)

</comment><comment><USER17> There is no room in a supposedly democracy (republic) for law by fiat. Either the people are ultimately in charge or we live in a dictatorship. The Constitution is not an option.

<comment><USER7> This is the real problem, you cannot have secret laws. Period. Wasting time wishing nations would just not spy is foolish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting article, but it's a pity they chose to lead with weasel words.

"One thing sits at the heart of what many consider a surveillance state within the US today."

<comment><USER19> If you're wondering why you are being downvoted...

The readership at Hacker News firmly believes that the US is a surveillance state. Stories are chosen and upvoted which confirm this worldview. Dissenting opinions are downvoted. If you're looking for a reasoned evidence-based discussion of the NSA, then choose a different website.

<comment><USER18> That was actually my point - it _is_ a surveillance state, but the author of the piece lacked the balls to say it directly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Another top-voted article about the NSA on Hacker News that is thin on evidence to say the least. It appears to be hearsay from a disgruntled ex- employee.

However I understand that the story fits the political narrative of the forums here, and will therefore be upvoted despite any lack of sense or evidence.

<comment><USER20> How would you find any information on the internals of the NSA that isn't hearsay from a disgruntled ex-employee?

Current employees who are happy and fulfilled in their work in the security services don't tend to say all that much to the press.

<comment><USER21> The structure of every single one of these stories is a single slide or page or quote, containing maybe less then 50 words maximum.

From there, wild speculation then goes on to breathlessly exclaim about what this _really_ proves, while failing to actually support any of the assertions.

For good measure toss in some wilful blindness about the point of surveillance, mechanics of law enforcement, collective action problems or the fundamental differences between one's own government and a foreign government (hint: foreign governments _don 't_ have a monopoly of violence over the citizens of foreign countries).

The people who keep yelling about how nobody cares enough need to consider that just maybe they're not very good at arguing their point.

Cue downvotes.

<comment><USER22> Pray, share it if you have anything that can disprove the _wild_ speculation.

Hysterical speculation is to be expected when dealing with the doings of an arm of the government that is willfully shrouded in secrecy. The leaks so far have only confirmed what was being called "tin-foil hattery" until pre- Snowden.

If you are so concerned about subduing rampant speculation, how about showing up with proofs to the contrary instead of ad hominems and downvote baiting?

<comment><USER21> Because if you don't tow the party line on HN you'll be downvoted no matter what. Frankly, go check my post history on the matter if you want. The _only_ topic on which I manage to accumulate downvotes is Snowden/NSA related.

Doesn't much matter what the content or argument or tone is or was.

Though I do chuckle at "disprove the speculation".

<comment><USER19> _" The only topic on which I manage to accumulate downvotes is Snowden/NSA related."_

Indeed, I got -40 karma on this story. Dissenting opinions are not tolerated on NSA stories.

Therefore people who do not agree with the HN consensus "self-censor", and a vicious circle is created, with only a single narrative displayed.

<comment><USER23> > _Dissenting opinions are not tolerated on NSA stories._

Tell me about it. Plus all my proofs for perpetual motion machines and the flat earth get downvoted too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Kmanga.net – get your manga directly in the Kindle - <AUTHOR> https://kmanga.net/kmanga/about/ <comment><AUTHOR> The source code is here: [https://github.com/aplanas/kmanga](https://github.com/aplanas/kmanga)</comment>


My Credit Now Worths 1.5B. Thanks PowerBall - <AUTHOR> http://zhesong.info/2016/01/13/my-credit-worth-en/ <comment><USER2> You can share the jackpot, therefore it's not +EV. If no one else could pick your numbers, then it's +EV and you are laughing.

</comment><comment><USER3> would be interesting to build a pool based on images and web buyers and purchasers. buyers buy into pool. purchasers go buy tickets and upload of images of tickets to put into pool. they paid once upload is complete and verified.</comment>


Using PS3 to Crack Passwords  - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140064-c,gameconsoles/article.html

<comment><USER2> Great article, but horrible writing _he says_.</comment>


Ask HN: Please stress-test the arc server for my latest prototype - <AUTHOR> http://readwarp.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm trying to build an online reader that:

a) Lets you read interesting content from all your usual sites in a single place.

b) Is accessible to Normals without needing to grok rss, feedreaders or subscribing.

c) Scales up to large number of sites even for power google-reader users without seeming like a chore. (I was subscribed to 1000 sites on google reader when I moved them to readwarp)

d) Smartly prioritizes the sites I care most about.

e) Doesn't allow individual sites to swamp my reading just by pushing out a firehose of articles. (<http://akkartik.name/blog/2009-05-19-21-30-46-soc>)

f) Intelligently unsubscribes me from feeds I no longer care about.

g) Isn't completely swamped by the (ipad) popular story du jour.

<comment><USER2> I've been using this for a few weeks and it's pretty damned awesome. My only complaints right now are that I think it should be easier to add feeds (abstracted away or not, it gets its articles from _somewhere_ ), and that I always say "no" to "do you want to unsubscribe this thing you've been downvoting repeatedly?" because it feels too destructive, like there's no way I could get it back if they ever put out an article that I care about

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks David! Yes I've got your email feedback stuck on my wall :) The next rev will lose the prompts and will largely be about prioritizing without relying on a blacklist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> One big UI thing.

The opposite of a thumbs down is a thumbs up. I was confused by the star. Is that a "favourite" button?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I go back and forth on that. Currently the star is like an upvote+bookmark. I'm interested to see how it gets used.

I'll either add a thumbs up or change the thumbs down icon to something else (maybe an x?)

I'm torn between wanting to minimize the number of buttons, and 'not making people think'. Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER4> You already have circular buttons, how about a smiley face on top (upvote + bookmark), a frowny face on the bottom (dislike), and a "meh" face in the middle (skip)? It's a lot more intuitive than what you've currently got, I think. Your current ordering doesn't map to what I think it means (the current order seems to be "meh" on top, "like" in the middle, and "boo" at the bottom). The "like" action should be at the top.

Also, I'm not in love with the "next" rollover text. I assume it means "skip", but a user could interpret that as the _only_ way to go to the next item, and upvoting or downvoting before ey're ready (for example, if ey read the first paragraph and like it). It's not horrible, since ey can hit the back button of eir browser, though.

Also, I can never decide whether to separate the "upvote" action from the "save" action. Reddit currently has separate functionality for those; HN has them in one. It's a simpler design to combine them, but there are times I want to save things on HN on a smaller list than my upvoted stories list. Ah, for now stick with them being the same; if it becomes a problem, add it later. I'm sure there are much more important things you could be doing on this site. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> :) It's not the absolute top priority yes, but it's amazing how much building the next stumbleUpon is about product and positioning, not recommendations. Thanks for enumerating all those tradeoffs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Um, I think I DOSed you. Sorry. I ran ab to stress-test your server, and I guess it didn't handle it all that well. I wonder how HN handles excessive traffic?

<comment><AUTHOR> Lol, I'd upvote you twice if I could. Can you send me your commandline args to ab?

To answer how HN handles it: the arc webserver has code to detect abusive crawlers. I should look into why that failed to kick in.

I'm glad readwarp didn't run into you until it had peaked on the front page :)

<comment><USER5> I don't have the exact parameters, but I think it was something like

        ab -c 100 -n 10000 http://readwarp.com/<somethinghere>

I don't remember what <somethinghere> was, it was one of the JS fetch links I think. I was trying to flood your site with a bunch of traffic and I did think it might slow down for a bit, but I wasn't expecting to knock it offline. I, too, am glad that everyone else was able to see how your site was supposed to look before I took it down.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, -c 100 is nothing I haven't tried before. My server knows to disable abuse detection for localhost, but it should have throttled your requests fairly quickly.

I have a nanny to restart the server if it dies, but on this occasion it just got wedged. That happens sometimes because PLT scheme uses atomic operations to enforce consistency. Like I said, thanks for uncovering this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You are asking for user comments, I take it, so my comment will be about a first impression from visiting your site. You are gathering information about user preferences, but I didn't see a convenient link to your site's privacy policy. While I can certainly trust anyone who posts on HN not to do anything nefarious with my personal information (can't I?), it is industry-standard practice for consumer-facing websites that gather personal information of any kind to have a posted privacy policy. That may or may not have any legal effect, but it can have a user-reassurance effect that will encourage more people to use your site, if that is what you desire.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reminder, I'll add a policy.

