What we've learned about hiring engineering managers - <AUTHOR> https://circleci.com/blog/what-we-ve-learned-about-hiring-engineering-managers/ <comment><USER2> I firmly believe great software engineering managers are people who are adequate developers, but have excellent people skills.

Why? They need to understand enough software at a high level to be able to manage, instead of turning lower-level details into management problems.

But, they also need to find software development frustrating enough that they are happy to not have to do it every day.

<comment><USER3> I recently realized that there are roughly two kinds of people, namely people who are good at symbolic/abstract ideas and people who are good at real/physical/touchable things, which can be considered orthogonal to the extrovert/introvert categorization. For a __software __engineering team, I find it tends to be suboptimal to have a physical-thinking oriented manager who dislikes abstract, symbolic notions, even though they are brilliant and would probably a good fit for say electrical or mechanical engineering teams.

My sampling space isn't large enough, but it's interesting to keep an eye on the personalities of the managers in your organization from that perspective.

<comment><USER4> In my experience there are two kinds of people; those who are good at many different things, and those who believe there are roughly two kinds of people.

I mean that only half jokingly. One of the reasons I like to work at smaller organizations these days is the pervasive belief in larger orgs that somebody has to fall into one of two categories. This is often rationalized as a way to identify strengths, however more often than not IMHO it's due to insecurity in ones own deficits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Engineering managers at CircleCI are now dedicated to people management: > focused on development of a set of engineers, tech leads, and team leads. > They hold regular 1:1s and career growth conversations with the engineers > who report to them, and are responsible for goal setting, feedback, > coaching, and mentoring for them. They also work across a set of teams to > ensure team health, knowledge sharing, business value delivery and alignment > across teams. This means that our engineers have managers who have great > interest and investment in their personal and professional growth, and teams > have someone to coach them through the product delivery process.

Was this not the case before? What were EMs doing then? This is the only definition of EM that I've ever known.

<comment><USER6> Notice how every one of these tasks are things required of the engineer to satisfy the manager. None of it contributes to the productivity of the worker. And only a small portion of it has any relevance to the productive of the company as a whole.

In other words, the engineers would not notice if the engineering manager was not there (except they'd spend less time in meetings and reporting). And the company wouldn't notice either — unless the engineers chose to use that extra time productively without being "managed" to.

<comment><USER7> This sounds like you haven't had a competent manager before (nothing to be ashamed of, I was there once!)

Meetings like weekly 1:1s are supposed to be helpful for you as the engineer. They're a safe space for you to complain, and share what sucks about your job, and brag about what's going well. It's like work therapy, but a lot of the things that you complain about can actually become things your manager can fix over time.

Things like help in goal setting might not seem strictly necessary if you're self-driven enough. But doing good work doesn't help your career if nobody notices, and spending your time focused on Doing The Thing is time you're not spending playing a game of politics to make sure upper management is hearing your name all the time. Having a manager to establish a paper trail of what you claim your goals are, and then doing them, makes it easier for everybody above you in the organization to justify giving you a raise/promotion/etc.

I agree that, in a lot of situations, poorly-trained managers do more harm than good. But I promise it's theoretically possible for good managers to provide value!

<comment><USER8> > They're a safe space for you to complain, and share what sucks about your > job

Not trying to be a jerk here, but they're not meant to be a place just for employee to vent. They want the manager to _do something about the problems._ This is usually frustrating for both people, as the manager is often not empowered to fix the problem (such senior execs not having their shit together, other teams fighting, and all that usual fun stuff) and the employee gets tired of essentially asking every week for things to change, with no improvement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > We look for candidates' ability to mentor and add value to technical > discussions while understanding their own limitations, supporting a > technical decision without acting as a decision-maker.

It's nice that they are keeping this in mind. I was a technical lead for a new product in the company at my last job and had a new engineering manager hired over me. I ultimately quit because he wouldn't let me do my job, insisting on making every technical decision, and that he knew better. Many of them were poor decisions. He was a mid-level engineer with a big ego in a manager's position, and was given the power to do whatever he wanted.

I've been working professionally as a software engineer for almost 10 years now. By far the worst experience I've ever had.

Making sure that an engineering manager knows their limitations is _very_ important.

<comment><USER10> > supporting a technical decision without acting as a decision-maker.

manager is ultimately responsible for his team decisions (of course bad managers do try to scapegoat that responsibility down onto the team when the stuff hits the fan) and being responsible for the decisions can't be separated from making those decisions.

<comment><USER11> you are stuck on the model of manager-as-boss. in order to create a true engineering ladder that is separate but equal to the management ladder, tech teams need to make the decisions. it is the tech lead (whatever rank he may be, let's say principal for sake of argument) that makes technical decisions.

the manager cannot override that.

unless of course, the manager is actually the boss. which invalidates the tech ladder, really.

don't confuse technical decisions (as GP stated) with management or product decisions. managers are not ultimately responsible for technical decisions in this model.

<comment><USER10> >you are stuck on the model of manager-as-boss. in order to create a true engineering ladder that is separate but equal to the management ladder

it will be equal only when the people on the technical ladder start to take hiring and firing decisions. Until that - the "parallel" ladder is just a pipe dream and the manager is the boss.

<comment><USER11> hiring decisions are made by the team, not the "hiring manager". putting the responsibility of "tie breaking" votes onto the HM is a reasonable thing.

generally, employees fire themselves ...

But I mean, you're not wrong. In the environment you're thinking of, the "tech ladder" is a farce. Which is why the parent, as he said, left that company.

CircleCI has made the claim that they have a true tech ladder, and there's no reason to disbelieve them.

<comment><USER12> Hiring decisions made by the team are short sighted. They tend to hire people like themselves with similiar ideas. If you are looking for a balanced diverse team group think will not replace a hiring authority.

It is probably the best way to find someone likable by all. But bad for someone who might challenge ideas. Unless they find someone that has traits that everyone is in awe of but usually that only happens when there is a single person role with no other developers working in that layer or silo of the stack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been fortunate to have two great direct managers at the prior companies I've worked at, and one common thread they have is they've both been developers. I think working in the field before you command people who do so helps build empathy and understanding of the problem at hand, as well as how it all ties into the bigger picture.

I've heard in the military officers that served in the enlisted ranks before commissioning are more effective and supported by their troops than those that come straight out of OCS; but this is just anecdotal. If it is true, I think engr/mgmt relationships operate quite the same way. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustang_(military_officer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustang_\(military_officer\))

<comment><USER14> Not sure if this is a counterpoint, but pretty much _every_ direct manager I've had (except for one, and she was awesome) started their career as a programmer, and I was also a manager that went from programming->management.

While I agree that it's best to have an expert in the field managing you, from my time as a manager I believe the "soft skills" of communication, emotional intelligence, empathy, organization, etc. are much more important. The reason it's so hard to find great engineering managers is that it's difficult to find a "programmer's mind" and a "people-person mind" in the same person.

For one, I think it is _extremely_ difficult to be a manager if you are an introvert. A huge part of your day as a manager is meeting and conversing with other people. If those interactions all _take_ energy from you instead of _give_ energy, it's going to be hugely draining to deal with that much interaction all day. At least that was what it was like for me, so I could just be projecting my experience onto others.

<comment><USER15> As an introvert who was a manager for several years, I agree that it is very difficult and draining. I believe that I have the skills to be a good manager (empathy, EQ, organization), but I did find it extremely draining. Towards the end of my experience I could tell I wasn't giving my best to my direct reports and so I've gone back to being an individual contributor.

I still entertain the idea of getting back into management, but I'll have to figure out how to offset that drain, or even gain energy from personal interactions, as you said, in order to sustain it for more than a few months/years.

<comment><USER16> What specifically was draining about it? What drained you? Why?

<comment><USER14> Because that's basically the definition of the difference between introversion and extroversion: introverts "recharge" by being alone, while extroverts "recharge" by being around people. If you are an introvert and forced to have lots of people interaction daily, you basically don't have a chance to recharge.

My experience was basically exactly the same as subpixelated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So basically "we were devs and we want managers who are devs" .. which inevitably leads to "we really need some real managers"

full disclosure: i am senior dev and a bad manager

<comment><USER18> Developers can acquire 'real manager' skills. Jerry Weinberg, from volume 2 of 'Quality Software Management"

"In the four decades I've spent in the software business, I've learned that there are three fundamental abilities needed to do a quality job of managing software engineering:

* "the ability to understand complex situations so you can plan a project and then observe and act in order to keep the project going according to plan, or modify the plan;

* "the ability to observe what's happening and to understand the significance of our observations in terms of effective adaptive actions;

* "the ability to act appropriately in difficult interpersonal situations, even though you may be confused, or angry, or so afraid that you want to run away and hide."

Though I have all four volumes of QSM, I lifted the quote from here: [http://wiki.c2.com/?QualitySoftwareManagement](http://wiki.c2.com/?QualitySoftwareManagement)

<comment><USER19> Thanks for posting those Jerry Weinberg quotes. I'd never heard of him, and just spent a few hours reading up on him. I think I've found another role model tonight :)

<comment><USER18> I got to meet him, several times. He is as thoughtful and eloquent in person as he is in writing. He's certainly one of my role models, so I commend your choice :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My ideal manager is someone who has been at the company as an engineer, has great people skills, and knows how to think at the macro level.

