Facebook Lies - <AUTHOR> https://iain.learmonth.me/blog/2017/2017w402/ <comment><USER3> I've tried (and failed) to delete my Facebook a couple times in the past, so this most recent go, when I quit using Facebook, I just quit using Facebook -- I uninstalled the apps from my phone, and mapped 'facebook.com' to localhost in my /etc/hosts files.

The result was... amusing. Facebook kept emailing me the "Hey, did you see what so and so posted?" emails, knowing full well that I didn't see them. But then, after that, I started getting weekly reminders that "You haven't updated your timeline in a week". Facebook, ever the clingy ex-girlfriend it is, seemed to start amping _up_ the frequency of the emails the more I neglected them, so I started just marking them as spam.

Two blissful days went by in which Facebook wasn't a distraction, but then they shifted from email to SMS which, as an Android/Hangouts user, was even more annoying, since now I have to engage in multiple steps to delete.

They really, really want me to use their service.

<comment><USER4> This is such a weird thing to think. You can turn off all notifications and they'll never contact you, ever.

I stopped using Facebook 6 years ago and haven't gotten a single email / sms from them since then, because I used the settings properly.

Yeah, if you just ghost them and never click "update your email settings" at the bottom of every email they send, they'll keep sending them.

<comment><USER5> Anecdote incoming: I've turned off every notification setting possible on my Facebook account. The issue is that every time they add a new notification "feature" it seems like they flip all of them back on again. All as if to say, "Everybody wants a daily/weekly rollup of what happened on Facebook! Subscribe everybody by default!"

So I feel the GP's pain, I've taken to marking them as spam as well because I know that my settings aren't guaranteed to stay where they are. It's not even in Facebook's best interest to try and keep my notification settings where they are.

<comment><USER6> The growth hacker mentality was cute when FB was a scrappy little startup. Now they're dominant, it's just creepy.

<comment><USER7> > cute when [...] was a scrappy little startup. Now they're dominant, it's > just creepy.

Microsoft/Gates also had trouble with this. What is "business hardball" in a startup, can be illegal conduct in an almost-monopoly.

In a kitten, pouncing aggression is cute... in a liger, not so much. For the same behavior, you'd put it down.

Individuals can similarly fail to recognize transitions. "You can't do X." "But I've been doing X for years!" "Yes, but here you have relationship Y, so X is no longer ethical/legal."

<comment><USER8> In a liger. Indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wrote this several years ago - it is still true:

[https://sheep.horse/2013/10/the_seven_realities_of_social_ne...](https://sheep.horse/2013/10/the_seven_realities_of_social_networking.html)

You do not have a Facebook page. You never did. Facebook has a page on you.

<comment><USER10> At the time Facebook was created, there was a lot of talk about how private organizations already had such dossiers on the general public. Facebook is more like the "tip of the iceberg". At least it gives users some control over how they are presented (though less and less every day as they filter timelines and use our names to endorse their ads)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Quite looking forward to GDPR forcing Facebook to actually remove all records they have on me. It's a pain to implement for businesses, but it's ultimately the right move.

<comment><USER12> At least for European customers. This won't help everyone.

<comment><USER13> How is "European customer" defined?

If someone is not European but resides in Europe, do they have this right?

If someone not from Europe travels to Europe and issues the request while inside Europe, do they have this right? (If so, would using a VPN work?)

<comment><USER14> If that's actually the case, I can see a Deletion-as-a-service business. "We thoroughly delete your account for you."

The fact that I have to come up such mechanisms is a damning indictment of the way things are.

<comment><USER15> I really don't get why AckSyn's comment was marked dead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Even if you've never used Facebook, you have a "shadow" account, it is a well known fact. Every time somebody you know upload their contacts into FB, they link them with your shadow account, or create it if not already there, as a strong possible match.

I have started to use Facebook recently as I needed an account for work so decided to explore a bit, my biggest problem with Facebook is that your "feed" is made up of things that your "friends" liked or posted etc... but in what seems a random order, and not all of them appear. One has to wonder what kind of weighting they apply to each post to decide if it will make it to your feed or not.

Twitter has brought something similar recently, but at least you can disable it and get a sane timeline - Just tweeted about this today (check my profile for account).

<comment><USER17> You can change the sort to most recent first, but the setting isn't sticky and the next day, it's back to the echo chamber, er, I mean, FB curated content.

<comment><USER16> When you set it as most recent then it switches to a very short timeline, and, again incomplete (judging from what you see as default).

Indeed, curated content, which is very scary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am in this Kafka-esque situation where I try to get an account deleted that is not even mine. I don't have and want a Facebook account, but Facebook does not agree.

I few years back I started receiving mail for an account that I never created. The name is not close to mine, but a silly sexual pun.

I have mailed security and account support multiple times, asking for the account to be deleted, or decoupled from my email address, because I keep getting login attempt notifications and even friend suggestions.

Just checking, and coincidentally the very last email is one for the Facebook account. "Hey, it seems you are having trouble logging in! Click here to sign in.". Yes, Facebook, someone, for whatever reason, is trying to log in to a Facebook account for 4 years now, and won't take no for an answer... "If this wasn't you, please let us know by clicking here". Ok, Facebook, this is not me, and it was not me the last 10 times I clicked that button.

(I now assume, that this account is somehow being used to mine my social connections. Something like a public ghost account.)

Timeline:

2013: Hi Fuck, you got more friends on Facebook than you realize! List of 6 people I know IRL.

2013: Hi Fuck, you have 1 friendship request. Log in to accept.

2013: Do you know [3 people I know]?

2013: Hi Fuck, Fuck placed something on your timeline and is waiting to see it.

2013: Do you know [9 people I know]?

2014: We've updated our Terms of Service

2015: Someone asked a new password for your account.

2017: Hey Fuck, it seems you are having trouble logging in.

2017: Hey Fuck, it seems someone tried logging into your account from a new location.

2017: Hey Fuck, we received your request to reset your account password. XXXXX is your reset code.

2017: Fuck, go back to Facebook in just one click.

2017: Hey Fuck, it seems you are having trouble logging in.

<comment><USER19> I have the same thing, but with PayPal. My full namesake has created another account, and used my email there - so I guess he is not getting any notifications. I am afraid to contact PayPal support, since they might just go ahead and block the wrong account, or both of them, so I just ignore these emails from parallel universe.

I was able to shut down a couple of Instagram accounts that were using my email though. Instagram does not verify emails, but fully trusts them to reset your password.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Well when I "deleted" my account years ago, Facebook made it absolutely clear that it was really only deactiviating the thing and that it would retain its records. Nonetheless, as far as any of my friends can tell, I am no longer on Facebook at all.

So maybe the author of this post removed his account at an earlier period when Facebook didn't make such an honest claim. In that case the title should be "Facebook used to lie."

<comment><USER21> The help page about deactivating or deleting (they are two separate actions) makes it quite clear that your data will be _gone_ , not merely rendered inaccessible, when you delete: [https://www.facebook.com/help/250563911970368](https://www.facebook.com/help/250563911970368)

That page uses the phrase "permanently delete[d]" multiple times, says there's "no option for recovery," and calls out some information they _do_ keep because it's not actually part of your count, implying that the rest is _not_ kept.

<comment><USER22> Did you even read the comment you replied to?

Years ago they did not delete accounts. They would deactivate it and never delete the data. They do now (apparently), but in the past they were very openly not deleting anything.

<comment><USER21> Yes, I read it. I took it as meaning that they either read something else which was unclear, or just deactivated the account, or misremember what Facebook said at the time.