And yes you can trust me :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the simple UI. Here are a few ideas that came to mind while trying it:

\- Ask me to choose a few categories before I start so you can do better news targeting and get me more engaged right from the beginning.

\- Going through stories need to be faster. Either pre-load the next few stories or show me a list of headlines on the side so I can skim through and click the ones that catch my attention.

\- I need a back button. A tiny link would suffice as I won't be using it often, but when I need it it's very useful.

<comment><USER8> Fully agree. I gave up after four stories that I all disliked. Two were totally out of my area of interest (celebrities and horse racing, huh?), and two were tech stories that didn't cross the "marginal curiosity" threshold.

Could work, but you'd have to get me hooked more quickly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. My recommendation algorithms do well but need lots of data about you. This is an experiment to see if I can bootstrap with no user data by playing 20 questions at the start. How long are people willing to grant me?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A lot of the articles I got looked odd and messed up because of the content being chopped into your site. Webcomics especially suffered (Hark a Vagrant didn't even display until I opened it in a new window).

Perhaps an iframe or something similar so we can see the site itself, with your site becoming a top or sidebar?

<comment><AUTHOR> Even with an iframe how would I deal with wide pages? I want to avoid nested scrollbars.

You're right that it may just be worth sidestepping this issue somehow. Rendering issues have been persistent on readwarp[1]. It's kinda useful to see articles with standardized typography like the readability plugin provides, but it may be too much effort to make perfect.

[1] Though my handful of users haven't complained about this in a while (I've been fixing bugs as they come up). Time to go find the stories you ran into - thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It reminds me a lot of Google Reader Play (<http://www.google.com/reader/play/>)

I agree with the comment saying that the star icon should be replaced with a thumbs up.

It's not beautiful ;

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, Play and the underlying fast flip technology (<http://fastflip.googlelabs.com>) are interesting and not a little scary. They seem focused on lowest-common-denominator content (images and video) that looks good, and it's not clear that they're actually trying to guess my tastes. (I'm signed in but still don't see stuff from my feeds.) Pure-text articles look hideous in play, and if there's a way to find permalinks I can't see it.

It's not clear how much of this is just transient implementation issues, and how much is their bet that most people want to look and not read. It keeps me up at night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How will this be different from StumbleUpon?

<comment><AUTHOR> The value-prop isn't different. Stumbleupon has verified a market, but IMO they've failed to grow it to its full potential (along with google reader and netnewswire). They've stagnated. They're failing to provide the most personalized experience possible.

The readwarp solution is different from stumbleUpon. More textual analysis, more tight UI research, more integration with current recommendation sources like twitter and facebook. Less reliance on following random users based on a few links.

I'm going after stumbleUpon. But this prototype isn't there yet.

<comment><USER11> >But this prototype isn't there yet.

Ah, of course. I just wanted to see what you'd say in response. (-:

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks like it's down.</comment>


Show HN: A tool to find related subreddits - <AUTHOR> https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query=linux <comment><USER2> This is a great idea for a project, the 'users who also posted' metric seems to have worked really well.

The site seems to fail to load the 'hot' items for the subreddits when I click on them but that's not a big deal for me. On closer inspection, it doesn't seem to be making any requests. Just says `Failed to download [https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/hot.json`](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/hot.json`) etc

<comment><AUTHOR> hmmm... I don't see the error on my end. What browser do you use? Can you try in "incognito" mode? Are there any extensions that might be blocking this?

<comment><USER3> I'm getting the same error on Firefox Quantum.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm... I'm at lost.

[https://jsbin.com/fuyijan/2/edit?js,console](https://jsbin.com/fuyijan/2/edit?js,console) \- this works in Chrome, and non-private mode of Firefox Quantum (64.0.2 (64-bit)). However when I open private browsing in Firefox Quantum request fails.

Anyone might know why?

<comment><USER4> That sounds like Content Blocking kicking in - that's only active in Private Browsing by default: [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/content- blocking](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/content-blocking)

I note that page says "By default, content blocking uses the Disconnect.me basic protection list" \- and reddit.com is on that list: [https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking- protecti...](https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking- protection/blob/master/services.json)

(I'm guessing reddit's "social button" is considered a tracker.)

[edit] confirmed, it's definitely Content Blocking: I just loaded that jsbin in an FF private window, and there's a message in the console to that effect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much! I opened an issue here: [https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking- protecti...](https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking- protection/issues/67)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a cool tool, but it seems very biased towards bigger subs. If you let it loose on a small sub it will emphasize that big, kinda-but-not-really related subs over tiny-but-closely-related subs.

<comment><USER6> Using Jaccard has this effect, mutual information would correct more for the independent frequency of the posts per subreddit.

<comment><USER5> It's a shame since this tool would be particularly useful for recommending small subs. I don't need it to tell me about big subs, since I already know them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is seriously amazing man! Interesting to see how different subject-areas network themselves differently.

For example, comparing "r/permaculture" to "r/linux".

Also, looking at r/girlgamers makes me realize my privilege for being able to navigate my interest areas without such a clusterfuck of bullshit going on: [https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query=girlgamers](https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query=girlgamers)

<comment><USER8> It's really sad how toxic Reddit brigading is

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is awesome! My input had exactly the results I expected.

Thanks for creating this tool, bookmarking!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I'm very glad you liked it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I checked VXjunkies and found the level of weirdness I haven't expected. Will need a few hours to browse through this while nobody is around / can be startled by sudden, random laughter...

</comment><comment><USER11> That's a cool tool. And useful extension would be if it preserves the location history if you navigate topics, so that you can go back.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good call. I was worried that I'd "spam" the browser history and people who are coming from reddit or HN would never go back to where they came from :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Usability improvement idea: make it easier to discover how to re-center the graph around a new subreddit.

I spent several minutes playing around with this, and I was just typing in the name of the desired subreddit because that was the only I could figure out. Finally, after much experimenting, I realized double-clicking is the solution.

Oh, and a second, related usability idea: if I double-click, don't open the preview sidebar at the right. I can see how the sidebar is useful, but if I'm doing one action, I don't want it to have two effects. Also, I have signaled clear intent to browse the graph, so I want more screen real estate to be devoted to that.

EDIT: bonus usability idea/request: clicking on a node brings up the preview sidebar. It'd be nice if clicking on it again (not double-clicking) makes the sidebar hide again.

</comment><comment><USER13> Anvaka, when you accept BTC or ETH let us know, we can contribute to your efforts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, Kasian!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > The relationship is determined by a metric "users who posted to this > subreddit also post to...".

I'm interested, could you share with us the the entire metric you used to determine the relationship?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is jaccard similarity [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaccard_index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaccard_index)

Also I described it a bit more here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/aek3yk/p_l...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/aek3yk/p_learning_related_subreddits_to_rmachinelearning/)

<comment><USER15> Have you tried polling profiles to see how many are sharing upvotes/downvotes? It used to be a small percentage but is pretty informative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You indicated that you used the Pushshift.io datasets, but how did you compute Jaccard Similarity on a dataset of 38M?

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't use pushshift, sorry. The data was collected from bigquery, stored locally into CSV files, and then I just wrote a node.js script to compute similarities.

<comment><USER17> Did you simply collect "user has posted to X, Y, and Z subreddits", or did you look at frequency too?

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't look into frequency. Is there a version of jaccard similarity that accounts for frequencies?

<comment><USER18> There's a weighted variant: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaccard_index#Weighted_Jaccard...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaccard_index#Weighted_Jaccard_similarity_and_distance)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> *types in DunderMifflin

related: MapsWithoutSouthSudan

I know what I am going to be doing for the next 30 minutes

</comment><comment><USER20> This is a really useful tool. It works so smoothly on my mobile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Happy to hear :)!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Great,

I've been searching for a tool like this for ages, bookmarked!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment> laurynas-s This is really nice!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good tool if possible add option to view result data in tabular format with no of subscribers. As this way its difficult to use.

</comment><comment><USER23> Great tool! This site supports my suspicions that much of the activity on /r/The_Donald is the coordinated effort of a few individuals posting across multiple accounts. For those not familiar with this sub, it was created sometime during the 2016 election leadup and unabashedly supports Donald Trump with memes and shitposting. At one point, the entire frontpage of reddit was just posts from /r/The_Donald until reddit admins had to alter their algorithm to force the sub off.

