Suspect in YouTube Shooting Posted Rants About the Company Online - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Suspect-in-You-Tube-Shooting-Posted-Rants-About-the-Company-Online--478711713.html <comment><USER2> This looks like it's going to be an increasingly big problem for the platform giants, as it pertains to their increasingly aggressive speech restrictions. As they ramp those restrictions up, I'd expect the need for security to increase accordingly.

A mentally unwell person is likely to feel targeted, oppressed, threatened, harmed, etc. by being silenced. They'll feel isolated and it'll very likely feel like a personal attack by the tech company. The platforms today are so large, it surely can seem like being cut off from society in general, like a human right is being revoked.

The people the platforms are looking to restrict based on expressed views or behavior, I suspect, are going to tend to have higher than normal rates of mental illness (emphasis that I think it's likely to be a higher rate, not universal).

<comment><USER3> As far as I know, her videos were demonetized, not rejected. There's a huge difference between being silenced and being refused ad placement on your videos.

Getting paid to express your opinion is not a human right.

<comment><USER4> Tru, but if it is your primary income, I can see how people get mad. Mind you, not, lets go shoot some people mad, but still. Being fired by a demonetization algorithm is kinda shitty.

Loads of people rely on YT for there income and recent changes to the content algoritms are demonetizing all kinds of video's without any warning or clear indication that it happened (or why ftm) and no real recourse to fix things. It already was a bit of a crap shoot, but now it is quite easy to loose months of income without being acknowledged as a person. I mean, even if you reach the 'you-get-human-support' level of views, you still only get to mail with bots...

Anecdotal evidence: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzb8U0Bje5A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzb8U0Bje5A) ;)

<comment><USER5> Aren't there any competitors that can come into this space?

<comment><USER6> Vid.me tried and failed: [https://medium.com/vidme/goodbye-for- now-120b40becafa](https://medium.com/vidme/goodbye-for-now-120b40becafa)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> She's a disgruntled Youtuber. This is her website: [http://nasimabc.com/](http://nasimabc.com/)

From her page showing a screenshot of her Youtube ad revenue dashboard:

> Analytics Last 28 days

> Views 366,591

> Revenue $0.10

Highlighted in Red: Revenue $0.10?

There's also another bit where she shows her historical vs. current traffic and makes a reasonable case that she's getting down ranked.

Interesting times.

<comment><USER8> There's some rather telling content on that site about her mental state.

[http://nasimabc.com/sitebuilder/images/car_attack_nasim2-426...](http://nasimabc.com/sitebuilder/images/car_attack_nasim2-426x296.jpg)

She feels paranoid like everyone is out to get her and it probably didn't help that when YouTube "attacked" her online, it was direct, unambiguous, attributable to a distinct entity (to her at least), etc.

When she ran over some debris in the road she came to the conclusion that anti-vegan (she identifies strongly as a vegan) businesses hired unspecified criminals to harm or kill her, and that they did it because of the stickers on her car.

She might have honestly been deluded into thinking that YouTube wanted her dead.

<comment><USER9> On the one hand it surprises me that a screw could accidentally get pushed into a wheel at that angle. On the other, it would be a really ineffective attack.

<comment><USER10> At high velocities, road debris can do interesting things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of her complaints was that YouTube age-restricted her yoga videos (which were modest by Western standard, she was just wearing shorts, a shirt and no socks), while not age-restricting much more explicit Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus videos. Is there any explanation to why YouTube does this?

<comment><USER12> That depends on your definition of explanation. There are loads of complaints and theories. Here's the official policy: [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6162278?hl=en)

I'm really not a fan of the policy, and it would be a real shame if it wasn't changed. But it would also be a shame if it was changed because of a shooting. It shouldn't have come to this in the first place.

<comment><USER13> She had a pretty good point. Any given popular music video is loaded with borderline porn. Why were her fully clothed yoga videos (that weren't even questionably sexual) not allowed but the former were?

<comment><USER14> Part of this is obvious: youtube restriction policies are largely based on what is advertiser-friendly, and popular music videos are advertiser-friendly by definition.

I don't know what caused her videos to be demonetised, but she's not wrong - it does seem pretty much arbitrary with no proper channel for disputing it.

<comment><USER15> Is it possible that the decision to demonetise or age-restrict was algorithmic, then she was too small-fry to get any interest/reconsideration from support?

We've heard loads of stories of people getting AdSense accounts shut unfairly and without recourse, for example. If that was your entire income, you already felt hard done by, and were so inclined, I could see how you might go off the rails.

<comment><USER14> For sure. Its like if your boss used an algorithm to decide your pay, and he wouldn't disclose this algorithm to you. Some months "the algorithm" declares all your work bad and the boss pays you nothing. Meanwhile, you can see other employees' much worse work getting paid regularly, essentially because they're more popular and the boss likes them more. Anyone would feel unfairly treated under those circumstances, and would harbour a great deal of resentment.

Most people would leave such a "job" or try to game the algorithm, but killing the boss does also look like an obvious (if wrong and probably unproductive) option!

<comment><USER16> This just made me realize how much of a pass Youtube gets compared to Uber. Youtube expects you to provide it with content and it may arbitrarily choose to never pay you for your work. With Uber you will at least get something.

<comment><USER17> With uber you are paid when you serve a customer. Creating content, on its own, is not serving either a customer or an end user, so there can be no expectation of payment.

<comment><USER16> Well, there are at least some cases in which Youtube pays people who upload videos. When a Youtuber _does_ get paid, who is the customer?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What a terrible disaster this afternoon. It should never finish like this.

The only thing I hope out of this is that it will maybe relaunch the debates about the megaplatforms and censorship. (Facebook, youtube, Google,...). The bigger they become, the more they will start censoring everything.

More people need to launch the movement to host their videos independentlty. Peertube is a good start for example [https://joinpeertube.org/en/home/](https://joinpeertube.org/en/home/)

<comment><USER19> People think that suppressing "hate" and "offensive" speech will only suppress speech other than theirs.

<comment><USER20> The people who say that don't have much in the way of independent thought in the first place, so they're probably right in thinking it will never affect them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looks like this is the culprit's website

[http://www.nasimesabz.com/index.html](http://www.nasimesabz.com/index.html)

There are links to her (4?) youtube accounts, which have all been terminated. There's a link to her instagram, which has also been terminated, however there is a cached-copy here [http://www.pictame.com/tag/yesilnasim](http://www.pictame.com/tag/yesilnasim)

<comment><USER22> That's a style of web design I've seen before - lots of colors, different font sizes, wall of text rants... something about it screams mental instability. See Time Cube for an extreme example.

<comment><USER23> back in the 90's it was extremely common to see lots of colors, especially on a black background.

<comment><USER24> To be fair we were pretty crazy back then, this was before the medication boom. Thankfully we got treatment, now our moods are even and flat like our UI design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> As I see it: She posted on her site that she made 10 cents for 366,000 views these days. She must have been making quite a bit and then probably the algo determined that she is not making advertiser friendly videos so the spigot got closed. Must have appealed, we all know how those work.

</comment><comment><USER26> So, nothing to do with a "boyfriend." She didn't even know the people she shot.

Where on earth did that bad information come from yesterday?

<comment><USER27> Sexist assumptions, I'm sure. Male shooter? Bullied 4chan gamer nerd. Female shooter? Relationship problems. Middle-eastern looking male shooter? Terrorist.

<comment><USER28> And the fact that there are so few examples of women who commit multiple homicide where they __don 't __target domestic partners, friends, families, coworkers, etc. Genuinely, the only known instance I 've read of in the US was the San Bernadino shooter, and she was pretty clearly religiously motivated.

<comment><USER29> There was the "I don't like Mondays" shooter. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Elementary_School_sh...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Elementary_School_shooting_\(San_Diego\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It turns out that when an organization applies rules arbitrarily, they eventually piss off the wrong person.

<comment><USER31> Sounds like you are blaming the victim.

<comment><USER32> As a general principal, there is no logical or moral reason why a victim should be beyond blame. The goal should be to judge the situation fairly; just as much as you don't want to automatically blame the victim, neither should you automatically find the victim blameless.

<comment><USER33> Give me one good reason why blaming a random Google employee lunching in the cafeteria is "fair".

(Disclaimer: I witnessed the shooting today, so not quite unbiased)

<comment><USER32> We consider crimes against young children to be particularly bad precisely because they're genuinely blameless.

Once you get past childhood, though, you're a moral agent making choices. If you work at a company, yeah, you are in a small part contributing to their actions and by continuing to work there, assenting to those actions.

After all, a random Googler lunching in the cafeteria wants the prestige associated with all the good things Google does, that's got to come with some measure of blame for the bad things Google does. You can't have it both ways.

<comment><USER33> So, wanting to work at a reputed place for software engineering == endorsing every single policy the company (a collection of over 70K individuals) might adopt? To the point that you should be expected to take a bullet for it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> So looking at her videos on Telegram ([https://t.me/nasimesabz1](https://t.me/nasimesabz1)), she was anti gun. She was a very weird individual with clear mental health issues.

I don't even know what to make of most of her content on that channel.

<comment><USER35> Can you expand on that? Did she make irrational comments, accuse people of impossible acts, was she threatening? I looked at the 1.5 minute video someone copied out and she was upset but not frothing at the mouth.

