We'll guess your brain's political ideology - <AUTHOR> http://chartsme.com/ <comment><USER2> To save you the effort of taking the entire survey to find out the methodology (disclosed on the last page), here it is:

 _How does this work?

A 2014 study[1] concluded that people who were more prone to disgust are more conservative and tend to align with the republican party. But, why?

Some scientists believe it's ancestral and that the adverse reactions were used to protect primitive ancestors from contamination and disease. This way a person wouldn't confuse drinking water with dirty pond scum.

The study measured participants' brain response to "disgusting" imagery using an MRI. The study could predict party affiliation with up to 98% confidence. The questionaire on chartsme.com uses Jonathan Haidt's disgust scale[2] in lieu of MRI and imagery, so results are likely far less accurate. Watch TED Talk[3] to learn more or read "Yuck!: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust".[4]_

[1] [http://www.cell.com/current- biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)0...](http://www.cell.com/current- biology/abstract/S0960-9822\(14\)01213-5?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982214012135%3Fshowall%3Dtrue)

[2] [http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/disgustscale.html](http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/disgustscale.html)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YL3LT1ZvOM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YL3LT1ZvOM)

[4] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262015587](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262015587)

<comment><USER3> What other personality traits are correlated with political ideology? Are these studies worth taking seriously?

For example, according to the (corrected) study [1] conservatives are higher in "social desirability and neuroticism", while liberals are higher in "psychoticism".

[1] [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12216/epdf](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12216/epdf)

Related article: [http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/436424/presenting- one-m...](http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/436424/presenting-one-most- humiliating-academic-mistakes-ever)

<comment><USER4> Looks a lot like this quiz scores based on openness to experience thinking in terms of OCEAN. Those who have a greater openness to experience tend to be more liberal.

You could compare popularity of policies amongst types of voters and look to see what of the other personality traits influence those decisions.

Fiscal conservatism, for example, doesn't sound like a case of openness but rather conscientiousness. Spending within your means, keeping a budget and generally being organised financially is a conscientious activity.

Issues surrounding immigration could be down to both openness and neuroticism. The fear of culture erosion, terror attacks and such would align with lower openness and perhaps higher neuroticism in some cases.

As a side note I've been turning over the role of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, cortisol and adrenaline in voting decisions. The common tactic of fear mongering threatens security - how does that influence the activity of the aforementioned neurotransmitters? Is there a method of campaigning that will counter act it? Its very interesting looking at elections through this lense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This website seems to be intended for an American audience. As someone not from the US, it would be great if they changed the last page to say "Your brain is more Liberal" or "You have a liberal ideology" instead of "Your brain is a Democrat"

All part of that i18n!

I come from a country which is considered socialist by American standards, and I find I don't even relate to US Democrats because they're too far right. Even the most conservative party in my country is more left than US Democrats are.

</comment><comment><USER6> Complete BS. This prediction algorithm said i was 78% liberal/Democrat. Have voted for most conservative candidate in every local, state, national election for 38 years.

<comment><USER7> Yep. I received a similar score (73% liberal) and consider myself in-between Libertarian and Conservative. The test is totally bogus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> No libertarian?

<comment><USER9> Yup. Said I was a democrat. Not a chance

<comment><USER10> My experience also

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Totally missed on me. But things involving natural processes don't disgust me much.

<comment><USER12> which way did it guess?

<comment><USER13> It most probably said he's a liberal while he identifies as a conservator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Could be why many of my conservative friends would be disgusted to go to a liberal talk, whereas many of my liberal friends would be very interested to go to a conservative one.

<comment><USER15> That could also be because of the bias toward open-mindedness amongst liberals. Conservativism is defeated most effectively by the opening of the mind to new ideas, new thoughts, and differing opinions.

<comment><USER7> Except the Regressive Left is doing a good job proving they aren't all that open minded. The new liberal coming out of college campuses from safe spaces is not open minded at all. So perhaps in the past Liberals could make the claim of open mindedness, but not today. Especially when conservatives are banned from speaking on college campuses, not to mention being banned from social media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This was all about disgust and a lot of these questions were about blood, guts and death. So, I guess it would rate doctors in general as liberal?

</comment><comment><USER17> Utterly wrong ('76% democrat') for this British 'small c' conservative.</comment>


VPN Comparison Chart - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FJTvWT5RHFSYuEoFVpAeQjuQPU4BVzbOigT0xebxTOw/htmlview?sle=true <comment><USER3> PIA changed their business model at the turn of the year to not support the circumvention of geo restrictions [1]. Given this was a core selling point prior to this point, I'd say it's pretty clear they have succumbed to the legal problems associated with it and can no longer be trusted. BBC iPlayer has now been broken for months.

[1] [https://support.privateinternetaccess.com/Knowledgebase/Arti...](https://support.privateinternetaccess.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/143)

<comment><USER4> The wording in that article is pretty telling, but why do you imply they can no longer be trusted? A business that was profitable before became unprofitable due to legal pressure, so they exited it. It doesn't look like they've betrayed anybody's trust in the process.

<comment><USER3> They have betrayed _my_ trust.

They actively marketed their product up until recently as being able to circumvent geo-restrictions, and actively helped users who had problems. That for me was the big sell.

Whilst I understand that it's a cat and mouse game now between content providers and VPN providers, they have built up a large customer base - <USER2> upon this premise.

<comment><USER5> > it's a cat and mouse game now between content providers and VPN providers

It's not the content providers but the movie studios, music labels and rights holders and so forth. Netflix doesn't really care about users circumventing geo restrictions, otherwise it wouldn't be so easy

<comment><USER6> Since January or so, Netflix has started to crack down on these services[0].

0 - [http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/business/netflix-crackdown- unblo...](http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/business/netflix-crackdown- unblocking-1.3487368)

<comment><USER7> True, but the point is that this is almost certainly due to contractual obligations with and/or pressure from studios and other rightsholders. Netflix has _negative_ interest in limiting their catalog on a regional basis -- it's against their customers' interests and harmful to Netflix's business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In addition to its excellent scorecard here, I can report that I've been extremely happy with IVPN. Very easy to deal with, even for detailed, technical support requests. I got an immediate response from an engineer which addressed my complaint in detail (poor port forwarding setup), and even gave me a timeline for when they were going to fix it. And they did fix it! The port forwarding is great, now.

Also, since this does matter a lot: I have a 100 Mbps connection, and I get between 50-80 Mbps through almost all of their servers, barring understandably slow countries like Hong Kong.

Oh, also, they have multihop, and you select your own entry and exit server from among their pool.

I have no relationship with them, just a satisfied customer, relieved to have found a reliable, consumer VPN after many attempts.

<comment><USER9> I'm on IVPN now as my primary mostly due to this chart and my only gripes are:

It's expensive compared to the others, at $100 a year. I've never seen it go cheaper than this in any sales of any kind.

Some sites like Google will mark you as a bot and force captchas for searches, probably due to its userbase and their shared IPs.

Comparatively fewer servers compared to popular VPNs like PIA and TorGuard. This leads to me getting the same IP address for each server I connect to. Not sure if this is a pro or a con.

Otherwise, speed has been good, connection has been stable (a few disconnects here and there but it seems to have smoothed out for now), and I hope the chart is accurate in terms of security and privacy on their part.

I've tested many others including AirVPN and NordVPN as well but haven't seen a definitive reason yet for the higher price tag on IVPN. Not that I'm not happy with IVPN, which I am, I'm just also an incredible cheapskate.

<comment><USER10> In terms of security and speed, the two 'premium' VPNs are IVPN and VikingVPN. Viking also offers fantastic customer support, but my only gripe is that they don't run their own DNS servers (they use Cisco's OpenDNS). They also don't offer any exit nodes in Canada, but the company head (Derek) says it's because Viking is worried about Canada's data retention laws.

Likewise, I'm not affiliated with IVPN nor VikingVPN in any way. I think both are great choices.

