The "Stolen" Mt. Gox Data Contained Malware That Robbed Users Of Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/14/the-stolen-mt-gox-data-contained-malware-that-robbed-users-of-bitcoin/ <comment><USER2> This is old news. The malware was discovered by someone on Reddit shortly after the release. I immediately contacted the ISP hosting the server used to retrieve stolen wallets and it was taken down. I doubt anyone lost any bitcoin. I'm really not sure why TC claims the malware was "discovered" by these security researchers a couple days later.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/200k30/the_tibanneb...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/200k30/the_tibannebackofficeexe_executab)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20152d/vpsbgeu_took...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20152d/vpsbgeu_took_down_tibannebackofficeexe_malware/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I assume the people most likely to download the Mt. Gox data dump were ones who lost coins held by Mt. Gox. So this malware is likely preying on people who are already victims. Pretty cruel.

<comment><USER3> Plenty of people had accounts & personal info at Mt Gox but didn't have any money there.

<comment><USER4> "Didn't lose any money in the MtGox closure? Don't worry! We can fix that!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ultra0 on Reddit [1] posted the source code, which was dumped from memory, of TibanneBackOffice.exe [2] that shows it is stealing Bitcoin-Qt wallets.

The analysis on Securelist the TechCrunch post is referring to is located at [3].

[1] [http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/200k30/the_tibanneb...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/200k30/the_tibannebackofficeexe_executable_is_wallet/)

[2] [https://3d3.ca/ijKOh.vbs#eV7i3HIliI93y+UR](https://3d3.ca/ijKOh.vbs#eV7i3HIliI93y+UR)

[3] [http://www.securelist.com/en/blog/8196/Analysis_of_Malware_f...](http://www.securelist.com/en/blog/8196/Analysis_of_Malware_from_the_MtGox_leak_archive)

<comment><USER6> Could someone give me a brief overview of the what the code is doing? I see a bunch of "on ____" blocks, which I thought might be functions but then they don't seemed to be called later on (unless I am missing something). What language is this?

<comment><USER5> The code is written in LiveCode. According to the documentation, those "on" blocks appear to be message handlers. [1] They do appear to act like functions as "sW" and "sC" are called from the "doSearch" message handler block. These blocks also are what contain the malicious code.

Basically, the code is searching for bitcoin.conf and wallet.dat in the typical storage place Bitcoin-Qt stores its data. If it manages to find these files, it reads them and sends the contents of them off to two different web addresses, effectively stealing the Bitcoin wallet. The paths and filenames the code uses to find this data are Base64 encoded in the source code so a text search through the code will come up with nothing unless the strings used for searching are Base64 encoded first.

[1] [http://livecode.com/developers/api/6.0.2//on/](http://livecode.com/developers/api/6.0.2//on/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Hey, there is an .exe file from a self-admitted group of bitcoin hackers. > Better run it to see what it does!

<comment><USER8> This was the logic of many on Reddit. I was pretty shocked.

"Yeah, I just wanted to see what it did."

Luckily, some were sensible enough to run it in a virtual machine.

<comment><USER9> > Luckily, some were sensible enough to run it in a virtual machine.

or, that virtual machines should be more common - mum and dad's computers should have vm software installed, so that they can then be free from having to worry bout things they download. The mantra could be " run in the vm, and you'll be safe".

<comment><USER10> Using the same virtual machine for everything means its just as much of a hassle to wipe it as to wipe your real machine, and your regular activities are at risk from the crap you install into the vm -to be secure it would have to be machines that reset themselves, not just virtual. What about when mum and dad actually want to install a new program or save some files?

<comment><USER11> If we had something like incognito mode for the operating system that would be ideal.

<comment><USER12> Knoppix has been around since 2000 :-)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The field of computer security is still too young to handle cash. The biggest barrier for cryptocurrency.

<comment><USER14> I agree with your basic point. However the field of defensive computer security is the same age as the field of offensive computer security.

The problem is that defensive security still is not a big enough priority for customers or vendors. When customers walk in to a computer or mobile device store and ask "is this thing safe enough to store my Bitcoins?" and go elsewhere if the answer isn't good enough, we may see vendors up their game.

The same flaws that let a government see you naked let crackers steal your cryptocoins. When I'm in an optimistic mood, I think that cryptocurrency could be the thing we need to motivate more people to care about security.

<comment><USER13> > The problem is that defensive security still is not a big enough priority > for customers or vendors

This is absolutely true. Most people care about price over any other variable.

Yet even areas where there are people who prioritize security consistently fail (Apple vs Jailbreakers, Open Source SSL/TLS developers vs CA validation failure). There is literally _no_ code on this planet you can trust 100%. Even the code that sent people into space had bugs.

edit: I do like the idea of cryptocurrencies, but I don't trust software enough yet. I'm more bullish on the idea of P2P shared blockchains in the form of namecoin as a replacement for DNS etc.

<comment><USER9> > Most people care about price over any other variable.

most people (at least, in western countries) don't pour over the ingredients, or sus out the manufacturing process to see if their food products have poisons in them, or whether they are fit for eating. It's mandated by law.

I would like to see security have such measures mandated by law, so that it frees the average joe from having to worry about it. Because face it, the average person can't worry about it - it's an expert field.

<comment><USER15> Mandating something like FIPS for _everything_ would impair startups quite badly. For the moment I'm quite happy to not have regulations on the development process or content of software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well, that explains why the _PHP can do everything_ guy had a native app.

<comment><USER17> What's this in reference to? (genuinely curious)

<comment><USER18> I think the reference is that Karpeles does everything in PHP, so the "stolen" Windows/Mac executables are clearly not his. (Though I don't know that anyone thought they were.)

<comment><USER16> Right. A man who writes an SSH server in PHP just because he can, then immediately deploys it in production, is probably not the same man who writes a native app here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is there any reason why a sensible BTC client implementation wouldn't encrypt wallet.dat by default?

<comment><USER20> No, but that may only delay the inevitable if the malware is smart enough to silently wait until the user decrypts their wallet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is there a way to create a trojan wallet.dat file that would identify thieves if stolen?

<comment><USER22> You can trace all transactions, so you would be able to identify where the thieves sent the stolen coins, but attempting to track stolen coins in general doesn't work (the value of a wallet is a quantity, so you cannot distinguish between stolen and unstolen coins once they're in the same wallet/tumbler/etc).

I did like the jokey idea someone had a little while back of putting a (very) small wallet on servers and watching the blockchain for transactions therefrom as an intrusion detection system.

<comment><USER23> I was thinking more along the lines of wallet.dat crafted in a way that when placed in the dir of Bitcoin-qt for example will exploit it's flaws to take over the machine running Bitcoin-qt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does that lend credibility to the idea that part of the rest of the data dump is also fraudulent? Tampering with numbers or exploiting a 0-day could prove to be even worse, though I admit the latter is a bit far fetched.

<comment><USER25> Not really. It's pretty damn hard to fake 700+MB of data, and a great many people have found their own records in it. No, this simply emphasizes that despite the initial window dressing, the hackers are in it for the money: they get whatever they stole with the trojan, and however much they can sell the rest of the dump for.