<comment><USER36> You don't have to be "frothing at the mouth" to be mentally unstable. I saw her videos on Dailymotion and I had the impression that something is not right with her, can't really pinpoint or explain what it is. but definitely very awkward in front of the camera. Just my personal take on it.

<comment><USER15> I watched one video. It's possible that something was "not right with her" but then I think that's true in some small way with almost all of us (personality foibles, etc).

But it's also possible she was on-edge because she was angry and frustrated by a situation that was important to her (earnings, passions, etc). Lots of people act like that when they feel upset, then you add in the pressure of a camera...

<comment><USER37> Also, hindsight is 20/20, it's easy to ascribe abnormal characteristics to a person after an event like this rather than before

<comment><USER36> very true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> So if this person was not an employee, it's amazing to me how she got into the building? Usually these large tech campuses are pretty locked down, with at least one badged entrance, and security or front desk staff watching who comes and goes.

That said, I've never visited the YouTube campus, so maybe it bucks the norm.

<comment><USER39> It was outdoors. Also, I have only been to a couple SV tech companies where they had solid enough doors/etc. at entrance to actually stop someone going in shooting from getting inside; the security is really just there for keeping homeless out, as well as to enforce corp secrecy/etc.

<comment><USER38> I see, early reports seemed to indicate the shooter was at a party, possibly inside. Really sad when employees in the bay area, which is generally very safe, have to fear for their lives because of something their employer may have done to piss someone off.

<comment><USER39> This incident was enough of an outlier that probably the correct thing to do is nothing, although that's really hard for people to accept. I'd just recommend improved first aid/trauma response (put AEDs around, train people to CLS standard).

<comment><USER40> As sad as this is, dying in a car crash is more likely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Why was her YouTube channel nuked after this happening? Seems weird and dystopian, even if what she did was obviously very wrong.

<comment><USER42> Probably because you dont know what she put up there, and you dont want to give an attempted murderer a giant platform, as a win.

<comment><USER41> I do know what she put there, though, since on the internet is is fairly trivial to see what was on a publicly available and commonly crawled website before it was removed.

And there was nothing that related to the killing, and nothing even tangentially related to the ban message. No 'final manifesto' or anything like that.

If you are curious, here is a mirror of her videos: [http://www.dailymotion.com/yesilnasim/videos](http://www.dailymotion.com/yesilnasim/videos)

<comment><USER43> Those have also all been removed

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Firstly, my sympathies with the people at Youtube HQ. I have many, many friends in the bay area and so this kind of thing hits close to home.

Secondly, I struggle when thinking about if we should give airtime to a shooter's grievances, or reasons. Or even mention who they are. I tend to be on the side of: don't give them any air time. And certainly, don't acquiesce to this type of behavior because it is almost by definition "terrorism" (using violence to cause change in policies).

On the other hand, I have been hearing a lot about YouTube demonitization, censorship, etc. Should this shooting be a part of the discussion about censorship? Should YouTube and the tech community let it affect the discourse around censorship?

I don't know.

<comment><USER45> There are correct ways to start a discourse around censorship.

Shooting people is not one of them.

<comment><USER13> Blowing people up got Ted Kaczynski's anti-technology manifesto printed in the NYTimes. Even if got through to one person I bet he feels like it was worth it.

It's not something to admit in polite company but violence is a great way to start a conversation.

<comment><USER45> Just because it's effective doesn't mean it's correct though.

<comment><USER46> What is the definition of "correct" in this context that we can all agree to?

<comment><USER47> Morally correct?

<comment><USER46> "Morally correct" as in according to one's moral principles? Is that, in its turn, something that we all agree on and share?

Terrorists definitely hold moral principles that are different from mine. To a terrorist, blowing people up to bring attention to their point may be the morally correct thing to do.

Hence we have terrifying people like Kaczynski with extremely strong moral convictions that deviate far from what is generally considered normal and socially acceptable, whose ill deeds are consistent and true to their moral principles.

<comment><USER47> Sure, terrorists disagree, but you're avoiding the fact that most people here - on this site, in this industry, in this country - agree that blowing people up for attention is morally incorrect.

I'm not really sure what you're arguing. That it's possible for someone to believe terrorism is good? I suspect most people already know that, but thankfully most of us disagree.

<comment><USER46> It's mostly a semantic argument. I'm arguing against using "correct" in a context where correctness evidently depends on morality, which is individual enough that this kind of person exists and thrives. That nullifies the whole basis of the argument that "There are correct ways to start a discourse around censorship." I'm not sure that it was meant as an argument. Maybe it's just a cheap way to score points among "most people here", because it's rather pointless as an argument regardless of its validity.

Also, I assume that by this country you mean the U.S., where killing people at least partly to draw attention (for the purpose of general deterrence) is practiced by the justice system. I bet you'll find a lot more people in this crowd that agree with this on the basis of their morals. I know people who believe one thing but will at least briefly change their mind learning of some particularly heinous crime or some particularly tragic wrongful conviction. Correct/incorrect isn't really a scale, so which would pick for something a little more polarized like this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> She had a lot of YouTube subscribers - It's possible it was her main source of income.

</comment><comment><USER49> Her videos are still up on Dailymotion [http://www.dailymotion.com/yesilnasim/videos](http://www.dailymotion.com/yesilnasim/videos)

</comment><comment><USER50> No justification for her actions, but Google does act as a serf master over the entire internet. It can single handedly decide who succeeds, who fails, and there is no recourse. There is no recourse, no appeal. Some 20 year old dude in Menlo Park decides, and your website, your life, your work, your future, is changed forever. Here's our account: [https://www.medgadget.com/google](https://www.medgadget.com/google)

<comment><USER51> People need to realize that using "free" platforms, means they are beyond your control and your fate is up to their vagaries.

I'm against censorship (private censorship which takes political sides especially) but ultimately, unless you're hosting your own content, just enjoy what you get for free while you can and don't bank on it.

YT is not there to make _you_ money. They are there to make money for themselves. If you get in the way of that (via potential boycotts, online bandwagoning, etc.) they will likely cut you loose.

PS most of the censorship is done overseas, mostly SEAsia, not San Bruno, etc.

<comment><USER12> > People need to realize that using "free" platforms, means they are beyond > your control and your fate is up to their vagaries.

People need to realize that there is no such thing as free. Nobody is getting anything for free here, because usage of the service generates analytics data, and it goes into a thick file connected to your account. Those so-called "free" platforms also monopolize the market space, creating less incentives for alternative implementations and competing platforms. Few alternatives are therefore developed, further monopolizing the space, and further cementing the fact that having a choice in the matter isn't in the cards.

<comment><USER35> you can use them without being tracked by watching in anon mode, or deleting your cookies first. google doesn't block you. i watch it that way all the time. and its free.

<comment><USER12> Browser fingerprinting doesn't require cookies, and you better believe they use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I heard on the radio just earlier that it was declared a "domestic dispute" by local police.

<comment><USER53> I also saw those reports. I found that WNYC's "Breaking News Consumer Handbook"[1] was a useful tool for sorting through the various reports. Many of the reports citing a "domestic dispute" either cited other news outlets (in some cases, without even citing any particular outlet) or attributed its facts to vague "reports."

Of the sources I was following, KRON seemed to have the lowest standards (at times even publishing contradictory statements as fact in consecutive paragraphs of their story), while NYT had the highest (but, correspondingly, stuck with the "the shooter has not been identified" line for hours longer than most other outlets).

I find looking at the Wikipedia history page [2] for incidents like this educational for understanding how our knowledge of events changed over time. In this case, the Wikipedia article attributed the domestic dispute claim to two law enforcement officials who spoke to CBS News. The cited CBS News article no longer supports the facts in the Wikipedia article, but presumably did at one time.

[1] [https://www.wnyc.org/story/breaking-news-consumers- handbook-...](https://www.wnyc.org/story/breaking-news-consumers-handbook- pdf/) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=YouTube_headquart...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=YouTube_headquarters_shooting&action=history)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> She's complaining about being censored. She would have been helped immensely by somebody showing her how to host her own videos on her own website.

<comment><USER54> No one visits personal websites to watch self-hosted videos nowadays. YouTube is not only about video hosting, but also about the large user base.

<comment><USER55> YouTube is so popular that it's indirectly censoring private content by getting all the traffic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> So much for pervasive surveillance revealing domestic terrorists and other such threats.

<comment><USER57> It also seems to be standard corporate training procedure to tell employees that they should report any behavior like this that might suggest that a coworker is "at risk" for doing something like this.

<comment><USER56> Right, because everyone is automatically a knowledgeable psychologist. It's getting uncomfortably close to "report your neighbour" type tactics.

<comment><USER58> If you ask amateurs to do police work, you are going to get amateur-quality results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> A lot of people in this thread are attempting to describe Nasim as a 'weird' or 'unstable' individual. I wonder if there's some narrative building here going on here? Many want to explain it away with a cliche.

It's a shame what happened. Too bad our world isn't more like K-Pax.

<comment><USER60> I think she's being labeled as "unstable" mianily because of her attempt at mass murder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> This is like straight out of Mr. Robot. We are living it now.

</comment><comment><USER62> Serious question here. What are the liability laws like in the US for producers of propaganda? Can you hold say inforwars or brietbart (used as proxies here) liable if they insight or inflame this sort of person to go on a rampage?

