How would you move 211 Tons of Gold? - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/08/moving_211_tons.html <comment><USER3> This discussion reminded me of a wonderful blog comment about accidentally flushing over a hundred pounds of dissolved gold:

[http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2007/02/01/how_not_to_d...](http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2007/02/01/how_not_to_do_it_ruining_stuff.php#418204)

The whole thread is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER4> Effectively a duplicate of:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2915835>

</comment><comment><USER5> There's a great passage in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon about the problems of moving pallets of gold that are sitting undefended in the middle of the jungle.

<comment><AUTHOR> I dont remember the passage. Care to elaborate or give a page reference?

<comment><USER6> Chapter 59, towards the end, there's a Q&A formatted section. Snippet is <http://pastebin.com/xNDkDNe8> (hopefully short enough to be fair use)

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you type that in by hand? THanks a lot..

<comment><USER6> No, I pulled it out of a pdf version I have. My physical copy is at the bottom of a box in one of the cupboards somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> tptacek has already noted the earlier HN discussion of the problem, kindly providing a link to the thread. Because there was discussion in that thread about the price of gold, relative to the United States dollar, I'll just mention that the latest news is that gold can go down as well as up in price relative to the dollar.

[http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2011/08/25/gold- points...](http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2011/08/25/gold-points- sharply-down-as-margin-hikes-loom-silver-etfs-pare-earlier- losses/?mod=BOLBlog)

<http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110825-710588.html>

The general advice on investing still stands: "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent," so no investment, however reasonable, is 100 percent sure to be profitable.

</comment><comment><USER8> Fascinating! I certainly like the idea of "crowdsourcing" the gold delivery by just opening up a window in the Bank of Venezuela in Caracas, and asking that people turn in gold for a modest bounty (2%). That might be over-estimating the amount of gold that people in South America have on hand, but it's certainly creative!

<comment><AUTHOR> The first time I read this suggestion I thought it would be an absolute nightmare dealing with impurities. When I reread it I realized he suggested standard gold bars. But this seems even more unrealistic. I either did the math wrong or the crowdsourcing idea is just ludicrous:

        Standard bar = 400 troy ounces
        Price per troy ounce = $1700

        400 * $1700 = $680,000.00

How many people are going to have a gold bar worth $680k lying around in Venezuela?

<comment><USER9> I think the point is that if you're paying a 2% premium, that being $13,600 in this case, that makes it worth it to GO to Venezuela and take the gold there, thus getting a free vacation.

<comment><USER10> Be honest- if you had $680,000, would you be willing to risk it for an additional $14,000?

<comment><USER11> Depends on the level of risk. Couldn't I just Fedex the gold - insured for its value, of course - to a confederate in Venezuela, and split the 2% commission? Assuming you can trust your partner, the worst case scenario is the gold getting lost (or "lost") in the mail, and having to wait for the insurance payout.

<comment><USER12> I'm willing to bet that Fedex will not insure a small package for $680k for anywhere near 2% of the cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't get how the crowd-source option is at all attractive, though perhaps I don't understand enough about how the gold markets work.

If I was physically based in Venezuela and owned X gold bars in my physical possession, why would the same amount of gold bars + 2%, in a foreign distant country I have no connection with, be preferable?

With gold in my possession I have instant liquidity. Gold in some foreign country, and in an inaccessible vault to boot, gives me limited liquidity. Even if gold is a long-term investment, I still want ease of liquidity at the appropriate time.

Finally, presumably there are fees associated storing your gold in the Bank of England's vault? Well, as a British citizen I certainly hope so as I'm not able to store my (theoretical) gold there.

EDIT: So one of the child comments is implying that the way the gold in being held at the Bank of England means that it is available to be traded on the London Gold Exchange. I had originally interpreted from the article that the gold was simply being held in a vault, ie with limited access and availability.

<comment><USER14> > If I was physically based in Venezuela and owned X gold bars in my physical > possession, why would the same amount of gold bars + 2%, in a foreign > distant country I have no connection with, be preferable?

Are you serious? The Venezuelan upperclass _despises_ Chavez and fears him. If any had those gold bars with them in Venezuela, they would take that offer in a heart beat! They trust the Bank of England far more than Chavez or local Venezuelan security, for that matter.

(You can find all this in the media or even ancient books like Chua's _World on Fire_, but to toss in a personal anecdote - My little sister spent a few months in Venezuela with members of the lower bits of the upperclass; she remarked on how fortified and how much razor wire there was on the compounds there.)

<comment><USER13> _The Venezuelan upperclass despises Chavez and fears him._

Well in that case, why would they trust him to make right on his promise to deliver them the gold + 2% in a foreign vault upon the physical surrender of their own gold? Why would they even want to indicate they had such gold in their physical possession and thus open up potential further scrutiny to their affairs and net worth?

You're probably right that they don't trust him, but that just further makes this idea untenable.

<comment><USER14> It's an iterated prisoner's dilemma. All you need are a few people to turn in some gold (for any reason, including because they trust Chavez), and then check with the Bank of England that the appropriate sum has been credited to their account with the Bank, and you're done. The cycle has been started - <USER2> Chavez really wants the gold physically in Venezuela (as he apparently does if he's seriously considering the various extremely expensive options available), at no point does he have incentive to defect except at the very end, where the reward for defecting is minimal.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What being hopelessly single taught me about pitching tech celebs - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2011/hopelessly-single-taught-pitching-tech-celebs

<comment><USER3> Maybe my case is unusual because YC takes applications online, but I don't like it when people walk up to me and "pitch" me by reciting some preformulated speech about their startup. I can almost never understand what they're talking about. And it makes me feel like a target, in much the same way it probably does to women when guys walk up to them and recite preformulated pickup lines.

The unit of conversation with a "tech celeb" need not be a pitch. I'd suggest trying an ordinary conversation instead. I don't know about other people, but it would definitely work better with me.

<comment><USER4> This is a tough thing for founders. I was in this situation earlier this year after I won a ticket to Google I/O. One of the events was a Google Ventures mixer, which turned out to be a "speed-dating" event. I was excited to meet Joe Kraus, who gave my favorite Startup School speech ever, but what to do in this format? Launch into a cooked-up pitch? But I wanted to talk to Joe, not use him for target practice based on his job. But wasn't that kind of what I was expected to do? Still, what a borderline-presumptuous missionary tack to take with someone I respect. But wouldn't I get over that knowing teammates were counting on me to get us funding any way we could?

At last, I decided to skip the pitch, chatted very pleasantly with Joe, got some great advice and his card. In retrospect, that was really about as much as I should expect in a five-minute sit-down. He seems twice as much of a great guy as I thought he was. The pitch can wait until the next time we cross paths or it's been a lot better tested. But I better recognize now how awkward these situations can get.

<comment><USER3> Probably the optimal plan would be to engage the investor and let them draw the idea out of you by asking questions. Not just because this is less aggressive, but because it's more efficient. Preformulated pitches are usually so bad that it makes my head ache trying to figure out what the company does. If I could just ask questions I could probably narrow it down pretty rapidly.

<comment><USER5> The 'What do you do' question almost always comes up. Or the 'what are you working on?' question. That's when you can say your few words about what you do and what you are working on. If the other person is interested they might ask a question. You say something like:

"I'm a app/web developer who just finished contracting at the fastest growing company in the world making apps for fortune 100s and am now working on a start up doing Travel Guide-Apps."

Their eyes may glaze over half way through your "I'm a web developer..." at which point you notice this and drop it, ask them what they do, or ask them some other question.

Anyway, I guess that is basic 101 conversation techniques.

A fun game I used to play with friends in bars/clubs was introducing someone else. My friend would pretend to be a french student new to the city and I was introducing them around. Got into some very funny conversations with people... especially when they realized what the game was.

<comment><USER6> I think you could seriously improve your 'What do you do' answer. If you'd simply said "I develop travel guide apps" you probably wouldn't get any eye- glazing and in all likelihood it might even lead to an interesting conversation about traveling and favorite destinations. Don't brag about how awesome you are and don't get into details about who you work for or how awesome they are. Simply state in as high-level terms as possible actual real world problem you are solving, and don't worry if your short answer isn't technically correct. If they care you can clear up any confusion when they ask for more details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Coming from the point of view of somebody who gets pitched daily...

I can barely distinguish them from each other.

Sure, I'll give you my card with contact info, but it doesn't mean I will be interested when I get the email.

Yes, you did more than most people and had the balls to approach me. Great. But that won't fix a mediocre product or a product I'm not interested in. I'll just end up ignoring your email.

I look for cues, such as who is funding you, your background and whether you got an introduction from somebody I trust. These things are my filters to finding the stories and startups that matter.

Beyond that, I agree with PG: I prefer ordinary conversations. Again, the people I know and find genuinely interesting are more likely to catch my attention when the time comes to pitch me.

