Senators push to ditch social security numbers in light of Equifax hack - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/08/are-social-security-numbers-going-away/ <comment><USER2> The main problem trying to be fixed here is "identity theft". What that crime is, I think, is not clearly understood. This is when a criminal defrauds a bank or other company by getting credit using your identifying information and then defaults. The bank then misinforms the credit bureaus that you defaulted on your loan and this lie by the bank hurts you when you want to get any type of loan. This crime would be better called "bank slander" and the banks that do it should be fined heavily with some money going to the person slandered.

Banks should have to know who they are loaning money to and if they make a mistake, that needs to be solely their problem. Then banks will figure out ways to confirm your identity better and people won't get into the hell that is trying to get the "bank slander" removed from their credit report.

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of the recurring Onion title:

'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.

I don't understand _why_ the US has identity theft. Is it because there's no national ID? Here in Europe we don't have any "secret" number that someone can just use to open a bank account in your name.

<comment><USER4> Don't you guys routinely use ACH transfers to buy things, give out your bank info, and just hope everything goes well?

<comment><USER5> SEPA Direct Debit, yes, is used like that.

But abuse is very low, as it requires that whoever does it identifies themselves first at another bank, and opens a merchant account (which has other verifications). And then reversing it is easy, too.

And you can't even shop with stolen IBANs at Amazon, because every major retailer will first send you a 1ct transaction with transaction info set to a OTP you use to verify that you own the account.

<comment><USER6> Wouldn't the equivalent of ACH transfer be SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT)?

I'd add that SEPA being mandatory for all participating countries has simplified transfers a great deal. Now most banks remember creditors, just like a phone book but for money, so sending money from your phone is pretty neat.

Additionally, the SEPA effort created ISO 20022, which is gaining ground worldwide as a one-stop-shop format for financial transfers. See this article from the US Federal Reserve a couple of weeks ago: [https://fedpaymentsimprovement.org/news/press- releases/feder...](https://fedpaymentsimprovement.org/news/press- releases/federal-reserve-announces-iso-20022-migration-timeline-fedwire-funds- service/)

<comment><USER5> Well, depends on if you consider push or pull.

SCT is entirely push, and requires signing the transaction with your card, or using at least 2FA for verification. This doesn't happen by accident.

SDD is entirely pull, and is the only one that could theoretically be abused, but that's as mentioned also not that easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Today, the Senate Commerce Committee questioned former Yahoo CEO Marissa > Mayer, Verizon chief privacy officer Karen Zacharia and both the current and > former CEOs of Equifax on how to protect consumers against major data > breaches.

So, ask the person who lost 3 billion accounts, the person who is stuck with the mess from losing 3 billion accounts, the person who lost 145 million SSNs, and the person who is stuck with the mess from losing 145 million SSNs how to protect against data breaches?

I appreciate the relevance of those individuals to data security, but they're clearly not subject matter experts. If I wanted to secure my home against burglars, burglary victims probably wouldn't be my first consultation.

That said, the mostly fixed nature of SSNs and their intrinsic potential for introspection is a huge liability and we should move away from them.

[edit: Karen Zacharia may well be a subject matter expert here, it's a little unfair to group her in with my rant.]

<comment><USER8> Burglary victims should be your first consultation, because most people who weren't burgled were probably just lucky, or were burgled but haven't realized it yet.

If there are 10 houses, a burglar tries to get into all 10 but only succeeds on 2, then you should talk to the 8 owners who successfully protected their houses. If there are 1000 houses, a burglar tries to get into 10 but doesn't tell you which 10, and succeeds on 2, you should talk to those 2 owners because they know for a fact what can fail. 990 owners will just say "do what I do" without having any evidence that their strategy is actually safe.

<comment><USER9> Or, you know, maybe stop talking to homeowners, victims or not, and start talking to people who make locks and safes. Actual subject matter experts rather than targets.

CEOs, at best, will be proxies for whatever security personnel they have on staff and we have no way of evaluating the credentials of those security staff. At worst, they'll be advocating for policies that reduce their exposure/costs at the expense of greater overall fraud costs.

The senate should use their own knowledgeable proxy in this case. NIST has already shown itself capable of creating security standards of a reasonable quality. Run another public competition for a national ID system capable of replacing SSN and let real security professionals propose (and then debate) a way out of the current mess. Senators can then codify the results of that process into law.

<comment><USER10> > Or, you know, maybe stop talking to homeowners, victims or not, and start > talking to people who make locks and safes. Actual subject matter experts > rather than targets.

You want to talk to the burglars. They already know the locks and safes and likely know even better how to break them than the creators. In this case, you want to talk to hackers.

The reason Congressional panels do things like this, is to put on a good show. They like to be seen dealing with higher level matters/people as a demonstration of stature.

<comment><USER11> > In this case, you want to talk to hackers.

No - the problem here isn't hacking, it's allowing a fixed, easily learned number be a sole proof of 'identity'. SSNs were used in identity theft long before hackers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Multiple times throughout the hearing, Brazil's Infraestrutura de Chaves > Públicas system of citizen IDs through digital certificates came up as a > potential model for the U.S. as it moves forward. In this model, a > certificate lasts for three years at maximum and can be used to issue a > digital signature much like written signatures are used now. Unlike its > counterpart in the U.S., these identity accounts can be revoked and reissued > easily through an established national protocol.

I believe most Americans are opposed to a national ID, so SSNs have been used as a (utterly terrible) workaround. Some reasoning for this, to quote an ACLU article on the subject[0], 'Former Senator Alan Cranston has described the national I.D. card as "a primary tool of totalitarian governments to restrict the freedom of their citizens." '

The Brazil solution mentioned seems pretty reasonable though. I like the built in expiration and ease of reissue. Anyone have experience with or thoughts about this sort of system?

[0] [https://www.aclu.org/other/national-identification-cards- why...](https://www.aclu.org/other/national-identification-cards-why-does- aclu-oppose-national-id-system)

<comment><USER13> > Former Senator Alan Cranston has described the national I.D. card as "a > primary tool of totalitarian governments to restrict the freedom of their > citizens."

Ugh. National IDs are common in Europe as well as other places where identity theft is mostly an exotic concept featured in the news about America. It's hard to call Belgium a totalitarian regime.

Whereas in countries without national IDs, people are forced to provide personal details to scores of vendors big and small who use these details for their purposes and may lose them to online criminals. But hey, we are protected against a hypothetical tyranny.

<comment><USER14> Isn't it legally required that you carry your ID at all times unless you are within 200 meters of your home? That would horrify most Americans. I know it is not in reality, but it sounds totalitarian.

<comment><USER15> > _Isn 't it legally required that you carry your ID at all times unless you > are within 200 meters of your home?_

In Germany there is no such requirement, even though many Germans also think that you have to carry it with you. But the _Ausweispflicht_ (Obligation of identification) only means that you have to own an ID, but you can leave it home most of the time (which I do).

<comment><USER16> When I lived in Germany I by mistake didn't check into a tram once and was discovered by a ticket inspector. Long story short since I didn't have ID on me I ended up getting escorted by two police officers back to my house to show them my passport.

So yes, you don't have to carry ID on you in Germany, but only in the most pedantic sense. You'll just get a free police escort back to where you keep your ID in case you need to identify yourself. That hardly qualifies as not needing to carry ID when going about your business in the sense that Americans would be familiar with.

<comment><USER17> But could they have forced you to identify yourself if you hadn't broken some rule? I get it was a mistake (which I've made in the past as well), but still, the US police will probably want to identify you as well if they have reason to fine you.

<comment><USER18> In most US states, the police can't force you to provide a physical identification card period. At most, they may be able to compel you to verbally identify yourself, e.g. by providing your name and address.

The idea of being legally required to provide government-issued identification to a law enforcement official _under any circumstances_ is simply verboten in the US.

<comment><USER19> >The idea of being legally required to provide government-issued identification to a law enforcement official under any circumstances is simply verboten in the US.

As long as you're not within 100 miles of the border inside the "limited civil rights zone". [1]

Personal experience is that border patrol officers feel no need for "probable cause" before pulling you over and searching your vehicle.

[1] [https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border- zone](https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The problem is if social security number is used not only for identification but authentication. Knowing someone's SSN shouldn't ever get you anything: SSN could as well be public information, ideally. I don't know about the US but where I live, bank account numbers are effectively public: you could publish yours on the internet and all people could do is put money on your account. The bank will then require official authentication if you wish to use the account number to withdraw money.

Using an unique identification number for authentication is authentication by proxy. Yes, it's highly likely that only the right person knows his own number but never guarantees anything.

Make authentication easy and solid and the bar for frauding through stolen identity goes up.

<comment><USER21> What we really need are private keys, stored in hardware, like secure enclave. Whenever someone wants a proof of your identity, they ask you to sign a certain message with a timestamp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Multiple times throughout the hearing, Brazil's Infraestrutura de Chaves > Públicas system of citizen IDs through digital certificates came up as a > potential model for the U.S. as it moves forward.

That made it sound as if every Brazilian had one of these, and it were the main citizen ID. That's not the case.

Here in Brazil, the main ID is the RG (Registro Geral), which is an identity card made of paper, issued by any of the 26 states (plus the Federal District). Since it's issued by the states, a single person can have more than one RG.