You could easily prove in a court of law that what they peddle is not factual so I don't see how they can't have some liability. Freedom of speech is freedom to speak, not freedom from consequences.

Possible precedent here: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/suicide- texting-trial-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/suicide-texting- trial-michelle-carter-conrad-roy.html)

</comment><comment><USER63> It seems like the revenue share may have pushed her over the edge.

Honest question: does the revenue share program do anything positive? It seems like it increases noise quite a bit to me.

<comment><USER64> Revenue sharing keeps creators from switching to another platform.

A significant number of people make their living off of Youtube

<comment><USER63> I understand that people can make a significant amount of money that way, but is there really another platform to switch to that could offer the same?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I have to really wonder if YouTube is actually anti-vegan or if she was filtered for something else.

<comment><USER42> I watch a vegan channel that Youtube recommended to me quite often, and Im not even vegan.

Based on her page, showing dogs being boiled alive, I think vegan isnt perhaps the best description for that content. A vegan channel is someone showing how to make salads.

<comment><USER66> Seems to me that modern day veganism is more related to showing provocative videos of animal abuse than it is making salads.

<comment><USER67> It isn't. Its just the noisy people tend to be the most visible. The vast majority of vegans (including myself) just want to find good food.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> How does the discrimination and filtering on youtube justify the murder? I just don't get it.

<comment><USER69> Same way school shooters justify it to themselves.

<comment><USER68> You can't justify murder.

Edit: I didn't mean you personally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> The amount of victim blaming in these comments is astounding. Three people are in the hospital because of an armed maniac, and a bunch of the comments are about how YouTube brought this on themselves with their policies about videos.

I'm not religious, but y'all need Jesus.

<comment><USER71> The people who were shot are the victims, no one blames them or suggests they did wrong.

YouTube is not a victim. Discussing questionable corporate policies of a company is not victim blaming.

<comment><USER70> I completely disagree. YouTube is a victim too. Using an incident like this to criticize a policy you don't like is completely beyond the pale. The fact that they apparently drove a crazy person to attempted homicide has no bearing whatsoever on whether those policies are good or bad.

<comment><USER71> I don't agree that corporations are people. If you believe that a corporation is a person, then I see your argument, despite not agreeing with it.

<comment><USER70> Why do they need to be "people" to be a victim?

Even if you want to insist that YouTube can not possibly be a victim, it's _still_ horrible to jump on a multiple attempted homicide to criticize policies about videos posted on a web site.

<comment><USER72> If you get in a car accident, no one counts your car as a victim. This is the same thing.

<comment><USER70> Unlike cars, corporations are at least _made of_ people.

If you steal from a corporate-owned store, is that a victimless crime?

<comment><USER72> In that case you're robbing the people who own the corporation (shareholders). They're the victims, not the corporation itself.

A corporation is owned by people. It is not "made of" people like some grotesque colossus.

<comment><USER70> If we can assign victimhood to the shareholders then surely we can assign blame as well? Seems like you're just slightly moving the pointers with no actual consequence here.

People got shot and HN commenters are using it as a platform to criticize content policies of the company they work for. That is the pertinent thing here. Semantic quibbles about which specific entities count as the "victims" are not terribly relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> At what point did she wrongfully decide YouTube owed her _anything_?

<comment><USER74> Tech companies realize they owe a lot to their users. They owe them their entire existence, I'd say. It's quite obvious from their behavior and the fact they try to attract and hoard user attention. Users are valuable in general.

It's not like it's one way transfer of value from companies to users.

So why your rhetorical question?

<comment><USER73> Because if YouTube decided to hoard all ad revenue as of tomorrow (putting aside for a minute how bad of a long-term business decision that would be), that would _still_ not be a valid reason to shoot up the HQ.

<comment><USER74> I'm just saying that YouTube and likes of it would be nothing without producers of content, big and small. It's a mutual relationship. Both owe each other their business.

It's orthogonal question to the effectiveness of going somewhere and shooting some people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> First two comments good for a world-weary chuckle:

1\. Xenophobic, hateful comment about Muslims

2\. Complaint about her suicide being a waste because "she's hot"

Still not sure why news websites bother with comment sections. I guess because it counts as "engagement?"

<comment><USER76> Interferes with their narrative, adds the overhead of moderation because trolling is usually prevalent. Can still be fun to read sometimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Domestic dispute, huh?

</comment><comment><USER78> Is it just me or does her video facial animations appear to be virtual?

</comment><comment><USER79> If you search her name on twitter, around 40% of what you see is right wing conspiracy theorists who assert, without evidence, that she was a member of ISIS. I also noticed a smaller percentage of people asserting, again without evidence, that she was an NRA member. And neither appear to be true.

How do these get spread on Twitter? Are partisans mindlessly voting them up? Are bots behind this?

Man, do I feel stupid for thinking the internet would be a force for good. That it would promote democracy, free speech, and critical thinking.

I look at Facebook and Twitter, and the bad greatly outweighs the good. I chose a career in web dev, thinking I would be doing something beneficial, but everything we've done amounts to nothing.

<comment><USER80> > 40% of what you see is right wing conspiracy theorists

Right in a post complaining labelling, a labeling slapping to my face.

I am a bit depressed by our species ability to do rational thinking.

<comment> ng-user A little contradictory, I concur.

Does claiming someone is a member of ISIS automatically make you a right-wing conspiracy theorist or is it different under these circumstances?

How is the number 40% actually determined, surely it must be an assumption from scrolling through the feed for a little while? To my knowledge it's difficult (near impossible without 3rd party tools) to determine in real-time the number of tweets pertaining to a certain topic.

<comment><USER79> I thought it was clear from my post i was guesstimating. I don't typically do rigorous analysis of what I see in twitter results, so I'll just say, it seemed like a lot of right wing accounts implying that media was covering up the shooting, or that the shooter was actually motivated by radical islam.

<comment><USER80> Right, this statement, if were used by the original post, to me, is quite accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> I'm sure this submission will get flagged off the front page too because "Iranian woman bears arms against YouTube for censorship" doesn't really fit the narrative around here, but here's her page before it's wiped out too. Her YT and Insta have already been nuked.

[http://www.nasimesabz.com/](http://www.nasimesabz.com/)

<comment><USER82> > _the narrative around here_

In my experience, people tend to perceive that to be whatever they don't like, and it varies greatly with the perceiver.

I don't see why this story would get flagged. (Edit: some users are pointing out the don't-give-airtime argument. That's a fair point.)

<comment><USER83> Nevertheless, 16 minutes old, it seems flagged and dead to me.

<comment><USER82> It's sitting in the top 10 on the front page.

<comment><USER83> Yes, status was drastically changed when I refreshed. Someone supposedly vouched.

<comment><USER83> So, let me hear it from the numerous downvoters: Are you suggesting I'm lying?

Downvoting of simple fact-reporting is slightly too advanced a pattern for my somewhat simple mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Google and YouTube content policy is geared to make them money, not be "free" or "equal"

<comment><USER84> Ummm, you just posted about exactly that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Please consider not giving this person the online attention she sought as a result of her actions, and join me in flagging stories that dwell on her motives.

<comment><USER86> Would you have said the same thing about Mark Conditt? Or is there a difference? Should we talk about some murderers and not others? Was he a terrorist? Was she?

<comment><USER85> We know that reporting on a killer's identity and motives in detail encourages ideation in others. I think it's fine to talk about these people, but context is important.

In this case, it appears to be someone who was frustrated with a lack of social media attention; we should be careful in not rewarding her heinous act in a way that encourages a future shooter.

<comment><USER35> i think its more likely she was frustrated at losing payment, which could be completely separate from "social media attention".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> Content platforms have no place policing content. All the algorithms currently used are utterly flawed, and they will always be flawed, both technically and morally. Technically, they'll always have false positives, especially at scale. Morally, they turn the platform owners into political figures inherently, siding with or against certain thoughts and sentiments.

The only solution is for platforms to be completely content agnostic and allow absolutely everything except outright graphic violence and adult content.

No removing any kind of speech whatsoever, including so-called "hate speech", no policing political topics, no identifying "fake news" and so forth -- words cannot hurt anyone, objectively, and everyone has their own personal agency to decide what they want to watch and make their own decisions based on what they see, even if it's state-funded propaganda.

If the police or FBI come to them with a warrant and take down notice, then sure. Otherwise, allow absolutely everything, and allow the free market of popularity to reign supreme.

In fact, all sides of all political and social issues should be outraged that content platforms think they have a place deciding what we can and cannot see.

And advertisers should stop allowing online outrage to dictate where they advertise by realizing two simple truths: a) if I'm watching a video with your advertisement on it, it's because I made the conscious choice to watch that video, and even if the video is about apartheid or waterboarding or guns, it's content that I want to consume, so they have no place stripping me of my personal agency, and b) the old model of advertisers being seen as endorsers for TV shows doesn't apply to on-demand online content.

<comment><USER88> > advertisers should stop allowing online outrage to dictate where they > advertise

I agree, but good luck convincing the Tide executives that its okay for their ad to play before a video of a KKK rally.

Furthermore, how do you even create a content platform that doesn't police content and not have it immediately attract scores of users that are only there because they were banned from everywhere else, thus turning your platform into a cesspool that the more mainstream users avoid? (see voat.co)

<comment><USER89> If it's tagged 'racism (news)' and Tide says they're OK with that (Tide advertise after news segments like this all the time), sure, if it's tagged 'race relations' then maybe not.