If you look at the network graph for /r/The_Donald, it doesn't look...organic. There are 4 clearly delineated clusters of sub related to that sub. Posters to /r/The_Donald heavily post to /r/news & /r/politics, /r/TropicalWeather (?), /r/TwoXChromosomes (?) and /r/AskTheDonald (and other alt-right subs).

There's not much interaction with the rest of reddit. Posters from other subs don't also post content to the /r/The_Donald.

This is unusual.

Every other sub I've looked at there's a much more complex & dynamic graph where users post across various communities across the site. Every other major sub looks like a real network with dozens of interconnected links. Yet, /r/The_Donald, with almost 700,000 subscribers only has a strong connection to 4 clusters.

The alternate hypothesis is that people on that sub heavily use alternate accounts. This might also explain the lack of interaction with the site compared to other subs of similar size.

<comment><USER24> He manually overrided some large subs: [https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ae88pk/int...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ae88pk/interactive_visualization_of_related_subreddits/ednceat/)

<comment><USER23> Thanks! That's probably it then. I guess this doesn't support my hypothesis after all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is great, and works flawlessly!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I'm so happy you like it.

<comment><USER25> It's simple and just works, don't stop making great things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Aww, thank you!

> don't stop making great things.

Not going to ever stop! I have sooo many ideas - I wish I could be more efficient :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Useful little tool! Reddit humor subs are so damn specific, it can be hard to find them all.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is this only for tech subjects or am I using it wrong?

Edit. Somehow I missed the big searchbar at the top.

<comment><USER28> I tried "tits", that worked.

<comment><USER29> Ornithologist?

<comment><USER28> There was some cocks present anyway

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Fantastic! I tested the heck out of this and found it really useful.

Already found some cool subs.

</comment><comment><USER31> You should submit this to r/dataisbeautiful if not already done.

</comment><comment><USER6> Which javascript network vis library does this use? It's very nice.

</comment><comment><USER32> I was sort of expecting to be able to click through to the subreddit...

</comment><comment><USER33> Very nice tool, thank you very much that. This is why is love HN

</comment><comment><USER34> Interesting finds:

* /r/askscience is nested at the center of defaults (I think a lot of older, famous subs will end up highly connected)

* /r/relationship_advice is kind of a loner. The graph generates six distinct subreddit clusters- feminism, lgbt-issues, counseling, and misc. science fields. The last cluster is a very large, diffuse cluster of sex/porn/depression subreddits that skew towards defaults.

* /r/slatestarcodex has distinct clusters too. 1) Effective altruism and philosophy, 2) Psychiatry, 3) Rational fiction writing, 4)Liberal-tarian, IDW defaults, 5) "Classic effort post" subs like true_reddit and depth_hub.

* /r/bigboye is a tiny part of a very large network of animal gifs subreddits. /r/animalsbeingbros connects it to a bunch of high volume gif subs.

<comment><USER35> * /r/the_donald has a surprising link to /r/TwoXChromosomes [[https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query=the_donald](https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query=the_donald)]

* /r/politics seems to have higher interconnection

* /r/awww is quite wholesome =) [[https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query=Awww](https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query=Awww)]

* /r/puppers has some strange nsfw links

<comment><USER31> >/r/the_donald has a surprising link to /r/TwoXChromosomes

I don't think it's surprising. Donald fans on social media tend to hate minorities and women, not surprised they would try to brigade women oriented subs.

It got so bad that subs like /r/offmychest automatically ban people that post in many alt right related subreddits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is great!

But on a side note, I can also waste more time on the Internets!

</comment><comment><USER37> Is this built on top of your work on yasiv before?

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be fair to say so. The core layout is the same with a bit more polished overlap removal and animation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why do I get stuck in "dead ends"? For instance, [https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query=rtlsdr](https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query=rtlsdr) contains [https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query=PlutoSDR](https://anvaka.github.io/sayit/?query=PlutoSDR) but the inverse is not true -- once I'm in PlutoSDR there's only one other subreddit and the two of them are an island.

</comment><comment><USER39> damn - i wondering if this with marketing in order to find out where your audience hangs out.

</comment><comment><USER40> Ya' know this assumes one would use reddit as a reference for learning which one should never, EVER do, don't ya?

</comment><comment><USER41> hi thanks for this. Is there a guide to how you are storing the data on github pages?

</comment><comment><USER42> Great visualization! Nice work.

</comment><comment><USER43> Incredibly useful, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER44> Amazing!

</comment><comment><USER45> nice tool

</comment><comment><USER46> Would be nice if banned subs appeared in a different colour.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you have spacetime, you might consider sharing this with LGBTQ and kink communities experiencing the Tumblr diaspora.

Context: [https://nowtoronto.com/lifestyle/advice/savage-love- tumblr-p...](https://nowtoronto.com/lifestyle/advice/savage-love-tumblr-porn- ban-is-hurting-my-kink/)

Lots of people feel uprooted from sex-positive and/or tightly-bound communities they've been part of for years, and don't know how to rediscover or rebuild the healthy networks they've lost on Tumblr. I know full-grown adult women who are struggling to find footing again in the most personal of spaces.</comment>


Learning C++ and Getting Into Game Development - <AUTHOR> http://jamesbrewer.me/learning-c-and-getting-into-game-development

<comment><USER2> _"Video games require massive amounts of mathematics to run flawlessly and to look good. 3D graphics programming requires a very strong understanding of Linear Algebra and a pretty exhaustive knowledge of Geometry and Trigonometry, ..."_

This is simply not true. As an intern, I didn't need to understand hardly any math. From there, I learned what I needed as I went. I have a fairly deep understanding now (four years later), but you definitely don't "need math" in order to get started programming games, or even to get a job working on games.

 _"This, to me, sounds like a big undertaking, but I think that it is a good goal and hopefully 5 months will be enough to achieve it."_

I wouldn't trust anyone who had only spent 5 months learning and applying C++ to work on any game I was a part of. My reputation would be on the line due to their mistakes. 5 months just isn't nearly enough time, even if you spent every day learning and working.

I spent almost every day of every year of my highschool time (Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior year) sleeping through class, then going home and learning how to make games in C++. Only then was I finally able to land an internship and get the heck out of school. And I was still a really bad programmer, even after "three years". It takes time to get good, and there are no shortcuts for experience.

Your demos are critical. Make as many of them as you can, as quickly as you can, and be sure they work with few flaws.

Don't really worry about code quality quite yet. It's exceedingly rare for anyone to actually look at the code you write before hiring/interning you. They will expect you to write code to their coding standards anyway --- they need to know whether you can _accomplish_ things, not whether you can write pretty code.

Most importantly, keep it fun. Don't worry about "choosing to make this your path in life, no matter what". If you approach this like your life is over if you don't get an internship, then you'll fail. Conversely, you're much more likely to succeed if you try to learn the things you find fun. It was fun for me to put together physics demos, and so I learned PhysX. It was fun to get a character walking around, so I learned D3D9 Skinning. Etc. Have fun as much as possible. Lastly, it was important that I didn't delude myself into thinking I was more skilled than I actually was.

</comment><comment><USER3> Learning C++ and getting into game development are not, unless you are particularly lucky or talented, tasks that should be accomplished concurrently. They're both hard enough on their own.

<comment><USER2> I guess I was particularly lucky or talented. Anyway, I feel obligated to point out that it's not impossible, since I did it, and I'm not that smart.

<comment><USER3> By your own admission, after three years your code still was pretty bad. That is the reason I said what I said, not because it can't be done--the results are entirely too often marginal. C++ is not pedagogically sound, and building something somebody actually wants to use with it is a nontrivial task.

I find it a little self-defeating to try to tackle two of the more complex tasks in software development at once. Learn to program (obligatory _Learn Python The Hard Way_ reference), learn to write games, learn C++. Or learn to program, learn C++, learn to write games. It separates the hard bits in such a way that you can approach them, understand them, master them, and then move on.

<comment><USER2> Completely agree.

(It's important for your comment to be worded like that, and not just "you shouldn't learn C++ and game programming at the same time". Otherwise a lot of the context is lost.)

