Awesome IRC - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/davisonio/awesome-irc <comment><USER2> No Irssi? No Weechat? Only 3 networks? You definitely need contributions to this list. :)

<comment><USER3> I'm fairly sure they'd accept pull requests for changes..

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh my, here they come! [https://github.com/davisonio/awesome- irc/pulls](https://github.com/davisonio/awesome-irc/pulls)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I started using quassel a while ago. The idea of having core and GUI separated is great. Bouncers have always been a kludge, never thought of when the protocol was designed. Bouncers and plugins/scrips for clients bend over backwards trying to streamline the experience, with mediocre results. Quassel created a new protocol that core and GUI talk, so when running multiple GUI instances on several machines all the open networks, channels, queries and backlogs are synchronized. The backlog even loads in chunks infinitely when scrolling up. Although the client lacks some minor features I got used to over the years with xchat, in general I'm quite happy with it.

<comment><USER5> The IRCv3 working group (ZNC in particular) introduced several specifications to make bouncers integrate better with IRC clients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was pleasantly suprised by Kiwi IRC [0] on that list.

It's the closest I've seen to being a Slack replacement.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Contributors are currently working on a refresh of the UI for the next-gen Kiwi. PreviewBot announces new builds of the design concept on #kiwiirc, so we can spy on the work in real time: [https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/#irc://irc.freenode.net/kiwii...](https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/#irc://irc.freenode.net/kiwiirc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> IRC is fast. IRC is simple. IRC is textbased.

A programming channel I'm always on: [https://qchat.rizon.net/?channels=#/g/dpt](https://qchat.rizon.net/?channels=#/g/dpt)

</comment><comment><USER8> Thanks for the submission @buovjaga. Happy to merge any PRs into the list with your ideas!

</comment><comment> cup-of-tea The emacs client, ERC, is surprisingly great.

I use irssi, though. I honestly haven't thought about changing tools for IRC for at least ten years. It's basically perfect.

</comment><comment><USER9> eggdrop didn't make the bot list. how the world has changed.

<comment><USER8> Happy to accept a request for it if it's good...never used it myself though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is firrre still active?

<comment><AUTHOR> All systems seem to be operational: [http://status.firrre.com/](http://status.firrre.com/)

<comment><USER10> I mean, will they still accept signups?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://firrre.com/sign-up/](https://firrre.com/sign-up/)

"IMPORTANT NOTE: We have temporarily suspended all signups to make way for some new developments and fixes. We understand your frustration. Thank you for your support!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hmm ...

\- [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/IRCd_sof...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/IRCd_software_implementations3.svg)

\- [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

<comment><USER12> There's nothing wrong with there being more implementations of ircd. Each one is based on the same protocol, with their own additional features. The XKCD comic would be relevant if they were implementations of -different- protocols.

<comment><USER5> A problem with IRCds is that a lot of them are very similar (charybdis, ratbox, ircd-seven, hybrid), which duplicates the efforts needed to fix bugs and add features, for very little benefits.

And the benefits each fork has generally is extra _non-standard_ modes, which complicates work on the client-side. For instance, +q is a channel owner (= someone very powerful) on UnrealIRC, but it's a muted user (= kind of a ban) on ircd-seven

<comment><USER12> True, anything non-standard will complicate things. But it shouldn't complicate much, since the core functionality is standardized. Accidentally alerting the user that he's now a channel owner instead of a muted user is a trivial issue.

EDIT: Also, there's work on getting modern irc server features added to the protocol, which could possibly standardize those additional modes. [https://ircv3.net/](https://ircv3.net/)

<comment><USER5> > Accidentally alerting the user that he's now a channel owner instead of a > muted user is a trivial issue.

But it's not if you accidentally make someone an owner instead of muting them.

> EDIT: Also, there's work on getting modern irc server features added to the > protocol, which could possibly standardize those additional modes. > [https://ircv3.net/](https://ircv3.net/)

Yeah, the IRCv3 Working Group is doing great work</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Node.js and the javascript age - <AUTHOR> http://metamarketsgroup.com/blog/node-js-and-the-javascript-age

<comment><USER2> Evented web development != Javascript.

These problems are all solvable by other languages/frameworks. I use Python, and we have gevent, which does the same thing as Node, but in a more concise language with a richer standard library.

LAMP is not dead. It's evolving.

<comment><USER3> I agree, in addition javascript is not easy to develop in. Yes, it's fun and fast for little projects. But do I want to stake my future upon a huge javascript codebase? I'd rather not. Navigating through javascript code is beyond cryptic at times.

<comment><USER4> Javascript is _incredibly_ easy to develop in. Most folks who say that its hard or messy don't understand it and are approaching it the wrong way.

I'm learning Objective-C right now, and it seems to be hard to develop in, at first. Why do I have to put @ in front of strings, or NSLog(@"%@", myVar); to log a string? Why are there so many data types? Wtf is up with all the brackets?

As soon as I actually started at the very basics, this stuff started to make sense. Its a different language with its own ways of solving problems. Its me as the new guy on the team that has to learn the rules before I can start complaining that things don't make sense.

<comment><USER5> Objective-C is basically C, so you have to deal with a lot of stuff that is usually hidden in scripting languages. I think he was referring to the fact that javascript code tends to become tangled like spaghetti.

<comment><USER4> That's actually a really good point. In my career I never learned C, but rather started with basic C++ in college then moved into frontend development early on, so I was never fully exposed to low-level languages at a deep level until relatively recently.

I know what you mean about the spaghetti effect, but this is easily mitigated if you know how to structure your code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "III. 2010-??: The Javascript Age" is true only if you build highly interactive web application. When you just need a web site with forms for CRUD content, many PHP CMS systems are just fine, often without coding except when you need a custom theme. The majority of the sites are such ones so LAMP is not near dead.

</comment><comment><USER7> That's fair enough, but seems to ignore the fact that there is still a tremendous need for efficiently serving static files, even in a javascript era. Images, CSS, Javascript, HTML all still need an efficient method of delivery, and I don't believe that Node.js can fill that role as well as is needed.

I don't see the LAMP stack going away. Parts of it may be substituted as new technologies become popular, but the concept is still sound.

<comment><USER8> And machine instructions aren't going away, because that's what those C server applications compile down to. But the "web stack," like the other layers before it, is becoming a black box which many developers won't need to know about to do their work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My favorite part:

The principal role of the server is to ship an application to the client (Javascript), along with data (JSON), and let the client weave those into a DOM.

</comment><comment><USER10> Prior discussion at: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2425316>

</comment><comment><USER11> I think that's mixing up technology and content. Just because it has become easier and more efficient to send lots of JSON messages back and forth doesn't mean all documents suddenly become interactive applications.

</comment><comment><USER12> "LAMP architectures are dead"

word?

</comment><comment><USER5> What I don't understand in the first place is why we want to create persistent sockets on top of a stateless, request-response protocol like HTTP. Sounds like a travesty to me.

<comment><USER13> We don't, necessarily. Sometimes a persistent socket is the right tool for the job. Sometimes it's not. The whole point of the article was that Node and its ilk serve both needs very well, whereas older mechanisms do not.</comment></comment>


Before the NSA, There Was 'Patrolling the Ether' - <AUTHOR> http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-404791/

<comment><AUTHOR> ugh, curse you WSJ and your incremental paywalls.

> The government man in the bedroom helps himself to a seat, leans toward the > lad and says: "I'm afraid you'll have to write him a letter, Philip. . . . > There's to be no more transmitting out of the United States." He explains: > He is from the Federal Communications Commission's Radio Intelligence > Division; "the R.I.D.," he says, enunciating each letter. He tells the boy: > "Today it's chiefly by radio that the enemies within a country hope to get > their stolen information out of it. That's why the R.I.D. was born. . . . It > is our job to police the ether."</comment>


Babel – API for Twitter users demographics, psychographics, influence scores - <AUTHOR> https://babel.socialobjects.ai/register <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN!

A lot of startups wanted to access our data to build personalized products so we figured we built an API for it!

Babel API: \- Access to our 550Millions+ Twitter profiles database \- 14 data fields: age, gender, location, affinities, influence score, biography …. \- Limited to 1000 API calls on trial version \- API calls are made requesting the user Twitter handle \- Documentation: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YsPZ6720qYi6k8XHjEu3t65J...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YsPZ6720qYi6k8XHjEu3t65JJt7gu9giQpGKG277cnY/edit?usp=sharing)

Let me know what you think!

</comment><comment><USER2> This just seems like Cambridge Analytica 2.0

<comment><AUTHOR> Well Cambridge Analytica was tricking you into giving your facebook access so they could access your friends and datas. On our side we analyze public datas to determine insights

<comment><USER2> "Public" is basically anything covered in T&C's that users sign in order to join social media platforms, or use mobile apps. That's exactly what CA did. They harvested data on users after "asking for consent" and sold their services to political parties and private companies to create targeted ads for these people, all unknowingly.

