Facebook reverses on paid influencers after Bloomberg memes - <AUTHOR> https://techxplore.com/news/2020-02-facebook-paid-political-messages-ads.html <comment><USER2> It's crazy to me that we allow politicians to run targeted ad campaigns.

I randomly looked up Andrew Yang on good a few days ago on my phone and had ads from two billionaires take up my whole screen.

[https://imgur.com/a/Ke3aWBH](https://imgur.com/a/Ke3aWBH)

Without campaign finance regulation majority of the billions donated to campaigns is going directly into pockets of Google, Facebook and cable monopolies. We're letting billionaires buy the election.

> What has Bloomberg been spending on? Per the Federal Elections Commission > data through the end of 2019, the two biggest costs have been television > advertising ($132 million) and digital outreach ($20 million). Some of the > costs reflect a late entry to the campaign—buying lists of voters to contact > ($3.2 million), hiring people to gather signatures to get his name on the > ballot ($373,441), and hiring recruiters to bring onboard staff ($107,000).

[https://qz.com/1802367/detailing-mike-bloombergs- unprecedent...](https://qz.com/1802367/detailing-mike-bloombergs- unprecedented-2020-campaign-spending/)

How are we supposed to trust the media when they're on track to get a billion dollars from a single candidate?

<comment><USER3> A first big step would be to severely limit campaign spending on advertisement, including SuperPAC money. If you mention your candidate's name, that ad will count towards a hard cap on ad spending.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that you can't have that and also have the first Amendment. Of all speech to be protected, the _most important speech_ is political speech.

But aside from that, what happens if my spouse runs and ad naming my opponent?

Or my neighbor does?

Or CNN does - perhaps in an ad for a personal interview to be televised in prime time ?

There is no _practical_ way to stop this. There will always be ways around it.

But first, that Amendment thing...

If you lock down political speech, you no longer have a democracy (yes, I know we are a republic). Because then the government gets to control what is or is not allowed. And I guarantee that whichever party is in power at the moment will use that to try to stay in power. And it's dominoes falling after that.

<comment><USER5> > If you lock down political speech, you no longer have a democracy (yes, I > know we are a republic). Because then the government gets to control what is > or is not allowed.

Political speech is already locked down in many ways by the government. For instance: neither you nor I can go to a polling station and harangue the people waiting to vote. We're also not permitted to force our way into schools or private homes to do the same. If we violate those rules, some people in blue uniforms will come and haul us away.

No one has an unrestricted right to go out and _literally speak_ , as that right to do that is balanced against other rights and considerations. What's so different about the right to _spend_? Why can't that right be balanced against other rights and considerations, too?

<comment><USER6> > We're also not permitted to force our way into schools or private homes to > do the same

Actually, you are allowed to protest on public property within earshot of private homes.

You cannot enter a private home because someone else's property and liberty trump your right to free speech on their property. In so far as their property includes the sidewalk (typically). You have every right to speak there. You can even protest there if you want.

> No one has an unrestricted right to go out and literally speak,

Yes, you do have every right to go out on public property and literally speak. That is literally the right you have that many have died for and the ACLU and other orgs have fought for. Try it right now! Have fun. There is literally no restriction as long as you are not physically harassing or verbally abusing someone, and you are not physically preventing anyone from passing you.

<comment><USER5> >> No one has an unrestricted right to go out and literally speak...

> Yes, you do have every right to go out on public property and literally > speak.

No, you don't. Most states have laws that prevent you from doing that at a polling place on election day:

For example:

[https://www.nass.org/sites/default/files/surveys/2020-01/sta...](https://www.nass.org/sites/default/files/surveys/2020-01/state- laws-polling-place-electioneering-Jan2020.pdf)

> During the hours the polls are open, a person who is in the polling place or > within 200 feet of any entrance to the polling place may not attempt to > persuade a person to vote for or against a candidate, proposition, or > question.

<comment><USER6> These all have distance limitations meant to allow people to access the facility. Outside of those places on public property, you have every right.

This is like saying laws meant to keep stairways clear are restricting your free speech. You are absolutely allowed to protest near an election center within reasonable limits.

To point out how ridiculous these selections of laws are as a proof that free speech is being abridged, I'll point out that Alabama restricts protests to be at least _30 feet_ away from the site. If 30 feet means you can't get your message across in a public enough forum, I'm not sure what to say.

Also, a lot of those laws are subject to pending legislation.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like you are in complete agreement with the original claim that "no one has an unrestricted right to go out and literally speak."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It was _blatantly obvious_ that social networks are ideal tools for corporate and political propaganda. It was obvious from the very beginning, where people sung praises to Web 2.0 and "collective intelligence". Moreover, real technologists wrote about it, extensively, at the time:

[https://www.edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-digital- maois...](https://www.edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-digital-maoism-the- hazards-of-the-new-online-collectivism)

If some "technologist" acts surprised by this turn of events now, I see only two possibilities:

1\. They are genuine, but absolutely suck at analyzing how technology actually works in society.

2\. They are liars who knew the dangers of such systems, but didn't find them objectionable because it suited their goals at the time.

What seriously disturbs me is that almost everyone from academia or big tech who engage in public discourse on this issue right now - almost all of them _do_ act surprised.

<comment><USER9> Of course the answer is #2. When Obama ran in 2008 and 2012, media, academics and technologists fawned over his campaign's then novel use of technology and Facebook advertising.

I remember clear as day reading articles and analysis about his campaign methods without noting a single hint of concern or animus.

I've lost a significant amount of faith in people's integrity since 2016 not because of Trump, but because of people's responses to Trump.

<comment><USER10> Very good point. Social media platforms were held up a shining example because Obama's message was largely positive, but few stopped to think about the flip side of the scenario... until 2016.

<comment><USER9> "positive"

That's subjective. Something that sounds nice and upliftung may not actually be positive in the long run while something that sounds negative may indeed be necessary.

Which proves the point that opposition to online political advertising is not rooted in some deep and profound moral principle, but is merely a response to one's favored "side" being outmaneuvered by opposition candidates' deft use of online tools and advertising.

Moral shallowness is masquerading as righteousness on the Left, but many have convinced themselves that the masquerade is genuine.

<comment> Joe-Z Greed and hubris is masquerading as reason and "telling it like it is" on the Right but many have convinced themselves that the masquerade is genuine.

Just doing some balancing here.

<comment><USER9> I don't disagree with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was personally a fan of Yang's platform position where every citizen received an annual $100 credit that could be transferred to candidates. Instead of trying to restrict what can and can't be said, give the citizens enough aggregate buying power to over shadow the lobbyists.

[https://www.yang2020.com/policies/democracydollars/](https://www.yang2020.com/policies/democracydollars/)

<comment> w-ll Isn't this like voting, but with more steps?

<comment><USER12> Money is more fungible than votes. If you live in a very red or very blue state, it's probably more impactful to buy $100 worth of political advertising for your candidate of choice in swing states than it is to actually vote in a nationwide general election. (For what it's worth, I'd bet this is still true if you replace $100 with $1.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why is it that paying influencers to push agendas (business or political) not considered advertising. I can understand that facebook shouldn't be held accountable for legitimacy of this type of advertising but if an instagram or facebook account has a large enough following they should be treated as advertisers themselves and scrutinized accordingly

<comment><USER14> The issue is not about restricting people from making a political statement, or even restricting people from being paid to make a political statement.

But if you are being paid to make an advertising or political statement, you should be required to disclose that you were paid to make the statement.

Not surprisingly, we already have laws which require this for advertisements through FTC regulation. The FEC is working on something similar for political ads, and there's even a bipartisan bill from Klobuchar and Graham no less;

> _Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) introduced the > 2019 Honest Ads Act, which would mandate disclosure of those paying for > online political ads and create a publicly available database of political > ads that appear on major online platforms such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, > Snapchat and Twitter._

[https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate- bill/135...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate- bill/1356/text)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Advertising is absolutely a malignant tumor on society. It's unstoppable and impossible to know where it's going to show up and how.

Legitimately creative geniuses will find every possible way to try and influence you to buy their thing or vote for their person, and I really don't know if it's possible to stop it.

</comment><comment><USER16> What's the difference between a 'paid message' and an 'ad'?

<comment><USER17> I'd say an "advertisement" is a form of a "paid message". For example I can pay Facebook to put "I LOVE PENGUINS" on everyone's screen - it's not technically an advertisement, just a statement or message.

But yeah in the case of political campaigns they're effectively the same thing IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's increasingly clear that Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp are applications that every technologist should shun, and advocate against in their personal lives and in their workplace based on the actions of the corporation that owns them.

<comment><USER19> But I have friends who work at those companies. They're brilliant, they post here on HN, and have families that they take care of. They are active in their local communities. Are you saying they're the bad guys? Should I distance myself from them?

<comment><USER20> Was everyone in history who ended up doing something bad, or working for a bad organisation, fundamentally evil in some way? Of course not: good people can wind up in bad places.

And (while I'm not necessarily saying that Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp are fundamentally bad) the way history might judge people (such as your friends) would be in their response to finding themselves working at companies which could be considered morally dubious.