That said, if I had to do it over, I wouldn't change a thing. I know myself, and therefore I know I'd be too timid to try to ever do more than move Python code into C via writing my own extensions. That would have significantly crippled my career, and denied me the opportunity to work on game engines written entirely in C++ (which almost all triple-A game engines are, for better or for worse).

That's a personal failing, I admit. I'm just spewing thoughts that were important relative to _my_ career, because it's the only actual example I know enough to talk about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> He really should learn game development in something slightly easier, like pygame, before he goes off into the wild world of C++.

</comment><comment><USER5> I suggest reading these before getting too excited about the game industry:

<http://ps3.ign.com/articles/117/1178844p1.html>

[http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Gameloft-Glenn-Watson- dangerous-...](http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Gameloft-Glenn-Watson-dangerous- working-conditions-games-on-new-zealand,news-11884.html)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/iso44/trouble_at_ga...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/iso44/trouble_at_gameloft_auckland_developer_blows/)

</comment><comment><USER6> tl;dr: the guy wants to get into game programming, plans to learn C++, get internship.

That's great for him, but why is this interesting?

<comment><USER5> Not to mention how incredibly clueless he is.

<comment><USER7> He is. I think he should try to build a raytracer first and try to let it output the render in 1 second. Might give him some understanding of how hard programming and optimizing is.

<comment><USER2> This is terrible advice. Someone wants to get into gamedev, and the first project you want him to do is "build a raytracer"? Obviously you're just a terrible person trying to discourage the guy, so foo on you.

<comment><USER7> Well why is this terrible advice? Maybe you could explain this instead of calling me terrible.

I was serious. When you want to start programming in 3D you should first start with the basics: rendering. Raytracing is a very good place to start. There are tons of tutorials online and maybe the most important: it gives a nice visual result.

The visual results are very important. It will encourage to keep on programing and working on getting better results.

So I was serious. Building a raytracer gives you a lot of knowledge about 3D, programming and optimizations.

<comment><USER2> I apologize for calling you terrible, but pagekalisedown called him clueless and you chimed in with agreement. The guy's completely new to gamedev and eager... it seems pretty terrible to go out of our way to specifically try to destroy his enthusiasm by calling him clueless.

That said, you're spot-on about how a raytracer is an excellent (and fun!) project that every graphics programmer should do at least once.

But... if you're saying "in order to get started doing any kind of 3D programming, such as moving a cube around, then you should first _write your own raytracer_ "... then we'll have to agree to disagree. =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So... when people say "Deep Understanding of Linear Algebra", is it really anything more than being comfortable with the idea that rotations, and perspective transformations, can be represented as matrices? Any 3D graphics programmers (not necessarily for games) who can highlight the main aspects of Linear Algebra that they use?

<comment><USER2> Dot product.

Here's a random list of thoughts, speaking as a graphics and game programmer:

First, you hardly ever have to even think about "perspective transformation". Put it out of your mind until you're ready to attempt acquiring advanced knowledge, because it will just confuse and therefore hinder you.

Second, a transformation is typically a 4x4 matrix. It looks like this:

      Xx Yx Zx Px
      Xy Yy Zy Py
      Xz Yz Zz Pz
      0  0  0  1

In this case, "P" is the translation ("how much the matrix will move the input").

X, Y, and Z are "right", "up", and "forward" directions, respectively.

That is, imagine yourself sitting in your chair. Your comupter table defines absolute right (1,0,0) up (0,1,0) and forward (0,0,1).

Now imagine a blue arrow coming out of your chest towards your monitor. That's your Z axis. Imagine a green arrow coming out of your head, pointed at the ceiling. That's your Y axis. And now stick your right arm straight out and color it red. That's your X axis.

Now rotate to the left 45 degrees. Then scoot two meters backwards ("backwards" as in "opposite the direction you're currently facing", NOT "away from your computer desk"). Imagine the arrows rotating as you do this. Now figure out the exact numbers for those arrows (vectors). Plug those into X, Y, and Z columns of the matrix. Plug (0,0,-2) into the P column of the matrix. Congrats, you've built a transform that "rotates an object to the left 45 degrees, then scoots it back two meters".

Note that the above assumes a left handed coordinate system, with Y axis being 'up'. Which is the most natural IMO.

Lastly, dot product is the most important tool you could possibly want to understand. It's so versatile. You want to figure out the closest point on a line to point P?

      dot( (P - line.start), normalize(line.end - line.start) )

... is the distance along the line of the closest point to P.

It's a projection. It "projects" a point onto a basis. (I know a lot of mathematicians are probably screaming at their monitors at me right now, but foo on that. This is one of the most useful ways to think about dot products _with respect to game/graphics programming_ , which is what we're talking about.)

Also, if you want to impress any interviewer who asks you about dot product, remember this phrase: "The dot product of two normalized vectors is the cosine of the angle between them." ... But you should really also _understand_ that phrase. =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Doing something is usually much more rewarding than talking about it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Generally I wouldn't waste my time on naysayers, but I feel like this time I should.

I am fully aware of everything that has been said here. I know it's hard work. I've heard about the hours. I know that it would be easier to start with Python.

But you know what? I just don't care. None of that concerns me. This is something that I want to do, and I'm willing to put up with all of this stuff.</comment>


Don DeLillo's literary interpretation of an astronaut's view of earth (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/12/don-delillo-anniversary-apollo/578266/ <comment><USER2> I have a dream that one day man will dread to go to the moon. We will hate the long queue that awaits us at lunar customs, we will find the rocket safety videos cliche and dated, and we will find the "astronaut icecream" they serve aboard has lost all novelty. We will live to openly complain that the gravity at lunar disney world makes life a bit too easy for the overweight on Earth. We will find it incomprehensible that anyone ever saw anything beautiful in something as mundane as the big nothing. And by god will we commercialize the shit out of it. We will make the place as cliche and kitsch as Hollywood Boulevard. Within my lifetime I may even live to see a day when we hate mars too!

<comment><USER3> The first line of M.T. Anderson's novel feed:

"We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck."

It's a dystopian YA novel, but it's a pretty good (and quick) read.</comment></comment>


Why hasn't the Internet made buying a car easier? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pikimal.com/blog/2011/04/20/why-car-dealerships-want-buying-a-car-to-suck-and-why-the-internet-hasnt-fixed-it/

<comment><USER2> Two quotes from the article:

1\. "the dealer is still involved and legally can't be dis-intermediated in many states"

2\. "In many cases it is a criminal offense for an auto manufacturer to sell a new car to anyone but a state-licensed car dealer"

The simple answer is that buying an automobile means dealing with a price- fixing cartel. The Internet hasn't fixed this process because it's legally sanctioned.

As a corollary, it's no wonder that even the tiny bit of competition from foreign auto makers caused the US auto industry to collapse. They'd had an oligarchy for decades, and they were utterly unprepared for anything.

<comment><USER3> If you value your freedom, advocate for the repeal of these regulations (along with many others - although that is not the point I am trying to highlight here.)

Each of us has a moral right to buy and sell what we want from whomever we want. Advocacy can make this a legal right once more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I disagree.

When I bought a new car, I used the dealer's website to study their inventory. Once I found the make, model and features I wanted, I used the "days on lot" number to negotiate a lower price. (Since, as I understand it, dealers make payments on their inventory; therefore, the longer the car is sitting on their lot, the more money the dealer has "lost".)

And when I bought used cars, using the internet helped save me thousands of dollars (close to $10K each time).

</comment><comment><USER5> I totally disagree as well.

I've bought my last 2 cars off the internet and it was a really easy hassle free experience. I used zag.com both times. Let the dealers battle it out, pick one you're happy with. No need to go into the dealership, that's what a phone/email is for.

I was there maybe an hour to pick up the car. Of course they try to sell you the extended warranty and other stuff but they didn't push. A simple no and on to the next item.

<comment><USER6> I bought my last two cars using the internet as well.

The first one was a Mini for which the conventional wisdom was that dealers never discounted off of list price. I emailed every Mini salesperson within an easy day's travel with what I wanted to order and had a discounted offer over the phone within 5 minutes - within two hours I had a more convenient dealer match the price and throw in a few extras. First and only time I stepped on the lot was six weeks later to pick it up.