This person is promoted, not hired from the outside, and then proceeds to stop coding entirely and focus on his direct reports well being, the well being of the team, and keeping everyone unblocked.

Otherwise, they just get out of the way and let the team do its thing.

<comment><USER21> > Otherwise, they just get out of the way and let the team do its thing.

Are you saying the next best thing to an involved manager is one that's not involved at all?

<comment><USER22> benign neglect is better than malign involvement - micromanaging, bad judgement, disruption and chaos etc ...

<comment><USER23> They are both bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think it's good that they are doing some more managerial skills fit, although I think even a good manager for one team at a company might be a bad manager for a different team at the same company.

One of the companies I worked at hired a manager for a different team, and then somehow my team got stuck with the new manager. I don't feel like they were a great fit for our team, our people, and our way of doing things, despite how the other team thought the person would be great. People on the team started jumping ship and transferring to other teams, and I think it basically destroyed the couple of years of work we had put into building that new team. If you're hiring a manager for an existing team, I think it's important to have the direct reports really involved in the hiring process. It not only gives a sense of agency and involvement that helps bring a new person on above you, but also checks the culture fit of the people being managed (on both sides).

If managing is a people skills game, as this article seems to conclude, then it inevitably has to be about the people being managed. For example, is it a team of younger devs who need more mentoring and building up of skills? Or is it a more senior team who needs someone to push for them in the org and stay out of their way technically? These are two completely different managers in my book, and not because they are of two different levels of skill necessarily. While one person could probably do either, I think more realistically a manager is probably more on one side or the other.

<comment><USER25> 100% have the team involved. I recently hired for a manager to take over one of my dev teams, had a couple of candidates I was on the fence about, but after hearing the development team's feedback, removed them from the running. A person's manager is one of the most influential people in their lives, like it or not, and it's very important to give people a say in that decision whenever possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've always been apt to push for a more technology-oriented manager due to logistics because I don't need/want a non-technical "career coach" calling the shots on implementation/execution when they don't even have an IDE installed on their laptop... which is why I feel they specifically nailed it with this - "We look for candidates' ability to mentor and add value to technical discussions while understanding their own limitations, supporting a technical decision without acting as a decision-maker."

<comment><USER27> Unfortunately, the term manager is what makes this difficult. If they were merely Team Secretaries, keeping track of the decision making and the financial implications, things would be better IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've made it a personal rule to never work for a non-technical manager ever again. Having experienced both sides of the coin, I like to think I'm able to learn from past mistakes in life.

There's one "goal setting" exercise I would want you "non-technical EMs" to do - and that's to allow people an opportunity to prove themselves, to build trust, so that they can get access to more parts of the stack and contribute as best they can to the company. That does not mean working at partial capacity within a pigeon hole you know nothing about but have been assigned to create for me anyway.

Trust can be tough to build, but there's no substitute for going through a real exercise of proving yourself "in the field". All of the 1-1s, goal setting, OKRs, and whatever, are unnecessary when all of those things can be determined from a display of dedication through actual, real work. All it takes is an opportunity to show what you're all about.

I maintain that it is very unlikely that you understand what this opportunity means to a developer if you are non-technical.

Disappointing to see this from CircleCI.

</comment><comment><USER29> Experienced developers don't always make the best managers, but the best managers are almost always experienced developers.

</comment><comment><USER30> What I don't want is having a non tehnical person evaluating my tehnical skills in order to decide my raise...

</comment><comment><USER31> I often hear that experienced devs don't necessarily make good managers, but that's not always the case. It's important to not force devs into becoming managers if they aren't a fit. Therefore, the traditional tree structure of promotion doesn't really fit development. You should be able to gain responsibility and compensation without becoming a manager.

</comment><comment><USER32> May be the non-technical manager thing works for big companies but it might not be the case with the rest.

The problem i have seen with most non-technical managers is that they tend to crave for recognition from the tech people they manage and somehow think they can prove their worth by micro managing.

Better to have a technical manager who has better people management skills.

</comment><comment><USER33> This entire post is a perfect example of the awful corporate jargon infecting our culture right now.

For example

> As our take on this organizational model evolved to align with our needs as > a distributed engineering organization, we realized we wanted to distribute > leadership more.

\- "organizational model": "We divide our team into smaller sub teams according to X"

\- "evolved": Something failed and we need to fix it.

\- "align": (trendiest word in corp jargon right now)

\- "distributed engineering organization": People working remote.

\- "distribute leadership": More leaders.

</comment><comment><USER34> Having separate "people leaders" and "technical leaders" is a cop out and poor org design. All you are doing is creating opportunities for conflict. Finding great technical people with an aptitude for leadership is hard, and the market for that kind of talent is fierce, but it is worth it. Settling for less is settling for having a mediocre engineering team.

</comment><comment><USER35> I am on the fence about this. I think it sounds great in theory and it may even work for smaller companies. However, a problem I've encountered with this approach to engineering management is that it ignores what the managers need to do to develop and advance. My current company has a very similar role for managers. The problem is that for the managers to advance they have to make an impact to the wider org. So this leads to the craziest, most toxic politics I've ever seen. In my opinion, when managers can be judged on their ability to make good technical decisions, it leads to a more objective outcome when judging the performance of a manager.

My take is managers are there to support their engineers but also to make decisions when the team does not have consensus.

</comment><comment><USER36> It would be interesting to see how many engineers vs managers there are for each compensation level at CircleCI.

Is is similar to larger companies where from the Senior Manager level onwards there are many times more managers than engineers, with the ratio becoming more pronounced at each level?

</comment><comment><USER37> The right sort of engineering manager for a company very much depends on the size of the organization. Large companies can afford to have professional managers with minimal technical skills because they can also afford to have lead developers and architects. In a smaller organization, that's not possible and you need to understand the team you have and then mitigate the inevitable weaknesses of the managers.

</comment><comment><USER38> Such a handwavy article. I wish they were more specific of the type of questions/exercises they asked/did in their interviewers.

 _Product thinking and work breakdown discussion: In this interview, the candidate and another member of our engineering management team discuss some questions related to their ability to understand work and delivery, and guide discussions from a customer value perspective._

What does that even mean?

<comment><USER16> You have to synergize authentic work-streams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > Engineering managers at CircleCI are now dedicated to people management: > focused on development of a set of engineers, tech leads, and team leads. > They hold regular 1:1s and career growth conversations with the engineers > who report to them, and are responsible for goal setting, feedback, > coaching, and mentoring for them.

Do you really need this? Developers will have their own set of mentors, coaches as well as people in their network that will help them grow if they are interested in remaining relevant. Why one earth, would you spend so much money on EMs when developers should be given time to think about what they want to do themselves.

The title should be changed to engineering nannies. Furthermore, having non- engineers as engineering managers _can_ work, but it can be a risky move if the person in question does not have enough respect and empathy for the work an engineer does.

It saddens me to see the continued emphasis on hierarchy throughout the industry. Best way to support an engineer is to give him or her a fixed budget for development, and time to actually learn new things and not have their skills stagnate.

I think we need to go back to team leads having hiring and firing power. At the end of the day, they code and are down in the trenches with the rest of the engineers.

<comment><USER21> > Developers will have their own set of mentors, coaches as well as people in > their network that will help them grow

Not true, probably for a majority of people. Alumni networks and family connections are not the norm. A support network and feedback is not something everyone is privileged to, which is probably why so many companies eventually create roles like this.

> Best way to support an engineer is to give him or her a fixed budget for > development, and time to actually learn new things and not have their skills > stagnate.

Is there any proof of this? Every Fortune 500 company and a vast majority of successfully-executed projects beg to differ.

> It saddens me to see the continued emphasis on hierarchy throughout the > industry

Because by-and-large it works? For every Valve there are countless shuttered "unstructured" companies that floundered due to bad management and lack of ownership.

<comment><USER27> > Not true, probably for a majority of people. Alumni networks and family > connections are not the norm.

Networks don't magically appear, you need to work on building them.

> Is there any proof of this? Every Fortune 500 company and a vast majority of > successfully-executed projects beg to differ.

I don't have any proof other than my own experience. As to your second sentence, what on earth are you talking about?

> Because by-and-large it works? For every Valve there are countless shuttered > "unstructured" companies that floundered due to bad management and lack of > ownership.

There is no problem with structure. You already have it with architects, leads, principals and others. The problem is too much bureaucracy.

<comment><USER21> > Networks don't magically appear, you need to work on building them.

It would seem that people in technical fields often have problems with this kind of skill, and need help to improve it. Fortunately we have these things called jobs where we have this great opportunity to be exposed to people like that.

> As to your second sentence, what on earth are you talking about?

On why structured hierarchies are successful.

> You already have it with architects, leads, principals and others

These roles don't make business happen top-down. They'll be kind of useless in a room without someone driving vision and direction and, you know, deciding what's good business and watching cash flow.