<comment><USER8> _I look for cues, such as who is funding you_

Someone has to go first, no? Why do you trust rival VCs more than your own judgement?

<comment><USER9> Either I'm mistaken, or you do not know who you are answering to.

Mystalic is an editor at Mashable, not a VC. Therefore, when asking "who's funding you" he's not looking for _rival_ VCs, but as he said, for cues. That does not, however, really invalidate your point of him making is own judgement instead of filtering by VCs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So hypothetically if you have a very busy person who is mobbed by a lot of cold pitches, they might have a bit of pitch fatigue and assume that anybody cold pitching them is likely about as good a fit as the average cold pitcher, which is to say "total waste of my time." That very busy, selective individual probably has friends who are less mobbed by pitchers. Those friends might even be flattered to hear from you. Pitch them, with the goal of convincing them your startup/story/invitation to dinner and a movie/etc is so attractive that it is worth giving a warm intro to their friend. A warm intro in the Valley appears to be frequently a short two-sentence email: this is how I know X, here's why he's valuable to you, you guys take it from here.

This is how the real world works, over and over again.

<comment><USER11> This also works in the dating game where you approach indirectly by striking up a conversation with the less attractive friend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I, too, used to suck at approaching women at bars (I still do!). Rather than polishing up my pickup game, I adopted a different strategy: be interesting. Go to fun parties. Throw some fun parties. Become known as a cool person to hang out with, which results in more invitations to more parties. Create your own momentum.

I suppose the tech-industry corollary here is to do some agenda-free networking, and build up an agenda-free network. You may have a hidden agenda, and that's fine, but push it to the way back of your mind for now. You need to spend time building up a circle. Where to start? If you're in the Bay Area and working on a startup or a personal project, I'm sure you know at least 5 or 10 other folks in the same boat. Start getting together. Set up a weekly dinner or drinks. Start finding out about other peoples' dinners and drinks. Socialize and be interesting. Help other people without any expectation that they will help you.

This is a slow game, played over a longer term than many people are comfortable with. But it's a more organic way to meet and "pitch" people. I'd much rather find a way to become friendly with Big Investor X than find a perfect 30-second pitch for a chance encounter with Big Investor X. I can always pitch a friend, after all, if a bit down the line.

 _"But none of my friends is interesting / knows anybody cool / has any different friends outside our group."_

Time to diversify your social circle, then. Reach out and connect people from different stages of your life: childhood friends, college friends, work buddies from former and current jobs, interest-group friends, and so forth. Go to mixers and meet new people, too.

All of this may sound patently obvious to some folks here, and if you're among those folks, awesome. Just know that this stuff didn't occur naturally to me, and I bet a fair number of people are built similarly. I'd always struggled with the apparent phoniness and strain of "networking," until I learned why: I was trying to compress a long-term process into short-term transactions. It felt unnatural because it _was_ unnatural. I was always approaching people out of the blue and asking for something. That's not a winning strategy for becoming liked and getting helped. You've got to be doing things for others before expecting others to do things for you.

<comment><USER13> Things are complicated. Beware of the potential phonyness lurking there. "Instead of making a business offer, pretend to be friends long enough so that the other party will (maybe) want to make business with you."

Cool and all, but _sometimes_ a pitch is just a pitch, and a fuck is just a fuck.

Also: personally I would _never_ start a business with a friend I _really_ cared about. _Never_. It's just like having a "friend with benefits": it can go perfectly or it can be hell on earth.

<comment><USER12> _""Instead of making a business offer, pretend to be friends long enough so that the other party will (maybe) want to make business with you."_

That's not what I'm saying. Rather, I'm talking about cultivating a network of friends in and around the business. If one of those friends happens to be an important person, great. If not, great.

It's possible to have a long-term agenda and not to be mercenarily seeking things from people along the way. In fact, the less you do the latter, the better. Ironically enough, you'll probably have an easier time getting help from people if you're not solely trying to get help from them.

To refer back to the girls-in-bars analogy: you'll have an easier time getting laid when you're not trying hard to get laid. When you're simply trying to have a good time and meet interesting people, getting laid is icing on the cake. It's not the goal, but when it comes along, it's a bonus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here is my email address so I can escape this painful conversation. It will be much easier to ignore your email.

<comment><USER15> Similarly, whenever anyone cold calls me or knocks on my door to sell me services I don't want I ask for a brochure to "read over" later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My title is literally Chief Handshaker at FreshBooks. I wheel and deal for a living.

When walking up to people randomly, I find it is immensely helpful to be genuinely interested in people. They will often pay you back the favour by being genuinely interested in you afterwards.

To be honest, I do what I do because I love people. They are endlessly interesting. I don't do it to build my Twitter follower count.

If you walk up pitching they will just turtle and get rid of you. Have faith they will ask you about you in due course.

<comment><USER17> I guess the question for those of us who aren't inherently interested in people is how do we build such an interest, curiosity, and love for everyone? You can't just read Be Here Now and suddenly be enlightened and feel one with the world.

(The question is not exactly directed at you since you seem to naturally have such an interest.)

<comment><USER16> I used to be a curmudgeon until my early 20s, wondering how everyone could be so dumb. Then, enlightenment! I learnt I didn't know everything.

I am just curious. Everyone acts rationally from their point of view. Why do people do what they do? What makes them successful? Failures? What is their take on living? Most people are passionate about something, so tell me about it. I'll learn something new.

I spent a lot of time learning how to actively listen, not just wait for an opportunity to jump into a conversation with my own immature opinions. (I have many.) I am not afraid to ask dumb questions in an effort to learn. I have no fear that people will think I am stupid. Actually, asking questions makes you look like a genius.

Caveat: There are some people who lack the spark of life. I don't spend time with them.

<comment><USER18> _Most people are passionate about something, so tell me about it._

That's my sticking point: in situations referred to, the person in question all too often isn't prone to discussing what he _want_ to discuss, but what his fans do. How to, as a random face wandering up as so many do, can one elicit some fragment of "say, what do _you_ want to talk about or do?"

The nuance struck me when meeting (as just another face in the room) Steve Reich and Philip Glass. During a talk, Reich lamented that everyone wanted to gush over his early works, which he made clear he viewed as immature - <USER2> bad, but something he has moved far beyond. Able to stand nearby someone's hallway chat with Glass, I was struck by how _much_ the two had to talk about, how the other person wasn't anyone the great composer knew, and how I had absolutely nothing to offer/initiate in conversation despite a desire to do so and an ability to work a conversation well _once_it_started_ on some point - but alas I had no point to start on.

To wit: when opportune, I want to say to great/famous person X "so, what might _you_ want to talk about?" but such phrasing is inane.

<comment><USER6> A few years ago my mother helped organize a literature festival and at the closing banquet was seated next to a famous author with several critically acclaimed bestsellers to his name. My mother introduced herself and added "I have to admit I've never actually read any of your books". "Excellent!" the author replied, "that means we can talk about something else". And they spent the entire evening having a really great conversation about all manners of topics. My mother said she could really tell how excited he was to get a chance actually talk about something other than his books.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> From the comments here, I infer, VCs probably don't like being pitched unsolicited. Girls don't like being hit on. I have never pitched a VC, so i am basically theorizing here. The trick is not in approaching them, but approaching them in a way which does not activate their natural defense mechanism. If you come across as interesting the girls will give you attention. Its better to lower their defenses with an approach that they don't expect.

<comment><USER20> Maybe girls don't like being hit on by the wrong people, or in the wrong way. But ultimately they do want to be approached by the right guys, or they wouldn't keep on going to places like bars where one of the main selling points (unless it's a gay bar) is meeting people of the opposite sex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Great article.

The first thing I do when mentoring noob entrepreneurs/founders is ask them about their networks.

"How are you growing it?"

"Who are your mentors?"

"Who are your mentees?"

"Who are the big-wigs in your network?"

I have found, much to my surprise, given that I'm a "black belt ninja networker type" (apparently;per the article) that people haven't really given much thought to these questions.

They know (or get the sense) that having a strong network is important but they've never really worked on building it.

This article provides some good insight on how to build your network. Specifically it makes it clear that in order to build your network you MUST NOT BE SHY.

It also makes it clear that it's work.

As I like to say: "Building your network requires, well, that you build your network."

<comment><USER22> Hi, I've been an HN lurker for a few months but finally signed up today just to inquire about mentors when I saw your comment. I am a complete beginner when it comes to startups. In fact, I happened to stumble into my niche rather accidentally. How do I go about finding great mentors or at least a group of like-minded people that I can learn from? If it helps, I'm currently located in NJ about 45 mins from NYC. I apologize in advance if this is a strange venue to ask this type of advice. Thanks!