We also have the equivalent of USA's SSN, here called the CPF. Like the SSN, it's used as the person's tax ID, and is a national number. It's also issued as a card made of paper, but unlike the RG, it cannot be used for identification, since it has no picture or fingerprint. For simplicity, if you already have a CPF number when your RG is issued (or re-issued), you can have the CPF number printed on the RG card.

It's with the CPF that the "Infraestrutura de Chaves Públicas" (ICP) comes into view: you can get a certificate associated with your CPF, and use it for instance to sign your taxes. But it's not required, and most people don't have that certificate, or even know that it exists.

In my opinion, the reason we don't have the same problem as the USA is not some fancy digital certificate stuff, but the simple fact that the CPF number by itself does nothing: everybody also wants to see the RG card. And for income taxes, the electronic form also requires a number found in the previous year's income tax receipt. The income tax return will be deposited into a bank account of your choice, but AFAIK it only accepts a bank account where the account owner has the same CPF, and to open a bank account you need the RG (plus other documents).

</comment><comment><USER23> What I want is control. I want to know who is accessing my credit history and for what purpose. And I want control of what accounts and business are able to access it.

The government can accomplish this by providing your identify in a way that provides this control and transparently, and requiring that businesses/third- parties come through this gateway for identification.

</comment><comment><USER23> Recently my grandmother passed away. We found her social security card (from 1932) and it says very clearly "NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION". It seems some lessons are lost.

<comment><USER24> That refers to the card, not the number.

For some discussion of the history of this, see this old Straight Dope column: [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/141/why-does-my- old...](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/141/why-does-my-old-social- security-card-say-it-cant-be-used-as-id)

PS: did you typo the year? Social security numbers were first assigned in 1935, and social security cards were first issued in 1936.

<comment><USER23> Yeah it's a typo. She was in 1932 but her card came after.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How many million lines of mainframe COBOL would need to be updated if the SSN were to go away?

<comment> FLUX-YOU A lot less when they take the lazy route and autofill 000-000-0000 and just remove any validation in the languages that are cheaper to hire for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> To me, a good solution would be a chip-based smart card with a private key on it for physical proof of identity, and an oauth api for web based stuff. The api would also power the back-end of the in person transactions and issue the vendor a token which they would use from that point forward.

In this system, everything would be logged in terms of who/what accessed your data and it could be de-authorized at any point.

The cards themselves could just be each state's ID/Drivers License to avoid the scare of the national id that many are opposed to for one reason or another. Replacing an ID would be as easy as visiting your DMV (shudder) and them invalidating your old private key.

<comment><USER27> You would rather the government store 300 million identifiers instead of Equifax?

There are crypto solutions to this problem, but they're not as simple as symmetric encryption and smart cards. An ideal system will also enforce rules for storage and access. Something like your data is always encrypted with your own private key, and you can authorize bits of the data at a time to third parties.

<comment><USER26> No, the government wouldn't store anything other than the basic identity (which they already do) and issue verification tokens. The accessor would store their proprietary info as well as the access token to person's private info on the govt api.

Full blown crypto solutions to this don't really scale well and present many problems where the accessor would need to keep asking you for info to see if it changed.

My solution solves the main problem of having a universal number that can get your identity stolen. If we can fix that we have solved 90% of the problem and can work on other things like privacy of said data at a later date.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> On a related note: have many in the US swicthed to locked mailboxes?

Without locked mailboxes, you can't even use the slow address/snail-mail 2FA that should be used for certain transactions when you don't have

E.g. if I want to take a loan, I'd say who I am and the bank would send the papers to sign to my mail address. Only after I sign the papers will I get the money. Someone pretending to be me would have to stalk my mail box (time consuming and hard because it's locked), or first change identity records to associate my name with his mail address. This greatly increases the difficulty of this kind of fraud. From just needing a fake ID, to either having to commit a long stalk of my mailbox and commit physical mail theft OR having to do a multiple phase fraud where authority address records are first changed.

Obviously this all hinges on a) id required to open bank account, b) central registry that maps id to mail address, separate from the bank.

</comment><comment><USER29> I worry that they'll figure out that the easiest way to ditch social security numbers is to ditch social security.

</comment><comment><USER30> It is quite straightforward to upgrade SSN system. Social Security Administration can generate deterministic Private+Public key pairs for all citizens.

Public key is your new SSN. If it gets stolen, simply generate a new public key, and give it out as a new number. All public keys are easily verified since SSA knows the private keys.

<comment><USER31> Just don't make me memorize a 4096 bit key :)

<comment><USER32> Why do you even need to memorize something like this? In any other country you do not memorize your tax ID... You just look it up when you need it.

<comment><USER31> It's pretty normal to memorize your 9 digit social security number, in the same way you know your phone number. Because the SSN card is a fundamental piece of identity theft, it's common practice to NOT carry the number in your wallet. You never know when you'll need the number, and very rarely need the actual card. I don't think I've ever used my physical SSN card in the last 5 years, but I need to provide the number itself quite often, especially on financial, employment, and government documents.

We still use paper checks, too. Good times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> SSN is FINE as a simple identifier. The problem is that organizations try to use it like a PIN code or password. It should NEVER be used as proof of identity per transaction requests. Software Engineering 101: Use the right tool for the job. If an org needs a PIN code or password, make one.

</comment><comment><USER34> My first inclinations are that Apple and Google should be in these committee meetings. 77% of Americans own smartphones [1]. 99.6% of new smartphones run Android or iOS [2]. I would love for my iPhone to generate a private/public key pair, with the private key stored on the Secure Enclave.

To register my public key, I fill out, on my phone, a bit of basic public information: full legal name, place & date of birth, and my current address and submit it. My phone suggests a nearby SSA office and proposes several appointment times, reminding me the day of.

At the appointed time, I take my phone, passport, birth certificate, SSN card, driver's license and recent electric bill with my address on it to the local SSA office. [3] There, the administration manually inspects and verifies my documentation. Their systems then sign the authentication along with the current location, the time, the official's ID number, and a sha256 hash of a photo of me and the official holding up today's paper.

My phone chirps, I use my passcode/Touch ID/Face ID/Dance ID to digitally counter-sign their authentication. This assures me that when the SSA's private keys are rotated because of inevitable compromise or on a routine schedule, my public key was not overwritten by the attackers.

The SSA administration publishes my public key in their online directory. Private companies can download the public key directories and cache them, or pay Stripe-like vendors for just-in-time lookups. When I want to apply for a credit card, my phone chirps and I sign the credit request, just like Apple Pay. When I lose my phone, I run by the SSA office again before I apply for another credit card.

Empowered by this new security layer, Congress passes a law establishing that no one can be held liable for—and credit decisions may not be made against—accounts that have not been digitally signed for any citizen who has a verified public key.

And then I remember healthcare.gov and I wonder if I should even press submit.

[1] [http://www.pewinternet.org/fact- sheet/mobile/](http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/)

[2] [https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios- mark...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share- blackberry-2016)

[3] I wouldn't necessarily need to have all of these kinds of documentation, but the public directory system would be able to indicate which forms of identification I did have at time of authentication, for third parties to weigh the risk of identity theft.

<comment><USER35> > At the appointed time, I take my phone, passport, birth certificate, SSN > card, driver's license and recent electric bill with my address on it to the > local SSA office.

Say I'm homeless and I literally do not have any of those things. How do I prove my identity? (To be fair, I'm not sure how I'd prove my identity under the _current_ system.)

Regardless of this... I can't have a credit card or any kind of loan without owning a smartphone? What if I can only afford a feature phone? What if I simply don't want to own a phone? What if own a Windows Phone, and the software only runs on Android and iOS? What if I'm a developer who wants to start a new phone OS (new huge barrier to entry)?

I suppose I wouldn't be opposed to the _option_ of having this stored on my phone, but what's wrong with just having a smart card with this information on it? If I lose it, it can still be easily revoked and replaced.

<comment><USER34> In retrospect, I'm not sure I was clear enough that my proposal was mostly a usability / familiarity hack for the general public. I agree this would only be an option.

Specifically, if I'm not in a financial position to own and maintain a smartphone, OR I'm not inclined to trust Apple or Google with my identity, I could acquire a (heavily subsidized?) smart card from the SSA office.

If I don't trust a national office with my identity (see the National ID debacle), I can choose not to use the system entirely. Banks can continue to offer to extend me credit by verifying my identity manually. Specifically, I wrote:

> no one can be held liable for—and credit decisions may not be made > against—accounts that have not been digitally signed for any citizen //who > has a verified public key.//

My idea being that if Bank of America sends me to collections or pursues a judgement against me, I can take them to small claims for the statutory limit by easily showing the judge that (1) I had a verified public key at the date of the debt and (2) Bank of America cannot provide my digital signature showing I accepted the debt. I'm in and out in a few hours and clear $5K.

If the proposal above had even 20% rollout/adoption, that's 65 million people who can sleep a bit more soundly at night knowing their identity is–not perfectly secure—but FAR more secure than our current system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Obviously it is a problem that social security numbers are often accepted as proof of identity, but the article seems to be saying that permanent id numbers are bad even apart from this. I don't understand what the argument is though

</comment><comment><USER37> The problem isn't that we have numbers. It's that corporations have little incentive to protect them.

Right now it's cheaper (i.e. more profitable) to do as little as possible and when/if they get hacked just pay extra on PR/lobbying for a couple weeks/month until someone else gets the public's attention.

Enact Huge (like $1000 per person exposed) fines, corporate death penalty, jail time for people in charge. And, I can guarantee you, companies will start actually protecting their data.