<comment><USER13> There's also the guy who posted on pastebin that he was selling people's data and would exclude for people for 0.25 BTC. Of course, people who used fake names/email addresses also got a positive hit when asking to get removed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The data didn't contain malware. There was an executable that did.

</comment><comment><USER27> Did anyone actually get money stolen by this?

The headline says "Users" were "Robbed of Bitcoin", but does not give us any proof. I suspect the writer, John Biggs, could not find anyone.

</comment><comment><USER28> When did MTGox start being written as Mt. Gox and pictures of mountains appearing in blog posts about it?

<comment><USER27> They wanted to keep the domain name for branding and legal purposes, but not the association with Magic The Gathering (The domain was registered for a company for trading MTG cards eight years ago, MTG Online eXchange, but it was never used for that purpose)

So, about 2 or 3 years ago, they cleverly rebranded "MTG OX" to "Mt Gox" without changing the domain name.

Then they cleverly lost $500 million.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wonder: this kind of malware doesn't require admin permissions, does it?</comment>


ContainerShip wants to help you move your containerized apps between clouds - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/05/containership-wants-to-help-you-move-your-containerized-apps-between-clouds/

<comment><USER2> How will you take care of persisted storage state ?

<comment><USER3> We built [https://github.com/containership/codexd](https://github.com/containership/codexd) (based on our [https://github.com/containership/node- btrfs](https://github.com/containership/node-btrfs) module) which provides filesystem snapshots / restoration for btrfs. Additional filesystems such as ZFS will be supported in the future. If a user does not have one of the supported filesystems installed, tar archives will be used. This library is not yet merged into [https://github.com/containership/containership.core](https://github.com/containership/containership.core), but once merged will provide the ability for persistent data to be moved between servers, if and when a container moves.

Data persistence is already fully functional in our hosted Cloud offering.</comment></comment>


Teensy Z80 Part 1 – Intro, Memory, Serial I/O and Display - <AUTHOR> http://labs.domipheus.com/blog/teensy-z80-part-1-intro-memory-serial-io-and-display/ <comment><USER2> This gave me a nice warm fuzzy feeling as I remembered bringing up bare metal Z80s 'back in the day' (can it really be 30 years ago? - yes). One trick I used over and over was to start with a blank EPROM. Every byte is 0xff (pretty much the exact opposite of his 0x00 starting point). The nice thing about that was that 0xff is (from memory) a RST 7 instruction. Which again (from memory) is a kind of one byte subroutine call to address 0x0038. This is nice because it means the CPU (should) settle into a kind of infinite loop, endlessly reading 0xff from 0x0038 AND (very importantly) pushing the return address 0x0039 onto the stack. Of course there is no stack at this stage - but that won't stop the CPU trying, and the effect is an endless series of two byte writes of 0x39 then 0x00 (little endian!) to an address that decrements forever through the 64K address space. It would typically take of the order of a second to cycle once through 64K, and the A15 line would toggle at this rate, the A14 line twice as fast, etc. You could troubleshoot the entire CPU bus interface this way with nothing more than an oscilloscope. Good times.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just to be clear here: yes, he is using a 32-bit 72 MHz Cortex M4 and a 12 MHz Cortex M0 as an IO controller for an 8-bit 8MHz cpu. It also appears that the ram for the Z80 is coming out of the 64KB built into the M4.

Even the MCUs built into the screen and SD card are probably all more powerful.

This is awesome.

<comment><USER4> It is awesome. I had a Z80 machine running CP/M (and then Z/PM) in the 80's and when SCSI hard drives became a thing I remember hooking up a 20MB one to the Z80 (max hard drive size 8MB so it showed up as 3 volumes :-) and noted that the computer system on the disk drive was much more powerful than my Z80 system. It was an interesting inversion but one which resurfaces in computation a lot, where a base class for something might be quite complex but the controlling class relatively simple. In the software world you can write 'hello_world.c' in like 5 lines of C code but the amount of code that actually has to run on a Linux machine to make that work is quite extensive.

<comment><USER5> The SCSI controller I got for my Amiga 2000 had a Z80 on it.

I've come to see IBM compatible PC's of the 80's and up until some point in the 90's as a curious aberration in that until GPUs became common, they were the systems most likely to "just" have a single CPU and no co-processors outside of really stripped down low end home computers.

E.g. an 8 bit home computer with just a tape deck might have had just one CPU. But like for your Z80 machine, for many you got a second CPU as part of the package the moment you added a hard drive or even floppy drive (the 1541 floppy drive for the C64 for example, which was a full 6502 based computer that you could download programs to over the serial bus). And many others had CPUs all over the place (the Amiga 500 and 2000 I had used 6502 compatible cores in their keyboard controllers, for example...)

The PC first "caught up" in the early 90's, and finally got where we are now, where I have x86 servers at work with dozens of non-x86 CPUs in things like hard drives and on controller cards.

<comment><USER6> Interesting viewpoint. I always thought of the Amiga as catching up when they threw away the funny custom chips and went full PowerPC! - part of the problem with the later models being the chip bandwidth bottleneck (as was related to me by an Amiga programmer) and of course the dreadful expense for Commodore of keeping everything up to date. But you're right about the ARM CPUs everywhere these days. I suppose we're back there again today.

So, now we're back where we were, I wonder if the cycle will repeat. After all, even if we didn't get Larrabee, we did get the Intel HD3000.

<comment><USER5> Dropping the custom chips didn't happen in any _Amiga_. _AmigaOS_ runs on PowerPC after years of wrangling over rights following the bankruptcy of Commodore, at which point the IP was severely outdated and nobody really knows who owns all the rights anymore anyway.

The PPC transition happened because there had been a number of 3rd party PPC co-processor cards for classic Amiga's (that let you run code both on m68k and PPC), so there was already a viable, reasonably popular target to port AmigaOS to.

At the time of the Commodore bankruptcy, Commodore was actually _not_ going towards PPC but PA-RISC coupled with a new set of custom chips ("Hombre") that dropped planar graphics for chunky pixels and included 3d acceleration. Dropping M68k was more out of necessity because Motorola failed to get the performance needed out of the 68040 and 68060 and the next generation was outright cancelled, so there was no alternative but to transition, but there were never any plans to stop using custom chips.

> part of the problem with the later models being the chip bandwidth > bottleneck (as was related to me by an Amiga programmer)

Chip bandwidth was a bottleneck for "everyone". Commodore was dealing with that by including VRAM in the next generation chip designs. But the Amiga was more vulnerable in this respect because a lead in multimedia was essential to the Amiga image. Lots of people bought PCs even without graphics cards. People still started stuff from DOS at the time of the Commodore bankruptcy. Windows 3.x was not something people bought for the graphics and animation.

But nobody would buy an Amiga without good graphics performance.

That the planar graphics that were the default for the Amiga until '92 also hampered efficient 3D was a much bigger deal.

> the dreadful expense for Commodore of keeping everything up to date.