<comment><USER19> Yann Lecun?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Facebook said it is asking the influencer accounts that posted the Bloomberg > memes to retroactively use the tool meant for such posts. After this > happens, the posts will be labeled as a "paid partnership" with Bloomberg.

> Campaigns that avoid using the tool, as Bloomberg had, risk having their > accounts suspended.

I don't see how this is a bad thing. Facebook made the right decision here.

<comment><USER22> The thing is that they only make the "right decision" when it benefit one party, those things aren't issues for them when it benefits the other side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Very misleading headline - they _are_ allowing ads, they're just not ads that Facebook is being paid for. An Instagram influencer being paid to say something nice about a politician is an ad - full stop.

</comment><comment><USER24> Anyone who has done a social media ad for Bloomberg has some serious integrity issues to sort out.

<comment><USER25> Please explain? Facebook has said politicians can run ads that are false, I'm not sure why paying influencers is all of a sudden a problem.

<comment><USER24> There's a lot of problems. You may be advertising for a candidate you don't support just for the money. Most of the advertising has nothing to do with policy positions. The money paid isn't disclosed. It manipulates people easily because it's fad chasing and the candidate often isn't even in it. It promotes rampant consumerism, validation, and group pressure. Then again, there's a big problem with Facebook in general. But that's a whole other can of worms.

<comment><USER26> Do you feel that all the people who work at Facebook have the same integrity problem? Anyone who works for a company that either makes money from or provides services to companies who make money from advertising?

<comment><USER24> I believe it is some of the people that work there not all obviously, but it's mostly the system that's the problem. Ads nowadays are specifically designed to track you and harvest personal data about you at zero expense to you. They are often deceptive in that they advertise a product always as a cure all for everything and they use proven psychologically manipulative tactics to get you to buy the product instead of demonstrating what the product can do. Obviously, Facebook has skin in the game to keep this system going. Which is why they're doing a poor job of fact checking ads and would rather not do them at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Interesting case. Is Facebook or any platform expected to be the police of all their users' private contracts? That the legitimacy of content is based on how profitable is for the poster and who paid them?

<comment><USER28> setting a policy and policing that policy are very different things, this argument assumes that their users will deliberately break their advertising rules

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> We have build a chrome extension that block political ads on facebook ([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-factual- news-e...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-factual-news- evaluato/clbbiejjicefdjlblgnojolgbideklkp)). The extension also rates credibility of news articles you read.

Facebook should stop allowing micro-targeting for political ads. Period.

<comment><USER30> > The extension also rates credibility of news articles you read.

So we can just meta-trust "The Factual" (and its what, neural net?) to tell us what's true? I don't see anything about transparency on the website. Granting that you have the best intentions to begin with, isn't that a _massive_ moral hazard once you get popular?

<comment><USER29> [https://www.thefactual.com/static/extfaq.html](https://www.thefactual.com/static/extfaq.html) We try to be transparent. You should form your own opinion. We provide a tool. Use this tool as just another data pt.

Posting here so people don't have to click away:

* Why should I trust The Factual Credibility grade for articles?

The Factual automatically calculates the probability that an individual article is credible. This is based on four factors:

\- The diversity and quality of its sources

\- The factual tone of the article's writing style

\- The expertise of the journalist on the topic based on their article history

\- The site reputation based on historical scores of every article on the site

Because the calculation is automated and devoid of human involvement, criteria are consistently applied across articles and sources.

Also, because grades are specific to an article and not a publication, scores vary within a publication.

Our algo/tech can tell if something is good, rather than saying if something is surely bad. Check out our news site that we built using our rating system, if you have time: [https://www.thefactual.com/news](https://www.thefactual.com/news)

More relevant to the thread : [https://story.thefactual.com/news/story/229376-Mike- Bloomber...](https://story.thefactual.com/news/story/229376-Mike-Bloomberg)

<comment><USER31> "Because the calculation is automated and devoid of human involvement, criteria are consistently applied across articles and sources."

How is the training data generated?

<comment><USER29> For the tone of voice analysis, our training data was a large set of articles from Reuters and Associated Press - both wire services that are used by most news outlets. We supplemented this with a dictionary of emotional weights for words and some other heuristics.

For author expertise, we classify every article into one of 1000 different topics based on the IPTC taxonomy. We've now evaluated about 7M articles creating an expertise database on 50,000 journalists, i.e. what topics have they written on in the past and how much do they focus on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think that is ok, as long as it is not promoted to the top. The problem with ads is (a) the extreme targeting, and (b) too much incentive for the publishing platform to show more of them. This whole problem would be way more manageable if they did not allow political ads, or at least disallow specific targeting other than coarse-grained ones like may be zip code.

</comment><comment><USER33> Uh, isn't a "paid message" just a politically correct way to refer to an Ad?

<comment><USER34> Say I pay you to walk into a pub and tell your friends about my favourite candidate. Your pub generally disallows advertising. But they can't really detect this. So they don't actively do anything about it the way they do some guy walking in with a sign. That's the situation.

<comment><USER2> Solution: As a pub you have users sign a terms of service before letting them in, stating that you don't allow this type of behavior and reserve the right to ban the advertiser and the messenger from entering the establishment.

Then you make it easy to report solicitation of any activity that's against your terms.

A single person might be able to slip by, but anyone trying to brainwash your patrons at scale is very likely to get caught.

<comment><USER35> > A single person might be able to slip by, but anyone trying to brainwash > your patrons at scale is very likely to get caught.

Sure, but a slight correction here. You're implying that once they're caught, they lose. But that's not what happens. To continue the bar analogy, the bartender now has to start banning his customers. He can't do anything to the guy that's bribing them.

Bloomberg got "caught" but that doesn't matter at all to him.

<comment><USER2> In this case the guy bribing people is also a regular at the only two pubs in town and getting kicked out of one of them would tank his venture because it's a source of a large portion of his audience.

Bloomberg getting kicked off of the Facebook ad platform would be a huge blow to his campaign. Facebook is huge for political campaigns because it allows them to micro target their audience and spam them with ads without any intent on the receiving end.

EDIT: Anyways, my main point is, if Facebook wanted to solve this problem they would.

<comment><USER34> If they cared about this problem to the exclusion of all else, sure. But Facebook doesn't want to ban all mention of Michael Bloomberg since Facebook users want to talk about him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This will probably run afoul of some advertisement regulations in some countries (not that fb cares, of course).

(for those who didn't RTFA - it's referring to "sponsored posts" or "branded content")

</comment><comment><USER37> tl;dr

my read is:

Rather than paying for direct ads candidate Bloomberg paid "social media influencers" to post his message. Apparently it would be difficult to enforce a rule preventing that, so Facebook has decided to allow it.

<comment><USER38> Thanks for the tl;dr

Probably candidates and influencers should disclose if they are being paid. After all once you are getting paid, you ARE in the advertisement business.

<comment><USER39> I think that's fair. But they should do that for all their peddling.

<comment><USER40> We kind of have that in Germany regarding Youtube and promotional content ("Schleichwerbung" in German, literally "sneaky/sneaking ads"). The problem is that rules are vague so you get endless "this video contains ads"-infos even for those that don't because producers want to be on the safe side when they talk about or show a product. That diminishes the value of the message, because "it's on every video, whatever", just like people react to cookie consent banners.

If you make it too narrow, he'll gift them plane tickets, if you make it to wide, is google giving you free hosting on blogger already something you need to disclose on every post?

<comment><USER39> I guess the old adage "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" applies...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It is nuts that two 100 year old billionaires are trying to become president by out-meming each other. Can't wait to wake up from this alternate reality

</comment><comment><USER42> Could actually be a way to avoid Russian influence since we know they don't know how to create English ads with a sense of humor.

</comment><comment><USER43> I don't understand this appeal for facebook to be politics babysitter, if anything I would want them not to do anything or interfere in any way. Let people speak their minds and leave me alone to decide.

</comment><comment><USER44> Ban all political ads. Simple as.

</comment><comment><USER9> Bloomberg has little organic support compared to the hundreds of millions he is spending. 2016 was clear evidence that money does not buy elections (Clinton outspent Trump 2:1) and this election cycle will demonstrate the same as Bloomberg loses the primary.

<comment><USER45> If history demonstrates anything, it's that money can buy you the democratic nomination. Bloomerg may well ruin the party and allow Trump to win the election.

<comment><USER6> It is neither the job of Facebook nor the government to ensure the continued survival or viability of the Democratic or any party

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately Facebook and other tech companies have strong incentives to do just that, given the politics of the large majority of their employees and the power they have over information and elections by extension.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> money money money, money!

lyrics to their ears

to hell with doing the good to the people, let's get rich first!

<comment><USER5> > to hell with doing the good to the people, let's get rich first!

The real sad thing is that some people don't seem to know the difference. They've convinced themselves that whatever they do to make money means they must be doing good, otherwise the "market" wouldn't reward it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Who knew 1984 was a business model.

<comment><USER6> This is literally the opposite of 1984 because it lets anyone put a political message up, rather than just the governing party. 1984 would be Facebook disallowing paid ads and thus the only organization with enough reach to spread its message would be the government, which would end up meaning the executive branch

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This isn't directly related to political ads on social media, but I think it's absurd we ever created a system where elections became a fundraising arms race. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that system inevitably leads to bad incentives.