SocialObjects sounds a lot like this, is all I'm saying.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really. Facebook datas can only be accessed through Facebook tokens. Its not public data, which why CA pulled the gaming app trick.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Brave's privacy-focused ads to spread beyond startup's own browser - Digit-Al https://www.cnet.com/news/braves-privacy-focused-ads-to-spread-beyond-startups-own-browser/ <comment> Digit-Al I've never used Brave myself, but I'm curious about the HN perspective on this technology.</comment>


The memory part of the brain may also hold clues for anxiety and depression - <AUTHOR> https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-04-memory-brain-clues-anxiety-depression.html <comment><USER2> Blogspam of

[https://www.utoronto.ca/news/could-memory-part-brain-hold- cl...](https://www.utoronto.ca/news/could-memory-part-brain-hold-clues- anxiety-and-depression)</comment>


New York's New Bitcoin Rules Are Going to Kill Its Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/07/ny_bitcoin/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like some pretty basic due diligence. But, I suppose if your main business is suborning illegal activity, it might make things a bit harder.</comment>


Ask HN: What primarily drives you upvote something on HN? - <AUTHOR> For me it's generally a 'I like this, I want this to exist, I want it to do well, I want more of this in the world' or 'I support this, I want this message/content to get more reach'<p>If you've thought about it and observed yourself as you vote, what is it for you? <comment><USER2> Some of the criteria I use to upvote: \- Article is very relevant to my line of work and technology preference (i.e. Software Development). \- Well-written articles that provides very good insight and context on the topic being discussed. \- Lots of insightful discussion about the topic. \- Something that is essentially beneficial in terms of technical and social impact to people and the society in general. \- Topics that cover breakthrough discoveries and better ways of doing things.

</comment><comment><USER3> I upvote comments readily, even if on mobile where the UX makes this tricky as I fear accidentally down-voting.

I am not in the habit of upvoting articles, this is mostly habit. On Stack Overflow I don't hesitate to upvote useful questions and useful answers, comments too.

On a separate note, how many people on Stack Overflow know what a 'stack' is, nevermind the overflow condition... I am not sure my colleagues would have a clue.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just to save the links and comments of good articles.

<comment><USER5> You should use "favorite" (a new feature) instead of upvote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I upvote on side projects and I like them then the upvote is to support the anonymous developer like me, early exposure is good.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hoping for interesting comments from readers</comment>


95% of HTTPS servers vulnerable to trivial MITM attacks - <AUTHOR> http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2016/03/17/95-of-https-servers-vulnerable-to-trivial-mitm-attacks.html <comment><USER2> You still need to get in the middle.

<comment><USER3> Acting as "Evil twin" for hotspots in public places seems to be feasible. I understand why people aren't using cert pinning, that can completely break site, are there any practical reasons not to use HSTS?</comment></comment>


Keystone – Open-source Secure Hardware Enclave - <AUTHOR> https://keystone-enclave.org <comment><USER2> It is great to see interest in Keystone on here! A couple comments that may help clarify what we are aiming for and where we are right now.

Keystone is a (still pretty early!) research project and enclave/TEE framework for general use on RISC-V processors. We'll be using it ourselves heavily as a platform for secure hardware and systems research.

There are a couple logical parts to Keystone:

\- The security monitor (riscv-pk/sm) is the core of this, and is the TCB for the entire system. It provides privacy by isolating enclave memory from the rest of the system.

\- The SDK/runtime provides one possible (minimal) example of how to target and host applications in the enclave, we'll be making new tools and runtimes as targets going forward.

\- The demo, which uses our minimal sdk and runtime.

The demo isn't particularly flashy, but demonstrates how to accomplish privacy and integrity against a malicious OS on a remote RISC-V machine. Right now we don't have protection mechanisms against side-channels and the like, but those are some of our next goals.

We're excited to build a community around open-source secure enclave development on RISC-V and are actively looking for collaborators and other researchers. Expect to see significantly more documentation and information on keystone-enclave.org and docs.keystone-enclave.org in the next week. Also check out the slides from our recent talk here: [https://keystone- enclave.org/files/keystone-risc-v-summit.pd...](https://keystone- enclave.org/files/keystone-risc-v-summit.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great project. I always try to post Keystone updates here :)

Can you maybe compare this work with Hex Five MultiZone Security?

Are the plans to integrate this into the Rocket (BOOM), Pulp, LowRisc and others SoCs?

Can you do all that a modern IPhone Secure Enclave provides?

<comment><USER3> Keystone has been demonstrated to run on Rocket Chip on FPGAs using FireSim ([https://fires.im](https://fires.im)). There are docs on how to do so here: [http://docs.keystone-enclave.org/en/latest/Getting- Started/R...](http://docs.keystone-enclave.org/en/latest/Getting- Started/Running-Keystone-with-FireSim.html)

There's also a branch of BOOM ([https://github.com/riscv-boom/riscv- boom/tree/secureboom](https://github.com/riscv-boom/riscv- boom/tree/secureboom)) that supports Keystone, we're just waiting for it to be merged into master.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This appears to be the meat of it:

[https://github.com/keystone-enclave/riscv-pk](https://github.com/keystone- enclave/riscv-pk)

with apps:

[https://github.com/keystone-enclave/keystone- demo](https://github.com/keystone-enclave/keystone-demo)

... there's not much there.

(For the same application, Apple uses L4).

<comment><USER5> > there's not much there

What's missing?

More:

Workshop on Building Open Source Secure Enclave, with little information about what was presented [1]. The Google slides are superficially interesting: [https://keystone-enclave.org/workshop- website-2018/slides/Sc...](https://keystone-enclave.org/workshop- website-2018/slides/Scott_Google_Titan.pdf)

Documentation: [http://docs.keystone-enclave.org/en/latest/Getting- Started/i...](http://docs.keystone-enclave.org/en/latest/Getting- Started/index.html)

Mailing list: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/keystone- enclave](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/keystone-enclave)

[1] [https://keystone-enclave.org/workshop-website-2018/](https://keystone- enclave.org/workshop-website-2018/)

<comment><USER4> I'm not saying there's anything missing, just that there isn't much in it; it's a mirror of the already-existing "tethered RISC-V" proxy kernel, with a trivial hello-world app on top of it (the app listens for messages over the "HTIF" interface, uses NaCL to encrypt/decrypt them, and implements essentially "hello world").

Compare to the object/capability schemes in modern L4s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the first I've read of TEEs, though I've heard mention of Enclaves on iPhones without really looking into that.

Do I understand correctly that these are basically a hardware execution environment (processor + ram?) where code and data need to be input encrypted with a public key and that the private key is unobtainable to the user? Is that the key feature? For users to be able to execute code without being able to know what that code is and therefore be unable to copy and execute it elsewhere (aka engage in piracy)?

<comment><USER7> DRM is certainly a use case and was widely maligned as the idea behind early TEE / keystore concepts like Intel TPM, but they're much more broadly useful. Common use cases include trusted boot (verification of OS components in an environment an attacker can't tamper with) and secure key management (private keys which aren't accessible to even a root level attacker). Secure key management enables a variety of trust scenarios like machine level root identity for service to service authentication in the data center (see Google Titan). TEE with access to biometric hardware also provides strong user identity, as is the case in the iPhone where data can be encrypted using a key which is undiscoverable without access to the user's biometrics like fingerprint or face print and theoretically impossible to exfiltrate for offline use.

<comment><USER6> > DRM is certainly a use case and was widely maligned as the idea behind early > TEE / keystore concepts like Intel TPM

As I recall from my skimming on the issue back then, and as I see from what was written on the issue in Wikipedia[1], the criticism circulated mostly around basically the possibility of a manufacturer like Intel requiring booted software to be trusted by them (IOW, trusting Windows but not Linux and others because money, further grounding Microsoft as a monopoly of consumer OSes):

> The concerns include the abuse of remote validation of software (where the > manufacturer—and not the user who owns the computer system—decides what > software is allowed to run

That's actually part of the "trusted boot" feature you mention, and not what allows for DRM.

There were also concerns of:

> possible ways to follow actions taken by the user being recorded in a > database, in a manner that is completely undetectable to the user.

But that seems like an issue with using closed source stuff in general, not specifically of TEEs.

Anyway, I can see how DRM can always be maligned from a GNUish we-should- never-trust-closed-source perspective. While very much appreciate the ideals that GNU/FSF promotes, I worry a bit about the current trend of how software vendors prefer to provide software as a web service when it doesn't really provide any technical benefit from the user's perspective. I know there are other reasons for doing so, but it seems to me that a big reason for that trend is that it's the most effective and available way to avoid piracy.

I wonder if widespread availability of TEEs (ones that wouldn't have the trusted boot issue mentioned) and a standard procedure like what I've mentioned in this SE question[2] could reverse that trend of further making the web an operating system, moving ownership/control of our data and processes from our own machines to various online entities.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module#Critic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module#Criticism)

[2] [https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/199324/is- there...](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/199324/is-there-a- compiled-list-of-tee-trusted-execution-environment-manufacturer-ca)

<comment><USER8> > I worry a bit about the current trend of how software vendors prefer to > provide software as a web service when it doesn't really provide any > technical benefit from the user's perspective.

Given that I'm not going to have control over the software either way, I'd rather it were running on _their_ hardware, safely isolated on the other side of an Internet link, than on hardware which I payed for and nominally own but which has been partitioned off for someone else's use.

TEEs and TPMs have legitimate uses, but only so long as they are fully controlled by the owner of the device. That implies that there are no pre- installed keys which the owner doesn't control: to a remote exploiter, an _emulated_ TEE/TPM should be indistinguishable from an official hardware device. Unfortunately this is not something that can be designed into the hardware, short of omitting the feature altogether, since non-owner-controlled keys could be installed at any point prior to final delivery. Erasing them after delivery is no good; the mere _expectation_ that the manufacturer's key is present is enough to make treacherous remote attestation practical. Devices controlled by their owners should be the norm, not second-class citizens.

