Forestry.io - <AUTHOR> https://forestry.io/ <comment><USER2> If I were you, I would rethink your "beta invite" flow. Adding an email address and clicking on the "Request Invite" button doesn't send you an invite, it adds you to their MailChimp newsletter list and sends an email asking you to confirm your address (for opt-in). There is no invite code or protected page, anyone can just go to [https://forestry.io/beta](https://forestry.io/beta) to sign up. Don't trick me into opting in to your newsletter when what you promised was a beta trial. Give me access and let me test drive it; if I like the service I'll sign up for your newsletter, I'll follow you on Twitter and I'll pay money for a subscription. If you pull a bait and switch on me I'll move on.

<comment><USER3> Co-creator here. We certainly didn't intend for this feeling and have removed the Mailchimp form. There is now just a direct link to the signup page.

The people that signed up to the beta invite list will not be subscribed to our newsletters unless they sign up to Forestry and choose to opt into our newsletter. Mailchimp was simply an easy way for us to manage a list of people interested in the service. Having the list and not linking to forestry.io/beta was just our way of saving development effort. We were merely creating an artificial control over who could sign up.

Rest assured that any users that have not signed up to Forestry and opted into newsletters will be sent nothing but an invite to the beta.

<comment><USER4> Could you please add a newsletter sign-up link or form?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not a very descriptive headline. I see many headlines like this on Hacker News with just a name, and I often skip over them. Give people some information to draw them in, and to assure them it will not be a waste of time. All I can assume at this point is that your site is about forestry.

Edit: I have looked at the site, and indeed it has nothing to do with forestry. You would do well to include in the headline the straightforward description that is already in use on the page:

"Forestry: A simple CMS for Jekyll and Hugo sites"

<comment><USER6> I agree. I'm always confused how non-descriptive stories make it to the frontpage of HN though...

<comment><USER7> Getting friends to upvote their submissions, I'd guess.

<comment><USER3> I wish. This took us by surprise. We didn't know it was submitted until it was already on the front page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Co-creator here. I was building a website for someone last summer and I REALLY didn't want to use WordPress, so my friend and I built forestry.io.

Some highlights:

• Supports all Jekyll plugins

• Integrates with GitHub & Bitbucket (commits back to your repo)

• Zero configuration for you project

• Hosting not provided (deploy to S3, Github Pages, FTP)

• Use Markdown or WYSIWYG

I'd love to know what you think if the concept. Get in touch at firstname.lastname@example.com if you have any specific needs.

Thanks!

<comment> aug-riedinger I agree that the project not being open-source _is_ a great no-go.

You guys should consider replicating the Wordpress model: open-source tools and paid plans for hosting & support.

Don't think that S3 or github pages are too simple for a user to being autonomous in deployment. IMHO typical use case for your product is a tech guyssetting things up for some non tech people to administrate and write content afterwards.

This means the keys are : \- 0 tech steps in administration (no git push, no jekyll generate etc.) \- plugins \- plugins \- plugins \- themes \- plugins

But clearly if this can become an alternative to WP, this is great because devs hate WP and it scales really bad, while static websites is the complete opposite.

<comment><USER9> I totally agree, although i would pay money for this code. Not being able to modify it makes it unusable in a custom jekyll setup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks good!

Can I buy the software and run it locally? I'm extremely interested for a client, but there is no way they will surrender ownership of their content to a third party - and I sadly won't suggest they do.

I assume they could pay 150-300 bucks for a single-site license and something like 5-6 pages. Their website is very small. Honestly, cook up a license with per n-page fees and I'm sure you'll sell a bunch.

<comment><USER11> You should probably look into [https://www.getlektor.com/](https://www.getlektor.com/) which does exactly this but you can host it yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is great! I have a bit of feedback though:

\- Does it really need access to my private repos too? I don't get to only let it see public repos? There's a reason some of my repos are private, and I don't really feel comfortable letting a third-party accessing them.

\- It's a bit weird that my posts are listed in reverse chronological order.

\- Having a way do add a description and required formatting (string, date, int...) to the different YAML Frontmatter fields would be great. Prose.io supports this, for instance, and I think that this is hugely important for non-technical users.

\- Why don't I get to see and/or edit the date of my posts?

<comment><USER3> GitHub's api permissions aren't very granular. We can choose between all public repos, or all public and private repos. A lot of our users have their site in a private repo as it is for an internal wiki or simply a site they are still developing. Giving the user the ability to choose between all public and all public and private complicates the flow, especially if you chose all public when you started and then later want to access a private repo. This is something that we will take into consideration as the the product grows though.

Your posts should be listed with the most recent first. This seems to be pretty standard across content management systems. However, we will have sorting out into production soon.

I'm not 100% certain what you mean with regards to frontmatter. Right now, when you create a new page/post the fields that show up are determined by the frontmatter defaults (in Jekyll) or the archetype (in Hugo). The type of data that a field accepts is derived from the content in existing fields. We are working on giving the user the ability to change the content type of a given field and to add additional frontmatter fields.

The fields are derived from the frontmatter in a content file. If the content file has a date field in frontmatter, you will see a date field. I realize that Jekyll incorporates the date into the name of the content file so you may not have a reason to add a date field to frontmatter. I'll add that to my todo list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've thought about building this a million times. For the people that don't understand it, it's web UI managed Jekyll that takes those web changes and puts them into git/github (presumably GitHub) so that you get the auto-deploy feature of Jekyll based GitHub pages. Kudos and good luck.

<comment><USER8> Thanks!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Forestry". Really? I can understand many other hot startups using names of random objects, but using the name of an entire completely different profession?

<comment><USER15> I was excited at the prospect of an API service offering up to date forestry data.

<comment><USER16> Checkout my friends' startup [http://TREELY.co](http://TREELY.co)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is this like how [http://prose.io/](http://prose.io/) is with github? I've been using that and it works ok, though sometimes things don't seem to take the first time.

<comment><USER18> Basically, but without the customization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ooh, looks nice. I assume it's going to be a service though? Anyone know of similar style products out there that are self-hosted or open source? I have several scenarios where it would be great to tie together a static repo, an on-demand CMS like this, and the pushed final product, just like this looks like it will do.

Requested access though, looking forward to seeing more.

<comment><USER20> I had the same thought. I found this a moment ago.

[https://github.com/netlify/netlify-cms](https://github.com/netlify/netlify- cms)

Edit/Addendum: I think this is an interesting service. For what it's worth, I'd rather pay someone to host this type of content with a SLA of some sort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This reminds me: About a year ago I wrote down [1] some ideas I had about a static site generator that defines its structures in JSON schema (or something alike). It then uses this type information to validate the correct usage in all templates and inputs, as well as to generate a UI for editing. I'm pretty sure this idea is still a few steps ahead of any product/OSS I've seen in this space. Sadly, I've only ever implemented a simple prototype.

So, if anyone wants to give that a go, I'd be happy to see this implemented!

[1]: [https://pascalhertleif.de/artikel/silicon- zucchini/](https://pascalhertleif.de/artikel/silicon-zucchini/)

<comment><USER22> That sounds sort of like Contentful (not affiliated in anyway, but came up when I was looking for a "content storage as a service" type thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Are there any advantages to this over cloudcannon? They seem very similar.

<comment><USER24> Would love to hear a reply to this since this is your biggest likely competitor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looks a lot like SiteLeaf.com to me.

<comment><USER26> This was my initial thought as well. We used siteleaf for around 6 months until we outgrew it.

<comment><USER27> What were the factors that caused you to outgrow it? I'm curious

<comment><USER26> At 300+ pages the compile time became an issue. We started to build very custom layouts that didn't necessarily lend themselves to a typical CMS. On top of that we trasitioned our core marketing content to hubspot, while our highly directed pages remained static.

<comment><USER8> You should try Hugo. It's lightning fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Any plans on supporting Gitlab and Gitlab Pages? Would also be stoked if it was open source, I'd probably still pay for the service but just knowing that it is OSS and that I could tweak it myself would be great.

<comment><USER3> We will certainly be adding support for Gitlab. It is not open source right now. But it is something we are considering in the future.

<comment><USER28> Great!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm using mobile and the adding website flow is smooth and concise. I connected my blog hosted on GitHub. The only caveat is that this requires permission to access everything on your GitHub account, public and private repositories, and permission to do anything with them.

However, after adding the website repository, I'm not able to see any posts, is this only for pages? There are some UI issues with page editor on mobile that can be sorted out in beta. Nice product!

Update: I can access posts after changing the URL, but a direct link is missing in the UI.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately GitHub doesn't give great control over permissions. The only thing we can choose from is access to all public repos, or access to all public and private repos. We can't specify that we want only the user repos and not the organization or vice versa.

I will certainly have a look at the issue you are having. Could you contact us via our support tool on the site? Or email us at support at forestry.io.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I was actually looking for a CMS I could use for my dad's forestry company. I could set up the server and design, and he could log in to change the content.

<comment><USER3> Forestry on Forestry?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Well I didn't want to post this on HN but I can't find any contact info in your site nor your HN profile so ....

The mobile landing page plays the video on touchstart which makes it hard to scroll through the page since any touch of the thumbnails, even just for the purpose of scrollong, starts the videos :(

<comment><USER3> Thanks. We will fix that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I went there to read some forestry information and I couldn't see the wood for all the trees!