Commodore actually never invested much in engineering. It was one of the ongoing stories of missed opportunities. They got extremely lucky breaks time after time again due to a series of extremely talented people delivering fantastic products at just the right time, and it finally caught up with them. Jack Tramiel was famously tightfisted, and after he was ousted Commodore had a bunch of managers who to the outside seemed to care very little about the company, and even less about engineering. What kept costing them money on engineering was a complete lack of focus: Repeated re-designs. Products that were canned right before release. Management edicts to make changes way too late in product cycles.

> After all, even if we didn't get Larrabee, we did get the Intel HD3000.

Sure, but they don't represent a single general-purpose CPU core. It's inevitable we'll get more functionality on-chip as yields for larger dies increases. But what matters is whether we continue to see parallelisation and off-loading vs. a seeing single core performance start to rapidly rise again (I wouldn't bet on the latter).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I did kind of the same thing but using an arduino to simulate a disk drive in a MSX, a Z80 based computer.

[http://codinglab.blogspot.be/2013/01/virtual-msx-disk- drive....](http://codinglab.blogspot.be/2013/01/virtual-msx-disk-drive.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> There's been a bunch of this kind of thing lately, see also the Propeddle, a 6502+Parallax Propeller MCU. ([http://propeddle.com/](http://propeddle.com/))

</comment><comment><USER9> That's a cool piece of work. I spent a lot of time interfacing the Z80 (TRS80) to the outside world using both memory mapping and port IO. I Seem to recall (hell, it's been over 25 years), that the documentation stated that the OUT opcode put the lower 8 bits on the address bus, but in reality the whole 16 bits went out. Not sure if this was a documentation error or a Z80 bug. The Z80 had quite a few "undocumented" opcodes that could be used with care.

<comment><USER10> Yep, if you do "OUT (C),r", C goes to A0-A7 and B goes to A8-A15. 16 bit addressing!

I owned several TRS-80s (model I, III, IV), a Xerox 820 "Big Board", and a couple of Vector Graphics S-100 machines. All of them were lots of fun and I learned a ton.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hey folks, writer here. Thanks for the great comments! Part 2 is already up talking interrupts (same blog) and i'll be cheating even more when the SD card interface comes online.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think that would have more merit if he would using a CPLD/FPGA. But in any case, is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER13> great low-level hackings, interesting to see an LED board for debugging. I was thinking on something similar some weeks ago, see [http://ledlogics.com](http://ledlogics.com)

</comment><comment><USER14> Awesome. I have this chip, going to try something similar.

</comment><comment><USER15> Beautiful.</comment>


Ask HN: How frequently you visit HN? - <AUTHOR>

I visit the site every couple of hours. HN has saved me a lot of time as instead of going on various blogs and sites I can get the all the relevant information here in one place.<p>How about you? <comment><USER2> I always have the Newest page loaded, it probably gets refreshed every 1-2 hours when I take a break from what I'm working on between 8am and 10pm GMT :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Always. I've discovered a new world in here, full of interesting things, help and great people. Thank you HN.

</comment><comment><USER4> I visit the site 3-4 times in a day. I agree with you that HN is full of lots of awesome information.</comment>


Fighting crime through Crowdsourcing - <AUTHOR> http://www.zerocrime.org

<comment><USER2> This seems interesting but what exactly is the incentive for people to report a crime

<comment><AUTHOR> if you look at the larger scheme of things , once there are sufficient reports you can get location based safety alerts based on crime in a particular location. Moreover ,regions could be marked based on crime density.</comment></comment>


Yahoo Traffic Server: 700k lines of code, 9 months - <AUTHOR> http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2010/02/opensourcing_traffic_server_700k_lines_of_code_9_months.html Does anybody other than Yahoo use Traffic Server? <comment><USER2> Kind of hard to find information out there... The OP link and links off that page don't lead anywhere useful. Googled around and came up with this:

<http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/TS/Traffic+Server>

Which also yields:

<http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/TrafficServerProposal>

<http://incubator.apache.org/projects/trafficserver.html>

The Apache "champion" is Doug Cutting, of Hadoop fame, so it seems to have street cred.

</comment><comment><USER3> So is this in the same category as Squid/Varnish/etc? What makes it stand out from the rest? I'd love to see/hear more about it, but the video, article and README aren't very verbose. I'm just too lazy to start reading the source for this, and would love a high level overview ;)

<comment><USER4> I've done some limited evaluation of TS. Basically it's easy to configure like Squid/Varnish/etc, but what makes it stand out is that it has a really extensive and flexible plugin api. You can dig into the docs on it here:

<http://incubator.apache.org/trafficserver/docs/sdk/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Misleading title. They didn't write 700k lines of code in 9 months. It took them 9 months to opensource it.

<comment><USER6> The original post title is "Open-Sourcing Traffic Server: 700k lines of code, 9 months".

The editorializing here is misleading, rather than Yahoo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Instructions for grabbing the source with git: <http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/TS/Git>

</comment><comment><USER8> This blog post has some higher-level information about TS - [http://ostatic.com/blog/guest-post-yahoos-cloud-team-open- so...](http://ostatic.com/blog/guest-post-yahoos-cloud-team-open-sources- traffic-server)

</comment><comment><USER9> duplicate: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1136465></comment>


Stop Using LinkedIn - <AUTHOR> http://www.stopusinglinkedin.com <comment><USER3> LinkedIn screwed me over real good a few weeks back.

They sent me an email saying "There are 108 people you might want to connect with", so I click on view all and it shows a giant list of people with checkmarks by their names. Nice. I uncheck all of them, and scroll through checking a few folks who I want to network with (5 people in total). Click next, it takes me to a screen showing the 5 people and the banner clearly says "Send connection requests to these 5 people?". I click next.

The next screen says "Congratulations, we've sent connection requests to 300 people.". What the flying fuck? Ok, well that's a bummer but oh well, probably just a bug in their system. Then my inbox starts getting spammed with "I'm out of the office right now blah blah blah" from people who I don't even know who they are.

The assholes sent 300 people linkedin connection requests through my own personal gmail account. With zero warning whatsoever. That really pisses me off.

I like LinkedIn, it's a great networking tool, but they really need to stop doing this shit. Something similar happened a few years ago, but they only spammed people in my address book who were already members and the emails were sent by LinkedIn, not through my gmail account.

I've revoked LinkedIn's access to my gmail account. I regret ever enabling it in the first place. I recommend you do the same.

For those who don't know how: [https://www.google.com/settings/security](https://www.google.com/settings/security) (click the view all button next to Apps and Websites).

<comment><USER4> > The assholes sent 300 people linkedin connection requests through my own > personal gmail account. With zero warning whatsoever.

The fact that they requested access to your email account should have been warning enough.

<comment><USER5> I can't understand why anyone would give any entity access to their email, it's really baffling.

I personally see LinkedIn as horrible, and deleted my account long ago. They don't let you restrict who can view your profile, and they allow people to remain anonymous. For anyone who cares about Privacy, this should be a huge no-no.

<comment><USER6> I agree, the email access thing is crazy. Both from a feature side and that someone would agree on it.

However, I would claim the fully visible profile is actually a feature.