<comment><USER11> Viking seems much more limited—and is US-based, which creates its own problems.

IVPN does look interesting, so I'll have to re-review them… I'm still on Freedome's trial, and it's been working stellar including comparable speeds. Exit nodes in certain countries are also an important factor in my consideration, admittedly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks like so much of work put into list, but I still wonder why on Earth anyone would use 3rd party service especially one based in weird jurisdiction for anything other than torrents download?

Likely every service with questionable legal status (e.g all that state there is no logging going) does analyse all bandwidth for it's own needs and clearly going to steal everything they can. Even TOR exit nodes are more secure since you at least know they can't be trusted by default.

What advantage is there over own servers that is unlikely monitored by default and still dirt cheap?

<comment><USER4> First of all, there's no such thing as own server. The trust you are putting into the ISP your "own server" is connected to is exactly the same as the trust you are putting into a VPN provider.

Second, for a lot of people in this world it's a given that their ISP/government is monitoring their traffic. It's vastly better to be _potentially_ spied on by someone abroad then to be _certainly_ spied on by someone who has direct authority over you.

To answer your first question, the most popular use cases for VPN are:

1\. Circumventing censorship

2\. Circumventing regional content restrictions

3\. Hiding your IP while torrenting (note that this is relevant only in the US)

4\. Avoiding government surveillance (again, note that US is not the only country in the world, but likely the only one with any meaningful reach outside its borders)

5\. Avoiding private surveillance (public wi-fi, etc.)

6\. Hiding your IP while engaging in illegal online activities (#3 is a special case of this but it's a vastly larger group so I made it separate)

Note that "weird jurisdictions" can be a significant advantage for cases #3 and #6 (because they are harder to subpoena) as well as #3 (because they don't have retention laws).

<comment><USER13> > 3\. Hiding your IP while torrenting (note that this is relevant only in the > US)

It's not, actually. The same BS is happening in at least Finland too these days.

Legal companies get the rights to some media (in the Nordics or whatever) and monitor some torrents and take screenshots(!) of the IP's in the torrent swarm and can then petition the market court for the subscriber details of the IP addresses in the swarm then send a threatening letter asking for a 500€ settlement. Some idiots are even caving in and paying. I don't think _anyone_ has actually been sued yet for establishing some precedent (though the Finnish legal system isn't based on precedents).

<comment><USER14> As an example:

I set up a VPN in the Netherlands, hosted on a VPS. I was connecting from another European country (where ISPs block torrent sites).

Within minutes of attempting download of recent movie release, a Cease and Desist was emailed by ip-echelon.com.

<comment><USER15> That's the thing. With a VPN service, you don't have to read those ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here's the link so that the top and left tabs stay while you scroll: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FJTvWT5RHFSYuEoFVpAe...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FJTvWT5RHFSYuEoFVpAeQjuQPU4BVzbOigT0xebxTOw)

I guess something about htmlview?sle=true breaks that.

<comment><USER17> But it always redirects to it ... :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Another option is to run your own. I guess it's swings and roundabouts concerning privacy, traceability and so on. I have a script to automate setup of an IKEv2 server on Ubuntu, which seems nice for a balance of security and the availability of built-in clients. I was inspired to set this up by the awful proposed Investigatory Powers Bill going through in the UK.

[https://github.com/jawj/IKEv2-setup](https://github.com/jawj/IKEv2-setup)

<comment><USER19> Not really. shared public IP for dozens of users make them harder to track and their network traffic is mixed. Own VPN hides your traffic from one point, and 100% exposes in another.

<comment><USER20> In that case, tunnel your VPN inside of a public VPN.

Trusting a remote VPN service not under your control, defeats the purpose of communication channel encryption.

Calling it "VPN service" makes it look appealing, without realize that you are breaking the "P" in "VPN".

If you want the "P", the master keys and certificates, and the systems where they live (client/server) should be under your control. Dot.

<comment><USER21> Security is not binary. (I'm becoming boring, most of my comments start like this.)

The question is what are you trying to protect against? If you are trying to protect against the local network, any VPN does the job. If you are trying to protect against tracking, ONLY a public VPN does the job (having a static private IP is a disaster in this scenario). If you are trying to protect against any organization seeing your traffic, then your argument might make sense.

However, unless you can run that "private" server on metal you own on a network you own, there will still be a VPS provider and an ISP that can see your traffic as much as the VPN provider would. So you might want Tor a at this point.

<comment><USER20> I can use public proxy lists since the 90's

If I want to mix my output IP with other users (futile while my browser is fingerprint-able), I don't even need any VPN, and much less a third party one.

I use VPN for what it is. Mostly to connect to my network (personal or professional) from the outside.

If I still want to mix my traffic, I can do it, without "VPublicN services", without VPrivateN daemons, and without NSA's Tor.

You are free to trust Tor and "Public VPrivateN services", and I'm free to do not trust them.

Not sure if security is binary or not, but totally sure it's about trust.

<comment><USER19> >without NSA's Tor.

Please explain your thought.

<comment><USER20> The news are explaining it for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is pretty useless. Put them all under the category of "centralized one- hop VPN." Each of these is a sitting duck for surveillance, law enforcement, hackers, and more! It doesn't even matter who runs it, each one is an attractive enough target for someone to learn how to subvert. And then what? You'll never find out all your data is being scooped up or potentially modified.

If you want to protect your network communications, run your own endpoint. Projects like Streisand and Tinfoil's OpenVPN setup scripts let you stand up and tear down VPN endpoints instantly (just remember to ditch Tor from Streisand, see why here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10735529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10735529)).

[https://github.com/jlund/streisand](https://github.com/jlund/streisand)

[https://www.tinfoilsecurity.com/vpn/new](https://www.tinfoilsecurity.com/vpn/new)

I would be truly interested if someone developed Ansible scripts that setup an OpenIKED server ([http://www.openiked.org/](http://www.openiked.org/)) on your choice of cloud providers, and spit out the configuration instructions for your mobile phone. iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 support IKEv2 out of the box now: [https://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/ipsec/current/msg09931...](https://www.ietf.org/mail- archive/web/ipsec/current/msg09931.html)

<comment><USER23> Your comment is pretty useless to the majority of people who want to simply protect their internet activity in the most easily accessible way.

<comment><USER24> I'm not convinced signing up with one of the existing VPN services is any significantly easier than signing up with Digital Ocean or Rackspace, and using the Tinfoil creator service. Have you tried it?

<comment><USER23> Nope. Sounds too complicated.

<comment><USER24> Not entirely certain how one signup form is more complicated than another, but I recommend trying it before judging it.

<comment><USER23> I'm sure it's simple for someone who is familiar with the technology, but what about everyone else? How would your average Joe know which DigitalOcean plan to sign up for, or which settings to apply?

<comment><USER24> We tell them, right on the page. We even give you a coupon so it's free. There are no settings to apply.

The steps are: 1) Make a DigitalOcean or Rackspace account. 2) Make an API key by clicking <link> and hitting the button. 3) Insert it in this box. 4) Hit go.

That's it. Then you download/install the client (like you would with any other VPN service) and you're done. You don't need to know anything about the droplet size, or anything else.

Quite literally, my mom has done this, and she sells clothing for a living and is not technically adept.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does anyone know of a hosted VPN service that provides a firewall too?

It seems like the only effective way to control outbound traffic from my Android phone. These solutions don't work effectively:

* Detect and block each outbound connection manually: There are endless holes to close and always new ones; that is playing whack-a-mole.

* Software firewall on phone: The firewall would need to operate on a low enough level to block everything. That is a challenge for all software firewalls, and from my sense of Android's outbound data 'features', that seems especially difficult.

* Hardware firewall of my own: Because my phone is mobile, it's not always connecting through the same hardware. I could create a VPN back to my personal firewall, but then either I must share all my data with my ISP or I must create a 2nd VPN connection from my firewall to a hosted VPN service, which seems like too much latency and complexity.