</comment><comment><USER33> You might want to do a comparison vs wordpress. I would love to use another cms system, but wp is not only wp, it is an ecosystem of products for building websites, how does forestry compare to that? Can forestry reduce my development cost for custom solutions?

<comment><USER3> You are right, Wordpress is not just Wordpress. And the obvious thing that we are missing is the plugin ecosystem that Wordpress has.

That being said, if you can do without plugins, I would highly recommend using a static site generator as it can reduce your development cost as well as your management cost. There is no backend to build and no server to manage. Forestry is a tool to allow you to take advantage of the benefits of a static site generator from a development and management perspective, and still allow your clients/users to be able to manage their content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I looked up -not so- real quick for your code on Github, without luck. Are you NOT open source?

</comment><comment><USER18> This looks great! I'd probably only use it for a real project, if it came with more fine-grained permissions, though. I wouldn't want writers or editors to control pages and chunks, for instance.

Still the best Jekyll CMS I've seen.

<comment><USER3> We are working on permissions. Ideally, what would you like to see?

<comment><USER18> Awesome.

Probably an Admin/Editor/Writer hierarchy where admins can manage both Posts, Pages, and Chunks, and Editors can edit all writers' posts, whereas Writers can only create posts and edit their own. Perhaps Writers could also be restricted to only submitting a post for publication, which the editor could then pull the trigger on.

Chunks are really interesting, but I feel that permissions should be more granular. They're great to collate information about the writers (bio, Twitter, e-mail), but they should probably only be able to edit their own field.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback. I've added your comments to our other thoughts on permissions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Good job. The UI looks really nice. The ability to upload it to lots of different endpoints allows for so much flexibility.

I've just uploaded a Jekyll site, but it failed, the error message could have been more descriptive.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback. We are working on making our error messages better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Just out of narcissistic curiosity, I would be interested to know where you got the design inspiration from. It looks super similar to one of my services, although you have executed it with more polish!

</comment><comment><USER37> It's like the heavens have been listening to me! I've been studying static site generators and needing a non-technical editing solution... Looks like this might fit the bill.

</comment><comment><USER38> Plans for middleman support?

<comment><USER39> Although our solution is a bit different, we support it! [http://datocms.com](http://datocms.com)

We plan to officially launch our ShowHN within a couple of weeks, so sorry if the marketing site and the documentation is not 100% ready.. but the product is already working, you can signup and start playing with it immediately :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Love it! Keep up the great work.</comment>


Rumors Are Flying That We Finally Found Gravitational Waves - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/rumors-are-flying-that-we-may-have-finally-found-gravit-1752259868 <comment><USER2> Science is about making the invisible visible and measuring it. They may have found a way to detect gravity waves. I'd like to wait and see the peer review before making any opinions on it yet.</comment>


Google Confirms Plans To Put Display Ads On Google.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/google_confirms_plans_to_put_display_ads_on_google_com

<comment><USER2> I'll buy whatever she's selling.

</comment><comment><USER3> me too!</comment>


Show HN: Clearbit, APIs for determining who's behind an email address - <AUTHOR> https://clearbit.com

<comment><USER2> Here and happy to answer any questions! - Amit</comment>


HTML5 Hype Machine - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/27/html5_hype/

<comment><USER2> People on the periphery will always be confused about the specifics of a technology. If it's your client, you can softly correct them, if it's anyone else, well does it really matter. Don't see what the hubbub is about.</comment>


The Story of the Huge Chunk of Cheese That Sat in the White House for a Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.foodandwine.com/fwx/food/real-story-huge-chunk-cheese-sat-white-house-year <comment><USER2> In today's episode of "Things I Learned from 'The West Wing'"

Leo: "Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of the White House, had a big block of cheese."

Josh: "...and a Wheat Thin the size of Lake Tahoe."

</comment><comment><USER3> What I find extremely disturbing about this story is:

At the top, it says "June 22, 2017", and then;

"the very real Big Block of Cheese Day currently going at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, during which administration higher-ups like Vice President Joe Biden, First Lady Michelle Obama..."

so...uh, who was President in June 2017?

<comment><USER4> From the links it's pretty clear that the article date got modified at some point, and wasn't actually written at that time, but is from January 2016.</comment></comment>


Let's Build a Compiler (1995) - <AUTHOR> http://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/?= <comment><USER2> Is there a translation for this in any other programming languages?

<comment><USER3> If you have worked with C or Java, there's no reason that you shouldn't be able to follow a book written with Pascal as its language. If you haven't, then Pascal is still an excellent teaching language that would serve as a pretty decent lead in to C or Java.

<comment><USER2> I know Java enough to use Processing--which isn't a whole lot. My C is passable. To be honest, I didn't read a whole lot of it. I expected it to get harder that thought I'd ask around before I invested more time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let's post the same article every other day!</comment>


Dev experiments: programming is an Art - <AUTHOR> http://sharkle.com/?experiments <comment><AUTHOR> Discover nice things randomly</comment>


Decentralized VPN Written in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mehrdadrad/radvpn <comment><USER2> Looking at it for a few minutes, this has some issues:

\- symmetrical crypto with shared key across all clients, letting any VPN client act as any other client

\- no PFS (straight AEAD with AES-GCM)

\- alternatively, sketchy home-grown AES-CBC crypto that doesn't seem to be authenticated and as such allows for replay attacks and whatnot

\- home-rolled SHA-1 pbkdf1 instead of stdlib pbkdf2 with a better hash

\- static routing (ie. no way for a client to decide what prefixes to announce at a given time without updating the centralized config)

\- no support for roaming clients like phones or clients behind NAT (currently just depends on being able to send UDP datagrams to a preconfigured remote address)

There's probably other things I missed, especially crypto-wise.

I'd stay away from this (at least for now) and use something like wireguard or tinc instead.

<comment><USER3> But it's written in Go and that makes all the difference!

<comment><USER4> Why is Go so special that it needs to be mentioned every time there's a project using it?

"written in go" comes up 540 times in the search results, vs only 196 times for "written in javascript" even though the latter is way more common than Go.

<comment><USER5> 337 times for "written in rust".

I think what is going on is that the number of times you get these "written in" postings is somehow a function of the inverse of market share and how convinced practitioners are that the language in question is so good it should be used more widely. And some timing factor.

I had expected Rust to have more "written in" articles. It has a very dedicated following, but it is struggling a bit to gain more mainstream acceptance. Go meanwhile is getting to where it is in very widespread use for a broad applications (mostly server stuff). So I had expected there to be more "written in" articles for Rust than Go as Rust needs more evangelizing.

Perhaps if we lay out the articles on a timeline we see something interesting, but I suspect my hypothesis was a bit off.

<comment><USER6> > I think what is going on is that the number of times you get these "written > in" postings is somehow a function of the inverse of market share and how > convinced practitioners are that the language in question is so good it > should be used more widely.

I view you as correct about the market share, but incorrect about "language so good it should be used more widely". Not that Go or Rust devs don't believe that.. However, I don't think that's why these posts get upvoted. At least speaking for myself I love seeing the language it's written in.

As a Rust focused dev _(for fun and profit)_ clearly I don't like Go posts because I believe it's the best language and all of my code should be ported. Yet I do like Go posts. Likewise I like Rust posts. I like Go posts because, like Rust, I know it will be an easy install. It will be something active, growing and "modern". I view these growing and modern languages to have more active contribution to the core project _(if it 's a good project of course)_.

I'm less interested in tools written in Python because I've had enough of difficulty in the past with Python installations that I just don't even care enough to bother. I also am less interested in a cool project written in some _(I don 't mean Python)_ other old and "dying" language. I have trouble envisioning contributions being high and trajectory reaching any critical point. Those things are important I think.

Language matters to me. It's not going to make or break a project to be written in something "odd" \- but it's definitely of interest. For good or bad.

These are all my views.. most of it not fact. Please take it as such :)

<comment><USER5> I've never managed to like Python as a language, but I used to recommend it to beginners as a learning language. Mostly because you can do real things in it.

But I don't much care for how the Python community has failed to produce a language, practice and tool chain that plays nice with users. It is a somewhat selfish and anti-social language environment that forces users to care about things they shouldn't have to care about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apart from "written in X" is kind of clickbaity I find it useful after all. I think that Go code is clear and readable and so it would be much easier to add missing feature and use if I had such need.

Where "written in Rust" is almost a show stopper for me because I just can't read through the source despite numerous attempts (not saying that Rust is bad of course, it's just subjectively hard to approach for me)

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this similar to ZeroTier [https://www.zerotier.com/](https://www.zerotier.com/)?

<comment><USER9> Except not as battle hardened and with fewer features, but otherwise that's what it looks like to me

ZeroTier's pretty damn cool, IMO: [https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne](https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne)

<comment><USER10> ZeroTier _is_ cool. With it on, I can just grab a file / test something on my laptop without needing to expose it publicly and either setup dyndns or grab my laptop's assigned IP address. I can just keep one bookmark for each service.

As a bonus, it'll route directly, instead of through an Open on server, etc.

I just wish they had an alternative to curl | bash. Something like Docker's install instructions, where you don't have to look through the install script to figure out what's going on inside sudo.

<comment><USER11> Both Debian and Void Linux have proper packages; did not try other distros.