<comment><USER38> Senator Baldwin got Equifax to admit this in the hearing (around the 1:23:00 mark):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LunazYJGNXU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LunazYJGNXU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> How does it work in countries where the opposite is true (e.g. Sweden, where the "personnummer" is public info)? Why is there not massive identity fraud there?

<comment><USER40> For everything where identity is important there is liberal use of an ID card of decent quality, one with several counterfeiting features. Any drivers license also doubles as one. Online an electronic signature of some kind is used, exactly which varies a bit, but the one called BankID is accepted in most places.

Long rambling post ahead, I'm really, really terrible at writing something mostly coherent on the phone, apologies to everyone, but the above paragraph really is the only important part of this comment :)

For bigger financial transactions, if your counterpart is a company they will often do a credit check, which the credit checking provider is then by law required to inform you about through regular mail.

Sensitive online services from government and other companies mostly use some version of an electronic ID, the most common is generally known as BankID, despite of its name it's simply an embodiment of an electronic ID. BankID got its name because it is provided by Bankgirot, a clearinghouse company with a long history in which most of the major Swedish banks have some ownership. Another implementation is provided by Telia AB, a formerly state owned telecommunications provider.

It's not a bulletproof system by any means, but for the most part it appears to work.

However, I'm not too enthusiastic about the eagerness to adopt "BankID on your mobile phone". It feels like it's only a matter of when, rather than if, someone will manage to exploit it through som security flaw in some of the popular smart phones. Which will inconvenience a lot of people until banks - most likely - simpy roll back the transactions, as is in the digital realm it's hard to disappear money when literally everyone gets assigned an ID.

Tangentially, the most common way used to create legitimate companies for illegal activities AFAIK, at least used to be to pay of some substance abuser or petty thief to use their identity, and simply have them take the fall when/if things go south. So apparently, creating fake identities would appear to be rather hard.

Because the ubiquity of the personal number, and the liberal use of good quality ID cards. This number connected through tax, loans, land ownership, insurance etc, makes it somewhat hard to make money leave the digital world without trace. It would also be terrible in the hands of a competent totalitarian regime or fundamentalist (of any sort) government. Sometimes I think we subconsciously avoid that by voting for mostly uncharismatic leaders with little appeal except for them promising a little bit more money in your wallet, better social security, healthcare, child care, or school. In all cases better can be read as more available, efficient, and ecological from the left - and higher fees, stricter requirements, and lower availability from the right. But I digress.

There have been some areas of law/contract where identity theft was easier, notably land ownership/property laws. IIRC in the property laws it was essentially stated that a signature on paper with two witnesses signatures was indirectly used as proof of identity. Unsurprisingly, this led to some people getting their homes sold by third parties, and having to face a rather arduous legal procedure to get back to square one.

Yeah, that one was rather monumentally stupid, but it wasn't really caused by the personnummer being public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Keybase.io has this problem solved in a way creditors, etc. could make good use of. Let the proofs be user/use driven.

<comment><USER42> no, we don't need a proprietary, centralized service for this.

<comment><USER43> Proprietary, no. Centralized? Yes, please.

Blockchains are great and all, but if you lose your private key you should not be barred from ever opening another bank account or getting insurance.

The SSA should switch to using asymmetric crypto keys and publish a web service that lets companies grab your public key based on a set of information (name, DOB, etc). Then that public key can be used to verify things signed by the private key.

In the case of a lost/compromised private key, the SSA can generate a new keypair, assuming the person can verify their identity.

<comment><USER42> If we go the centralized route, we're just creating another Equifax (walled garden). That has always worked out great in the past, right?

<comment><USER44> It depends on the scope.

You already have 50+ walled gardens, also known as the "Bureau of Vital Statistics".

Any identity document you have in the US is either linked to a birth certificate in one of those registries, or with an immigration record maintained by the Federal government.

<comment><USER42> > You already have 50+ walled gardens, also known as the "Bureau of Vital > Statistics".

This seems like the bandwagon fallacy. That's no reason to continue the insanity of promoting walled gardens as a solution.

<comment><USER44> Your birth is when you become a human and your identity is created.

What would be a more ultimate root of trust than the memorial of your birth, held securely by a trusted authority?

<comment><USER42> Birth certificates are pieces of paper that literally anything identifying as a hospital can create 'offically'. It would be trivial to create a forged certificate, there are a ton of dark net sites offering them for sale. If the US $1 bill were this easy to create (it's not), it would be worth pretty much nothing.

<comment><USER22> > Birth certificates are pieces of paper that literally anything identifying > as a hospital can create 'officially'.

I don't know how it works in European countries, but here in Brazil, birth certificates are made by notaries, not hospitals. You might be able to get forged hospital documents to take to the notary, but getting a "backdated" birth certificate for an adult is harder (getting a second copy of your birth certificate is easy, however; just go to the same notary, who has every birth certificate it emitted registered on its books).

<comment><USER44> The US has something like 7-10k issuing agencies.

In some places, it is trivial to request somebody's birth certificate. It's one of those weird US things where localities control stuff that they lack the ability to do well.

Regardless of issues, it's still the penultimate representation of you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Isn't it obvious that this scandal was either provoked or amplified in order to make Americans get themselves mandatory government IDs with chips and biometrics?

...not that that would be a bad thing. Just getting in line with EU and the rest of the world, finally. Mass monitoring would at least become _a few order of magnitudes cheaper_ hopefully spending those funds on more socially useful things. Offer a chip-less option for more privacy paranoid people, so that at least they can't be tracked remotely when they don't carry their phones (yeah, some countries have this option system). And it's all nice and dandy.

As an European, I find it mind boggling when I see people without adequately secured and mandatory IDs in the US...

</comment><comment><USER46> I think one more thing that needs to be understood is how can one dynamically establish identity. I have never built a cryptographic system, but I thought maybe the following could be better:

Lets say Alice is a person wanting to establish Bob's identity. 1\. Bob must be the only person who retains control over his identity. 2\. Bob can verify he is who he says by a distributed system and Alice gets only a Yes/No answer. 3\. All verification can be done using a distributed fashion, something like bitcoin/blockchain.

The most important thing here would be an implementation of the distributed nodes and how bob's information is authenticated. But I think all these parts already exist. Political and Business will is needed.

</comment><comment><USER47> Is there a reason why we couldn't use state IDs for this purpose? We would just have to converge on a standard design, data structure, and set of APIs for access. It would also allow us to issue new ones easily in the event of a problem.

<comment><USER48> It exists already: [https://www.dhs.gov/real-id](https://www.dhs.gov/real-id)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'd be all for user-friendly GPG keys or public/private key pairs for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER50> Great that they're finally attempting to do _something_. But I get a little annoyed that congress always seems to act fast when its something that might actually affect _them_. Otherwise its back to partisan do-nothing.

</comment><comment><USER51> God if this comes to fruition I will be so happy. The social security number is a horrible way to prove who I am.

I attended a small private college and they literally printed it on everything, it was our student ID.

</comment><comment><USER52> >Today, the Senate Commerce Committee questioned former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Verizon chief privacy officer Karen Zacharia and both the current and former CEOs of Equifax on how to protect consumers against major data breaches.

That has got to be some kind of joke.

Why would they ask the former leaders of two companies (Yahoo and Equifax) who have experienced perhaps the largest data breaches of all time... "how to protect consumers against major data breaches?"

That is ridiculous.

They should have asked the current head of security from each company instead.

</comment><comment><USER53> In Sweden we have a national id number given at birth which can be Luhn checked just like a credit card, and we use a digital id bound to a device with an pin number. We use them both in conjunction for online banking, filing taxes and all kinds of things and we have a dramatically lower rate of identity theft than the US.

The national id has been here for a long, long time and the digital id has been here for more than 10 years.

<comment><USER54> Many Americans are just really afraid of anything being controlled by the government. It's why they keep doing stuff that us Europeans don't understand, like not having strict gun control, not having affordable health care, not having acceptable social security, etcetera. Americans tend to hate government more than they love themselves and others.

Having lived in the US it really bothers me, since there are so many great, caring people there that I don't understand why they keep doing what they do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The timing on this is interesting given our current political climate and the power the "frightful five" quietly wield and the amount of data they compile about us. I'm all for a better ID system, but I'm extremely concerned that a public/private partnership would lead to someone like facebook, google, microsoft, apple or amazon issuing said ID or being able to get anywhere near it.

</comment><comment><USER56> I've suggested this before here, but the card companies need to give other companies like Equifax reference numbers to store that uniquely identify the card to the credit card company (or others) but don't give the credit card number and don't get anybody closer to charging anything on the card.

</comment><comment><USER57> Also important that whatever happens, they make it easier for people to revoke their id and get a new one.

</comment><comment><USER58> I think more power needs to be given to the person whose identity is stolen. Similar to how the chip and pin system was rolled out: If a fraud is committed, the entity with the least secure method of transaction pays. That pushed retailers to upgrade their systems.

</comment><comment><USER59> It would be easy to introduce a pin protected chip card and use 2FA all the time for everything. But in the US even credit cards do not have chip and if they do it does not have a pin. The rest of the world using these security measures for almost a decade.

<comment><USER60> Good luck getting Grandma to understand that

<comment><USER59> Should we organize the world around what grandma understands?

How many grandmas are out there vs how many people who understand at the very least pin codes?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> SSNs are fine identifiers (user names.)

The problem is that people try to treat them like authenticators (passwords.)