Do we know that Facebook actually deletes accounts now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm not trying to defend Facebook, but I used the 14-day deletion and it worked for me. Just saying that there must be more to this story than just "I did it and Facebook lied to me".

<comment><USER24> I deleted my account there 10 years ago, about a year ago I needed an account to join a memorial group for someone. Facebook somehow knew that the email address I used to sign up with, which was new, was related to my old email address and tried to link my new account to my old data which was still there.

It also still knew a heck of a lot about me including suggestions for people I had just recently met. And some of them I only met once, in passing, never exchanged info with, and never saw again.

<comment><USER25> This is most disturbing. I remember big change in facebook policy on 1.1. 2015 that would mean that deleting your account would not delete data they had on you. Up to that point their policy was that after you delete, data about you is erased (at least in europe).

I did delete the account before that date with few other people (mostly because of that policy coming).

I never tried coming back but if they still kept all the data, that is pretty substantional. One could sue facebook for that or am i missimg something?

<comment><USER24> Before I left I used a tool that would delete all of my posts and content and stuff like that. Cleaned up the profile as best I could. The type of data they had was more about who they thought I knew, how desperately single I am stuff like that. Given how many privacy related scandals they have had I don't think suing them is going to do anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've been locked out of my facebook account for almost a year because they didn't believe I legally changed my name to "Captain Hook Pope Mobile". I sent my revised birth certificate, drivers license, everything. No response on the support ticket for 8 whole months...

<comment><USER27> Wait a second. Don't tell me that you're actually _the_ Captain Hook Pope Mobile

<comment><USER26> Could there ever be more than one?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Actually I think that an extra step is required to fully "delete" while the standard procedure only "deactivate" accounts.

I've permanently delete back in 2014 but actually needed a "ghost account" in 2016 to access some FB walled garden content.

I used the same email as my former one and data was gone, no restauration was proposed. (However friend suggestion based on email showed up due to some probable shadow account).

<comment><USER29> I did similar with a good 6 years between and with two different emails on different domains and it's friends suggestions both in it's own app and Instagram (not linked to FB account but sharing an email) manage to reference people I only ever knew during the time of the first account and never even interacted with on Facebook.

e.g a guy I interned for 10 years ago who I never spoke to/added on FB keeps showing up in my Insta suggestions. It's actually a bit unnerving and makes me worry who my account is suggested to.

<comment><USER30> Those people probably have your email in an inbox Facebook slurped (possibly as a CC or something)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I expected this, so I first deleted all posts, comments, events, whatever could be deleted, unfriended everyone, replaced everything that could not be removed with random strings, including my name and profile url, and then deleted the account.

Even if it gets reactivated, it will be useless.

It's annoying that this has to be done. There are several other well known companies that make account deletion a stupid hassle. Amazon for example should have already archived my account automatically after not being used for 7 years at all. Apple is another idiotic company that makes it hard to remove stuff from your account (you have to have a mac to disassociate credit card from your account, their web app doesn't allow it for no reason whatsoever (despite being able to add CC info there), only iTunes app on the mac can do it)

Companies should think more about account removals.

<comment><USER32> This would actually be a cool product. Could call it Facebook Discombobulator.

<comment><USER31> I believe there are some browser extensions to do this.

I just wrote a few document.querySelectorAll() based loops in the console that artificially clicked the right elements in the right order with some delay.

Fun thing is that while most things are very fats on facebook, deletion is super slow. It takes like 2 seconds to complete. They must have some artificial delay somewhere just to frustrate this kind of scripting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm really really hoping regulators get their act together and come down hard on this sort of things.

<comment><USER34> If you live in the EU, do a search on GDPR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's been a while (6-8months) since I DELETED my account, but I do remember separate options for delete vs deactivation. Out of curiosity I tried logging in again and received "email you have entered does not match any account". While I'm sure the account exists somewhere in the facebook database, it appears to have been successfully deleted.

Anyone else have similar results?

<comment><USER36> Haven't ever had a Facebook account, but I've encountered the deactivation- deletion dark pattern before, most recently on Twitch.

I think, it's a matter of them being required by law (won't be the case in all countries) to have true account deletion, but then they try to deflect as many users as possible from actually deleting their accounts by having an account deactivation option and having it in a far more prominent place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> [https://m.facebook.com/help/delete_account](https://m.facebook.com/help/delete_account) states that it will delete your account permanently. Facebook's current FAQ notes it'll take about 90 days for your information to be gone from their system.

<comment><USER38> Just reactivated my 8 year old account and deleted it permanently. Long overdue!

<comment><USER37> Glad I could help!

<comment><USER37> # Account successfully scheduled for deletion

Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently deleted within 14 days. If you log into your account within the next 14 days, you will have the option to cancel your request.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> No immediate deletion makes sense in that it would encourage hacking. But if they say 2 weeks it should be that.

However, as someone else mentioned, the reality is you don't have a FB account, FB has an account on you.

</comment><comment><USER40> I fell into the timeline where it was so easy to log in with Facebook that I auth'd to almost every site with it.

Now I've got the "Facebook handcuffs".

Stop using Facebook and recreate accounts for everything or keep My account active.

I know FB doesn't care but I have my own little revolt I've staged.

\- unfriended everyone and added random people

\- swapped out my info (I know they still have it)

\- post some bs links and nonsense just to dork with any ML running against my account

I wish more sites added functionality to sever Facebook auth from your account.

</comment><comment><USER41> [EDIT] - I missed a key point, the author does say in the article that they deleted their account long ago.

While I'm all for bashing Facebook when they do something nefarious, this seems more to do with someone else having the author's password and using their account at an inopportune time (during the FB account deletion process).

As a refresher for all:

\- FB delete != FB deactivate

\- You can't log in (or let anyone else log in) for 2 weeks post FB delete through [https://m.facebook.com/help/delete_account](https://m.facebook.com/help/delete_account)

\- The only way you can be sure they delete your info is if you're in the EU, where the government has stepped in appropriately.

Facebook will very likely still know who you are, and have tons of information/"shadow profile" on you, because your friends will still post stuff there.

<comment><USER42> He explicitly says that he deleted his FB account "long ago". So this isn't about somebody interrupting the deletion process, it's about FB keeping the account around, ready to be "reactivated", even after the 2 weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I was always under the impression that Facebook never deleted accounts, just "deactivates" then.

<comment><USER23> The deletion is relatively new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> [https://haveibeenpwned.com](https://haveibeenpwned.com) Make sure that you don't have any insecure accounts or reuse passwords that have been exposed through breaches.

<comment><USER45> Really annoyingly though they don't provide the hashes. I'd really like to know _which_ passwords have been leaked.

Does anyone know of a similar site that provides hashes? I don't need the complete list - just the hashes for my email.

<comment><USER46> What you're asking for is basically the full details of the data breach, which can be directly used to compromise accounts. You're not going to get that for free anywhere.

You can check your own passwords (hashes recommended) through their new Password service.

[https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords](https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords)

<comment><USER45> Ah yes, type all my passwords into a third party network. I thought this was a site about _good_ security.

Also why wouldn't I get the full details for free anywhere? HIBP obviously has them. Criminals have them. I bet it isn't that hard to find them on bittorrent.

In fact, here they are: [https://hashes.org/public.php](https://hashes.org/public.php)

Edit: Although that doesn't match them up with usernames, so it's not entirely useful.