Android has an app, though I don't know whether the GUI part is open source.

So far, works great for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> With WireGuard in the kernel, and even systemd support, why? What is this even aiming to offer that wg doesn't or couldn't be better done as an abstraction over wg (e.g. if you wanted a Go library for it)?

<comment><USER13> actually with a "home grown" vpn (userspace) you control the transport. thus you can even create a transport on h2 which makes it way harder to detect.

<comment><USER14> There's userspace WireGuard in Go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hijacking this for a project I created a while back. An ansible role that creates a "mesh" VPN between a set of servers using wireguard: [https://github.com/mawalu/wireguard-private- networking](https://github.com/mawalu/wireguard-private-networking)

</comment><comment><USER16> Related, recently on HN[0]: [https://github.com/jedisct1/dsvpn](https://github.com/jedisct1/dsvpn)

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20571739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20571739)

</comment><comment><USER17> Those free vpn you can get from people who want to target you and get your traffic ? Not as bad I hope.

</comment><comment><USER18> There is also a Rust[1] implementation.

[1] [https://github.com/dswd/vpncloud](https://github.com/dswd/vpncloud)</comment>


Securing a PHP Application in 2016: The Pocket Guide - <AUTHOR> https://paragonie.com/blog/2016/07/securing-php-application-in-2016-pocket-guide <comment><USER2> > Securing a PHP Application in 2016

STEP 1: Secure it by not using PHP in 2016 STEP 2: ??? STEP 3: PROFIT.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you claiming that it's impossible to write secure PHP code?</comment></comment>


Are Cable Companies Hoping Usage-Based Internet Access Will Help Thwart Netflix? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/02/25/usage_based_internet_plans_may_be_an_attempt_to_thwart_netflix_other_online.html?wpisrc=most_viral

<comment><USER2> This is the sort of thing that happens when there are 3 or 4 gigantic ISPs instead of 15,000 local ones. Enjoy what the 1996 Telecom Deregulation Act has wrought.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you want a 10 Gbps AES encryption on EC2 g2 instances? - <AUTHOR>

10 Gigabits/second of AES256 throughput plus the CPU remains free to do it's stuff since the encryption's done on g2.2xlarge's NVIDIA GPU (in contrast, AES-NI on g2 instance gives about 2Gbps). Would this come in handy for securing large media files? What other scenarios would you find it useful?
A bit of quick background -- A team of 4 GPU engineers developed and then super optimized AES (all key & block sizes) on CUDA and OpenCL. On dedicated GPUs, we can go as much as 80Gbps on highend GPUs. On the ec2 g2 instances, we achieve 10Gbps. This throughput is much higher than what you would get from AES-NI (Intel's hardware accelerated AES instructions) and also save your CPU cycles for all your other stuff. It runs on CPU too if no GPU is available.
We built it into a cross platform (Windows/Linux) commercial SDK solution. You can plug it into your application with just a couple of lines of code change!
It's about 50k LOC with all GPU kernels hand optimized to squeeze every possible flop out of the GPUs. We're just limited by the PCIe data transfer limits.
Now I am exploring my options and thinking about selling the technology and need feedback from people who have sold source code before and pros & cons. <comment><USER2> Awesome work!

Have you thought about looking into creating a GPU-based HSM product?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes we have but crypto algorithms would still be implemented within software and not part of the GPU firmware.</comment></comment>


Sandboxing Code in the Era of Containers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/aws-activate-startup-blog/sandboxing-code-in-the-era-of-containers-294edb3a674

<comment><USER2> Generally, the common wisdom is still that Docker, lxc, and linux containers in general haven't been audited and hardened enough to use for multi-tenant isolation, so this seems like an odd choice. The article doesn't talk at all about even doing some of the common hardening people might do in these circumstances (limit syscalls with seccomp, get rid of suid binaries, grsec, AppArmor).

I'd be extremely hesitant to trust the sandboxing here.

<comment><USER3> I don't know if you saw the story about Joyent's Triton dealie-majig yesterday or not: But do you know if the Solaris Zones are considered secure enough for multi-tenancy?

I'm excited about giving that a try, but I'm trying to find out if anyone has really different opinions on how well it can/will work. So far people seem to be really, really positive and I haven't seen much skepticism/criticism yet.

<comment><USER2> Solaris zones have been around much longer, and have undergone audits and also been used for multitenancy in production for almost 10 years now. The new LX brand may have some new surface that it's worth auditing, but in general Solaris zones are probably, to my knowledge, the most trusted OS-level virtualization system amongst the major contenders. Disclaimer: I was a Joyent customer and have a few friends and acquaintances who work there still.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Identify AWS and GCP overspending in one dashboard - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/coolgithubprojects/comments/bo2tqk/identify_aws_and_gcp_overspending_in_one_dashboard/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9ceVwF8rTo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9ceVwF8rTo)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDWf2KnvgE8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDWf2KnvgE8)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I will appreciate your feedback</comment>


Central Bank of Brazil has suspended WhatsApp's payments feature - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2020/06/24/whatsapp-payments-central-bank-of-brazil-finance-politics/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23627569](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23627569)</comment>


Inside a Titan missile guidance computer - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2020/03/inside-titan-missile-guidance-computer.html <comment><USER2> This is another good read about using automated terrain mapping for cruise missile guidance systems.

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

Notably how it fit on older computer systems with limited memory by only sampling the terrain using a predefined path which a plane will travel over with imaging sensors beforehand. For minutemen style systems with predefined targets it would work well as the terrain won't change significantly and there will be plenty of sampling data to support a high error rate and/or a relatively low resolution while moving at high speeds.

Of course it increased in quality and effectiveness over time (especially as whole topographical maps could eventually be stored, not just the path in question) but as an entirely 'unguided' rocket it seems to be relatively accurate for its era.

<comment><USER3> Isn't it an example of a highly guided missile?

<comment><USER2> Yes that's correct, I meant compared to more controlled guidance by wire, radiation, satellite, etc. I phrased that improperly.

<comment><USER3> Fun tangent - the most unguided missile ever.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie)

<comment><USER4> > Lethal radius of the blast was estimated to be about 300 metres (980 ft). > Once fired, the Genie's short flight-time [12 seconds] and large blast > radius made it virtually impossible for a bomber to avoid destruction.

Why can't you dive or climb just 150m in 12 seconds and be out of the blast range?

<comment><USER5> I suppose you have to be sure of the rockets detonation point to know if you are moving away in the right direction. I'm not sure that is a thing you could be sure of the moment the rocket is fired (or if you would know).

Also the target (at least initially) was large formations of Tupolev Tu-4s who can only climb 15m/s. So that puts them right on the edge, but assuming more than one rocket is fired or that they simply don't always have time to realize it was fired quickly enough... that probably does it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I visited the Titan Missile Museum in Tucson, AZ, where you can see the control room from which the missile could have been launched.

> At launch, orders from the National Command Authority would have specified > one of three pre-programmed targets which, for security reasons, were > unknown to the crew. ... Target 2, which is classified to this day but was > assumed to be within the borders of the former Soviet Union, was designated > as a ground burst, suggesting that the target was a hardened facility such > as a Soviet missile base. [Wikipedia]

While explaining this, my tour guide showed some punched tape that could be fed into a computer to program the targets. I wonder if the tape was original, and if so, how difficult it would be to decode its coordinates.

<comment><USER7> Yes, the Titan museum is very interesting and I recommend it.

I wondered the same thing about the punched tape, if I could extract the coordinates from it. I read somewhere that they were extremely strict about keeping the targets secret; before any maintenance on the computer, a special team came in just to ensure that the coordinates were erased from memory. It would have been a huge oversight if they didn't encrypt the punched tape, so my guess is that it can't be decoded.

<comment><USER8> Y'all are overthinking it- true lat long "coordinates" would be meaningless to this computer. What was fed into the computer (ahead of time) was a series of firing instructions (per target for 3 targets), calculated to take into account the launch site of each missile. (Core memory values persist long term, even through power outages, hence the need to manually erase values before maintenance.)

So even two missiles/warheads launched from different sites at the same target would have different guidance instructions.

You'd need to do some major reverse engineering and geodetic calculations even after decoding targeting punchcards to figure out what the actual targets were.

The punchcards used to select the target during launch are simply instructions to execute "target stored in memory 2" or something similar. The minutemen would not have had the ability to change the set of targeting options programmed in the missile, only select one of the pre-programmed options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you're interested in the history of the Titan missile program and US nuclear program in general I recommend "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety".

<comment><USER7> I definitely agree with your recommendation. Much of that book describes the Titan missile that blew up in 1980 after someone dropped a wrench socket that punctured the rocket's fuel tank, throwing the 9 megaton warhead 100 feet. (The warhead did not detonate.) What I didn't realize until I visited the Titan museum near Tucson is that it wasn't a regular wrench socket, but a big, fist-sized 8-pound socket. This made it much more understandable how the socket put a hole in the missile.

<comment><USER10> American Experience (PBS) did one of their documentaries on this event. It is very well done.