Using SSNs as identifiers everywhere would reduce lots of mistakes and bugs.

Having a national ID system and modern ID documents/verification would reduce fraud.

These would go very well together!

</comment><comment><USER62> The Brazil idea sounds really cool to me. You can revoke identies if need be and they are more protected since they rely upon a public/private key system. Therefore, you can verify your identity without giving another party your secret info.

</comment><comment><USER63> Instead of creating security systems around sensitive data, make data useless to thieves.

</comment><comment><USER64> > "The parade of high-profile data breaches seems to have no end," said > ranking committee member Bill Nelson. "We can either take action with common > sense rules or we can start planning for our next hearing on the issue."

So true.

</comment><comment><USER65> How about fingerprinting and other biometrics as a replacement? This would be a solid solution, easy to implement and could be integrated with already existing storage systems?

<comment><USER66> Biometrics are not replaceable when they are stolen.

<comment><USER67> Furthermore, they may not be unique.[1] We are also very far off from being able to trust the technologies that read biometrics, especially for the incompetents that the government usually contracts. I can't find the source, but there was a post/comment on HN linking to a bio engineering lab where they found that _any_ fingerprint was being accepted. Your cell phone is likely light years ahead of anything a government contractor would put in place.

[1]: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/14/why-your- finge...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/14/why-your-fingerprints- may-not-be-unique/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Would be nice US gets something backed by crypto

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiigrih%C3%BCpe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiigrih%C3%BCpe)

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/10/15/replaci...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/10/15/replacing- us-social-security-numbers-with-estonias-cryptographic-model/#5b15dc9b2aab)

<comment><USER69> Unless of course the algorithm that powers the crypto is discovered to be flawed and predictable.

<comment><USER70> The current algorithm is demonstrably the worst. ROT13 would be stronger.

<comment><USER71> ROT13 is too weak, use ROT26 it's twice as strong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Why were businesses ever allowed to use SSNs in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER73> Long time overdue.

</comment><comment><USER74> So regardless of the possibility that somebody gets simply part of your number, it can be anything but difficult to make sense of the rest. Analysts in 2009 composed a calculation that could foresee a Social Security number effectively 44 percent of the time in the United States.

</comment><comment><USER75> What's Yahoo doing there? Why is she still employed by anyone? LOL...</comment>


NIH Director discusses new report on heritable human genome editing - <AUTHOR> https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/09/17/experts-conclude-heritable-human-genome-editing-not-ready-for-clinical-applications/ <comment><USER2> > Among the concerns expressed by many of us was that if heritable genome > editing were allowed to proceed without careful deliberation, the enormous > potential of non-heritable genome editing for prevention and treatment of > disease could become overshadowed by justifiable public outrage, fear, and > disgust.

This style of writing where you pretend to share the concerns of the public, while primarily looking for ways to evade that concern, really irks me. Over which type of editing would the public be outraged, in their scenario -- heritable or non-heritable? If the justifiable outrage is over heritable editing, then why assume that would obstruct work on non-heritable editing? Do they not think that people outside their circle are able to understand the difference? Or is there a risk of one leading to the other? If the justifiable outrage is over non-heritable editing, then how can it have enormous potential? Is it right to describe procedures which you agree are disgusting and outrageous as having potential? Potential to do what? Treat people against their will? This whole paragraph comes off as insincere and tone deaf.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you store/recall professional contacts - <AUTHOR>

Every now and then, and more often recently, I offer to help someone out. Generally it's a little thing but the recipient is appreciative and often says in one way or another, "if I can repay the favor let me know." Or maybe I met someone with a mutual interest but there was nothing specific (or active) enough to keep in close touch at the time.
As the months go by something will come across my path where I would like to reconnect with someone, but I often can't recall the person's name, their site or exactly how we left off our last communication. I end up sifting through my email to piece the memory back together, but I get a lot of email so that task is arduous and occasionally fruitless.
So I'm asking what people use to manage their professional contacts. I know applications like Salesforce are built for this kind of relationship management, but that seems like over-kill. Could be it as simple as notes in the contact list of your email client? If someone could enlighten me on the application and methodology they use that would be very helpful. <comment><USER2> I use plaxo.com because it is free and will merge your contacts from Outlook, Gmail, and others automatically. I use the notes section to record when I last contacted the person, some stuff about their interests, etc.

The problem with this method is there is no built in way to remind me to make contact with someone who I have lost touch with. Also, the notes section is not searchable-- kind of annoying.

I recently heard of contactually.com that provides a notification system for reaching out to old contacts. I have not tried it yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions. Plaxo looks like it might do the trick. Contactually looks like a perfect fit, but at $15/month I'll try the free service first. Since this won't be used for business but rather my personal contacts $15/month seems steep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Google Docs or Excel with name of person, email, and a keyword or 2 on their relationship. it's not rocket science</comment>


Apple iPad. Are you underwhelmed? - <AUTHOR>

Apple iPad. Are you underwhelmed? <comment><USER2> It's .6mHz slower than my Dell Mini 9 that's running Snow Leopard, which I take everywhere with me. The mini has a real VGA out port, SD card slot, three powered USB ports, and I can use any OSX application on it. This...can use iPhone apps.

I don't want one. TOTALLY underwhelmed.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am not impressed.

I was really hoping that Apple would come up with a compelling _need_ for the tablet, but the demos they showed were, in my opinion, unimaginative. Tablets have been around forever as solutions looking for a problem; the iPad does not rectify that situation.

The iPhone has been successful to a great extent because, well, people need cell phones anyway, so why not get a cool one? People don't need a tablet computer. People aren't looking to replace their existing tablet computers.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope that somebody figures out a really good reason for having a tablet computer. But I've owned a tablet in the past (Motion M1400), and I don't see it happening.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not at all. I'm glad the iPad inherited it's core user-experience philosophy from the iPhone and iTouch - Apple has positioned the iPad as a device suited not just for entertainment but as a tool to G.S.D; a tool that is actually FUN to use.

I'm personally very excited about the potential for applications that really take advantage of touch and gesture to make more mundane tasks not only bearable but enjoyable.

That said...yeah it's a giant iPod Touch.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to see a list of actual specs and interfaces before saying if I'm underwhelmed or not.

A giant iphone does not seem to be most that can be gotten out of this formfactor, a device that runs the regular OS would have possibly had a customer more (me).

Does anybody have a list of confirmed specs ?

</comment><comment><USER6> Nope!

I think for what it can do and the price points, its a really well thought out device. I had a dell mini 9 maxed out (2GB/64GB SSD) with 10.5 to supplement a portable mac and i sold it in less than 2 weeks! It was too cluncky, crappy keyboard (even with the upgraded int'l one), tiny trackpad... it couldnt stream netflix.

This device on the other hand will be an ebook reader. Better than the kindle or the nook. I think its similar to many of the android based tablets that were announced at CES.

Portable surfer, already has iphone app support. Can give presentations with a vga out too? I think its pretty spot on. Congrats to apple for yet another well thought out gadget. And no, im not an apple fanboy but I do appreciate a well thought out product.

</comment><comment><USER7> from the makers of the iphone and itouch, we proudly present to you the revolutionary new "giant itouch"

</comment><comment><USER2> A backlit LCD ebook reader? I guess you enjoy headaches.

</comment><comment><USER8> At this point mostly curious, not about the device that part is underwhelming but the new processor is mildly interesting.

</comment><comment><USER2> What emotions? Let's see. No camera. AT&T craptastic 3G for another $130 and $30 a month. (My OSX Dell Mini is paired with my Sprint blackberry for wireless at no extra charge!)..and iPhone OS. As I said, this is NOT a tablet Mac. I can't run Office on it. I can't run Adobe stuff on it. It's a big iPod Touch. Underwhelmed.

</comment><comment><USER9> Personally I am. With all the hype, I thought the heavens would have opened and a new wave of revolutionary and disruptive technology would have rained down on us. IMHO it's just re-packaging of existing technology.

</comment><comment><USER10> Actually, I ain't. Apple does an excellent job, as always: Everyone is overflowing with emotions by now.

"What emotions" is, obviously, a different story.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> iBooks, apparently a more expensive version of Amazon's kindle store: Ted Kennedy iBook was listed at 14.99 while the kindle version is 9.99

</comment><comment><USER11> I might be underwhelmed, but I am looking forward to being able to read newspapers and magazines comfortably on a mobile device.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Brushes, also known as MS Paint for iTouch

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm actually mildly impressed. It's just too expensive for me to justify right now, and I have a Droid.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not sure why would anyone want the 499 model...too bare bone to be useful.</comment>


LLVM and LLVM Bitcode Introduction (2013) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://pllab.cs.nthu.edu.tw/cs340402/lectures/lectures_2013/LLVM%20Bitcode%20Introduction.pdf

<comment><USER2> Interesting that Microsoft on its end has invested lots of years into its own compiler infrastructure, Phoenix, but AFAIK it has never reached the maturity of Visual C++ and has been abandoned circa 2007.

[http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/collaboration/focus/cs/p...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/collaboration/focus/cs/phoenix.aspx)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you come up with a name for a product? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious what you guys do when you come up for a name with a new product. I recently made some new tools to help me with server management and maintenance, but can't come up with anything I like other than ServerTools. <comment><USER2> Several thoughts: \- Just add your company name ahead of 'Server Tools' as the formal name (ie "SCL Server Tools") \- Take a key attribute/benefit and do a play off your company theme (ie Monitor + Scenic City >> CityScape >> "ServScape","ServerScape") \- What is unique about your tools when compared to what is available? Do a play on that unique differentiator.