<comment><USER21> I searched Bing for "New York Tech Startup Calendar" and got this:

<http://startup-ventures.meetup.com/cities/us/ny/new_york/>

Just start attending events, smiling, and introducing yourself to people. Make sure you are not shy about asking for what you are looking for. For example "I'm just figuring this startup thing out. I think I've got some great ideas but I don't have any mentors. If you know of any one I could talk to that would be great."

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I remember meeting Mike Arrington at TechCrunch Disrupt, and he said that he "hates being pitched to [unsolicited], I'll probably think its a bad idea. I thought twitter was a bad idea.." Not sure how that changes with CrunchFund.

My guess is that some Angels/VCs are way more approachable than others.

<comment><USER24> Agreed. While most people (incl. me) can benefit from moving outside their comfort zone and be more assertive, you still have to use judgement/discretion. It's a challenging line to tow. I've got it wrong at least as many times as I've got it right. I'd like to think that my instincts in this regard have improved over time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The price tag is key: if I'd pay someone ten dollars to make my pitch...

Ten bucks? Whether its a phone number I want or a pitch I'm making, ten bucks is way low. And if I'd pay a hundred for either, clearly I ought to suck it up and get in there ans get what I want.

Put a price on it. Makes you realize when you are just being a little bitch.

</comment><comment><USER26> "I didn't get the first phone number I asked for, nor the second. In fact, the first number probably came somewhere between tries five and ten."

This applies to so many different areas of life that it should just be made a rule, if it isn't already.

</comment><comment><USER27> getting good at "game" has led to improvements in almost every other aspect of my life, including pitching.

<comment><USER28> Funny. I have recommended 'The Game' by Neil Strauss to more than one person for reasons beyond just meeting women. Learning how to start and manage a conversation are powerful tools.

<comment><USER27> I wonder how many "hacker players" hang out on HN? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> it's a tough thing to accept, but you outlined it pretty well. most things don't just happen. nobody believes it's the time, place, moment and right person to "risk" being declined, ignored or laughed at. and that's so wrong. people who succeed, typically, tend to be a bit more open than others. everything else is an excuse to hope for pure chance or being discovered. and in all reality, try it with beers, go to a bar, hit on a random girl, just to get started again. it will be really, really tough at first.

</comment><comment><USER30> I agree overcoming "approach anxiety" is key to just about any goal that requires someone else to be attracted to you in one way or another - dating, investing, friendship, ordering a drink in a crowded bar, ....

However, the key to ultimate success in all of these is that the person needs to _like_ you and _respect_ you. Girls don't like guys that approach them and rattle off about how funny they are, how much money they make, and what a great lover they are. Girls respect guys who are confident and layered, not guys who throw all their cards on the table in a 30 second pitch in a desperate attempt to be liked. Bartenders will first serve patient, confident, respectful customers, not eager, aggressive douchebags flashing twenties and snapping fingers.

Not being a super-experienced investor or fundraiser, I'll leave the translation to investment pitches up to others, but I have a mixed reaction to this post. For most people, the hardest part of reaching out to others is shutting down the the internal chatter that talks them out of opening the door. How you conduct yourself afterwards though, is also incredibly important.

I suspect investors as a class try to grit their teeth and discount awkwardness and narcissism in the hopes of finding the next Mark Zuckerberg, however I also think being a genuine and likable person - which for the most part means genuinely liking other people - is a great path to a good relationship in this and any other circumstance.

<comment><USER31> There seem to be an infinite number of parallels between 'the game' and networking in general. I worked for 4 years as a full-time dating coach, and many years before that trying to get my game up to scratch, and the benefits in contacts, in rapport building, in sales arenas, in any area where I need to present, are immeasurable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Awesome! Not only is this good business advice for me but it also gave me some dating pointers which I, as a newly single, rusty, guy, probably needs. Thanks.</comment>


TagMan Speeds Web-Page Load Times, Protects Privacy 05/10/2010 - <AUTHOR> http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=127767 <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting to see if this is real acceleration of webpage or just a spin</comment>


Privacy Badger - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/privacybadger <comment><USER2> Nice. Some feedback: The "first run" page doesn't tell me clearly that anything has been installed or has started working. This kind of information should be really clear and prominent, the largest thing on the page. Instead it's not even there at all, as far as I can see.

Edit: Please don't reply and say "you can check if it's working by blah blah blah." That is missing the point. My point is that EFF should fix the extension to make this communication clear for ALL users.

<comment><USER3> Add an issue on the github project if you please!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> First place I went to was "I am an online advertising / tracking company. How do I stop Privacy Badger from blocking me?".

If all it takes is MaliciousCompany.com from posting some text document in the right spot to get PrivacyBadget to whitelist the page, how is this any better than DNT?

Do they have a way of blacklisting domains that abuse this?

Edit: Also, I LOVE the idea behind this and installed it immediately to compliment ABP and Ghostery.

<comment><USER5> Firstly, isn't this designed to completely replace Ghostery?

Secondly, doesn't Ghostery have privacy issues by sending your browsing history to a 3rd party?

<comment><USER6> It's optional, off by default, and is anonymized (apparently).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr: A browser add-on that blocks privacy invasive behaviour, not necessarily ads. Some ads are permitted, others are blocked. Currently in alpha, blocking only third-party objectionable behaviour; first-party blocking on the roadmap.

Cool. I shall install this forthwith.

<comment><USER8> All: please don't use "tl;dr" on Hacker News. It's fine, of course, to point out relevant details from an article. But it should be part of a considered comment of your own.

HN values intellectual substance. Good reading, writing, and thinking take time. If we're to have high-quality discussion, we need to inhibit the reflex to snap judgment and give the slower and quieter reflective process a chance to function. Since memes like "tl;dr" are emblems of that shallow reflex, we should heed the broken windows theory and not have them here.

(Not picking on any individual here; PeterWhittaker's comment is fine without the "tl;dr". The concern is the symbol—symbols matter.)

<comment><USER9> I wholeheartedly disagree. Much of the content on HN is long form journalism, some is content that is so specifically specialized in a field, that only those with thesis in that field will understand. Part of the brilliance of conversation on the web is interactions between disparate fields. On may articles, if I have to read all the way through a theoretical physics post and understand it without a synopsis, I wouldn't be able to add any value to the conversation, and the thread becomes an echo chamber. The initialism tl;dr does matter, because it's a clean and easy way to identify the content that someone looking for a synopsis will look for.

I understand the goal. HN doesn't want to become reddit, and values engaged discussion. But tl;dr isn't reddit, and it isn't going away. Language is ever evolving, and the way we talk today would have sent my granddad into a tizzy. Part of being a platform, and HN is a platform for ideas and conversations, is that the people will decide how to manage that relationship. Moderation can only trim the edges, and remove the bad actors, but the tonne and tools will not be set by moderation, but rather cultivation by the users.

<comment><USER8> I agree with you about specialized content, but this has nothing to do with "tl;dr".

The best HN threads are already great at giving context and making clear what a story is about. (That's usually how I learn what stories are about.) And yes, no one has time to read every specialized paper or the expertise to understand all of them. That's why we often prefer a high-quality popular article, when one exists, to specialized literature. Original papers typically get linked to in the comments anyway, for those who want them.

All of this is good and necessary. But none of it requires "tl;dr".

"Tl;dr" is an equivalent in comments to the linkbait gimmicks that we edit out of titles, and it should be kept out of HN comments for the same reason. We're not asking you to make the effort of reading every article or understanding every specialty, just the effort of looking at an HN thread for its content, without gimmickry.

<comment><USER10> I very much question the value of a comment from someone who is incapable of understanding the source material linked in the submission in the first place. If it's so technical you need somebody elses slimmed down (and likely faulty) synopsis to even comprehend it how likely is it that your comment truly contributes to the discussion?

<comment><USER9> I would encourage you to re-think this stance. Interdisciplinary conversation is a tremendous tool to approaching hard problems, conversions, and ideas. I've encountered this enough in my life to know it to be very beneficial. We get arrogant when we specialize, often missing simple solutions because we assume that the solution has to be hard because we're very smart, and we haven't effectively solved it yet.

I've often had aha moments when someone who didn't understand the problem, framed a question in a way that caused me to reconsider my approach.

Besides, jargon, not comprehension, is what keeps many smart people out of conversations that they can definitely add value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm curious if the functionality is only enabled if I have the "Tell sites that I do not want to be tracked" setting turned on in my browser preferences? There is nothing explicitly said about this in the FAQ's, but there are references to the purpose of this being "so sites will honor the Do Not Track feature", so it seems to be implying that it only does its thing if I have "Do Not Track" enabled?

Thanks!

<comment><USER12> Both in Chromium and Firefox, after installation, an embedded "firstRun.html" page is shown, which includes the following statement:

 _[...] We send the Do Not Track header with each request, and our extension evaluates the likelihood that you are still being tracked. [...]_

[Still, I didn't attempt to verify this in code or by sniffing packets.]