Prior to the socket being dropped, there was a change order issued to use a new type of socket that would not dislodge from the wrench. As I recall, the two technicians tasked with the repair didn't have the new type of socket, but proceeded into the silo anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The fascinating thing is that the Titan was completely inertially guided, i.e., no GPS or ground-based navigation. The high precision IMU + gyro send the computer acceleration and angular velocity and you integrate that over time to figure out where you are now. I'd think this would be very challenging and error-prone for inter-continental travel especially when the thing is planning to detonate nuclear war head. I wonder what algorithms they used. Typical code to do dead reckoning from IMU+gyro is fairly short but drifts usually is huge killer.

<comment><USER12> "Inventing Accuracy" is a fascinating history of ICBM inertial guidance. [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/inventing- accuracy](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/inventing-accuracy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> GM/Delco were very diverse in manufacturing, so I'm not surprised that they also made missile components at one point. At one time they owned Frigidaire too.

Motorola made "MTTL II" which had 20xx part numbers for commercial temperature range and 21xx for industrial/military, so these could be Signetics' variant of that. In the late 60s through the 70s semiconductor companies made _lots_ of different logic families.

I've always found it a bit sad that the ultimate purpose of things like this was for destruction.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the part number info; that's a good lead and I'll see if I can track anything down.

As far as your last point, I basically agree. This computer, though, is not quite as bad as it could be. It was a later, 1970s model originally designed for the Titan IIIC rocket to put satellites into space, a more positive role. It was also closely based on the Carousel IV commercial navigation system used for aircraft such as the Boeing 747, which is a nice heartwarming application.

Edit: the Motorola 21xx parts have the wrong pinout, e.g. ground on pin 10 vs 11. And many of the numbers don't exist as Motorola parts. Unfortunately, I don't think these are the right parts, although it seems so close.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was just thinking, imagine trying to use a modern-day smartphone for this. So much complexity how could you be sure the missile would even get off the ground. There is a big advantage to systems that engineers can mostly "keep in their heads". Very few systems are that way these days.

<comment><USER15> A Teensy 4.0 just as an example which is much more like this. Has a bunch of general purpose I/O; it's quite powerful; and you can essentially keep it in your head.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I find it fascinating how much those grids resemble RAM chip die photos. I know the principle is different but in a sense we have just been shrinking things for over 70 years.

</comment><comment><USER15> Of all the details, I particularly enjoyed the keying method with the half hex nuts. I'll file that away for future projects.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm surprised they opted to use a passively cooled power supply.

I imagine it was much heavier than an equivalent active system.

I guess MPG doesn't matter much on a Titan missile.

<comment><USER18> I'd guess the opposite, actually. Mass is extremely important for a rocket, so there would be strong incentives to make the cooling system as light as possible.

But a passive system has a few major advantages - it's maintenance free, unlike an active system (imagine having to fill up the coolant tank before launch), and perfectly reliable. Sure, a phase-change coolant might be more efficient - but with flight times in the hours I'm not sure that the difference would be enough to compensate for the complexity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great read! Intriguing to find out that earlier computers were using rotating drum memory systems in space flight and then delicate wiring in cores, I really hadn't considered that. I wonder about the reliability of those systems and whether there was software compensation for that issue.

</comment><comment><USER20> Some engineers designed this - used big part of their life for the work and the system was never used.

<comment><USER21> Sure it was used--as a credible deterrent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I love reading about avionics. New and old.

</comment><comment><USER23> Always scares me to see this displayed for the public. Enemies watching.</comment>


Why iOS 7 is a Masterpiece of Design - <AUTHOR> http://www.cultofmac.com/232040/why-ios-7-is-a-masterpiece-of-design/ <comment><USER2> What a sycophant. Not that I'd expect anything less from a site titled "Cult of Mac"

How is the reader expected to take this as even remotely objective commentary, as opposed to the quasi-orgasmic fanboy text-spasm that it surely is?

<comment><USER3> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leander_Kahney](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leander_Kahney)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Since Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, the general look and feel of smartphone interfaces has become somewhat commoditized. The new iOS 7 separates Apple from the pack a bit more with a super different-looking interface. Once this has been on the market for awhile, you'll be able to tell from a distance or in an instant whether a phone is an iPhone or not. (This is true despite the fact that Apple decided to copy the Android animated wallpaper look.)_

I'd argue the opposite: previous iterations of iOS are much more visually distinctive than this one. Which isn't a knock against the design language of iOS 7, but I think its a tricky argument (and certainly one that the author did not make) to say that this looks _more_ different than WP/Android as opposed to less.

</comment><comment><USER5> I was going to point out that I disagree in some parts by sharing a screen cap of your article viewed in Safari on iOS 7. But that upload from camera roll appears to be broken.

I've been actively using iOS 7 since first available. Overall, the experience is good. I'm not going into any specifics because I don't care to violate the nda on my dev account. (Posting a photo would be fine since the Safari interface is already public knowledge.)

Safari needs a _lot_ of work. The UI changes are not good. Not good at all. It's the one app that I really hope Apple backtracks on.

Your article has visual formatting problems and an incessant ad taking up the top 25% of the screen.

</comment><comment><USER6> Certain people are going to like iOS 7 and certain people aren't. Its been that way with every single work of art since the beginning of time. Trying to "make" someone see the beauty in something they instinctively dislike is pointless.

For what its worth the "common" people (i.e. not the ones that write blogs or go on Hacker News) seem to generally like iOS 7, and that has always been Apple's primary market anyway.

I don't like Barbie, but I'm not a girl. Same thing.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure I believe that he's spent much time with iOS 7. There are some awesome changes under the hood but the overall experience needs a lot of work. Many of the built in apps that were changed seem like Apple spent about a half day on them. Safari is a real mess.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been using iOS 7. I was using Apple Maps in iOS 7 on the drive back today. With the screen in full sunlight, the UI is still very readable. I would say it's more readable than the old one. The black letters on the light background just pop out.

</comment><comment><USER9> Let's all praise and bash an unfinished software. Just like reviewing movies based on the promo posters and trailers only.

</comment><comment><USER10> It looks quite good, but perhaps it needs angrier shades of "rabid magenta" (TM) here and there.</comment>


Being Geek: The Trailer - <AUTHOR> http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2010/09/20/being_geek_the_trailer.html <comment><AUTHOR> I think will be the first time a video has convinced me to buy a book.</comment>


A skeleton of a femto-ML with nothing but polymorphic variants and functions - <AUTHOR> http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2012-June/000958.html

<comment><USER2> This sounds great. I'm not a PL THEORY geek, but better options on the metal sound good - at the moment it's C or Forth. others have been done, but not often.

I would like to see an implementation?</comment>


Mastering Threads on MacOS X - <AUTHOR> http://drdobbs.com/parallel/232602177

<comment><USER2> This article is pretty terrifying:

          #import <pthread.h>
          #import <stdlib.h>

          // Globals
          pthread_mutex_t *gLck;
          int gSum;

          int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
          {
              pthread_t *tFoo, *tBar;
              int tErr, tArgF, tArgB;

              // create the mutex construct
              tErr = pthread_mutex_init(gLck);

</comment><comment><USER3> It is strange the article makes no mention of grand central dispatch. It makes threading easy even for the most inexperienced developer.

<comment><USER4> Or NSOperation/NSOperationQueue (which are using GCD under the hood).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recommend using boost.thread. It's cross-platform, and simpler than pthread.

<comment><USER5> I should mention that the current boost.thread (v.1.49.0) doesn't provide a simple way to change the priority or scheduling of a thread.

You have to do it thru the underlying system-specific handle obtained by boost::thread::native_handle().</comment></comment>


A Bird's Eye View Of The Inauguration (First Satellite Image) - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/20/a-birds-eye-view-of-the-inauguration-first-satellite-image/

<comment><USER2> Better pictures at [http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/20/pictures-president- obamas-...](http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/20/pictures-president-obamas- inauguration-as-seen-from-space/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wish I could change the URL I posted!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> See also <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=442419></comment>


History of 1918 Flu Pandemic - <AUTHOR> https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/1918-pandemic-history.htm <comment><USER2> It's hard to think about these potential calamities. Any given pandemic is unlikely to be on the scale of 1918. But the next big one will come, eventually. Any given asteroid strike is unlikely to be on the scale of a Yucatan. But the next big one will come, eventually. And the fact that there were so many small pandemics, impacts and so on will be used as evidence by Naysayers that there's nothing to worry about. And Doomsayers will continue to classify each potential calamity as uniquely dangerous in order to gain leverage.

<comment><USER3> I was watching a Nova episode about Fukushima and it seems inexplicable that the plant was designed how it was. Humans just couldn't fathom the sort of black swan tsunami event that happened, when in hindsight we can see it was inevitable that it would happen. I'm trying to apply this sort of thinking to my own problem solving.

<comment><USER4> Other reactors on the Japanese coast survived because they updated the breakwaters after the Indonesian tsunami. So it wasn't really a black swan event because another tsunami had happened a few years earlier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Every time there is talk of pandemic, this is immediately what comes to mind. [https://youtu.be/SQXqZ8JJktw?t=7](https://youtu.be/SQXqZ8JJktw?t=7)

Stephen King really tapped into one of our worst fears. I always thought it was brilliant that it was just a strong version of the flu, and not something exotic.

<comment><USER6> Above link is "Don't Fear The Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult opening to "The Stand" TV show, showing presumably dead people that contracted the super flu.