The problem is ultimately a social one, not a technical one, but the technical capabilities of TEEs and TPMs are empowering the wrong side. From one point of view they may just be tools, but they're tools which are more readily used _against_ the interests of device owners then _for_ them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> AMD is doing a lot of open source work in this area as well.

[https://github.com/AMDESE/AMDSEV](https://github.com/AMDESE/AMDSEV)

<comment><USER10> [https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2018/05/25/amd_epyc...](https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2018/05/25/amd_epyc_sev_vm_encryption_bypass/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can anyone explain a bit more context around where this would fit in a running system? Would it handle cryptographic operations like key generation, signing etc? How does the boot loader compare to other projects like libreboot?

All of the sys calls in the GitHub repo just set flags in something called magic_mem and then call hitf_syscall, for which I can't find a definition.

<comment><USER4> It's defined in machine/htif.c. HTIF is a RISC-V thing; see slide 12 of:

[https://riscv.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/riscv- software-...](https://riscv.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/riscv-software- stack-bootcamp-jan2015.pdf)

There's (I think) an analogous design in the Apple SEP; search "mailbox" in:

[https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-16/materials/us-16-Mandt- De...](https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-16/materials/us-16-Mandt-Demystifying- The-Secure-Enclave-Processor.pdf)

<comment><USER11> Thanks, those slides have some great info.

What exactly does it mean to proxy a syscall to the debugging host?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just posted a question to SE[1] if anyone's interested.

[1] [https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/199324/is- there...](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/199324/is-there-a- compiled-list-of-tee-trusted-execution-environment-manufacturer-ca)

</comment><comment><USER12> Seems like a shame to write this in a memory unsafe language when it requires such a high-assurance level to be useful.

<comment><USER13> The project appears to vastly predate reliable Rust on RISC V, so I'm not really sure what other production-ready options they have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Mh, Solaris in the past have offered something similar together with TrustedExtensions... The final result was a big bureaucratic and unusable mess...

<comment><USER15> Unix is born on the ashes of multics that was big and unusable.

<comment><USER14> As far as I know Multics was an answer to Unix, not an ancestor... Multics was named after Unix to be the opposite and is evolved in Plan9.

<comment><USER16> Wikipedia says otherwise. Multics was started in 1964, whereas Unix is from the early 1970s:

 _In 1964, Multics was developed initially for the GE-645 mainframe [..] Bell Labs pulled out of the project in 1969; some of the people who had worked on it there went on to create the Unix system._

from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics)

<comment><USER14> Mh, I have to refresh my historic knowledge then... Perhaps I have mixed ITS and Multics...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A related project is [https://cryptech.is](https://cryptech.is), an open hardware HSM.

</comment><comment> time-domain0 If they're going through the trouble of doing a FOSH HSM, they ought to add a TCSRNG like EntropyKey -> egd.</comment>


Serverless has stamped a big DEPRECATED on containers - <AUTHOR> https://read.acloud.guru/serverless-is-eating-the-stack-and-people-are-freaking-out-and-they-should-be-431a9e0db482 <comment><USER2> Serveless is as serveless as current phones are bezel less. :D</comment>


Meter‐Scale Experiments on Magma‐Water Interaction - <AUTHOR> https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018JB015682 <comment><AUTHOR> NYTimes article on the experiments at [1] with video.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/science/volcanos- explosio...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/science/volcanos-explosions- lava.html)</comment>


The Apophenic Machine - <AUTHOR> http://reallifemag.com/the-apophenic-machine/ <comment><USER2> This guy's onto something.

Google any stupid theory and you will find an echochamber ready, willing and able to amplify your stupid opinions to the point of seeming reality.

And it's even worse if your opinions are popular.

The internet is a lot like a vague mystical text in this way. You can use it to validate anything.

<comment><USER3> "This guy" is named Molly and is a gal.

<comment><USER2> I don't see the relevance

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought the term was pareidolia?

In general there seems to be a lot of reinvention of these kinds of concepts these days.

</comment><comment><USER5> What a load of bollocks.</comment>


$1,200 a month, privacy not included - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/05/success/podshare-co-living/index.html <comment><USER2> > Stephen T. Johnson, the 27-year-old founder of FlipMass, an advertising > company for Instagram influencers

Advertising, extortionate rents, middle-men, 'analytics'... the sheer number of layers of parasitism in San Francisco is hard to comprehend.

9 times out of 10, these 'tech' companies are a net drain on society.

</comment><comment><USER3> Call me crazy, but is it possible CNN wants to further legitimatize high rents in large cities? Every big news service works for some billionaire it seems, and none are even tongue in cheek self critical anymore, or so it seems.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting that the founder's elevator speech included nostalgia for late period USSR... I cringed a bit at that.

<comment><USER5> Where did you see that?

<comment><USER4> It's in the first minute of the video</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the purpose of end-to-end encryption when you control the infra? - <AUTHOR> So why would I prefer matrix over IRC/XMPP + TLS ? <comment><USER2> I have a project where having provable zero knowledge of the content of user's data/communication is a hard requirement. I can tell user xyz is exchanging data with user abc (and when, how often, and how many encrypted\/padded bytes), but I do not know who xyz or abc are nor what they are saying to each other. The backend mediates a TOFU exchange of public keys and user guids, and everything else is end to end encrypted.

It's not intended to be ultra resilient to - for example - the NSA, it's designed that way to ensure we (as the operators of the backend infrastructure) and the client we built if for (a government department) cannot ever accidentally collect or expose any PII related to the platform users.

Without pushing changed client code (mobile apps, in this case) or MITMing you proactively before the TOFU exchange, even though I have god mode access to all the infra, I cannot (and can prove I cannot) reveal anything more than IP addresses and guids/times/sizes of user to user comms.

If my database gets popped, I and my client have no data breach reporting obligations. And I sleep _much_ better at night knowing that.

(If LOE show up with a warrant, we'd happily hand over the IP address/connections times/guids/guid-social-graphs - and they'd be able to go elsewhere to try mapping IP addresses to identities. So I'd strongly advise against running your drug business or terrorist cells on the back of this project. But _I_ cannot tie identities to guids. Unfortunately, I and this project are also from Australia, so if the App Store/googleplay binaries are already backdoored, I could soon potentially get put in jail for saying so...)</comment>


We would like to get a feedback on our secure communication software - <AUTHOR> Enjoy secure video/audio call, chat and file sharing without the possibility of anyone hacking your live stream with Venux Connect. Download now, it's #FREE! for Windows and Mac! Get the digital privacy you deserve. https://venux.com/products/connect <comment><USER2> Closed source - Question: Why should I trust you/your company with anything? Answer: I shouldn't.</comment>


The Town That Turned Poverty Into a Prison Sentence - <AUTHOR> http://www.thenation.com/article/178845/town-turned-poverty-prison-sentence <comment><USER3> I hate the over use of the term Dickensian to describe modern social conditions, but this is pretty much it. When you reinstitute debtor's prisons, you're essentially reinstating an institution and its associated societal cruft desribed in such novels as Oliver Twist. It's a massive step backwards for American society, and quite frankly, utterly disgraceful.

<comment><USER4> I thought "debtor's prisons" referred to being locked up for private debt, not fines and fees owed the government.

There's nothing new about breaking the law and going to jail when you can't pay the fines. You'll typically sit in jail at a given rate until the debt is paid (for example, $50/day, and there's multipliers for working while in jail)

<comment><USER5> The funny thing is that when someone is locked up for not paying their debt, the government very likely ends up having spent more money doing that than just leaving that debt alone.

<comment><USER6> Unless it has a deterrence effect and makes people pay faster in the future.

<comment><USER7> Because we all know that deterrence is so effective. We should put a jaywalker in the stockades in the town square every day as a warning to the other pedestrians out there.

The problem with your suggestion (deterrence to "encourage" others to pay up faster), these folks _can 't_ pay up faster. You ever been to one of these small towns? There's no money, a several hundred dollar fine is a month or more of labor for the ones that _have_ a job. They have to forgo food, insurance, electricity, water or some other essential in order to pay off these debts. You want them to pay faster? Get rid of the fucking speed traps and corrupt officials that screw them.

<comment><USER6> I responded to an unfounded assertion with an unfounded assertion, it wasn't a suggestion. The point I was very obliquely trying to make is that if you choose policy based on consequences, you don't control the universe so you might not like the results. I agree that the best course of action would be to demolish the parasitic government, but for moral reasons, not to achieve specific consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow. This is actually modern day slavery, exactly as implemented in countries like Pakistan and India[1]: you owe a debt, and you are held in servitude until you pay it back, while racking up new bills the entire time you're there.

[1] From my recollection of Disposable People: [https://www.freetheslaves.net/sslpage.aspx?pid=348](https://www.freetheslaves.net/sslpage.aspx?pid=348)

<comment><USER9> > This is actually modern day slavery

Yes, it is. And contrary to the assertion of the article, this sort of thing happens pretty much in every town in the US.

If you owe the court money and you don't pay ... you'll be thrown in jail. Can't pay the fine? Jail. Behind on your alimony payments? Jail. The government always gets paid.

The worst part is that the people who get caught up in this are not exactly model citizens. Not exactly a clear case for sympathy.