LinkdedIn is not Facebook. LinkedIn is a professional index, like the yellow pages, with the difference that the minimum inclusion is free.

<comment><USER7> > LinkdedIn is not Facebook. LinkedIn is a professional index, like the yellow > pages,

with the exception that LI is a social network, where the goal is to interact, rate, and comment on different scenarios

<comment><USER6> I thought LinkedIn has always marketed itself as a professional networking service and thus perceived it as public area open to corporate scrutiny... it's not healthy to mix "social" with "professional" in situtations dealing with corporate employers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> LinkedIn, like Twitter, is limiting API usage to specific use cases that dovetail with LinkedIn's own apps, instead of competing with them. The restrictions were imposed yesterday. The authors of this manifesto think that's a bad thing, but they don't give me, the reader, any more information.

Why is it a bad thing?

What cool stuff am I missing by using LinkedIn and its restrictive API?

Why should I put effort into an alternative?

<comment><USER9> This.

Making potentially baseless claims and not explaining their impact beyond "they're bad!" is the kind of rhetoric a middle schooler uses before he or she learns to write proper persuasive prose.

While I agree that data should be as freely available as possible--so long as the person to whom the data belongs approves--I really can't get on board with this histrionic garbage.

Make an assertion. Back it up with evidence. Explain the consequences.

<comment><AUTHOR> We tweaked the copy a bit. Would love your suggestions on something better. Thanks for the constructive feedback!

<comment><USER10> Another academic networking site for scientists is ResearchGate. [http://www.researchgate.net/](http://www.researchgate.net/)

<comment><USER11> ResearchGate as a replacement for LinkedIn, on account of LinkedIn's spammy tactics? I can only hope this was meant in jest; if so: well-played, friend, well-played indeed. ResearchGate has taken dark marketing into the realm of high art.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article is more informative about why they are upset with LinkedIn:

[http://www.wired.com/2015/02/linkedin- api/](http://www.wired.com/2015/02/linkedin-api/)

tl;dr: LinkedIn is pulling a Twitter.

I can't say I'm surprised. It's a common pattern: Step 1: plant a nice open garden that attracts lots of people. Step 2: put wall around garden.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the tldr; but what does `pulling a Twitter` mean ?

<comment><USER14> Closing down APIs once they're big enough to not care more about developers and early adopters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You had me until "Quora" as a suggested alternative. If any site approaches the annoyance level of LinkedIn for me, it's Quora. Both have a habit of spamming me; their unsubscribe stuff is kinda dark pattern-y, in that it's easy to end up still getting mail from them even after clicking through to unsubscribe.

That said, I haven't used LinkedIn in years. Have no interest in it, for anything. If I needed work, I might consider going back, but I doubt it. I certainly wouldn't hire someone based on a LinkedIn profile, and I probably wouldn't want to work for someone who did.

</comment><comment><USER16> API issues aside, I recently deleted my LinkedIn account and my life has been better off for it. My recruiter spam volume dropped from daily emails to maybe two or three times a month. I'm not sure if LinkedIn provides any value, I've never gotten a job that way.

I think stalking people on social networks is also a net negative experience. I realized I should spend less time worrying about what other people are doing with their lives and focus more on my own.

There was also a recent NY Times article about how employers use LinkedIn candidates contacts to disqualify them for employment[1]. So LinkedIn can actually be detrimental to your career.

I just don't think LinkedIn adds anything. Businesses and recruiters use it to get your email to target you for spam. But what do you get out of it and think, if there wasn't a LinkedIn would you be out of a job right now?

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/technology/on-linkedin- a-r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/technology/on-linkedin-a-reference- list-you-didnt-write.html)

<comment><USER17> Agreed with all of your points, but I'd like to add that your employment history is very personal and can quite often be used against you in ways you wouldn't imagine ahead of time.

Just like any personal information, its best to keep it as private as possible and default to a "need to know" basis. The era of naively optimistic voluntary sharing of sensitive personal information ended when we saw the potential consequences.

Potential employers want to know where you worked? They can ask you themselves. I'd also like to know who the board members are playing golf with, what their future capitalization plans are and if/when they plan on jumping ship. Too bad none of that will ever be shared with me. So why should I share intimate details of my past?

Information asymmetry is power in the modern world. It is foolish to relinquish it voluntarily.

<comment><USER18> >Information asymmetry is power in the modern world.

And likely favors those who place lots valid information into the world, not those who keep it secret.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This reads like an Anonymous diatribe. Clear language will yield better results.

<comment><USER20> RIght. I went away with no frickin idea what they were talking about.

So, no I don't care either. LinkedIn is THE way to connect professionally. Some API rant is not going to change that.

<comment><USER21> Yeah. The site had no information on it.

But I wonder, is LinkedIn really "the" way to connect professionally? My personal bit of anecdotal experience is that it isn't for me. I was on LinkedIn for maybe 15 years? I accepted everyone on LinkedIn (I was not discriminating at all). And in that 15 years, I never found one job through it. Right now in Seattle (where I've been for 10 years), I go through my "people I drink beer with" network.

What I'd love to see is a network that would introduce me to people in other cities. I want to move to NYC, but I know no one there. So I don't know the good vs. bad neighborhoods, companies to stay away from (you know there is a list), etc.

<comment><USER22> I'm a Linux Sysadmin/Automation Engineer/"devops guru". My last 3 jobs (each better than the last) all came from recruiters finding me on LinkedIn.

2 years ago I was trying to move upwards in my career path. I had a good job, but boring and I could go weeks with doing almost no work. I was simultaneously considered a valuable employee while actually operating as fluff. I decided to move into the world of configuration management and "devops". I spent a few months implementing puppet in our lab and in a few places. Then I updated my Linked with puppet experience. A few months later, I got an offer at a local university that was implementing Puppet. I figured I would work there a year and get really solid Puppet Experience. I worked there about 3 months, got much better with puppet, but hated the place. I updated my LinkedIn resume again with my additional Puppet experience (all my responsibilities at the new job were puppet/automation related). I instantly started getting calls. Then I landed an awesome job with a large service company. I loved that job, hated the commute. I wasn't even looking but as I updated my resume, I started getting recruiters from Facebook, Netflix, Google, and finally a work-from-home one from EMC that I jumped on.

<comment><USER21> That's very cool to hear. I'm glad it has worked so well for you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I know Linkedin isn't perfect, but it does have one single use case fulfilled for me - the ability to have just enough of a connection to ex-coworkers, so that in the future if our paths ever do have reason to cross again, it is easy to make that happen.

These aren't people I want to be on other social media with - they are purely coworkers who might be worth contacting again. And there are other ways to keep in touch... but for this particular use, Linkedin is a good option.

And because that is my primary purpose for having an account, I have no problems with API usage that is more restricted. I don't want an ecosystem built up around linkedin's data. I don't see any potential for that to improve my life.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think one of the most frustrating things is hearing how many people seem to dislike LinkedIn, but use it because it's the best thing out there. Most only use it as their online resume, but between recruiter spam messages and constant annoyances from emails and to "keep up to date", they tolerate it at best.