Every election in the US should require a publicly funded pool that's equally divided between the top ____ candidates using polling numbers to determine who those are. Any funding outside of that public fund should be banned.

This way, candidates focus their time and energy on catering to the largest number of voters, not the largest sources of donations. No donations whatsoever should be allowed, full stop.</comment>


Look for Elon Musk to Unveil a New Battery That Will Shake the EV Market - <AUTHOR> https://marker.medium.com/look-for-elon-musk-to-unveil-a-futuristic-new-battery-that-will-shake-the-electric-car-market-cbeb3eef4546 <comment><USER2> I'm confused after reading the article. Is the expectation there to see a new battery or for Musk to tell the world about a plan for such cheap batteries.

<comment><AUTHOR> Both

<comment><USER3> Tesla battery pack (not just battery) prices have been creeping down forever, in part because they are the only company doing ev mass manufacturing in the west (lots of sizable chinese ev companies, supposedly they aren't as efficient as tesla but that's surprising if really true).

Separately tesla has been working on the next gen of batteries for several years, has bought several startups and even paid for the research of a particularly important battery research team. Their existing batteries for the S are made by panasonic, have their own chemistry, different than other panasonic batteries. The 3 and Y have gen-2 batteries that are different (more efficient in energy per unit volume). The half-gen new S with longer range came from putting the newer motors from the 3 into the S. They can get another bump by using the 3&y batteries, but we'll see if these 3rd gen batteries will be ready for production.

Tesla is way ahead on many many dimensions of all the legacy makers (efficiency, design, horiz integration, battery supply, superchargers). This is separate from their stock price being way too high. I always thought the other car companies would do a better job of competing with them. But the industry standard design and implementation scheme in the auto industry where car makers assemble many different pieces together designed and made by 3rd parties like bosch etc are making it hard (like the difficulty of vw with software problems with their "electronics assembled from many different companies" id3 hardware platform. I'm sure vw will eventually work it out. But the vertical integration of tesla really helps them. This got off the subject....</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Someone has hacked my Wife's Gmail Account, how can I track him? - <AUTHOR>

It's 6:00 am in Germany, my wife's sleeping and after 10 minutes of work, her Gtalk icon appear on my sidebar showing her online, off and back online again for several minutes now, since I know, nobody else has her Gmail credentials and she's sleeping. How can I find out who it is, I suspect someone somehow close to her in someway, Colleauge, friend...any Idea? I know about the last activity option of Gmail that shows the location of the last activity. Is there any other option to track the person?<p>P.S. I also know of teh two steps authentication and will enable it in the next couple of hours on her account <comment><USER2> Bottom right of gmail you can see the account activity.

Last account activity: 52 minutes ago Details <\-- link

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion, that's what I will check when she's awake, for now I'll like to be able to use the datas to find out "exactly" from where the account was accessed and how often, what google shows in Gmail as Location (IP address) isn't very accurate. I guess they have the exact datas, I don't just know what to do to get them....maybe I should just try emailing someone from their security team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> maybe her computer is just on and the say wifi connection is just wavering the connection on and off

<comment><AUTHOR> Fully right, turns out to be the case. Thx , I have however enabled the 2 step-authentication, just in case.</comment></comment>


Association of Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets with Mortality Among US Adults - <AUTHOR> https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2759134 <comment><USER2> This study uses 24-hour dietary recall. Pretty much "What did you eat yesterday." Dietary recall studies are notoriously the least reliable method of measuring effects of diet on health or mortality. They will pretty much say whatever you want them to and are used mostly as filler for scholastic papers and headlines.

</comment><comment><USER3> tldr: It's the _quality_ of your diet that counts for mortality.

<comment><USER4> Yes, title is somewhat confusing because I read it as "low fat and low carb are associated with mortality", whereas the article treats of correlation with the reduction of mortality.

<comment><USER3> Didn't read closely, but they could be saying that macronutrient composition of diet is actually irrelevant to mortality. Rather, eating a high-quality diet (presumably lots of fresh vegetables, fruit, etc.) is actually what matters.</comment></comment></comment>


101 Blogging Tip for Newbie and Experienced Bloggers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/1c56306d54ec

<comment><USER2> blogging tip: It helps if you proof read your title before submitting to HN

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that title is just fine: 1 tip, 2 tips. 101 tip, 102 tips.

<comment><USER3> _facepalm_

101 items indicate a plurality. 1 tip, 21 tips, 101 tips...</comment></comment></comment>


Mcpp: A Portable C Preprocessor (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://mcpp.sourceforge.net <comment><USER2> (2008)

<comment><USER3> And hasn't been updated since.

<comment><USER4> If it works and does everything it needs to do, does it really need updating though?

<comment><USER5> Or, use/improve "Pcpp:A C99 Preprocessor Written in Pure Python", the parallel submission by blacksqr, at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19231260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19231260)

I assume both were posted because, quoting the pcpp repo documentation: "pcpp passes a modified edition of the mcpp unit test suite".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


'Swinefighter' to the Rescue  - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1895736,00.html

<comment><USER2> Dupe story and the "game" is not worth looking at. It's merely a _very_ poor attempt at making some ad-dollars from the flu-craze.

<comment><USER3> There are no ads on the site and I can't find a duplicate link to this Time magazine article. Check your facts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Yes, when you think of the actual pigs that have been slaughtered in a hysteria-prompted move in Israel (no one has yet contracted the illness there), then this seems ... totally insensitive."

Wasn't it Egypt that ordered the slaugher of 300,000 pigs not Israel?

<comment><USER5> That's right. And it could have motivations in Egypt different than fighting a flu.

[http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-05-04-egypt- swine...](http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-05-04-egypt-swine- flu_N.htm)</comment></comment>


Chances DNA can be used to find your family? Sixty percent and rising - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/10/chances-dna-can-be-used-to-find-your-family-60-percent-and-rising/ <comment><USER2> My wife and I used IVF to get pregnant. The issue was on her side, so we used donor eggs. It was completely anonymous, of course, but lately I've been wondering what's going to happen if (let's be honest, when) my children decide to use a service like 23AndMe.

Will they want to get in touch with the donor or her family? What affect will that have on my wife, who probably would feel diminished as the mother if that happened? I don't know, and honestly it's not something we considered five years ago when we had our kids. Those services existed at the time, but they hadn't taken off like they have in the last few years.

I think it's something anyone considering sperm/egg donation (either as a recipient or a donor) has to consider. If one side wants to connect, it's probably going to happen.

<comment><USER3> This is literally how I found out that I had a half-brother.

23andMe. I looked up family members, for fun. WHAM, half brother. I called my dad who, after some prodding, confirmed it was his child. I reached out. The man knew he was adopted.

Now we have a new brother at family events. Likely his Mom and him are going to spend Christmas with us.

<comment><USER4> Great ending. But not all are like this: think divorce or even murder after finding out that husband has kids all over the place :). And that's just one angle

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > This is a rare case where a potential forensic tool is probably biased > toward identifying wealthy white individuals.

</comment><comment><USER6> Disclaimer: I work for a genetics genealogy company. My comments are my own.

> _If, for whatever reason, you 'd like to maintain your privacy, the > researchers have a couple of suggestions you could support. One is simply to > have the government redefine private information to reflect this new > reality, so that the studies it funds no longer link any personal > information with DNA sequences._

Improving government research anonymization standards is a good thing. But it will not go _nearly_ far enough to solve privacy complaints from relatives of people who've had their DNA commercially tested for genealogy.

> _They also suggest that companies that offer direct-to-consumer genetics > standardize on a signed, encrypted file format for information on > variations. That would prevent people from taking DNA information from other > sources, like DNA sequence repositories, and using it to track down your > family members._

I strongly believe more and better privacy regulation is necessary. I'm really curious to learn more about what sort of encrypted file format this person wants to standardize on and exactly _how_ it's supposed to prevent people from taking DNA information from other sources.

<comment><USER7> > I strongly believe more and better privacy regulation is necessary.

What do you think the consequences will be if that doesn't happen?

<comment><USER6> Consider that there are a significant number of people who don't know they have more relatives than the ones they know and love. If the information is public, it becomes an avenue for blackmailing.

Scams about relatives already happen _without_ DNA [1].

Depending on what state in which you live your insurance coverage or cost might change too. [2]

There's also significant risk that your DNA will be sequenced in one jurisdiction but, because of The Cloud, it gets analyzed and stored in another jurisdiction. For example, the EU and US have very different privacy laws.

Some DNA analysis software employ stochastic algorithms. That means that the answer they provide can be different if run more than once, especially if run with different parameters (such as sample pool). [3] [4] Some customers know this and will ask for their data to be reanalyzed.

Some companies make the DNA available to be downloaded by the customer. That file can then be used for your own analysis or research. It could also be uploaded to other companies for different analyses or conclusions.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that your grandmother, who uploaded her DNA to a foreign company for a new or different analysis, has given a foreign adversary private information about _you_ and your potential medical hazards or secret relationships.