Regardless, debtor prisons are _barbaric_ , period.

<comment><USER10> Following the rulings in _Tate_ and _Bearden_ , the state cannot imprison a defendant who has been convicted of a crime that has a sentence of a fine and is legitimately unable to pay. To do otherwise would allow the conversion of a sentence from fine to imprisonment based entirely on the financial status of the offender. However, if the court determines an offender _can_ pay and is _refusing_ to, then all bets are off.

<comment><USER11> >the state cannot imprison a defendant who has been convicted of a crime that has a sentence of a fine and is legitimately unable to pay.

That's assuming the court is obligated to evaluate the person's ability to pay. A person could be in the system for months or years before the court conducts an evaluation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The simple solution is that all fines must be forwarded to the State and absolutely none kept locally. (Including everything, even fees, everything.)

That would solve virtually all of this.

<comment><USER13> it would mitigate it but then you'd get the states pressuring the municipalities to jack up the fines. probably better than the current situation but not a panacea

<comment><USER14> In some cases that would be true. But in a number of cases I think there's a fairly particularized local bad incentive that gets mitigated at the state level via dilution (and also looks worse, if anyone has to look at it). Texas did something like this with traffic fines. Due to extensive abuse of small municipalities who were trying to extract windfall profits from the fact that they happened to be located along an interstate in Middle-of-Nowhere, West Texas, the state did the state version of "nationalizing" to the revenue from traffic tickets: changed the law so all ticket revenue gets sent to Austin. This has mostly solved the problem: these small municipalities no longer have the incentive to ticket a bunch of people.

In this case I think it's mostly due to different local vs. state incentives. At the local level, if you happen to live in a 750-person municipality along a freeway, ticketing people aggressively is popular, because it raises money for the municipality, mostly from outsiders passing through. But if Austin takes control of ticketing revenues, it gets much less popular: the average Texan does not want aggressive ticketing on the West Texas interstates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is revealing and utterly heart-wrenching. It's sad to hear that things like this exist in countries as wealthy as the United States.

I hope some smarter reader comes here and says this article isn't an accurate representation of the truth, because as it stands now I almost am not able to take it.

<comment><USER10> It happens more often than most of us, privileged as we are, think. The legality of an action isn't determined by law (black letter or case), but by law plus petition. The poorest and weakest members of society generally don't have the financial wherewithal to effectively see court challenges through, and public-minded legal groups only have so many lawyers and so much bandwidth.

These kinds of practices don't require local municipalities to be full of bad actors, but desperate ones. The private firms, on the other hand....

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FYI, this was a recent submission to longform.org. If you like longform journalism on a wide variety of topics, that site is highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm utterly shocked that this happened in a Southern state.

</comment><comment><USER17> Why is this the top story on HN, let alone on the front page?

<comment><USER18> Because it was voted there. If you want different sorts of stories checkout [https://news.ycombinator.com/newest](https://news.ycombinator.com/newest) and vote for the ones that you want.

<comment><USER17> I obviously wasn't asking for the pedantic, condescending answer, so how is this an acceptable answer? Downvote me all you like; I was asking a legitimate question about how this fits the HN newsworthy criteria. "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics..." I realize there'a lot of patting ourselves on the back here that we're not as backwards as some random person/place, but it's not why I came to HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted this story.

There's no particular reason why it should have been front page material -- just the time of day it was submitted and the provocative title helped, I guess. I found it interesting and am a longform journalism fan. I thought others on HN might find it interesting so I submitted it. I have no particular political agenda [1] and don't necessarily agree with all the content of this piece, but it made me think about a challenging subject and seemed like it could launch an interesting discussion.

Sorry it's not your cup of tea, just trying to add some variety to the HN submissions.

[1] The only other longform piece I've submitted -- A Death at Tough Mudder -- is about the circumstances surrounding a participant's death at a spartan race. I don't read longform to pat myself on the back when I find articles I agree with. I read it to take a break from all things tech related and to learn about new things.

<comment><USER17> No worries. Thank you for submitting it. It _is_ interesting and I personally don't mind it. I was more commenting on the tendency (it seems to me) of HN to upvote different things than it used to. I also partly wanted to experiment and prove that the comment would be downvoted as I predicted. HN tends toward cliquishness, it seems to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "He asked to see her license. [She] didn't have one."

The article started off with the theme in the title: she can't pay the fine for a traffic ticket. This would be pretty damning if you needed to drive to get to work. But she hasn't worked in a decade. Presumably because of injuries from a car wreck.

Then she's driving without a license. I'm sorry, but you can't thumb your nose at the law like this. You don't have the right to drive around unlicensed. She's on disability, she doesn't have a job to drive to, nor the income to pay the fine ... so she must adapt her life to live without a license: walk to the store, ride with someone else to go to further places. Anyway, the story goes on from there about how she can't afford to pay the fines and the fees and ...

I'd like more information before I can really make judgement about this person. What are the details of this 1997 (did I math that correctly?) car wreck? Is she at fault? Were there any settlements involved? What kind of injury does she have that keeps her from working? Can she learn to do something that doesn't affect her disability? Specifically, what injury prevents her working but allows her to drive?

I get that the world is unfair to the poor. I know that these collection systems for fines with private companies involved are abhorrent. I understand that a societal shift is needed to help with many lives that are so much less than ideal. What I don't understand is how, when someone makes a colossal mistake (especially one that we've all been educated about), anyone else would blame everyone but the mistaken.

For me, this whole story hinged on that one time she got caught driving without a license: there's no reason she should have been unaware of the consequences.

<comment><USER20> Also, I'm confused how you were able to have a license and be considered fit to drive, but could quality for disability and not have a job.

I'm an advocate for basic income, but I can still call bullshit in the status quo.

<comment><USER21> Have you honestly never seen someone park in a handicapped parking spot?

<comment><USER20> You can be handicapped in locomotion but still able to drive. You can also have one of those fliers and not be able to collect disability so you never have to work again. The point is, how can someone who is capable of driving be given money that is meant for people _incapacitated_ and unable to contribute to society?

<comment><USER21> Maybe they can only do light physical activity - or even sit up at all - <USER2> an hour or two? Maybe they have a debilitating mental illness but still need to get to therapy and doctors' appointments? Maybe they've got Downs Syndrome but are high-functioning enough to drive (it happens!)?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask/Offer HN: Free Rails Application Development - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
Next two week I have some free time. I want to spend this time by creating something useful. I am looking for creative web app ideas. I can open-source the code. If you have any interesting idea please share it.
Ideas: - Open source Tumblr Clone - Simple, very easy to customize <comment><USER2> I'd enjoy using an open source Tumblr clone on my own server. I've thought about starting a Tumblr, but strangely enough, rather than go through the simple process of signing up, I'd prefer to do much more work and put it on my own server.

Another idea I've had floating around my head for the past few days is a visual based data sorter. Basically, something that would allow people who know nothing about regex to use them. Like they could upload a big text or csv file, then given a few lines, select the data they would want out of it, then the computer generates a regex pattern to run to get that data, runs it, and outputs the desired data for them to download. Not sure how useful it would be, but I've seen a few people struggle with this from time to time. It's also quite possible that it is well covered out on the market, I haven't really looked yet.</comment>


Show HN: Freelancers - Get Leads for Gigs in your inbox daily. - <AUTHOR> http://www.leadsriver.com

<comment><USER2> Very interesting. I might just give it a try. Will you be adding more lead sources later?

<comment><AUTHOR> If that's something that enough users request (and it improves the quality of the stream into your inbox), then definitely =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How do you vet for quality?

<comment><AUTHOR> By hand, right now.</comment></comment>


I am done with Google Chrome - <AUTHOR> Google Chrome is equivalent to IE to me now. It does things which don't make any sense. One of my latest frustration is the auto-translate feature.
This text:
Click and hold a bar below to delay its respective bus. Note how even a short delay causes the buses to bunch together after a while. Hover over a stop to see its history. The area of the curve is cumulative wait time. Bunching makes the area grow.
Gets auto translated to:
Click and hold a bar below to delay su respectivo bus. Note que incluso a short delay causes the buses to bunch juntos después de a while. Hover over una parada to see su historia. The area of the curve is cumulative tiempo de espera. Bunching hace que el área grow.
I have tried to set the language setting to both ON/OFF for the "offer to translate" option.
There are some "full english" websites where the "translating" widget would keep spinning and blocking functionality on the UI. The only language I have configured in the browser is "English".
Google Chrome is dead to me. <comment><USER2> Chrome suffers from gluttony. I need to restart it 10-15 times a day as it starts using gigabytes of memory. When I have 10-15 tabs open, my MacBook Air fan is always on. Safari is the best. For tabs with the same URLs, it uses times less memory and CPU. I've used FirefoxDeveloperEdition for a while and I still prefer it over Chrome. I only got mad once as One-Tab data file (a single JSON) got wiped out, and a few thousand links disappeared from this universe forever with no way to restore it. Then I spent the last four months using Chrome and I'm going back to Firefox, which has the best balance of features and gluttony. I really had a much higher opinion about Google's engineering talent, but the growing pile of crap that Chrome is becoming is starting to stink beyond tolerance.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just wanted to say that I've never had this problem before, but the problems I do have with chrome are what people such as sophos has such as: the flash player crashing, certain webpages "memory hogging". I use both Google's chrome and chrome copy that uses less memory and is generally much better for watching flash videos while still compatible with adblock, and other chrome extensions.