> The problem is too much bureaucracy.

Says every engineer that's never been a manager. Like it or not, bureaucracy is the natural friction that occurs from competing priorities and limited resources, and no amount of smart "self-starter" engineers is going to change that. How do we know this? Point out the number of successful companies based on either approach. We like to call this empirical evidence.

<comment><USER27> > Says every engineer that's never been a manager.

I do own my own company though, and have hired 5 people so far. Its not a lot, but I have managed people in the past as well. Do not assume things about people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> In short, don't give managers the same interview as engineers. Sorry but seems pretty obvious.

</comment><comment><USER40> Engineering Managers aren't necessary. Project Managers are, and so are experienced engineers willing to lead technically.

</comment><comment><USER41> Any good, blogging engineering managers to follow?

<comment><USER42> Charity Majors [https://charity.wtf/](https://charity.wtf/)</comment></comment>


Patch Is Dying—Local News Needs Paywalls - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/08/16/local_news_paywalls_tomorrow_s_business_model_today.html

<comment><USER2> It probably has more to do with the fact that "The Patch" often produces low quality news thats uninteresting to most people.</comment>


How Does Codementor Work? - <AUTHOR> I am a software developer and would like to provide my services on Codementor. Does anyone who is listed as a mentor share some insights on how this would work? For e.g. how do I get myself listed as a mentor, how would they determine my expertize, rates, availability, etc. I saw some examples and it seemed to came out as a place where people seek emergency help - if this is so how do I manage my availability. <comment><USER2> You have everything from the requests to process here: [https://www.codementor.io/howitworks/mentorship](https://www.codementor.io/howitworks/mentorship). Did you see that already?

If yes, in simple terms, you set your budget and you try to bid yourself for the work. Then the customer chooses you, if you are convincing enough for them to take you.

You gotta start a timer and let the customer know that you are charging. Once you have done with your work, and the customer is happy, you may stop the timer and the timer works in steps of 15 minutes.

Then the customer leaves you a feedback and you will be credited with the amount agreed. I guess the payout duration will be about three to five days later in order to curb fraudulent accounts and you can request your pay once you reach a certain threshold.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link, it mainly outlines details for people seeking mentors.

The way you described it, it does sound similar to Upwork? Out of curiosity - are you a mentor on the platform or have past experience with this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Some emergency help. Some people just wanting tutorship. Some entrepreneurs. A _lot_ of CS students that procrastinated too long and just want you to do their homework assignment.

Set your rates higher than you would think you need to. You need to offset the amount of calls where you waste your time up front and the job goes nowhere (usually the first 15 minutes or so are unbilled while you explore the problem description).

It can be pretty good. You do need to build the skill of discovering which jobs aren't worth taking though.</comment>


Safari isn't the problem, but the lack of browser choice in iOS is - <AUTHOR> https://kenneth.io/blog/2015/07/03/safari-isnt-the-problem-but-the-lack-of-browser-choice-in-ios-is/ <comment><USER2> No, the way to get Apple's attention over Safari is to pull a page out of Apple's own playbook and that page should be "iOS Strategy for Flash." These days Apple doesn't negotiate with developers. When they have to negotiate it's hardball time. Given that Apple mostly ignores requests from the community of iOS developers, the odds Apple will _mea culpa_ to people even less relevant to its strategy than "the help" are probably zero.

A concerted campaign of browser sniffing and delivering a "We don't serve your kind here" to Mobile Safari users is going to stand a much better chance of Apple's attention than a petition. There's nothing wrong with treating the current situation as just business, but if it really needs to change then that change has to be driven by market changes. A Hallmark Card to Tim Cooke ain't gonna do it.

<comment><USER3> Apple serves its Users not Developers, most of whom appreciate there's only 1 icon they need to click on to access the Internet. Only developers think that having multiple browsers to choose from is a value-add - for most users it just adds unnecessary confusion and complexity.

Killing Flash wasn't a FU for Flash Developers. The only reason why Flash was banned was because it provided a poor experience on a touchscreen device, performed horribly and was a battery drain.

The way to get Apple's attention is for Google or Firefox to develop a superior browser and browsing experience on Android, that users take notice is missing from iOS and is regarded as a USP for Android.

<comment><USER4> Preventing other rendering engines is Apple trying to leverage the strength of its iOS platform to help control the future of the internet. Nothing more, nothing less.

I can understand their wanting to have some say on what may be the sole future platform, but lets not pretend it's for some altruistic reason.

<comment><USER5> I don't think this is true. I doubt they would have a problem with someone implementing their own DOM rendering engine within their own app.

The real restriction is on executing JavaScript, scripting language execution isn't allowed except around some exceptions for Lua in game engines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Personally mandating a single WebView on iOS ends up being a good thing for iOS Users: a fast, responsive, quality rendering engine that has the same experience everywhere and gets updated with each major iOS release - dramatically reducing the permutations of rendering engine versions that needs to be tested against and supported.

One of the liberating things when first developing a Web App for iOS was only having to support a single modern browser, allowing usage of advanced features which weren't crippled by having to gracefully support old IE versions. Only having to target a single platform with limited resolutions is also one of the few benefits I see with native iOS development.

Apple have always put the end Users Experience before Developers, so it's primarily focused on maintaining a fast, fluid browsing experience on iOS which is the most used browser for tablets and smart phones and IMO still continues to provide the best browsing experience on any mobile device.

So it doesn't follow the feature-mill factory pushed by other browser vendors, I still prefer iOS's performance focus, yearly upgrade cycle which thanks to iOS's fast upgrade adoption, iOS Web Developers get to enjoy adopting new features long before Android Web Developers who have to support the old browsers shipped on JellyBean.

<comment><USER6> > quality rendering engine that has the same experience everywhere and gets > updated with each major iOS release

That's the problem. Google can regularly update Chrome without updating the OS. Apple can't because it's a system app.

> Apple have always put the end Users Experience before Developers, so it's > primarily focused on maintaining a fast, fluid browsing experience on iOS

Not really. They actually started backtracking on most of those. They even allow third party keyboards now, most of which are slower and harder to use than the stock iOS keyboard. Considering keyboard is a more integral part of the OS, it seems weird they still do not allow third party browsers.

<comment><USER7> Apple can push a iOS point release that just includes an update a single system app (they've did it before for the 5S's compass bug, so there's precedence even) and users will actually get to download it quickly and there's no specially carrier approval bullshit that forced Google to go with a downloadable browser app pushed through the Play Store. Being forced to use the Play Store for system functionalities has not only destroyed the "open source" nature Android once had, but also delivers bugs to users faster than ever, since they push Play Services updates damn near monthly and with far worse QA than system updates.

<comment><USER6> > Apple can push a iOS point release that just includes an update a single > system app

Which is inefficient and inconvenient. Google updates Chrome every 6 weeks while you are sleeping, as with all other Play Store apps. With an iOS system update, you have to click 5 different dialog boxes and go through several steps such as rebooting.

> and users will actually get to download it quickly and there's no specially > carrier approval bullshit

Chrome updates don't go through carrier approval. Since Google does not need to update Android to be able to update Chrome, it's hard to understand your point here.

> that forced Google to go with a downloadable browser app pushed through the > Play Store.

Chrome did not replace AOSP browser. Android still has its own browser.

> Being forced to use the Play Store for system functionalities has not only > destroyed the "open source" nature Android once had

Chrome is not a "system functionality". It's an optional app you can download from the store. Android still has its own open source browser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What made IE6 IE6 wasn't the technical choices it made, but the fact that whatever were its views, those were forced on the world by its market dominance.

The browser that is closer to that position now is Chrome, not Safari. The sad fact that Apple does not allow other browsers in their platform in fact may be overall a good thing if it keeps Google from owning the web alone.

Apple may need to do something or risk losing some of the appeal of iOS. But calling Safari the new IE is barking at the wrong tree.

<comment><USER9> Depending on which market share data you are reading - Chrome isn't clear cut market leader ([http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/01/chrome-passes-25-market- sh...](http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/01/chrome-passes-25-market-share-ie-and- firefox-slip/)).

I am far from Google fan but calling Chrome is a problem is naive. I use Firefox on my Linux desktop and I can make Firefox default browser on my Android phone too but my wife is stuck with Safari on her iPhone - no matter what she wants. I think that is bit of a problem and should be addressed.

<comment><USER10> Still, chrome forces us devs to do a lot of stuff that we don't want to — I personally found about a dozen layout bugs in Chrome that don't exist in either IE11, Firefox, Opera 12 or Konqueror (which uses KHTML, the predecessor of WebKit).

Chrome just disables a bunch of JavaScript APIs on mobile, unless your site is _.google.com or_.youtube.com, etc.

If you develop only in chrome, you never notice, but if you develop in Firefox first, and your whole site doesn't work in Chrome... well, shit.

And, on the other hand, we now have a bunch of sites with "works best in Google® Chrome™". Welcome to the 90s, Chrome is the IE6 of today.

<comment><USER11> I find the exceptions for Google sites particularly offensive. I wonder if it might bite them in the ass (as anti-competitive behaviour) one day.