[1] [https://www.khou.com/gallery/news/investigations/consumer/vi...](https://www.khou.com/gallery/news/investigations/consumer/virtual- kidnapping-a-scary-extortion-scam/285-157917908)

[2] [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/04/4--risks-consumer-face- with-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/04/4--risks-consumer-face-with-dna- testing-and-buying-life-insurance.html)

[3] [http://mathgen.stats.ox.ac.uk/impute/impute_v2.html](http://mathgen.stats.ox.ac.uk/impute/impute_v2.html)

[4] [http://www.genetics.ucla.edu/software/admixture/](http://www.genetics.ucla.edu/software/admixture/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish they'd use it for something good like the estimated 300000 stolen children during Francoism.

<comment><USER9> Or the children currently being separated from their parents at the US border.

<comment><USER10> [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/21/...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/21/congresswoman- jackie-speier-asks-23andme-to-reunite-families-separated-at-border/amp/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Tools like this are the only way most descendants of slavery can trace their heritage AND find relatives.

For a lot of people 'family history' stops at 3 generations ago. Not only are they denied heritage, they are denied a home, a land, and a people. A sense of connection to the past is denied them.

DNA services are the only way to make these connections. And they are not trust worthy.

<comment><USER12> Most gene testing services aren't nearly as accurate for people of non- European descent. I saw this when getting some prenatal screening - there's a whole suite of tests for various European sub populations, and almost nothing for people of African descent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So what might the broad social effects be if every adopted child has increasingly better odds of tracing their parentage?

<comment><USER14> I would assume that voluntary sperm donation would sharply fall.

<comment><USER15> Ostensibly yes...but with supply and demand being what it is, the economical value of viable sperm is going to drastically start increasing.

[https://www.gq.com/story/sperm-count-zero](https://www.gq.com/story/sperm- count-zero)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if the family of Benjaman Kyle [0] will eventually be found as more and more people are added to the databases.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjaman_Kyle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjaman_Kyle)

<comment><USER17> They were found in 2015. It's in the article you linked to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> GATTACA here we come. People discovering and discriminating against genetic traits.</comment>


Folders: a programming language encoded into folder structure - <AUTHOR> http://esoteric.codes/post/109310541818/folders-a-language-with-no-files <comment><USER2> Wouldn't it make more sense to try to use something Lispy as your base, encoding sexprs into folder structure, considering that sexprs afaik can already be considered trees.

<comment><USER3> The fact that this is not Lispy is more surprising than the concept itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Finally, a scripting language that captures the essence of Windows as much as Perl captures the essence of Linux.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm kind of disappointed that the folder names actually have to contain the code. From the title, I got the wild phantasm of a language entirely encoded into folder structure - ignoring their names completely. Maybe it would be "Pure Folders".

<comment><USER6> SKI programs

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Funny that they chose to use Github for it, considering that Git doesn't let you store empty folders :)

<comment><USER8> They use .gitignore to fill them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Gonna use it for my new startup ! Is there a SPA framework ?

</comment><comment><USER10> What is wrong with this website? [http://i.imgur.com/mwLQcRg.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/mwLQcRg.jpg)

<comment><USER11> I've got a solution but it involves an old priest and a young priest

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A breakthrough! For the Linux version they can use extended file (folder) attributes.

</comment><comment><USER13> I made python version [https://sourceforge.net/projects/pyfolders/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/pyfolders/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Symlinks for e.g. jumps would be a fun addition. Or use overlay file systems for even stranger tricks.</comment>


Native Libraries on Android Are Hard - brian-armstrong https://firstname.lastname@example.com/native-libraries-on-android-are-hard-a1ce9d6024d5#.5f3txeyp5 <comment><AUTHOR> The NDK was only introduced in Android 2.2 to please game developers.

Given the way C and C++ are handled by the Android team, versus how iOS and UWP teams support them on their platforms, I think that if given the option the NDK would never have been brought to life.

One can see this on the recently introduced Android Things, aka Brillo.

When Brillo was introduced at Embedded Linux, the plan was to have a set of Brillo Frameworks in C++, instead it got rebranded as Android Things and adopted Java as their main language, including for user space drivers. Now in preview 2 of Android Things they are introducing NDK support again.</comment>


"...the bar always wins": Are lawyers evil? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/opinion/dickens-v-lawyers.html?_r=1&hp

<comment><AUTHOR> In the current public imagination, the highest circle of "evil" is generally reserved for bankers, financiers, etc. who "suck the blood" of the public, causing irreversible damage to companies and causing country-wide (and sometime world-wide) recessions. The lawyers are not as vilified as they were in Dickens' time.

"Samuel Johnson, the great critic who himself once hoped to enter the bar, knew better: "A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause" — that is "to be decided by the judge." The best means we have of discovering truth is to take opposing sides and let them tango. If a lawyer had to believe in the client's cause, most people would go undefended."

I cannot wrap my mind around this concept, which seems not only wrong in an operational sense (i.e. does not lead to best working legal system) but also wrong morally, which may or may not be an issue.

Can the lawyers on HN clarify if indeed this is the prevalent mentality?</comment>


History graduate begins 6 yr project to tweet WWII as it happened - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8877167/Six-year-project-to-tweet-the-Second-World-War.html

<comment><USER2> I bet he doesn't have a girlfriend #downvoted</comment>


TestFlight shuts off SDK access - <AUTHOR> http://help.testflightapp.com/customer/portal/articles/1452760

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, here's why. [http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/rumor-testflight-owner- burs...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/rumor-testflight-owner-burstly-is- being-acquired-by-apple/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Preparing to shut down or be bought out?

<comment><AUTHOR> What I'm wondering as well, or if they're remaking it into 'FlightPath'. Either way the company has been -very- quiet on this and Android support going away.

<comment><USER2> This gathers the circumstantial evidence but isn't convinced it's Apple.

[http://www.alexcurylo.com/blog/2014/02/21/testflight-r- i-p/](http://www.alexcurylo.com/blog/2014/02/21/testflight-r-i-p/)</comment></comment></comment>


Servee, looking for Designers in the Bay area to show off to. - <AUTHOR> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/cpg/695988689.html

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't trust design advice from someone who makes a site like this: <http://www.servee.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Not quite sure what you mean by this. At best, its the least constructive criticism ever. Please elaborate

<comment><USER3> Parent was being too harsh. As a designer, I don't think it looks that bad. It's not amateurish in any serious way, and it avoids the current cliches, which is refreshing to see. To me it kind of looks like cool design from, say, 1997, and I don't mean this as a putdown (I liked 1997) -- the choice of colors and the 3D just give it that sort of feel. Probably not the worst of things; you're targeting "civilians", so your product doesn't need to be too design-forward. Your featured sites look pretty decent.

Seems like a cool product. I'm actually developing something kind of similar, intended mainly for online magazines and long-form blogs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, The guy who did all of the current designs [ <http://kkellydesign.com> ] Is really over the 'copy apple' phenom among designers (apple is over it as well, but many didn't notice)

The point of the OP was that we have a good product FOR designers (and civilians), not that we have designs to show off. If there are designers interested in being design-forward, then have at it; it just happens that most of our customers are conservative mid-west businesses and organizations.

The idea is that you can easily go from your design to powerhouse website without lots of complicated work, and coding-language markup to worry about. Designers don't need that (but it's certainly available to those that want it).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How we can predict the politica affinity of people with deep learning - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/muntisa/Deep-Politics <comment><USER2> Interesting approach, but why do we need to predict the political affiliation of people? Won't this just divide us further?

<comment><USER3> They'll never get me. I'll just become even weirder :)</comment></comment>


"Nothing is Something" – OO design talk by Sandi Metz (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMPfEXIlTVE <comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely wonderful dissection of Null Object pattern and how dependency injection should/shouldn't be used. This is Sandi Metz (of "Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby" fame) at RailsConf 2015 but it's not Ruby-specific. 35m.</comment>


Not your grandfather's braking system - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/not-your-grandfathers-braking-system/article1456851/

<comment><USER2> Call me old fashioned, but when it was just mechanical, there'd be less that could go wrong.

Yes, I realize, less that could go right too (in terms of stability features in braking). But still...

<comment><USER3> Like most of the other technologies we trust everyday without even thinking about it, this will mature (or be changed to something else that is equally or more advanced) and probably become more reliable than old-style brakes.

The question is, was this put on a production vehicle too quickly, without enough testing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Was this really the best time to announce this, given that every one it talking about how Toyata's uncontrollable acceleration problem is probably due to a software bug?

So you cant stop it from accelerating and now you can't even depend on the breaks? I'm guessing it probably has some redundancy built in...

</comment><comment><USER5> I can't say I'd want this on a car; I like the direct feedback of a hydraulic brake system with no more than moderate power assist. I'm also undecided on ABS for myself, but I want most people to have it. Maybe I'm just old- fashioned, but I like being in control of the car, not the other way around.

</comment><comment><USER6> Unless the system contains enough redundancy, having more connected parts to control something creates more points of failure and its probability adds up.

A question for those engineers: Should safety really be sacrificed for efficiency's sake?

</comment><comment><USER7> A look at the comp.risks archives for the history of Airbus's difficulties getting fly-by-wire right could be informative here.</comment>


Undercover Activists Buy Off Professors in Climate Sting - <AUTHOR> http://magazine.good.is/articles/academics-for-hire-disclose-fossil-fuel-funding <comment><USER2> I see people arguing that there's nothing bad in this report. The shady, underhanded and dishonest context is so clear, I'm shocked to see so many such objections.