Facebook had similar rumblings (people saying they'd switch off as soon as possible if something better came along), but Google Plus showed us the social costs of switching was higher than the frustration most people felt.

Does LinkedIn have that same social cost of switching to another service? I'm not so sure -- and I think it means they might be more susceptible to falling flat on their face if they push users too far.[1]

[1] This may just be my own hope and bias, since I built a job website of my own.

</comment><comment><USER25> LinkedIn creeps me the hell out with their connection suggestions, that are way too accurate for for anyone to make through honest means, especially given that I've intentionally been very restrictive with what I've added to my profile. I've even been very uneasy about accepting connection requests, since this isn't something I really want to contribute to.

Of course, that means the cost of deleting my account is very low given that I hardly use it in the first place. Something to think about.

<comment><USER26> Yes I'm always surprised by who shows up as suggested contacts. Often it's people who I've interacted with online maybe once. My best guess is that those people are providing LinkedIn their contact lists.

<comment><USER27> I wonder how many are Android users. iOS gives users the option of preventing apps from accessing contact data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As someone who is looking for work and finds nearly all of it through LinkedIn, canceling my account is not something I can afford to do at this time. As much as I empathize with the Open Web mission, opting out of LI is the privilege of happily employed developers.

</comment><comment><USER29> Guessing that someone isn't happy that their lead generation app just lost its data input?

This website is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction that tries to rally readers by crafting a context that makes it sound as if LinkedIn's changes are not in the interest of the user.

Yes, I would like open access to the API, but I'd gladly trade that if it helps reduce the volume of spam sales/recruitment inquiries I receive.

The partnership integration route may have extra hoops to jump through, but it doesn't concern someone like myself who's anticipating LinkedIn integration with our product; our intent is not what LinkedIn is trying to curb.

<comment><AUTHOR> Better integration doesn't mean spam (LinkedIn already has that feature in spades). It means allowing apps to leverage your work connections to provide better tools for you to use.

<comment><USER29> Not sure where you're going with that, have you read the official post from LinkedIn or the Wired Article? That will help give better context to my comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> None of those alternatives are anything like LinkedIn, and this page doesn't tell me what they did that was so evil anyway.

<comment><USER31> "Yeah, sure I'll just switch from LinkedIn to GitHub..."

What?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> One of the more disturbing issues with linkedin goes almost unnoticed:

For what possible reason does linkedin effectively mandate a photo? Because while I can not think of any reason this could possibly be necessary for any profession except super model, I can certainly see how it can be used in a very negative way.

<comment><USER33> I find it helps in recognizing connections - "Susan Smith? That doesn't ring a bell...ohhh that Susan, I guess she married and took his name."

But I take your point, it can absolutely be used in a negative way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I am actually working on an alternative that would basically just be a resume API. This is nothing but good news for me.

<comment><USER35> How would you validate the resumes? The power of LinkedIn is in the trust it establishes. Granted I still have a lot of validation to do before hiring/doing business with someone, but Linkedin is a great first filter. I know for software engineers, Github could be a better filter, but it's just a very small segment in the world of business.

<comment><USER36> "The power of LinkedIn is in the trust it establishes."

I feel the complete opposite way. I've had people claim I know PHP on my profile when I've never used PHP in my life. That's endorse stuff is major baloney. How can you trust that when anybody can just click Endorse for whatever they want?

<comment><USER37> Very true. I have endorsements in C++ from my auto insurance guy, which doesn't make any sense either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Something is really fucked with their UI. It's very deceptive and deceitful. The other day, I thought I was accepting connection requests people had sent me. Found out that I was sending connection requests to people LinkedIn thought I knew! I can see how that could be considered useful, but it was not my intent to contribute to the noise and the spam that is LinkedIn.

</comment><comment><USER39> Develop a better service for the end-user, and I'll use it. Once enough people are using it, then I'll stop using LinkedIn.

And more details with a clear explanation of why the website wants us to stop using LinkedIn would be appreciative.

</comment><comment><USER40> If your digital life is portable from the outset, then smear-campaign sites like this don't need to happen. LinkedIN data silos are purely symptomatic of people choosing services where the data is not portable in the first place.

Choose services where you can export, and migrate data before the fact, not after it.

Also see

* [http://indiewebify.me/](http://indiewebify.me/)

* [http://dataportability.org/](http://dataportability.org/)

Checkout the #ownyourdata initiative also.

</comment><comment><USER41> Yet another demonstration of the hazards of building a business on a platform that's entirely controlled by someone else.

</comment><comment><USER42> I have been wondering when someone will step up and make a decent alternative to LinkedIn for a while. It's a truly awful site, the sole reason I have not yet deleted it is I have no other easy way of keeping track of professional relationships.. there are no other redeeming features though, everything else seems very poorly implemented, uninteresting, or exploitative.

</comment><comment><USER43> So I should stop using LinkedIn because they're restricting the amount of access that third parties have to my data?

As I see it, the only thing worse than LinkedIn spamming me based on my employment history is other companies spamming me based on my LinkedIn employment history.

There's many reasons to stop using LinkedIn, but this doesn't seem like one.

</comment><comment><USER44> Looking at the alternatives listed, it's clear that they have no competitor.

</comment><comment><USER45> The only thing I use LI for is to hang my name and summary somewhere.

Occasionally I get a recruiter contact. My current job of three years came from that.

I never endorse anyone. I never respond to endorsements, as most of them are well meaning people endorsing me for something I've never done; I contact them personally by email to say "I don't do endorse, but thanks, still love ya."

I never respond to connect requests. They're increasing in number, and lately sound like 419 scams.

I'm virtually never logged in. They don't have my email access or adddress book.

If they die, or charge me, or something egregiously slimy ... so what. They aren't the only way to connect with people. I actually expect them to go the way of GroupOn (are they still around?).

Just minimize your LinkedIn exposure surface and interaction and you'll be fine.

</comment><comment><USER46> I hate LinkedIn, and wish it was not a de facto requirement for getting a job in certain industries/areas.

To make it not so, _users_ need to stop using Linked In.

This OP is very developer-focused in it's audience, it will not be clear to the non-developer user (or even to many developers) what they are talking about at all, or why it matters. It is written assuming you already know what they're talking about and already agree with them about it.

There are plenty of things that might matter to users and help convince users that Linked In is an untrustworthy company -- like, their email spamming/address-book-stealing practices. I was hoping the OP would be more user-focused in it's intended audience and more intentional in making a case.

<comment><USER47> Developers are a huge resource for LinkedIn. The only reason they can sell their spammy products to recruiters is because those recruiters count on LinkedIn having quality people on their network to send it to.

If everyone who didn't need a LinkedIn profile to get a job shut off their profile, LinkedIn's revenue would collapse quickly.

<comment><USER46> > If everyone who didn't need a LinkedIn profile to get a job shut off their > profile...

Right. And clearly someone that actually _needs_ a LinkedIn profile to get a job is not going to shut off their profile, which is the hard part.

But either way, I think this OP is not written/structured as well as it could be to convince people to shut off their profiles and/or stop recruiting on it, it seems to be targetted more at people who write software for linked in API, and doens't do a great job of making the argument even there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> linkedin: "someone just viewed your profile." me: "who?" linkedin: "can't tell you."