Google can and should do better than a boolean for monetisable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> I have a theory about workplace shootings. American companies have a very pronounced dog-eat-dog culture. So much so that whole books have been written about the workplace asshole [1]. I'm wondering if some of the shootings can be explained as the workplace asshole going one step further and bringing his guns to work.

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

<comment><USER30> How does that have anything to do with the shooting at YouTube? It comes off like you didn't even read beyond the headline. (yes, it's happened at a workplace, but this wasn't some disgruntled employee in the sense that you're making it out to be)</comment></comment>


Clang 5 in a Docker container for C++17 - <AUTHOR> https://solarianprogrammer.com/2017/12/14/clang-in-docker-container-cpp-17-development/ <comment><USER2> It feels like cargo-cult computer usage.

The description states: "Running Clang in a container has the advantage that it is light on resources and won't mess with your underlying OS.". Containers aren't really light on resources if the host kernel is not Linux and not messing with OS is easily attainable by installing the binaries in a custom prefix directory (e.g. ~/bin). This is especially true for compilers which have minimal or zero dependencies.

<comment><USER3> My thought exactly. Not only that, but MSVC supports C++17 features natively so I have no idea why you'd want to do this on Windows.

Granted, the state of C++ on MacOS is embarrassingly bad.

<comment><USER4> > so I have no idea why you'd want to do this on Windows.

If you're trying to write portable software, that's the easiest way to validate compilation for Linux without: a) using an external CI, or b) running a full VM in parallel.

<comment><USER2> Well, since we are speaking about clang there is always cross compilation option: "clang -target x86_64-linux" (note, that it supports all targets that your current build of clang has enabled).

But probably the real option (c) that you are missing here is the fabulously named "Windows Subsystem for Linux".

<comment><USER4> Re crosscompilation: Sure, if you want to prepare an environment which has all the dependencies, then that is a way you can take. I always found it harder than using the target system directly. And in the end if you're running any tests after compilation, you still need the target system for that.

Re WSL: If the app you're working on works on WSL, great. It's not an option for many projects though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just pick a random tool, throw it in docker and farm karma.

IIRC even though windows 10 might support docker through WSL sometime in the future, for now it's just spinning up a vm like on mac. Is it possible to have multiple lxss with different base images in windows 10(because then you'd just use a ppa or something)?

So we have a VM which pulls in a bunch of layers. At that point, you might as well just distribute a full vm through vagrant, then your vagrant up is just a one liner.

I dual boot my laptop with macos and linux, but am I seriously the only one with 256GB space that has to worry about how many vms/docker layers get pulled?

I kinda liked gentoo prefix, far superior to homebrew imho. I used to update some llvm patch for various versions[1], but the lack of binary packages and smooth developer experience is what killed it IMHO.

[1]: [https://github.com/fishman/timebomb-gentoo-osx- overlay/tree/...](https://github.com/fishman/timebomb-gentoo-osx- overlay/tree/master/sys-devel/llvm)

<comment><USER6> Docker for mac doesn't use a virtualbox, it uses "HyperKit".

> Docker for Mac does not use VirtualBox, but rather HyperKit, a lightweight > macOS virtualization solution built on top of Hypervisor.framework in macOS > 10.10 Yosemite and higher.

[https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/docker- toolbox/](https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/docker-toolbox/)

<comment><USER4> Yeah, that's a VM they're describing. They need a tiny wrapper running with its own Linux kernel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does Docker for build environments make a lot of sense? I want to package up an existing environment that predates Docker (by long enough that I don't think there's an old enough base OS image on Docker Hub unless I leverage J. Random Hacker's image that's been tweaked for another project) to make it more portable. Would I be fighting against the design of the tool? Perhaps it would be better to just make a chroot and tar it up? I've tried to educate myself on the tool and make my own judgment, but it's surprisingly hard to find material about Docker that is _actually about Docker_ instead of primarily being a sales pitch for containers and microservices that happens to describe them in Docker terms.

<comment><USER8> I do exactly this; my build system does its builds for most platforms inside docker containers. (I haven't figured out how to do OSX builds inside a docker container yet, but I'll figure it out eventually!)

One of my targets is SteamOS (i.e.: Linux with a particular set of pre- installed shared libraries), and the preferred build environment to target that is inside a chroot. So my SteamOS builds get built inside a chroot inside a docker container. And that was surprisingly tricky to get working! There are some gotchas to overcome around how chroots handle symbolic links inside a docker container. But I've got it all working now. :)

The big benefit is that host-OS-upgrades-for-security-purposes no longer upgrade my build's toolchain as a side-effect, potentially breaking or changing the performance of my build artifacts; it's fine to keep running ancient software inside that docker container that's just going to be wiped out in 10 minutes and never gets directly connected to the Internet anyway. And the docker image can be copied around to wherever I need it, if I need extra build workers or whatever. Once you've got the thing set up once, it's fantastic for scaling up your build server if you eventually want to do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Recent versions of several Linux distributions and FreeBSD have made newer clang and g++ versions available, which both have decent support for C++17 features.

For example, Ubuntu 17.10 provides clang-5.0-3 and g++ 7.2.0. Installing clang 5 there is as easy as

        sudo apt install clang-5.0

It's also easy to install various compilers side-by-side there, without messing up the entire system.

For die hard everyday C++ development, one probably does not want the C++ compiler run in a somewhat restricted container and experience all the potential trouble and limitations.

However, containerizing the compiler is a good way for providing a standardized build environment, because one can pin the exact versions of the compiler, libraries etc.

I have also seen people moving all their not-so-important stuff and/or the components that they do own maintain themselves out into Docker containers, in order to keep their base systems lean and clean. And so they can get rid of the containerized things easily should they become irrelevant. Plus keeping the containerized things relatively stable and unaffected by changes to the base system.

<comment><USER10> > Recent versions of several Linux distributions

Hell, even on CentOS 7 you can install devtoolset-7 and get GCC 7.2.1

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seems like a lot of work for what really is a simple process.

We build our code on MacOS with a simple Makefile that builds all of xcodebuild, g++7 (from Homebrew) and llvm-5 (again via homebrew) without any fancy standing on our heads. Works out of the box and doesn't interfere with the system tools.

If you can't control what's on your PATH variable and your compiler options a container won't save your build process.

</comment><comment> git-pull Check this out: [https://github.com/sol-prog](https://github.com/sol-prog)

Solarian programmer seems to be a talented C++ coder.

Thanks for the projects.

The Docker post was a niche thing. There's other posts for getting a system running with Clang 5 on other platforms: [https://solarianprogrammer.com/2017/12/13/linux-wsl- install-...](https://solarianprogrammer.com/2017/12/13/linux-wsl-install- clang-libcpp-compile-cpp-17-programs/). Another cool post about C++17 and raspberry pi a few days earlier: [https://solarianprogrammer.com/2017/12/08/raspberry-pi- raspb...](https://solarianprogrammer.com/2017/12/08/raspberry-pi-raspbian- install-gcc-compile-cpp-17-programs/)

Sure, I wouldn't use Clang in a Docker container (heh). But there are some points. If building from LLVM+Clang from source, installing files/headers and such can mess up systems royally. One docker container could theoretically test drive clang everywhere without mucking up a system.

</comment><comment><USER12>
      $ pacman -Ss clang
      extra/clang 5.0.0-1 [installed]
          C language family frontend for LLVM

Why would I need a container for this?

</comment><comment><USER13> Docker is useful for many things but why is is necessary here? It is trivial to have a second copy of clang in a separate directory and just run it from there.

</comment><comment><USER14> Doesn't sound like a great idea to run a CPU-intensive application like a compiler in "Docker for Mac" which is a VM.

Why do you need a container for that? Can't you just `brew install clang`, and when you no longer need it, uninstall cleanly?

</comment><comment><USER15> A few years ago, serious people mocked those who proposed to use only static linking.

Today, serious people mock those who refuse to distribute a whole operating system along each program.

</comment><comment><USER16> What are the advantages vs just downloading g++ 7?

<comment><USER17> You can write a blogpost about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Too bad they are on Windows. Otherwise they could just use Nix: [https://nixos.org/nix](https://nixos.org/nix) or Guix: [https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/)

<comment><USER19> Nix does run on Windows Subsystem for Linux these days.

<comment><USER18> And can it interact nicely with the "native" environment? I.e. build MSVC projects or ".exe" apps in general that can be used outside of Nix or WSL? I am not a Windows dev but I am very curious, it would be nice to move some cross-platform projects I work on to Nix completely for dev environment...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Clang offers windows binaries on their site and I think it is compatible with visual studio. [http://releases.llvm.org/download.html](http://releases.llvm.org/download.html)

<comment><USER21> And VS supports C++17 anyway

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just occurred to me: if Docker is a container software and not a vitalization software, how does it run Linux executables on an OSX host?