The basic problem here is that two top academics are clearly selling the use of their credentials for clear commercial gain of a private company and using sophisticated means to hide the fact of such sale.

That part is bad enough, even worse is the eager sales pitch and readiness to suggest financial shenanigans to hide the source of the funding that these professors are engaging in. It's very clear that these are not first-timers or unwilling participants. This is their _normal_ MO for writing and speaking on the topic.

<comment><USER3> What confuses me is that we all seem to have more-or-less the same moral compass when it comes to fiction. "The bad guy" is often going to extremes to prevent something from going public - dumping toxic waste in a river, taking bribes, selling a vote, torturing people in secret etc.

Somehow it seems like these days, if someone gets caught doing these things in real life, nothing happens. Dumping toxic waste is pro-business. Bribery is freedom of speech. Torture? Heck, it's not torture, and they're really bad people anyway.

Sometimes I want to grab these people and ask them, seriously, if this isn't evil, then what IS?

<comment><USER4> > What confuses me is that we all seem to have more-or-less the same moral > compass when it comes to fiction.

> Torture? Heck, it's not torture, and they're really bad people anyway.

The use of torture 'by the good guys' is actually pretty ubiquitous in modern TV.

<comment><USER3> That is very observant, something I've written about elsewhere. Not quite sure what to do about it to be honest. It makes me sick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hm, I feel like this is way less sinister than it sounds. From what I know of his prior reputation, Will Happer has long made his position on climate change clear, so it's not like he changed his mind when people offered him a big pile of money.

If you already believe something and someone is going to give you money to promote your views, why on earth would you say no?

<comment><USER6> 1) Intentionally hiding the source of funding; aka taking a bribe.

2) Intentionally publishing in a sham journal to avoid peer review.

These are both tolerable behavior in the free market, but ought to be firable offenses for university professors.

<comment><USER5> I can't comment on the other parts of it really (and I don't know the whole story so I reserve judgement), I'm just skeptical of the claim that he was "bought off" \- which would imply that he changed his views _because_ of the money. If the headline were, "Professors agree to hide source of funding and run a climate change journal with lax peer review standards", then I might hold off, but then again, that probably wouldn't look as sexy in a headline.

<comment><USER4> > which would imply that he changed his views because of the money

No, it doesn't imply that at all.

to buy somebody off:

"to bribe someone to ignore what one is doing wrong."

"To bribe someone in order to ensure cooperation"

The implications carried are that the payments were a bribe and that the actions taken as a result were improper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wonder if anyone is going to do the opposite - try to buy off pro-global- warming professor to produce exaggerated doomsday prediction - and what the outcome is going to be.

<comment><USER8> I wonder if Greenpeace is doing more to undermine confidence in all academic research, undermining confidence in climate change science much more than the denial of it.

<comment><USER9> This was my first thought. The only difference between me and the climate change skeptics I know is that they have no faith in the integrity of scientists, and I do. "See, the oil and gas industry has been buying off scientists!" won't help my argument, they'll just think that it's a countervailing force to all the scientists on the other side of the question who are being bought off by …whoever they think it is.

Edit to add: Furthermore, I don't think this is unreasonable of them! Figuring out which experts to trust is a really hard problem in a society as complex as ours has become, and this makes it harder to argue for "you should trust scientists".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When you get a grant, the university has academic freedom stipulations in the contract or memorandum of understanding. You cite sources for every paper. There's a yearly statement of conflict of interest on file. There is absolutely no way these researchers aren't aware of the difficulty of what they've done, even if they are saying what they believe.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm a bit curious what people's opinions are after reading this [http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/08/breaking-greenpeace- co...](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/08/breaking-greenpeace-co-founder- reports-greenpeace-to-the-fbi-under-rico-and-wire-fraud-statutes/)

Seems like there is some info being left out. Both sources seem to be hiding things, why not publish the entire e-mail exchanges?

<comment><USER11> Ah, I see the entire exchange was published here [http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2642410-Email- Chain-H...](http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2642410-Email-Chain-Happer- O-Keefe-and-Donors-Trust.html)

Seems quite different than how it was being portrayed. From what I'm seeing, they asked for a white paper, not a research paper and Happer said they could send money to his 501c3 charity which only pays part of his travel expense and would only write what he believed in. Even correcting them on peer review in an academic sense vs a white paper reviewed by his peers...

Am I missing something nefarious here? Because this seems much more like a 'hit piece' on a guy who is testifying before congress.

<comment><USER12> He is embezzling money from a 5013c also?

<comment><USER11> How in the world did you arrive at that conclusion!?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The truth will out, complicated character-assassination plots notwithstanding.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have some questions about this "sting" that were unanswered in the article. It would be one thing if the academic were paid to have a certain opinion, its is another thing entirely to pay an academic to _falsify_ research supporting a viewpoint they already hold. It reads as if the academics were paid to support a thesis with evidence. Once you are at a high enough academic level you should be able to write a paper arguing for and supporting a thesis whether or not you believe in that thesis on a personal level. It's important to sustain debate on all sides of an issue regardless of whether or not all of those sides are politically popular.

The great thing about publishing is that it gives other educated people a chance to rebut and question the argument.

I also believe funding sources should be kept secret in some cases so that the paper or research can be judged on its own merit rather than judged based on the motivations of the entity funded it.

<comment><USER15> Your first paragraph is dead wrong. Science is not supposed to be about which side can pay more to "support their thesis with evidence". That would clearly lead to a blatant bias toward collecting evidence that favors the desired outcome. Also, it's not important to sustain every side of every debate in perpetuity. If that was the case, nothing would ever get done. Once there is enough evidence, collected in an unbiased fashion, that one side becomes untenable, the correct action is to put that debate to bed.

Your second paragraph is irrelevant. The problem is not publishing this research, the problem is the intentional deceptions about both conflicts of interest and the lack of peer review.

Your third paragraph is also dead wrong. Disclosure of all conflicts of interest is critical, not to mention required in order to publish in any respectable scientific journal.

<comment><USER14> 1\. I said nothing about "what science is supposed to be about" Research costs money. If I chose to fund a study about the positive effects of a coal industry on the lower class it is within my right to do so and in no way excludes someone else from funding a study on the negative effects.

2\. Sure, but this is tangential to my comment at best.

3\. my belief is not "also dead wrong" Disclosure of conflicts of interest is not the same as disclosure of funding sources in all cases.

I'd also like to point out that your comment is an example of what I consider to be the type of poorly thought out middle brow discourse that perfectly characterizes the worst form of discussion on the internet. Unilateral statements like "your wrong" contribute nothing at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Will this be enough to fire tenured professors?

<comment><USER6> One of them, Frank Clemente, is emeritus. He retired in 2010, and gets whatever pension or such PSU offers. I wonder what their disciplinary options are. This is clearly a case of an end-of-career cash-out of social/political capital.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> To all the people that are somehow saying that this isn't all that bad, you seem to be missing the point. The problem isn't that these professors are taking money to support something they already support. It's that they are taking money and then going to lengths to avoid disclosing the funding OR to make it look like their papers went through a real peer review process...

I'm utterly shocked and disappointed by how many people on here are saying things along the lines of "what's the big deal?"

</comment><comment><USER18> I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of cash. Anyone want to let me know who will buy off a math professor?

<comment><USER6> The cigarrette companies hire statisticians to publish bogus research about the health effects of smoking.

<comment><USER19> Really any drug company (or an anti-drug organization like the DEA) would be looking for someone who can do dark magic with statistics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This seems a bit like the Planned Parenthood tapes: approach someone with false pretenses, and then report the things they say in the worst possible way.

I would find it much more damning if they found a professor that would change their position for money, rather than finding people that will accept money to forward a position they think is correct.

<comment><USER21> Eh, not really, take this for example:

>The emails and recordings also outline how Happer ran a sham peer-review process through the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a prominent U.K.-based climate skepticist think thank. Happer admits that his papers would not likely be published through typical the academic peer review process. "I would be glad to ask for a similar review for the first drafts of anything I write for your client. Unless we decide to submit the piece to a regular journal, with all the complications of delay, possibly quixotic editors and reviewers that is the best we can do, and I think it would be fine to call it a peer review."

The headlines are actually somewhat mundane compared to the substance. This is the reverse of the Planned Parenthood tapes.

<comment><USER22> > Happer ran a sham peer-review process through the Global Warming Policy > Foundation, a prominent U.K.-based climate skepticist think thank.

I really don't think submitting papers to similarly minded groups in the name of "peer review" is an uncommon occurrence on any side of the climate change debate -- or any other debate for that matter.

<comment><USER2> _" I really don't think submitting papers to similarly minded groups in the name of "peer review" is an uncommon occurrence"_

Yes it is. It's not just uncommon, it's simply unacceptable in regular scientific research. Don't believe me, here's Prof. Happer's own words:

Verbatim from William Happer's email:

 _" For example, Golkany knew the names of the reviews he received, but for a journal, the peer reviewers would normally be anonymous._

.

.