<comment><USER49> linkedin workflow:

      * get connection request
      * reset password
      * log in
      * accept connection
      * log out
      * do not think about linkedin again until the next connection request.

<comment><USER50> Wow, this is... yeah, this is pretty much how I use LinkedIn too.

I'm going to go see what's involved in deleting my LinkedIn profile, I think. Github should be my resume anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> If you think you can subvert the business or sociological aspects of hiring and working, you are sadly mistaken. While people still use it, I'll keep a profile up, otherwise bear the mistake of being the 'inept' person without a LinkedIn.

</comment><comment><USER52> All alternatives miss the main reason that people use linked in, which is it's social graph.

</comment><comment><USER53> LinkedIn, as used by the majority of resources ( not recruiters ), is free for what is needed.

Why is it assumed that it is "unfair" for a company providing a free service to hoard the data you give to them?

If you don't like LinkedIn, don't use it. If you don't like LinkedIn because they won't let you steal their data, then I'm sure they will be happy that you ignore them. Trying to convince people who don't care to stop using LinkedIn is pointless.

<comment><USER54> > _Why is it assumed that it is "unfair" for a company providing a free > service to hoard the data you give to them?_

It's unfair because LinkedIn had built a precedent of openness and made no indication that this was a temporary or limited offer (at least not a straightforward "hey this might shut off someday..." notice).

Also from purely a market perspective, this is unethical as it's about providing a business platform to others and then closing it once your in-house solutions begin to compete with those you've opened the platform to.

> _If you don 't like LinkedIn, don't use it._

Problem is, LinkedIn is not just a tool, it's also a network. You can change it as you would a tool, but you'll leave behind the network. Now, get enough supporters to change with you, well then you may have done it! Similarly, the node.js/io.js tussle was/is about getting a better tool but required getting the network to come with (and this was probably what woke up Joyent).

> _Trying to convince people who don 't care to stop using LinkedIn is > pointless._

You may not care but it certainly is a stretch to claim that others don't care (though at face-value, your statement is actually a truism). I would argue that the majority would/will care as long as a strong enough effort is made to show them why. (Also, this link has 200+ points and 100+ comments...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> To make this work, you need to get the avg LinkedIn user to opt out. I bet this page is not very effective at achieving that right now.

To get the average user to change their behavior, you must show them:

\- why doing nothing will be bad for them (try to show how it will impact their daily life)

\- why doing what you recommend will be good for them

      + without putting in much effort or money

      + very quickly

There are lot of angry people on the internet, the challenge is to make me care.

</comment><comment><USER56> The problem with a lot of these sites (facebook/linkedin) etc is their business is built on data you provided, which they then get to control.

The problem is additional data gets built up, and they gain a monopoly on the information. It results in an unfair market. For me to build a competitor to facebook or linkedin would be very difficult. Even if its better!

I'd like to see a law about user obtained data, that requires it always be programatically accessible.

<comment><USER57> It's called fair use but people have this idea that Robots.txt was a bill passed by Congress. But yes, I totally agree, and sites like Stack Overflow are doing this very well. It's a shame that Archive.org was not allowed to crawl my profile before I left last year but that they allowed Google/Bing/etc to crawl it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Sorry for my shameless plug here but we are developing a LinkedIn alternative for Developer, it's called devolio.net[1] and we will launch open beta in March. We will support the open jsonresume.org formats and unrestricted profile viewing experience (no sign in walls) . Plus we are just focusing on developers, so it has no annoying fake business people.

[1] [https://devolio.net/](https://devolio.net/)

</comment><comment><USER59> >Stop using Linkedin >Here is a list of 16 sites where you need to be registered at teh same time to have an access to the same audience as on linkedin

</comment><comment><USER60> I deleted my LinkedIn account a while ago. Their UI is full of dark patterns and the only thing I ever got out of their service was recruitment spam from people that hadn't actually read my profile.

Since deleting my account, I get much less spam from recruiters. If I still get some, it's easy to get rid of them with a simple reply or a click on an unsubscribe link.

</comment><comment><USER61> A lot of interesting arguments for and against in the comments over the past two days.

The restriction of API is the same that Twitter did when they became more keen on controlling aspects of the app community. Whether or not that has led to decline in the traffic can be debated, or whether it was just 'time'. It is of course LI's prerogative, but a short sighted view of the world, when over the last 10+ years LinkedIn has shown little ability to innovate and evolve the service - third parties could - and they should find ways to encourage (and monetize) that

The proliferation of alternatives as suggested on stopusinglinkedin indicates there are better ways of connecting with professionals. Professionals who understand your space and less spammy/generalist ways to find permanent and freelance work - if that is your objective. There is most certainly room in the world for a more niche approach to something as important in our lives as that which generates our income.

We have been building www.somewhere.com for a bit now, trying to have quality conversations about work. Sort of by accident people are now using it to find each other for projects.

That puts us in the same category as Dribbble and Behance (without the behemoths behind the scenes), yet we are different in that we want to talk about how the sausage is made and not just show the end product. Will that be a 'winning' strategy? Time will tell, we are curious about work, how we do it, when and where and most importantly why - something others have not decided to focus on, but which we believe should be at the core when trying to find people with whom to work.

Anyway - API or not, LinkedIn is not the only game in town, perhaps they have gotten too big for their own good, perhaps they will do just fine with their 300M+ users and corporates willing to spend good money for volume...either way - we can all build and support alternatives that work better.

</comment><comment><USER62> Who's Viewed Your Profile or your updates.

This feature is enough to avoid Linkedin. I am scared to click on any profile in linkedin just because of this feature. I always use incognito mode to look up folks in Linkedin. It is a creepy site.

Wait till your connections can submit hidden reviews about you and potential employers can view it for a small fee, like Carfax.

<comment><USER63> I have used that as a feature before applying to a job. I went to the profile of every employee of that firm, before sending my application.

My hope was that my name and face would seem familiar to the people interviewing me. I don't know if it paid off, but I ended up getting the job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> In theory all this stop using X campaigns sound amazing as in this era value and revenue of X is often determined by its active users. Vote with your wallet! Practically, only a subset of all active users will actually care and permanently stop using X until the situation has improved. In the end, cost of living without X is often bigger than the association you feel with the campaign its values. If there were solid alternatives straight away and everyone would switch, that cost would decrease but until then "stop using linkedin", " drop dropbox", "don't buy Nike" are just drops in the ocean.

Which is a bummer because if you would be able to actually manoeuvre a big enough user base, those campaigns would certainly be effective due to the "adapt or run out of business" effect it has.

</comment><comment><USER65> What actually happened of the 12th?

<comment><USER66> I think it's when they put the web site up...

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> STEP 1: Build open API for content.

STEP 2: Wait until third-party builds innovative product X on API, more innovative than existing engineering staff could build.

STEP 3: Buy third-party company, aquire product X.

STEP 4: Shut down open API so no one can improve upon product X.

</comment><comment><USER68> One of the "alternative" services these folks recommend is academia.edu - <USER2> anyone else find it really weird that a for-profit-not-even-remotely-degree- granting company is squatting in the .edu namespace?