Example for anyone unsure what we are referring to: [https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=178297#c...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=178297#c59)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The problem is all in this fragment: "as a vendor of dominant mobile operating system". We all know Apple makes more money than any other mobile manufacturer, and we all know they are culturally dominant, but in terms of actual market penetration, they own 20% of the global market. Samsung gets 27%, just to mention one competitor.

This makes it extremely hard to get any sort of antitrust leverage against Apple. We can keep screaming at them until we're blue in the face and nothing will change.

<comment><USER13> The fact that there's no legal remedy only highlights the inadequacy of the laws on the books.

Simple solution: require all OS vendors to permit opt-in, off-by-default sideloading.

Curate your app store all you want, but don't prevent your users from running whatever software they want on their own computers.

That would solve this.

<comment><USER14> Even Apple is allowing side loading from iOS9 iirc.

<comment><USER13> Via Xcode and only if you have the source code. Doesn't quite work for people trying to distribute apps that aren't allowed in the app store.

<comment><USER14> I dont imagine it will take someone long to work around that, they already gave you the tools in the form of bitcode.

<comment><USER13> That's all well and good, but Google can't exactly ask all their users to download Xcode and deploy some workaround to get a prebuilt Chrome binary bundled with Blink on their iPhone.

Jailbreaking it and installing it via Cydia would be easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Without being jailbroken it is nearly impossible to properly utilize alternative browsers. I particularly enjoy being able to choose my default browser (and mapping choice) for links. If when I click a link it always opens In safari, I end up using that browser a lot more than I would given a choice. Apple also hamstrings alternative browsers by not allowing them the ability to utilize the nitro JavaScript engine. The tweak nitrous allows chrome and other apps with in-app browsers the ability to do so, but it shouldn't have to be this way!

<comment><USER16> I would point out that WKWebView in iOS 8 provides full Nitro support, so that's no longer an issue. I'm not sure if browsers are using this yet, though – there was some talk about difficulties with certain features.

<comment><USER15> That is good to know. Is there a way to check whether an app is utilizing it or not?

<comment><USER17> No major browser uses `WKWebView` because it has very large gaping design holes, making it a bad choice for a browser.

<comment><USER18> Firefox for iOS is. But yes, the gaping holes make making something competitive problematic.

<comment><USER17> Hm, I wasn't actually familiar with the Firefox for iOS project as a real project, just plan. Thanks

<comment><USER18> [https://github.com/mozilla/firefox-ios](https://github.com/mozilla/firefox- ios)

Pretty active development. No releases on the app store, though.

<comment><USER19> No promises, but we are in the end game for v1.0. Stay tuned.

<comment><USER17> I see you guys are developing some of it in Swift. Should be interesting once Xcode 7 arrives and the amount of changes it requires. I think you might have jumped the gun a little.

In my project, I implemented a small component in Swift, and was a pain to convert. The automatic source upgrade tool did a terrible job, doing more damage than good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Safari is the problem. Even allowing choices doesn't matter

(see the whole IE issue for how competition dies in face of convenient defaults)

Its a problem because as opposed to the article view (who cares about a subset of advanced features) it also botches standard common and useful stuff, like positioning fixed element having a css transform differently to every other browser or misrepresenting the actual viewport dimension or having unreliable orientation change events.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't disagree with the assertion that iOS needs greater browser choice, but, even were that to happen, Safari falling behind other browsers in standards support would still be an issue.

IE6 remained a thorn in the side of the web development community long after viable alternatives appeared.

<comment><USER21> On the plus side, the rapid adoption of new versions of iOS means that should Apple improve Safari, the new version will quickly supersede the old, rather than having it linger around for years, as IE6 did.

<comment><USER22> Is this a problem with Android's Gingerbread-era browser too? There must be a long tail of users still using that and I don't remember it being particularly good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So this guy is saying that if other vendors were able to implement their own engine on iOS, he'd no longer have to bother ensuring the work was compatible with the massively popular default browser on iOS?

The argument doesn't stand up that Safari is holding developers back because due to it's real world levels of usage by customers you'd still be unrealistic not to support it - that is unless people are planning a 90's style 'please use Google Chrome' on Safari, nice.

Basically the guy is lazy and wants to use some latest cool bleeding edge chrome feature and is annoyed he might have to do to some other work to support Safari.

I get the feeling this guy would be far more comfortable with a Google dominated Chrome monoculture of a Web.

<comment><USER24> I think you've misunderstood the post.

Many developers are still suffering from how MS throttled back on browser development, but there's an end in sight. Users made that happen by voting with their feet.

On iOS, there's nowhere else to go, so no user vote.

Yes, we'll still have to support Safari, but if Apple's browser starts to lose users on their own OS, they'll have to compete on quality/features or continue to lose users. For developers and users, that's win-win.

<comment><USER25> > Yes, we'll still have to support Safari, but if Apple's browser starts to > lose users on their own OS, they'll have to compete on quality/features or > continue to lose users.

That presupposes that Apple cares if a small number of users switch to Firefox or Chrome.

<comment><USER26> Microsoft didn't care for years, but as more users switched they eventually started caring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Based on the points made, I'm wondering what web developers are building in the UI that requires the latest and greatest web engine technology in Chrome or Opera?

The reason I'm asking is that I understand the request for more choice, but I've also seen Android developers struggle to keep up with multiple versions of just Google Chrome on different versions of Android. I've also gotten rid of Chrome on my personal Macbook Pro because of how resource abusive it is. There are also security concerns with allowing third party programs to have direct access to a device that contains a lot of users personal information. Putting aside supporting fragmented web rendering engines, battery resources, and security; I'm really wondering _exactly_ what Safari can't do that it needs to do?

<comment><USER28> A couple examples: Playing video without opening a full screen popup window. Preserving `position: fixed` elements in the right place while you type in a form. Properly emitting scroll events. Not throttling timers. Adding webcam/microphone API support. Allowing canvas contexts to access video content. Not downsampling images. Not immediately killing a page once it exceeds the JS heap limit. Not automatically deleting local storage and application cache. Implementing pointer events API. Adding an actual file picker (not only a photos picker). Exposing an API to control the virtual keyboard. Adding the full screen API. Allowing CSS transforms and filters to be applied to playing videos. Allow users to download files to iCloud Drive.

<comment><USER27> Thanks for the feedback. A lot of those features do make sense, but I'm wondering about something like a "file picker." iOS devices have abandoned the concept of a file system from the users perspective. I don't think anyone I know (Outside of fellow iOS developers) could tell me the `pwd` path to any of the files on their phone.

It seems almost like Apple is restricting some of these features in an effort to get developers to go native, because all of the functionality you've mentioned is available via native app SDK's. The main challenge is that you lose the web openness. Thanks again for the feedback and great points.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> One relevant example is WebRTC. WebRTC can be used on all platforms now (Linux, Windows, MAC, Android) except iOS because of it's Safari limitation.

<comment><USER30> There are a few WebRTC tools on iOS, including a browser: [https://itunes.apple.com/app/bowser/id560478358?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/app/bowser/id560478358?mt=8).

WebRTC remains a W3C draft, of course, and had been dragging on horribly.

<comment><USER31> "Dragging" in what sense? ISTM several browsers found what they needed in the spec to implement it. [This isn't an endorsement of WebRTC, because I haven't used it.]

<comment><USER30> It's been going for four years and remains a draft, and rechartered earlier this year. As you say, there are a number of implementations (although I don't know how complete they are), so it's not clear why they aren't progressing to recommendation. Software projects :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Similarly, in Windows Store (of Windows 8 & 8.1 and Windows Phone 8 & 8.1), every browser is IE or IE-wrapped: so in Windows RT and Windows Phone environment (were only Windows Store apps are allowed), there is only one choice for browser, i.e. IE. Well, MS killed Windows RT and Windows Phone hasn't got that much of market share. Hopefully they will change these restrictions in Windows 10.

<comment><USER33> False, Google Chrome has thrived on Windows.

<comment><USER32> What I meant is those Windows where only Windows Store apps are allowed (i.e. Windows RT & Windows Phone).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I have always been very surprised on how MS could get sued on bundling IE with Windows, without the same happening to Apple on IOS.

<comment><USER35> Microsoft was hit with an anti-trust suit in Europe at a time when they had >90% market share in desktop computing. Bundling Internet Explorer was seen as abusing their dominant market position.

In Europe, iOS has around 20% market share, whilst Android sits close to 70%. It's really hard to argue that Apple are exploiting their dominant market position. You'd have to count iPhone as its own market.

<comment><USER36> Iphone is separate market due to lack of interoperability.

<comment><USER37> [Windows] is a separate market share due to lack of interoperability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Android Browser is the new Internet Explorer along with the webkit engine (Safari included). I should make a blog post one day showing what you get with Firefox for Android and what you get with the Android browser.

Youtube, Gmail, Office 365, Google Maps, nothing works well with Firefox for Android nowadays.

<comment><USER39> I don't see this as an issue as I use native apps for YT, Gmail and Google Maps anyway.