<comment><USER23> It runs on top of a user-space virtual machine (xhyve, IIRC) that runs on Hypervisor.framework that IS running linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The buzz-word dot product is strong in this one..</comment>


Rethinking Mobile SSO - <AUTHOR> http://tech.blog.box.com/2013/03/rethinking-mobile-sso/

<comment><USER2> Hey I'm with you, it is lacking right now if you're using generic apps. We (SecureAuth) can protect and federate identities into native mobile apps all day long (<https://mobile.gosecureauth.com/.>) We even help companies do SSO into native mobile apps with technologies like NFC where we tie it to an enterprise datastore. But like you said, the issue comes into play when customers of ours like GSA and Unisys don't just use custom mobile apps but rather want to assert an enterprise identity into a generic mobile app like box, dropbox or SAP BI. These don't really allow you to programmatically assert that identity into it (yet?). An awesome example would be after validation of your identity we asserted that identity into the url scheme like 'box://store&UserID=variable&SessionID=123'. Here's a picture of how SecureAuth deals with mobile apps right now though <http://i.imgur.com/uHfRUoI.png></comment>


Neanderthal 'skeleton' is first found in a decade - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51532781 <comment> use-net Those Germans from Neandertal were happy to travel even back in the day, right...</comment>


Conan O'Brien makes fun of Final Cut Pro X - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/75520/

<comment><USER2> This looks a lot like it was entirely the editors' idea (and brilliantly executed by them) which is quite a bit more worrying for Apple than Conan making a quip directed at them.

<comment><USER3> Maybe any publicity is good publicity in this case? When was the last time a professional editing software package was dissed on a popular TV show? Or any TV show?</comment></comment>


Codility - Automated tests of programming skills - <AUTHOR> http://codility.com/ <comment><USER3> Very good idea, but I don't program that way. I use a competent IDE to tell me syntax errors and obvious programming mistakes while I write. If I can't debug my algorithm with trial & error I write a test first and modify my algorithm until it complies with the test. To think that a programmer will always come up with the exact and most optimal solution to any given problem is a bit naïve. In my 10 years as a programmer I have never seen one wonder-kid that is able to do that. The real wonder kid assets in a team also tend to be those that are more creative than syntax-anal compared to those that can write syntax-error-free-code with pen and pencil and remember large parts of a phonebook...

<comment><USER4> Well, that's one more reason you should like Codility - you can run test compilations (the VERIFY button) which will show you syntax errors. And in bottom left corner you can apply your test data sets. In other words - <USER2> work like in your every day environment. Check it out and let me know what you think.

<comment><USER3> I did, and now I see comments stating that you should be able to run tests on your code while developing it. That's awesome and what I was missing. Next step intellisense and on-the-fly syntax checking. I hope no programmers click the "compile"-button nowadays to check if their code is correct...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is quite nice, even if the exercise isn't all that difficult.

It would be nice if the boundary conditions were better specified (people seem to have been bitten by overflowing integers). This could be inferred if you told people that you're using a 32-bit machine (the sum of elements is at most SIZE_MAX * INT_MAX; if int and size_t are 32-bit, SIZE_MAX * INT_MAX < INT64_MAX.)

I was also somewhat surprised to see that my code compiles without #include <stdint.h>. I'm not sure this is correct (it could be solved by putting the code written by the candidate _before_ the test code).

Finally, I assume you have proper sandboxing set up?

<comment><USER6> We deliberately underspecify the compiler version, we think in such situation a programmer should attempt to write code as portable as possible.

#include --- good catch! We are not very strict about missing includes, but this is definitely not something we want to penalize.

Sandboxing -- absolutely! :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this is cute but I would think hard about the kinds of questions you develop for this. Coming from the perspective of someone working for a big company with a ton of software people that is not a tech company, I could use something like this in general. But, the question you asked is the kind of thing I ask CS undergrads (almost exactly, in fact) because it allows for clever solutions without actually requiring someone to be a particularly good programmer. I can work through it with them and if the basic solution is easy, prompt them to give me something more clever, so I know how they think, which is good when you're looking at an inexperienced developer. However, for an experienced developer that I want to hire to churn out Java code, the difference to me between a correct but simple O(n^2) solution vs a clever O(n) is not terribly meaningful for determining whether they can actually do what I want them to do. I want something that requires people to write more than a handful of lines and demonstrates an ability to keep track of a few more variables correctly, and honestly I don't care all that much about their algorithmic complexity (although I might care a great deal about their space usage, usage of external resources, etc). So, if this is the audience you are looking to attract, consider thinking about this as a screening tool for people outside of the startup world that actually need "knows how to really do shit in language X" more than "knows how to write clever algorithm,"

<comment><USER6> I don't think Codility checks whether one knows how to write clever algorithm. Look at tasks from ACM Collegiate Programming Competitions, they require clever algorithms. Codility deliberately focuses on very fundamental tasks. Also it does not pretend to be a final sign-off, it merely tells you which candidates to reject due to lack of rudimentary programming skills. It's not that surgeons make injections that often in their daily practice, yet I would not trust a surgeon who doesn't know how to make an injection.

<comment><USER8> I like this comment. A typical surgeon earns a bachelors degree, then attends medical school, before finally spending three to six years in a residency program (in the United States). This is before becoming a practicing surgeon. Unfortunately, there is nothing similar (in the United States) that is related to software engineering -- though many here would like to see something similar to an engineering license for technology professionals; there is nothing currently on the horizon (that I know of). In some ways, I think that Codility can help with this state of affairs. This is particularly interesting when we consider comparing metrics for education and experience; and perhaps 'real-world' success. The Codility statistical comparison, taking these factors into account, would be very interesting indeed. And could possibly result in data that furthers the state of the art in general.

<comment><USER9> {In Pascal Language+Assembly} {$ASMMODE INTEL} function equi (A : Array of longint; n : longint ) : longint; var c:Longint; label noOverflow1; label noOverflow2; label ciclo; label fine; label Over; label tot; Begin Asm DEC n JS over XOR ECX, ECX {Somma1} XOR EDI, EDI {Somma2} XOR EAX, EAX MOV c, EDI MOV ESI, n tot: MOV EDX, A MOV EDX, [EDX+ESI*4] PUSH EDX ADD ECX, EDX JNO nooverflow1 ADD c, ECX nooverflow1: DEC ESI JNS tot; SUB ECX, c SUB EDI, c ciclo: POP EDX SUB ECX, EDX CMP ECX, EDI JE fine ADD EDI, EDX JNO nooverflow2 DEC EDI nooverflow2: CMP EAX, n JA over INC EAX JMP ciclo over: MOV EAX, -1 fine: end; End;

<comment><USER10> lol I got 101 on the test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is interesting. It might be worth noting somewhere how many bits is an Int on your test rigs.

I got 94 using C in 12min (didn't check for overflows of large numbers, silly haskell making me used to Integers).

<comment><USER6> Generally we don't want to penalize people too badly for assuming particular (but realistic) type ranges, nevertheless we think that perfect solution should be as portable as possible across different implementations of the language (e.g. one should not assume that C's int is 32 bits wide, since implementation with 16-bit int can still be Standard compliant)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> That is an amazing piece of software. I hope you make a mint.

I'd give people access to their language's output facility for playing around to the solution, but that is a minor nitpick. (And I suppose I could open an irb instance on my machine for exploration and then give you code when I'm good and ready.)

My Ruby solution, in case we've got anybody who is struggling: <http://pastie.org/771438> This would be my first cut if you asked me to whiteboard this.

<comment><USER13> Pasties are a good idea, but results pages are more interesting. Here's my sad effort after 8 mins in python: <http://codility.com/demo/results/?id=demoXFXD64-GCZ>

The site's very slick. My only feedback is the histogram on the results page could be more prominent - it's cool, useful information but I ended up inspecting the html elements to work out what it was.

Also the results page seemed to keep refreshing for me while waiting for results (Safari 3). Surely that should've been AJAX'd?

<comment><USER14> regarding your python code: do you know about 'enumerate'? It returns an iterable of (index, value) pairs of a sequence. :)

<comment><USER15> enumerate is very useful, here's mine:

        def equi ( A ):
            right = sum(A)
            left = 0
            for i,x in enumerate(A):
                right -= x
                if right == left:
                    return i
                left += x
            return -1

What's interesting is that all the versions I've seen so far are pretty much identical apart from very minor things. This would seem to me to be obviously the correct way to do it but I'm interested if it's just _a_ way. Did anyone solve this in a different way of equal or greater elegance?

<comment><USER16> Mine kept one cumulative list adding left to right and another summing right to left. This is conventionally slower, but conceivably faster if you do it in parallel, leaving the final loop to be something like:

        for i in xrange(len(A)):
            if right[i] == left[i]:
                return i

The final loop here is slightly tighter, so as long as your parallelism didn't add big overheads, this will be faster.

Original: <http://pastebin.com/m6e742f56> Parallelised: <http://pastebin.com/m32a60b1>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like how the performance evaluation seems to be fairly realistic - I used Ruby and my algorithm could have been more efficient (O( _n_ ) space, and O( _n_ ) time but with more traversals than necessary), but I scored 100 because I met all the _stated_ constraints. (<http://codility.com/demo/results/?id=demo8XKE77-H8G> if anyone wants to refer to and/or mock my code.) It seems to me "ability to solve problems _well enough_ under time pressure" is exactly what you want a simple hands-off test like this to screen for.

In face-to-face interviews you'd probably follow up by adding constraints: "your algorithm uses O( _n_ ) space in addition to the input, can you do it in constant space?". It would be cool if Codility supported that kind of workflow - following up the submitted solution with refinements on the original question. (Relatedly - do you support the workflow where you get a second try if you didn't get 100, maybe because the evalution revealed a constraint that wasn't clearly stated in the problem outline?)