<comment><USER69> It was assigned before 2001 so it's grandfathered in and isn't subject to the normal .edu rules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I wish there were some way to tell companies like LinkedIn not to create a shadow profile on you. I've never trusted LinkedIn enough to create an account - their email practices are too shady, and I'm totally happy with StackOverflow Careers - but I periodically get emails saying "Bill Former Coworker wants to connect with you!" (And then of course I get follow-up emails for several weeks.) I'm sure my shadow profile is quite accurate. For all I know, they're emailing people on my behalf saying "ksenzee wants to connect with you!"

</comment><comment><USER71> Among the alternatives listed is Behance -last time I checked this network was owned and operated by Adobe. btw, the stopusinglinkedin.com site links to behance.com which does not exist. It's behance.net

Dribbble (the other design resource listed) I understand was co-founded by designer Dan Cederholm, but oddly if you visit his current Wikipedia page there's no mention of his involvement with Dribbble -only on his SimpleBits bio page: [http://simplebits.com/about/](http://simplebits.com/about/)

</comment><comment><USER72> It would be helpful to have real-world examples of who is losing out due to this and why...beyond the entire free peoples of the internet (some of whom I'm sure do not use linked in).

</comment><comment><USER73> I created this page to help when filling out forms that presume I have a LinkedIn profile:

[https://Opt.outof.Link/edIn](https://Opt.outof.Link/edIn)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here. So the FDR verbage is not popular.

Anyone willing to help write better text? Please email firstname.lastname@example.com and we'll get it swapped out.

Apologies for the intro copy faux pas.

<comment><USER74> I'd feel better about helping you if I knew who you were. For all I know, you represent a shady company who tried to make bank by scraping LinkedIn data and creating customized phishing profiles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> +10 years on LinkedIn +2000 connections Lots of recommendations and endorsements

and I wiped it all

BTW, I'm running this tweet update series when people actually notice.

[https://twitter.com/JayCuthrell/status/551254076164288513](https://twitter.com/JayCuthrell/status/551254076164288513)

Spoiler alert: < 0.2% of my "connections" noticed

</comment><comment><USER76> I stopped using LinkedIn right after I heard that it harvests contact details from emails. Thankfully, being "paranoid", I've never allowed it to access that data. After that I deleted my account. Two years later, I received the "these are the people you might know!" email...

No need to tell me to not use that service.

</comment><comment><USER77> LinkedIn's APIs have historically been very restrictive. I can sort of understand that LinkedIn feels/knows it's sitting on extremely valuable data except that on further inspection it's almost all public data that just happens to be decently organized.

</comment><comment><USER78> Aside from startups trying to find their customer base and integrating with LinkedIn, do we have any SMBs/mid-stage Startups (Proven Business Models) on HN who have lost their livelihood now given where LinkedIn is going?

</comment><comment><USER79> Dear programmers, if you are using linkedin you are doing it wrong. Use github, careers.stackoverflow, a plain html resume page, the ladders, and basically anything else that is not linkedin to showcase your skillset.

<comment><USER80> "The Ladders"? I've never seen a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

<comment><USER81> TheLadders is just a worse LinkedIn you have to pay for up front.

<comment><USER82> we miss you too ben.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> I just find it incredibly creepy that LinkedIn seems to know that I am connected to certain people - I cannot imagine they worked out that I do in fact know that person - not by any obvious means.

<comment><USER84> It was posited that your email in their contact list might trigger it, but I've seen it happen after I viewed someone's profile. It appears to guess that X days after viewing the profile, you may now know them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Linkedin has been known to shut down competing services prior to this. At hired.com, our API access was revoked (a long while ago), and many of our users were no longer able to login.

<comment><USER86> you guys rejected me as a customer even though my team is building data science stuff on open source technologies, because my employer does translation which is "a competing staffing service".

<comment><USER87> Likewise with us. Hypocritical to claim that Linkedin takes anti-competitive practices when Hired.com employs similar tactics. At least Linkedin still allows competitors to have Linkedin profiles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Twitter should be on the list of alternatives. I have found twitter to be a more valuable professional tool than LinkedIn (though I doubt my experience is like others).

</comment><comment><USER89> Is anyone really surprised? Ideologically upset? Sure, but we learned this with Twitter and tons of other companies. The APIs are there's to support or pull

</comment><comment><USER90> Linkedin provides me with a constant stream of useful contacts, leads, etc. Linkedin is by far the most useful social network to me.

</comment><comment><USER91> Can anyone use the phrase "undersigned and federated bodies of the internet" and expect to be taken seriously?

</comment><comment><USER92> It's looking very likely that 2015 is going to be a #linkedout year. More and more stuff like this is happening, and LinkedIn can't keep up.

They're an incredible company, but they're a 12 year old product at this stage.

Take a look at my version of the alternative, trying to get ahead of them not replace them:

[https://www.somewhere.com](https://www.somewhere.com)

</comment><comment><USER93> I feel like LinkedIn is an evil necessity. It's so bloated and I never feel comfortable navigating or viewing anything on LinkedIn due to their nature of trying to connect or send emails without your approval.

I'd really like if there was an alternative that can be just as popular, with simple resume hosting/networking capabilities. No bloat or shady practices.

</comment><comment><USER94> This is why i never started using it. They've been using these tactics since day one. Spam.

</comment><comment> apa-sl I'm happy with Opera browser since the days when they were still serving ad banners :)

</comment><comment><USER95> revoke access: [https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions?hl...](https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions?hl=en&pli=1)

</comment><comment><USER96> People actually use LinkedIn more that a couple of times a year?

<comment><USER95> it has turned into a publishing platform which is what they have done right compared to their competition (Xing, Viadeo). useful or not they manage to keep people engaged and coming back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Was there a change in terms that is unsavoury?

</comment><comment><USER98> They also recently put in some search restrictions, which for a very different set of reasons, makes me not like what they are doing.

</comment><comment><USER99> So did someone share it on LinkedIn yet?

</comment><comment><USER100> Why Quora?

</comment><comment><USER101> Oh Heck NO! I love the in!

</comment><comment><USER102> Quota and Product Hunt are alternatives to LinkedIn?

</comment><comment><USER103> Me either

</comment><comment><USER104> Well... I never thought about this before...

</comment><comment><USER105> My opinion is that being on LinkedIn is like being on the shelf at WalMart (where the masses can easily find you).

Most unique quality merchandise won't ever found on the shelves of a WalMart. That's a place for interchangeable, disposable, mass produced items.

Oh, and Fuck companies that engage in scummy behaviour like email hijacking.

</comment><comment><USER106> My beef with LinkedIn is that the user interface sux.

I used to be a LION so I still have days when I have to filter 20 connection requests. I still accept connections if (1) you seem to be a person and (2) you use your real name (not the name of a business)

The interface for accepting connection requests is painful and slow and so are the interfaces for doing other things on LinkedIn. I find myself using it less and less because it just takes too long to do things.