</comment><comment><USER3> When naming I always consider the product benefits not features. So ServerTools is just a bit too literal. Think about what your tools afford you to do. Save time, be more organised, respond to alerts quickly.

Have a play around in Google keyword tool and find all the popular random phrases that people use when they are searching for the solutions that your product provides!

</comment><comment><USER4> Some might disagree with me on this, but I believe a name should convey what a product does. By hearing your product name, with no background information, I should be able to have a general idea of what your product does or at least what it is used for.

</comment><comment><USER5> I usually run a random name generator at domainhole.com and pick a few that sound nice to my ear (and that are free). then i try to reference my product by that name for a few days and see if it sticks.

</comment><comment><USER6> Random questions

\- what exactly does it do? \- who's your biggest competitor? \- what's the target market/country? \- do you want a matching domain name?

Maybe we could hash a name out here :)

</comment><comment><USER7> I usually go with a simple metaphor so I have more to lean on for the design and theme of the product.

</comment><comment><USER8> ServerZuru.com</comment>


How Juicero's Story Set the Company Up for Humiliation - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/juicero-lessons/523896/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I found that bullet boint list of Juicero's supposed added value the most amazing part of it all:

* - The first closed loop food safety system that allows us to remotely disable Produce Packs if there is, for example, a spinach recall. [...]

\- Consistent pressing of our Produce Packs calibrated by flavor to deliver the best combination of taste and nutrition every time.

\- Connected data so we can manage a very tight supply chain [...]*

So according to the CEO(!) the added value for end-users(!) is 1) DRM, 2) bullshit and 3) tracking.

My hunch is that this mindset would explain a lot of the more baffling IoT devices out there - but I haven't seen it stated so openly before.

<comment><USER3> No 2 might be something like; the Press doesn't over-extract juice by pressing with _exactly_ with the right amount of pressure, ala espresso machines.

However, I doubt this is actually true - I've not heard of pressed juice over- extraction before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In 2004, the Coca Cola Company tried to launch "Dasani", in the UK. Dasani is tap water run through a de-ionizing plant, after which flavoring is added. They were laughed out of the business.[1] Not only did Coca Cola not try again, they gave up on launching in France and Germany. Now that was a humiliation.

An even worse failure was Odwalla's "Killer Juice". Odwalla made a big deal about their juice being "natural" and not pasteurized. Then they had a contamination problem. One person died, 66 sick, sales down 90% afterwards. The company was eventually acquired by the Minute Maid unit of Coca Cola. All product is now pasteurized.

[1] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3809539.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3809539.stm)

<comment><USER5> The advertising for Dasani also proudly proclaimed that it was "full of spunk", which has a very different meaning in the UK to the US.

<comment><USER3> There's a certain controversially-named energy drink brand that could adopt that line :-)

<comment><USER6> Are you referring to the British made energy drink .... "pussy" ?

<comment><USER3> Yes, or it's asterix-ed reincarnations.

<comment><USER6> LOL I've yet to get my hands on this. The energy drink I mean... I feel like you could sell the empty cans to some countries as souvenirs.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely can

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is perhaps a great example that proves that not all publicity is good publicity.

While they flew under the radar, they weren't widely mocked, and they might even have succeeded in building a following. After all, on face value, K-cups are similarly ridiculous, where a pricey appliance is used to make a single serving of product from an even pricier single-use packet, complete with DRM where they were locking out unofficial cups.

And yet, Keurig has sold a lot of their brewers and officially-licensed cups, and it turns out the single-serving model was an advantage rather than a drawback.

It's undeniable that Juicero's own promoters can lay on the spiritual-tinged marketing drivel thick, and they were swiftly slaughtered in the court of public opinion with one slickly-produced viral video. Perhaps the lesson is, even if your model is pure BS, don't do something that could be mocked in three minutes, and used to entertain at your expense.

<comment><USER8> A Keurig/Nespresso at least does some sort of brewing, which is arguably more convenient than doing it yourself (though I don't own one myself).

Juicero was just a slower, less convenient, and more expensive way to open a juice bottle.

<comment><USER9> I've heard it said by coffee enthusiasts (at least, those prepared to consider Nespresso for thirty seconds) that Nespresso/Keurig are one of the best ways to make coffee at home if you don't want it to be a hobby.

<comment><USER10> Oh no, I strongly doubt any coffee enthusiast would say such a thing. Nespresso is simply not good coffee. It is just terribly convenient, well marketed as being great, and OK if you don't know any better.

Once you had better coffee (e.g. any Jura machine can make better coffee), you somehow don't want that stuff anymore... It is like junk food. You might be OK with it, but it is simply not enjoyable.

And it is simply _idiotic_ generating that much trash each time for a fake- crema coffee.

<comment><USER3> > Once you had better coffee, you somehow don't want that stuff anymore

Unless you don't have the time to grind, tamp, extract etc every morning for a single cup, compared to the Nespresso which is good enough (or, at least better than instant).

I have a proper Gaggia machine with heated head etc, but I don't care to fire it up every morning - a Nespresso machine can pour while I do something else, so takes less than a minute overall.

> generating that much trash

Other than the grounds, there is just the pod, which is aluminium and recyclable - in fact, you get credit for returning them.

<comment><USER10> > there is just the pod, which is aluminium and recyclable - in fact, you get > credit for returning them.

Which doesn't change much: recycling aluminium requires a lot of energy. The pods are filled with grounds, so you need to wash them. Coffee grounds are degradable and can be even used immediately without composting. The added weight of packaging aggregates. A lot of people don't care about returning them. We don't know if Nespresso recycles them or all of them.

Further, the price your paying per cup is an insult. You are getting mediocre coffee while paying hipster levels.

Besides pure laziness and indifference regarding the good things in life, I don't see any reason why drinking Nespresso by choice is ever a good idea.

<comment><USER3> You can cut out the grounds and let them dry as usual, but I get your point on the aluminium - recycling alu is only eco compared to making new alu - it's still energy intensive compared to not using any capsule at all.

> the price your paying per cup is an insult

What do you pay?

Besides, the _true_ innovation here is the standardisation of pod coffee, not Nespressos specific supply chain.

> Besides pure laziness and indifference regarding the good things in life

too binary. the difference isn't worth the time every morning. If you want to slander everyone that agrees with this value judgement as 'lazy', so be it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I lost this when I watched this 2 minute video on how to make juice:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i0UugILBJg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i0UugILBJg)

"Your Juicero needs to be connected to Wifi to make juice"

WTF?

<comment><USER12> The bags have DRM, and it's used to prevent you from _accidentally_ using bags after they've gone bad, or _accidentally_ using third-party bags.

<comment><USER13> If it's the same DRM as kenco can you just take off the QR code, tape it over the camera and then squeeze anything you want over wifi using your $400 wifi- enabled squeezing machine.

I guess that would only work during the sell-by period of the bag, but there's a chance their QR codes are forgeable.

<comment><USER12> That's why it needs internet: The QR code is a UUID queried via the API, returning the bag's info, best by date (after which the QR code will be disabled), and so on. Each bag can only be registered with one juicer at a time.

It's a surprisingly well-engineered DRM system for such a shittily engineered juicer.

In fact, the DRM system might be the only good part in this entire device, from an engineering perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They should have used the effects of artificial scarcity and marketed the pulp squeezer to offices, stores, airports, etc. There are plenty of YouTube vloggers that can stumble upon one of the squeezers at a store or an airport. Then they can sell it to consumers.

The best thing about this story is the Juicero's CEO saying that people that squeeze their pulp bags are hackers [1]

 _So when I saw this week's headlines about hacking and hand-squeezing Produce Packs, I had a one overriding thought: "We know hacking consumer products is nothing new. [...]"_

and then people mocking the juice hackers as jackers on Twitter [2].

[1] [https://medium.com/@Juicero/a-note-from-juiceros-new-ceo- cb2...](https://medium.com/@Juicero/a-note-from-juiceros-new-ceo-cb23a1462b03) [2] [https://twitter.com/XEECEEVEVO/status/855152667722526720](https://twitter.com/XEECEEVEVO/status/855152667722526720)

</comment><comment><USER15> Yes, it's all bogus marketing, but people mocking Juicero should be reminded that bottled water and luxury fashion goods of any kind are all multi-hundred billion dollar markets, not to mention any of the trillion (?) dollar commodity prepared foods segments. Many of these industries differentiate through intellectually-nonsensical lifestyle marketing.

<comment><USER16> Well at least with water, there are actually countries where drinking water straight from the tap may not be safe and bottled water is the norm. But the water is much cheaper than what you generally find. And you don't need to be connected to the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> from [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-20/juice- mac...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-20/juice-machines-and- red-flags) :

Of course Juicero could probably make a nice living selling $8 juice packs without bothering with a fancy machine. But then it wouldn't be a tech company. One investor told Huet and Zaleski that "their venture firm wouldn't have met with Evans if he were hawking bags of juice that didn't require high- priced hardware." You can be a hardware company or a software company or a platform company or a cloud company or an internet-of-things company, but you can't be a food company.

</comment><comment><USER18> It was a stupid, consumerist idea of a product. The investors deserve every penny lost on this one. In no way or fashion would this product further humanity. It only generates even more waste. Also, it's staple IoT madness with vendor-lock.

</comment><comment><USER19> Paywalled, web link does not work for me, site hijacks back button.