What's interesting is that YouTube app for iOS lacks some essential features that Android app has. For example, you can't go back to video you just watched. In Android it works with Back button, but there's no Back button on iPhone. You can have to go to history which breaks the nice user flow we have on Android and Desktop YouTube.

<comment><USER40> No I don't think that's anything particular to do with the fact that one is iOS and one is Android; Google's OWN YouTube apps are inconsistent.

The Android TV YouTube app, for example, has no way to subscribe to a channel. It also has no immediate 'go back to the video I was watching' either; you have to wait some amount of time until your YouTube history gets updated. This is Google's own YouTube app on their own platform.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I couldn't disagree more.

The mobile user experience would not be improved by having multiple web browsers, and my life as a developer would be a lot more annoying trying to support multiple mobile web experiences that differ significantly (otherwise what would be the point of alternative browsers.)

If Apple were to disallow alternative browsers on OS X, that would be disastrous. But OS X is a general computing platform. iOS is not. It is a device first and foremost. It does not need to be an open platform where any developer can do anything.

</comment><comment><USER42> Allowing alternative browsers goes against iOS' security model. They want to keep JIT capabilities exclusive to Webkit's javascript engine.

<comment><USER43> Competing browsers have a security record which is at least as good as Safari (perhaps better).

That seems like a weak excuse on Apple's part

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is especially problematic for the market I work in - small shop, vertical market. Modern, fully-supported html5 and javascript means I can build cross- platform webapps that do really interesting stuff on desktops and mobile devices. Since I'm part of a team of two developing most of the application framework, I'm really not interested in building native apps for iOS and Android to go along with the desktop app- my time would be much better spent making sure the web app works well on all mobile platforms.

I've already run into this- I have to either polyfill or avoid using modern javascript APIs (localStorage, web workers) because there's absolutely no iOS option. The nature of my vertical market is such that I _could_ get away with asking my users to run chrome or ff if one works better than the other, but I'm basically stuck with iOS / safari as the lowest common denominator, and have no real options to improve, other than just pulling support for iOS entirely (something I'm seriously considering).

</comment><comment><USER45> I recently switched from Chrome to Safari. It's a better experience for me.

<comment><USER46> The user interface in Safari is indeed very modern and rivals most if not flat out beat them.

But this is a backend problem. Safari is literally holding the web back by not properly supporting modern web technologies. And not allowing users to switch away from safari on one of the widest used platform is a huge problem

<comment><USER47> Safari can't be switched to full screen on iOS. That's a point against the interface for me. I honestly have no idea where you're getting the idea that Safari flat out beats other browser interfaces?

<comment><USER48> Apple is generally very cautious when considering whether to add functionality that might be used to build potentially deceptive user experiences. I would think that full screen is such a functionality. They have a different metric for the concept of "beating other browser interfaces", one that puts a higher priority on protecting the privacy and other interests of the user.

<comment><USER49> Indeed, Apple briefly added a sort of full-screen mode to iOS Safari (Google "minimal-ui" viewport for more info) but removed it due to abuse.

<comment><USER47> What abuse?

Briefly googled but only got a bland "this feature has been removed" from Apple support doc. So where did you read that they removed it due to abuse?

I think it's a similar risk to letting people walk down the footpath. Oh no,they might be killed by falling tree branch, or hit by a car, or.... but they live another day. Most people will live another day with the full screen WMD in their browser features.

<comment><USER48> >What abuse?

phishing attacks.

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

[http://feross.org/html5-fullscreen-api- attack/](http://feross.org/html5-fullscreen-api-attack/)

>I think it's a similar risk to letting people walk down the footpath.

No, that's a really shitty analogy. It's more similar to a personal location- tracking mobile device where a lot of people store private and sensitive information, on which you can access web pages and install apps that have the ability to read that information, sometimes in ways beyond what the user expects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> All we need is Taylor to sign-off/tweet on this. She already has the appropriate last-name for iOS-dev related credibility.

</comment><comment><USER51> Since 2010 or so, I've had to monkey with code to get it to run in Safari (desktop and mobile) more than I've had to mess with it to work in IE. My, how times change.

So yeah, the problem is Safari. Thinking it will go away because of choice is naive. It's the default, and defaults stick around.

</comment><comment><USER52> Apple is the new Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER53> Safari isn't the problem. It's not chrome either. The problem is that 99.99% of people using the web via these browsers doesn't give a shit. It's up to us developers to build for what people are using right now.

<comment><USER54> It should be self-evident how wrong this is from the fact that UIs (web and otherwise) from (e.g.) the early 90s are pretty hideous (and much harder-to- use, in many cases)[1]. One has to balance between building for the present and moving the ecosystem and its capabilities forward.

[1] Note that this is an overlapping but different discussion from "the web was created for serving static pages and it should stick to that"

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm sure Apple will consider allowing proper web browser competition on iOS if either: 1) It's against the law not to do so. 2) Apple users flee iOS to Android for this reason.

Neither which seem to be the case, maybe in a couple of years?

</comment><comment><USER56> Microsoft case has nothing to do with this - even the market share numbers (that are obviously way smaller in case of Apple) do not influence the absence of lawsuits.

Apple produces the hardware and the software.

Microsoft imposed software restrictions (or lets say defaults) on hardware sold by vendors which turned out undesirable for EU. If Apple offered iOS on other phones and restricted the browser application to Safari, they would obviously get sued.

Since they "own" the hardware, and bundle it with their own software - there's nothing illegal about it.

Not that I condone of that kind of behavior, just clearing up the reasoning that was not present in the article.

</comment><comment><USER57> Petition created: [https://www.change.org/p/apple-allow-true-other-browsers- on-...](https://www.change.org/p/apple-allow-true-other-browsers-on-ios)

</comment><comment><USER58> A good reason why such petitions are important is that the (sluggish) EU Commission competition authority needs to see such representative citizen efforts in order to look into the lack of browser choice in iOS.

<comment><USER59> You don't _have_ to use iOS. So such petitions are pretty pointless.

<comment><USER59> I think it's being downvoted because a lot of geeks hate that they love Apple products.

It's a bizarre situation that results in some odd things, such as Macs and iPads being prevalent at OSS user group meetings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> The problem is that Apple doesn't provide access to lower level APIs that would allow other browser engines to compete on performance and increased functionality. They can only compete on UI. This lack of competition is holding back the potential of the mobile web.

<comment><USER16> This isn't quite accurate – the limitation isn't on API access, which AFAIK would be sufficient to implement a browser. Rather it's an app store policy decision to reject apps that download and run executable code.

Since any web browser would have to do this in order to run Javascript, it's explicitly rejected. I'm not condoning that (or otherwise), but I don't think it's down to API limitations.

<comment><USER61> Is that really the limiting policy? Shouldn't that rule out any app using a web view (including Chrome on iOS) since they download and run Javascript?

I thought the policy was literally "no other browser engines are allowed".

<comment><USER16> Oh, you're right, it's even simpler:

 _Apps that browse the web must use the iOS WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> This is especially a problem when a site has something broken in it (JS/large files/etc.) that causes the browser to crash. One has little recourse when this happens to every browser on the platform.

</comment><comment><USER63> aka "Freedom Zero"

</comment><comment><USER48> Kenneth, what is the radar ID of the enhancement request you have filed on this issue, so I can dupe it?

</comment><comment><USER64> Come over to Android. We have lots and lots of browser choice here!

<comment><USER65> .. and prepare to make time for new full time hobby, like analyzing battery usage and discovering memory leaks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> take Panic's Prompt, and use Lynx from your favourite vps. Although that may look a little hacky.

</comment><comment><USER52> If android can support multiple browsers, why can't Apple?

<comment><USER67> Because they don't want to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Why won't folks accept that the fact appeal wields major influence in Washington and Brussels, or the bureaucrats waiting for Apple's cashpile to get bigger so that they can stiff Apple for a bigger amount?

It makes you wonder whether these legislators are really committed to competition which I suspect they are not. Stiffing transgressors seems to matter more to them than genuine competition.</comment>


Ask HN: How much do you make as a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> I want to get an idea of the average compensation (salary + bonus) that SREs are making in the Bay Area. Do you have junior/mid/senior level experience? Are you working for a startup or a large established company?

</comment><comment><USER2> This should be prefixed with "Ask HN: "

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the tip, I updated the title

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been working professionally as an engineer for almost 5 years, the past two in dedicated DevOps / SRE capacities. At my current firm, which is a large global company, I make 150k/yr + variable bonus (usually ~%20).

This is in NYC. I kind of hate the work, though. Would much prefer to go back to a pure programming role as I miss the problem solving and analytical aspect of coding. SRE is a lot of plumbing and then twiddling config files or sitting on the line with cloud support. But it is cool to bring up huge clusters at the click of a button.</comment>


An encrypted message to Edward Snowden - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/signed-bda0df3c/ <comment><USER3> Snowden, just remember that Kevin Poulsen and Adrian Lamo helped the US Government in catching Bradley Manning.

EDIT: Also, a pretty safe way to carry an interview would be VPN + Tor + Bitmessage.

EDIT2: Users sneak and tlb claim Tor isn't safe because of timing attacks. Read below.