Edit 2: In fact I just discovered that a long password I used to use is still in the 'not cracked' category of the Last.fm leak (unsurprising since it is 13 random alphanumeric characters). That is useful information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> If corporations are people why not file a restraining order?

<comment><USER48> You gotta work within the system, I like the idea...

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> This near exact scenario happened to me today.

I had disabled Facebook about 3 weeks ago. For good measure, I went ahead and deleted all apps, history, or any method by which I might wander back.

Needless to say I was a bit thrown off this morning by the slew of "welcome back to Facebook" texts from my friends. I assured them somebody had created a false account, but sure enough there I was seemingly alive and well with an active profile.

The only explanation I can think of is that an application or service attempted to authenticate via Facebook connect- if this is enough to reactive an account, it damn well shouldn't be.

Given that social media has overtaken reality for most, it feels a lot like a company unknowingly took my life and ran with it. It's a bit eerie to scroll through a feed of your friends trying to reach you, and living your life without you. For a few days, Facebook was a more believable authority on my life than I was.

</comment><comment><USER50> Netflix also does this. I unsubscribed and many months later subscribed again only to find that all my everything was exactly the same. They never deleted my account.

With regard to Facebook, not exactly the same thing, but in August, I tweeted that I haven't logged in to Facebook in over a month. The next day, I got an email from Facebook asking if I'm having trouble logging in to Facebook. I never gave Facebook my Twitter account. [https://twitter.com/AmrEldib/status/899423898139148289](https://twitter.com/AmrEldib/status/899423898139148289)

</comment><comment><USER51> Have they always had such a 14-day policy? If not, it's entirely possible that the policy was different when the account was previously deleted, and the account was being retained under that old policy.

I'm also surprised that his hacker didn't bother changing his password - <USER2> it wasn't intended to be an account takeover.

<comment><USER52> Conspiracy theory: It was facebook pretending to hack is account so he would log back in and hopefully stay using the service.

But OT: I'm sure that unless they are legally forced to remove the data, they'd rather keep it.

<comment><USER53> I briefly had a Facebook account years ago before deciding I didn't like it. I deleted/deactivated my account. About 6 months ago I received an email saying that 'someone' had reactivated my account and that if it wasn't me I should log in and visit the help center. My old password still worked and there had been no activity. I strongly suspect this was an attempt by FB to get me back on board.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I'll have to try this. One of my biggest regrets was deleting my Facebook account sophomore year of college when I moved schools. A lot of pictures and memories erased. I moved away so a huge part of my connection with my old life was gone. It would be amazing to get them back.

</comment><comment><USER55> I deleted my account years ago. At the time there was a web plugin which could be used to automate the deletion of all posts, pictures, etc. I wonder if there is a tool to do this now as I'm sure FB has cracked down on automated deletion of content.

</comment><comment><USER56> This reminds me of the hilarious phonecalls trying to cancel accounts at other companies:

[http://time.com/2985964/comcast-cancel-ryan- block/](http://time.com/2985964/comcast-cancel-ryan-block/)

</comment><comment><USER57> > If it's still not gone, I hear you can just post obscene and offensive > material until Facebook deletes you. I'd rather not have to take that route > though.

I honestly never thought about that. Spammer accounts often are cleaned up pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER58> The closest thing you can do to deleting your account is actually manually deleting all your posts and albums first... the using their so called delete/deactivate option.

<comment><USER59> Try it for yourself. After a number of deletions, response time will slow, an error will occur. You'll reload your page and items you thought were deleted, are not. I've tried many, many times.

<comment><USER60> Wow, this is like, part Twilight Zone, part Franz Kafka.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I kept getting email messages from Facebook after I deleted my account. They stopped after I lodged a complaint with the Australian Communications and Media Authority. It enforces the Spam Act (2003) which prohibits the sending of unsolicited commercial electronic messages with an Australian link, i.e. if it originates or was commissioned in Australia or originates overseas but was sent to an address accessed in Australia.

</comment><comment><USER62> I deleted mine over 10 years ago. My wife (who still uses) said that people still click on the "wish happy birthday" shit for me every year.

<comment><USER63> Well that shows how much they actually care... Yeah. Direct contact has value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I deleted my account long time ago from facebook.

Liars, cheaters, fake news and privacy violations you will found only from facebook.

I really questioning whole company morals

</comment><comment><USER65> This happened to me as well when I signed up for spotify under the same email I used for facebook, was shocked to see my ~six year old deleted account suddenly become "reactivated" despite them claiming it was "deleted" at the time. Nope, all the stupid stuff that was hilarious to post in 2007 was still there and came right up.

Turns out they never delete anything.

</comment><comment><USER66> I think Google does the same with everything (email, web history, searches, ad profile, etc) but I believe their reasoning was that there is no way to guarantee that your data will be deleted from the backups, other redundant caches and whatnot, so they don't claim to be able to.

</comment><comment><USER67> This person deactivated their account but didn't delete it. That's all there is to it.

How is it possible this reaches so high up Hacker News? None of you have seen users (or yourselves) make similar mistakes?

</comment><comment><USER68> What if you fill your Facebook profile with bogus info? Like writing random bytes on a drive to wipe it.

<comment><USER69> They probably keep a history on all the changes you made, so I doubt it would help

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Who expects anything different, really, from companies like Facebook?

<comment><USER71> Most people don't even think about the consequences until it's too late. It's a new kind of problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Huh? It's always been this way. Like more than 10 years ago I messed around trying with account deactivation. I've had a fb account since ~2004 it was only avail to certain colleges. This is exactly how it's always been. Am i missing something here? They never actually "delete" anything whatsoever. Isn't this already well known..</comment>


Pinterest to startups: devops is hard, but do it anyway - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/cloud/pinterest-to-startups-devops-is-hard-but-do-it-anyway/

<comment><USER2> This is really a promo for Puppet conference more than anything about pinterest's dev-ops.

<comment><USER3> Seconded - this is a bit light on content. Hopefully the post-conference talks will be a bit meatier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Informational article" style advertising. In this case the ad is for Puppet/Chef.</comment>


Raye Montague, the Navy's 'Hidden Figure' Ship Designer, Dies at 83 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/obituaries/raye-montague-a-navy-hidden-figure-ship-designer-dies-at-83.html <comment><USER2> "The clear implication was that as a black girl she could never become an engineer, let alone have anything to do with such a vessel."

"It would have normally taken two years to produce a rough design of a ship on paper, but during the heat of the Vietnam War Ms. Montague was given one month to design the specifications for a frigate. She did it in 18 hours and 26 minutes."

"At the height of her career, she was briefing the Joint Chiefs of Staff every month and teaching at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. Many of her ship designs are still in use."

This is a fantastic story. Thanks for submitting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you enjoyed!</comment></comment>


Coco Color – A coloring stylus for kids - <AUTHOR> http://cococolor.com <comment><USER2> Not sure what I think of a tablet "coloring book" but the tech is intriguing...

According to

[https://cococolor.com/pages/instruction#best- results](https://cococolor.com/pages/instruction#best-results)

it seems the apps just listen in on the mic and the stylus emits some sort of (ultra?) sound/sequence of audio pulses for each of the 4 buttons.

Anyone know if that's correct? If so, I wonder what the frequency is... are all Android devices responsive to these sub/ultra sonics?</comment>


Solar powered smart windows break 11% efficiency, can provide 80% US electricity - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2017/11/29/solar-smart-windows-11-percent-efficiency/ <comment><USER2> The Nature paper is free to read:

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01842-4](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01842-4)</comment>


Researchers find trapdoor in SwissVote election system - <AUTHOR> https://about.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2019/march/researchers-find-trapdoor-in-swissvote-election-system <comment><USER2> Even if it were possible to design a provably correct, impossible to tamper with, anonymous electronic voting system (which seems unlikely to me) it still should NOT be used. Why?