<comment><USER6> With paid account it is possible to reopen a task after one solution has been submitted, so the recruiter can "give another chance" to the candidate (although we generally suggest not to), which supports the workflow you describe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is the code editor they're using something publicly available? I'm looking around for a light in-browser code editor with programmer-oriented features (e.g. syntax highlighting, this also seems to auto-indent Python code to some degree).

<comment><USER19> Even I noticed that I had seen something ditto somewhere... Hmm so Codility's editor is copy of the one SPOJ uses, so which one do they both use? Can I too get it :)

<http://twitpic.com/x6wkq> and even the code matches line by line I guess - <http://twitpic.com/x6wnp>

<comment><USER6> Codility uses open-source component EditArea.

> Hmm so Codility's editor is copy of the one SPOJ uses

Please don't flame. Codility has not copied it from anybody, its EditArea- based interface is in place since 2008.

<comment><USER19> I beg to edit the word "copy", but I can't do it now.

Hmm so Codility' and SPOJ use a similar editor, so which one do they both use? Can I too get it :)

Thanks for pointing out. /me looks into EditArea

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks for the positive feedback. Do not hesitate to ask us any questions.

best Marcin Codility

<comment><USER20> Nicely done overall.

You might want to lock down functions like glob() and readfile() in PHP -- they effectively give the coder read access to your file system.

<comment><USER6> Good point, thanks! But no worries, this is not our real filesystem :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It gave me a test concerning finding the "equilibrium index" of a sequence. It said to assume that the sequence is very long. (The question is repeated here: [http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=676596&start=...](http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=676596&start=0)) This problem seems underspecified, because it doesn't state whether you can iterate repeatedly over the sequence in question. If you can, it's easy. If you can't I'm not sure how to do it.

<comment><USER22> _iterate repeatedly over the sequence in question_

Does that ever seem like a good idea? The description suggests it may be a long list. That should give you a hint that you don't need to do this to solve the problem.

<comment><USER21> I'm pretty sure you have to iterate over it at least twice. I guess the specification is implicit in that.

<comment><USER16> The best case possible is to iterate the list once - you sum the list from left to right holding cumulative answers and if the final sum is zero, that index is a valid answer.

The worst case of the best algorithm is to iterate twice - firstly as above, and then again in the opposite direction, comparing values from the first iteration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Really nice site. Well done. The example problem that showed up to me (equilibrium point detection) was not trivial, but didn't require advanced stuff which a halfway decent programmer wouldn't use day in and day out.

I also like the way you tell me what you scored on and what my result was.

I wonder if you should relax the condition that you can submit only once.

I gather TopCoder offers something similar. What's your strategy to compete with them?

PS: got 94 using C++ in 16 min b/c I didn't check overflow of large numbers. Good thing you check for that.

<comment><USER4> Right now TopCoder is focused on coding competitions. We are focused solely on recruitment - those are pretty separate markets at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> You know, now that I think about it...The description of the test was pretty incoherent. If I don't know what my test data is, and if the problem description is incoherent, I can't really make it work.

It's also taking a metric fuckton of time to evaluate my solution. Which apparently fails. For reasons I can't debug because I can't see the test data.

Any company that relies on code snippets, incomplete problem statements and undefined test data to judge coders will get what they deserve.

<comment><USER25> maybe there's more than one task, but the task i took appeared to be completely specified (the one where you find a balance point - i may have remembered the name wrong - for an array, so that the sum of elements to either side is equal).

it wasn't obvious to me what to do on first read, but when i paid a little more attention, everything was there (including edge cases, as far as i could see). in particular, they gave a formal numerical expression that was unambiguous (and which didn't seem to contradict the text).

<comment><USER4> Yep, it's good to read the specs in detail ;)

<comment> loup-vaillant The spec _was_ clear, but the fact that the test dataset used for the test was the very one given as an example wasn't. plus, it was a bit frustrating not being able to fiddle with the test dataset. I would have done it locally with my compiler, but the necessary boilerplate would have lost me time. So, I didn't test enough, and made a silly error which went undetected because of the trailing zero. I still got 75%, but that looks quite miraculous.

EDIT: It appears I _can_ customize my test dataset, and I didn't see it. Silly me.

<comment><USER6> Yes, it is even possible to add your own data sets, Codility will tell you what you code returns for them. I guess we should make it more apparent in the interface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> 5 minute version of the demo problem in Ruby - 100%:

<http://codility.com/demo/results/?id=demoMPC2W9-JDG>

</comment><comment><USER26> As a student this is very interesting since it could also be used to measure self progress. There's a myriad of ways to test your abilities in most subjects, but if I want to find out if I'm any good at programming or to measure my progress, there are very few easy ways to do that. Are you going to sell this to just business's?

<comment><USER27> Have you tried topcoder? It's the same as codility, but with cooler/harder problems.

<comment><USER26> Thanks for the tip, topcoder looks pretty interesting in general, too.

<comment><USER28> Also Project Euler might be worth a look. It focusses on solving math-related problems with progams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> For C++ it would be nice to know what compiler is being checked against. At least in the demo question I would use a 64 bit int to hold the sum if the arrays are really "large" but MSVC names the type __int64 vs G++ using long long and other such minor details. Same for the other languages aka python 2.x or 3.x etc.

<comment><USER6> We want to avoid sticking to particular compilers/interpreters. An expert in MSVC should not be penalized only because we use GCC. Also we design the tasks so that they are compiler-agnostic (actually they are even language-agnostic). It is sometimes a bit tricky due to non-standardized type sizes (e.g. C, C++, PHP), but generally the tasks can be solved using very limited and portable subset of a language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Got my 94% C solution up to 100% by using long long ints for intermediate sums.

<http://pastebin.com/m6e742f56>

Edit: And won't this be a problem if interviewees can access the internet? The interviewers will have to make sure they can check the browsing history of the computer being used!

<comment><USER30> Why? After all, you are going to use the internet while on the job too. Just making the problems more difficult should fix that problem.

<comment><USER16> I don't mean the interviewers should shut off internet access entirely, but what I mean is that if they do allow access to the internet, they'll need to check the interviewee hasn't just googled for the solution to their codibility test (and they'll also have to make sure the interviewee can't delete their browsing history too).

<comment><USER4> Don't worry, we have some nasty surprises for the cheaters ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Codility people, if you're reading, here's a bug report.

The test window's layout is fubar if you use a small window size. I was using 800x600 and the language selection buttons were hidden behind the source code text box. Something (couldn't tell what) overlapped the first two lines of the instructions.

Firefox 3.5.7/Ubuntu Linux 4.10, FWIW.

<comment><USER32> thx! we will look into that! Chris

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm not sure the timer is a good idea. For one, I found the seconds counting down _very_ distracting. It also encourages quick and inefficient solutions that are easy to hack out, over more efficient algorithms that may take longer to code.

Maybe you should time the programs, instead of the programmers.

<comment><USER4> We are timing the programs as well - with the scalability assessment. Recruiter can change the timing anyway, but we feel that a bit of pressure is good. You don't always have comfy conditions on the job after all.

<comment> loup-vaillant Right, but maybe not down to the second. I personally didn't mind, but counting seconds causes a distracting flickering. Maybe you should consider activating it on the last minute only ?

<comment><USER6> Hm, would something more smooth (analog?) be better?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Might need some way of making explicit which libraries are available?

eg. if the programmer goes off and writes a multithreaded solution, they might only realise too late that pthread isn't included. Admittedly they should have checked first using verify, but you never know with interview pressure.

<comment><USER6> Unless it is stated explicitly, we do not provide anything extra but the vanilla programming language and standard libraries. It is more clear for some languages (e.g. Java, C++) than other (e.g. PHP, JavaScript), but we try to stick to the reasonable canonical set of libraries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Seems like a cool idea. If they were smart they'd not only target companies looking for people but people looking for jobs. e.g. Adding a "Allow the codility community to take this test" check box. Then you have the a whole world full of people taking your test.

<comment><USER32> Actually it's there - if you click on "Take a free demo test" (<http://codility.com/demo/take-sample-test/>) on the Codility page there is a free test and you will be given the option to tweet your result at the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wow, beautiful design.

That said: Jesus I must still suck, or maybe Math simply isn't my strong suite.

<comment><USER35> Yeah, that demo problem would probably take me at least several hours to solve. I'm bad with sequences and I have a volatile short term memory which means I make mistakes and am slow to process numbers and logic. Interestingly these flaws cause me abhor any over complex logic or code where you have to remember more than 4 or 5 things at once to use properly, which makes my code clean. So maybe I'm not a good programmer (I can't write the complex stuff very easily) but the code I write is usually good. Try testing for that Codility!

BTW 10-20% of the population is like me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Very nice product. Much-needed quantification in tech recruiting. Maybe consider marketing it to the stackoverflow people. They have been running a job board with much fanfare since recently. (94 points for me in 7 mins, yay)

</comment><comment><USER37> Great. So now we're going to be hearing about TDH zealots (Test Driven Hiring).

<comment><USER31> I've been a TDH zealot, as you put it, since 1986. It's amazing how hard it is to evaluate coding ability in an interview without it.