<comment><USER4> This is Kevin Poulsen. Just popping in to correct this. Adrian Lamo turned in Bradley Manning. All I did (being a reporter) is break the news.

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/) [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/conscience/](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/conscience/)

<comment><USER3> There's no way to know if you're really Kevin Poulsen. Your account was created an hour ago. It could be someone trolling. If you want to prove this is you, you could link your comment from a tweet.

I've read more about your involvement in the Lamo-Manning conversation, and I've changed my mind. Lamo turned in Manning. But you knew Lamo was planning to deceive Manning to make him confess more leaks in a second chat:

[http://www.salon.com/2010/06/18/wikileaks_3/](http://www.salon.com/2010/06/18/wikileaks_3/)

I can't edit nor delete my original comment since the edit link has expired.

As an important actor in the Lamo-Manning story, I would like to ask you some questions.

\- Do you think Adrian Lamo acted ethically?

\- What's your opinion on whistle-blowers and their role in democracy?

Thanks.

<comment><USER5> He could sign his comment with KP's GPG key. That would be proof. Somehow I feel the real KP would have been savvy enough to do that in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If Edward Snowden does have a pgp key (I can't find one online), it hasn't been revealed in this message. It looks like the signing and encryption keys are the same:

      gpg: armor: BEGIN PGP MESSAGE
      gpg: armor header: Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.19 (Darwin)
      gpg: armor header: Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org
      :pubkey enc packet: version 3, algo 1, keyid 5B50940B79DEBE35
              data: [4096 bits]
      gpg: public key is 79DEBE35
      :encrypted data packet:
              length: unknown
              mdc_method: 2
      gpg: encrypted with RSA key, ID 79DEBE35
      gpg: decryption failed: secret key not available

Of course, they could have used --hidden-encrypt-to, but I think it's more likely a publicity stunt.

Oh, and if you do find a key claiming to be for Edward Snowden online, verify that it's actually him, ideally through the web of trust, and that it isn't just a key that was created after the news was leaked. I'd be wary of any keys on keyservers claiming to be him that have been uploaded after he went public with this.

<comment><USER7> If --hidden-encrypt-to is used, there still will be signs of that. Specifically, the message addressed to 0x0000000 and the recipient will basically brute force it uses every key he/she has.

Having said, that, according to PGP Dump

      Old: Public-Key Encrypted Session Key Packet(tag 1)(524 bytes)
            New version(3)
            Key ID - <USER2>
            Pub alg - RSA Encrypt or Sign(pub 1)
            RSA m^e mod n(4096 bits) - ...
                    -> m = sym alg(1 byte) + checksum(2 bytes) +
      PKCS-1 block type 02
      New: Symmetrically Encrypted and MDC Packet(tag 18)(4096
      bytes) partial start
            Ver 1
            Encrypted data [sym alg is specified in pub-key
      encrypted session key]

                    (plain text + MDC SHA1(20 bytes))
      New:    (1024 bytes) partial continue
      New:    (18 bytes) partial end

It looks like we can merely see that the message is destined to 0x5B50940B79DEBE35. We won't be able to tell who's signer until it is decrypted.

<comment><USER6> Ah, thanks. I learned something new today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Every now and then I start thinking that Poulsen is starting to get the hang of honest journalism and some amount of professionalism, and then something like this comes along that makes it obvious he's still the same pathological attention whore whose primary hacking talents amounted to getting caught a lot.

</comment><comment><USER9> The target key was published on 5/20.

        # gpg --list-packets /tmp/snowden.asc
        :pubkey enc packet: version 3, algo 1, keyid 5B50940B79DEBE35
            data: [4096 bits]
        :encrypted data packet:
            length: unknown
            mdc_method: 2
        gpg: encrypted with 4096-bit RSA key, ID 79DEBE35, created 2013-05-20
          "Verax (Informed Democracy Front)"

(79DEBE35 can be found on the subkeys.pgp.net keyserver)

<comment><USER10> Meanwhile, per the Washington Post article, he asked the guardian to setup PGP in Feb, and his contact finally did so in March, both before this key's listed creation date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> From [http://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual/x110.html](http://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual/x110.html)

"A public and private key each have a specific role when encrypting and decrypting documents. A public key may be thought of as an open safe. When a correspondent encrypts a document using a public key, that document is put in the safe, the safe shut, and the combination lock spun several times. The corresponding private key is the combination that can reopen the safe and retrieve the document. In other words, only the person who holds the private key can recover a document encrypted using the associated public key."

<comment><USER12> In a world where the US government is scanning all your electronic communications, and (we'll next discover) searching your OS X- and Windows- based computers at will, how do you, as a practical matter, keep your private key "private"?

<comment><USER8> If you want a realistic chance of not losing control of your private key the only real answers are hardware based - using a tamper resistant smart card, hardware security module, tpm or similar systems in which the signing is done inside the chip that contains your signing keys and no general purpose device ever sees the key at all.

Most people using software only solutions won't ever have their keys stolen, but that's because nobody tried to steal them. The compromise of a client os is inevitable if targeted by a competent actor, given enough time.

Smartcards and HSM's may not be infallible, but their rate of compromise appears to be negligable at best and an extremely rare capability for an offensive team to have access to.

Smartcards are surprisingly cheap and easy to work with, and due to their simplicity and long history are quite secure. The only real attack on them involves physical access and causes obvious physical damage that'd be impossible to miss.

<comment><USER13> I would be very interested in a a tutorial or guide for getting something like this set up on OS X.

<comment><USER14> OS X has smart card support for FileVault 1 but not FileVault 2. It only includes enough drivers to support US DoD CAC cards, and other NATO countries that have standardized on our stuff.

<comment><USER10> With regard to PGP, you can get a reader and smartcard from Kernel Concepts. Assuming you already know how to use GPG, it's pretty easy to set up.

[http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/index.php?cPath=1_26&sort=2a&l...](http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/index.php?cPath=1_26&sort=2a&language=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://xkcd.com/1181/](http://xkcd.com/1181/)

"If you want to be extra safe, check that there's a big block of jumbled characters at the bottom."

:)

</comment><comment><USER16> If you look closely, about halfway down, in the ciphertext you can almost make out some non-random parts:

[http://pastebin.com/q7mxqRn7](http://pastebin.com/q7mxqRn7)

<comment><USER17> This made my day. Thank you! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What more is there to glean from this bogus message?

       $ gpg -vvv -d letter-to-snowden.txt
       gpg: using character set `utf-8'
       gpg: WARNING: using insecure memory!
       gpg: please see http://www.gnupg.org/documentation/faqs.html for more information
       gpg: armor: BEGIN PGP MESSAGE
       gpg: armor header: Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.19 (Darwin)
       gpg: armor header: Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org
       :pubkey enc packet: version 3, algo 1, keyid 5B50940B79DEBE35
               data: [4096 bits]
       gpg: public key is 79DEBE35
       :encrypted data packet:
               length: unknown
               mdc_method: 2
       gpg: encrypted with RSA key, ID 79DEBE35
       gpg: decryption failed: secret key not available

<comment><USER19> There's a 'secret' URL in there that anyone able to decrypt the message will be compelled to click on, at which time the creator can claim either to have contacted Snowden, or to have empirical evidence that the NSA can crack 4096-key RSA PGP messages and none of us are safe.

<comment><USER20> Best rick-roll ever!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are a few things about this that seem odd to me. From elsewhere in the comments, the key is encrypted with 79DEBE35, which, if you look it up on your keyserver of choice, belongs to "Verax (Informed Democracy Front)", created on May 20, 2013.

Verax was the name used by Snowden to communicate with Laura Poitras (and perhaps others as well), but the story didn't break until June 5 and his identity wasn't revealed until days later.

So why is Wired encrypting a message with a key using that name that was generated before the name was publicly known in association with Snowden?

EDIT: Disregard the above—the "encrypted with" key is the recipient's key, not the sender/signer. 79DEBE35 may well be Snowden's key (but that's not proven either).

</comment><comment><USER22> Let's see, carry the N, divide by P and "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine"

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting, the encrypting key is "Verax (Informed Democracy Front)" and claims to have been created on May 20th.

I can't tell what key the message is encrypted for. They may have used --hidden-recipient

<comment><USER21> Verax is the recipient, not the sender. Messages are encrypted using the recipient's public key. You can confirm this yourself by encrypting a message to someone else and checking to see what which key it shows under "encrypted with".

<comment><USER23> Thanks for that correction. Makes this all even crazier, if Wired is straight up trying to send him a message this way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There is more to it than what you see.

The NSA is known[1] to be able to take advantage of weaknesses found (or planted) in crypto algorithms, however, not in PGP[2] and other strong ones.

1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptography#NSA_involvement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptography#NSA_involvement)

2\. [http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/faq/faq.html](http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/faq/faq.html) (3rd question)

</comment><comment><USER25> So at a guess basically they've encrypted a message that is not Snowden's key that somehow calls back when decrypted (link, exe or something) so they know if the NSA is listening in.

<comment><USER26> That would be damn interesting if during decryption it could exploit the decryptor software, PGP, and ping a server or two.