 _Unless we decide to submit the piece to a regular journal, with all the complications of delay, possibly quixotic editors and reviewers that is the best we can do, and I think it would be fine to call it a peer review "_

He knows exactly what he's doing is wrong and why. He's deliberately engaging in a a sleight of hand in order to deceive the casual reader/listener with the words "peer review".

<comment><USER12> It is a peer review,but you are judged by the quality of the peers you choose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't know if Greenpeace's claim is true but in any way they are shooting themselves in the foot. If the promise of a shaddy payment could push academics to say anything, then what about a massive political, media and peer pressure? What if the only way for research to get funding is to attempt to prove the catastrophic effects of global warming.

Demonstrating that scientists bow to pressure isn't exactly helping the global warming cause.

<comment><USER24> Oh please, there's not even a remote equivalence there.

The fossil-fuel sector has a enormously greater incentive to bribe people to affect the system, and a metric fuckton more money to do it with. It doesn't make sense to imply some kind of parity of wrongdoing.</comment></comment>


Skype can't fix a nasty security bug without a massive code rewrite - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/skype-cannot-fix-security-bug-without-a-massive-code-rewrite/ <comment><USER3> From the disclosure ([http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2018/Feb/33](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2018/Feb/33)):

> An unprivileged (local) user who is able to place UXTheme.dll or any of the > other DLLs loaded by the vulnerable executable in %SystemRoot%\Temp\ gains > escalation of privilege to the SYSTEM account.

On my machine at least an unprivileged user does _not_ have access to %SystemRoot%\Temp\ so it seems to be a case of what Raymond Chen refers to as _" on the other side of the airtight hatchway"_.

<comment><USER4> I believe the default permissions for a volume grant users the ability to create folders, so they should be able to create a folder in C: called Temp and put files into it.

It's also possible that when Skype's updater creates the folder it has different ACLs.

<comment><USER5> %SYSTEMROOT% is C:\Windows, not C:\\.

I too cannot access C:\Windows\Temp at all without escalating permissions. Neither can I write to anything in C:\Windows as described in the original source without escalated permissions.

I'm a little puzzled about what would stop someone with the same permissions from doing exactly the same thing with the fully qualified name.

<comment><USER6> I need to test this later as I only have access to an unprivileged account at the moment, but based on comments online ([https://stackoverflow.com/a/11917816](https://stackoverflow.com/a/11917816)), C:\Windows\Temp (%systemroot%\Temp redirects here, and is the folder Skype accesses from, is write only for unprivileged users (FILE_ADD_FILE).

Preliminary testing shows that I was able to write there with out any problem. No way for me to read it at the moment though...

Edit: As noted by another user here, yes, it is writeable. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16367722](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16367722)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The title isn't quite right here.

It's not that Microsoft can't fix this bug without a massive rewrite. It's that they'd rather do the massive rewrite than fix this security bug in the current client.

They could put a small amount of resources on critical fixes for the current client. It would have a small effect on the release of the new client but put them in a much better position once the new client is ready in terms of how many users they retain and how happy those users are. Overall, there's a lot of bang for the buck for this in terms of the overall health of the product.

Now, Microsoft may very well have a critical fix effort for the current client but this bug didn't make the grade as a critical bug. (I can't tell from just this article whether I would consider this a critical issue or not.)

</comment><comment><USER8> The article mentions that this vulnerability affects Mac and Linux too. I'm curious how that's the case. DLLs, as i understand, are the Windows equivalent of shared libraries on Unix-like systems. Even if that's the case, there'd have to be subtle but important differences in the implantation details, due to the differing heritage of both systems, wouldn't there?

I've heard about DLL-injection many a time, for purposes ranging from benign (fun Counter-Strike mod) to evil (I am now NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM, bitches). I've not heard about .so injection on Unix-like systems. Why is that? Is it because implementation details of Unix shared libraries preclude them being used in the same or a similar way, that I've just not been on the right mailing lists to hear about it, or more nobody cares to bother because everyone's on Windows?

Those of you whom are familiar with either or both systems, what material would you recommend for study that would answer my questions, or help me understand enough to ask a smarter one?

<comment><USER9> As far as my understanding goes, performing a .so injection at least on Linux systems is much easier: you just need to set up an LD_PRELOAD variable before running the program and that's it. See, for example, here [0].

And it _is_ sometimes useful. One thing I can recall when this was necessary when I had an old webcam which did not work with Skype (a native application, at that moment) under Linux because of incompatibility with V4L2. To make the camera work, I had to do the LD_PRELOAD trick to preload a compatibility library (see here [1], search for "v4lcompat"). Another example, provided in [0], is overriding the default memory allocator.

Another, more coarse-grained way to manipulate the way libraries are loaded is to use the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable. I believe it is currently used by Steam to specify its own set of libraries.

Granted, this is not really a DLL injection as it is usually understood (adding code to a running process), but it is the same thing as described in the article, as far as I can tell.

[0]: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/426230/what-is-the-ld- pr...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/426230/what-is-the-ld-preload- trick) [1]: [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SkypeWebCams](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SkypeWebCams)

edit: grammar

<comment><USER10> Both the LD_PRELOAD and LD_LIBRARY_PATH variables are ignored for setuid programs, and if the program was started by something else you won't be able to change these variables. The issue here is not injecting code into a process you control, it's injecting code into a process running under a different account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe it's pedantic, but I wish security reporters wouldn't list their pubkeys and signal # on a page that isn't served over TLS.

</comment><comment><USER12> The article mentioned that the bug reporter claimed that MacOS and Linux were also possibly affected. I run Skype on Xubuntu and it is installed via apt and a signed repo / package. Also Linux by default doesn't have '.' in the search path for dlopen() / ld.so.

</comment><comment><USER13> Technical information is here: [http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2018/Feb/33](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2018/Feb/33)

</comment><comment><USER14> Few years ago after not logging into Skype for few months when I have launched Skype I was logged in automatically to another person's account (similar in name to my own, but with additional prefix). It happen few times in period of 2-3 years. When I tried to report it, support staff supposedly handed the info to their supervisor and that's was it. Fortunately web client had resolved such issues.

</comment><comment><USER15> An interim solution could be to install the UWP Skype app from the Store. I don't think it relies on Updater.exe for patches.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, the article seems to fail to mention that the current version of Windows, which almost everyone had two years to upgrade to for free, has a version of Skype that isn't vulnerable. Given that Windows 10 has been out since 2015, and everyone with a Windows license going back to 2009 had a free upgrade path, failing to mention that Skype on Windows 10 (they don't recommend classic Skype for Windows 10 users) isn't vulnerable borders on the FUD barrier.

<comment><USER17> I don't know if it's still the case, but is the UWP a crash-prone nightmare that doesn't have feature parity with the older client family?

<comment><USER16> It's gotten significantly better over time. I can't remember the last time it crashed, sync between clients of the chat log is kinda wonky sometimes but that's just Skype in general. Not positive on feature parity, I've been on the UWP version for quite a while and couldn't tell you what's different anymore.

<comment><USER17> I've literally had to go out to unfuck a Skype UWP install onsite tonight, in what may be a freak co-incidence.

Skype decided a perfectly working webcam was permanently in use by something else. It wasn't, but a uninstall and reinstall of the app cured it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Skype needs a rewrite. I don't like saying "rewrite" but I also hate Skype's messaging system.

</comment><comment><USER19> The new Skype version has been terrible, at least on macOS.

What are some good alternatives that offer group calls and screen sharing?

<comment><USER20> That's because they rewrote their native Cocoa application in Electron and threw away years of work that they had put into it making it decent along with it.

<comment><USER21> I don't know what those years of work were accomplishing, but they didn't make Skype decent.

Skype was decent a decade ago, and it has declined since then.

<comment><USER19> That may be true, but the Cocoa version was still better in terms of performance and usability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Time to use the web client.

Or not at all, I haven't had a need for skype but the last client I used was the web client on Linux.

<comment><USER23> I've had good experience with Jitsi Meet ([https://meet.jit.si](https://meet.jit.si)). You can run it from a browser, it's very pleasant and works quite well. Plus, it's open source.

<comment><USER24> Thank you. Just tried it and it works great in Chromium.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's not "nasty" at all, it's an irrelevant bug, since local account security is easily bypassable in a lot of ways.

It's also trivial to fix: just create a directory in Temp and put the executable there instead of directly in the Temp directory.

</comment><comment><USER26> Absolutely nothing surprises me with Skype anymore. Sadly.

Messages do not get delivered to iPhone, iPad and Mac. Only pick two. Pick random two.

Not sure what Microsoft's plan for Skype was. But I don't see it working out either way.

</comment><comment><USER6> I must be missing something obvious here. Why can't skype just hard code the locations and hashes of the dll files it needs to load? Why is Skype loading random DLLs from user accessible folders? I must be misunderstanding how Windows programs use DLLs and why it needs to just search for them.

Edit: @jwilk in the comments here pointed to a better article about the security vulnerability [1]. Based on the technical details, there seems to be no reason why Microsoft could not issue a very quick fix loading the DLL from the secure location.