<comment><USER20> It just complains about Ad-blocker to me. Disabling it works.

<comment><USER6> Use Brave!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I know a couple of people that work at Juicero and unlike 99% of you I've actually tried the juices. To call it a scam is harsh. There are legitimate concerns with supply chain, what foods can be mixed together because of acidity and preservation, etc. I've tried a bunch of the juices, and I didn't like many of them but I could see how people who were into the green juice would find it appealing. The pomegranate was really delicious however but The yield was really low. I don't think that's one you could just squeeze with your hands. I think they should have done a blind taste test to see if the press actually had any value over hand squeezing because some of the ingredients would be harder to squeeze.

The price used to be higher for the press, I think it was $700-800 which I thought was ridiculous. I even made the point that they could replace the press with two books and someone standing on it. The wifi connectivity was dumb and you really have to be dumb to think that was useful. The drm and "checking" of the packets was a little more than an excuse to not squeeze anything more than their own packets.

But the juice itself is definitely something that is superior if you're into that juice. I heard a ton of celebrities love it, but you can't sustain a business with just celebrities. As with most things like this, I doubt they care as much about the press as the subscription to the juice packets. Personally I think they should embrace this and come up with a line of juice packets that are hand squeezable.

<comment><USER22> But they could have made a product which squeezes juice in precisely the same way but let you fill up with your own choice of chopped vegetables. They could have made a product which didn't have unnecessary WiFi connectivity and didn't only work with proprietary sealed packets that cost $5 for a glass of juice, when you can buy it ready made in bottles for the same price.

I'd think it was the printer ink model of revenue generation, but given that they're charging so much for the "Press" in the first place it becomes unacceptably offensive.

Plus you know all the wellness bloggers with enough money to advocate this kind of thing will at some point find an issue with the pre-packed selection, so if they want to court that market it's surely better to let them make their own mixtures, then they can put as much of this week's fashionable superfood berry in it as they want.

<comment><USER21> Lol $5 per glass? More like $10. But if you went to some of the juice bars it would cost $15. So the advantage would be having it in your own home with no mess.

Don't mistake me for a champion of this product. I think largely it's an unsustainable idea, but that doesn't mean the company is a scam. They are doing honest work there and they do believe that green juices are healthier for everyone. I think it's still too expensive and too specialized. They initially only wanted to do green juices which tasted like mud or grass to me. Only after they branched into fruits like pomegranate did I think the taste was better.

The difference with the packets are that you don't need to do it yourself, buy the ingredients every day, and make a mess. Also if you don't chop the veggies in a precise and consistent size, I'm sure you could damage the press.

The packets are completely fresh with no preservatives so it's not something that's easy to achieve on its own. There are issues with mixing different foods together and how fresh they last due to acidity etc so you can't just mix them together and expect them to last a week.

<comment><USER23> I'd like to do a pepsi challenge with a freshly squeezed juicero juice vs one that was pre-squeezed before packaging (i.e. the juicing machine is pointless)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Netflix's interactive shows arrive to put you in charge of the story - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/20/15834858/netflix-interactive-shows-puss-in-boots-buddy-thunderstruck <comment><USER2> This is neat. It's quite difficult to see this translating to adult shows, but it does seem to offer some promise for a future "remix" ecosystem on platforms like Netflix.

Imagine there was a kind of "choose your own adventure" feature that allowed people to select any scenes in any order from the entire Netflix Originals catalogue, including deleted scenes, extended scenes, alternates, and bloopers. People could edit their own programs and share them. Imagine people editing their own version of Stranger Things down to a two-hour movie, or perhaps changing the entire plot to more of a bizarre high-school romance. It could be interesting.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Techmeme's headline (too long to replace the original with): _Netflix tests interactive episodes for kids which allow different storylines to be chosen, available on select smart TVs, Roku, and iOS devices_</comment>


Messenger's Error(s): Chris Wilson's flawed rant about Drupal and whitehouse.gov - <AUTHOR> http://www.databasepublish.com/blog/messengers-errors-chris-wilsons-flawed-rant-about-drupal-and-whitehousegov

<comment><USER2> The Slate article struck me as a tongue-in-cheek dig at the Obama administration. For example:

"Drupal's defenders are eerily reminiscent of those movement Democrats who were constantly knocking at your front door in the summer of 2008."

or

"If Drupal were a piece of legislation, it would be the farm bill"

No one should take comments like that as a serious criticism of Drupal or the Whitehouse's use of Drupal; it's poking fun at Obama supporters. It's a _joke_.

</comment><comment><USER3> I know the author of the piece in question, Chris. He's a writer with no technical background whatsoever, and his job is to write whimsical jocular short pieces for Slate. This isn't a serious critique of any sort. There's nothing to see here.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, because making obscure nerds feel miserable by ignorantly misrepresenting their work in public is always good for a laugh.

I mean, it's not as if this is one of the very few times that my non-nerd relatives have ever seen the word "Drupal" in print, or anything. I'm sure they will all get the joke. And, if not, I'm sure the next few thousand-word popular-press articles on CMSes will clear up any misconceptions that may have arisen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Slate has a reputation for knee-jerk contrarianism in its writing, not surprising that they tried to go for the same attention-grabbing schtick when writing about software. Sad but typical. This is a good reply.

</comment><comment><USER6> The original article criticizes the administration side of a web platform in political ways and suggests a multi-million dollar custom built proprietary system as an alternative. It must be a joke.</comment>


Show HN: SpiderNotes – offline, encrypted, synchronized "notes" Chrome extension - <AUTHOR> https://spidernotes.com

<comment><AUTHOR> SpiderNotes is a small just-for-fun side project. The source code is available on GitHub. The bigger parts of the tech stack are Backbonejs and Python on Google App Engine.

It's pretty minimal and it only works on desktop-Chrome, so it's not for everyone, but it fits my needs. Hopefully it'll be useful to a few others too. Any feedback would be welcome. Thanks! [https://github.com/spidernotes](https://github.com/spidernotes)</comment>


Best Deep Learning Courses and MOOCs - <AUTHOR> https://blog.floydhub.com/best-deep-learning-courses-updated-for-2019/ <comment><USER2> A comparison of the costs for each course could be an interesting addition.</comment>


Integer percentages as fingerprints of electoral falsification - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.6059 <comment><USER3> Absolutely fascinating research!

I wonder if someone has some free time to run the models on several recent elections that were filled with fraud. I'm interested in: Austrian presidential elections [0], Turkish elections [1] and Democratic party primaries [2][3]. Each of them was analyzed for voting fraud and fraud was found in each of them (some were full of massive vote fraud like Turkish elections).

PS: What's with all the downvotes? Is the evidence of massive voter fraud in the West so unsettling that you have to downvote me?

[0] >Austria presidential poll result overturned

[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36681475](http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-36681475)

[1] >Turkey Elections Massive Vote Fraud

[https://erikmeyersson.com/2015/11/04/digit-tests-and-the- pec...](https://erikmeyersson.com/2015/11/04/digit-tests-and-the-peculiar- election-dynamics-of-turkeys-november-elections/)

[2] >Hillary Clinton Favored By Election Fraud In Democratic Primaries

[http://www.inquisitr.com/3127046/hillary-clinton-favored- by-...](http://www.inquisitr.com/3127046/hillary-clinton-favored-by-election- fraud-in-democratic-primaries-federal-lawsuit-filed-against-officials-to- protect-california-primaries/)

[3] >Election Fraud Watch 2016 (J: awesome blog that tracks election fraud in primaries)

[https://electionfraud2016.wordpress.com/](https://electionfraud2016.wordpress.com/)

<comment><USER4> The Sanders movement, even though I disagreed with his platform, was true grassroots democracy: Common people getting organized and trying to make a change.

I don't care if I get down voted into oblivion for saying this next part: When looking at the spread between the types of polls, there is a massive difference between the voting elite and the people's will. I don't advocate against the electoral college, but what was supposed to be system that prevented buyouts has proven to be completely forsale by the Clintons. I didn't see massive pro-Clinton rallies. We had quicker investigations into Samsung VS Apple for inconsequential things. No one has been held accountable and no explanations have been given for massive breaches of protocol other than its a plot by the Repuglicans.

I'm tired of everything from the Clinton family. My state KS has a good chance to throw electoral votes at Gary Johnson. Please California if you are listening, don't reward this family for their actions.

<comment><USER5> If you really think that Clinton didn't get the votes she got fairly, you're living in a bubble. Sanders supporters have this problem of forgetting that women and minorities exist.

(I can't stand the Clintons, but I don't think they cheated)

<comment><USER6> I am an outsider (European) looking in but closely following the US presidential primaries this year, so I don't have a horse in the race. There are a number of levels at which there has been clear unfairness or cheating (depending on your perspective) in the DNC primaries. Here are some of the simpler ones:

\- The recent release of hacked documents from the DNC show that the primaries were not set up to be a fair competition from the start. \- The rules are specifically set up in a number of states (New York is a prime example) to disenfranchise any new Democratic Party members from being able to vote. \- Thousands of registered voters were removed from the voters roll. There is even a case where a lifelong Democrat running for a congressional seat on a Democratic ticket was removed. \- Media coverage made it appear that Clinton was in the lead before any voting even took place. That coverage has been shown to have been orchestrated (at least at the start) by the DNC. \- Funds raised in the DNC's name were disproportionately funnelled to the Clinton campaign. \- Voting stations were closed down in huge numbers in some states and territories (Puerto Rico and California being prime a examples)

<comment><USER7> NY was pretty ridiculous.