The new bookmark UI really bugs me though, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I switched to Safari because my battery lasts far, far longer this way.

The only time I use Chrome is for the occasional site that still requires Flash. But that's getting rarer each month...

</comment><comment><USER5> They ruined chrome: auto translate crap.., tabs are getting to damn high CPU, flash players crash the browser sometimes and many more "great features"

</comment><comment><USER6> use mozilla firefox instead

wait was that english hahahahahahaha

<comment><AUTHOR> yup....have been a firefox fan for a while. I generally use chrome for some extensions that are not available on other browsers like postman, zenmate, etc.

anyways...i have found non-chrome replacements for them.</comment></comment>


Senior House Lawmakers Push to Speed Up Broadband Funding - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/senior-house-lawmakers-push-to-speed-up-broadband-funding-11590667202 <comment><USER2> I highly doubt that they are really pushing for such a thing, because doing so is relatively simple: take it away from corporations. No one in congress I know of is looking to do that.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has some of the best/cheapest broadband access in the United States, all because it doesn't get by on a telephone company's notions of artificial scarcity.</comment>


Simplified webpack2 based typescript build pipeline - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/stevejhiggs/gulp-webpack-typescript-pipeline <comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good 'Show HN'. Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment>


Some preliminary data from Facebook ads experiment - <AUTHOR> http://cherif.posterous.com/some-preliminary-data-from-facebook-ads-exper

<comment><USER2> What ads did you run?</comment>


Stamos says the US must 'come together to protect' democracy from misinformation - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/17/18100385/facebook-alex-stamos-former-cso-op-ed-russian-misinformation-democracy-laws <comment><USER3> Oh please. The headline might as well have been:

We need to protect people from information and ideas we don't agree with.

Freedom of speech is not just about speech, its about ideas. Nobody should ever be deemed the arbiter of truth. Not Facebook, not the government, not anyone. Decentralize the social networks. Let everyone speak, even the bad people.

Realize that you actually make the problem worse by suppressing information, even bad information. Making information "forbidden" makes it that much more appealing to people, enhancing the us-vs-them tribal mentality. Especially when its a reasonable opinion or idea with some merit. Suddenly it sounds like suppression of the truth.

<comment><USER4> Saying "everyone should speak" actually means "everyone should speak according to their purchasing power in the market" right now - so I think your premise, while well meaning, is not realistic.

Having liars with big pockets broadcast lies (propaganda) works very effectively, no "black market suppression of the truth" is needed to weaponize bad ideas.

<comment><USER5> Propaganda from deep-pocketed individuals and organizations is a problem, but the current cure is worse than the disease, particularly when the censorship itself is biased. It takes more to be labelled fringe and justify censorship for left-leaning speech, than it takes for right-leaning speech.

The root problem with modern discourse and social media is subtle, _unforced_ siloing of communication within subgroups, so that there's not enough subgroup-bridging discussion. Overton windows shrink until subgroup-bridging discussion is mostly impossible. That all happens without any active censorship.

<comment><USER6> > It takes more to be labelled fringe and justify censorship for left-leaning > speech, than it takes for right-leaning speech.

That's because there's more harm-promoting speech, and more incoherent lies, from the right? Saying there should be equal treatment of left and right speech _regardless of the content_ is nonsense.

<comment><USER7> I come from a very right-leaning area. I was quite surprised to find that everyone I knew supported the daily killing and torture of Jews... because that is what Nazis do, right?

I was also quite surprised to hear that my community wants to take away rights from black people, which I heard in a radio ad not so long ago.

The left has its equal share of hobgoblins.

<comment><USER6> > I was also quite surprised to hear that my community wants to take away > rights from black people, which I heard in a radio ad not so long ago

Have you checked this? What's their opinion on, for example, Black Lives matter?

<comment><USER7> Most of them don't have the education to know the definition of a false equivalence.

That you can seriously entertain Republicans would remove black freedoms if not for Black Lives Matter just turned this thread into one where you can rant away without my participation.

I'm learning to walk away from hate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a classic example of shifting the blame. Yes, he admits that facebook spent too much time trying to minimise the problem. And indeed they did. But it's not only the misinformation that is the problem, facebook itself is at the heart of the problem.

They are one of many, albeit facebook being on the more influential side, platforms through which misinformation is spread. And of course education is the main handle to push to stop spreading of misinformation. But facebook earned I don't know how much money on this and they tried to minimise the problem out of monetary concerns.

We thought the Internet would bring prosperity and an explosion of knowledge growth. And it surely did. But it also connected millions of less educated people who never knew that there were so many others out there - because they never read what they believed in the newspapers. And now they know that many others share their views. Again, education is at the core of a solution to this misinformation crisis. So maybe call the structural problems the burning embers and facebook the accelerant.

<comment><USER9> Is 'less educated' code for people with views different to yours?

<comment><USER8> No, there are some less educated people who share the same views as me. But it is no secret that the degree of education correlates strongly with certain political views. And the people currently in power in America certainly know that and play that to their advantage.

They know full well that their proposed solutions won't work a bit, but instead make them richer along the way. But the less educated people don't know that, they are being abused and mislead. I am not against conservative people and also not against people with different views. We live in a plural society and that is a good thing. It becomes a problem when some of those people can't tell the difference between truth and lie.

<comment><USER10> While it's probable that formal education levels correlate with political choices, it doesn't necessary imply that higher degree leads to better ones, or even reduces possibility of being manipulated.

Also, every major player of every political fight knows, and has tools to "play to their advantage", it's not like some bad vs good fairytale.

And if you are against all major players then you may want to consider that it is exactly yours opinion which eventually will be censored if the idea about mandatory purging of "bad information" wins.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. I was referring to formal education. And I didn't mean that a higher degree leads to better choices. But it does reduce the possibility of being manipulated through fake news. And while talking about education, we should also overhaul the way it is mostly taught - from simple memory functions to actual critical thinking and understanding. Go check any authoritarian or reactionary government - they cut spending in education, fighting poverty and social welfare. For exactly that reason: gaining more voters in the long term.

<comment><USER10> >it does reduce the possibility of being manipulated through fake news

I'm sorry to say, but there's no evidence it's true. Formally more educated, and formally less educated belong to different social tribes, and react to different information stimulants, and that's all. Advertising industry successfully pushes peoples choices of all sorts of education.

Also, I believe your idea of authoritarianism is not wholly correct. I was born, and raised in a real dictatorship which provided free tuition (probably, at least partially because it makes a great influence, and control apparatus once nationalized) as well as cheap health, and communal services. In fact, all left dictatorships did/do it to some extent to have an ideological selling point. Also, dictatorships often care less about one's voting pattern, because they can count it properly. What do they always care about? Information. They all restrict freedom of speech.

<comment><USER11> What kind of evidence would convince you that education results in less susceptibility to propaganda? This seems facially true to me, but if someone studied it formally would you believe the results since the researchers are educated?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > the ultimate 'last line of defense' will be users who are willing to > question 'what they see and hear'

Nobody cares because they're more interested in their team winning, by whatever means necessary, than being charitable.

> who recently stepped down from his role as Chief Security Officer

... But couldn't make that argument or be effective in that capacity while employed. That is why we need something like codetermination - so that, completely internally, workers can have influence on what to produce, how to produce, and where to produce it.

<comment><USER13> > _Nobody cares because they 're more interested in their team winning, by > whatever means necessary, than being charitable._

I'd say that few people have a reason to care about the truth _at all_ at this level. Take natural world: people will believe whatever bullshit someone sells to them, because unless you're a scientist or engineer in a field that requires you to be right, the lie has zero first-order impact on your life.

What people do want to do in general is to be likable, feel accepted in the groups they belong to, and feel OK with themselves. If a belief helps facilitate that, it doesn't matter whether it's true or not.

I'd say at least half of the problem is that most of the information people need to vote well - even for their own interest - has little first-order impact on their lives. I.e. it's an artifact of specialization. Because when you look even at those uneducated people, in the areas of life they deal with daily, they turn out to be pretty smart and have accurate beliefs.

<comment><USER6> > Take natural world: people will believe whatever bullshit someone sells to > them, because unless you're a scientist or engineer in a field that requires > you to be right, the lie has zero first-order impact on your life

There's a substantial alternative medicine / anti-vax movement where believing this bullshit will have real negative consequenses for people's health.

<comment><USER13> I know, and I believe it's because the consequences are still not direct enough. Diseases strike at random, and curing them is a complex process (often involving the illness going away on its own, or actual medicine not working). The temporal separation between cause and effect is large enough to allow some people to believe in altmed/antivax nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fake news is a symtpom, not a cause. To fight fake news, we'd have to go to the sources (note: this is mostly off the top of my head):

* Fight partisanship/polarization. Not sure how to do this. But taking a big step back and trying to discuss things without labels would be a good start. And who knows... maybe a different voting system to encourage more parties to exist? There's a lot to do here.

* Fight corruption. The U.S. system is corrupt. Corrupt leaders thrive on partisanship.

* Stop emotionally framing things. An article frames something with lots of emotion? I'd be wary that they're telling you how to feel so you don't worry about what they're trying to achieve (what to think, or just views for money)

* Reject online advertising. Online advertising equates views with money. The more inflammatory something is, the more money it brings in. Be equally wary of any micro-transactional news / article service.