I can't be the only one who wants this ... ?

<comment><USER26> Yours seems like a valid use case, but the underlying issue appears not being able to trust and administer your own computing device. From what I can tell a local firewall is possible (with iptables), but you need to install a custom Android build and 'root' your phone.

<comment><USER25> > the underlying issue appears not being able to trust and administer your own > computing device

I'm not sure it's wise to trust your phone these days. I can root and install a custom ROM, but that doesn't solve the problem. What ROM do you recommend? Most are forks of Android that change some features or remove bloatware; I don't know one that locks down the fundemental security of the OS.

> From what I can tell a local firewall is possible (with iptables)

How can you efficiently configure iptables?

1) Run each app in isolation

2) Sniff network traffic

3) Detect and identify every packet heading to an undesirable destination

4) Write a rule to block it

5) Retest until traffic is clean

6) Repeat every time any software is added or updated.

That's not practical. Also, some of the leakage is embedded so deeply in the OS that I don't know if iptables (or other software firewalls) are sufficient.

<comment><USER26> That is, I fear, the sad state of mobile operating systems. On the desktop you can choose from a bunch of GNU/Linux distributions that are generally considered quite secure and are under a lot of scrutiny — when Ubuntu introduced a search feature that sent search strings from their dash directly to Amazon to helpfully present purchasable media, this was strongly condemned and ultimately disabled by default.

But on smartphones your choices are limited. There are a couple of alternatives, but losing access to either Google's or Apple's app-store appears to be an insurmountable obstacle for most smartphone owners. I am assuming (not judging though!) this is the case here too.

On a technical level though, all IP traffic passes through iptables, even on Android. You are right that manually blocking all that stuff is impractical. Doing the filtering outside of the phone won't solve that dilemma though.

<comment><USER25> Just a note: You've made multiple assumptions about me in multiple posts, and it's no surprise that all of them are false. Maybe it would be better to just omit the assumptions about others from your posts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Hmm, Cloak is not there. I really like the people behind it, and they truly care about privacy and security. The iOS app is sorta wonky and turns on and off when it shouldn't, though.

<comment><USER28> Love Cloak, great app (not encountered the wonkyness you speak of).

For me I love the OS X and iOS integration, plus feels somewhat less dodgy than alternatives!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have always wondered when I see charts like this that add a column for bitcoin accepted. I would much rather pay with a prepaid gift card / visa which can be purchased with cash. If I even wanted to pay with bitcoin I have no idea how I could get a balance and remain anonymous.

<comment><USER30> There are plenty of privacy laundering services for Bitcoin. This is the first one that came up in Google: [https://bitmixer.io/](https://bitmixer.io/)

They're called "mixers".

<comment><USER15> The best mixer is Bitcoin Fog: [http://foggeddriztrcar2.onion/](http://foggeddriztrcar2.onion/)

<comment><USER31> no!! There have been many MANY reports of bitcoin fog selectively scamming and it would be wise to use another option. Bitblender, sigant, and helix should be much safer options.

<comment><USER26> This thread highlights exactly why using Bitcoin for this purpose is tricky for outsiders. Buying a gift card with cash is a process I can understand, but with Bitcoin the amount of knowledge needed to get started safely and anonymously is quite large, and there seems to be a lot of conflicting information going about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> You can check our vpn service [https://www.torrentguard.com/prices/](https://www.torrentguard.com/prices/) for hassle free browsing.

</comment><comment><USER33> This would be a lot more useful if the header rows and name column were frozen. Once I scroll I lose all track of what each column means or what row I'm on.

<comment><USER34> From the FAQ:

Q: Why didn't you freeze the headers/turn on filters? A: The headers ARE frozen, but when the sheet is being viewed by a lot of people, Google sends out the static html version. You can delete everything from /htmlview? to the end of the url for the real version

You can also direct download the sheet using the links below, and do whatever you want to the sheet to make it more readable for you. (xlsx or ods formats)

.xlsx format [https://www.google.com/url?q=https://docs.google.com/spreads...](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FJTvWT5RHFSYuEoFVpAeQjuQPU4BVzbOigT0xebxTOw/export?format%3Dxlsx&sa=D&ust=1458146469121000&usg=AFQjCNGlyI6LQJpEfpDwv7RHmg0iyYJUVA)

.ods format [https://www.google.com/url?q=https://docs.google.com/spreads...](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FJTvWT5RHFSYuEoFVpAeQjuQPU4BVzbOigT0xebxTOw/export?format%3Dods&sa=D&ust=1458146469121000&usg=AFQjCNG0lVNk30X06nWgWCYt- KJYS7RE1Q)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If anyone related to list is here here is my suggestion for improvement: add information about year certain service started to operate into the list. May be worth also add information if there some real company behind that service if country of jurisdiction provide way to check it exist.

Many clearly wouldn't want to pay for longer periods if service created few months ago and don't have real company behind it.

</comment><comment><USER35> Hello from China. Lantern [https://getlantern.org/](https://getlantern.org/) is a fairly reliable free option maade by a non-profit. It's slower that the paid options here, but works well enough for gmail, facebook, etc.

Also, the more people outside China who have it the better, so if you wouldn't mind installing that would be great

<comment><USER36> I'm not sure this is good advise. It seems to be peer-to-peer, so if someone does something illegal using my internet access, I get into trouble.

<comment><USER37> TOR runs on the same principle. I suppose the trouble you could get into depends on how well plausible deniability holds up in court.

I personally wouldn't risk it, being in the UK with our ever increasingly draconian rules. A sad state of affairs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> "Accessibility from China" might be a good column to add.

<comment><USER23> He covers that exact comment in his FAQs.

Q: Why don't you have some obvious fields like "Works with Netflix/Hulu", "Works in China", etc? A: Besides the impracticality of testing each of them, these services/governments could use the data I publish to crack down on those that still work.

<comment><USER38> I suppose. Perhaps if it were a webapp instead of a spreadsheet, people could use a voting system to test and fill in the columns (similar to the coupon code websites).

The latter point though I think isn't all that strong. From a government perspective, the entire list is a checklist of what to block, whether or not that column exists. Most of the VPN providers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I use AirVPN, fairly satisfied, the only thing that bothers me is that they affiliate with ipleak.net , which is a website that checks your connection for dns leak among other things. That's great by itself but it's more of a honeypot at this point because the website heavly relies on google scripts so if you happen to have a google normal/evercookie installed in your browser you are instantly identified no matter what VPN you use.

</comment><comment><USER40> Thanks for the meticulous efforts, whoever worked on it.

However I especially didn't understand why some of the values under Privacy > Traffic / DNS Traffic say "NO" but are still in green. Or why some of the other values under the same Privacy column like "connection" say "Yes" but are in red.

Can anyone explain what those mean? Also does empty values there mean "no data available" or something else?

<comment><USER41> You are missing headings in Row 2 & 3.

I think you are talking about Column E (Privacy-> _Logging_ ->Activity->"DNS Requests") ? Since it falls under "Logging", you want it to be Red for YES & Green for NO (you don't want your VPN provider to log DNS Requests, etc). You will notice that everything within the "Logging" columns (Col D-H) follow this color coding, whereas for Col J-M (which are still under "Privacy", but the subsection is "Activism") it's opposite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Google Docs lets you lock rows so that they always show up. It'd be really helpful if that were done for the headers.

<comment><USER43> This is addressed in the FAQs. The headers are already frozen, but Google's serving it as static HTML.

<comment><USER44> marklawrutgers' link in another comment fixes this: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FJTvWT5RHFSYuEoFVpAe...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FJTvWT5RHFSYuEoFVpAeQjuQPU4BVzbOigT0xebxTOw)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Could you change the title to "Privacy VPN Service Comparison Chart"?