Everyone understands paper in ballot boxes, and how they can be cheated, what to look for. Everyone can assess an argument as to whether this happened based on the evidence presented.

Basically nobody would understand what to even look for in cheating the electronic system. It would be totally my expert says your expert is wrong and so it is/isn't fraud. Having even the possibility of that argument for electoral fraud is completely insane.

It doesn't just have to be fair, it has to be seen to be fair. Really it does. We need to have reason to have faith in our democratic processes most especially when the people you want to win, don't and the result surprises you.

The sooner we get to "Any electronic voting must be used to mark a standard paper ballot which becomes the entire source of truth." The better. Everything else in electronic voting is dangerous, sinister and flat out evil. Oppose it. Loudly. At every opportunity. Especially if you're known as someone who understands computers on some level.

<comment><USER3> How about this? 1) you go to vote with your voting card 2) you get a paper printout of your vote 3) the voting machine then broadcasts your vote (only IDs) to N independent checkers; this makes your vote public but anonymous 4) later you check the printout against your favorite online checker to make sure it registered properly

To make all this work the paper and electronic trail is digitally signed with something that's only on your voting card.

<comment><USER4> Doing this permit someone to force you to disclose your vote and force you to vote what they want. The strength of traditional vote is that nobody can know your vote and this is the more important feature of the voting system.

<comment><USER5> I was arguing about this with someone when they pointed out that in Australian Senate elections, it's trivially easy to make your vote unique. There are many candidates and you can order them however you like, so you can vote a particular way among the candidates that are actually competitive, and then order the rest of the candidates in some improbable way to make your vote unique. Then when the database gets published later someone can verify that you voted how you said you would.

So the Australian Senate is currently vulnerable to vote buying, for what it's worth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here is a thread[1] from one of the researchers. She spells out what they have found. I think the most damning quote is.

"Do not let people minimize this issue. This isn't "some random hacker can steal an election" this is "SwissPost can prove they didn't steal an election, even if they did"

[1][https://twitter.com/sarahjamielewis/status/11053782573171916...](https://twitter.com/sarahjamielewis/status/1105378257317191680?s=21)

</comment><comment><USER7> I really like the Minnesota system. You fill out a paper ballot. You load the paper ballot that gets scanned and recorded and the paper ballot gets rolled into a locked box that is attached to the machine.

Recounts and etc should be relatively easy to manage and leave a very good paper trail tied to various machines and etc.

<comment><USER8> Why is any of this necessary? Why don't paper ballots suffice?

<comment><USER9> Hand-counting is slow and inaccurate. As in, you regularly see swings of 1% or more from hand-counts, and they typically take weeks.

Electronic tabulation of paper ballots is the best of both worlds. You get results today, they're pretty accurate, and there's a paper trail if you want to go back and argue later.

<comment><USER10> The UK counts all their votes by hand. Overnight.

<comment><USER11> Out of curiosity, what does a UK ballot look like? I found [1], is that typical?

Part of the problem might be one of ballot design. A US ballot is typically considerably more complicated than that. Here's one from New York [2]. There will be many races; in a presidential election there will be president, usually senator, representative, governor, state senator, local councilman, and assorted other offices. At least in New York State, the candidates will be presented by party, so a single candidate may be on the ballot multiple times.

Nobody is counting the US one by hand overnight; not without some pretty comprehensive redesigns of the ballot.

[1] [https://www.gravesham.gov.uk/home/elections-and- voting/guide...](https://www.gravesham.gov.uk/home/elections-and-voting/guide- to-voting/what-a-ballot-paper-looks-like)

[2] [http://www.otsegocounty.com/depts/boe/images/WO.jpg](http://www.otsegocounty.com/depts/boe/images/WO.jpg)

<comment><USER12> That's one of the simpler UK ballots. Some of our council elections allow us to elect more than one candidate, and our mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections uses the rather oddball supplementary vote system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Speaking as someone who is forced to vote on a proprietary touchscreen system with no paper trail, I _wish_ researchers were finding cryptographic problems in my voting system.

<comment><USER14> I love those systems. In Texas my parents tried to press Betos name, and at the "review results" screen, Cruz was selected. This was a well documented, statewide problem.

Malice? User error? Ux idiocy? Who knows!

<comment><USER15> The touchscreens in New Mexico 2004 simply didn't record the votes of Spanish language ballots. Kerry won the state but Bush received the electoral votes.

Fortunately, the NM courts agreed and prohibited the further use of the touchscreens.

What blows my mind is how invalidating (decertifying) the touchscreens has to be done in each state. I still can't fathom why the feds (eac.gov) can't just pull rank and ban them.

<comment><USER16> > I still can't fathom why the feds (eac.gov) can't just pull rank and ban > them.

Article One, Section Four of the Constitution gives this power solely to the State and Federal legislatures. The Executive branch (and it'd probably the FEC, not the EAC) can't pull rank here unless Congress gives them the power to.

<comment><USER15> And yet HAVA.

Which is it? Pick one.

<comment><USER16> "unless Congress gives them the power to"

HAVA is an act of Congress. It does not, to my knowledge, allow the FEC to confiscate voting machines. Maybe it should've been clearer - "no shitty touchscreens!" \- but it wasn't.

<comment><USER15> HAVA ushered in the touchscreens.

Your concern trolling isn't even wrong. Please. Continue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It uses a trapdoor commitment function. It does not have a "trapdoor" or "backdoor".

The problem is not so much in the implementation of the function, but in the generation of parameters required by the function. The machines need to follow a particular scheme to generate the parameters of the function in order for the commitment to be secure. Think, e.g. of ZCash, where if the initial ceremony is not completed in a specific way and trusted, then the entire system after that has specific weaknesses.

In this case, if the parameter generation is not done correctly, or if randomness generated by clients is compromised, votes can be altered.

Now one of the issues is generating random group elements. Reading one of the linked notices [1] it talks about best practices of generating a random group element.

I don't understand exactly all the terminology in the paper (even though it is quite trivial) but it looks to me like it is talking about generating effectively a _public_ key in an EC system.

One way to do it is to generate a random integer _r_ between 0..q-1, which is effectively the private key, and then generate the corresponding public key by doing _g^r mod p_.

The problem with this approach is that in the process the machine generating the public key _knows the private key_. It could be thus saved or leaked.

Instead you can generate a public key directly. This requires randomly selecting a value and checking it is valid (r/p=1), which is more expensive, or alternatively select a random r in _Z_ and return r^2 mod p.

Finally, the generation process itself must be proveably fair and random (e.g. some sort of blockchain ceremony) to be trusted.

Fundamentally the Swiss system does not specify a ceremony for trusting the parameters used by its Pedersen commitment scheme, and therefore even if the implementation is perfect it still is not secure.

Still reading...

[1] - [https://s68aa858fd10b80a7.jimcontent.com/download/version/15...](https://s68aa858fd10b80a7.jimcontent.com/download/version/1552395686/module/7833161661/name/PIT1.pdf)

<comment><USER18> If all that's needed is a public key without known private key (i.e. some element Ga with a unknown) then a simple ceremony is possible.

Anyone who wants gets to submit a value H_i = G a_i. With a proof that H lies in the correct subgroup.