Important quote in my eyes:

"The engineers provided me with an update on this case. They've reviewed the code and were able to reproduce the issue, but have determined that the fix will be implemented in a newer version of the product rather than a security update. The team is planning on shipping a newer version of the client, and this current version will slowly be deprecated. The installer would need a large code revision to prevent DLL injection, but all resources have been put toward development of the new client."

In other words, it seems Microsoft/Skype doesn't care about security at all. A couple of lines to fix the bug, in theory, but Microsoft is too busy to do it. Doesn't make sense, unless a new version would have been released shortly, but it has been 4 months between that email and disclosure.

[1]: [http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2018/Feb/33](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2018/Feb/33)

<comment><USER27> > A couple of lines to fix the bug, in theory

Yes that's all it takes. No code reviews, security review, integration testing, quality assurance testing, compatibility testing, or validation. None of the work on the installer or updater. No release notes or other communication to the community.

Just a couple lines of code. Easily done before morning coffee.

<comment><USER28> > No code reviews, security review, integration testing, quality assurance > testing, compatibility testing, or validation.

If this was a small startup, I can absolutely see those being hurdles. This is Microsoft on a product they've had for 20+ years that is a major part of their platform - those things should be mostly automated and well oiled machines.

A mature enterprise level company has no excuses for "QA is hard!" or "We can't validate patches!" for a product they sell. I don't expect them to get this out in ten minutes, but they should be able to manage a patch in 24 - <USER2> hours for a fairly critical and relatively easily solved security bug.

<comment><USER29> As a former Microsoft employee, my experience was that the longer a product was around, the harder it was to figure out who understood any part of it well enough to change something.

I would guess I averaged about 10 lines a month on my project that had been around for decades. Making even slight tweaks required dozens of meetings, design discussions, functional and performance testing, etc. etc. It took an eternity.

<comment><USER30> Microsoft is still actively patching Skype. Here's an example of them patching what sounds like a similar DLL flaw just last year:

[https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2017-6517/](https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2017-6517/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> A bug sure, but does anyone really care much about local privilege escalation on Windows? On a system where Skype is installed?

<comment><USER32> Someone without 2FA might check their email on that system. Their bank might send them email...

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> As far as I've seen, no one noticed that this is about the old legacy version of Skype, the "rewritten client" they talk about in the article is the __current __Electron-based client. That one and the UWP version are not affected by this.

</comment><comment><USER34> Oh yes please, whatever the reason. The current Skype is rubbish. Make us something nice!

</comment><comment><USER35> It is interesting to note that there is no option to control or disable updates in new Skype RT for Windows. Opera browser also doesn't allow user to control updates.

</comment><comment><USER36> suid programs and the installer is de-facto such a beast should not be written if one can avoid it. Providing users with sufficient powerful APIs and installing software on a per user level is one way to avoid this mess. Another is to delegate installation to the operating system and not rolling your own. Anyone else messing up this way may be able to point to Microsoft. Now those folks at Skype are here in a bit a pickle.

</comment><comment><USER37> Sure they can't...

P.S check out Microsoft teams!</comment>


Show HN: Chrome plugin displays Street View of website owner - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whois-street-view/dbmgbfblmnnlaopdchccobimlmdoniej

<comment><USER2> This is one of those things that's of no use, but to show people that there are creeps online who build things like this.

Great advertising for domain privacy.</comment>


Australia Bars Huawei From Broadband Project - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/technology/australia-bars-huawei-from-broadband-project.html?_r=0

<comment><USER2> Please fix the misleading title.

<comment><USER3> The title is spot on.

Guess what would be the proper response on installing a MS or Google controlled e-mail system at some other government bureaucracy or a major company that competes with US mainstays, e.g. Airbus - after it's now known that the US software vendors had been forced to introduce backdoors/mass wiretaps, and that they also spied on friendly NATO nations?

In the coming months we should expect a major increase in fragmentation of core information infrastructure services, pushed and funded by concerns of national sovereignity; as well as a "not-SAAS" becoming a mandatory requirement for a bunch of B2B purchasers.

<comment><USER4> The title is not a description of the story, but rather a speculative editorialization designed to be provoking in order to generate karma for the submitter

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Original title: Australia Bars Huawei From Broadband Project

</comment><comment><USER6> You mean US-based tech companies will be blocked from bidding because they have ties with the PRC?

<comment> guard-of-terra Because they have ties with NSA.</comment></comment>


Where's my reply, OkCupid? (Prelude to a lawsuit) - <AUTHOR> http://www.avitable.com/2011/09/05/wheres-my-reply-okcupid-prelude-to-a-lawsuit/

<comment><USER4> Sorry, I completely disagree with this post, 100%

First off, I want to say this right away- Its total bullshit that some user targeted you like this and you definitely have a right to get a subpoena for OKC to give you the users IP and to delete the account

However I dont agree with your hate towards OKC- You cant give them shit for:

Not giving you the Account information/IP just because you asked: Giving that info to you without a legal order just makes them liable personally. You want the IP? You need to send legal notice. What would happen if it was some abused woman who OKCupid gave their account info out to her abuser? Yeah- Get a legal order if you want that info. Not OKC's fault, They are following (wise) legal advice.

Not requiring email validation- So what? They could have done the same thing posting your details to pastebin.com or just not used your email in the first place. Actually, seeing as how the account is registered to you, why dont you just login and delete it? Not requiring email validation means nothing. In fact, Email validation is basically worthless nowadays (Similar to captchas) and just annoys users.

Finally- Saying what you said in that post is rather stupid. Threatening to "get ugly" and that you have a "actionable case" - If this was against a company I was involved in, our lawyers would basically cut us off from any communication at all. Now that you have said that, your only action is to actually get a subpoena vs if you took a nicer tone, they might have deleted the account for you.

Additionally- I doubt OKC is in any risk themselves for this so threatening to sue them is silly. the CDA basically absolves them from any liability for user content so the best result you can get from "suing" them is that you would lose. Worst case is you pay their legal costs also.

You want the IP? Get a subpoena. Thats how its done.

Once you do get the subpoena, rake the bastard over the coals for libel :)

<comment><USER5> "Giving that info to you without a legal order just makes them liable personally. You want the IP? You need to send legal notice."

Surely they can reply immediately and suggest he get a Pre-Action Discovery Order or whatever it might be called in his/their area. Would take a few seconds to do.

<comment><USER5> Sorry to reply to my own post but have got another minute to add more to this conversation: I run a forum that receives all sorts of legal threats over questionable/defamatory posts. I'd rather not have those dodgy posts on my site and would be quite happy for someone to pursue the authors. When receiving a complaint, I make the effort to reply quickly in each case outlining the legal options. Surely OKCupid are in a similar position - <USER2> don't want this sort of junk on their site; if they can provide a quick piece of info and then stand out of the way while the OP pursues the perpetrator, all's well IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "That's my real address. Unlike my previous address, which I posted publicly as part of my Halloween party invitation, this one was not public."

So lets summarize:

1) This guy does not want his real address to be known. 2) A small number of people learned it through OkCupid but most likely ignored it. 3) As a result the person in question posts his own address publicly on his blog and gives OkCupid the fault that the address is public now.

Am I the only one to whom such a behavior appears incredibly stupid?

And by the way: Just do a whois on the domain name of the blog and you'll also get to the same address.

<comment><USER7> Not wanting your address public is one thing. Not wanting your address published along with a call to break, enter, and commit rape is another. Perhaps the former wish pales before the importance of discussing the latter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's probably a good idea to involve the police in this case. If your problem is that OkCupid is giving out your home address, why should they solve that problem by giving you someone's IP address? That doesn't make sense; you could be just as much of a whacko as the guy that posted your address. Two wrongs don't make a right.

The correct way to address this problem is, I think, to file a police report. Then they will give the information to trained law enforcement officials that can act on that information in an appropriate manner. (I've been on the other side of this before; someone on Slashdot didn't like a comment I made. Several months later, the Secret Service is at my front door with a list of questions they needed answered. A little scary, but the best possible outcome. I'd rather have trained federal agents after me than some psychopath with a sawed- off shotgun. But maybe that's just me.)

Anyway, OkCupid should absolutely take action on this, but I think it's best if you don't take it personally. Let the professionals solve your problem. They'll do a better job because they have access to better tools and have better training.

<comment><USER9> Now I'm really curious what the content of your Slashdot comment was.

<comment><USER8> The thread was something like, "name something you can't say on the internet" and my reply was "i'm going to kill the president". It turns out I was right.

Anyway, the cops did not check the content of the thread before coming to my house. After I showed them they agreed it was kind of silly that they were called out, and they went away. I never heard any follow up, but I assume I now have A File.

<comment><USER10> ...and you may have just invited a personal followup by posting a message with that phrase in this thread. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> His blog says it's a parody blog... Is this post for real? I feel like he's not seriously accusing OKCupid and his blog's description implies everything is fake... Why else would he not blur out his address???

"This blog is my personal property and consists of my private opinion. This blog is a work of fiction, the names in this blog are fictitious, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This blog is solely satire and parody and should be considered as such."