By restricting the API they just make it harder to improve the UI.</comment>


Microsoft Says Silverlight Installed More Than Firefox, Safari and Chrome Combined - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/18/microsoft-says-silverlight-installed-more-than-firefox-safari-and-chrome-combined/

<comment><USER2> I tried installing SilverLight a week ago. After installation and a restart, my browser informed me that SilverLight was not installed. I repeated the process with several browsers and several computers, and never got it to work. So I was told +/- 10 times that SilverLight was installed, when in reality it wasn't, and when I have no intention of ever trying to use it again.

Now I wonder how many other people that's happened to...

</comment><comment><USER3> Considering Microsoft.com is one of the most-trafficked websites on the internet (Currently #15 <http://alexa.com/topsites>), and considering you're required to install Silverlight before MS lets you browse it... yeah, it'll have a high adoption rate.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Though my first response was to say BS on thinking about it I actually believe them on this one. As the article points out they landed a few high profile events which got a lot of people to install the plug in (albeit an earlier version than 2.0 which is the first worthwhile version imho)

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect them to over take Flash any time soon. But I think this gives Microsoft Developers enough incentive to use Silverlight rather than jumping ship to Flash (which is much harder for a .net deverloper to pick up). In that aspect I think this is a victory.

For better or worse the great thing about being Microsoft is you just need to hang on to what you already have to be successful

<comment><USER4> they also had a stranglehold over the olympic games. i would've thought that this would be one of the biggest installation drivers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't the competition here Silverlight vs. Flash. And isn't Flash installed on more than _IE_ , Firefox, Safari and Chrome combined?

(Note that sounds ridiculous, but I'm fairly certain it's true)

So, given the competition is Flash, why the jab at other browsers? Or is Microsoft declaring war on the open web?

(edit: Somewhat surprised that Techcrunch actually makes the same points, I'd commented before reading it)

</comment><comment><USER6> Did they pass out silverlight via Windows update?</comment>


$9M Bitcoin haul buried in U.K. garbage dump - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/9m-bitcoin-haul-buried-u-160800943.html

<comment><USER2> Same story, different source, significant discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6809065](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6809065) (theguardian.com)

Yet more sources, no discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6814293](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6814293) (bbc.co.uk)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6815087](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6815087) (msn.co.nz)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818746](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818746) (bbc.co.uk)

I expect we'll see this story picked up and reported over and over again. It's about BitCoin, and everyone loves a good bit of _schadenfreude._</comment>


Google Code Jam 2015 - <AUTHOR> https://code.google.com/codejam

<comment><USER2> So I see the simple (naive) solutions, but what about when the problem sets get very large - I definitely need practice there. Any good resources that others have found for these types of puzzles?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.topcoder.com/community/data-science/data- science...](https://www.topcoder.com/community/data-science/data-science- tutorials/)</comment></comment>


A stiff sentence: redacting Julian Assange from the record - <AUTHOR> https://commonground.ca/a-stiff-sentence-redacting-julian-assange-from-the-record/ <comment><USER2> Editors and authors share the creative "ownership" of an article. Here, they did actually come up with a somewhat satisfying compromise (the note), although punting the difficult decisions to the reader is somewhat cheap.

FWIW I probably agree more with the editor than the author. Yet I found their note rather obnoxious, and the author missed an easy chance to score a point for his "side".

The final decision not to publish an article including the disagreement was the author's. It was him who wanted only his side in the article, not the editor. So I don't quite see the scandal he makes out.

(In any case, it's insane how people are unable to entertain the theory that Assange is _both_ an important and positive figure in the fight for privacy, _as well as_ a creepy misogynist with the sort if psychological issues required for that self-imposed martyrdom in the embassy.)

<comment><USER3> Why do you agree with the editor's censorship? Also, you say he's "a creepy misogynist"—what's your evidence for that claim (genuine question)?

<comment><USER4> The article does a good service explaining that part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems so clear and easily understandable: news media are owned by elites/corporations who use media to get their way in just about everything.

Part of the benefit of owning and controlling news media is: avoid letting the public know inconvenient truths (1), the ability to affect election results, and the ability to split the population into more easily controlled groups (e.g., Democrats and Republicans in the USA).

The elites have won, game over. Hopefully they will have some self control over their greed and leave us sufficient crumbs so we can at least have a civil society.

(1) this was Assange's crime, letting the public know things that the elites of the world did not want to become common knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER6> _"the willingness of an editor to redact a public statement simply because he feels the source is no longer on Team Progressive"_

This says it all.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think this article should identify the journal and editor; how else will anything change?

<comment><USER8> On the one hand, the author is taking the high road. Good for him. He has principles, and sticks by them.

On the other hand, you are completely and utterly correct. There are people in the publishing industry that should have never been allowed into their position. This editor sounds like a prime candidate for charges of moral cowardice and partisan opinions unbecoming a member of the "free press".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another title might be "The Last Journalist".</comment>


Photorealistic Facial Texture Inference Using Deep Neural Networks - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.00523 <comment><AUTHOR> Demo YouTube: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13118902](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13118902)</comment>


Postcard from Halden - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1986002,00.html

<comment><USER2> I am 100% for this kind of system. Rehabilitation trumps punishment.

<comment><USER3> Of course. It's mostly a question of cost and scalability.

<comment><USER4> They do save money by having a lower recidivism rate. I do wonder how much it costs compared to other types of prisons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sadly, such a system would never work in the United States. We have far too many people already behind bars to make these types of prisons feasible. Our incarceration rate is 756 per 100,000[1] citizens, the highest in the world. Until we figure out how to put less people behind bars, our prison system will always be a huge mess.

[1]: [http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/10/02/us-tops-in-world- prison-...](http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/10/02/us-tops-in-world-prison- population-ranking/tab/article/)

<comment><USER6> It's not that hard to figure out. If we just got on that whole drug decriminalization / legalization bit, we'd drastically reduce our prison population.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It would be really interesting to look at some other sources comparing crime and punishment in Norway and in other countries.

<comment><USER8> Especially one that contrasts immigration rates and sources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This makes me sick. There should be no room for human rights and comfort in a place for those who unabashedly trampled the rights and lives of others.

Also, I think prison should be ONLY for those who unabashedly trampled the rights and lives of others. There are a lot of people in prison these days whom I don't believe belong there.

<comment><USER10> > There should be no room for human rights and comfort in a place for those > who unabashedly trampled the rights and lives of others.

Why is this? Aren't "human rights" rights that apply to all humans?

<comment><USER9> I'd be okay stripping the title of "human" from rapists and murderers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
      1) Move to Norway
      2) Commit a crime
      3) Free room and board
      4) Bootstrap startup for next to nothing

<comment><USER12> You should've seen the minus points coming — committing a crime never increases your karma. ;)

<comment><USER13> Except there are crimes this community often thinks should not be considered crimes.

 _If we just got on that whole drug decriminalization / legalization bit, we'd drastically reduce our prison population_ in a comment on this thread, got 9 points right now.

<comment><USER6> Not to mention copyright infringement, prostitution, assisted suicide, those few sodomy laws that are still on the books, obscenity...</comment></comment></comment></comment>