Then the final value can bu the sum of all H_i s. The final private key would be the sum of all a_i s. If even one of those private keys is unkown, the final value is also unknown.

<comment><USER19> You don't need any such "ceremony" for this sort of protocol, no trusted setup is required at all: you can use a hash function to select random group elements.

All thats required is that that the dlog between the respective group elements is unknown, they don't need special properties other than that.

This makes it unlike the trusted setup of things like zcash (as mentioned in the grandparent post) which cannot be simply initialized randomly.

<comment><USER18> I don't know anything about how elliptic curve points are represented in memory, so I thought using a hash-function is difficult. If that's not the case, then there is no problem. Using hashes as 'nothing up your sleeve' numbers.

<comment><USER19> There are fairly straight forward options for this sort of thing... the simplest of which is you hash onto the field and check if the result is on the curve by applying the curve equation (which it will be with probability 1/2). If it is, you are done, if not increment the hash input and repeat until done.

There are fancier ways to hash onto curves that can give nearly uniform points in constant time, but they're curve specific... and for parameter generation you don't need constant time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Original announcement [1] with its links intact, including one for the actual paper with technical details [2] -

[1] [https://about.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2019/march/resear...](https://about.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2019/march/researchers- find-trapdoor-in-swissvote-election-system)

[2] [https://people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/vjteague/SwissVote](https://people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/vjteague/SwissVote)

<comment><USER21> We changed to that first one from [https://techxplore.com/news/2019-03-trapdoor-swissvote- elect...](https://techxplore.com/news/2019-03-trapdoor-swissvote- election.html). Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hmm, the algorithm used was formal proven secure:

[https://people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/vjteague/UniversalVerifiab...](https://people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/vjteague/UniversalVerifiabilitySwissPost.pdf)

> How can there be a trapdoor when the system has been formally proven secure? > Any formal proof of correctness for any system makes some assumptions that > become axioms in the formal proof. Scytl's formal proof of security [Scy18] > simply models the mixnet as sound, based on an informal interpretation of > Bayer and Groth's security proof. It does not model the proper generation of > commitment parameters. We do not see any reason to believe there is an error > in Scytl's proof, but when the axioms are mistaken the conclusions are not > valid. This does not mean that formal proofs are not valuable—at an absolute > minimum, they clarify assumptions and explain the reasons for trust—but it > does mean that they are not a substitute for broad and open public scrutiny. > It is quite possible that there are errors in the implementations of other > cryptographic primitives, that their details may not be modelled in the > formal proofs, and that they may affect either privacy or verifiability.

There wasn't a better path to translate the proof into an implementation? How was the algorithm translated into code (Java I think)?

</comment><comment><USER23> On a personal note, I'm glad to see the outcome of this bug bounty was as I expected from the beginning: bugs, and pretty serious ones.

E-voting is a bad idea, and government attempting to implement it is an even worse idea.

<comment><USER24> E-voting over blockchain to the rescue! :0

<comment><USER25> The issue at hand, is people are _REALLY_ sensitive to having their voting record(s) tracked. If you know someone's key, you can track all their votes on the blockchain.

If the blockchain isn't public, then it isn't trustable.

You can't have non-tracked + blockchain + trust.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> For any Swiss citizens in this thread, please consider this temporary ban on evoting: [https://evoting-moratorium.wecollect.ch/](https://evoting- moratorium.wecollect.ch/)

<comment><USER27> Hehe, I like that to voice your opinion on evoting there's an online petition.

<comment><USER28> It's not a petition. It is a popular initiative that will add an amendment to our constitution if 100'000 people sign it and it passes a public vote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> In my crypto lecture we did automatic protocol verification using proverif. Since here the implementation is at fault, and not the protocol, the next thing seems to be a (proven) compiler from the (proven) protocol specification to an implementation?

<comment><USER30> Are your lectures available online?

<comment><USER29> Hey, I just checked. The course is still offered, but the lecture notes are only available from within the university network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Title makes it sound like a bug is discovered. The 'trapdoor' is in the protocol by design. A lot of zero knowledge proof protocols have an initial setup phase in which values are created that need to be forgotten for the system to be secure. These values are sometimes know as 'toxic waste'.

ZCash has a good write up on how this went in their zero-knowledge proof based system: [https://z.cash/technology/paramgen](https://z.cash/technology/paramgen)

The main criticism by the researchers seems to be that the process around this setup was insufficient to demonstrate security.

<comment><USER32> > The 'trapdoor' is in the protocol by design.

Only due to ignorance. It is well known that the bases of a Pedersen commitment can and should be sampled randomly; a trusted setup is only subverting the security of the primitive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you're interested in voting systems and the challenges of election administration, the National Academies of Science published a paper last year that is approachable, relatively comprehensive and free to read: [https://www.nap.edu/read/25120/chapter/1](https://www.nap.edu/read/25120/chapter/1)

It is a much harder problem than a lot of technologist think. And "just add blockchain" is almost certainly the wrong move.

</comment><comment><USER34> Is a trapdoor the same as a backdoor?

<comment><USER35> A trapdoor is something that's hard to invert: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapdoor_function](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapdoor_function)

A backdoor is a hidden access, like this.

Just a mistake in the article.

<comment><USER12> I don't think it's a mistake. I think this is actually a trapdoor in the cryptographic sense of the term, and the security hole is the result of them using a zero-knowledge proof scheme based on these kind of trapdoor functions that relies on no-one having a copy of the trapdoor information, but incorrectly letting the untrusted party choose the trapdoor function.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> TLDR: E-voting system uses pedersen commitments, but doesn't provide any evidence that the generators used are nothing-up-my-sleeve values.

To understand what a pedersen commitment is think "cryptographic hash" but constructed so that you can 'add' hashes to get the hash of the added values. Pedersen commitments require as system parameters multiple base points where, for soundness, no one knows the discrete log any of them with respect to each other. The normal way to accomplish this is to generate them all in a "nothing up my sleeve" way by hashing some data.

In my work on confidential transactions ( [https://people.xiph.org/~greg/confidential_values.txt](https://people.xiph.org/~greg/confidential_values.txt) ) the base points I used were the standard secp256k1 generator, and a second point constructed by hashing the standard generator with sha256.

If implementations of the SwissVote system were initialized in the say way they could simply add the information about the hashed data to their audit logs, even after the fact. If, instead, they picked the base points "randomly" then they could not prove that past usage wasn't compromised.

I have often been frustrated by the lack of clarity in academic cryptographic papers about the exact trust implications about initialization -- e.g. it often takes a careful reading to tell if a paper requires a trusted setup, if the values can just be chosen in a provably random way (and if so, will a simple method suffice or is there a strong requirement on uniformity) ... but pedersen commitments (even the vector versions) are really bread and butter simple stuff. I would be worried that anyone who didn't know that choice of the base points resulted in a trapdoor would be unlikely to spot actually subtle implementation or algorithmic mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER36> Here are some more details about this:

[https://e-voting.bfh.ch/publications/2019/](https://e-voting.bfh.ch/publications/2019/)

</comment><comment><USER37> Relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/2030/](https://xkcd.com/2030/)

<comment><USER38> Bad timing for the "aircraft safety" example...</comment></comment>


String declaration in iteration - <AUTHOR>

Hi there,
This morning a was writing a piece of code and it made me wonder what the best possible way is to write this code.
Because a string is immutable in .NET, is it really that bad to create a new instance for each iteration?
Your thoughts on this please.
*For a short code illustration, check out http://silverappy.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/string-declaration-in-iteration/ <comment><USER2> If myArray is large (maybe >10), you should use a StringBuilder. But optimization is tricky and YMMV.