<comment><USER5> I'm familiar with the etiquette of posting such links on here, I'm not sure I ever have before. Thanks for the help.

<comment><USER7> Your post was fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone know the cause of high mortality in the 20-40 age group?

Also: how much faster does a pandemic move now compared to 100 years ago (Airplanes, population density)?

<comment><USER9> According to "The Great Influenza" by John Barry young people died due to cytokine storms. Essentially young people have a vigorous immune system that gave an aggressive attack. 1918 flu was unique in that the deaths was not just the very young and the very old (a U shaped distribution) but rather a W shaped distribution with the middle point being 20-40 age group

Also in the book - the "spanish" flu was called that since Spain was the only place with a free press at the time (e.g., US press was not free at the time) + massing of young men in US in camps - like Ft Devens. Flu traveled from overcrowded camp to camp and then jumped to local populations along rail lines (and then overseas as troops were shipped out) He describes it well, though would make a great visual as it moves from Boston to Chicago to NYC back into Providence/Brockton (which are just south of Boston). Transmission along rail (and shipping) lines.

<comment><USER10> Curious about the free press part. Are you saying that the US press was not allowed to report on the flu while in Spain they did?

<comment><USER11> I don't have a ready source, but the press in the US would usually comply with a request to censor news that some in government worried would lead to panic, blame, or accountability. Continued well into the 60's and 70's, and still present today.

The latest edition of Ronan Farrow's Catch and Kill podcast describes how NBC agreed to censor his story on Harvey Weinstein. [[https://podtail.com/podcast/the-catch-and-kill- podcast/episo...](https://podtail.com/podcast/the-catch-and-kill- podcast/episode-7-the-editors/)]

<comment><USER12> But IIRC there were dramatically more strict restrictions during WWI. Certainly in all the european countries busy fighting. (Famously, Bertrand Russell got himself locked up for six months for giving a lecture about whether the US should enter the war.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hmm, timeline is very US focused, I guess for obvious reasons, but would have loved to seen more about how it moved about the world from its US starting point.

<comment><USER14> Definitely very US focused. Misses out on some of the areas where the pandemic had the most devastating effects.

One interesting story from The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry:

"Freetown, Sierra Leone, was a major coaling center on the West African coast, servicing ships traveling from Europe to South Africa and the Orient. On August 15 the HMS Mantua arrived there with two hundred crew suffering from influenza. Sweating black men loaded tons of coal into her, guided by several crew. When the laborers returned to their homes, they carried more than their wages. Soon influenza spread through the force of men who coaled the ships. [...] The transport HMS Chepstow Castle, carrying troops from New Zealand to the front, coaled at Freetown on August 26 and 27; within three weeks, out of her 1,150 men, influenza struck down nine hundred of them. The death toll on her was thirty-eight. "

<comment><USER15> "The transport HMS Chepstow Castle, carrying troops from New Zealand to the front, coaled at Freetown on August 26 and 27; within three weeks, out of her 1,150 men, influenza struck down nine hundred of them."

This doesn't sound right, so I looked into it. It could have been the HMS Chepstow (Chepstow Castle seems to have been cancelled from Wikipedia), but other sources [1] put the fatality number at 68 for that sailing which sounds more realistic.

900 out of 1150 would be above Ebola rates and that would have been very quick for such a mortality rate.

[1] [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KYtAkAIHw24C&pg=PA38&lpg...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KYtAkAIHw24C&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=HMS+Chepstow+Castle&source=bl&ots=09REC1kDYM&sig=ACfU3U2ZJ17nrMpHB6Dh8jFbeabVuxOXNg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi- xbus067nAhXPTsAKHRXQCdwQ6AEwDnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=HMS%20Chepstow%20Castle&f=false)

Edit: Actually your source was correct, you just cut them off early which gave a very misleading impression, it said 38 of them died. Always good to be critical....

<comment><USER14> You are correct, copy paste error. Thank you for the correction.

I have also updated my information above.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Google can't build Instagram - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2010/11/12/why-google-cant-build-instagram/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure I agree with everything Scoble wrote, but it's definitely interesting. One thing I think he doesn't really talk about: whether Google _wants_ to build things like Instagram.

The Google Wave example is a telling one - Wave wasn't the success Google wanted, so they scratched it. Nevermind that there _were_ great uses for Google Wave, and there were probably hundreds of thousands of users on it, at least, who really liked it. In Google's eyes, Wave didn't succeed in becoming the huge hit they wanted, so it was a failure.

A small startup would have considered it a huge deal and pivoted on Wave's good uses until they turned it into a much larger project, IMO.

<comment><USER2> > "...and there were probably hundreds of thousands of users on it"

I'd be _really_ surprised if usage was that high. I'd believe there being maybe a few thousand using it regularly.

<comment><USER3> I know 3 completely separate (and non-tech focused) groups of people (each 30+) that were/are running on Wave and are each pretty upset that its going away. I know that each of them came to swear by Wave for almost all intra-team communication.

It wouldnt be a stretch for active users to run into the high tens of thousands. Unfortunately, thats tiny compared to the usage of Google's high- profile projects, so it gets killed.

<comment><USER4> If you want a conversation between more than two people, Wave kicks everything's ass. And unless you're the kind of group that's comfortable with setting yourself up a phpBB, I can't even think of anything that comes close.

Wave's problem wasn't that it's not useful, it's that nobody knew about it (of people I know, it had 0 adoption outside of computer geeks), and it couldn't integrate with desktop applications. A lot of us are stubbornly hanging on to Mail.app and Entourage because they integrate with our workflow better than web based solutions.

If google had come out with a a desktop Wave client that worked with OSX's address book, photo libraries, etc, it would have had a lot more draw. That sort of integration is less expected on Windows, but I'm sure they could have come up with some compelling features that the website didn't offer.

<comment><USER3> I completely agree. I know from my experience that if I could have just put in my normal Google Apps email and pushed everything through Wave, I would never look back. The fact that it was a self-contained, closed system killed a lot of its usefulness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great article, but I'd like to contest a few points.

 _4\. Google forces its developers to use its infrastructure, which wasn't developed for small social projects_

One of the advantages of working for Google is _that_ you get access to this infrastructure. At times I wish Google would start offering a raw BigTable service alongside/instead of the richer, but, limited App Engine services.

 _6\. Google's engineers can't use any Facebook integration or dependencies like Instagram does._

I don't know if such a policy exists, but it certainly doesn't seem to apply to projects like YouTube which integrate fine with YouTube.

 _7\. Google can't iterate in semi-public._

If anything, Google have proven that a _large_ company can iterate publicly. I can't think of a single other company that has had as many perpetual betas as Google...

P.S. Corrected link to Instagram: <http://instagr.am/>

<comment><USER6> 4 is particularly interesting to me. When I worked at Yahoo! back in 2005 I was constantly jealous of Google's infrastructure stuff - Yahoo! stuff was all replicated MySQL, PHP, memcached and Java while Google appeared to be creating infrastructure that totally changed the way you approached large scale development.

In the past five years, it feels like the world outside Google has mostly caught up - in part through open source equivalents of Google's secret sauce. Hadoop, EC2, S3, the various NoSQL engines, RabbitMQ, Thrift, Scribe... access to the Google stack may not be as big an advantage.

I spoke to a Google engineer recently who complained that the Google stack was actually something of a pain to build agains, with a very steep learning curve and a great deal of innertia to work around.

<comment><USER5> Totally agreed that the world outside Google has _mostly caught up_. An equivalent for BigTable and associated libraries is still missing though. Hypertable, HBase, KDI and even Cassandra are extremely poor substitutes. I often end up resorting to App Engine for many projects but wish that there was a true open source substitute.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am relatively new here, not based in US, and a bit confused: why is Instagram considered somewhat a huge success in the tone of the article, that Google HAS to learn from it? There has been free iPhone Apps with similar growth before. There's no clear monetization method. There's nothing that competitors can't copy in a week. So what am I missing? Is there something I fail to see here, in the context of what makes it a successful startup?

<comment><USER8> Scoble routinely equates buzz in the SF PR scene with commercial success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> meh, Instagram seems pretty useless to me. Google builds more cool stuff in an average month than Instagram ever has.

<comment><USER10> This is the key I think. For every instagram there are hundreds of half baked products that never make it past the initial stages (hell, I have tried to build a few..)

At Google such things often do get past the initial stages, and then flop. Even more probably gets shoved under the carpet.

Google are quite openly trying out the different projects, looking for a hit. Classic example; Gmail. Slightly different because that was a "hit" internally first, but the basic idea applies. A project that ended up working well, resources got thrown at it and, some hiccups later, a really huge success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Tonight I was talking with an exec at Google and I brought up the success of > Instagr.am (they've gotten more than 500,000 downloads in just a few weeks) > and asked him "why can't Google do that?"

First of all the number of downloads, especially during the period of initial hype, is not a very useful metric. But even assuming that Instagram is an amazingly successful product, it's still a little fish comparing to Google. This company is more interested in developing Android, a platform on which toys like that can be built, which by the way has more than 200,000 activations per day.

<comment><USER12> You beat me to the punch on this. I am very impressed with Instagram's success, but to say 'why can't Google build a product with half a million users?' is so completely wrong-headed that I don't even know where to begin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> huh?