VPN in of itself is meaningless. This could mean anything from corporate VPN products, through to AWS site to site VPN services.

</comment><comment><USER46> One thing I'm curious about is if there's any VPN services out there that will do virtual LAN functionality, a la Hamachi but with the same focus on privacy mentioned in the threads here.

<comment><USER47> We[1] do!

Our service is similar to Hamachi in that we offer you an L2 network. We also provide DHCP by default on the 220.127.116.11/24 subnet. We don't offer Internet access, but if you add your own proxy (proxies? :)) or router to the Virtual LAN, you're all set.

We've started our service recently, so any feedback is more than welcome.

[1]: [https://wormhole.network](https://wormhole.network)

<comment><USER46> "Try it for free" \- but what's the actual pricing?

<comment><USER47> Hey!

Thanks for your feedback! :)

This has been a common complaint and we're looking to change it.

Once you sign up, you get a page with pricing and the option to just move on with the free account. We will change it soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> We use NordVPN running on OpenWRT box. Very happy so far

</comment><comment><USER49> You really should publish and share the published version of Google docs unless the users needs to edit the shared version.

</comment><comment><USER50> What's the meaning of cell color? Some red cells say "yes" while some say "no"?

<comment><USER51> Desirability. Green=good, red=bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> it's best to run your own on a cheap VPS, check this out [https://github.com/kylemanna/docker- openvpn](https://github.com/kylemanna/docker-openvpn)

</comment><comment><USER53> How would you feel if a review site was using affiliate links only in reviews of VPN companies that they really liked, and were glad to promote?

<comment><USER12> There is plenty of such "review sites" on internet already and main problem with them is trust. Overall Joe simply don't need your website since he don't know how VPN works at all and just use some exe installer from website. So he don't need all these geeky details to decide use service or not.

For more skilled internet user any affiliate links and weirdly-designed redirections trying to hide them is usually no-go BS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I'm very surprised there is no mention at all about the safety of the VPN clients. Your biggest problem concerning privacy could be IPv6 leaking and DNS hi-jacking and leaking. You can have a trillion-bits VPN connection for IPv4 traffic, no logging, warrant canaries etc., but if your IPv6 traffic, which most browsers prefer, is not going through this tunnel you can say goodbye to your privacy. The same for DNS leaking, if you are still using your default DNS servers after setting up a VPN connection everybody can see what websites your are visiting or redirect your requests. And to prevent DNS hi-jacking your VPN client should at least use your VPN gateway as a DNS server. I built WifiMask ([https://www.wifimask.com](https://www.wifimask.com)), which is not in the list, and is not vulnerable to any of these.</comment>


Universal infrared remote control for iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://uiremote.wordpress.com

<comment><USER2> Well, welcome to 2002. Symbian/Series60 phones were doing this since then, without any dongle, using application called Psiloc Total irRemote.

</comment><comment><USER3> i like this hack. the brilliant part is the remote learns the code for all possible devices by using the IR to voice converter. that excludes the traditional IR controller system that have an extensive and periodically update database for incomplete list of IR codes of devices.</comment>


Improved Doxygen documentation and search for C++ projects - <AUTHOR> https://blog.magnum.graphics/meta/improved-doxygen-documentation-and-search/ <comment><USER2> I have installed doxygen on a handful of projects. In hindsight, it was a waste of time. No one reads generated codedoc, yet everyone just read the code.

Doxygen should be replaced with rendered comments in IDEs/code editors. That's the real solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. Doxygen implicitly generates useless info about what file is included by what file, list of places from where a function gets called, what line was this and that function declaration in (and where is the definition), huge class inheritance diagrams, entangled monstrous file dependency diagrams, alphabetical file index, alphabetical symbol index, including every possible undocumented symbol and file it can find and tons and tons of other stuff that has a total value of 0.

The user should visit docs to get to know a high-level overview of a library or human-readable explanation of an algorithm. Not to see stuff that's already explained by the code itself.

So here I threw away all this noise and the theme is actively forcing the library authors to focus on important stuff in the docs, explicitly excluding useless things that could be auto-generated. "Installing Doxygen on a project" achieves nothing, one has to write the actual docs first.

The result? See for yourself: [https://doc.magnum.graphics/magnum/namespaceMagnum_1_1Animat...](https://doc.magnum.graphics/magnum/namespaceMagnum_1_1Animation_1_1Easing.html)

<comment><USER3> Doxygen can generate a lot of data most projects don't need (and may not have the best defaults). Especially for external docs.

There's a lot of value in shaping/limiting options and choices to make Doxygen easier to use for focused, high-quality external docs, but I'm not sure it follows that the other information it can generate is useless.

<comment><AUTHOR> For the record, nobody complained when I removed all the class diagrams and other things mentioned above, so my takeaway was that ... yes, those features were useless :) On the other hand, people complained about lack of essential features that Doxygen didn't have, like proper search or #include information for non-class members.

<comment><USER3> Sure. You're doing useful work shaping something that is a bit too free-form for most. I didn't question your curation. Nor do I think your project needs to support them.

But the fact that you haven't heard from the inevitably short list of projects that have looked for new documentation tools in the past ~14 months and also happen to be complex enough to benefit from niche features like inheritance diagrams doesn't mean they don't exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Magnum truly has the most beautiful/polished doc I've ever seen.

Even more impressive considering it's a C++ project.

<comment><USER5> I never heard of it before but boy do these docs look and read well on a first skim. Thoroughly impressed in just a few seconds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sphinx ([http://www.sphinx-doc.org](http://www.sphinx-doc.org)) used by Python and some C++ projects like LLVM provides a modern high-quality alternative to Doxygen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really an alternative, since C++ projects often use Breathe to "transpile" Doxygen to Sphinx. I even contributed a few patches to Doxygen from which the Breathe/Sphinx project directly benefited, but after trying it out a bit and hitting a few walls, I realized I would achieve better flexibility by having my own frontend.

Especially because (if I can dare to say) I ended up with a much better search than what Sphinx (or Doxygen) has -- try it out: [https://doc.magnum.graphics/magnum/?q=max#search](https://doc.magnum.graphics/magnum/?q=max#search) ;)

<comment><USER5> Yes, the search functionality in Sphinx leaves a lot to be desired, even if you are already writing your own Sphinx plugin it is fairly difficult to add stuff to the search indices in a meaningful way. It's also slow. Overall Sphinx suffers a lot from hardcoding the reST data model and directly working with that.</comment></comment></comment>


Buffett laments that US economy has 'no bounce' - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE55N4BN20090624

<comment><USER2> From GM to Citibank to AIG to Fannie Mae, the failures and the fools are still in control, propped up by tax dollars from their clients in government, and they continue to consume and waste scarce capital and labor. Meanwhile, looming government intervention in health care, the corporate tax code, the energy sector, labor law, and financial regulation creates uncertainty and undermines investor and business confidence.

Bounce? We haven't even hit bottom yet.

<comment><USER3> Apr and May Data emphatically suggested economy is no longer going down.. question remains.. when will we see bounce. traditionally it has taken 1-2 yrs before real bounce happens.

<comment><USER4> Except that our particular problem and our solutions to it most closely resemble Japan immediately preceding the Lost Decade.

As of today, there is very little reason to hope for any sort of recovery in the short term. It's particularly frustrating, in that Obama even publicly recognized the danger of falling into this trap back in February.

But here we are, in June, continuing to prop up zombie firms; pretending that we can grow new saplings without letting the clearly-dying giants fall and the detritus be reclaimed.

<comment><USER5> _without letting the clearly-dying giants fall and the detritus be reclaimed._

Same thoughts here. I wouldn't be surprised if "Too big to fail" makes it into history books as the biggest catalysator for the economic failure that we're witnessing.

It's plain old protectionism at work. The wealthy fear for their pole position, change is not welcome when you're at the top.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "They're doing things, but they take a while to have an effect," Buffett said. "You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant."