Some article about this (for a few strings) [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/01/the-sad-tragedy- of-...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/01/the-sad-tragedy-of-micro- optimization-theater.html)

And a simmilar question in SO: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21078/whats-the-best- stri...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21078/whats-the-best-string- concatenation-method-using-c)

I think that StackOverflow (<http://stackoverflow.com>) is a better site to get answers to this kind of questions

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks gus!</comment></comment>


7 habits of professional web developer - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-habits-professional-web-developer-inga-kravtsova?trk=prof-post

<comment><USER2> Pretty common habits, except related to taking help that uses to be there will egoists.

What I think is "It's the mindset that separates a pro from an average." If you have set you mind to produce the best then, your mind will show you the way to do the best. If you have already decided that this task sucks, then, no matter what you do, you are not going to do judgement with your talent.</comment>


Where can you get two weeks of iTunes App Store data? - <AUTHOR> http://bustedloop.com/blog/2009/7/6/where-can-you-get-two-weeks-of-itunes-app-store-data.html

<comment><USER2> If only there was actual sales data, this would be a gold mine.

If you'd just like to track the rank of arbitrary apps, go to <http://majicjungle.com/news/?p=19>

<comment><USER3> You're right. It would be awesome if there was a translation that mapped rank on any given day to sales rate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is always good to make raw data available to the masses. Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER5> This is cool</comment>


How I made sure all 12 of my kids could pay for college themselves - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/165716/how-i-made-sure-all-12-of-my-kids-could-pay-for-college-themselves <comment><USER2> "We have helped them with contacts in corporations, but they have to do the interviews and "earn" the jobs."

What?

I'd bet there's way more "failures" (for whatever reasonable definition) out there that would have succeeded with a few good contacts than there are "failures" that would have blown it given the chance.

There's a lot of other red flags in this article too. The section about how kids got to make their own rules sounds good, but the two examples they gave really don't sound like rational decisions that would be made by young children. Maybe they were subtlely encouraged to go in that direction by mum and dad, or maybe the children _did_ naturally elect to go with those rules. Hopefully if they did, it was all 12 of them, because all I can think about is Paul Graham's article on good vs bad procrastination. If only 10 wanted to go along with it, what would the other 2 have accomplished instead if they didn't have to clean their room every single night of the first two decades of their lives? I haven't vacuumed my room in 6 weeks and I bet I earn more than at least half of these kids, if that's how we're measuring success. Maybe that half should have spent less time cleaning and more time playing puzzle games or manipulating the pokemon card market at school.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm both glad they found a system that worked, and very happy that I was not one of their kids. I agree with not babying your children (I was staying home alone after school by 10, and babysitting neighbors by 12), but having large amounts of unstructured time outside of school was actually incredibly positive for me overall. I was able to get a lot of introspection time in, and still got plenty of social time by engaging with the neighborhood kids in various shenanigans. Plus some people are just not cut out for sports.

FWIW, both me and my sister still grew up to meet this author's definition of financial independence & education "success", despite being picky eaters, having divorced parents, and never learning how to camp in the wild over vacation or take solo airplane trips as children (that stuff is expensive!).

<comment><USER4> > Plus some people are just not cut out for sports.

Everyone need exercise though. Maybe they didn't have to do team sports.

<comment><USER5> The author mentions fencing, so can probably conclude that individual sports were allowed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > All the kids were required to take every Advanced Placement class there was.

This was probably a different time and place, but that'd be physically impossible at my school, not to mention seriously stressful and probably useless in the end.

> If children would come home and say that a teacher hated them or was not > fair, our response was that you need to find a way to get along.

I hope this is simply a simplification or exaggeration, as it makes me a little sad. Complaining isn't just demanding rectification, but also a request to be heard and understood. If a kid complains and is immediately told to deal with it because that's how the world works, that's gonna provide a not great lesson on their problems being heard.

> Remember, for 15 years, she was either pregnant or just had a baby.

I'm in no place to judge how many kids one should have. But damn, that's intense.

There's this interesting contrast (I hesitate to use the world hypocrisy) between the emphasis on self actualization and responsibility and the strict rules. Like if you're raising a kid to be intellectually driven and curious, why not let them choose the AP courses? Or why force them to study for 2 hours every day if you're giving the whole "make mistakes and learn from it" spiel? How about they fail a test or two and then learn to study?

This ethos of gung-ho strict parenting isn't necessarily bad, but I want to ask these parents: "what if it didn't turn out alright?" What if one of the kids got addicted to drugs? What if they became depressed? Would they have stayed the course? Sure, it didn't happen, but I don't think that's because the parents made sure kids played sports and forced them to change their own oil. And I don't think that families where shit did happen were necessarily doing something wrong. While one can certainly credit the parents for their children's outcomes, there's an undeniable amount of luck involved.

<comment><USER7> > This was probably a different time and place, but that'd be physically > impossible at my school, not to mention seriously stressful and probably > useless in the end.

Can confirm. Took almost 20 AP classes in highschool, alongside some college classes once I had exhausted the entire highschool AP curriculum. All of my own accord - which I only mention because it would probably really get this author going. No one asked me, or even suggested it. I even had to go break through some bureaucratic tape to make it happen.

When I went to college, I realized it did not make me smarter, or more capable, or even have a better work ethic than my peers that took 2-4 AP classes throughout their whole highschool curriculum.

In fact, I found my work ethic was a bit worse - my work ethic was optimized for passing AP exam after exam rather than absorbing the information in-depth. I had become a master of heuristics/intuition, but class itself very much became an "in through one ear, out the other" affair, where I'd retain the minimum necessary key points and forget these shortly after the semester concluded.

> What if one of the kids got addicted to drugs? What if they became > depressed? Would they have stayed the course?

Apparently, they would have:

> "We let them suffer consequences and would not try to mitigate the > consequences because we saw them suffering. We would cry and be sad, but > would not do anything to reduce the consequences of their actions."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't doubt that these parents have the best of intentions (and I'm glad it worked out for them and their children), but I wonder about the propriety of encouraging it in general: AFAIK, the strongest indicators of adulthood success are general familial stability and social class, not militaristic parenting or forcing your kids to eat their brussels sprout.

Similarly: the value of knowing that you have a place to call home should you fail in college is incalculable, even if your parents aren't paying your tuition directly. I know that feeling of safety helped me during times of stress, and that the absence of such certainty exacerbated similar feelings in less some of my friends.

</comment><comment><USER9> I like the idea, but man that is some serious military parenting.

<comment><USER10> I can't help but agree. There is obviously a need for organization if you have so many kids you're basically running a kindergarten, but it sounds like these kids grew up in a military school or something. The best thing my parents ever did for me was to give me freedom to grow up on my own.

<comment><USER11> Is it fair to assume the author is a Mormon? From my limited understanding, large families are the norm for Mormons and I'm guessing there's a lot more structure in that kind of community.

By contrast, my father came from a much laxer 5 child family, and was the only one who went to university. I can't imagine how anyone would manage with 12.

<comment><USER7> The author does mention he is Mormon[1].

> My wife and I are religious and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of > Latter Day Saints [...]

> With no religious upbringing, [children] have no way to measure the goodness > of other organizations, as they have no foundation.

> They participated in the religious activities: we were the parents, they did > not have a choice.