Google _have_ built instagram. It's standard on any Android phone. [photo] -> [share] -> picasa/twitter/facebook/gmail/etc

Unless I'm missing something, instagram is a 'feature' that should be on any smartphone. Not surprising it's not on the iPhone though.

(First I'd heard of instagram as well. This is an interesting way to get PR).

<comment><USER13> instagram applies vintage filters, so digital modern photos look like the ones from a cheap used old camera

<comment><USER14> that is a problem for instagram - it isn't defensible atm. I imagine the Android team will look at it and think 'really, so people want to do that - ok, lets add filters in the next release' and done.

<comment><USER13> I know, I wouldn't use instagram or these filters anyways, but people seem to like this hipster stuff. Bigger problem for them is, they have to think what to offer their users before these vintage-effect photos stop being trendy.

<comment><USER15> Ehh, they don't have to worry about that until the cameras on phones stop being so shit. The reason people like the vintage effects is that lots of phones end up taking blurry, slightly out of focus, under and over exposed photos. Slap some vintage filters on that and it looks somewhat charming.

Now, on the other hand, take some serious optics and truths same and unless you explicitly start blowing things out on the photo you've got something weird and artificial looking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Scoble doesn't point out why he see's instagram as the pinnacle of innovation, apart from the fact they've received a high number of downloads.

Instagram's success stems from the viral nature of wanting to try out these filter's that you've seen others using. Dont get me wrong, Instagram is a nice little service. But not the right example when compared to Google's recent failures in Wave and Buzz.

Besides, Google houses plenty of innovative products that match the success of Instagram.

Google's problem with its lack off 'innovation' within its recent failures stems from its products not being user led. Wave and Buzz solved no immediate problem for your average user. And I'm not so certain Instagram does.

Google could never create Instagram simply because creating a frivolous app based around styling your photos just doesn't align with their brand values. I can imagine the Google Engineers now, "So why are we using a sepia filter exactly?"

<comment><USER17> Google goes for apps you might call big and wide. Broadly useful tools that you can make intensive use of and that capitalize on Google's strengths. GMail is an example of this, but Mail is a well-known product area. Wave and Buzz were attempts to create innovative new ones.

Instagram is a tiny little toy camera app hooked up to a website. It's very narrow-interest. It's not the kind of thing you wrap your workday around or rely upon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I agree with a lot of what he wrote, but his own list of reasons why Google can't innovate refutes his assertion that they can "...by buying companies like Instagram".

Once a company is acquired, all of the same constraints that apply to internal Google projects now apply to it. They are Google for all intents and purposes. "Strategy taxes" now apply, they'll have to port their iPhone app to Android, port their systems to Google infrastructure, and so on.

That is, if the acquisition doesn't get gutted entirely and its employees redistributed to other projects. See AppJet, Jaiku, JotSpot, etc. The "Google Blackhole", or talent acquisitions.

</comment><comment><USER19> This comparison is absurd. Would anyone use it if Google _did_ build Instagram? I can see it now:

 _They built the world's fastest, most reliable, most relevant search engine on the planet, the most usable webmail and map apps... and then a dinky photo- sharing smartphone app with three features?_

</comment><comment><USER20> Projecting my own biases onto google: Maybe it's just because Instagram is the very definition of all sizzle, no steak?

It is innovative in the "gee nice idea" sense but it not at all innovative in the sense that our collective knowledge or capabilities have expanded as a result of its creation.

<comment><USER21> Great point. Instagram is beautiful, fun and seems to really make people happy, but I would much rather see continue to focus on its core mission and tackle problems that no one else can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Scoble responds to our HN discussion:

<http://twitter.com/#!/Scobleizer/status/3154038992412672>

<comment><USER23> Instead of tweeting and cinching, why not just click the reply link? There are plenty on the page.

<comment><USER24> Because he can change your perception of the message a lot more narrating it than by writing it down (which is something cold). Or he's just lazy to type it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe they can, maybe they can't, but do they want to? I'd bet Google's going after fish so big that two guys can't do everything from start to finish.

</comment><comment><USER26> The gist is, Google (and Microsoft) are brands that are already associated with "web-scale" software. So, if they make something new, people expect it to be engineered to be web-scale from the beginning, not a bloated prototype that relies on other tiny/bloated third-party services (and definitely not on services from their competitors.) I think this is just an _image_ problem, though—couldn't Google get around this simply by not saying that the projects are "by Google" until they're popular? Publishers call this an "imprint."

</comment><comment><USER27> Because Google isn't stupid enough to waste engineering resources on such a small niche that will never grow into a million dollar market.

</comment><comment><USER28> If you ever read the Innovator's Dilemma, this article makes a lot of sense. For a project to make financial sense for a big company, or appeal to its current user base, it has to get big fast, be scalable off the batt and be compatible with their current software. So, it's iteration speed goes way down. Think about Buzz. They couldn't launch to 1,000 users and iterate quickly as they grew. They had to release it to everyone. Imagine the pre- launch engineering required to make an app ready for tens of millions of users?

</comment><comment><USER29> I think success is very abstract concept and it is also about expectations of companies/people.

Can Instagram be a success from google's perspective?

<comment><USER30> The answer is no. This article seems to be written to help some friends getting attention. Imagine this conversation between these folks and a google exec:

For which mobile platforms is it available? Only for iPhone, but it's got 500,000 downloads in just a few weeks.

Is it internationalized? you know we are a worldwide company. No, but it's got 500,000 downloads in just a few weeks.

Can it scale to serve our millons of users worldwide? No, but it's got 500,000 downloads in just a few weeks.

Do you have a plan to monetize this? No, but it's got 500,000 downloads in just a few weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > He had done his own startup and knew the man-month myth. For every person > you add to a team, he said, iteration speed goes down.

That phenomenon is Brooks's Law, and first appeared in _The Mythical Man- Month_ :

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month>

</comment><comment><USER32> The only ways you'll get an Instagram out of Google is

a) Google finds some serious way to monetize it

b) Someone gets a 20% wild hair

</comment><comment><USER33> A more detailed and BS-free list than the average one on this topic. I think all of these are good explanations of the problem.</comment>


NASA's Curiosity rover is now driving itself - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/28/4667794/nasa-curiosity-rover-is-now-driving-itself

<comment><USER2> I was just about to post this myself. Damn you :) - Its amazing isn't it. If I'm not mistaken didn't one of the photographic satellites do something similar and it went all the way to Saturn and took some amazing pictures?</comment>


Guccifer 2.0 Slipped Up and Revealed He Was a Russian Intelligence Officer - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-lone-dnc-hacker-guccifer-20-slipped-up-and-revealed-he-was-a-russian-intelligence-officer <comment><USER2> Relevent paragraphs:

> [An intelligence researcher] led an investigation at ThreatConnect that > tried to track down Guccifer from the metadata in his emails. But the trail > always ended at the same data center in France. Ehmke eventually uncovered > that Guccifer was connecting through an anonymizing service called Elite > VPN, a virtual private networking service that had an exit point in France > but was headquartered in Russia.

> But on one occasion, The Daily Beast has learned, Guccifer failed to > activate the VPN client before logging on. As a result, he left a real, > Moscow-based Internet Protocol address in the server logs of an American > social media company, according to a source familiar with the government's > Guccifer investigation. Twitter and WordPress were Guccifer 2.0's favored > outlets. Neither company would comment for this story, and Guccifer did not > respond to a direct message on Twitter.

> Working off the IP address, U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a > particular GRU officer working out of the agency's headquarters on > Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow. (The Daily Beast's sources did not disclose > which particular officer worked as Guccifer.)

<comment><USER3> Opsec is hard - you only need to fuck up once...

<comment><USER4> If all it takes is "one occasion" for investigators to believe you're Russian, it's also definitely easy to throw investigations off course.

<comment><USER5> > If all it takes is "one occasion"

Depends on the occasion, no? There's a difference between "the target account once used phrasing more typical of a Russian speaker than a Romanian speaker" and "the target connected to the server from inside GRU headquarters".

> it's also definitely easy to throw investigations off course

Connecting to a server from GRU headquarters isn't something I'd call "definitely easy". If the claim is true, Occam's Razor suggests that the GRU was involved in some fashion. What's the alternative? That the DNC compromised the network of a Russian intelligence agency?

(How much faith to put in an anonymously sourced claim about what was in the logs of an unnamed social network is a separate question, of course.)

<comment><USER6> Teenagers can hack NASA [0] so I don't think a sufficiently motivated attacker, possibly backed by a nation state, couldn't pull off something like this as a false flag.

[0]: [https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119423&page=1](https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119423&page=1)

<comment><USER5> > Teenagers can hack NASA [...] so I don't think a sufficiently motivated > attacker [...] couldn't pull off something like this

Right, the fact someone could compromise a random government agency _in the 90s_ clearly means someone else could compromise Russian military intelligence in 2016, because NASA's IT security in the 90s is totally comparable to the GRU today, absolutely.

> possibly backed by a nation state

Which nation state, exactly?

<comment><USER7> Considering a U.S. ally had their tendrils so deep inside GRU that they had a live video feed, you should probably reevaluate your assigned probabilities.

<comment><USER8> You mean the recent story which broke by Dutch intel?

There is no public video recording to substantiate their claim. You'd think this entire debate would be settled if on YouTube we could all just watch visual proof of Russians hacking the US.