Last car I bought, I found online though AutoTrader with the options I wanted on Sunday about 120 miles away, but the dealer was closed. Called Monday morning 8am, negotiated the deal over the phone by 10am, and the car and paperwork were delivered to my driveway at 6pm that night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://carwoo.com/>

<comment><USER8> The OP mentions CarWoo — it's tangential to the point here.</comment></comment>


How to handle remote work red tape in the USA? - <AUTHOR> My company is expanding our 100% remote work model into the USA.
We currently employ dozens of developers and administration staff across Australia and New Zealand with a couple in the USA through our USA c-corp. But in the USA it seems we have to produce unique contracts / employee handbooks et al for every city and sometimes suburb in those cities to comply with local laws, as their place of work is their home office.
If employees never moved, this could be acceptable, but (rightly) they do.
How do USA companies (and I'm talking companies without dedicated legal teams) handle this massive compliance requirement?  I haven't found a legal team yet who are savvy in this 100% remote work model and would appreciate any recommendations. <comment><USER2> _But in the USA it seems we have to produce unique contracts / employee handbooks et al for every city_

I've been working remote in the US for the past five years, and I've never heard of this. You don't have to do this at all.</comment>


Vo Trong Nghia Architects – S-House 2 - <AUTHOR> http://votrongnghia.com/projects/s-house-2/ <comment><USER2> I've been in one of VTN's awarded house in Saigon. I've read quite a lot discussion of Vietnamese's architects around his works in general.

I agree with some comments that, VTN creative points in his designs (a very nice lighting solution for dining room, for example) comes at a quite high cost of other parts in the house. He pushes the stairway till the point of feeling suffocated so that he can have an innovatively beautiful corner somewhere in the living room.

He pays functionality for beauty, so you may admire his work on picture or if you visit the house once or twice but living there long enough, you'd start to be annoyed. Which makes me think it's not a good sacrifice.

</comment><comment><USER3> I worked on building a school in Uganda. There our main issue was being able to afford the cement and corrugated roofing.

The bricks were made from baked clay and basic tools were the same as used in small agriculture. We took rocks from the ground and smashed them up to give us hardcore. Labour wasn't a problem as the entire community pitched in.

Prefabricated structures just weren't affordable at all. Taking free building materials from nature was key. The transport and cost of cement was our constraint.

This project uses a prefab structure, either on a prefab or poured slab foundation. That doesn't seem readily transportable by boat as they state.

Rather than just using local materials for finishing a better solution would surely be to come up with ways to use modern construction methods with locally sourced materials.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's good to see architecture in the HN front page even if this is _just another project_.

There are _hundreds_ (not exagerating) of interesting approaches but you can't see any of them prospering. Why? Being interesting is different from being an epiphany but specially because the lack of political backup. Architecture without politics will hardly ever change anything.</comment>


What Data Does Facebook Collect When I'm Not Using Facebook, and Why? - <AUTHOR> https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/data-off-facebook/ <comment><USER3> If one takes out all of the defensive posturing (entire paragraph explaining that Twitter, LinkedIn, Amazon, and Google all do the same thing), and the intentionally simplified (cookies, which are identifiers that websites use to know if you've visited before), we are left with this:

Facebook tracks virtually every website you visit, as well as usage data from many apps, even if you aren't logged in to facebook or don't have an account. We use this data, and tie it to your identity whenever possible, so we can charge advertisers more money.

<comment><USER4> I mean, I interviewed with a company last week for a software engineer role. I won't name names, but I was basically told a bit more about what they do, and the idea was "we track customers across shop websites to see what items they prefer, what types of items, how often, color, etc. etc., and build relations between all of these attributes to help surface more of what the customer wants to buy."

And here I was thinking people the past month or so are putting FB at the forefront of the conversation about the use of what should be private data, when there are already companies doing this everywhere on the Internet. Any typical website with a storefront (Macy's, GAP, etc.) track what you buy, when, why, etc.

It's definitely about more than Facebook. I don't blame FB PR for making sure to explain other companies are using your data and basically manipulating you with it.

<comment><USER5> I once showed up to one of those MIT Biz-Tech mixers a few years ago and one of the presentations we had to sit through was an almost appalling peek at one of these tracking systems through the eyes of its enthusiastic business owner.

Afterwords we had time for open questions, and I joined the line. When it became my turn, I asked the owner about whether he had any ethical or moral qualms about what he was doing and he just laughed. He gathers data from hidden interactions with client websites (fashion brands, for this demo) to quite literally 'follow the customer around' and 'influence their purchasing decisions'. He was quite proud of just how deep into his shoppers' lives his product was integrated.

When I looked around the room during the height of this exchange, most everyone seemed indifferent and only a few seemed to acknowledge or validate my arguments. It was a supremely disappointing and depressing experience.

<comment><USER6> no one is forcing anyone to buy shit. i'm on the internet all day browsing all sorts of sites and all of these companies are completely powerless wrt to me. you know why? because i haven't bought anything except underwear from amazon and groceries from my local supermarket in about 9 months.

<comment><USER7> Oh, yeah? I bet you think you picked the brands you bought, too.

<comment><USER6> brands of what? milk? eggs? cheesy crackers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is getting so ridiculous, I really dislike how Facebook is using the issues of late as a way to "reeducate" people on how it's ok to be doing what it's doing. It's not ok, and not acceptable.

It's a shame we've allowed a web to be built which allows for this kind of exploitation.

I'm also acutely aware that it's not just Facebook.

<comment><USER9> > It's a shame we've allowed a web to be built which allows for this kind of > exploitation.

Allowed? We volunteered for it.

<comment><USER10> The same way I 'volunteered' for Selective Service in the US when I was 18.

<comment><USER9> No, way different.

<comment><USER11> You can choose to not use the internet, but that's probably akin to choosing to living in another country to avoid registering for the secret service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "We give you a number of controls over the way this data is _used_ "

"You can remove any of these advertisers to _stop seeing_ their ads."

"Finally, if you don't want us to _use_ your Facebook interests to show you ads on other websites and apps, there's a control for that too"

Reading that critically, there doesn't seem to be any way for Facebook users to control what data Facebook _collects_.

I wonder whether that page will change due to the GDPR.

<comment><USER13> Facebook would legitimately be able to argue that the ad targeting is part of their core product, the ads are critical to the function of the website, and that you agree to have your data processed by signing up.

<comment><USER14> From my understanding of the GDPR, no I really don't think that they would be able to argue that, actually. Particularly when I'm not logged into their site.

<comment><USER15> IANAL, but I think it depends on what data they collect.

Part of running any advertising business is accurately billing the advertisers. To do that, they need to measure enough information to track viewed impressions, click-through rate, etc.

If they collect only enough information to perform business functions like these, I believe that would constitute a legal basis for processing under the GDPR.

They may have a harder time using that justification for information that is only needed for ad targeting. In that case, consent may be an easier legal basis for them to establish, for which an account would be useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Two questions Facebook needs to answer:

1\. If I don't have a Facebook account, how can I delete the data Facebook has collected on me without creating an account?

2\. If Facebook doesn't sell data, what is the purpose of shadow profiles?

<comment><USER17> > If Facebook doesn't sell data, what is the purpose of shadow profiles?

Presumably to sell you ads, which Facebook doesn't consider selling your data --it's just selling access to you, which is only valuable because of the data. Does it really matter if they didn't sell your information if they just used it to show you the same ad they would have showed if they had sold your data? It seems they're relying on the idea that advertisements are somehow an OK form of privacy violation.

<comment><USER16> How can they show me an ad if I don't have a Facebook account?

<comment><USER18> Two ways:

1\. Facebook runs its own ad network, so you might see Facebook ads even if you never go to Facebook's website.

2\. You might still go to their website even if you don't have a Facebook account. Many local restaurants and community organizations only have a Web presence through their Facebook pages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> All I know is that the Pi-Hole at our house says Facebook domains are blocked _way_ more than anything Google has running (w/o the numbers in front of me, I wouldn't be surprised if it's an order of magnitude difference). And neither one of us has a FB account, that's just from the craplets littering your average web page.

Kudos to FB for posting this in understandable languague. OTOH, it does have the scent of trying to get ahead of $SOMETHING.

</comment><comment><USER20> "When you visit a site or app that uses our services, we receive information even if you're logged out or don't have a Facebook account."