<comment><USER12> It's mainly a humor blog, but I write serious posts on there as well. The disclaimer about it being fiction is a CYA for some of the humor I write. The OkCupid post is completely serious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> You should be _glad_ they have that registration flaw. Consider this scenario:

OkCupid _does_ require email validation, and the attacker still makes the false account under your name with your photo and all the same information, and simply emails you a link to it. Same exact thing. It doesn't even look like your email address is visible on the page. All that OkCupid's flaw served as here was an instant forward of the page to you _which you should actually be grateful for_. Imagine the attacker wasn't able to use your real email and in fact never did email you the link to it, this page would be up on OKC unbeknownst to you because OKC wouldn't have emailed the confirmation to you.

While the attack was a pretty messed up idea, I feel you completely over- reacted. You are way too enthusiastic, publicly, about wanting to get revenge on OkCupid, who really didn't do anything wrong. I would rethink the subheading with which you chose to adorn your Twitter background.

People will always misuse technology. A website can't be sued for having a loophole in its registration system. That's just stupid. However, a person could be sued for attempting to anonymously recruit crazy people (the only type who would think the original post is real and go through with the request) to break into your house.

<comment><USER14> Ultimately the lack of email confirmation is a minor detail and not even relevant since it had no impact on the perpetration (except notifying the victim and enabling him to log in).

But I don't think that takes away from the complaint that OKC should have replied to the victim.

<comment><USER13> Yes, they should reach out, but I understand why they wouldn't want to publicly perpetuate this incident. He should have just sent an email and not given them bad press on Twitter and his blog.

<comment><USER14> If OKC would have replied it most likely would have avoided the blog post (which was totally warranted).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> <http://www.avitable.com/about/>

"This blog is a work of fiction, the names in this blog are fictitious, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This blog is solely satire and parody and should be considered as such."

</comment><comment><USER16> > Apparently, the link in this email could be forwarded to anyone, and they > would be able to sign in.

This happened to my mom a few weeks ago. When you receive a message on OkCupid, it shows the message in the email and it also includes a link to your profile. My mom forwarded the message to some of her close contacts and later found out they all had full access to her profile. Very embarrassing.

<comment><USER17> I love having Baby Boomer parents. They are total technophobes, and would never put potentially embarrassing information on the web.

Our kids, on the other hand, are going to hate us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> In the past this sort of stunt has led to actual rapes, which have gotten some pretty wide coverage:

[http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Craigslist-Rape- Victim/print/...](http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Craigslist-Rape- Victim/print/1)

Assuming it's not fiction - hard to tell with that disclaimer on his blog - <USER3> I were the poster, I'd take this to law enforcement immediately. Conspiracy to commit rape is a serious criminal charge.

</comment><comment><USER19> "prelude to a lawsuit"...

When you were a kid and another kid threatened to beat you up, it was always the case that the more they talked about the less likely it was to happen. The ones that were a genuine threat just tended to hit first and talk second.

I've always found the same thing about legal action. The more someone makes vague threats the less credible their claim seems.

If you haven't spoken to a lawyer, don't make reference to any sort of legal action (and if you have spoken to a lawyer they'll tell you to keep your powder dry on publicly announcing it too)...

On an aside, since most people manage to get through life without such an offensive profile being created about them on a dating site, I'd respectfully suggest that once the author has successfully found the "delete" button, he perhaps considers if he could have done anything differently to avoid being in a situation where someone was that p*ssed with him... (not justifying or condoning the actions of the profile creator, just espousing my personal preference for avoiding trivial confrontations in the first place)

</comment><comment><USER20> if the person creating this fake profile hadn't used this guy's e-mail address, this guy probably would have never known his home address was being given out. seems like in this case, not having to verify the e-mail address was beneficial to this guy so i'm not sure why he's so angry that no e-mail verification was needed.

though, what does he expect to do with the ip address from okcupid? contact the isp and ask for a home address? i can pretty much guarantee that the isp won't give out any information without a subpoena, or at the very least, a formal request coming from a proper law-enforcement agency. if he wants to do anything other than go beat up the guy that posted his information, he should contact the police, have them subpoena okcupid for the ip address and timestamp information, which they will have to provide in the subpoena to the isp.

</comment><comment><USER21> Ironically, the fact that his real email was used actually saved him. OkCupid doesn't show email addresses to users, so the person who created the account could have used email@example.com and nobody on the site would know. Even worse, he never would have known a group of men were invited to rape him. At least this way, he knew about it almost instantly.

</comment><comment><USER22> Regarding legal liability, it's worth noting that Yahoo! has a panel you can access that shows the ip addresses you connected from during all your recent sign ins. It's only available to the account holder. They are a big company with many lawyers and seem to know what they are doing. It seems to be a very good feature that all sites with user accounts should probably have.

</comment><comment><USER23> Aren't IP Addresses personal information? Companies can't just hand them over willy-nilly.

</comment><comment><USER24> The scary thing is that this is someone who has access to his private Facebook profile, aka one of his Facebook "friends". And he doesn't know who it is. There are traitors among his friends.

<comment><USER25> He has 1391 "friends" on Facebook. I think this is past the point you can claim to actually know all of them, or even recognise all of them in a crowd.

This is also past the point where you can fool yourself that anything restricted to "friends" on Facebook is actually private.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> _"filled with people looking for threesomes, married browsers looking for sex on the side, or, occasionally, Nigerian princes who want to give you money. "_

One of these things is not like the other. Seriously, why the need to insert unrelated bigotry?

<comment><USER27> 419 scammers are extremely common on dating sites.

<http://www.snopes.com/fraud/advancefee/nigeria.asp>

<comment><USER26> I'm saying that comparing people looking for threesomes or other partners is legitimate, while 419 scammers are not. The comparison is rather bigoted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Whois his domain :P

</comment><comment><USER29> This has nothing to do with OKCupid. Just because somebody used them to target you, doesn't make them liable. What if I create a public Google doc with all your private info and some lies? Will you sue Google?

<comment><USER7> Allowing it to be posted: not OKCupid's fault. Failing to reply in a week to a situation that clearly presents the possibility of imminent harm and of great psychological stress: fail. They could, for example, have responded within 24 hrs to say the posting had been removed and law enforcement would be contacted.

<comment><USER30> If an account is set up on your email address, it's trivial to gain control of it and shut it down yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm not one for spreading peoples' personal information, but I'm tempted to repost this on pastebin or any other GeoCities equivalent to make a point.

I can do the same thing with Facebook. The lack of email verification has nothing to do with the publicness or lewdness of his email. I've had people create Facebook accounts with my email address too. I just log in and deactivate the accounts.

This guy's "attacker" could have just as easily used a fake email address and done the exact same thing. Even with email verification. Email verification != identity confirmation.

It's actually sad how easy it would be to quickly create a fake Google+ profile, Facebook profile and Twitter account to emulate this person and post equally insidious threats. Is the only difference here that this person didn't have a previous OkCupid! profile to prevent this name-grabbing? Or what?</comment>


Copyright Math: a quantitative reasoning master class by Rob Reid (video) - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/copyright-math-vies-with-string-theory-for-most-complex-profitable-potentially-ridiculous-theory-vid.ars <comment><USER2> Wow. I thought this might be something I could send to my parents to explain this stuff, but it's just some guy being snarky and sarcastic and playing to "us" for laughs. I guess if your goal is feeling superior, it's a worthwhile diversion.

<comment><USER3> I think you do a great disservice to the talk in addition to missing the elucidative point entirely.

The easiest way for anyone to remember or have many complex topics explained is via a story and especially one with comedy, due to the strong emotional/physical response it creates.

Also, this talk is not just another run of the mill explanation, but it is done from an unusual perspective (copyright math "expert"), which also helps to get the point across.

For those not already aware of the basic issues involved (which arguably is most people otherwise we would not be in the situation we are now), I am betting they, possibly including your "parents", will learn and remember far more from this talk than any facts/figures/reports you could possibly direct them to.</comment></comment>


Yale historian: "pretty much inevitable" Trump will try to overthrow democracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2017/05/01/historian-timothy-snyder-its-pretty-much-inevitable-that-trump-will-try-to-stage-a-coup-and-overthrow-democracy/ <comment><USER2> If you mean the thirty years of big brother style over governance, gestapo style drug wars, killing our children slowly with sugary foods, and crushing the poor with debt, then let what you call democracy die a horrible lonely death.

</comment><comment><USER3> so much shit..... There's no place on earth where institutions work to limit president power as in United States.

And no president ever in modern US history faced such harsh opposition.

Unless some cataclysmic event occurs that put in danger the whole existence of USA I don't see anything like that occurring in the next 100+ years.</comment>


Show HN: 18 year-old and HS XCTF team built a free app for shareable stopwatches - <AUTHOR> https://synchrostopwatch.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN! My name is Derek, and this is my project.

Over my years running varsity XC & track in HS, myself and others on my team took a lot of splits during workouts and races. It was always such a hassle to take splits without a convenient way to save, search, and share them with each other besides taking pictures or writing them out on paper. To solve this problem, I worked with my team as well as local athletes and coaches to develop Synchro: a free pro stopwatch app for people who take splits. Synchro Pro removes the ads and enables you to have an unlimited number of simultaneously running stopwatches (free limit is 2) and saved stopwatches in the "Archive" tab (free limit is 5).

It launched yesterday on the App Store, and I'd love for you to try it and let me know what you think!</comment>