They also claimed that the video feed came from a university building in Moscow's Red Square. I challenge you to find such a building on a map of the Red Square.

<comment><USER7> Your entire posting history is devoted to obscure conspiracy screeds whenever Russia is involved – it's truly remarkable your account has persisted this long.

<comment><USER8> That's an extremely offensive thing to say. Also, that is not a true characterization of my comment history. If you do want to discuss that topic, I am more than happy to engage in discussions supported by sourced material.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> While pointing fingers at Russia or impeaching Trump may be the options that feel good at the moment, I hope this is an opportunity to make sure something like this never happens again.

This is a pipe dream and I'm not sure this is even possible, but I think the best outcome of this is to pass legislation to try and ensure that:

1\. Political campaigns don't engage in the type of behaviour in the first place, and

2\. Make communications more public in general - official campaigns of people running for public office must operate under the light of greater public scrutiny

Democracy is only possible if accurate information is available, and the biggest takeaway for me in the last elections was just how many secrets all political players have.

<comment><USER10> It all comes down to campaign finance. We need pblicly funded elections with absolutely no tolerance for private money, and a set equal amount for each major party candidate. Until Citizens United is overturned, and we get some kind of legislation like this, money will continue to dominate everything. And as long as that's the case, there will _always_ be unethical behavior because the incentives are too great.

<comment><USER11> _money will continue to dominate everything_

The Clinton campaign raised and spent much more money than the Trump campaign: [https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidentia...](https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential- campaign-fundraising/)

<comment><USER12> How does that contradict what the other person said?

<comment><USER13> It doesn't, it's just more whataboutism. It also ignores that one campaign was being assisted by a foreign power, the extent of which is still being investigated and not fully known.

The U.S. desperately needs campaign finance reform.

<comment><USER11> _It also ignores that one campaign was being assisted by a foreign power_

To the extent that this is true, campaign finance laws couldn't have stopped it. If anything, restricting the ability of Americans to express their opinions makes foreign propaganda even stronger.

<comment><USER13> >To the extent that this is true, campaign finance laws couldn't have stopped it

Again, the investigation is still underway and the full extent of the assistance is still unknown, meaning you can't assert that until the findings are released.

<comment><USER14> You can't assert that they were assisted by a foreign government until the investigation is over either... since the extent was unknown aka maybe not at all.

<comment><USER15> That is the first time I have heard this position, and I find it indefensible.

"You can't assert that kids died in this school shooting until the investigation is over, since the extent was unknown."

It similarly does not work if parents are preparing the funerals.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report back in January 2017 decisively stating this:

> _We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in > 2016 aimed at the US presidential election._

> _Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, > denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential > presidency._

> _[…] We [CIA, FBI, NSA] have high confidence in these judgments._

> _We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President- > elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary > Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies > agree with this judgment._

[https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf](https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For what it is worth, let me quote someone's reddit comment:

>"So many 'slip-ups' pointing to Russia from this guy.. you could be forgiven for thinking he's not Russian, and was in fact created by the DNC.

>He CHOSE to name his computer account after the founder of the Soviet Secret Police.

>He CHOSE to create/open and then save documents so the Russian name was written to metadata.

>He CHOSE to use a Russian VPN service to cloak his IP address.

>He CHOSE to use public web-based email services that would forward his cloaked IP.

>He CHOSE to use the above to contact various media outlets on the same day.

>Odd behaviour for an elite hacker.

>Also, still today, none of his claims of hacking can be verified."

[https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/86gglv/lone_dnc_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/86gglv/lone_dnc_hacker_guccifer_20_slipped_up_and/dw4ybzm/)

<comment> shaki-dora The reason may actually be that Russia always wanted to be caught. They never thought Trump would win–the prize they were aiming for was general distrust of the election's integrity.

It's very similar to Russia's choice to poison Litvienko with Polonium–an unnatural radioactive element that can easily be traced back to the reactor where it originated. And, similarly, the very recent chemical weapons attack in the UK, using a nerve agent only ever produced by Russia.

<comment><USER17> In fairness, the UK came close to not detecting the Polonium (it was just luck they had the right someone on the team) and they weren't sure Russia could have known the UK was actually capable of detecting it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wonder how this jives alongside this other story with a confession letter from someone saying they were ordered to hack the DNC:

[http://www.newsweek.com/russian-hacker-stealing-clintons- ema...](http://www.newsweek.com/russian-hacker-stealing-clintons- emailshacking-dnc-putinsfsb-745555)

\---

Konstantin Kozlovsky, a Russian citizen working for a hacker group called Lurk, confessed to hacking Clinton's emails during a hearing about his arrest in August. An audio recording and minutes from the hearing were posted on Kozlovsky's Facebook page, and their authenticity was reportedly confirmed by The Bell.

\---

He allegedly worked with someone from FSB:

\---

Kozlovsky identified his FSB handler as Dmitry Dokuchaev, a cybersecurity expert who worked as a hacker before joining the FSB.

Dokuchaev, who used the moniker "Forb," has been linked to a group of hackers called Shaltai Boltai, or Humpty Dumpty,

\---

Perhaps the DNC was hacked by both? It was a pretty large target and multiple state actors gave it a try.

<comment><USER19> The book _Russian Roulette_ says that data was stolen from the DNC by two groups of Russian hackers, who seemed to be acting separately. It says that one group was linked to Russian military intelligence (presumably the GRU) and the other was suspected of being linked to Russian intelligence, 'most likely the SVR'.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for the book suggestion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was expecting some real hightech spycraft and intrigue. Nope, the dude forgot turn on his VPN. Even well-funded state actors can be dumbasses.

<comment><USER21> My VPN sometimes just goes down. There's a little icon in the tray that turns from green to red. I could set my system to not allow internet access without the VPN but that mucks about with the boot process and I'm not running spycraft.

<comment><USER22> I'm sure GRU possesses the technical chops to put in place safeguards to guarantee against ever connecting other than through the VPN. They should do that and then hire Kaspersky to come over and audit their setup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Since this is "Hacker News" I would like to ask an honest question: Which is more likely of the two?

1\. The hacker mistakenly sign in from Russia once.

2\. The hacker intentionally sign in from Russia once.

I really have no bias towards all this issue and don't really care, but I do care about media making interpretations that mislead the public, which is why I draw this question.

One widely used hacking technique is to intentionally leave a trail that leads investigators down the wrong track, not just for hacking but for all crimes.

I'm just having hard time understanding how people are taking for granted that a competent hacker is more likely to leave a trail by mistake instead of leaving one intentionally, because in most cases it's the latter.

<comment><USER24> Which is the more likely of the two?

1\. The hacker actually worked for GRU, which was already known to engage in such activities, and slipped up once?

2\. Somebody hacked into a GRU office so they could connect from there _one time_ and hope somebody would notice?

<comment><USER25> 3\. Using notepad.exe, Dave typed the GRU IP address into the server log before passing them on to Susan for her analysis

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Unwritten Cold War rules pretty much said you don't pursue the opposing officers unless you catch them on your turf.

It's obvious that the troll factory people and Guccifer 2.0 were acting on behalf of Russia with the direct approval from Putin. Why bother indicting individuals?

<comment><USER27> Unwritten cold war rules have gone out of the window.

Russian agents used isotopes and nerve gas in GCHQ's backyard. The sitting US President might have received their help to win the election. Russia just made the only major territory annexation by a superpower since WWII (iirc).

Obviously we didn't start the fire, as Billy Joel would say, but we certainly live in interesting times.

<comment><USER28> We interfere all the time in foreign elections, and so many countries tried to influence ours I don't see anything innately wrong with it. Other than possibly the fact they played a little dirty. So did the DNC (per emails), the RNC (because why would they be better?), and many political groups.

Unless Trump made a deal with them to do so, this looks like business as usual to me.

<comment><USER29> Hmm. what about...

Your comment doesn't pass a basic test of moral decency, which is that there is no reason to point fingers. Actions should be judged based on their own merits, not what others are doing. That is just deflection.

I doubt you meant it that way, but that is how it came across.

And of course it is a very big deal and not at all palatable to interfere with the internal politics of another country to destabilize it, regardless of how often it has been done, the roles of its internal members, or their cooperation with you.

<comment><USER28> It's a connected world, and the US being one of the centers means that nearly every country has a stake in the outcome. I don't think it's wrong of them to use their influence, as we do. It bothers me, but then I think of what we should do if Turkey ever came up with a free election. In my opinion that would be doing everything we can to influence, the slide to dictatorship and oppression is more unpalatable to me.

<comment><USER29> To me there is a very clear moral line (and practically results vary from intentions): If your primary motivation is not to improve the life of those within a country, you must keep out of their politics. Much like I should not interfere in my neighbor's family life if my goal is to harm rather than heal. I see no goal from recent interference other than to destabilize, which is morally akin to a preemptive military strike.

Edit: I also don't think just any improvement would morally justify interference in another country's sovereignty. There must be a significant evil that must be overcome so that the interference becomes the lesser evil - a hard test to pass.

<comment><USER30> > If your primary motivation is not to improve the life of those within a > country, you must keep out of their politics.

I don't think this is a clear moral line in international politics.