Then at the end under "What controls do I have": "you can opt out of these types of ads entirely — so you never see ads on Facebook based on information we have received from other websites and apps." Except that that's only possible when you're logged in. The link they provide doesn't work for logged out users. It seems they don't provide any control tools for logged out users/non Facebook users.

<comment><USER21> The type of ads you see on FB is only relevant to FB users.

<comment><USER22> Then I seem not to understand the benefit they see from tracking non-users' information - how can this be of benefit to advertisers if these users are never targeted? In particular, what benefits would be generated by linking this tracking information with the real identify of a non-FB user (that couldn't also be leveraged in a semi-anonymous way)?

In other words, I see the benefit to FB of being able to say "Person A likes 1, 2, 3; User B likes 1 and 2 - perhaps they also like 3?" where A is a non- user and B is a FB user, but I don't see the benefit derived from identifying Person A to advertisers if they can only target that person on FB, where they aren't a user?

<comment><USER21> They don't allow advertisers to target non-users. I'm sure they use non-user data for clustering, just as you described.

They also probably use it when the user finally does create a FB account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Contrary to most comments here, it is significant that other companies do. Facebook competes in the free market. If they scale back on data collection, that will hurt their offering to advertisers and cost them money that will go to Google and others. That lost revenue will harm their ability to retain talent and build new products, and ultimately cost them their user base. "We don't track you" is not as compelling a feature as "free video chat across the globe." Facebook doesn't operate in a vacuum. They can't scale back data collection unless others do. Moreover, the United States doesn't exist in a vacuum either. Scaling back all US companies will give a leg up to competitors in more lenient jurisdictions.

<comment><USER24> This is an important point and I wonder about it often. Especially the last one about countries that are lax on individual privacy. Imagine what China or Chinese companies could do with the genetic information they collect from their population. The lack of regulation is scary, but at the same time, they will be at the forefront of genetic engineering and designer humans. Can't think of any solution other than a World government. EU and AU has shown it is possible.

<comment><USER25> Is a world government necessarily a bad thing?

A union of federated states globally could be a significant force for good.

Impossible for the forseeable future of course but why immediately dismissed as a scary outcome?

<comment><USER24> I meant it as a good thing. Some things will need to be regulated at the global level. We are already seeing global problems - global warming being the prime example. I think we will end up either destroying ourselves or end up with a world government. World government will clearly be the better outcome. How that government works would also be an interesting topic for science fiction. Hint: I don't think it will be a democracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There is no option to pay them to not see the ads. There is no option to pay them so they don't gather information about You. THEY OWN YOU. Even if Facebook gets out of business, other will do it. Your phone, your TV, watch, fucking juicer whatever connected to internet is collecting information. THERE IS NO WAY TO OPT-OUT. It may sound creepy and disconnected from reality, but in the core that's exactly what it is. You may not like it, You can disagree, but it happens anyway.

<comment><USER27> _> There is no option to pay them so they don't gather information about You._

I would absolutely 100% not trust that they wouldn't track me anyway. How could they not? Even if I trusted them (which I don't) it isn't possible: they'd at least need to know it was me where-ever I want so they'd know to not track me as I'd paid...

Would you pay someone to not follow you down the street? If you did you'd have a queue of people following you to collect their "share".

<comment><USER26> Yes. They need to identify You to know that You don't want to be tracked. Also DNT header is like laughable IT meme.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's interesting that the "Privacy Controls" seem to only change how you see the data they've collected about you, but doesn't seem to change how or when they collect data about you. That doesn't sound like privacy control at all!

</comment><comment><USER29> > What controls do I have?

> As Mark said last week, we believe everyone deserves good privacy controls. > We require websites and apps who use our tools to tell you they're > collecting and sharing your information with us, and to get your permission > to do so.

Bullshit.

I downloaded Facebook's data on me and found about 40 websites they said they had shared my profile with. I didn't authorize that. FB doesn't give me the ability to "revoke" permission to have my info shared with them, either. Nor does it allow me to request that the information on me given to those third parties be deleted.

<comment><USER30> Actually, you absolutely can on [https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/](https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/)

\- Advertisers you've interacted with

\- - Who have added their contact list to Facebook

Hover over those you don't know about; the X let you "Remove" those, i.e. ask Facebook to exclude you from those advertisers' targeting.

If you are in Europe, you should be able, starting next month, to leverage that list to ask those advertisers _how_ they got your data, and expose data brokers. Facebook is simply (finally) offering you the ability to track data brokers.

<comment><USER31> Once the data has been given to a third party, we can no longer be guaranteed that the third party will delete it. That was one of the main problems with Cambridge Analytica -- they claimed to have deleted data but may not have actually done so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "other people mug passers by too!"

Can we just avoid this defence. The first one you catch, you prosecute fully and punish appropriately according to justice. Almost nobody knowingly signed up to be tracked everywhere they visit on the internet. Hiding it in fine print is every bit a con. You have ensure your conterparty understands the full extent of the contract or you have fraudulently obtained consent.

Facebook now. They should be fully prosecuted. Then we catch the next crook, and the one after until the lawlessness is dealt with.

</comment><comment><USER33> Throwaway for reasons.

My wife and I enjoy porn in our relationship. On my birthday last year, we were settling in for some, romance, and we open up pornhub only to find ads trying to entice me into a discount subscription for my birthday. They knew it was my birthday! Which, really freaked me out because:

1) I don't have or never have had an account with them. I've never given them my age and birthday. In fact, I _never_ give out my birthday on the internet. I don't even have a Facebook, twitter, or any other social media account.

2) It was on my wife's tablet. I never ever use her tablet, especially for browsing porn.

Anyone have an idea the machinery involved in making this determination?

<comment><USER34> If you have two devices in a house and one never accesses Google and the other does, Google will know it's you using the non-Google device each and every time.

There's more to mining you then cookies and tracking pixels. They use IPs, hardware and software profiling, behavioural patterns, and even the way you type on your keyboard (this is very, very accurate.)

In short: you need a "clean room" (Tails) every time you go online and you need to change where you're coming online from (VPN). You can also use tools to change your keyboard/typing "profile" so as to cripple that means of tracking. Oh and you can't login to virtually any online account at all, ever, because these cookies can be used too.

<comment><USER35> So if you use a VPN and incognito mode without logging into any online account, Google, Facebook, et al can still track you accurately?

Curious any other tools besides vpn and private mode you would recommend?

Any more links to read about these behaviorial, software and and type style tracking methods?

<comment><USER34> [https://ssd.eff.org/en](https://ssd.eff.org/en) \-- this is a great start and will lead you down a rabbit hole of links, tools, and intrigue :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> _> What Data Does Facebook Collect When I'm Not Using Facebook_

Absolutely everything they possibly can.

 _> and Why?_

Because they want to in order to wring every last fraction of a penny out of the worth you are as a data point to sell to everyone else.

And because no one is stopping them.

</comment><comment><USER36> > As Mark said last week, we believe everyone deserves good privacy controls. > We require websites and apps who use our tools to tell you they're > collecting and sharing your information with us, and to get your permission > to do so.

I have NEVER been told by a website that they are doing this, let alone asking for my permission.

</comment><comment><USER37> The most important question is about "informed consent".

Yes, users consented to giving data to facebook. But they did so via a convoluted click-through legal agreement, which almost no one reads, and which denies Facebook access if you decline. Then they can use your data for what are human subject experiments.

If any other human subject experiment was proposed to a review board with that kind of consent form, it would be laughed out of the room, at best. No way would that be allowed.

"Informed consent" is what Facebook -- and other data companies -- should be seeking. We already have this concept for data and user protection in research. We should just extend it to the private sector.

</comment><comment><USER38> Wow, wow, wow.

\- All others are doing it, so we're doing it, too and that's okay.

\- We collect data on you, even if you don't have an account

\- If you want to control your data, you need an account

\- Despite collecting even more (like your phone number, name and additional info) from your friend's address book they shared with us, we don't inform you about that and surely, there's no way for you to delete that info.

Fuck you, Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER39> Not one mention of Adobe here after 12 hours. Y'all ain't seen nothing yet.