[1]: [https://qz.com/296701/how-to-keep-your-wealth-from- ruining-y...](https://qz.com/296701/how-to-keep-your-wealth-from-ruining-your- children/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's not clear to me based on the article how the 12 kids paid for college themselves in this situation. Did the parents co-sign the loans for student debt? Did the government offer financial aid? Were the kids forced to work full time on their own until they could pay for tuition?

</comment><comment><USER13> The last two paragraphs are the most important.

>We loved the children regardless of what they did. But would not prevent consequences of any of their actions. We let them suffer consequences and would not try to mitigate the consequences because we saw them suffering. We would cry and be sad, but would not do anything to reduce the consequences of their actions.

>We were and are not our kids' best friends. We were their parents.

<comment><USER14> _" We let them suffer consequences and would not try to mitigate the consequences because we saw them suffering."_

So I guess they wouldn't take their kids to the hospital if they broke their leg or something?

That sounds like child abuse.

<comment><USER15> Probably not. I don't think even you believe they wouldn't take their child to the hospital. What a pedestrian conclusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Love it. I wanted to do a similar thing with the food for our kid, but the wife wouldn't support it. And that, as they say, was that.

</comment><comment><USER16> > When the kids turned 16, we bought each a car.

Seems like the key, as usual, is to be rich and come from a rich family.

<comment><USER17> No, not at all. Just don't be really poor.

They had 12 kids in 15 years, so 0.8 kids per year. A new Toyota Yaris Sedan is 16,000 MSRP. So paying sticker price on a new Toyota, you'll average 12,800 per year.

That is nothing compared to the cost of food, which will be about $48,000 per year. With careful shopping you might cut the food cost in half, but it is still about double the cost of the cars. The cars are not the difficulty here.

<comment><USER16> In America, at least, 40% of Americans can't cover a $400 expense, let alone buy 12 cars in 15 years.

<comment><USER17> Yes, there are people who really can't afford $400, but...

For much of that 40%, this is sort of a choice. They can't budget. Some of those 40% are even very highly paid, earning well over $100,000 per year. We don't teach home economics much anymore.

The 40th percentile household income is $50,000 in the USA. That $400 is about 2 work days of income. It is less than 1% of yearly income.

Clearly, some people immediately blow their whole paycheck.

With proper budgeting, it seems likely that a person at the 40th percentile could actually afford all those cars. It'd be a quarter of their income.

What they could not afford would be food. I suppose there is help though. Perhaps WIC or something would make things possible.

<comment><USER16> > Perhaps WIC or something would make things possible

This comment, excuse me, shows your ignorance.

"Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs."

\- John Scalzi [1]

Strongly recommend reading more about this. 40% of the country being poor is no longer an "individual choice," it's a systemic problem. Furthermore, being poor disadvantages you to make long term choices. When you can only afford the $5 boots that break every month instead of the $100 boots that last for years, you end up spending a lot more just to stay in place.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15041758](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15041758)

<comment><USER17> Earning $50,000 per year is not poor. You can live fine on that. You can even buy all those cars on that. You can buy a house on that. What you can't do is feed 12 children on that. Also, don't even think about San Francisco or Manhattan.

I know this because I've checked the numbers. I haven't needed to check WIC, so I don't know that one, but I do know that it costs about $48,000 to feed a family with 12 kids. That is for a mid-range supermarket with modest bargain hunting. One could try harder, really reducing the food quality, but it won't be cheap.

It isn't at all normal for any income segment of the population to have 12 kids, and arguably that is a choice. Putting huge families aside, it is clear that 40% being "poor" is a choice. They aren't all poor. Most of them just can't budget well.

<comment><USER16> Are you really saying that a family should spend 96% of their income on food alone and also buy each of those children a car? That seems incredibly detached from a reality of emergency room visits, unexpected damages to house or vehicles, and childcare / educational expenses.

Regardless, it's obvious from the article that the family in question _is_ from a wealthy family.

<comment><USER17> Of course not:

"nothing compared to the cost of food [...] still about double the cost of the cars. The cars are not the difficulty here."

"What they could not afford would be food."

"What you can't do is feed 12 children on that."

However they could actually buy the cars. Relative to food, cars are cheap. There is often help available for food though, so maybe a family of 12 could actually get by at the 40th percentile income.

More realistically, a family with 4 children can do just fine. That would be $12,000 on food using my rate, although careful shopping might cut that in half. THIS IS NOT POVERTY. Poverty is more like that person who posted to Hacker News last week that they lived on $20,000 per year, in Manhattan of all places, sharing a kitchen and bathroom with other people. Well, they did have a roof and a place in a fancy area, so that is the better end of poverty.

Here, a typical budget (from smartasset.com) for the 40th percentile in my part of the USA, both per-year and per-month, with 2 adults and 3 kids:

         9192 766 child care
         3948 329 medical
        11580 965 housing
         5952 496 food
         6960 580 transportation
         2724 227 other
         3024 252 savings
         6480 540 taxes

It's a bit high for housing due to me being in a fancy beach town with a median house price of $250,000. The median house price is $150,000 in the adjacent town, 4 to 6 miles from the beach. According to zillow.com that would be about $904 per month, or $10,848 per year. This is a mortgage, including taxes and PMI and other insurance. It'll be a stand-alone 3-bedroom house with a yard.

For those who are serious about a family, the mother usually stays home. That cuts income, but it also sets the child care expenses to zero. Numerous benefits become available and the taxes go way down. Adding in the 4th kid is quite possible. Nobody will need to starve. I just checked Texas, and this example family would qualify for $10872 each year in SNAP food benefits. Heck, that is a profit! More than $400 can be saved every month, so being unable to cover that kind of expense is a choice.

The family from the article is unlikely to be wealthy. He was a skilled engineer for a government contractor. I'll guess that there was a salary of about $150,000 to $250,000 in today's dollars. That is below the typical Hacker News standard of Facebook, Google, Netflix, Amazon, etc.

<comment><USER16> > The family from the article is unlikely to be wealthy.

You argue that $50,000/yr is above the poverty line and therefore "not poor" and yet you also argue that $150,000 to $250,000 is not wealthy. You also go from estimating for 12 kids down to 3 kids. That is moving the goalposts. The author is wealthy, full stop. I think the biggest place where we do not see eye to eye is that for most of the world, including America, a salary of $150,000 to $250,000 per year is considered extremely wealthy.

<comment><USER17> Leaving some gaps and being rough...

poor: below $25,000 (below an E-4 in the military)

lower middle: that $50,000

middle: around $70,000

upper middle: $150,000 to $500,000

rich or wealthy: doesn't matter, could be $0 because assets, but probably over $1,000,000

The poor are way worse off than the 40th percentile family earning $50,000 per year, and the rich are way better off than the 95th percentile family earning $250,000 per year.

None of those people in the 40th to 95th percentile range are either rich or poor. There are not many poor people in America, and there are very few rich people in America. Most people are in the middle, where they can get by just fine if they spend wisely and don't hit an abnormal disaster.

It takes about $450,000 to be a 1%er, up at the 99th percentile. Even that isn't "rich" or "wealthy". It's just the high end of upper middle class. It is almost certain that the author was at the lower end of upper middle class. At the low end of the class we find senior engineering talent (like the author), family doctors, lousy lawyers, experienced actuaries, senior 747 pilots, and In-N-Out restaurant managers. At the high end of the class we find specialist doctors, competent lawyers, and many business owners. Nobody in this class is buying a Gulfstream private jet.