Is that possible? To epxloit a decryptor software while it is decrypting something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> My guess is that this message is Wired asking Snowden for a chat so that they can get some kind of exclusive story. However, as others have pointed out, Wired magazine doesn't exactly have a good reputation when it comes to defending whistle blowers.

</comment><comment><USER28> What's with the posted image? Is that just for illustration, or is there steganography going on too?

I couldn't find anything running a couple of programs on it, but then again I don't have the contents of the attached message.

<comment><USER29> It's a picture of the NSA headquarters at Ft. Meade. That may be all there is to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is this just another way to locate him as if it's really serious, only his private key can be used to decrypt it, and his former employer have the public key they use to exchange crypted messages before. In this case it's really stupid

</comment><comment><USER31> Lets say I wanted to send an encrypted message to Poulsen. (I do NOT, just figuring out the tech) How would I find his public key? Ask him for it? Is there, like, a directory?

</comment><comment><USER32> I was hoping to find something in the EXIF data of the image of NSA HQ on the page, but I think I'm trying way too hard...

</comment><comment><USER33> An open message to Snowden: this reporter would hand over his private key in a second.

</comment><comment><USER34> Honestly, who do they think he is, John McAfee?

</comment><comment><USER35> painfully cheesy

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't get it, unless Snowden's published his public key somewhere and Wired has some really, really important information for him?

<comment><USER37> The reason you would advertise a page like this is to get lots of people to visit it. It gives Snowden the ability to look like any of the other (tens?) of thousands of people who visit the URL in the next little while.

<comment><USER3> The Snowden could use Tor to access the website.

Also, there's no other way to get the message to Snowden unless you give it publicity. If he browses the Internet for news, he will find there's a message from Wired for him.

<comment><USER38> If you were hiding from the NSA.... I'd avoid browsing the internet for a while...

<comment><USER3> If he's using Tor, and not login in in any site, how are they going to know it's Snowden?

<comment><USER38> To be fair he's not really hiding...

<comment><USER37> Tor is only safe to a degree. Probabilistic flow analysis is a real threat.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to escape my own zombie startup? - <AUTHOR> I'm the CEO/founder of a zombie startup. We've taken significant funding. We break even every month. Growth is flat. Scale is in the millions. I have lost passion for our business and I don't believe in what we are doing anymore. I dislike going to work. I've started disliking even people I work with. We have not managed to sell for enough to return all investor money. Our team is specialized in what we do so a successful pivot is extremely unlikely. I can't find anyone to replace me fast enough. I can't just leave suddenly unless I want to f over all our shareholders. I do not want to do that. (I recognize staying in this state is f'ing over in a different way)<p>SOS. Have you been in this situation and how did you GTFO successfully? How long did it take you? <comment><USER2> If your shareholders are VCs who have board seats, they want to escape even more than you do. So from their POV at least, shutting down the company or doing an HR acquisition would be fine.

If one of your cofounders has always longed to run the company, you could quit and let him/her take over.

You can probably morph what you're doing more than you realize. You can morph a startup into practically anything. GOAT, the sneaker marketplace, started as a group dinner service called GrubWithUs. As long as your dislike of your coworkers has not hardened, you can keep searching for new ideas.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you dislike it this much, your colleagues and investors will probably be picking up on it. They might even be thinking what do we do with this person. How do we deal with the situation?

Maybe the best thing to do would be to have an honest conversation with your co-founders and investors. Explore your options. Including going part time.

Communication is important and most of us need to be better at asking for help.

Your co-founders and investors will probably be relieved when you bring it up. The hard part is starting the conversation.

For the VCs this isn't their first rodeo. They've probably seen this before and they would probably prefer a discussion and a transition out rather than a blowout/suprise departure.

</comment><comment><USER4> Take a vacation and get back into the game! You are catastrophizing your business.

I would do the following:

1) Get to stable profitability (raise prices / find costs to cut)

2) Find adjacent markets to go after (what other stuff are your customers buying? What other stuff could your specialized team be good at?)

3) Put together a deck and sell to PE (you won't be able to tell a unicorn story but sounds like to have a stable biz here)

You are depressed and it's impacting your leadership. Take a vacation, find a therapist, and get back into it!

I love talking about this stuff, feel free to PM.

<comment><USER5> I have been in that situation. Vacations make everything much worse. CEOs have a habit of facing their problems up front. A vacation runs opposite to that instinct.

In the end it feels like you just wasted a lot of money and time running away from problems.

<comment><USER6> I would agree that going for a vacation to run away from things can make things worse.

However, if one can decide to go for a vacation to get a fresh perspective on the issue, I think that would help. Getting to a place where there are no interruptions expected may help you doing that if that is your intent.

Being in the office may keep you doing the daily firefighting and you may need space to think differently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been there. I recommend the book, "The Hard Thing About Hard Things." It got me out.

One of the keys to remember - with tech, unlike a lot of businesses, you're playing 3D chess. Not only do you have lots of moves, but the market shifts, the possibilities shift when new tech is introduced. People always get excited when something like cloud or blockchain appear, but their real value is to companies with an existing customer base like yours who have a large market but hit some barrier in the unit economics and such.

You should probably talk it with your investors too. Zombie companies are bad for VCs, practically as bad as failures.

Selling the company will get some money back. You might be surprised how much you get for it too.

</comment><comment><USER7> You could reset your expectations. Paying the bills every month is a lot better than many people manage. OK, you aren't getting absurdly rich... but the bills are paid. There are probably personal things to focus on. You can treat work as just work, a job to pay the bills, so that you can afford to do normal things with your life. You can take up a hobby, raise a giant family, or whatever. There is life outside of work, and your work makes that possible.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you're in the millions, there's probably a demand for whatever it is that you do.

Maybe you can't pivot your product, but maybe you can change the way you sell it, market it or target it?

Given your scale (and the fact that you're already breaking even), it might be worth looking at the above issues. Improved future prospects may cause you to feel better about your company and coworkers too.

I focus on issues like this. If you'd like some input, my contact info is in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have some previous experience with this.

It's okay to lose passion in the business. From a logical standpoint your best bet may be to find someone to replace you (since you clearly want to leave anyway).

The new person might decide to take the company in a different direction, liquidate, who knows. But it relieves you of the responsibility. The responsibility you have right now is to decide what is best for the company.

If you want to chat about this privately just PM me.

</comment><comment><USER10> You have to lean on your board/investors to find a buyer (they can frame it as acquihire or whatever).

If they are seasoned investors or VCs they'll have the connections to do it relatively easy, as they'll want out as well... It's not going to be the first time big company acquires something that does not make any sense for hundreds of millions of dollars - the VC cycle must and will continue...

Use the VC force and "circle of friends" in your advantage...

</comment><comment><USER11> It sounds like your heart's not in it anymore.

I've seen companies successfully replace CEOs when the founding CEO has been in a similar situation. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing. There are CEOs or aspiring CEOs out there that want to run a company that stays small. I think it's worth discussing with your most trusted investors to see if they can find candidates through their networks.

Another thought - have you considered trying to get the company acquihired?

</comment><comment><USER12> Find an interim CEO/GM via Catalant while you negotiate your transition plan > [https://gocatalant.com/our-experts/](https://gocatalant.com/our-experts/)

If you want help with a permanent replacement, PM me.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is there anyone that you can bring up the ranks to make your omission less detrimental?

Slowly integrate them into meetings, company decisions; make sure it's someone you trust. And slowly step back.

Just an off-cuff thought.

</comment><comment><USER14> Dunno , if you have a self supporting business, why ditch it and start again? Is it that hard to teach this pony a new trick? Or it is you who has no idea or abilities to at least try?

</comment><comment><USER15> How long has it been since you have taken a real vacation??

</comment><comment><USER16> Maybe find another CEO in exactly the same situation at another company and swap?

Chamge of scenery, same issues but fresh motivation.</comment>


GM's new series of Ultium Drive electric motors - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/this-family-of-electric-motors-will-drive-gms-new-electric-vehicles/ <comment><USER8> The news is always [major car manufacturer] will have a huge range of EVs available in [3 to 5 years - pick one].

I mean, good luck to them, but I'm getting tired of all the years of announcements and then not much actually happening on the ground. This announcement shit has been going on for a decade or more.

The GM Bolt was pretty good, so credit for that, but they couldn't manufacture it to make a profit. And it was never available in my country (UK).

As another classic example, here's a VW press relase from 2013, when they declared they would lead the world on EVs by 2018.

 _September 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ \-- The Volkswagen Group has set its sights on global market leadership in electric mobility. "We are starting at exactly the right time. We are electrifying all vehicle classes, and therefore have everything we need to make the Volkswagen Group the top automaker in all respects, including electric mobility, by 2018", Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, CEO of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, said on the eve of the 65th International Motor Show in Frankfurt am Main._

[https://tass.com/press-releases/700457](https://tass.com/press- releases/700457)

I think Kia and Hyundai are the only people genuinely giving Tesla a run for their money at the mo. Last time I checked they were constrained by battery supplies, maybe they've fixed that now. Oh and the long range Renault Zoe is pretty good. And maybe the long range Leaf but its a bit pricey and skimps on battery cooling.