I, on the other hand, would be very interested to know if it is expected to work OK with NoScript (and NoScript with it)?

 _[edit]_ From [https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadgerfirefox/issues/73](https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadgerfirefox/issues/73) and [https://twitter.com/bcrypt/status/463750477075578880](https://twitter.com/bcrypt/status/463750477075578880) I assume it is compatible with NoScript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Shall I remove ADB and ghostery and just go with Privacy Badger?

<comment><USER14> No, i tried that and it's not at the state to provide adequate replacement. But I have high hopes.

<comment><USER13> Thanks. I was thinking the same,but wanted to hear other opinions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "[...] in Firefox, Privacy Badger will be automatically deactivated when you enter Private Browsing Mode [...]". This is kind of a deal breaker for me. I frequently use Private Browsing to quickly open a single browser window without waiting for all my session windows/tabs to open.

</comment><comment><USER16> Speaking of privacy badgering... Why won't firefox let me create a security exception to view this page? Without a way to jump through that hoop, I can't even view the page.

<comment><USER17> (Firefox dev here) When you say Security Exception, do you mean you're seeing a certificate error on this page? The certificate is valid for me, so that indicates something dodgy on your end (perhaps a captive portal, or middlebox on a corporate network).

<comment><USER16> I'm behind a simple NAT, but that's never caused trouble before. Other self- signed certs work fine, but this one doesn't give me the "I understand the risks" option.

Screenshot: [http://i.imgur.com/NTLY7ZB.png](http://i.imgur.com/NTLY7ZB.png)

You're saying it's completely valid though? Bizarre.

<comment><USER18> Have you modified your trusted issuer certs? EFF's cert was issued by "StartCom Class 2 Primary Intermediate Server CA"

<comment><USER16> Oh, you know what? I think I have. IIRC there was news about a cert issuing entity charging to remove insecure certs, so I removed it from my trusted list. I'm sure that's what has caused this issue for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Neat! Adblock blocks ads, Noscript for dodgy scripts, and it looks like this has some overlap with those as well as a cookie handler.

That looks like the unholy trinity of tracking systems dealt with.

<comment><USER20> Don't forget BetterPrivacy for removing flash cookies: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/betterprivacy/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I haven't made up my mind if tracking is altogether bad. I certainly enjoy Google showing me relevant ads in a non-malware-appearance. Privacy is good in theory but out of convenience I keep using services that compromise my private information and I myself willingly leave personal information online on several websites. Anything is as strong as your weakest link. And their are too many weak links in my online circle.

</comment><comment><USER22> After reading about AdBlock Plus's effect on memory usage in Firefox[1] I immediately disabled it. Seeing that this is also based on the ABP codebase, I wonder if it will run into the same issue.

1\. [https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/05/14/adblock- plus...](https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/05/14/adblock-pluss-effect- on-firefoxs-memory-usage/)

<comment><USER23> Have you tried AdBlock edge? Its much faster. I have no idea if this is because it is using less memory though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Could maybe someone explain to me: What exactly is wrong with Adblock Edge + Ghostery? If not, why do they make another similar extension then? There is no actual manual configuration needed, they don't use me for their business model (or none of that I know).

<comment> UVB-76 > Although we like Disconnect, Adblock Plus, Ghostery and similar products (in > fact Privacy Badger is based on the ABP code!), none of them are exactly > what we were looking for. In our testing, all of them required some custom > configuration to block non-consensual trackers. Several of these extensions > have business models that we weren't entirely comfortable with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder, is there any page worth visiting, where the icon does actually turn green?!

<comment><USER26> I don't think the color coding system is working quite right. It's red on eff.org...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Kinda off-topic but, am I the only one who thought that background was moving?

Had to blink a couple of times to get used to.

<comment><USER28> It was the first thing I noticed indeed. I was thinking it was some animations on the website first.

Very similar to the example gallery on this page: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_illusion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_illusion)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I disabled third party cookies in Chrome. Doesn't this basically do the same?

<comment><USER18> Nope. That's a good first step but here are many ways to track you outside of 3rd party cookies. Google Analytics, for example, uses 1st party cookies.

<comment><USER30> and that's why I have the following in my hosts file, together with thousands more.

127.0.0.1 google-analytics.com www.google-analytics.com

I find it doesn't slow down browsers as much as adblock and similar extensions.

<comment><USER31> The host based approach won't block as well as Adblock (Edge/Plus) however as those plugins can block ads at the DOM element level.

There are many sites that host/proxy their ads on their own domain name but AB can block the <divs> and such by name or by other properties like size.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Looks good - I'm going to try it when it's in Beta.

</comment><comment><USER33> We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world.

This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.

[http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html](http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html)

<comment><USER33> They are not John Poindexter, they're trying to sell advertising. But make no mistake about it – they are in the surveillance business; that is how they make money: they surveil people and use that to profit.

And so the effect is the same.

[http://privacy-pc.com/news/changing-threats-to-privacy- moxie...](http://privacy-pc.com/news/changing-threats-to-privacy-moxie- marlinspike-on-privacy-threats-at-defcon-part-2.html)

<comment><USER19> Call me when someone gets hauled off to Guantanamo because of ad demographics.

The lack of nuance here when it comes to "tracking" is insane. I can see wanting to block them for whatever reason, but I can't understand this reduction to the absurd chicken-little behavior when it comes to ad targeting.

<comment><USER34> Why? If company X tracks all the websites you visit, it's really not that hard for the government to get a hold of that data. It doesn't matter who collects the data or what it is initially used for; as long as the data is collected you're at risk.

<comment><USER19> So we must hamstring all advertising and personalizing because somewhere a government might abuse their power and get into the data.

That's absurd. Why should we change our behavior because bad actors exist instead of dealing with the bad actors? The whole argument implies that somehow blocking ads will keep $someScaryTLA from screwing with you, which is silly on its face.

And on top of that, ad tracking data is all about aggregates. Ads are targeted to "groups of people who like X", not "pyrocat, 123 foobar st, san francisco".

I really don't get this fear. I'd rather see ads for things that are relevant to me.

<comment><USER35> I thought the whole point of the various social graph implementations was to build a datastructure that handles details on the level of an individual: who your friends are, what you shop for etc.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_graph](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_graph)

E.g. I was browsing cutlery on Crate and Barrel, suddenly I'm seeing ads all over the internet for products that I was viewing. I visited Digital Ocean's site and I see ads everywhere offering their hosting. Same with New Relic.

If I had to guess, the economic systems that underpin these ad networks are getting stronger and eventually they will all merge. Well, of course there will still be big players like facebook, but you get my point.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Android app quality: Time for a change, and here's how.  - <AUTHOR> http://techstopmuse.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-google-needs-to-change-its-app.html

<comment><USER2> I don't think the feedback/approval program is necessary at all, but I like the idea of an official, curated, consistently updated top apps list that is available directly on the device, much like the App Store app.

The App Store featured apps rotate every week and it gives developers a lot more visibility that they would otherwise not be able to achieve, and if you write a high quality app you have a reasonable chance at getting featured.

But the fact of the matter is, simply due to the economics of the App Store, any developer spending the time writing a high quality app is going to want to ship on iOS first (generally on both the iPhone and iPad), and then port to Android later.

The only way I see this changing is if the app purchasing patterns of Android owners reaches the same levels as iOS.

Otherwise, why would you start with the platform that generates half the revenue of the other?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well it's like this. There are plenty of apps out there being developed for android only. The thing is nearly every one of those android only apps are well... rather crappy in design and performance. Apple developers put their bets on paid apps since they have to go to hell and back just to get them approved.

What you say is for the most part true but there are a lot of developers out there on the ios platform too who have put that same effort into making apps but they choose to make them free. Based on this I just thought to myself what if the moderation concept was applied to the app market.

It's about motivation mostly and an effort to try and improve the quality of the apps out there. Google needs to address this issue at some point. Apple addressed the issue of fart apps didn't they. Higher quality apps being developed as Android only means a lot to the folks at Google. It's excellent pr and great for marketing the platform. Even with the featured app program there currently I don't see improvement. I see apps ported from iPhone hitting the top quite often actually.

So yea. I got what you said. But if Google wants to improve the app quality they need to be proactive about it. Very! The question was how to be proactive without killing the openess

Sidenote- as far as paid apps go Google devs anyway have a different mindset which focuses on the freemium business model. So they wouldnt mind working to get into the 'Google approved' list since that would just increase chances of people purchasing their full software

Thanks for commenting btw. Really had to think on that

<comment><USER2> > Sidenote- as far as paid apps go Google devs anyway have a different mindset > which focuses on the freemium business model. So they wouldnt mind working > to get into the 'Google approved' list since that would just increase > chances of people purchasing their full software

Of course, my understanding is that a lot of times they're forced into this because collecting payments with Android is a lot more difficult than with the App Store (especially for non US developers).