Blunter than usual.

<comment><USER7> I see that "baby in one month" bit so often now. Has it become a cliche now?

<comment><USER6> I should have been clearer: I thought it was both funny and insightful that he didn't pretend that babies arrive out of thin air. The usual way I've seen that cliche is more sanitized, ala "Mythical Man-Month": If one woman can have a baby in nine months, nine women could have a baby in one month.

Buffett didn't neglect the demiurge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Last September, Goldman agreed to sell Berkshire $5 billion of preferred stock carrying a 10 percent annual dividend, and warrants to buy $5 billion of common stock at $115 per share."

Would it been so hard for the gov to allow the little guy to have bought into this deal?</comment>


Anyone else seeing lots of MediaWikis getting hijacked by spammers? - <AUTHOR> http://www.preventioncommunities.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to note: I have no connection to this particular wiki, it's just a particularly bad example of a spambot infestation. I've been following the trail of spam, and it leads me straight from one spam-filled copy of MediaWiki to another.

Obviously, the intent here is to create a network of otherwise-legitimate sites that can be used by blackhat SEOs to inflate their relevance.

I just wondered if anyone else has information on who is behind this.

EDIT: So far I've found hundreds, if not thousands, of them. Drupal sites are also affected. The latest spam run, as far as I can see, appears to have started on or about the 27th. I'm trying to figure out if there's some way I could write a crawler to map out the spam network by reading the 'recent changes' pages on affected wikis, but that would take quite a bit of bandwidth, because it appears that they've attacked a ton of random sites, some of which appear to have gone unused for a long time.</comment>


Speedier broadband standards? Pai's FCC says 25Mbps is fast enough - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/08/speedier-broadband-standards-pais-fcc-says-25mbps-is-fast-enough/ <comment><USER2> Mister Pai does not seem to care about the customers at all. It is quite painful to wittness his actions as FCC chairman.</comment>


Configure VXLAN with multiple unicast endpoints - <AUTHOR> https://joejulian.name/blog/how-to-configure-linux-vxlans-with-multiple-unicast-endpoints/ <comment><AUTHOR> Replying to AN:

You can now use systemd to configure it (v243): [https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/12441](https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/12441)

Since yesterday systemd v243 is in debian/bullseye (testing): [https://tracker.debian.org/news/1079640/systemd-243-5-migrat...](https://tracker.debian.org/news/1079640/systemd-243-5-migrated- to-testing/)</comment>


Y Combinator's best startups ever? Here are my favorites - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/03/22/y-combinator-winter-2011/

<comment><USER2> Shouldn't this read ycombinator's best startups from YC Spring 11 ? I would probably expect startups from previous funding rounds to be on the list...

</comment><comment><USER3> I hadn't heard about AppHarbor, that's one project I might use.

The one I'm definitely going to try out is Sendoid, as I mentioned in another comment, it hits a pain point, and a friend had been bugging me to make something like it for 2 years already...</comment>


There is no "my" in open source - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nayafia/there-is-no-my-in-open-source-c3e5555390fa <comment><USER2> This aligns with a concept I read recently -- real freedom means that you will often be restricted in your actions.

When you think about it, that makes sense. Since other people are also free, it is just reasonable that a community would construct shared values which would probably imply some restrictions on everyone's actions. So people trying to justify policy based on their "freedoms" are often being unreasonable.

</comment><comment><USER3> Open source code is a bit like having a child.

It will not always go in the direction you expect, it may even run away from you to live with somebody else, but it is still your child.</comment>


Video/audio from Mike Abrash's CGDC 1996 talk on programming id's Quake - <AUTHOR> http://www.gdconf.com/news/the_gdc_25_chronicles/the_gdc_25_chronicles_a_quake_.html <comment><USER2> Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book ([http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Abrashs-Graphics- Programming-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Abrashs-Graphics-Programming- Special/dp/1576101746)) includes a good sized chunk written about Quake as it was being developed. Even though the book is now about fifteen years old I still count it among my favorite programming books because it is the only one I've found that decently narrates the mindset of optimization, of turning a problem on its head in order to find a better solution.

Because the book is essentially a series of collected magazine articles the section on Quake development will have one chapter that reads "hey, this is what we're going to do!" followed by "well, that didn't work, but this does!". One important aspect of post-mortems and development journals that I find is frequently missing is a detailed look at what didn't work technically and why, which it has in spades.

edit: The book is also available as a free download: <http://www.drdobbs.com/high-performance-computing/184404919>

<comment><USER3> A lot of the stuff is still in use - one of the best selling video games recently (and many others) are still using this tech to some degree (brushes, bsp, and csg).

<comment><USER2> The vast majority of the book is dedicated to optimizing Pentium-and-earlier processors as well as EGA/VGA programming modes, with a smaller but still significant chunk on software polygon rasterization. There is value in the bits on BSP and visibility, but it's probably only a third of the last ten (of 70) chapters. That said, there's probably more relevant worth in those bits than any Game Programming Gems books :).

Abrash is a great writer and, even if you skip the deep technical dives and code listings, the book is still worth reading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This presentation is great in a historical context as well as still being technically relevant.

The mid-90's is the era that saw a broad transition in game programming from at-the-metal, low-level coding towards more algorithmically driven approaches, since the hardware had become beefy enough to allow the kinds of large datasets where algorithms matter more than constant factors. Abrash notes it himself - his VGA/DOS knowledge became meaningless within the span of 2 years.

One thing that is overlooked in all the emphasis on 3D rendering is that real- time strategy also developed in the same era as the first-person shooter. This isn't just because of mice, but because it was now feasible to do fast real- time pathfinding in games. Earlier, similar attempts at the genre suffer from playing sluggishly or avoiding any pathfinding.

Another 90's genre that came about because of hardware improvements is music games: CDs and memory for sample playback made it possible to play back high- quality audio tracks.</comment>


RMS comes under attack again - <AUTHOR> http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27980/1090/

<comment><USER2> Months-old blog drama.</comment>


Oracle is selling private critical security updates - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/senorarroz/status/1110255155763503111 <comment><USER2> The messaging hasn't been totally clear, but it's actually pretty simple: you either need to use OpenJDK or you need to pay for the Oracle version. They are now basically the same thing, and for most people, OpenJDK is what you want to be using now.</comment>


Ask HN: What is your employer doing to improve the commute? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Not my commute (I cycle), but friends get subsidized public transport, there a scheme to buy a bicycle and pay off later (not even the full 100%), locked bicycle parking obviously, company bike for running errands. The company has two reserved parking places for cars but only one person owns a car. In previous companies we had showers for those jogging to work (or during lunch break).

The craziest was valet parking. I mean it cut the commute by a couple of minutes but the backstory was really the company didn't have enough parking and the city would've started issuing fines. Paying a valet parking company was apparently cheaper.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know many tech companies in the Bay Area consider commute times when re- locating offices, but wonder if this is based on corporate climate goal and how much weight it has in the decision process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We get a Go pass (free monthly pass for the Caltrain that runs from San Francisco to San Jose)</comment>


Enigma encrypted message to be sent in 40m, decrypted by Bletchly Park - <AUTHOR> http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2017/march/enigma-encrypted-message-to-be-sent-in-40m.htm#.WN7mBobX-M8 <comment><USER2> It is very difficult indeed to read Google translations and understand what the original text was. I'm not sure what value such contributions have.</comment>


Making microservices more resilient with circuit breaking - <AUTHOR> https://blog.buoyant.io/2017/01/13/making-microservices-more-resilient-with-circuit-breaking/ <comment><USER2> Am the author of this article, and would be happy to answer any questions.