I readily concede that coding ability isn't the only thing a dev needs, but it is absolutely required for most jobs.

<comment><USER37> For the record, I was kidding. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Just a heads up:

I took a demo quiz and it worked fine. Great idea for a product.

However I think I'm too competent for the test because I was able to run something I probably shouldn't have been able too.

<comment><USER6> Yep, we've seen it... :-) Thanks for pointing this out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This would be kind of cool simply as a brainteaser site with problems taken from Project Euler.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is great!

I've already sent it around at the company I work for. I'm hoping we can put it to use.

</comment><comment><USER25> also thought this was nice after trying it out.

one thing i missed, though, was the ability to write and run my own tests. perhaps a "scratchpad" that evaluates code and returns a result would be a nice addition?

<comment><USER4> Bottom left corner. It's obviously not visible enough :)

<comment><USER41> I just can't see it. Is it in the demo test?

My bottom left corner is empty. Except when I click "verify" it shows message whether the tests passed or failed.

But I don't see the tests themselves, nor did I notice a way of writing my own. I've tried it in Firefox, IE 8 and latest dev Chrome.

So, is it possible to write my own tests when I'm _taking_ the test, or only when I'm creating a new one?

<comment><USER4> Sorry, some bug on our end - it should be there. We are fixing it right now. In the meantim - if you sign up for a trial account [<http://codility.com/accounts/codility-register/>] it works fine there (a blue "add a test case" button in the bottom left).

<comment><USER25> thanks. another smaller point i just remembered - i was a bit surprised to see that the evaluator could see my submissions to the "validate" function. given that you do say they won't influence the score i assumed that they would be discarded.

i can see there are several reasons why this is useful to the evaluator, and i can also see that you're getting close to saturating the user with instructions, but in a perfect world it would be good to have "full disclosure" (i guess you do, in that anyone can run the example....)

<comment><USER4> Good point, thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Very cool product. Well done</comment>


An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments - <AUTHOR> https://bookofbadarguments.com/?view=allpages

<comment><USER2> I really enjoyed this, and can imagine myself using it to teach my kids about good and bad arguments one day.

It also makes me think of a class which has just started on coursera, "Think again: How to reason and argue"

[https://class.coursera.org/thinkagain-002/class/index](https://class.coursera.org/thinkagain-002/class/index)</comment>


How to do what you love and make good money - <AUTHOR> https://sivers.org/balance <comment><USER2> This bugs me. I don't think that making money by doing what you love is actually such an unattainable dream that you have to separate the two into "make money, and do what you love on the side".

It may be good advice if you are optimizing for individual contentment, but not everyone is wired to just pretend that a status-quo job (because that's where the money is) is good enough.

I know a few folks who made obscene piles of easy risk-free money off of things like selling cookie-cutter turnkey porn sites for $10k a pop in the 90's and 00's. I do not regret passing up those opportunities.

I may not be as "happy" as I would be if I had a nice financial cushion, but I am definitely happier for I not compromising my moral and ethical principles.</comment>


Why you shouldn't use HowAboutWe - <AUTHOR> http://runspired.com/2014/02/how-about-we-dont/

<comment><USER2> TLDR: OP paid for HowAboutWe event and got locked out of account. Support takes longer than 48 hours to respond, so OP publicly declares HowAboutWe is guilty of fraud.

<comment><AUTHOR> In 48 hours I received one email, a very brief email claiming I didn't have an account with them.

<comment><USER2> Which couldn't possibly have been a mistake. Had to be fraud.

<comment><AUTHOR> By the legal definition of fraud, yes, they are currently guilty of it.

Is 48 hours too short a period of time to wait before calling them out on it? I debated. What ultimately swayed me to write this vs not write this was that I got another email from their system this morning about a deal I'd expressed interest in.

I selected that deal in the same user session as I paid for the event. I received no email confirmation or receipt for my purchase, am told an account for my email address doesn't exist, yet get marketing emails about deals I selected during the same user session.

My post exists because when someone else goes to interact with HowAboutWe, they ought to know in advance that this is a company with poor customer support, poor technical development, and poor billing practices.

Even if HAW refunds me, or does eventually respond to me, new users have a right to know that this is the experience they could receive too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like a personal problem that you decided to post to HN for some reason.

<comment><USER4> Having seen this work many times, I'm not surprised OP decided to post here. Although it's unclear if anyone from the site in question reads HN

<comment><USER5> It's also interesting that the account you replied to was created apparently just to reply negatively to this article. Is this becoming more common on HN?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel like I should give another personal experience with them. I hope they sort it out with runspired.

I've had a bunch of really great dates through howaboutwe, I never had an issue with them and they've helped us work out scheduling issues with the restaurants and places we've gone. Even after they hiked their rates a little bit, I still found pretty good value out of their service. I work way to much and I would honestly struggle to make sure I got out enough (besides my local spots) if hadn't signed up.</comment>


Google's OpenSocial and XSS exploit in Ning - <AUTHOR> http://www.haroldtherebel.com/2007/11/03/peer-prescience/ <comment><USER2> looks like that's fixed already. No doubt there will be many more of these fixes in the next few days/weeks...</comment>


Live: Head of NSA meets with House Intelligence Committee - <AUTHOR> http://www.c-spanvideo.org/event/220343 <comment><USER2> Arguing that these programs are effective by revealing a few foiled terrorist plots is entirely beside the point. Obviously monitoring every communication on the planet would help the government track down a few terrorist plots here and there. If they really want the debate to focus on the effectiveness of these programs then they should explain why they failed so spectacularly to prevent the Boston Marathon bombings, a plot carried out by two of the most careless and naive terrorists to date. Heck, even a direct warning from Russian officials fell on deaf ears. Perhaps the NSA was too busy listening to innocent people's phone calls to respond?

The effectiveness isn't what's at issue here, though. The problem is the loss of privacy for innocent civilians, to which Obama and other government officials respond to with wishy-washy arguments about "tradeoffs" between security and privacy.

<comment><USER3> It's always a tradeoff between privacy and security. The rules behind the use of the metadata are pretty stringent. For example:

        Metadata is JUST number + duration. Not localtion, cell phone tower...

        targetting cannot be done on citizens or permanent citizens, or people in the US. Permanent citizen in Madrid is safe.

        No "reverse" targetting(targetting foreigner but really interested in US nat'l)

        if citizen/perm. res accidentally targeted, info not used, FISA court signalled, house intel + judiciary signalled.

        If targeted person is initially out of US, but venture in, targeting stops IMMEDIATELY.

        Info accidentally gotten (for example, lag when stopping of the targetting mentioned previously), ineligible info is purged. All ineligible info is purged.

        All targeting is reviewed beforehand , both by DNI and judiciary. All targets are audited

Plus this was used on less than 300 numbers. 20 people in the world have access to the info. The justification procedures are stringent.

This hearing restored some confidence in checks and balances. And a good point by Deputy AG Cole: This is for foreign surveillance ONLY. There used to be no oversight for foreign surveillance. Now there is through FISA Court and this second court order with all these rules in it.

Also, NSA can't listen to the calls without fixed warrant, and the brothers were in the US at the time of planning their thing, so out of NSA jurisdiction anyways.

<comment><USER4> Whats your source for those quotes? Is that from the hearing happening now?

<comment><USER5> This stuff sometime around like minute 45 or thereabouts.

I'm frustrated by them asking the wrong questions to the wrong people. They should be asking FBI about listening to Americans' phone calls. They're not dong it, in the bits I've heard, yet.

Edit: FBI did chime in on reading emails in real-time, indicating FISA court as the means for doing so, but nothing else I heard. (~1:28?) Edit2: Grunt. I clearly don't understand what's going on here. (~1:42). I'm just going to shut up for another couple days and see what the Guardian releases in response.

<comment><USER6> I haven't been able to follow the hearing from my desk, but I'm curious if anyone asked why the NSA director lied to Congress. Moreover, there were many questions prefaced with "Under these two programs..." These are the programs that have been made public. Who knows what they're running that is not public.

<comment><USER7> Correct. This is the same kind of very narrow denial that we saw under the Bush-era warrantless wiretapping programs as well. There are multiple programs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it me or are most (all?) of these hearings against companies or agencies in this case - a joke? I've watched some of them lately, and the Congressmen always seem to be butt-kissing the company or agency they are supposed to investigate.

These past 2 hearings don't seem to intend to shed any light on this. They seem to be held to help protect whatever NSA is doing.

<comment><USER9> Just think of the kind of blackmail material the NSA would have on our representatives under this program. All it would take is "probable cause", which seems very easy to get, to unearth that data and start blackmail or expose the person. These programs give the NSA an incredible amount of power, and it's easily misused.

<comment><USER10> Yep, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Harman#AIPAC_controversy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Harman#AIPAC_controversy)

<comment><USER11> That is _huge_ , and I'd never heard of it before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Deputy Attorney General: "We don't get any content...under this program." The use of language across all parties here is really incredible. The Google/Apple/etc denials so carefully worded, the lawyer-speak that avoid saying anything at all for hours at a time in the US gov't...it's amazingly Orwellian.

Edit: Did he just say that the fourth amendment does not apply because nobody expected privacy in the first place? I can't possibly have heard that right.

<comment><USER13> under _this_ program.