<comment><AUTHOR> fair enough. I'm about to start proper proper development for the market (all this time it's been apps I made for myself when I needed something done) and yes the first thought that came to my mind was if I implement the paid component for this how do I go about actually marketing it (I'm not yet in a paid app enabled zone). Hmmm. I didn't think about that being a direct effect. Thanks. I shall research on this since I do recall an article from sometime back about the market mentality of Android. Will start there.

cheers</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DHS asks Mozilla to take down MafiaaFire add-on - <AUTHOR> http://lockshot.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/homeland-security-request-to-take-down-mafiaafire-add-on/ <comment><USER2> I'm thrilled that Mozilla didn't give in to their demands (yet).

I'm confused as why the HN headline says "MediaaFire" while the linked article and add-on are "MafiaaFire", though. _UPDATE: It was a mistake and was fixed._

Oh, and it's completely ridiculous that DHS is enforcing IP. I mean, what a completely inappropriate and wasteful use of that department.

Edit: Did a Google search for "MediaaFire" which brought up nothing relevant. It DID show this posting, though, which I find to be amazing (It's only existed for 15 minutes.)

<comment><USER3> _> it's completely ridiculous that DHS is enforcing IP_

The Secret Service was created by Lincoln to combat an extremely high rate of counterfeiting currency[1]. When the Department of Homeland Security was created, the Secret Service became part of that department.

I'm sure you will be happy to know that the Secret Service also provides protection for "important" citizens traveling abroad. They also investigate cases involving child pornography and various types of fraud.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service#Ea...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service#Early_years)

<comment><USER2> Defending currency is NOT anything like defending civil IP. It's not even covered by the same laws, for starters.

<comment><USER4> Bureaucracies are grown, not designed.

<comment><USER5> They also rarely _stop_ growing.

"Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy." \-- Oscar Wilde

<comment><USER6> That looks like a paraphrasing of Parkinson's Law[0]

[0]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_Law>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've never been a fan of ICE's technique of seizing domains. I don't think they should have the authority to do that. And then updating them and redirecting to their page that the domain was seized and potentially tracking the IPs of those that visit the site. It really bothers me that they have the authority to do that in the first place.

They have already got in to some hot water when they seized a dynamic dns domain that was hosting thousands of subdomains (only one was accused of pedophilia trafficking). They wildcard redirected the domain to an IP that hosts a page saying that domain was seized because the site was hosting pedophilia. Pedophilia labeling was strung across a lots of personal sites, church websites, and radio station websites in the processes. It took days for them to revert it and have all the DNS records propagated but the damage was partly already done as it labeled innocent parties as pedophiles without due process.

Not sure who is doing oversite of the DHS/ICE's efforts here. Probably best not to buy .COM/.NET domains, especially if you register it with US address in the WHOIS.

<comment><USER8> I saw someone point out that DHS's seized domain page isn't very accessible due to just being an image.

I noticed that the image is always named something generic like banner2.jpg and there's no other uniquely identifiable information in the HTML. I think they do it specifically to make it very difficult to Google Search for seized domains.

<comment><USER7> Violation of government accessibility requirements. Oh and it's horribly compressed (150k+ IIRC), text stored on a JPEG (PNG is so much better for graphics), not hosted on a CDN, lacks etags so there is no caching, and the background image of the "seized" text in red is just as bad. Wasting my tax money on massive bandwidth drain to host the page and wastes my bandwidth caps to load it. Makes me angry.

<comment><USER9> > Violation of government accessibility requirements.

I've always wondered if they could be sued for that.

<comment><USER10> I'll throw in a few bucks if you want to try.

<comment><USER9> IANAL and don't have the time to arrange something like this or I would def try.

PS: I would throw money someone's way to do this too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR -- Mafiaafire redirects you to an alternative domain when the primary domain is moved or seized. So basically the DHS is trying to suppress a workaround to their domain seizures.

I'm not sure they have much of a legal argument here though, nor do they have a due process workaround... well, unless they seize mozilla.org.

<comment><USER11> If the DHS had a legal leg to stand on they would have delivered their request via official channels.

<comment><USER12> They didn't actually mention what channels they went through. What would an "official channel" look like, in this case?

Also, perhaps they didn't want to spend the $5k on a lawyer to draw up an official document, hoping that a simple request would suffice. Understandable, and laudable - as is Mozilla's refusal to comply with what is nothing more than a request.

<comment><USER11> _What would an "official channel" look like, in this case?_

Though nobody concerned is revealing the actual delivery method, it would look something like a process server and it wouldn't be called "asking."

<comment><USER13> They don't need official channels... they can just take the domain name for providing a plug-in that links to pirated content. The Mozilla domain might pull up a DHS graphic any day now! (it would be interesting if the DHS would go so far as to take down a site used by millions... but you never know as it appears DHS is above the law)

<comment><USER14> a site used by hundreds of millions, actually :-) and a site that helps ensure the security of every Firefox user across the globe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it just me, or does DHS really seem like a rogue organization that thinks they're above things like due process?

<comment><USER2> Which is bad enough when they are, you know, _securing the homeland_.

This kind of thing just makes them look like hired thugs (working essentially for free, no less).

<comment><USER8> I kind of wonder why there isn't more outrage over stuff like this. I guess I'm either overreacting or people just don't understand it (or don't care).

<comment><USER15> There is quite a lot of outrage over it. But on the other hand, people feel powerless to do anything against these kind of things. There is so much to be outraged about. The current course of events, resulting in more and more restrictions of freedom, seems inevitable.

<comment><USER16> There also seems to be a huge segment of the population who don't notice anything at all unless it happens somewhere between their television and the nearest WalMart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Domains seem sort of like property but on some level are really speech. Were the NY Times to write an article that said, "The IP address of www.whatever.com is 220.127.116.11" would DHS try to shut down the presses? Ultimately, conveying that piece of information is what this plugin (and indeed, the DNS system before DHS got to it) does.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you upvoted this article and think raising awareness of such overreaches is important consider contacting your elected representative, the person whose job is to hold government organizations accountable to the public's concerns.

<https://writerep.house.gov/>

</comment><comment><USER19> Well, I guess they can ask for whatever they want.

IANAL, but I don't see how it could be illegal to violate a court order that is not directed at you.

</comment><comment><USER20> Typical Government High-handed tactic. We will ask sternly that you "Remove/Stop/Cease" certain activity as it renders some of our actions slightly less effective.

Basically Mozilla replied with "Oh Yeah...Show me which law compels me to listen to your non-threat threat? " Fantastic and perfectly legal response.

99% of others would have just blindly complied - which is probably more scary to me than anything any External entity might do to America.

</comment><comment><USER21> This will be another occurrence of Streisand effect.

</comment><comment><USER22> Anybody else curious about these "seized domains" Homeland Security is trying to "protect" us from?

<comment><USER22> Ok, I was really curious, so here's what I found so far:

<http://www.channelsurfing.net/>

<http://atdhe.net/>

<http://www.rojadirecta.org/>

<http://www.firstrow.net/>

<http://ilemi.com/>

Most were video streaming websites.

<comment><USER23> Last year ICE seized 9 other domains too (also mostly video streaming). Details here: [http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/01/business/la-fi-ct- pi...](http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/01/business/la-fi-ct- piracy-20100701)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Another interesting thing here is that Mozilla has just provided the blueprint for responses should other sites get this kind of request. Perhaps this could seed a project for "how to respond if it happens to you".

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow, what a text-book perfect response from Mozilla. Well played, guys.

</comment><comment><USER25> DHS will not get far as is it's evident that they are asking, not telling. The law isn't on their side and let's hope that they're not above it.

As far as Mozilla is concerned, I have always held them in high regard and this case reaffirms my point of view. What scares me though, is the far reaching arm of DHS being able to take down domains in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER26> Is anyone else worried that the MafiaaFire authors might start putting bogus redirects in the plugin? Does anyone know the people behind it?

<comment><USER27> The authors of all kinds of extensions could do all kinds of trickery, when you install an extension you generally are trusting the author of that extension.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The circus will run out of fuel eventually.

<comment><USER27> I'm not so optimistic.

The airport security circus has been going for a very long time, and only getting worse.

<comment><USER29> And before too long it will be expanded to include the "High Speed Rail security circus"!

<comment><USER30> Well how else are we to keep a terrorist from crashing a train into the White House?

<comment><USER29> Or: how else are we to get even more subjects (er, citizens) fully accepting of getting full-body xray-scans of their "privates" (saved on a server somewhere forever, no doubt) performed by their neighbor the DHS bureaucrat, who is "just doing his/her [badly needed] job"?