[https://www.adobe.com/marketing-cloud.html](https://www.adobe.com/marketing- cloud.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> > We require websites and apps who use our tools to tell you they're > collecting and sharing your information with us, and to get your permission > to do so.

Am I missing something or does this line conflict with the rest of the post?

<comment><USER28> I think the technical term for this is "Passing the buck"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Shameless plug, I have a little open-source social sharing icons project that doesn't allow FB or any other services to track your website's users unless they choose to share something:

[https://github.com/QuadrupleA/private-secure-sharing- buttons](https://github.com/QuadrupleA/private-secure-sharing-buttons)

</comment><comment><USER41> Whatever we consider "data" right now quite simply needs to be thrown out, replaced by things that are _MUCH_ more temporary (e.g. where even the largest "collection" of data becomes useless within a week). And, access needs to be explicitly revocable at any time by either party. There should actually be a difference between, say, me giving _you_ "phone number" and me giving anyone else "phone number" (directly or indirectly). Heck, even for my _street address_ I'd feel better if I only gave out keys that everyone had to cash in at the post office and let the post office convert it to my real house number.

There is no technical excuse at this point to have so many different bits of sensitive information floating around. And many of these pieces of information are permanently associated with you, meaning that _any_ slip-up _anywhere_ at _any_ time can create a problem later on.

</comment><comment><USER42> > In addition, you can opt out of these types of ads entirely — so you never > see ads on Facebook based on information we have received from other > websites and apps.

They have this listed as a privacy control, but it doesn't provide any way to tell them to not compile a list of the other sites you visit outside of Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER43> Facebook is an outright PR war attempting to deflect their NSA scale data collection. If Facebook went out of business tomorrow the world would be a better place.

</comment><comment><USER44> Question: Will I be able to force Facebook to remove my shadow profile once GDPR goes live?

</comment><comment><USER45> Up until now, wasn't Facebook collecting large quantities of data about users from data brokers?

Why were they acquiring that data about users?

In the leaked memo from a Facebook senior executive, what did he mean by "questionable contact importing practices"?

Do contacts count as collected data?

Why does Facebook collect contacts data, and why does FB collect it in ways that are "questionable"?

Why are the contact importing practices questionable?

</comment><comment><USER46> They may not know everything about everyone, but they are working on it.

$500B market cap: the market thinks they will succeed.

</comment><comment><USER47> Just spent 20 valuable minutes blocking ads from all the random companies, political campaigns, and celebrities who've somehow gotten hold of my contact information and added me to their list. Americans for Prosperity had me on their list for ~30 states, and that's just one of scores of organizations that I've absolutely never dealt with or wanted to provide my information. What I want to know is WHO sold/shared my information to these organizations in the first place. I'd also love for FB to give me to option to hide all their ads without clicking on every.single.one (again, there were hundreds of them...)!

</comment><comment><USER48> At what point does should web-browsers start to interfere with this data collection? I'm aware of extensions that do this, but the average user isn't going to install one (or remember to reinstall it after they've got a new computer). The Do-Not-Track header seems to be dead in the water - <USER2> browsers make a more aggressive move against this? It's obviously a conflict of interest for Google (since they both have a competing product to FB, and like to do a heap of similar data collection themselves) as well as a possible Anti-trust concern; but Mozilla, Apple and Microsoft could be stepping in here.

<comment><USER49> Firefox has containers and a special one just for Facebook. Apple will only do so if the have a way to get money out of it.

<comment><USER50> If you never go to Facebook, Safari will prevent Facebook from building a profile across the sites you visit. For each parent site, Facebook will receive different cookies, which defeats their system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> > Social plugins, such as our Like and Share buttons, which make other sites > more social and help you share content on Facebook;

It's very disengenuous of them to mention that they collect data on you _whether you click the button or not_.

<comment><USER52> Not to mention having the gal to call it 'being social'.

War is peace. Invading privacy is social.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The comments are full of personal anecdotes along the lines of "I've been to those meetups.", and "I worked at a place that bought that kind of data.", and the article: "everyone else does it". What's troubling me is the question, "what incentives do average employees in the tech industry have to operate in a morally admirable manner?". It seem very few, if any. Sure we lack explicit moral guidelines, but what if instead of, or in addition to, focusing on punishment of companies that get ugly, what if we incentivized employees to be respectful citizens? This isn't absolving capitalism of its flaws by any means, more it's acknowledging them. But punishing evil corp is so reactive. Why is the average employee so willing to sell out their fellow citizens, and ultimately themselves, for a paycheck? The obvious answer is, "it's a paycheck". But have we really lost all ability to hold a moral compass? I'd rather not believe that, so how do we calibrate at least a basic set of guidelines that actually effect change in a global industry? Other industries solve this problem with ethics boards and operating licenses. But other industries are arguably more localized. I also suspect many here would find such things anti-egalitarian and generally be against the idea. What other options exist?

Note: I normally prefer reactive punishment because it doesn't impose worldviews and agendas on people--jury of peers makes punishment human, etc. I'm also somewhat morally relative, but it doesn't take a genius to understand that economically viable and moral are not equivalent. The issues of digital data privacy and data ownership are issues of fundamental human rights, and many of us operate under governments founded on principles defending such (point being I concede not everything is relative, and I think socially our efforts are best served defending things we have very little argument about).

<comment><USER54> Morally one could extend this to average employees in the tech industry whose work utilises online advertising. Whether buying ads, or putting ads on their services.

I'm sure there are thousands of active and passionate Hacker News users, many reading these very words that support online advertising through their job. Perhaps they are wisely being quiet? Perhaps it's because the whole issue is murky and morally ambiguous.

Now - one can make the case for ethical advertising... so why don't we?

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Is it just me or is the tone of that article extremely condescending?

I realize they feel like they are 'educating' people, but is this really the best tone to take when you are under such scrutiny?

</comment><comment><USER56> All of this misses the key questions : Where does Facebook use the data explicitly and for what explicit purpose? Will Facebook notify every time data is used and in what capacity? Why or why not?

</comment><comment><USER57> > Ad Measurement. An advertiser can choose to add the Facebook Pixel, some > computer code, to their site. This allows us to give advertisers stats about > how many people are responding to their ads — even if they saw the ad on a > different device — without us sharing anyone's personal information.

So I can look at an ad in Mobile Safari, and go to the advertiser's website in Chrome on my mac, and Facebook counts that as a referral, because I'm logged into FB on both browsers. Makes sense, but sort of creepy.

</comment><comment><USER58> They track everything because others do it too. They also seem to imply that it's a totally normal thing for anyone to be doing this. The tone of this piece is really astounding.

</comment><comment><USER59> Nothing mentioned about the fact that with all your friend's address books, they have a node for you on the social network graph, even if it's implied.

<comment><USER14> Since FB owns WhatsApp, I'm sure it's pretty explicit, not implied.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> > What controls do I have?

David neglected to mention that one can easily mark facebook.com as untrusted in NoScript. Ditto for linkedin.com, google-analytics.com, etc.

<comment><USER61> > David neglected to mention that one can easily mark facebook.com as > untrusted in NoScript.

but don't they use hundreds of other domains for tracking that you may not even know?

<comment><USER60> In NoScript, I allow only domains needed to minimally render the page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The presence of privacy "controls" isn't very reassuring, even if Facebook were the most trustworthy organization in existence. Software has bugs. They can't really prove that their closed implementation actually works in every case that it should (or more important, that their "controls" will continue to work after years of developer turnover, technical debt, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER62> > Ad preferences shows you the advertisers whose ads you might be seeing > because you visited their sites or apps. You can remove any of these > advertisers to stop seeing their ads.

I want the ability to have this linkage severed permanently. If an advertiser uploads lists with my information, I want Facebook to pretend I don't exist for the purposes of matching me to ads.

</comment><comment><USER63> To get a list of ALL Facebook ip's to block them with your firewall:

      whois -h whois.radb.net '!gAS32934' | tr ' ' '\n' | awk '!/[[:alpha:]]/' > facebook.list
      whois -h whois.radb.net '!6AS32934' | tr ' ' '\n' | grep '::' >> facebook.list

</comment><comment><USER64> I have no commerical interest, but I read [http://MeWe.com](http://MeWe.com) manifesto on free speech and it's a platform I'm willing to support. If you guys are looking for a FB alternative, it seems to pass the sniff test. I'd be interested to hear opinions agreeing or disagreeing.