[edit] and here it is... "Under 702, we _do_ get content"

[edit] I'm sure at this point the endgame here is gonna be a crazy dance around the word 'collect'. It's increasingly obvious that the secret definition they're using for 'collect' is "an analyst pulls it from our database, where we've already _collected_ some broad swaths of communication by any reasonable person's definition of the term"

[edit] One interesting note is that there have been strong denials that the metadata contain any location/cell-tower data. Still wonder if there's another shell game there and it's available via some other source.

<comment><USER11> Exactly. It's already been leaked that content is collected under a different program.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hopefully this will shift the conversation from "listening to phone calls" and "collecting internet records (eg: emails, browsing history)" to "storing phone calls" and "storing internet records (eg: emails, browsing history)".

At this point it's become abundantly clear that _everything_ is stored and indexed in a database, and the only defense against abuse of this database is _only_ policies.

One of the worst cases to come out of this entire ordeal is the legal dance around the definition of "listen" and whether it refers to automatically capturing phone calls or an individual listening to a recording of a phone call after it's been captured.

<comment><USER15> >the only defense against abuse of this database is only policies.

This point is _extremely_ important and is what Snowden continuously returns to. In yesterday's Q&A he said "policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens." This idea is critical to having an intelligent debate of the issues at hand.

<comment><USER16> I don't find this to be an extremely compelling point, though.

There's infinite bad things that can be committed by anyone, from the government or otherwise, where the only thing preventing it is policy and procedure. The only thing preventing an Apache helicopter from firing on schoolchildren under order of the president.... is policy. Theoretically, as commander-in-chief, the president has the authority to order that, right? But what's important is that he doesn't. What's important is there's policy that prevents it.

<comment><USER15> I understand your point, but [http://beta.dawn.com/news/772409/no-obama-tears- for-children...](http://beta.dawn.com/news/772409/no-obama-tears-for-children- killed-by-drones-in-pakistan)

To be fair, it wasn't apache helicopters.

<comment><USER16> Heh, I walked into that one, but I think my point still stands: the problem you linked to is one of policy. And the solution is to find a better one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "But if we do acquire any information that relates to a US person, under limited criteria only, can we keep it. If it has to do with foreign intelligence in that conversation or understanding foreign intelligence, or _evidence of a crime_ or a threat of serious bodily injury, we can respond to that. Other than that, we _have to get rid of it_ , we have to purge it, and we can't use it." (emphasis mine)

This seems very close to an admission that they both have and analyze the data before purging it. Combined with the idea that most people commit three felonies a day and pretty quickly all of these assertions about not spying on US citizens or people in the US goes out the window.

<comment><USER18> Here's the thing- if they get and store this data, in any way whatsoever, it's going to come out. With a 100% certainty, that fact will out in time.

And when it does, any word games they try to play now will just be devastating to them then. Absolutely devastating. It will not protect them, it will not help them, it will damn them.

So, given that it will come out and it will hurt them when it does...why play the games?

Either they _aren 't_ storing the data (which seems possible still, though less likely than I thought 2 weeks ago), or they're operating with the future planning capability of a fruit fly.

I don't know which it is,but this doesn't feel like it's going to end well for anyone.

<comment><USER19> That's why a gradual release of revelations is such a good strategy. We've been seeing this in Spain in corruption cases. The target doesn't know what to expect: has the leaker had access to the _real stuff_ or did he just scratched the surface? The danger of a too dismisive response is being caught in outright lies. With time, more people appears involved and the matter stays in the news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Does the NSA listen to the content of phone calls?"

General Alexander: "No we do not have that authority."

I think it's pretty clear by now that they're collecting phone call content.

Here's another and I'm paraphrasing:

"Is there something else being collected?"

"Besides the 215(?) and 702(?)? I'm not sure as I don't know whether that info has been declassified."

</comment><comment><USER21> As a person "outside the united states and not a US person" this doesn't fill be with confidence about using US based internet services. It also doesn't give me much confidence about communicating with "US persons".

<comment><USER22> I have a visceral negative reaction to what they're doing to my country, and it makes me want to say: please embargo us, foreign nations and citizens. It won't happen unfortunately.

<comment><USER23> Indeed. You only have to see the massive trade deal the EU and US are putting through to see how much Europe cares. Could have been some gentle leverage there, but no.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had to jump around, but this link is where I'm watching live: [http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/](http://www.c-span.org/Live- Video/C-SPAN3/)

</comment><comment><USER24> The clowns questioning him keep saying "UNDER THIS PROGRAM".

Yeah well the ones we know. Now we need to know the others.

<comment><USER25> yeah exactly. One doesn't allow content to be captured, the other does, but only for non-american citizens, except when it is an accident... so when you combine all three incidences... yes they have full access and admit it several times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "The documents that have been released so far ironically show the oversight" ...

I like what John Oliver said on the Daily Show - "We're not saying anyone broke any laws, we're just saying it's a little bit weird that you didn't have to."

</comment><comment><USER27> It's PR. They say there's court involvement but it's a rubber stamp and then they access all data they got on you. They do say there has to be reasonable suspicion but we all know how that goes.

One guy says people don't have an expectation of privacy because they are used to giving their data to the phone companies.

I think I heard enough. And Europe and China, yes, all communications of your citizens are being recorded, and yes it's a privacy violation.

I've heard enough.

</comment><comment><USER28> What a political circle-jerk. The questioning plays out like a rehearsed commercial.

</comment><comment><USER29> at 1:02:30

"Does the technology exist at the NSA to record american's phone calls, or read their emails?"

"No"

There's something weird going on -- this seems too far off from Snowden's reports to be true. Like, p(Snowden leak | no technology like that) is just too small relative to p(Snowden leak)

<comment><USER4> The get-out-clause here is that they avoid "American's" phone calls. However if an American phones a non-American, or sends an email via a non-USA IP address, they'll hoover it up.

That is consistent with what Snowden said in the Q+A with the guardian yesterday:

 _US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it 's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near- the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border. Your protected communications shouldn't stop being protected communications just because of the IP they're tagged with._

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> hmmm the argument that it is not reasonable that what I view on the internet is private is disturbing. I do have a reasonable expectation of it being private.

This is referring to the Attorney Generals statement that we do not have a reasonable expectation for our meta data not to be public.

<comment><USER31> "Because you share that information with phone companies, etc".

He referenced a court decision about that. Can someone who knows what the case might be find it?

<comment><USER11> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Listening to this is absurd. Any intelligent human being can see that this open meeting is nothing more than a PR piece. So far I have heard three congressmen testify that this is legal and nothing illegal is happening. They are preloading the conversation and giving people the opportunity to tune out before General Alexander can even speak.

</comment><comment><USER32> Get FISA Right has a Twitter list with live tweets from several accounts following the hearing -- EFFLive, Julian Sanchez, Marcy Wheeler, Michelle Richardson of the ACLU, etc.

[https://twitter.com/GetFISARight/nsa](https://twitter.com/GetFISARight/nsa)

</comment><comment><USER26> Suggesting that there are several plots that have been thwarted - and that somehow justifies the program seems too "ends justify the means".

(probably because that's exactly what they're arguing)

</comment><comment><USER24> He's going to announce two terror plots stopped by this.

Should be interesting.

<comment><USER33> Bet he won't say whether those plots could have been stopped another way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> A hearing like this reinforces secrecy and benefits only the people in that room. They are given a platform to legitimize their activities and deny the existence of anything that may violate the constitution or upset Americans.

"Hey guys, we're here to tell you all about anything except what you actually want to know about" = the game of secrecy vs the public

</comment><comment><USER11> > Confirmed: NSA Analyst doesn't need a separate court order to query > database. Analysts can decide what is "reasonably suspicious."

[https://twitter.com/efflive/status/347019679073710082](https://twitter.com/efflive/status/347019679073710082)

</comment><comment><USER35> I would personally like to know if there's a blacklist for any such program which prevents electronic systems from surveilling anyone on it. I can imagine that a senator knowing their details have been/can be accessed without due cause would be a real PITA for the NSA.

</comment><comment><USER36> That was the largest gathering of nervous looking politicians and military brass I have ever witnessed. I don't think a lot of them were comfortable talking about information that became declassified immediately before they were to discuss them with the public.

</comment><comment><USER37> If you are not actually watching, the narrative of this talk is entirely defensive of the work going on by the NSA. They are flat out denying the information leaked my Mr. Snowden.

Also, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberg just said the words "True Facts"

</comment><comment><USER38> Good grief Mike Rogers is a windbag. His opening statement to the hearing is a pretty good indication to me that he/they intend to investigate nothing, but rather to distract and deceive the public wrt to their activities.

</comment><comment><USER39> If the FISA court was transparent in any way having them issue warrants and provide oversight might be valuable. But it is not, thus that court is meaningless.

</comment><comment><USER27> Let's take any country, other than the US, e.g. Switzerland, Luxembourg, ... why isn't Al-Qaeda flying into the buildings of those countries ?</comment>


XSS vulnerability in Avast Antivirus via wireless network name - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/5-000-usd-xss-issue-at-avast-desktop-antivirus-for-windows-yes-desktop-1e99375f0968 <comment><USER2> ... am I missing something or does this imply that these antivirus programs are using a web view for at least part of their functionality?

I wonder how many electron apps that register as a protocol handler with the OS are vulnerable to shit like this?</comment>