Also curious to know what folks think of the circuit breaking demo that's discussed in the article, available here:

[https://github.com/BuoyantIO/linkerd- examples/tree/master/fa...](https://github.com/BuoyantIO/linkerd- examples/tree/master/failure-accrual)</comment>


ScalaQuest – the online game to learn Scala - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andanthor/scalaquest-a-game-to-learn-scala?ref=bwzkt3 <comment><USER2> This is by one of the best scala devs I know!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm one of the creators of the game - AMA.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is just great!!!</comment>


IBM Exec Husband of Aaron Swartz Prosecutor Takes to Twitter to Defend His Wife - <AUTHOR> http://betabeat.com/2013/01/tom-dolan-defends-carmen-ortiz-aaron-swartz-twitter/ <comment><USER3> He's obsessing over this supposed 6-month offer. Sounds exactly like what I'd expect the husband of a prosecutor to sound like.

Does he have any idea what even 6 months in jail would have been like for a 20-something? How would he feel about spending 6 months in jail for, say, that March Madness office pool he might have joined (illegal gambling!) or that time he recorded and re-played an NFL game to his buddies (violation of the disclaimer at the start of the game!). Etc.

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry, but if you are arguing that Aaron Swartz did absolutely not break any current laws (whether you agree with them or not), then you are delusional, I urge you to read Orin Kerr's analysis of the situation, and refute anything he has stated, in a logical coherent manner, with solid evidence.

I'm sorry but I'm sure this man, his wife, or any of the prosecution team did not expect Aaron to commit suicide or was their intention. I'm sure they are just as upset as everyone else.

Try and put your emotions aside, and let your logic take control again.

<comment><USER5> > I'm sorry but I'm sure this man, his wife, or any of the prosecution team > did not expect...

> I'm sure they are just as upset as everyone else.

What makes you sure about those things? Do you have private information that the rest of us don't have? Based on the information in the press it sounds like the prosecution just didn't care, or worse it sounds like this is the way they act as a matter of policy.

<comment><USER4> Hi Shock,

Basically we operate in a society (thankfully in my opinion), where actually the onus is on the accuser to prove the accusations, with evidence, beyond reasonable doubt.

The above humans outlined unless have some emotional deficiencies, I believe are like the rest of us, and it's safe to assume when anyone kills themselves it's a sad situation, and can empathise with said person.

So in fact I turn your statement back on to you, please provide solid evidence that would make me to believe they WOULD NOT be upset at the situation.

<comment><USER5> Apparently you don't know the meaning of the word "sure" which you used plenty. I didn't accuse you of anything so I don't have to prove anything. You told us you were sure of some things and I asked you what made you to be sure. I was genuinely interested in the information you might have. It seems there was none and you just use words liberally, without regard for their meaning. In fact, I am sure of it. See what I did there?

<comment><USER4> It read to me as if you were accusing the prosecutors of not having any empathy to Aaron in this case. I believe the default human reaction is to feel said emotion, and such I think it's reasonable to assume they did feel empathy unless we have evidence that directly contradicts that. Sorry for any confusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a little scared to post here, given how abusive HN has become over the past few days.

As someone who's been reading Aaron's writings for years, it's clear he was a student of civil disobedience. It _seems_ like the JSTOR act was a deliberate act intended as a statement of civil disobedience, given the little I've read here. My facts may be wrong here.

But if that's the case, going to jail seems like a common component of civil disobedience as a way to demonstrate how unjust a law is. The men I'm certain Aaron admired -- MLK Jr, Gandhi, etc. -- all served time in jail as a mechanism of galvanizing society around the injustice of the laws they were fighting.

I ask this as a legitimate question: Did Aaron not expect to go to jail for an act of civil disobedience?

<comment><USER7> Not only does he have a history of disobedience but also a history of unstable mental health.

Frankly, you can't break the law even with just cause, kill yourself for being prosecuted, and blame the government for prosecuting you.

Although imperfect, we have a pretty good justice system that is based on an adversary model whereby the prosecutors will try their best to prove you are guilty; the defense will do their best to prove you are not; and a jury of peers guided by the judge will decide.

Everyone in the right mind will see that there is no way Aaron would get 35 years. Now, in fact, he was offered 6 months.

<comment><USER5> > [...] there is no way Aaron would get 35 years.

I have no idea what is the basis of that statement. I think that if he didn't agree to a plea bargain, if found guilty he could have gotten more than 35 years if the prosecution got their way. In fact, the prosecution just upped their accusation count to 13 a short while before Aaron's suicide.

<comment><USER8> Jail sentences are not speed limits. The maximums are set high so that a judge determining sentencing has flexibility in extreme cases, not because they expect most sentences to actually be that high. Yes, he could've gotten more than 35 years if they threw the book at him on every count, but he also could've gotten the minimum sentence, which everyone completely ignores. I don't know what the minimum sentences are for the crimes in question off the top of my head, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were very light. If anyone feels like doing the legwork on that, I'd love to have some definite numbers to throw around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have some sympathy. His wife, a public servant, is implicated in the suicide of a well-loved young man and a great deal of anger is coming her way. It's deeply distressing when one's spouse is attacked, especially by outsiders, and I respect him for sticking up for her in public.

His message and his timing are terribly misguided, but he is at least trying. No doubt she appreciates the support and, I hesitate to say, he does have a point: the 6 month offer hasn't been widely discussed by the mob.

(Just for the record I think it's a scandal that these charges were ever bought. Proportionality utterly failed here, and I hope the government and the nation learns something from this tragedy.)

<comment><USER10> _the 6 month offer hasn't been widely discussed by the mob_

It's been discussed. It's just that it's been dismissed as irrelevant. What _is_ relevant is that the process itself has bankrupted a brilliant man, distracted and stressed him for two years of his life, and required that he declare himself a felon, abdicating his right to vote, among _many_ other rights, for a fucking TOS violation, that the "victim" did not even want to pursue. Additionally, it's quite likely the bargain would have included some degree of probation during which a man whose passions run deep in computing, would be banned from touching a computing device of any kind.

How you government sycophants sleep at night is beyond me. Is there nothing the agents of the Almighty State can do that would make you stop defending them?

<comment><USER9> > How you government sycophants sleep at night is beyond me. Is there nothing > the agents of the Almighty State can do that would make you stop defending > them?

Wait, OK wow. I'm pretty sure I said it was a scandal, and a tragedy, and they needed to learn from it. I stopped short of calling for her to be fired because there are enough people pouring fuel on that fire. The changes that need to happen are far bigger than one person's job.

I'm also fairly sure that my comment simply explained why a husband of an embattled wife might choose to come to her defense in public. How you get from that to "government sycophants" is as beyond me as my ability to sleep is beyond your comprehension.

Finally, the irony involved in your baseless attribution of bad motive to my post when we're discussing a prosecutor's attribution of evil intent to what you call a 'TOS violation' is profound. It's a pity, because the first paragraph of your post contains a reasonable point, less the swearing.

<comment><USER10> Sorry, I should clarify that the sycophant label was not actually directed at you per se, but at the larger group of people coming out of the woodwork on HN to defend this disgusting display of highly selective prosecutorial discretion.

I'm mainly looking at you, philwelch. Your defense of law & order has been incomparable since the beginning of this story. May your jackboots be forever bloody, good sir!

<comment><USER11> You know nothing of me, troll.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The best response is buried in [http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity- deficit...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/15/humanity- deficit/bj8oThPDwzgxBSHQt3tyKI/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw) in the paragraph:

 _"The thing that galls me is that I told Heymann the kid was a suicide risk," Good told me. "His reaction was a standard reaction in that office, not unique to Steve. He said, 'Fine, we'll lock him up.' I'm not saying they made Aaron kill himself. Aaron might have done this anyway. I'm saying they were aware of the risk, and they were heedless."_

If there is ANY truth to this at all, then firing the prosecutors is not enough. They had a prosecutor who was dealing with a suicide risk, who had triggered a previous suicide due to being overly aggressive, and the standard response was to offer to lock the person up??

That's manslaughter in my books. And if the system had justice (it does not) it would be so prosecuted.