And hopefully gas prices will go up well past $10/G so even more subjects will be forced into mass transit. Then, one "terrorist bomb" on a muni bus, and bingo: DHS for all (or would that be "DHS uber alles"?)! (Unemployment will drop sharply due to DHS hiring; the MSM will be gleeful!).

Thank goodness for Big Brother.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Quite worrying development. I don't see why DHS should police IP.

</comment><comment><USER32> The proper name should be the Union of Motherland Securities (it might be a better fit for them to be a part of old Soviet Union)</comment>


A discussion of scientific python and the business of open source - <AUTHOR> http://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/34/continuum-scientific-python-and-the-business-of-open-source <comment><USER2> The interviewee, Travis Oliphant, is primary developer of NumPy and a founding contributor to SciPy.</comment>


How to Increase Your Luck Surface Area - <AUTHOR> http://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-surface-area

<comment><USER2> How many times must I point out that Max Gunther is the pioneer of this thinking?

These are required reading for everyone:

How to Get Lucky [http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Lucky-discovering- ebook/dp/B00...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Lucky-discovering- ebook/dp/B003XRDBYY)

The Luck Factor [http://www.amazon.com/The-Luck-Factor-Luckier- ebook/dp/B0037...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Luck-Factor-Luckier- ebook/dp/B00371V6X4)

This thinking was original only when Gunther put it in books. Stop re- inventing the wheel and just read the damn wheel.</comment>


The Things You Carry - <AUTHOR> http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/06/12/the-things-you-carry/

<comment><USER2> The Things You Carry is trending towards one item: Your mobile device.

It's subsumed so many other things: camera, Walkman, compass, GPS, phone, notebook (the paper kind), alarm clock, watch, step counter, ...

[Forgot the stack of street maps that used to bulge out from the driver's side door of my car. And my contacts notebook. And my library of books and encyclopedias. And my record album, cassette tape, CD and blu-ray disc collections.]</comment>


Should I even attempt something of this complexity in Rails? - <AUTHOR> http://dabbledb.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Gang, I submitted a YC funding idea for a new app that would be highly interactive and ideal to put on the web. The closest thing I've seen to what I'm trying to do is DabbleDB; I won't be competing with it, but my idea is 'of a piece' with Dabble. It's implemented in Seaside, and the more I learn about Seaside and Squeak and Smalltalk in general, the more intrigued I am. But I really enjoy Ruby and I've really loved developing in Rails, so I guess my question is, has anyone tried to implement something as bad-ass as Dabble in Rails, or any other framework out there? How much of a factor should "love of language" play in choosing a framework?

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't consider Ruby a risky choice for implementing something like DabbleDB -- I'd call it the safe choice. Choosing the technology is one of the greatest perks of doing your own thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm only thinking in terms of what's possible. Can I build something like that without continuations? What's what I'm wondering.

<comment><USER2> Can't you do continuations in Ruby? Anyway I'm sure you could do it with simple RoR sessions.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/10/adp-sues-zenefits-for-defamation <comment><USER2> Two articles on this were at the top of the front page. Since we don't need two, we buried [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9693370](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9693370) as a dupe. That's not entirely fair, since the other link contains Zenefits' response, but anyone who wants to can go read it. Since we have to pick one it seems best to keep the third-party article.

<comment><USER3> De-duping like this seems unnecessary. I'd prefer to see do-nothing bias. No explanations or artificial manipulation needed. Just let the threads compete. Like life.

<comment><USER2> I understand the concept, but HN has never worked that way, and if it did the results would be so bad that I believe (though I realize it won't convince you) that even you would recoil in horror. It would also kill HN pretty quickly in all the ways we care about, though I suppose the numbers would go up.

<comment><USER3> Fair enough. In this case, they did seem a bit different and, as you note, there were some important comments in the killed thread.

<comment><USER2> If the stories had really been the same we would have merged the threads and left a "comments moved to..." post in the other one. But I was worried that the delta was a bit too great to deprive those comments of their original context. That particular dilemma doesn't come up all that often, which is good because we don't have a good solution to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We're a very small company (10 FTEs), but we have been anything but impressed with Zenefits as a customer. We only use them for medical and dental insurance, but in reality, they provide very little, if any value. The Zenefits software is really nothing special, and in fact, the onboarding UI is pretty poor. Now that we have our insurance, Zenefits adds zero value to us. We deal directly with United and Zenefits collects a 10% commission on our monthly premiums. Its a genius business model, and little else.

Zenefits doesn't have any intrinsic rights to ADP's system. Twitter killed off plenty of companies when it decided to shut down the 3rd party ecosystem. Facebook obviously maintains similar strategic control over it's API. How many case studies must there be for companies to understand that building on another company's platform always carries business and strategic risks?

<comment><USER5> > Zenefits doesn't have any intrinsic rights to ADP's system.

Zenefits doesn't want or need intrinsic rights to the ADP system. They do need (and deserve) the same level of access as a human working for a client using ADP. They might provide little to no value or be a worthless company but NONE OF THAT MATTERS. The client paid for ADP access and has every right to use whatever means they deem necessary to input or output data from the ADP system.

<comment><USER6> >The client paid for ADP access and has every right to use whatever means they deem necessary to input or output data from the ADP system.

Surely ADP has a superseding right to determine how information enters and leaves their system? I'm not suggesting that's good or bad, just pointing out that it's _their_ system, being a customer doesn't give you carte blanche to do whatever you like.

Hell, look at what happened to Aaron Swartz.

<comment><USER7> > Surely ADP has a superseding right to determine how information enters and > leaves their system?

No. They do not own this information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a lot of respect for what Zenefits has done to date in shaking up the insurance space, but you have to REALLY question what the heck is going on with Parker's leadership there.

What is going on that the founder/CEO has enough time to chastise an engineer candidate on Quora and put out factually inaccurate posts on topics like healthcare reform (he had something out on LinkedIn a few weeks back) but doesn't have the foresight to build a "real" integration with a payroll vendor that has one available (and an established track record of integrating with competitors in many cases mind you).

You read the glassdoor reviews of Zenefits and you get this picture where no one knows what they are doing. All symptomatic of a company in hyper-growth mode, I get that. The questions becomes, does Parker have the leadership chops to see this through?

<comment><USER9> I was curious what "chastise an engineer candidate on Quora" meant so I looked it up: [http://qr.ae/7IErH1](http://qr.ae/7IErH1)

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable answer to me. Especially after reading the question. It gives me a bad taste, I wouldn't want to work with that guy. He's the annoying guy at the table who is like "I work at x" and wants everybody to go "oooh," not "wtf is zenefits?" It reeks of the almost ubiquitous entitled tech engineer stench.

If anything, this makes me appreciate the integrity of Conrad.

<comment><USER10> The worst part of that answer was edited out. He had "(n.b. -- we are revoking the questioner's offer to work at Zenefits)." Which is a reasonable thing to do, I guess, if you feel the person isn't all that interested in working for your company, but it isn't all that reasonable to say in a public forum.

Edit: Here's a link that has the quote about rescinding the offer: [http://www.quora.com/Zenefits-CEO-Rescinds-Job-Offer- May-201...](http://www.quora.com/Zenefits-CEO-Rescinds-Job-Offer- May-2015/Should-Zenefits-CEO-Parker-Conrad-regret-publicly-rescinding-a-job- offer-on-Quora)

<comment><USER9> lol I didn't know that.

Meh. It's something I would have done myself in the same situation.

<comment><USER11> Really? I would have kept my mouth shut and not removed doubt about my foolery.

<comment><USER9> Why? To preserve my "image" with fickle internet communities full of judgmental people who give me a double standard because my name is known?

This is why I'm glad I'm not famous...

<comment><USER12> Smart people don't want to work for fools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Reading the complaint, ADP is not likely come close to winning.

The defamation they claimed happened is that Zenefits "alleged that ADP intentionally sought to cause harm to ADP's clients solely to gain an unfair competitive advantage against Zenefits."

Even if you argue this is defamation per se (and not per quod), about a matter of private concern, they'd still have to prove "4\. That [name of defendant] failed to use reasonable care to determine the truth or falsity of the statement(s).

"

(california jury instructions for this charge will be here: [https://www.justia.com/trials- litigation/docs/caci/1700/1704...](https://www.justia.com/trials- litigation/docs/caci/1700/1704.html))

There is a near 0% chance they can prove a lack of reasonable care here. Plus, they open themselves up to discovery on any memos, etc they've written about this decision internally, which almost certainly show the statement is truth.

Note the above is the _best_ case. If it's determined to be a matter of public concern, or defamation per quod, ADP's chances go down.