<comment><USER15> > To fight fake news, we'd have to go to the sources

True. But many people do not check sources and do not want sources. The more sources you link, the more likely your message is ignored or downvoted or considered spam. Some comment section tools even refuse posts with too many links.

The EU fights against sources.

Macron vows to tighten media control because 'fake news threatens democracy' [https://www.rt.com/news/414945-macron-france-fake-news- law/](https://www.rt.com/news/414945-macron-france-fake-news-law/)

Senator Demands More censorship From Facebook & Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goNDSUZsQ1c&t=181](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goNDSUZsQ1c&t=181)

Out-of-control censorship machines removed my article warning of out-of- control censorship machines [https://juliareda.eu/2018/08/censorship-machines- gonna-censo...](https://juliareda.eu/2018/08/censorship-machines-gonna- censor/)

> Fight partisanship/polarization.

This is what every party/camp is fighting for. Maximize the own party/camp, minimize the party/camp of the others.

I agree that much could and should be done. E.g. voting with paper ballots every 4 years like centuries ago should be replaced by secure online voting that gives decision power to every citizen at any time for any political decision.

> Fight corruption.

At least in the USA, voting for Democrats or Republicans is voting for corruption. Corruption is a sign of quality for US voters. The more connected with the industry and the more money for campaigns, the better and stronger and more real and more competent the party appears to voters. Too few US people vote for the poor unknown parties with no coverage by the mainstream media that calls itself the reasonable truthful trustworthy non-fringe mainstream media.

> Stop emotionally framing things.

I doubt that this is a solution. E.g. too many US Americans do not care about their evil actions in the world. Maybe they know about them but they do not care enough. The US military is considered as a trustworthy glorious organisation instead of a tool of and for evil persons to promote death and misery worldwide.

Recent example after decades of war crimes:

\- Yemen: Tackling the world's largest humanitarian crisis [https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/09/1020232](https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/09/1020232)

\- Pompeo Backed Yemen War For Weapon Sales Profit [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azx90nHiIeg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azx90nHiIeg)

US Americans refuse to remove misery and poverty even in their own country.

UN Head: US Has 'Morally Wrong' Healthcare System Because Of Corruption [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrCu9dt9JpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrCu9dt9JpI)

Although US Americans might care, they still behave as if they did not.

Fox Viewers Overwhelmingly Approve Med4All By 73% [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX5GSClA8z4&t=349](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX5GSClA8z4&t=349)

CNN's Jake Tapper Caught Lying About Med4All - Lies Again [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1jZNepTx80&t=35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1jZNepTx80&t=35)

> Reject online advertising.

I do not think that lack of money improves communication and reporting. Survival and work requires money. Money is received either by random advertising or by direct sponsorship by companies or by an existing paying loyal audience with a certain world view or by a revolution of the economic system that guarantees economic human rights and safety for all.

[https://lustysociety.org/money.html](https://lustysociety.org/money.html)

<comment><USER14> It's not the money that makes bad reporting - its the direct tying of eyeballs to monetary reward. That incentivizes creating of very clickbaity, meme-like reporting.

<comment><USER15> Any content is quickly recognizable as what it is unless it looks serious and not clickbaity and was created to promote lies.

E.g. the Yugoslav war lies and the Iraq war lies and Libya war lies or Syria war lies and Russia "war" lies promoted by certain governments that where published by all "serious" mainstream media to justify and promote war; the worst of all crimes. Every war is a war crime.

Hague Tribunal Exonerates Slobodan Milosevic Again [https://www.strategic- culture.org/news/2017/12/07/hague-trib...](https://www.strategic- culture.org/news/2017/12/07/hague-tribunal-exonerates-slobodan-milosevic- again.html)

KOSOVO German 2008 documentary-It began with a lie PART 1of5 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_scokGJga8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_scokGJga8c)

Judgment! 1/3 - The Bosnian 'Death Camp' Accusation: An Expose [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xox7TR11evI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xox7TR11evI)

The Iraq War - TOTAL LIES and TOTAL PROOF - Part 1 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNFDXSKh17I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNFDXSKh17I)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Congress should update its laws regarding political advertisers, and social > media users need to "adjust to a media environment in which several dozen > gatekeepers no longer control what is newsworthy."

What is happening as been happening all along, for years. The now difference is who is doing the influencing; for what ends; and yes the how has changed but that's not really what's causing the friction.

For Stamos to suggest more people need to think for themselves, that more need to question authority more, sounds naive, at best. That is the last thing the powers that be will allow. They're fine with misinformation, they just want to sure it's their's and no one elses.

The irony is this latest "scandle" will ultimately be solved with less individual free thought, not more. It will be a psychological / emotional / intellectual nanny state. No human neuro activity too small to micro manage.

Yeah, it sounds extreme. But so would The Patriot Act pre 9-11. So would Ed Snowden before we knew about Ed Snowden. Both of these were met with barely a shrug of the shoulders. There's nothing to be fixed from Congress' pov everything is as it should be. It just needs a slight bit of adjusting.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I think it all basically comes down to:

The internet is destroying existing power structures, and giving control to alternative media sources/platforms/whatever that people are starting to trust more than the 'mainstream' ones.

So all the hand wringing and fake news paranoia and what not feels like a desparate, last ditch attempt by those who did well before to try and cram the internet/social media genie back into the bottle before they're made irrelevant.

Does this potentially lead to authoritarianism and what not? Possibly, but the answer isn't to try and shut down freedom of speeech/independent media/any thought outside of an ever narrowing acceptable boundary, but to ask why these views are on the rise and deal with the real causes.

<comment><USER16> > "The internet is destroying existing power structures, and giving control to > alternative media sources/platforms/whatever that people are starting to > trust more than the 'mainstream' ones."

Yes. But not only sources of info but __more importantly__ ways for people to organize into groups. I'm not talking about protests and such but getting shit done. Traditionally, this was the role of gov and other power structures. Yes, there are now viable - and likely more effective - alternatives to such traditions.

To your point, this explains all the divisiveness. Things are being taken to extremes (by the DNC, Mainstream Media, GOP and their associated Big Inc partners) in order to maintain a belief that they need to exist and continue to hold so much power. The show also serves as a distraction.

Something has to give. But I feel history says it's going to get worse before it gets better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If we assume that voters are unable to deal with misinformation then we have already given up on democracy. The next logical step is to decide how to blunt the will of the misinformed voter.

<comment><USER12> Depends on what you mean by democracy. Suppose you get 100% voter participation through free and fair elections. Are you still sure that fails the definition of democracy? How hard is it to make that case?

What if the voters choose an outcome you just don't happen to like? Is that all of a sudden undemocratic?

<comment><USER19> And if the majority of those voters are opposed to democracy itself, and vote for candidates who promise to take away votes from people they don't like, or establish a theocracy? "America isn't and shouldn't be a democracy" is a common Republican talking point. This has happened in Poland and Hungary and its darn close to happening in the United States.

<comment><USER20> Not sure what you're implying with your statement about the Republican talking point. The point of the point is the U.S. was designed to be a Constitutional Republic which isn't a democracy.

The Constitutional Republic is designed to protect the rights and freedoms of the individual via the Constitution and bill of rights. If by Democracy one is referring solely to majority rule, then protection against individual rights and freedom are lost.

The U.S. should fear the latter, not the former.

<comment><USER21> The United Stares is a constitutional republic and a representative democracy. The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and a representative democracy. Democracy is not the opposite of a republic. Monarchy is.

<comment><USER20> True as long as the representative democracy doesn't infringe on the individual's constitutional rights. That's where the democracy bit gives way to the judicial branch. Of coarse with a politicized court you're right back to the ills of a democracy.

<comment><USER21> What you're saying is still true in a constitutional monarchy. Being a republic or democracy doesn't matter. Its the constitutional part that's important.

<comment><USER19> Republic and Democracy are not exclusive. There is no such thing as "being republic or democracy". It's really simple:

Monarchy: yes king

Republic: no king

Democracy: yes votes

Autocracy: no votes

Constitutional: yes constitution

Absolute: no constitution

You can have these in any combination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I strongly disagree with this approach. Ideology makes a slave out of reason, so the temptation to label everything that conflicts with one's worldview as "misinformation" will become irresistible. To determine to combat "misinformation" is to appoint yourself the arbiter of what's true and false, and that sort of thing never ends well.

The correct approach is to allow all legal content and let healthy debate reveal what's true and false in the course of time, organically, and without centralized and fallible oversight.

</comment><comment><USER23> There seems to be a lot of concern trolling over democracy and Western freedoms which soberly urge us to not be so concerned with democracy and Western freedoms and instead accept new, deeper forms of censorship and greater collaboration between state, corporate and intelligence actors regarding the free flow of information in our society.

Stamos' piece in the Washington Post and statements elsewhere are vague, weird and poorly thought-out assertions which demand we accept Russiagate and WikiLeaks source attribution positions favoured by US intel agencies in full, and then only obsess over a very narrow set of concerns.

Analytically-minded technologists are still asking what magical GRU-election- swinging manipulations were just out of the grasp of the multi-billion dollar domestic presidential campaign industry, and why for instance the revelation of corruption within the DNC was the damaging issue, rather than the corruption itself. Stamos says major media 'rewarded the hackers' by reporting truth, and in The Verge's lazy retelling they transmute even this truth into 'misinformation'. It's low quality discussion and debate all around.