<comment><USER13> I'll bite. What should a prosecutor do when the defendent is a suicide risk?

<comment><USER14> One of the main problems is that once the prosecutors become lenient with suicide risks then every person prosecuted says they're a suicide risk.

unfortunate for the people that really are at risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am not surprised this guy is doing this, the coverage has been almost universally favoring Aaron's story and positioning the prosecutor as the bad guy (or gal). Stories like this sort of take on their own narrative once they get going, and a lot of folks are using this as an exemplar to curb abusive prosecution.

I am surprised however that the husband thinks anyone cares what was offered. That suggests he really missed the root of the anger completely (which is as far as I can ascertain egregious prosecution by copyright interests and their lapdogs regardless of human cost or mandate) The only thing that would make people sit back and go "Huh?" was if we found out the Justice Department had dropped the charges weeks before Aaron's suicide.

<comment><USER4> I believe it's because for most people who read the case, there's so much mud in the water, the first impression one receives of the case, is that Aaron was facing 35 years in prison, and 1 million dollar fine.

Especially non USA-natives who have no idea how the juridical system there works, for the first few days, I actually believed the above, that if found guilty he would face that sentence, I had no idea how plea bargains works there, it's been a frustrating experience to say the least.

<comment><USER12> The million fine is effectively an underestimate when the average cost of defending yourself is $1.5 million. And to avoid prejudicing the judge, Aaron was unable to say how bad his problems were, which made asking for assistance hard. Kind of makes a mockery of "the right to a lawyer".

Being a convicted felon is no walk in the park either. That shows up on every job application you submit, and makes it much harder to find jobs for the rest of your life. (Which is something Aaron would have faced, because he'd exhausted his financial resources.)

<comment><USER14> Im sure having a felony conviction would be terrible for your ordinary person, but with Aaron's resume and public presence I dont think it would be hard for him to find work.

<comment><USER15> Some felony convictions more than others, having a felony embezzlement conviction for example would certainly make it hard to get a job in accounting. Stock traders who have been convicted of fraud often find it hard to get jobs on Wall Street. But I agree with you that a felony copyright conviction on Aaron's record would probably not be a barrier to him working in a technical capacity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This whole Aaron Swartz episode, has really shown how un-objective this community is. The last few days I've never seen such hyperbole and sensationalism plague a community. It's the exact same you'd expect from the comments section from any mainstream media comment section.

Even within this submission, the comments here still talk and insinuate Aaron was facing life imprisonment, danger to being raped daily, and suicide was his only option.

The more I sift through the crap most of the community is posting, and actually find more objective facts (why is Orin Kerr's objective analysis of the law no where to be found after a day?! Does this not speak volumes of the community?).

I actually feel sorry the Tom Dolan, and his wife and everyone else involved (isn't it weird how you can empathise with multiple polarizing parties??).

I don't actually think from the facts I've observed that 6 months (his lawyer actually suspected a suspended sentence), is actually a bad deal in this case, given all the facts, but this is my personal objective opinion.

I would like to see people be more objective, and communicate with less emotion and more reason, but it's something I've observed happening over the past few years, and I think this just highlights what type of community it's mutated into.

<comment><USER16> Your "personal objective opinion" isn't objective (and your use of the word "objective" over and over again in contexts where you are clearly stating your opinion rather than "objective facts" to dismiss those who disagree with you is contrary to a productive discussion), and it's missing the point of all of these discussions (the law is wrong, and the prosecutor used the law to bully a brilliant kid past his breaking point). Your dismissive tone, in general, is annoying and generally not welcome in this community.

I also find it interesting that your account is 27 minutes old, and was created specifically for this discussion. Your concerns about "how un- objective this community is" seem self-serving...it seems pretty clear you aren't of this community, and exhibit few signs of understanding what makes this community tick. Also, as a nerd who values clear, concise, and accurate language, your misunderstanding of the word "objective" really bugs me. And that's my "personal objective opinion".

<comment><USER4> Without getting into a philosophical debate, you can read 'objective opinion' as 'it is my un-biased opinion in a neutrally emotional state, to believe the facts to be..' if it helps.

I agree the law is perhaps wrong, but who could have known he was being bullied past breaking point and would lead to suicide but himself? Do you believe that if someone disagrees with a law they can break it to cause reform, and if so which laws do you draw the line at? Is this the best way to act? Do you not think regardless of whether we agree with it or not, if we break it we should be punished? He clearly broke the current law, is 6 months imprisonment, a felon, and a highly likely suspended sentence really such a grave punishment? Do you honestly believe Aaron if convicted felon would struggle for work? Do you think he was emotionally sound and compos mentis at the time of taking his life? Do you believe this man did not show traits that he could possibly go on to further break other laws he didn't agree with in the name of his version of liberation?

I don't think Aaron went about his goal in an amicable way, and I don't think he believed he was either, he knew what he was doing, and unfortunately if you break laws, whether or not you agree with them, you ought to be punished. If you don't like the laws, cause reform without breaking them,there are other ways.

Whats the minimum requirements to be considered part of this community?

<comment><USER16> I believe non-violent civil disobedience is an ethical imperative in the face of unjust law. I've participated in non-violent civil disobedience on a number of occasions, and hope I will have the courage to do so again in the future.

Civil disobedience is not the only, or often even the best, way to change oppressive laws...but, it has been a necessary component of most major cultural shifts. Civil rights, LGBTQ equality, etc. They all happened because a few people were brave enough to break the law, even in cases where the law was popular. However, it is very much worth pointing out that most prosecutors, when pursuing charges against participants in non-violent civil disobedience exercise restraint. They rarely pursue felony charges (though this has been changing; activists in Texas are alarmed by the new use of bizarre old laws to charge participants in the Tarsands Blockade with felonies; but this is the exception rather than the rule), and it is usually possible to continue your life without major impediment, perhaps after a short stint (a few days or weeks) in jail, and without the weight of a felony conviction following them around for life. A political act with no profit motive should be treated very differently by prosecutors, and judges, and the law, than an act committed for personal gain.

So, I disagree with your assessment that breaking the law is not a valid part of changing the law. Often, it is the _only_ way change happens, and I have great admiration for the people willing to lay their own well-being on the line for something they believe in. In this case, an unjust law was broken, and I consider that an ethically sound decision.

Aaron Swartz was known to be a suicide risk. Prosecutors responded to this knowledge with, "We'll lock him up." Evil rarely looks like a James Bond villain...it's usually somebody just following orders. Evil was committed in this case, and it's part of a systemic problem in our culture and in our state. "Well, he broke the law!" is no justification for hounding a kid into bankruptcy and deep depression. It simply isn't. There is no justification for the behavior of the prosecutors in this case, and there is no justification for the way the law treats non-violent offenders in politicized cases like this.

Had Aaron hurt someone with his actions, I would have little sympathy. But, he didn't; he sought only to help people, to free the poorest people from an oppressive lack of access to information. When someone spends their entire life trying to help those least able to defend themselves, and the state responds with threats of decades in prison, the state is committing a great evil. I'm not even going to discuss the distraction of a six month sentence in a plea deal; this case damned near bankrupted him and that was used to back him into a corner where he had no options, and that's deeply unjust.

The requirement to be a part of this community is to respectfully discuss topics. Your approach has been to insult the intelligence, objectivity, and knowledge of anyone you engage with. In a community like this, which contains some extremely bright (famously so, in many cases) and curious people, dismissing anyone who disagrees with you as not being objective, or being too emotional, or being biased, while staking out your own claim of being unfailingly objective, unemotional, and unbiased, is insulting. Shutting down conversations by way of insult is unproductive, and unwelcome here.

Many people here disagree with you; if you can't convince them by way of reason, you're going to have to deal with being in the minority. To suggest that disagreement with you is uninformed or unobjective, on issues that many of us have taken very seriously for decades (and have seen the force of the state used to oppress friends or acquaintances on a number of occasions in similarly unjust fashion), is not productive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Her husband is just wrong. The only deal on the table was plead guilty to all 13 felonies and get "possibly six months but up to seven years" - <USER2> prosecutors would not negotiate with Aaron's lawyers.