Yes I did change from 12 kids to 4 kids, because 12 would be a little bit nuts on a lower-middle income. I think that 12 actually can be done. It gets tight. Skip the child care, add the $10,872 in SNAP food benefits, and I think it works. This includes home ownership. With that lower-middle income, fancy colleges are free. The kids can go to Ivy League schools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> « _a 1965 Mustang fastback [...] no car had less than 450 horsepower_ »

That mustang had 200-289 horsepower. I find it hard to believe a teenager rebuilt it to 450hp.

</comment><comment><USER19> College must've been an escape for them.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm pretty sure twin research shows that unless you abuse your kids, your parenting decisions (besides your income) have little effect on their general life outcomes.

<comment><USER21> Indeed. I forget where I heard this, but my experience as a parent and seeing other parents has led me to think that (in the absence of abuse), this is true: parents tend to take both too much credit and too much blame for how their kids turn out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I liked most of their rules. I can only hope my spouse will go along with it, when I introduce the same rules.

</comment><comment><USER23> Nice article, but I missed how the title of the article is supported by the body of the article. How exactly did you cover tuition for 12 kids, actually paying for college? There's an implicit assumption that you taught them hard work and good study habits so they figured out how to pay for tuition themselves, but you never address that head on. Today tuition costs are around $30k per student per year, so did they all magically get scholarships, or did they work while going to school? If you could address the college costs part, not necessarily the regiment you put them through, that would be nice. Otherwise, maybe change the article's title.

</comment><comment><USER24> You know, I think about how I might go about doing anything remotely like this, and I realize the biggest challenge would to get my wife on _exactly_ the same page as me. We're not aligned at this level on anything!

It makes me think this was the product of a solo mind, one individual decided to be this rigid, and the other individual went along with it. I can't see any other way this could possibly happen/work.

<comment><USER25> You need to get this guys wife. She must have hospital coupons at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The real question isn't how he managed to have them pay for their own college but why the fuck did he have 12 kids in the first place

</comment><comment><USER20> Fine parenting, so long as you don't impose your methodology on anyone else.

<comment><USER27> Pretty sure the kids didn't sign up for this, so that's 12 violations already.

<comment> barry-cotter Antinatalist? Children don't sign up for anything. They're born.

<comment><USER27> I don't think it's inherently virtuous to be a parent, or that your children are property that you can treat however you want.

It's a responsibility, and if you can't/won't take care of them properly then you shouldn't impose the burden on them or yourself.

<comment> barry-cotter By what metric did they not take care of them properly? I understand that the way they raised their children is not acceptable in your subculture but they're not in your subculture. Is there some principle here? Getting all one's children through college is more than a lot of people with two kids manage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> With the increasing in income inequality, I don't think a story like this will have a happy ending in the future. Those kids who will access to financial support, such as a paid for college education and time to focus on studies rather than chores will have an edge over those who don't. Sure, many of those kids will be spoiled and not learn the value of hard work and flame out, but enough of them will be able to utilize that advantage that people in this situation will not be able to compete for the limited number of middle class jobs available.

<comment><USER24> The reality is these parents gave their kids _exactly_ what the poorer kids never get; access to knowledge and to people who've achieved.

College tuition can be covered while you're in school if you're taught how (and if you're not carrying your parents burdens). Entire careers open up for those who know what to study and optimize for (how many kids want to grow up to be in finance or a consultant, unless it's what their parents do?).

Sure, it probably helps to have well developed discipline and a healthy approach to various aspects of life (if that's even what these kids ended up with), but the _real_ value comes from the generational knowledge of how to work through the system to get to the top. After you do it once, it's 10x easier to guide someone else through it, even without giving them explicit help in the form of money or influence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Incredible, how do the parents maintain any semblance of sanity with 12 kids in this day and age. I'm overwhelmed with the thought of having baby2.

<comment><USER29> I will soon have 12. Perhaps the loss of sanity comes before the kids? It might be a prerequisite. :-)

The first kid is a huge impact. The second two each have a modest impact. After that, the food costs slowly climb up but you only really notice an impact when you outgrow a car. So if you can manage 2 or 3, you might as well have a dozen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I admit this is snarky and not entirely plausible, but you could also move to a place where good education is free, as it should be.

</comment><comment><USER26> The real question isn't how he got his kids to pay for college themselves but why did he have 12 kids in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER7> I personally find this kind of parenting horrifying. Three year olds cleaning toilets? What the actual fuck?

<comment><USER31> What's wrong with either of those things?

A three-year-old isn't going to do a "good job" cleaning a bathroom; the article even says that. The point is to teach the kids that _someone_ has to do those things, and to expect them to pull their weight in the household.

As for an eight-year-old doing laundry... why not? It's not like it's physically demanding.

I have a feeling you'd be either amazed or aghast at what my daughters (five and ten) do on their own.

<comment><USER7> My comment is in the context of the whole article. In general, I find that the laundry-list (pun intended) of chores and rules takes away from perhaps the most precious phase of life from the children. To have to wake up at 5:15 AM, do chores until you go to school, come back from school, and do chores almost until you go to sleep?

What time do the kids have left to themselves? There is no room left for the kids to organically prosper. There's simply no opportunity. The kids grow in _only_ the direction the parents want them to grow in. There's no ingenuity, no room to rebel and "break the rules", and restricted room for natural curiosity to flourish.

I personally think it is almost the right of a child to grow in the way they want to, especially once they reach a high-school age. By depriving them of time, support, religious freedom, and the opportunity to learn things by themselves, you are also depriving your children of room to grow, freedom, and creativity/ingenuity.

This whole article reads to me as the author trying to turn his children into little Stormtrooper clones. And the moment they turn 18, they are loosed into the wild without a care, because the parents have "done their job". To me, this is antithetical to a concept of a family, or even parents. My personal belief is that parents exist to love, support, and encourage their child to grow and prosper. These folks seem to have the "love" part down but nothing else, which is why I find this family entirely dysfunctional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I gather there was substantial unmentioned help from relatives. Otherwise I have to wonder how it's possible to have so many kids in a sport, club, and volunteering, given that one of them would have had to stay home with infants.

<comment><USER17> I highly doubt that, since they lived in 3 different states.

The solution is to drive a 15-passenger van loaded with 3 car seats. (these days, maybe 6 car seats, depending on local law)

The kids got cars at age 16. Once one kid has a car, the situation becomes easier.

Kids can be encouraged to do the same activities. There might be several kids in Boy Scouts, so that is just one trip.

They sound like the sort of family that would encourage kids to walk or bicycle to places on their own. That could include going to a friend's house, then getting a ride with the friend.

<comment><USER32> Unless everything was in convenient bicycle distance, you'd still need them all to be basically doing the same activities, which contradicts the assertion of letting the kids pick whatever they wanted.

I'm not saying it's impossible to do activities with a big family, but what's suggested in the text seems like it would require help in most US cities and towns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This was written in 2014 but still relevant today; maybe add an iPad in there

</comment><comment><USER34> It's too bad this 2hr post was booted off the front page by some people flagging it, but not flagging it enough to get the 'flagged' tag.

</comment><comment><USER35> > To this day, our kids are not afraid to try different foods, and have no > allergies to foods.

Hmmm. That weakens the story.

</comment><comment><USER36> Yeah.. that sounds positively horrible...

</comment><comment><USER37> That's awesome. What a great family.

I especially enjoyed the part about the car being towed in. Fantastic!

</comment><comment><USER38> Poor kids</comment>