</comment><comment><USER65> Can anybody post a pastebin or the the text of the page for the people blocking everything-FB on /etc/hosts level?

<comment><USER44> [https://pastebin.com/NJqLg1Pm](https://pastebin.com/NJqLg1Pm)

<comment><USER65> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Everyone keep talking about Facebook, but what about the people who write our Operating Systems? Microsoft, Apple etc. Imagine the data that they have. Surely this whole Facebook privacy thing also applies, but I have not heard it mentioned once. What are we going to/can we do about the operating systems?

</comment><comment><USER67> Is there any way to keep the faceberg android apps from starting on their own after you've force-stopped them?

<comment><USER68> Uninstall and use chrome version.

<comment><USER69> On some phones, Facebook comes preinstalled as a system-level app that cannot be uninstalled.

Idk what to recommend other than getting a phone that doesn't do that to you.

<comment><USER70> On my phone, I never logged in to Facebook through the app and deactivated it and use the website, I hope it's sufficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Even if I keeled over dead tomorrow, FB would be collecting about me via all my still-living family and friends.

</comment><comment><USER72> I don't see any mention of these URLs anywhere: [https://github.com/jtbarker/nofbtracking/blob/master/blockfb...](https://github.com/jtbarker/nofbtracking/blob/master/blockfburls)

</comment><comment><USER73> To Completely Block Facebook: [https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio...](https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all)

</comment><comment><USER74> One thing missing from this entire conversation: I personally signed up for Facebook at the age of 14. In fact, my friend made it for me and I took it over after he successfully harangued me into using it. I never, as an adult, consented to this statutory data rape.

<comment><USER44> This is something really important to consider: Should Facebook be allowed only for 18+ people? If I remember correctly they allow 13yo and up to sign up and I don't think they have the legal abiliy to consent to this level of data sharing

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I'm at Target I kinda expect them to keep an eye on things I buy and let me know of things I might want to buy.

What I don't like is when they follow me over to Panera and look over my shoulder at what I'm ordering there. I think that crosses a line.

<comment><USER75> What if Panera installed special cameras provided by Target?

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Very useful link in the article showing some of the things Facebook knows about you: [https://facebook.com/ads/preferences](https://facebook.com/ads/preferences)

<comment><USER77> Only works if you have an account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> They could explain it, but I still don't like it. They should provide a setting that lets me disable off-site tracking. I shouldn't have to use a Firefox add-on to block their domains.

</comment><comment><USER79> I'm very confused about outrage of technically competent people directed at Facebook now.

It doesn't do anything more than any other large company is doing for more than a decade, since even before Google bought doubleclick and became ad company.

I think HN crowd should be aware that Facebook gets this data and keeps this data in neat package along with all the information you volunteered exactly the same as any other company is doing starting from simplest e-commerce sites to huge e-commerce sites to ad networks to all social networks to largest current social network.

Why the surprise? Why the outrage?

That the data was gathered? That it was kept? That it was leaked? It's all inevitable.

Next time you'll be angry at the sun.

</comment><comment><USER80> How can non-users agree to having their data collected and stored.

</comment><comment><USER81> "We use (...) the address of the website or app you're using to make these features work."

so basically most of my browser history for whatever things they they want.

</comment><comment><USER82> The real question is not what but why. I can think of several ways how the entire ad industry could be done without any data collection on users.

</comment><comment><USER83> Interesting the authors Facebook profile does not use default security settings I.e Friends, Photos and Videos require a Facebook login to view.

</comment><comment><USER84> What helps protect you from this?

Ghostery? uBlock? a decent hosts file?

<comment><USER85> Not sure about Ghostery and uBlock, but what definitely works is uMatrix. It gives you control over which third-party domain a website is allowed to contact. It makes browsing the web less convenient, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> > We don't sell people's data. Period.

You just share it for a fee?

<comment><USER87> Do you not understand how platform apis work? If you sign up for a third party app using Facebook and give them permission to access all your data you should expect them to capture all of your data

<comment><USER86> Are you sure everybody who clicked "ok" was aware of the distinction?

Pointing the finger at their contractors is an easy way for Facebook to shift blame. They knew what was going on. And they eagerly participated on their side of the deal.

<comment><USER87> Shift blame? Facebook created an API that would allow people to create genuinely useful apps provided that users allowed them to access their data. I can think of a thousand interesting use cases for the data Facebook provided through their api.

One bad actor screwed everyone.

I'm surprised at how few people on hackernews have ever built or worked with apis.

Facebook essentially built an open platform and now they are being punished for it because people are too stupid to understand what they are signing up for.

<comment><USER86> I may deplore that people are falling for a fraud, but I will still hold the fraudster in contempt. Not the people. So please don't call people stupid. They're up against something they are not prepared to understand.

The Facebook API needs special quarantine whenever I work with it. To protect my users.

<comment><USER87> If people aren't responsible for who has access to their data who should be?

The Facebook permissions when granting a third party app access to your data couldn't be more clear

<comment><USER86> Relying on cognitive limitations of your subjects to get agreement you wouldn't get if the subjects were fully-informed is fraudsters' domain.

And since the article is called "What Data Does Facebook Collect When I'm Not Using Facebook?" I'd like to point out that I never agreed to Facebook tracking my browsing habits. I couldn't say they were clear and forthcoming about their tracking because we never met. Are you saying they wouldn't do it without my explicit permission? Because that would be news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> FB is building rich device profiles in order to crack down on fake profiles, which they call euphemistically 'security'.

</comment><comment><USER88> Anyone noticed there comment got deleted from that blog post. I posted my comment using Facebook login but it's not there anymore.

</comment><comment><USER89> FTFY: [https://imgur.com/b3QhEXq](https://imgur.com/b3QhEXq)

</comment><comment><USER90> It's shame they didn't answer the question when the rumors came out.

</comment><comment><USER91> "We don't sell people's data. Period."

LOL! They expect users to fall for that line?

</comment><comment><USER92> The only possible way a page like this could be a good idea if it just said "We collect no data" \- otherwise it's a bad answer that just doesn't play well.

</comment><comment><USER93> FB does an amazing job in crisis management.

<comment><USER28> How so?

<comment><USER94> I hadn't considered it until that parent post. Compared to what I've seen out of Wall Street banks during the great recession, Equifax, shady lenders, mortgage scumbags, politicians, big tobacco, big oil, big sugar, GE & PCBs, CIA/Bush & torture, various Iraq war scandals, NSA spying scandal, Yahoo, Target, and about 407 other data, consumer, privacy breaches or abuses I've seen the last 20-30 years - Facebook gets high marks in this round for being very public about responding and tackling it head-on, _but_ only after prior delay & evade maneuvers in the past. Most likely they recognized they were staring down a serious Congressional legislative/regulatory problem that could severely damage their business, and had no choice.

<comment><USER93> Yes, that's what I mean. Thanks :-)

<comment><USER65> FB does an amazing job in crisis management at gunpoint?!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Hey HackerNews

I remember back in 2009, 2010, Facebook was the cool still startup, still no IPO, tech company. Revolution.

The social network. Social everything.

There was people like me, even in 2007, warning about this.

We said, how Obama got elected by using social media, reddit, twitter, facebook. Acting all cool. Was not a very transparent or open election, it can be misused and abused.

Yet we, the paranoid warners, were dismissed as "US has privacy protection laws, this is a democracy, never would a company allow its data to be exported out just like that".

Now, Trump is president and _now_ its not cool?

<comment><USER96> You're preaching to the choir.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> > The browser shares your IP address so the website knows where on the > internet to send the site content.

Huh?!?

<comment><USER98> This is "internet is a series of pipes" logic, but it's technically true - it's used for TCP routing. Why is it bubbled up the layers? Why does facebook store it? Well, it's not as if you can do anything with it. It's not even a great identifier, due to mobile networks, carrier-grade NAT, dynamic IPs... But it certainly shouldn't be treated as private, any more than your home address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> Curious -- how many here, knowing what they know now, have gone through the trouble of deleting their FB accounts?

<comment><USER44> I did and honestly never felt better - now I'm just waiting to find out if through GDPR i'll be able to force them to remove every last bit of data they have about me.

<comment><USER99> I did as well.</comment></comment></comment>