<http://mashable.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-plea-deal/>

<comment><USER18> From what I understand, the prosecutor is not even bound to keep his/her word: after you admit the charges, they can just turn around and throw the book at you regardless.

Considering the gross disproportionality of filed charges and the fact that there was no real incentive for the US Attorney office to "keep Swartz happy" (i.e. no chance he'd turn any co-conspirator or recover any loot, this basically being a mostly-symbolic solo operation), obviously you wouldn't trust their word.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> One would expect someone with that kind of job to understand the logical fallacy of "you didn't have to run a 5 million dollar risk: you could just have paid the $5000 for an insurance policy", when the insurance company is the one responsible for the 5 million dollar risk.

P.S. Please, don't argue whether the analogy is imperfect: the point is that argument is logically fallacious.

</comment><comment><USER20> Mh looks like he wants to protect his wife and take a stand, this would work in reality but he does not quite get how the internet works.

He put even more fuel into the fire and he gave up his anonymity.

<comment><USER21> It also doesn't help that his last name is "Dolan".

<comment><USER22> Why is that?

<comment><USER23> There's a meme with a character called "Dolan" (<http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dolan>) which is pretty popular for reasons that probably no one can explain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> While I understand that he stays by his spouce, it does not mean that he has to agree with her point of view, part of being spouces is to be and stay critical.

My reply to him is and stays:

The qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those which mark a gentleman. And those who need to be told would not understand it anyway. A sensitiveness to fair play and sportsmanship is perhaps the best protection against the abuse of power, and the citizen's safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility.

Source: [http://www.roberthjackson.org/the-man/speeches- articles/spee...](http://www.roberthjackson.org/the-man/speeches- articles/speeches/speeches-by-robert-h-jackson/the-federal-prosecutor/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Six months is not really a mitigating factor for her overreach when he should not have spent a minute in jail in the first place.

I feel like this case feels strangely reminiscent of the extortion of patent trolls, where they levy exorbitant risk over a company in exchange for a payout. Except, of course, this time the price was a significant portion of a talented young man's life. I have no grace for sympathy here.

</comment><comment><USER26> Didn't Ms. Ortiz argue that she cannot comment on Swartz's case because of the respect to his family? And now his own husband breaks the silence? Isn't this all superficial and for their own profit?

So, here was a trade: 6-months in a jail for breaking Swartz's own sense of what is good and what is not, something he believed in the most, free knowledge. Obviously, this was out of question for Swartz. He simply couldn't agree for it!

I admire Swartz even more for doing what he did. He did not have any other options left, as he symbolically writes in his last post about Dark Knight.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Ok, Tom Dolan, we'll offer you a deal. The entire internet will leave your wife alone and stop saying nasty things about her, if you agree to plead guilty to possessing child pornography and serve 6 months in prison."

</comment><comment><USER28> Something tells me that this won't work out the way he expected.

<comment><USER29> You're right, it's a tragic situation where a bright young man extinguished his own flame. Emotions are so raw that no matter what he says right now, it will not be well received. Even if what he is saying is accurate.

But frankly, I'm disappointed the coverage has stopped being about suicide prevention. Nobody should ever take their own life, and if you are feeling like life is not worth living please immediately call 1-800-273-8255. Thanks.

p.s.: I'd appreciate responses for downvotes, as I know this isn't popular, but would enjoy a real discussion.

<comment><USER30> > Nobody should ever take their own life

I guess I personally disagree with this, at least for my own personal utility function. I would prefer suicide over a lengthy prison term, and I think that's the rational choice, at least with the inhumane conditions in American prisons. _And_ you have to make that decision before sentencing, unfortunately, because courts often order suicide watches around the time of sentencing, precisely because many people share that preference.

I agree with you in cases where you have an option of continuing to live as a free man, however. In those cases seeming dead ends are usually irrational, borne of depressive pessimism. And treatment can make the situation improve and make it clear that there are ways out. But a lengthy prison term is an _actual_ dead end, and treatment can't produce ways out of it. When someone kills themselves to avoid torture, it's the fault of the torturer.

<comment><USER29> I think this is a dangerous thought and I'm sorry you feel that way.

<comment><USER31> It's a tradeoff. 6 months? Probably manageable. 30 years? No, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> He is saying that like "it was just six months so it's no big deal"... but I feel it's not just about months or years in prison - it's more about human dignity.

Face 35 years in prison or plead guilty and get only six months - how many innocent people would confess guilt just out of fear? And those confessions are as valuable as those that inquisition got... and that's sickening.

System that creates strong incentive for innocent people to plead guilty belongs to middle ages and not to a supposedly civilized country. How many Americans had to go through something like this and now have to live the rest of their lives with this horrible injustice, labelled as criminals just because they were afraid to take their chances and risk spending years or even decades in prison?

<comment><USER33> > System that creates strong incentive for innocent people to plead guilty > belongs to middle ages

Relevant discussion from earlier today: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5058703>

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 I'm curious what the ethics are in the legal profession as far as a prosecutor sharing details of plea negotiations with a federal defendant with a spouse.

<comment><USER34> Irrelevant here -- the 6-month deal has been made public by other sources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I would argue that a conviction on record in the "security field" is arguably more a PR boost and a boost to his cause than something that hinders your ability to either get a job or support yourself financially post jail time.

I reckon that if Aaron would have gone to trial, he would have most probably not done 35 years, more probably from one to four years - that is taking into account most high profile hacker convictions in the past ten years, with one exception of five years and change plus a screwed up supervised release which I can't remember the timespan of. Six years would have been even better than that.

Look at Kevin Mitnick (the exception to the rule mentioned above), Adrian Lamo, Mark Abene, Kevin Poulsen, etc, etc... They've all had successful careers either as Security Consultants, Technologists/Speakers, Journalists, et al. And you could easily argue that having served time has made them all notable figures in the technology and security scenes. Aaron Swartz could have pleaded guilty (he did steal the documents and trespass) and do his 6 months or go to trial and end up doing a couple of years - and come out a hero with a strengthened cause and higher profile. A Reddit cofounder and high profile activist doing some jail time for his cause is something that would not have been forgotten.

Don't get me wrong, I'm on Aaron's side. The charges where preposterous and the way he was treated was barbaric. I can definitely sympathize. That been said I would have taken the charges and 6 months of jail time as a badge of honor. I mean he did break the law and caused monetary damages to JSTOR. At the end of the day this man would probably have entered that elite group of "convicted computer criminals" who have been able to turn their convictions around to become successful entrepreneurs, public figures, and hell maybe even a Movie/TV personality. Hell Mark Abene even had his debut as an actor in some movie I can't remember.

</comment><comment><USER36> 6 mos and being labeled as a felony for life for a young man for nothing but BS is OK for Tom Dolan? Why doesn't he try to spend six days in a prison for nothing? This guy even states "...enjoy supporting the inspirational students at Roxbury Prep." in his Twitter profile. Is it how they teach kids there? Sicko.

</comment><comment><USER37> Six months is still a long time for an innocent man.

<comment><USER38> Six months plus a felony conviction that follows you for life.

<comment><USER39> Six months plus a felony conviction that follows you for life plus being financially ruined by the two years in the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> In the spirit of Twitter I would reply FOAD---If you don't recognize the acronym, think about it for a while it will come to you...</comment>


DigitalOcean – Introducing Our Bangalore Region: BLR1 - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalocean.com/company/blog/introducing-our-bangalore-region-blr1 <comment><USER2> Pricing in INR would be great as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Next step: Australia. ;)

<comment><USER4> Was supposed to be underway a while ago but then we heard nothing about it. Last I heard from them it'll be 2017 at the earliest.</comment></comment>