If an establishment paper broke the DNC corruption story first and naturally refused to disclose sources, or received them anonymously and so was unable to disclose them, what then?

Is Stamos and the 'Fake News Defense' movement saying we need to end all anonymously-sourced journalism? All investigative journalism? Any journalism which is damaging to key political, corporate and intelligence individuals and entities within the US? Because surely there's a risk that type of journalism may have been aided in some as-yet-unknown way by hostile foreign actors.

How could you definitively prove it was not?

Why not go even deeper into the 'fake news / foreign agents' madness:

Imagine the GRU _want_ the US polity to over-react and implement a draconian press censorship reality 'immune from foreign influence'. In this scenario an even-more-untouchable political / corporate / intelligence class arises and - immune from scandals, consequence and the disinfecting power of transparency - is allowed to ossify in a cesspool of increased corruption and incompetence - weakening the state from the center.

Perhaps we can just go full-circle to this as a public establishment conspiracy theory and have Stamos and intel agencies agreeing that free speech as an inviolable principle is the best defence against whatever bogeyman is in fashion.

</comment><comment><USER24> _" Tech will always need to act in a quasi-governmental manner, making judgments on political speech and operating teams in parallel to the U.S. intelligence community,"_

No, absolutely not Alex.

The fact that these massive tech monopolies are so powerful that it's now just taken for granted that they are pseudo-governmental entities should be a wake up call for everyone. It's high time we start talking about anti-trust and the breakup of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and maybe others. This is completely unacceptable.

Our laws are woefully out of date, they were written when the only foreseeable damage from companies this large and powerful was pricing abuse. The damage they have caused is far more extensive and severe than that, we need new laws and aggressive anit-trust/anti-monopoly stances to undo this damage, hopefully before it becomes too late to stop them at all.

<comment><USER25> Indeed.

The fact that we've let online speech fall in to a narrow set of patterns defined by companies that are larger than some governments is completely ridiculous.

We need platforms that are controlled by users. And no, we don't need to wait for them before we kill the centralized data miners either. We survived before Facebook, we'll survive without it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's hard to come up with good policy around this outside of educating people.

<comment><USER27> Being educated does not shield you from misinformation, unfortunately. I fact I wouldn't be surprised that the well educated is part of the problem when they get into politics because they abstract things and start to think too much in statistics and lose a feeling for what it means to be most people in this world. The end up creating their own misinformation filter.

The current political climate has no shortage of well-educated people on both sides who have been doing more damage than good the last 40 years.

<comment><USER20> Yes this and Joeri's post are on point. Unless you're in the realm of mathematics or the physical sciences the more the education the stronger the disputes over "facts".

It's hubris to think any group can be the objective gatekeeper of truth unless they're just reporting demonstrable facts like ball scores or weather.

<comment><USER28> Of course more random education doesn't educate people specifically about influence and propaganda. Why would it?

<comment><USER27> I don't think there is a specific education you can take that will shield you from influence or propaganda.

In my experience, it's about something else. Something more fundamental.

<comment><USER28> Currently it's part of political science / politology mixed with psychology. It could change your worldview so much that it would completely destroy any trust in governments, media, political systems. Which is actually a necessary first step in order to understand how these things work. I guess this is the fundamental thing you are talking about. Once you get there, you can start learning more in depth about these things. It's something for life. You will never be able to trust any government again.

<comment><USER27> "You will never be able to trust any government again." which is itself prone to lead to you accepting misinformation.

That's the point though. You can't escape these things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is disingenuous. 'Protecting democracy from misinformation' is misinformation. How do you do 'protect democracy' without erecting 'ministry of truth' structures and becoming undemocratic?

It's a bit sad many champions of democracy are realizing they can't handle real dissent. They seem more comfortable with control, limits and useless debates on media structures and platforms they can influence and control than the kind of actual dissent provided by Assange, Snowden and the wider platform of the Internet that allows people to freely exchange ideas.

Let's take it to the extreme, if citizens elect an flat earther or an extremist running on hate then its not a problem with democracy but a reflection of deeper problems with your society and education system.

Misinformation, propaganda, fake news are as old as human society and used by all countries and special interests, and can be addressed well outside the fundamental structures of democracy, free speech, dissent and free press.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think every proposal I've read in this thread is incorrect.

I think the platform shapes the debate. A crowd with megaphones will never be as good at decision-making as a jury. The websites we use are the platform (even if it's the same people in the crowd as the jury).

The "megaphone platforms" (twitter/facebook) are very invigorating in the short-term but will inevitably drive people away. The next step is for a platform to be built that promotes and rewards the systematic advancement of filtering ideas (downvoting/upvoting being the most basic form of this).

To a large extent, HN is superior to twitter because of this. Wikipedia is also a shining example of platform. This attention toward facebook is unwarranted, the platform will kill itself in 7 years.

The important thing is building a new platform that incentivizes productive contribution rather than self-promotion or controversiality.

</comment><comment><USER31> >'the last line of defense will always be citizens who are willing to question what they see and hear'

no. that is the first line of defense. realistically, it is the only line.

silly corporate attempts to prune information are the last line -- the line that nobody should depend on or expect to even exist.

</comment><comment><USER32> _"Congress needs to codify standards around political advertising," he writes, saying that existing laws are decades out of date and don't cover the types of platforms that exist today._

Here's an article of all the platforms political ad policies (from June 2018) for advertisers.

[https://marketingland.com/the-big-list-of-political-ad- polic...](https://marketingland.com/the-big-list-of-political-ad-policies- from-leading-social-search-platforms-241669)

Most ad policies have been updated to stop foreign paid political ads. And the FEC and states have laws on allowed content.

But paid ads are one thing. Fake accounts posting lies and mis-information are another.

<comment><USER16> > "But paid ads are one thing. Fake accounts posting lies and mis-information > are another."

IDK. I just sat through 4 - 6 weeks of political ads (here in central NJ) and it was difficult to tell fact from fiction. To say nothing of the fact most did not disclose even their declared party. As for the super PAC ads. Those were more twisted informion with the source being far from transparent - <USER2> even a URL.

Point being. Same lies as always. Same misinfo as always. None of it done by Russians.

Let's not be naive. The system is optimized for bad info from bad actors. The difference is, the actors are not our (so called) representatives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The best thing they could do for news is just go to a chronological timeline.

Cuts out a lot of the bullshit.

They don't need to censor. They need to stop curating.

</comment><comment><USER34> The world is in the midst of a critical thinking crisis exacerbated by the gutting of humanities education.

</comment><comment><USER35> Damn I thought Uncle Jesse (from Full House) finally had a coherent thought on the matter

<comment><USER36> Have mercy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> After the Trump election where I interestingly enough found myself agreeing with a lot of the critique of the current political system coming from both Sanders and Trump even though I would normally consider myself part of the liberal political spectrum (pro-abortion, against the death sentence, couldn't care less if gay people get married etc)

I started digging into things I had taken for granted such as Breibart being this racist place that only does fake news, Ben Shapiro probably was pretty extreme because he was alt right etc, Milo was a racist homophobe, Bannon was a white supremacist etc.

It ended up being a 6-month journey where I actually sat down and listened to what they had to say, which luckily is now possible because of the long interview formats that's been popping up on youtube like Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin etc.

And I must say that while I am still pro-abortion, pro gets married to whomever you want etc. I have a much better appreciation for what people I disagree with actually are saying and I can listen to it and actually argue without shaming them simply for being on the "wrong side". None of those people were the moral monsters I would normally read about whenever the alt- right was described. They were mostly people who actually could argue for their positions, positions I didn't always agree with but at least now understood better.

I have personally experienced now being shamed and people trying to go after my business simply because of some of my comments, even on HN.

The real danger of misinformation is the one we create for ourselves when we listen to what others say and interpret that.

I like the term strong-manning instead of straw-manning i.e. trying to position the argument of whoever you are debating in the strongest possible position rather than trying to go after their morals as the first thing.

In other words, most misinformation is the way we interpret things ourselves, not what was said or meant.

I would encourage you anyone to try just once in their life to take the "other sides" arguments seriously, hear them out and then figure out what exactly you disagree with them about and whether it's actually as much as you think when all comes to all.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. You and I have gone down the same rabbit hole and realized that its not as clear cut as they claim.

The pompousness and shaming has to end in order for us all to come together.

Blaming everything on this false spectre of "misinformation" is nonsense. It's a veiled attempt to treat everyone who disagree with you as stupid.

<comment><USER37> Jumped this shark some time ago.

Divisiveness is the number one enemy to personal freedom and free societies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Mr Stamos is unhappy with Russia, mentioned repeatedly. Their "activity" needs to be "dealt with".

AIPAC, "America's Pro-Israel Lobby", isn't worth a mention. Israel apparently does nothing that needs to be dealt with.

Are you Americans on this forum grateful that people like Mr Stamos decide for you which countries should have influence?

<comment><USER39> Israel is an ally, so their influence is both expected and accepted.

<comment><USER38> Sounds like a "Yes". Thanks for the reply, dahdum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> We need a proof of stake blockchain system to verify information where the highest stakeholders are the most trusted sources.