If your primary motivation is to improve the life of those within _your own_ country, it can be justifiable to get involved in _another country 's_ politics. And that's what is done. Ostensibly to prevent war, enhance regional stability, etc.

Even just looking from Russia's perspective. If the world's leading country is so weak that a few phishing attacks can swing the election away from a less favorable candidate, is it really _morally wrong_ to do that to benefit your people?

<comment><USER29> There is a big difference between interfering, which is covertly affecting the outcome, and influencing via direct diplomacy or perhaps even _clearly_ identified advertisements etc. I was referring to the first and not the second, and could have been clearer on that.

There is no such thing as "a little phishing" in another election. It is the equivalent of calling something a little hand gesture without mentioning you shoved your hand into someone's vagina first.

The autarky of self-governance is sacred, and should be respected as such. The modern world has completely lost its moral compass on these issues, and I have previously denounced harder lines by the EU and the US interfering in smaller countries elections / forcing laws down their throats (Eastern European and Balkan) countries). But as I alluded to in the beginning of this thread: Just because everyone's doing something does not make it right.

<comment><USER30> I think I see where you're coming from--I just think it's a little oversimplifying.

Hillary Clinton was openly calling for a "no fly zone" in an area where Russian planes were flying. A "no fly zone" is a public declaration that you will shoot down planes that you don't think should be there. That could have started WW3, which is not in Russians' interests.

But that's a bit of a stretch. Suppose she had openly advocated for war with Russia. Would it still be immoral for Russia to deceptively access and share with Wikileaks e-mails from her campaign and party to shift support away from her?

Or are there truly no circumstances where one can morally interfere with another country's election?

<comment><USER29> It's basically an act of war, you are destroying their self-governance. So when war is moral (ie in defense of self or others against violent oppression / other autonomy destroying acts), there is a case to be made. But then you still need to justify your specific means - which is a direct attack on the Civilians of the country by taking away their apparent liberty without telling them that is the case. Obviously that view entails understanding lies as taking away others' liberty by denial of truth on which to base their decisions.

The decision would be easier (but not easy) to make if their own government was deceiving them grossly, in which case your interference could bring more truth than it obscured. Any moral choice remains predicated on the lack of availability of better, more direct and honest methods. And of course these are practical decisions with all the obscurity and uncertainty they entail.

Between the characteristic of an attack on civilians and the potential of actually bringing in more truth than is obscured if their own government is sowing lies, I first pointed to helping the citizens of the country as the only moral option. Without making a decision (I would have to think about it further), there might be drastic circumstances where there was no other viable course of action - but again within the context of acts of war and significant collateral damage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is why you shouldn't do VPN (or Tor) on end devices. A network device routing your traffic should do that.

</comment><comment><USER32> How can we be confident that some of us on this forum are not trolls working to discredit the story?

We can't be.

<comment><USER33> It seems very likely at least some commenters are paid trolls. If you were running a $1m disinformation campaign for either side, wouldn't you put assign a few sock puppets to hacker news?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's nice to finally have some evidence in this story, but it's good to keep in mind that there is also evidence it's an internal leak. (1) Wikileaks stated their source wasn't Russia and (2) The timestamps on the leak point to a local copy over USB2:

[https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/guccifer-2-ngp-van- met...](https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/guccifer-2-ngp-van-metadata- analysis/)

</comment><comment><USER34> Interesting story. What is The Daily Beast's batting average? How often do they make contact with the Truth? Looking at their website, I learned that Joe Biden could beat up Trump because he took on a gangster name "Corn Pop" back in the day. Pretty damning stuff.

</comment><comment><USER35> If GRU agents use only a single hop to ambiguate their connections when attacking their mightiest foreign opponent then we don't have much to fear from these guys.

</comment><comment><USER36> Trump>Stone>Guccifer 2.0>GRU>Putin

And today Trump ejects his sane national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, in favor of the hawk who was one of the four architects of the Iraq war, John Bolton.

John Bolton penned the WSJ article _The Legal Case for Striking North Korea First_ published Feb 28 2018.

</comment><comment><USER37> So I guess we gotta use esp to figure out what these faded posts are all about. If you are going to reply to a post, maybe consider not downvoting it?

</comment><comment><USER38> this is all moot, right? there was no hack of the DNC servers. it was an inside job.

[https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/bombshell-nsa- experts-s...](https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/bombshell-nsa-experts-say- dnc-hack-was-actually-a-leak-and-inside-job/)

or just ask Wikileaks or Kim Dotcom.

</comment><comment><USER39> Yeah, I am sure The Daily Beast got this story because they are such a well respected journalistic outlet.

More like nobody at the NYT or WP willing to tarnish their reputation with this crap. Which is pretty bad given what they will publish.

<comment><USER40> Spencer Ackerman is a stellar reporter with over 15 years experience writing for TNR, Wired, and The Guardian. He's gotten a huge of scoops on the national security beat throughout the years and none of his reporting has ever been called into question.

<comment><USER39> > none of his reporting has ever been called into question

In 2013, Ackerman was forced to take down one of his Wired stories on what he claimed was a "North Korean propaganda video", after it was revealed the film was a satire video by British travel writer Alun Hill.[16]

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

<comment><USER40> Point taken. He was once taken in by a popular hoax and wrote a post on his wired blog about it, after which he apologized on twitter.

[https://twitter.com/attackerman/status/311868261945978881](https://twitter.com/attackerman/status/311868261945978881)

To remind everyone where the plot is, I was responding to this phrase:

> Yeah, I am sure The Daily Beast got this story because they are such a well > respected journalistic outlet.

None of his sourced reporting has ever been called into question. The original commenter was way off base with this insinuation.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps this new Daily Beast story is evidence he has been taken in by another hoax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> From the article: "according to a source familiar with the government's Guccifer investigation", "Working off the IP address, U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a particular GRU officer working out of the agency's headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow".

IOW, they don't have jack shit, which is why the stuff I quoted above is buried towards the end of the article. How does one tie an IP address to a street address? Or to a specific person? And what does "working off" an IP address even mean? And why would he be running this from the GRU headquarters rather than from some obscure Russian bunker?

I smell massive quantities of clickbait manure.

</comment><comment><USER42> This feeds into the Russia plotted to sabotage Hillarys campaign and promote Trump narrative. Which is most probably a concoction dreamed up by the deep- state as part of a conspiracy to depose a sitting president. The state security apparatus engaged in a palace coup against a sitting president.

<comment><USER43> And 9/11 was an inside job and we never landed on the moon.

<comment><USER44> It's really convenient to use easily debunked stuff to prevent people from looking into other things. For example, "flat earth" is not designed to convince any normal person Earth is actually flat. Paradoxically, you just "fell for" the actual utility of the "we didn't land on the moon" stuff, sure you can find genuine people that believe just about anything, but that's just a side issue. This is very common if you study disinformation a bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> So then, if Russian Intelligence is responsible for helping to expose a significant criminal conspiracy in the US, maybe the news media will stop with all of the nouveau cold war bullshit and instead just thank them?

<comment><USER46> >So then, if Russian Intelligence is responsible for helping to expose a significant criminal conspiracy in the US...

Please point to any "significant criminal conspiracy" which was exposed, and which laws it was in violation of, if possible.

And for bonus points, please tell us why Trump hasn't thrown Hillary into prison yet, as promised.

<comment><USER45> The "Democratic National Committee". On its face, election fraud. Besides the loftier stuff like subverting the will of the people and the authorized government.

> _And for bonus points, please tell us why Trump hasn 't thrown Hillary into > prison yet, as promised. _

Because they play golf at the same country clubs, and their IRL actions aren't bound by the marketing characters they play? It would be kind of like shooting someone after you beat them in chess - totally uncool.

But I don't see how this is relevant, unless you assume that by criticizing one ignorance club I must be a cheerleader for its twin?

<comment><USER46> I'm just asking you to back up your assertion that "Russian Intelligence is responsible for helping to expose a significant criminal conspiracy in the US" with evidence within the leaked documents... or by actually describing the specific conspiracy that was exposed.

What election fraud? What is "subverting the will of the people and the authorized government" supposed to refer to?

I'm not assuming anything, but bold and unsubstantiated assertions of conspiracy are just noise in threads like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> "Working off the IP address, U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a particular GRU officer"

Not a network whizz but doesn't that sound unlikely? They would have to have 1. Static IPs 2. Deep enough penetration of their systems to have IP/Officer mapping -> in which case they would have known this was going on anyways?

Seems necessary to edit:

I understand the NSA is the most powerful player and likely had penetrated their systems. My point is that if their networks were penetrated anyways, why are receiving this reasoning about the accident with the VPN? The only plausible explanation I can see is what another commenter put out which is the Officer had also used the non-VPNd connection to something personal. Now this would be a big fuck up

Saying they could identify an individual officer from an IP leads you to assume they had penetrated the network. In which case, why not disclose that? That would be the assumption from the other side.

<comment><USER48> If it was a residential IP, this would have been very easy. But would GRU officers really work from home?

<comment><USER49> The rest of the sentence quoted above is "... working out of the agency's headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow."

<comment><USER50> Which could also mean an intelligence officer('s personal machine, who is known to be) working out of the agency's hq... It implies that the IP was from GRU HQ, but the only definite statement is that it is this specific officer, who works at this specific location.</comment></comment></comment></comment>