(edit: my unspoken assumption here is that only EVs with 200+ mile range are really worth talking about at this point)

<comment><USER9> > _As another classic example, here 's a VW press relase from 2013, when they > declared they would lead the world on EVs by 2018._

Volkswagen is the biggest BEV maker in Europe today:

[https://www.schmidtmatthias.de/post/april-2020-european- elec...](https://www.schmidtmatthias.de/post/april-2020-european-electric-car- market-top-sellers)

Give them a couple more years and they will be the biggest BEV maker worldwide. Here are some BEVs you can buy from them either right now or soon:

\- Porsche Taycan

\- Audi e-Tron

\- Audi Q4 e-tron

\- Audi e-tron GT

\- VW e-Golf (being replaced by the ID.3)

\- VW ID.3

\- VW ID.4

\- Skoda Enyaq

And more to come each year. Volkswagen is walking the walk.

<comment><USER8> Biggest BEV maker if you include PHEVs, but thats not what I'm talking about.

Which of those models actually exist and which ones are any good? Because the last electric Audi I heard about was feeble. The Porche has good handling going for it but not much else.

<comment><USER9> No, biggest BEV maker in Europe right now. The chart is a bit confusing.

<comment><USER8> Hmm ok, just scraping ahead of Nissan/Renault. OK well thats something.

What have they been selling 30k of between Jan and Apr then? e-Golfs and e-Trons?

edit: WAIT, your chart is 'Western Europe'. If you look at all of Europe, YTD sales (up to July) you get:

Renault Zoe - <USER2>

Tesla Model 3 - <USER3>

VWe-Golf - <USER4>

Audi e-Tron - <USER5>

Kona EV - <USER6>

[https://ev-sales.blogspot.com/2020/08/europe-july-2020.html](https://ev- sales.blogspot.com/2020/08/europe-july-2020.html)

Strong showing by the e-Golf (how are they selling that many of a car with 125 mile range??) and e-Tron but even if you add them together Renault are still way ahead. Well deserved, the Zoe is a great package.

Edit: WAIT WAIT didn't go far enough down the list to catch the e-up

E-up - <USER7>

So that does indeed put vw in the lead, and mostly with sales of previous-gen EVs with 100/125 range. How are they shifting those?

<comment><USER10> You missed the e-UP, so parent's assertion is actually correct. But Europe this year isn't representative, Tesla lost a quarter to covid and their sales ramp for Q3 hasn't happened yet.

On the other hand, the ID.3 and ID.4 are going to provide serious competition in the near future, and on the other, other hand, GF Berlin will come eventually. Exiting times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ultium sounds like the ultimate element name! Certainly better than Oganesson or whatever wacky names IUPAC chooses.

In seriousness, this is an exciting time for electrification, GM put serious engineering effort into this lineup and from the looks of it they expect to be going all in this decade.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps they could not get their hands on Unobtanium otherwise that would be better.

<comment><USER11> Unobtanium Drive could be reserved for their corvette hypercar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder when we'll see the rise of drop-in replacement motors to convert combustion cars to electric? It seems to me that, done properly, this would be a major market for someone to enter and engage.

<comment><USER14> I'm skeptical. Electrical cars have much different internal layout and weight distribution, as well as being heavier overall.

If the goal would be to switch the vehicle fleet over to electric, makes more sense to aggressively introduce it with new cars (say, a moratorium on new ICE cars, or fleet fuel efficiency / emissions standards that would in practice allow vendors to sell only a small fraction of ICE vehicles), and let existing ICE cars run to the end of their lives as is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I read this headline, and thought it was really weird that General Motors would be building magnetic tape cartridge transport motors, or why that would be newsworthy.

Ultium != Ultrium

</comment><comment><USER16> What's holding back in-wheel motors like the Protean?

<comment><USER17> In wheel motors have high unsprung mass, which has negative effects on the performance of the vehicle and ability of the suspension system to keep the wheels on the road in particular. It is difficult to actively cool a motor in the wheel as well, although you would have an easier time with radiated cooling at least.

Also, wheels are the most exposed part of the vehicle! It is much safer to keep the motor inside where there is less dust and road debris.

<comment><USER16> Thanks. Wasn't there a study done regarding unsprung mass that suggested the effects may not be as bad as feared and vehicles could be tuned to compensate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What's the state of the art in motor design? In terms of range or power, is there any innovation boundary we are yet to push?

<comment><USER19> Probably whatever motor is Bosch selling to the highest bidder.

You don't really hear much about Bosch because it's not on the stock market. But they have a couple of huge research centers worldwide and their tech is used by every auto manufacturer in the industry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Are these liquid cooled? There's what looks like a fill cap on top? Do they need a separate radiator?

<comment><USER21> If it's like a Tesla, it is liquid cooled but the system is much more sealed. Tesla recommends changing your coolant once every 150k miles.

<comment><USER22> Chevy Bolt (a GM EV) has three cooling coops, with three water pumps. (Electronics/motor, cabin heat, battery) [https://www.searchautoparts.com/sites/www.searchautoparts.co...](https://www.searchautoparts.com/sites/www.searchautoparts.com/files/images/Figure%207%20-%20The%203%20coolant%20loops%20of%20the%202016-2019%20Chevrolet%20Bolt%20EV%20BEV.jpg) Identical 150k coolant change interval.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So is this the LS of electric motors?

<comment><USER24> probably, if GM sticks it in everything.

mass adoption of the same series' of motor over an entire line-up will definitely increase the amount of parts that are available for folks to tinker with outside the GM models -- one of the big factors that lead to the success of the LS in the car-hobbyist sector was that one could find one at the nearest junkyard.

but, really, that trend started earlier with the 4" bore small block motors from 1962 onwards; the same family of engine the LS is from, anyway. They were produced forever, put in everything, and could be had by any hobbyist for very cheap from the closest junkyard.

<comment><USER25> also was keeping with a dated technology (pushrods) to keep the motor small and relatively simple (and arguably more reliable).

not sure what the analogue would be in electric motors.

<comment><USER26> Electric motors are much more reliable than any combustion engine. The only thing that really wears out are the bearings and those are easily replaced. So the electric analogue of the LS will probably be _any_ electric motor.

<comment><USER23> This really misses the point of why the LS and previous variants were and are so popular with gearheads.

GM is more than willing to sell parts to anyone and they don't really care what you plan on doing with them. Fix your car and keep it stock, modify it with more power, put a GM motor in a Toyota, they don't care.

It's a very hacker friendly mentality actually.

Tesla is actively trying to prevent people from even maintaining their own cars, forget about trying to put a Tesla drivetrain in a 1990 Corolla or something.

<comment><USER27> Why use Tesla components? There are now a wide range of components available for electric conversions.

And if you want to use Tesla bits, they are readily available at auto wreckers. And most have been thoroughly reverse-engineered by now.

<comment><USER28> Some of us are dreaming about the day when we can order a robust EV drivetrain and slap it in whatever we have on hand, without having to disassemble a wreck and retrofit aftermarket control boards. Just like GM crate motors. I really want to see a website like the following, but with Ultium instead of LS:

[https://www.chevrolet.com/performance-parts/connect- cruise-p...](https://www.chevrolet.com/performance-parts/connect-cruise- powertrain-systems)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> How do these compare to what Tesla is using?

<comment><USER30> "Kwiatkowski wouldn't be drawn more on the specs other than to tell me that both power and torque density (i.e. the amount of power or torque divided by the volume of the motor) will be industry leading."</comment></comment>


Scaleway C2 Ramp Up: 10 000 BareMetal Servers per Month - <AUTHOR> https://blog.scaleway.com/2016/06/07/c2-ramp-up-10000-baremetal-servers-month/ <comment><USER2> Has anyone already tried scaleways C2 instances and can share some insights? I've tried their other offers (not BareMetal) and had mixed results.

<comment><USER3> Beware: their servers do not use ECC memory.

I believe building reliable, internet-scale services on such hardware is impossible. Having single bit errors, which are hardly rare [0], silently propagate is a recipe for disaster.

I applaud Scaleway for the foresight of building custom, sale-out hardware, however, that this is their _second_ effort and still lacking in ECC use is very, very, disappointing.

I would love to use this hardware, it's almost the perfect design, but it's tragically flawed as is.

[0] DRAM Errors in the Wild: A Large-Scale Field Study [http://research.google.com/pubs/pub35162.html](http://research.google.com/pubs/pub35162.html)</comment></comment>


Is there an archive of Startup Engineering (CS184) that used to be on Coursera? - <AUTHOR> I've been trying to find content from the startup engineering course that used to be on Coursera. I've managed to find the lecture slides and videos from the first few weeks, but I can't seem to find the homework tasks etc. Does anyone have a copy of these?<p>Also, the archive.org Coursera archive is unsearchable, and is too big for me too download. <comment><USER2> [https://rutracker.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4530830](https://rutracker.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4530830)

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks like it has what I'm looking for, I'm downloading it now.</comment></comment>