It's going to look pretty ridiculous if the DNC is ever audited, or has someone more credible than Guccifer2.0 hack and release their documents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought this would just be an application of Benford's law, but they note in the beginning that using Benford's law doesn't work for elections (citing this paper: [http://www.vote.caltech.edu/sites/default/files/benford_pdf_...](http://www.vote.caltech.edu/sites/default/files/benford_pdf_4b97cc5b5b.pdf))

Does anyone know why Benford's law doesn't work here but does work for other made up numbers in applications like accounting?

<comment><USER9> For Benford's law to apply, the numbers (the non-fabricated numbers) need to be coming from a source/distribution covering several orders of magnitude. The fabricated voting percentages are limited to between 0 and 100.

<comment><USER5> Raw vote totals then?

<comment><USER10> We ran a test for one of the problem sets in a course I was TAing. Raw vote counts _did_ follow Benford's law in 2000 US presidential elections. We did not portray it as a tool to detect or disprove fraud, however.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps the sizes (number of eligible voters, and also number of people who actually voted) of the voting districts follows the law? Then you could take the total vote counts, and distribute them back to the candidates in a lot of artificial ways (e.g. always 50-50, a random percentage between 30 and 70, say) and probably obtain data that still follows the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's kinda sad to see our elections to be used as reference for falsification detection research...

This isn't exactly new, such analysis was done as early as 2011, i.e. [http://lleo.me/dnevnik/2011/12/07_gauss.html](http://lleo.me/dnevnik/2011/12/07_gauss.html)

Although, they were more focused on the peculiar distribution, than on integer spikes.

<comment><USER12> The figure that is reproduced and discussed in that lleo.me blog post was made by one of the authors of the paper that is being discussed here. It's just took us from the end of 2011 until early 2016 to actually get the whole thing published.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is fascinating.

I'm tempted to argue the improbably-round numbers might be due to lazily counting/sampling the ballots rather than actual malicious fraud... but I guess sloppily running the election still constitutes fraud in some sense.

<comment><USER14> Or sloppy/lazy counting because they already know the predetermined outcome.

<comment><USER15> Improbable. Sharing a pre-determined result with Joe Random Votecounters * number of voting stations = near certainty of someone leaking that, and a field day for the media.

So, while theoretically possible, realistically summed up by "three men can hold a secret, if one of them is dead."

(And specifically here, if I were a conspirator going for a predetermined result, I would want a somewhat close result, yes - but not an almost-tie as seen here. Something like 55:45 or somesuch, not a "every single vote matters" scenario, where a few thousand votes could swing the outcome)

<comment><USER14> I think it would be more of an "open secret" pattern: e.g. no one explicitly orders people to make sure the ruling party always wins, but everyone knows someone who knows someone who was punished for reporting the actual count instead of a rigged count.

<comment><USER15> What you are describing is not an "open secret," that's a "conspiracy theory."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is there a field that studies inconsistencies of this type?

Recently on HN there was a related test (the Grim test) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11787560](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11787560)

<comment><USER17> I think the field you're looking for is statistics?

<comment><USER18> More specifically anomaly detection.

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

<comment><USER16> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It would be very interesting to see this method used for other elections to see what unexpected results can be found. Although still interesting, it is not a huge surprise that there has been large vote fraud in Russia.

<comment><USER20> >it is not a huge surprise that there has been large vote fraud in Russia

Russian elections for statistics have become like "Lena" for image processing. Typical "camel-double-hump-Gauss" of Russian elections - polling stations without observers at Fig 2. at [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3545790/pdf/pnas...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3545790/pdf/pnas.201206770.pdf) ("United Russia" is the Putin's party).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nice work. It's interesting they used Russia as the source of election results data. Did I miss an exlaination of their data selection criteria in the paper?

<comment><USER22> > _We used election data from three countries besides Russia: 2011 general > election in Spain, 2010 presidential election in Poland (1st round), and > 2009 federal election in Germany (Zweitstimmen, i.e. party votes). These > three elections were chosen because the data are publicly available down to > the single polling station level, and because the number and size of polling > stations are comparable to those in Russia_

I guess this means they found the data first, then decided to try to analyze it and compare it with similar data elsewhere. It's probably not their work- related research ([http://www.fchampalimaud.org/en/the- foundation/mission/](http://www.fchampalimaud.org/en/the- foundation/mission/)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Should try it on the USA election results...

</comment><comment><USER24> Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - <USER2>

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI)

</comment><comment><USER25> This thread just reminded me of this quote:

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." \- Mark Twain

</comment><comment><USER26> This is brilliant. I wonder how the authors got the initial motivation to do the study -- seems like quite a bit of work to find a very specific statistical anomaly; doubt they went into it blindly not really knowing there was something to find...

<comment><USER27> In 2014, there was a lot of attention drawn in Russia and Ukraine to votes in Crimea and Donbass (the "independence referendums", and elections of local leaders). The latter two votes, in particular, had nice exact percentages, which drew attention of people familiar with statistics almost immediately, and were heavily discussed in LJ.

<comment><USER12> The study that is being discussed here was essentially done in the end of 2011 and early 2012, mostly triggered by the results of the 2011 legislative election (heavily discussed in LJ as well; in fact, this study itself was mostly developed in LJ).

The election results in Crimea and Donbass do contain some funny patterns and are most likely largely made up, but no information is available on the polling station level so there is little to analyze statistically.

<comment><USER27> Good to know, thanks! Regarding this:

>> no information is available on the polling station level so there is little to analyze statistically.

What they did was look at the percentages and exact vote counts for each choice, and noticed that they match down to one vote (i.e. if you take the percentage, multiply by total population, and round, you'll get the vote count). For example, in referendum in Lugansk, the official stats are as follows:

1,349,360 valid bulletins 1,298,084 (96.2%) voted yes

Normally, the percentage is a number with a lot of digits after the decimal point, which is then rounded for presentation purposes. But here, if you take 96.2% and multiply it by 1,349,360, you get 1,298,084.32. In other words, it's actually accurate to 4 digits after decimal point, three of which happen to be zeroes (96.2000%).

Of course, it could be just a very unlikely (< 1/1000) coincidence that the number of "yes" votes just happened to fit exactly into three digits of precision. But a more reasonable explanation is that someone started with the percentage that they wanted to get, and then computed the requisite number of bulletins from that.

Said explanation becomes even more reasonable when you take the reported numbers for turnout, and realize that the same relation holds there. Specifically:

1,807,739 eligible voters 1,359,419 voted (75.2%)

1,807,739 х 75.2% = 1,359,419.73

Oh look, another perfect percentage (75.2000%).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> On reading just the abstract, there does not appear to be any control in this experiment. I'd have expected them to mention inclusion of election results known with certainty to not be fraudulent.

Likewise, I'd expect there to be proof of fraud by other reliable means in order to validate this method. It is not enough for them to just assert that there can be no other explanation for this data, so these were fraudulent results, so our method must be working.

Absent a control, the strong conclusion that fraud can be detected this way seems unsupported.

<comment><USER29> I would suggest looking at the paper in more detail before saying it's uncontrolled. I found the control just by skimming the figures.

<comment><USER28> I would do so, but the site prevents access to non-subscribers.

Would you kindly tell me the method they used to _independently_ prove fraud in some of the analysed data.

<comment><USER30> I had no trouble accessing the paper using the PDF link on the page ([https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.6059v4.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.6059v4.pdf))

<comment><USER28> Thanks for the link to PDF. The "This URL" link takes you to a page that asks for a login.

Having now read the article, I stand by my original point. There seems to be no verification that the proposed method does indeed identify (in some cases) cases of elections that were independently known, as a point of fact, to have been fraudulent.

They seem to be claiming two things, but you cannot have it both ways :

a) This method can identify fraudulent elections and we proved it by analysing elections in Russia

b) These elections in Russia that we analysed using this method were fraudulent - as proved by the method.

I would expect to see a control that takes data from elections that were already known to be fraudulent. e.g. by confession, video evidence or some other reliable means to show that the effect was observable in some of those _demonstrably_ fraudulent elections.

<comment><USER12> Actually there is a TON of evidence that e.g. Russian elections 2011 were heavily falsified. There are dozens (probably hundreds) reports of independent observers, plenty of videos capturing ballot stuffing, multiple cases when election papers are known to have been forged after the ballot count was finished, etc. etc. I don't know what are "reliable means" for you though; all that evidence has been outright rejected by every single Russian official or court.

<comment><USER28> Yes. And what bothers me about this study is that it seems to rely on our implicit understanding of this circumstance. Rather than using a set of data where they can explicitly compare fraudulent and legitimate results.

Surely there would have been a better set of test data than one for which politicians are still actively serving.

Unfortunately the science is somewhat tainted by the politics here since it is very unlikely they'll get independent confirmation of fraud for the test set.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Facebook doesn't understand about the Facebook walkout - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/6/1/21276969/facebook-walkout-mark-zuckerberg-audio-trump-disgust-twitter <comment> Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 This is one of the dumbest articles I've read about the issue, treating it as a binary good-vs-evil problem instead of critically thinking about the underlying issues and the effects of what they're actually proposing.

I mentioned this in a previous thread, but we absolutely do not want Mark Zuckerberg or his employees to make decisions on what is or isn't newsworthy. They have far too much power, and not enough internal controls, to be involved in politics. (And yes, you can have an independent moderator system - <USER2> they'll end up in the same position as Facebook as well, with no accountability to the public.)