</comment><comment><USER41> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI)

/thread

<comment><USER42> This is true for most topics the legacy media (print and broadcast) produces.</comment></comment>


Oracle staff say Larry Ellison's fundraiser for Trump is against 'company ethics - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/15/ellisons_trump_fundraiser/ <comment><USER2> Oracle and ethics. Wonder what those same employees feel about the litigiousness of Oracle even to its own customers.</comment>


Show HN: Newsletter in Presentation format - <AUTHOR> http://researchly.leobosankic.com/2018/07/09/newsletter-fud-blockchain-governance-hard-duh-coinbase-growing/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I unsure if this qualifies as "Show" as the rules state that "Blog posts, sign-up pages, and fundraisers can't be tried out, so they can't be Show HNs.".

And although it is not a blog post, it is very close to it.

Nevertheless, if somebody could spare a few minutes and say whether reading it in presentation format (accompanied with the text if necessary) is better than just the text it would help me out a lot.

Best</comment>


Huawei's alternative OS to Android set to roll out as early as fall - <AUTHOR> https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/05/21/huaweis-alternative-os-to-android-set-to-roll-out-as-early-as-fall/ <comment><USER2> > It will work with Android apps and web apps as well

I guess it is fair to assume at this point that they based it on the OSS part of Android ?

Let's see if they manage to solve the Play Service pickle also. A lot of application assume you have them, I don't know if a lot of dev' are going to repackage their app "play-service" free for one vendor (wouldn't be surprising for popular app tho').

<comment><USER3> > em, I don't know if a lot of dev' are going to repackage their app "play- > service"

A lot of devs will repackage their apps if it means reaching a market, what 10x the size of the United States (Europe and Asia) ?

<comment><USER2> Except it will just be huawei for now. We are talking about just one vendor, not the whole Asian/European market.

<comment><USER4> Android was just Google for 3 years and I imagine Huawei will be moving much faster. If they see the value in the OS (as opposed to Apple's HW strategy) it can have a Android-sized market share rather than an iOS-sized one which is significant outside our bubbles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really hope this happens and that it's not just an ASOP fork and is successful outside of China. It'd be great to have a real, third, alternative operating system that has major support. I'm sick of both Android and eyeProducts.

KDE Plasma is supported on barely anything. PostmarketOS is doing amazing stuff; very commendable -- but we still don't have usable OSS drivers for any mobile radios. I honestly liked Microsoft's mobile offering and wish they didn't totally screw that up. HP has essentially killed off Palm/WebOS.

Anyone who's making a real attempt at a 3rd major mobile OS is commendable.

<comment><USER6> I have used Sailfish OS on a smartphone and it's awesome so far. I love it.

Russian govt is using it in their offices. I hope more countries seek out alternative OSes.

<comment><USER5> Sailfish seems to be limited to the EU. It's almost impossible to find their phones on the US eBay (and it seems like they might not work on our LTE networks either .. same with the Fairphone)

<comment><USER7> Can't you just but a Sony Xperia XA2. Then use a VPN service from Europe and purchase a license. It should not be too difficult, not?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > an Android app recompiled for Huawei's OS is said to perform 60% faster.

I'll believe it when I see it.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure if I'd even notice if a single app performed faster at this point. Outside of games (of which the most popular ones are built on 2013-era game engines), most apps people use are extremely utilitarian and don't bog down in this era of octa-core processors and 4GB RAM.

<comment><USER10> Hell if they could get discord performing better on my pixel 3 I'd be happy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >"It will work with Android apps and web apps as well — an Android app recompiled for Huawei's OS is said to perform 60% faster."

So they've been sitting on this magical OS that somehow is compatible yet way faster than Android... that also runs everywhere? Why haven't they released it then until now?

<comment><USER12> Because Google wouldn't allow them to put official Google apps on it. They only allow them on licensed instances of Android itself. And that's still an important market.

<comment><USER5> Yep, it would have kicked them out of Google's tightly controlled and terribly named "Open Handset Alliance."

Samsung couldn't even include a secondary location provider if they wanted to stay in the OHA!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I worked for years with numerous Huawei platform in telecom industry. I can assure you this will be a crap.

</comment><comment><USER14> Has little chance of success outside of China UNLESS it's open source and the appstore and update infrastructure is outside of China for non-Chinese customers.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, no one would ever use this unless they could audit it. Huawei's security concerns are real.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Let's see this strategy has been tried for about 7 years now..is it working yet? Just new device oem trying it nothing more rinse repeat

</comment><comment><USER17> If AOSP is legally controlled by Google, despite being open-source, how can Hauwei legally sell a phone in the US derived from AOSP without violating the import ban?

Does the import ban not include free software? That seems like an oversight that would be quickly and easily corrected.

<comment><USER18> Google has no contractual way to prevent someone from using software released under a fully open license. Therefore the US gov has no way of forcing Google to do something they simply can't do.

<comment><USER17> Yes, however they can refuse Hauwei permission to sell the phones in the US.

<comment><USER19> Hauwei phones cannot be sold in the u.s. if I am not mistaken.

Anyway Google cannot prevent them from using Asop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Funny, because for a long time Tizen was supposedly Samsung's ace in the hole to create an Android alternative. It hasn't worked out very well, but Huawei could be better at software than Samsung is.

</comment><comment><USER21> In all honesty an excuse my french, if they manage not to turn all this in a shìtshow of epic proportions for their customers it would be quite an achievement I think.

</comment><comment><USER22> So they've been banned from using Google proprietary apps and ARM cooperation and in turn they are forking the entire open source operating system?

</comment><comment><USER23> Is this just going to be an ASOP fork?

If they have FLOSS replacements for Play Services, this could be an exciting development.

</comment><comment><USER24> Will it work without ARM?

<comment><USER25> For the time being I understand that the ban doesn't actually stop Huawei from using ARM chips - it stops ARM from co-operating to help them build their own chips, e.g. their Kirin line of processors. So either they could just fork their design and stop keeping in lock-step with ARM (while maintaining a level of compatibility) or just start sourcing parts from third parties.

<comment><USER26> Not entirely true either, as the ban only applies to the US and ARM is a British company, with a Japanese parent company, so there's no conflict. They just can't use Qualcomm chips.

As for Fabs, they can't still use TSMC, Samsung, and the numerous smaller companies in mainland China.

<comment><USER5> Wait, why not Samsung? They're still based entirely out of South Korea, right?

<comment><USER27> There's quite a few outside of China per this list:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Will Chinese manufacturers also be prohibited from using Windows?

<comment><USER29> There is silence from Microsoft, including a silent removal of Huawei laptops from their retail offerings.

Fingers crossed, there will be an Ubuntu (South African) version of a high end laptop coming soon. Not sure what the CPU will be for that though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> According to The Information, via XDA, Huawei's OS is called "Project Z" but it's "far from ready":

[https://www.xda-developers.com/huawei-android-alternative- fa...](https://www.xda-developers.com/huawei-android-alternative- fall-2019/amp/)

> _The Information's report differs greatly from what was reported earlier. > Rather than being ready this Fall or early next year, they claim the OS is > "far from ready." It is reportedly being referred to as "Project Z" > internally. The report also claims this OS would rely on 3rd-party > developers to create apps for it, which may shoot down the idea of Android > apps being able to run on the OS._

> _According to the report, Huawei has been working on Project Z for several > years, but its original intention was to be for their home Chinese market, > and not a full Android replacement. If all of this is true, Huawei's post- > Android future may not be as positive as they'd like people to think._

(The Information: [https://www.theinformation.com/articles/huawei-consumer- elec...](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/huawei-consumer-electronics- chief-braces-for-tough-time))

Curiously, according to XDA's original Chinese source Huawei's CEO said the new operating system has a microkernel ("微内核") and that it's designed to support a wide range of devices using a single OS, including "mobile phones, computers, tablets, TVs, cars and smart wearable device": [https://weibointl.api.weibo.cn/share/72019470.html?weibo_id=...](https://weibointl.api.weibo.cn/share/72019470.html?weibo_id=4374500504258689)

If that sounds familiar, you might recall Google Fuchsia with the Zircon microkernel:

[https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/5/9/18563521/goog...](https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/5/9/18563521/google- fuchsia-os-android-chrome-hiroshi-lockheimer-secrets-revealed)

> _Fuchsia is designed to run on smart home devices, wearables, or possibly > even augmented or virtual reality devices._

Notably, Huawei has already tested Fuchsia on its devices before:

[https://www.xda-developers.com/huawei-testing-fuchsia-os- kir...](https://www.xda-developers.com/huawei-testing-fuchsia-os- kirin-970-honor-play/amp/)

> _A new commit in the Fuchsia source code has revealed that Huawei has > managed to boot the Zircon kernel on the Honor Play... You can check out the > relevant commit here:_ [https://fuchsia- > review.googlesource.com/c/zircon/+/228577](https://fuchsia- > review.googlesource.com/c/zircon/+/228577)

Perhaps Huawei's "Project Z" is based on Fuchsia and Zircon?

</comment><comment><USER31> Based on history, it may be a pirate reverse-engineered Android OS.

<comment><USER32> I don't think you have to reverse engineer an open source operating system...

<comment><USER33> At this point Android is as open source as Windows.

<comment><USER34> Please point me at anything that resembles source code that I can compile to produce a bootable variant of Windows.

<comment><USER33> Please point me at anything that resembles source code that I can compile to produce Play services.

<comment><USER34> I was not aware Play Services was required to run Android. I have test phones that run Android without Play Services just fine.

How does that make Androids open source status anywhere near Windows?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>