<comment><USER14> I'm curious, do you know something about the facts of this case that hasn't appeared on Hacker News before:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9679312](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9679312)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9688442](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9688442)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9686175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9686175)

It looks like they were asking for users' login credentials to scrape ADP's frontend, and that Zenefits had never talked directly to ADP. The scraping broke when ADP added DOS protection to their portal; they claim that Zenefits was responsible for 25% of their traffic despite serving only 0.25% of their clients.

I kinda _want_ Zenefits to win here, because I one day dream of having employees and from what I've seen Zenefits is _much_ easier to deal with than ADP. But the specific actions they've taken here look really bad. It's as if a third-party site asked users for their Google logins and then used it to aggressively scrape personalized search results off the SRP; such usage would get blocked by DOS protection, and it'd have nothing to do with Google targeting a competitor and everything to do with them protecting the security and integrity of their systems.

<comment><USER13> Zenefits was not sued for TOS violations, they were sued for defamation.

The case number is 4:15-cv-02560-DMR You can use PACER to get more info

The complaint charges: (1) DEFAMATION;

(2) INTENTIONAL INTERFERENCE WITH PROSPECTIVE ECONOMIC RELATIONS;

(3) UNFAIR COMPETITION;

(4) FALSE ADVERTISING;

(5) LANHAM ACT VIOLATION

Everything but the first claim is just dumb.

<comment><USER15> From the Zenefits CEO in Emails to customers (calling ADP unethical for protecting their customers data):

When you originally set up Zenefits, you created an Zenefits admin user in your ADP RUN payroll account to let Zenefits manage your payroll—set up new employees, manage deductions, remove departing employees—on your behalf.

Yesterday, without your permission, ADP systematically deactivated these accounts—accounts that you set up, in your payroll system, to allow Zenefits to work on your behalf. The reason for this is that ADP believes it can one day build software to compete with Zenefits, and in the meantime they would like to do anything they can to impede Zenefits.

ADP is claiming that they are taking this action for "security" reasons—but this is clearly not true. For years, ADP has let customers add third parties—a bookkeeper or an accounting firm, for example—to their payroll system to manage payroll on a company's behalf. What Zenefits does is no different. In fact, even today, ADP will let you add a third-party administrator to your payroll system unless they have a Zenefits.com email address.

What's high-handed about their approach is that Zenefits is still completely compatible with ADP payroll. All they've done is make it more inconvenient for you, their customer.

By default, we will start emailing you whenever there are changes that need to be made to your payroll system. We will detail exactly the changes that need to be made, and you can make them yourself in payroll. It's less convenient this way — and frustrating that ADP has decided to create more work for their own clients in order to attack Zenefits. But beyond this, nothing will interrupt your use of Zenefits.

We are also working on other options for restoring automated payroll. Zenefits' mission is to make running your business as effortless as possible, and our support team will follow up shortly with additional information on how to resolve this issue.

We think it's outrageous—and unethical—that ADP is making these changes to your payroll system without your permission, and is creating this complication for you in their attempt to block Zenefits' service—essentially treating you like a pawn in their corporate chess game.

If you're as upset with ADP as we are, you can sign this Change.org petition. In addition, if you're interested in switching from ADP payroll to Intuit Payroll, we're paying customers $1,000 and helping them to make the switch. We'll include instructions for this in our follow up communication.

We remain committed to working with ADP to find a solution to make this problem go away for all our mutual clients. In the past, we've directed many payroll customers to ADP, because payroll is not a service we provide. We've tried contacting them, but so far they have refused to return our calls. If they have any genuine concerns, we are happy to resolve them, but they have yet to express them to us.

<comment><USER7> > calling ADP unethical for protecting their customers data

And from who they are exactly protecting their customer data?

> When you originally set up Zenefits, you created an Zenefits admin user in > your ADP RUN payroll account to let Zenefits manage your payroll

It should be obviously clear for any sensible person that Zenefit would have access to your data as much as the admin user has.

It is not dissimilar from creating an account for a person and results of this should be understandable for anyone who has at least some idea about the management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel like Zenefits is becoming a case study in everything you don't do when you enter an industry. We'll be switching away because I'm worried who else they won't play nice with in the future.

Uber and AirBNB have scared the heck out of huge incumbent industries and cities/governments and had scraps to be sure. But they don't have the consistent missteps as Zenefits. They know when to fight and when to take a lump or two, stay quiet, and bide their time.

<comment><USER17> Also Über and AirBNB are consumer companies. Zenefits has to appeal to enterprise customers. Beyond that we're talking payroll. This is the most conservative part of any business. Lawsuits do not make for good advertising.

<comment><USER18> Plus use of Uber and AirBnB is transactional (at worst, I might have to dispute a downpayment or arrange alternative accommodation at short notice if my AirBnB hotelier has trouble)

I'm far more locked into the consequences of the bad decision if I go with the sketchy SaaS provider and employee benefits broker

<comment><USER17> Your right, there is no fun on this earth like a failed accounting system change. Ask anyone who has participated in a SAP deployment that has gone wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The descent into lawsuits is pretty sad. When customers hate your product (i.e. the ADP front-end) so much that an entire company forms around making something less terrible, you really have to look at yourself in the mirror.

I continue to be amazed by the horribleness of benefits web front-ends. I recently did a simple task in our Hewitt system, and it _required_ five pop-up windows. It's just so, so terrible.

<comment><USER20> It seems to me that being in business for 65+ years and being the undisputed market leader in an industry and then having an incredibly well funded software company with hundreds of employees siphon off only 600 of your customers isn't _necessarily_ a moment for self reflection.

I've used ADP myself as a startup founder. Yeah the interface is annoying. So is Craigslist, whatever. That line of argument isn't necessarily dispositive, both of them have been reasonably adept at solving the problem I engaged with them to solve.

<comment><USER21> I agree it's not a moment of self reflection but that doesn't mean what they're doing is right or Zenefits wouldn't exist.

I use ADP and I think their front end is horrible. It works but it's enough of a pain point for others to switch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I had a horrendous experience with the Zenefits platform (and management team), so I may be a little biased. Their software quality is/was horrendous (it is/was riddled with errors and defects). But, even from the beginning, I was leery of the way they did the ADP "integration" and thought it was only a matter of time before it was cut off. I mean, they took a back door into harvesting sensitive employee information on a competitor's platform, what else should they expect? A welcoming party?

After conversing with the Zenefits CEO on twitter, it seems to me there is a culture of smugness at Zenefits and feeling amongst their management that they can seemingly do no wrong. Heaven forbid you complain about their poor platform quality or mention that they are growing at an unsustainable rate thereby letting quality and service fall by the wayside - then they just kick you off or tell you to go away.

Well, that has changed thanks to ADP (who I have had actually GREAT experiences with). Zenefits sort of deserves it in this case, in my humble opinion.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't necessarily stand with ADP, but I do stand with the vendors.

Zenefits is just a thin wrapper around other companies _real_ products and businesses.

I suspect Zenefits true business plan is a trojan horse. Get between a business and its clients, replicate the wrapped business and whamo you put the existing vendor out of business and grab all their revenues.

How else could Zenefits justify their sky high valuation other than for them to be a trojan horse?

<comment><USER24> all of this kind of insurance is sold through brokers (i.e., a thin wrapper around other companies' real products). That's what Zenefits is competing with -- mom & pop independent insurance brokers, not benefit providers themselves. And entrenched incumbents like ADP who are slow moving and ossified.

<comment><USER23> fair enough, but I'm arguing that a simple insurance broker can't justify a $4.5B valuation. They have to go for a much bigger piece of the pie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Reading over the ADP filing(obviously one-sided), it amazes me that a company like Zenefits would do something that would make any tech professional cringe:

"Zenefits also asked the ADP client to take a screenshot of the temporary username/password screen for the account and email it to a Zenefits email. "

"ADP identified several potential concerns with Zenefits' approach, including clients granting Zenefits admin user credentials to allow Zenefits access to the clients' employee and company data in a manner that may not meet ADP's security standards, and allowing Zenefits to make changes requiring a payroll admin level access. "

And this is ladies and gents why you should really worry when you base your business on scraping

</comment><comment><USER26> If Zenefits isn't happy that they can't access ADP's payroll info on behalf of their customers then why doesn't Zenefits spin off a payroll service and attack ADP from that angle? Maybe Zenefits could name it ZenPayroll. Oh wait...

<comment><USER27> These are two different companies, they just have the first tree letters of their names in common. Just like ZenDesk.

<comment><USER28> It was a joke dude.

<comment><USER27> That went totally over my head, my bad. That said, I'm not a native speaker and humor is sometimes difficult.

<comment><USER28> Understandable. Sarcasm is hard over the web and even more so if you're not a native speaker. I should be more sensitive to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm not really a big fan of ADP, but if Zenefits really did refuse to work with ADP to implement a real integration, I don't have much sympathy for Zenefits. They have enough funding they should be able to do things the right way now. I think Zenefits is trying to solve a real problem for small businesses, but we chose not to use them because the cost and the service level didn't make up for their nicer UI.