Just to take a simple example, what would have happened if a facebook moderator had decided to remove the initial video of Floyd's murder because, hey, the official reports said he was doing something wrong and the video had the potential to incite violence? (which, in hindsight, it absolutely did.) I'm fairly sure we would not be having the discussion we're having today, and we would have lost a vital opportunity to improve our democracy.

<comment><USER3> I assure you that Facebook is both very powerful and very involved in politics. Just the month it came out that their own research found their recommendation systems were engaging people with the far-right. The execs allowed it.

It is impossible for Facebook to exist and act outside of politics. It's a nonsensical idea that they could avoid involvement in political issues given the definition of politics.

<comment><USER4> I find it ok for Facebook to do something like their "Top stories" based on what their algorithm determines for me.

But I'm somewhat annoyed that "Most recent" doesn't actually sort the news feed chronologically, and also show everything. The algorithm is still doing something there.

<comment><USER5> Yes! I want to see everything my friends are posting, not what FB thinks I should see.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps less applicable to the Facebook issue, but I have found Mastodon to be a potentially viable replacement for Twitter, though it definitely skews heavily towards the tech crowd.

Chronological timelines, and user-driven moderation. Plus there are way more users now than there were when I joined a few years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't remember who suggested it but it would be awesome if we could have plug and play algorithms for our Facebook/twitter/youtube/etc content.

That way we could get the bring me top stories from all side. Or, I'm looking into this topic let's go with this other matching algorithm.

I suspect we'd be back to one algorithm that gets 5 stars and 90% of people use, but it'd be interesting to see and would remove the need for Facebook to curate content.

<comment><USER8> That might fix things for you. But it doesn't fix things for the nation, or the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What I don't understand about all of this because I'm simply not in the know, so hopefully somebody can explain it in more detail, is this: Facebook regularly monitors posts for inappropriate content such as this. This seems more of an active "we want to leave this up" than a "we want to take this down" type of post, correct?

I have trouble forming an opinion on whether or not I agree with Facebook or with Twitter on the whole matter because I'm not well-versed with their previous T&C, and what would typically happen for a tweet like this from someone who isn't POTUS. If someone could provide some resources, that would be great and useful to myself and hopefully others who want to get a fuller understanding of this issue.

<comment><USER10> From Zuckerberg: "I disagree strongly with how the President spoke about this, but I believe people should be able to see this for themselves, because ultimately accountability for those in positions of power can only happen when their speech is scrutinized out in the open." \- [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/01/facebook-staff-angry-- zucker...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/01/facebook-staff-angry-- zuckerberg.html)

It's a perfectly reasonable to keep up things that are a matter of public record like this. I find people walking out over their employer not censoring enough childish and indicative of a generation that hasn't learned the dangers of censorship, caring more about moral grandstanding than freedom of the press or information otherwise being accessible. It comes off as especially pretentious doing it in the middle of all the protests over the very serious and real issues with the police, contrasted with Facebook employees with cushy jobs being mad their boss didn't do enough to curate the platform to their liking.

<comment><USER11> > "I disagree strongly with how the President spoke about this, but I believe > people should be able to see this for themselves, because ultimately > accountability for those in positions of power can only happen when their > speech is scrutinized out in the open."

That's pretty fair. But, will that set a precedence of violent posts?

<comment><USER10> From the president? Maybe, but I'd still think the value of the public record is more important here. From regular users it would still be disallowed.

Instead of this murky de-facto system of different rules for public officials and regular users, maybe we need to have it codified. Accounts owned by public officials have their activity publicly recorded (with edit/deletion attempt history, etc) and with something in the UI indicating it's such a type of account, and a link to a disclaimer visible near all the posts explaining that the post might have TOS violations and doesn't necessarily serve as an example of acceptable behavior for other users. Such protection would go away when their term is over and they'd be able to be banned for past posts (but everything remaining visible), maybe reopened if they're in a position again later on.

<comment><USER9> I think this is a sensible and easily-enforceable solution. Facebook and Twitter are necessities today and oftentimes (for better or for much, much worse) are where history is being written. I think using these platforms as a highly important person geopolitically should dictate different rules than me, who has like 400 friends from the decade or so I've been on the platform, 90% of whom I haven't spoken to in years.

<comment><USER12> I wish twitter hadn't opened this whole can of worms. I thought their previous policy of basically saying 'yes, different rules _do_ apply to the president, so we're just not going to delete his posts' was pretty good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really dislike the legalistic versus moral distinction. Emphasis on legal _istic_ rather than legal. Legal and moral are obviously not the same. Legalistic seems to just relate to making and enforcing rules, which is a super important way to deal with moral issues when you're a platform or arbiter. Yes, absolutely take the awful stuff off facebook, but make rules and tests to be as clear as you can about it.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think Trump should use the White House homepage for his communications. And what he writes on Twitter and Facebook, those platforms should at least be as liable for as if Trump wrote the same thing in an opinion piece in a newspaper. I think AWS and Azure are true "platforms" but Facebook and Twitter are social media. They are more similiar to other media than to technical platforms. I think the buck should end with Zuckerberg for everything expressed on his site.

If this was the case, it might very well be that social media as we know it today would no longer be viable. It might very well be better however. I long for the time the blogosphere was were people expressed themselves online. It was more mature, slower, and more thoughtful.

<comment><USER7> Isn't this what section 230 prevents? It protects Facebook and Twitter from this specifically. It's also what Trump was pushing back on.

<comment><USER15> What's confusing to me is that killing 230 would make social media liable for the content published by its users. It seems like it would require them to control and filter content more, not less.

<comment><USER16> They aren't wanting to kill 230, they want to take it away from companies who choose to alter users' posts.

Their argument is if you start censoring and editing your users you are abusing the protections given to you by 230 and you are no longer eligible and you must vet EVERY post, not just the ones you selected.

Other companies who do not edit/censor their users selectively continue to have protections from 230.

Not picking a side btw, just trying to clarify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have been thinking: there's a real opportunity to disrupt FaceBook, from the political side. It could gain traction in a way, and for a reason, among large groups of people who otherwise won't give a damn ('FaceBook competitor', yawn).

I think a billboard and an advertising blitz that really put in people's faces, especially in the large blue cities that red staters hate so much, something like: Did you know that, when you're on FaceBook, you're giving money to the ad platform that elected Donald Trump? (*asterisk to Atlantic article here with quote to that effect) Join SocialBook to learn more.

Then you could explain that there's a kind of default understanding that FaceBook is 'neutral,' but it's probably more accurate to think of FaceBook as an analogue, a cousin even, to Fox News. Its most popular site for engagement is Breitbart. As people have noted online, by various metrics, it favors Trump. And whether you agree or not, we are under no moral compulsion at all - none whatsoever - to support FaceBook. Not using it is, at worst, morally neutral.

So if you oppose FaceBook's general effect on our society, why not do something that costs you no money and requires no real lifestyle change, but can radically improve your society's politics? Join SocialBook and get your friends too also, and as a principled stand, delete FaceBook. If nothing else, you'll start exerting some powerful pressure on FaceBook to change its policies in a direction it usually ignores, or else. And at best, you could help launch a powerful, healthy competitor.

I should point out also: I don't see anything morally wrong in advocating for this. I do feel a duty to support people working towards building in general, and the economy in general. But do I have a specific moral duty to support FaceBook? Of course not. I think there are people here who object to people making commercial decisions for political reasons - but there's no moral imperative supporting this. For what it's worth, I don't see other companies taking this angle (say, Gab) as being in the wrong for that reason, either.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think if you feel strongly about X, you shouldn't mod discussions of X. It makes the discussion reflect your view instead of the views of participants. You should delegate modding to someone who doesn't feel strongly about X. It might be hard to find such a person in the US now, but with a global workforce that's less of a problem.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's disturbing how things are turned upside down. The GAFA already are behaving like they are above the state. You can love or hate Trump, is is elected, not Facebook or Twitter. As the head of the state he represents what we call in french 'monopoly of legitimate violence'. I found dangerous how the GAFA companies think about themselves not concerned by that anymore.

<comment><USER20> Absolutely, I personally hate Trump and Facebook but he is still the president.

The idea it is even a discussion to censor the president is lunacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can we please stop voting for, and start to flag, articles from theverge.com?

The Verge is a clickbait site that:

\- constantly replaces original sources (earlier today there was a post which was essentially a wrapper around a Microsoft employees blog)

\- mocked the tech industry for practicing social distancing during the Covid 19 outbreak.

\- As another poster already noted, consistently treats complex issues as binary 'good vs evil' situations with no room for nuance.

</comment><comment><USER22> Twitter, Facebook etc have never gotten over Trump winning the election over their preferred candidate. All the censoring (and cancelling) of exclusively right wing voices since then is purely designed to get a Democrat into the Whitehouse.</comment>


Semil Shah On Paul Graham - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/semil-shah-on-paul-graham-2013-5?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Falleyinsider%2Fsilicon_alley_insider+%28Silicon+Alley+Insider%29 <comment><USER2> To play the contrarian to the normal sentiment on investors lately I beleive that investor founder relationship are obviously symbiotic both sides need each other and should go into with eyes open and truly understand what each other needs and expectations are. Sometimes I get the feeling that most people look at investors as parasites or neccessary evil which is a little unfair</comment>