</comment><comment><USER30> This won't end well for Zenefits. Its not quite a deathknell for them, but there is zero case where Zenefits doesn't settle outside of court or loses the case. They will need to spend time/resources to raise another round and fight the chance that ADP doesn't build a competitor them in the mean time. This is the kind of momentum shifter that kills startups.

<comment><USER13> ADP will lose this lawsuit very quickly

<comment><USER31> ADP's legal department is likely larger than Zenefits itself, and well funded. They can probably drag it out for quite a while.

<comment><USER13> Maybe? This is an oft-repeated claim, but my experience tells me differently.

Contrary to popular tv shows, there is only so much that can happen. Lawsuits drag on whether someone is trying or not :)

Barring some outliers, the difference between lawsuits that are dragged out and ones that aren't is not a factor of 10, it's probably a factor of 1.2.

State court is kind of a crapshoot, for sure. But you are super-unlikely to get away with this stuff in federal court (which is where ADP filed).

Most federal judges get tired of this stuff very quickly, and start sanctioning.

<comment><USER20> > Barring some outliers, the difference between lawsuits that are dragged out > and ones that aren't is not a factor of 10, it's probably a factor of 1.2.

That's crazy talk. You can double the length of a lawsuit in one simple stroke just by having your attorney say "Sorry that week is bad for me can we do [date]" every time there's a continuance or adjournment. You can set return dates for any motions you initiate to the last date permitted, you can meet every filing deadline in the last hour, etc.

The legal system has many built-in safeguards and protections for all parties but guaranteeing timeliness just isn't one of them.

<comment><USER24> no, actually you can't. It is not possible in ND Cal to "set return dates for any motions you initiate to the last date permitted." That's just not how motions work in ND Cal. And responding on the last hour of every filing deadline is what everybody does all the time. That's why most deadlines are fairly short (30 days, e.g.).

The real driver of court delay is the judge, not the litigants. I've had judges routinely sit on motions (fully briefed) for 9 months in ND Cal. Then one party or the other will move for reconsideration and it's another six month delay. It's just the nature of the beast; judges in the federal system carry very heavy caseloads, particularly ND Cal.

<comment><USER13> "The real driver of court delay is the judge, not the litigants. I've had judges routinely sit on motions (fully briefed) for 9 months in ND Cal. Then one party or the other will move for reconsideration and it's another six month delay. It's just the nature of the beast; judges in the federal system carry very heavy caseloads, particularly ND Cal. "

This is precisely why i said why is said. Because the litigants are not often the cause/controllers of the delay, _despite_ their best efforts :)

Now, certainly, if the judges/etc were more efficient, yeah, you could pull out a factor of 10x. But the way things are, for a simple defamation suit, i can't see you getting more than maybe a 2x factor through various tactics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The health insurance and benefits industry needs innovation, badly, but as one person said on this thread, don't bite the hand that feeds you. The Hub and Spoke model that Parker often refers to will not work if you are too aggressive with trying to force (your version) of change on these companies you have no choice to work with in some capacity. Disruption is one thing, destruction is another.

There's a lot of focus on Zenefits bombastic personality, and the whole "we're gonna drink your milkshake" rhetoric. That will scare huge incumbents into moving into very defensive positions quickly. Offering to spend $600,000 getting companies to drop ADP in favor of Intuit or another payroll company doesn't help either.

One thing I find curious was that I thought that Zenefits had 10,000+ businesses using the service as of three or four months ago. According to what's been reported, 600 ADP connected business have been cut off, which was stated as being 10% of their total business. That math doesn't back out.

<comment><USER33> The WSJ reported this morning that many startups (and distrubingly, many HN- backed startups) are using fuzzy math when it comes to reporting financials. Generally, they're using non-GAAP measures that they "feel" better reflects their "growth" and "income potential" rather than actual financial measures that everyone else uses.

I wouldn't be surprised if the "10,000+" businesses included prospective businesses, companies that tested Zenefits out without committing to it, and former customers.

<comment><USER32> You have a link to that WSJ article?

<comment><USER34> I think he might be referring to this one:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9690775](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9690775)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Not sure if this link is referenced here but I found it interesting and relevant: [http://blog.zenefits.com/adp-2/](http://blog.zenefits.com/adp-2/)

</comment><comment><USER36> This case has been tried before, but in a different industry: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzard...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzard_Entertainment,_Inc).

Basically MDY made a bot for world of warcraft. It would play the game for you to earn in-game gold.

Blizzard did not like this and had forbidden it in their ToS (Just like ADP has disallowed certain aspects of what Zenefits does- automated access, etc..)

Blizzard won the case. The main element was 'tortious interference' \- MDY was interfering with the relationship between blizzard and its customers. It does not matter if the customer wanted to use the bot or not- MDY was encouraging the user to violate blizzards ToS.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is just a minor skirmish really, honestly this is just Zenefits being welcomed into the big leagues. Zenefits should be ware of biting the hand that feeds them at this point, they shouldnt be 'cowed' but you dont start a war with providers you are dependent on.

Basically ADP wont 'win' this court case, it wont even stretch out too long. However, both companies will probably have to feed the lawyers 5 million for this... which is not a big deal for one, and is probably 10% of capital on hand for the other. Its more a statement than a lawsuit with an expectation of success.

<comment><USER38> >> 10% of capital on hand for the other.

Well , they just raised $ 500m, so looks like just 1% of the new capital raised ( or wasted , whatever way you put it )

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> The thing about Uber and Lyft operating ina gray legal area is that their products worked perfectly.

Zenefits' web application is a shitshow of JavaScript errors. It is amateur hour over there.

</comment><comment><USER40> Is this the same CEO who said in Quora to the effect of: if you have to ask how it's like to work here, you won't fit in here?

<comment><USER41> Yes this is the same CEO but your summary isn't quite right. He was trying to figure out a pros and cons of Uber vs. Zenefits and for instance he asked:

"My biggest problem with Zenefits is that it isn't a buzzword like Uber. Most people won't know what Zenefits is (or so I think). I think that this isn't as exciting a brand name to have on your resume when applying to the likes of Google."

Full question: [http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-way-to-start-my- career...](http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-way-to-start-my-career-Uber- or-Zenefits)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Zenefits needs a head of PR. Or a new one if they already have one.

<comment><USER43> Even better, they need a CFO

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Pretty surprised all these savvy investors that do due diligence before investing didn't see Zenefits' reliance on ADP as a gigantic risk. With 500M you should be able to build a better ADP to some degree but still, makes me wonder how much independent thinking goes on in the VC world right now. Feels like a company with a YC stamp of approval getting a free pass in the valley. Anyhow, I hope its sorted out as I actually really like the tenants of Zenpayroll.

</comment><comment><USER43> The @ADP response to the #ADPeeved Twitter Campaign: "@parkerconrad @zenefits ADP's been open for partnership. Secure, API-driven. Apply here: [http://partners.adp.com](http://partners.adp.com) . No need to be #ADPeeved."

via [https://twitter.com/ADP/status/608455243232387072](https://twitter.com/ADP/status/608455243232387072)

</comment><comment><USER45> The docket is available (free) here:

[http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2lue6fyli/california- northe...](http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2lue6fyli/california-northern- district-court/adp-llc-v-yourpeople-inc-et-al/)

</comment><comment><USER46> Seeing comments in the recent Zenefits threads, it seems like we dodged a bullet when Zenefits bungling around with our onboarding process led us to use a different providers for our payroll/insurance services.

</comment><comment><USER47> Hooli vs pied piper in real life...

</comment><comment><USER48> ADP was taken offline today for 65 minutes with a massive DDOS. Coincidence?

<comment><USER49> How do you know?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Love how my comment, and many others, mentioning serious quality issues with the Zenefits platform and rude management interactions gets immediately pushed to the bottom of the stack here. Bias much?

</comment><comment><USER11> I really find it increasingly hard to be sympathetic to ADP, the devil you know, and Zenefits, the devil you don't (read: the Quora outburst).

</comment><comment><USER50> Is there a link to ADP's technical response?

<comment><USER38> Were you referring to this ? : [http://www.adp.com/zenefits/downloads/The- Facts-About-ADP-an...](http://www.adp.com/zenefits/downloads/The-Facts-About- ADP-and-Zenefits.pdf)

<comment><USER50> Yes, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Yes, it's terrible for Zenefits, but even worse for ADP.

A defamation lawsuit tells a lot about how vulnerable a company is. Take down Zenefits and hundreds of others emerge.

</comment><comment><USER52> > Zenefits overloaded ADP's computer systems with a flood of digital traffic

Lol</comment>