Ad blocking is under attack - <AUTHOR> https://blog.adguard.com/en/ad-blocking-is-under-attack/ <comment><USER2> It was admiral that did this: [https://blog.getadmiral.com/dmca-easylist- adblock-copyright-...](https://blog.getadmiral.com/dmca-easylist-adblock- copyright-access-control-admiral-10-things-to-know/)

They even clearly state they used the only tool available to them, DCMA. From all the current summaries on this, DMCA does not apply to a line entry in easylist. A domain can be trademarked.

This should be added back in. And if github cannot standup to DMCA abuse, then well, easylist and all other developers should be giving a clear hard though to their continued use of the github platform.

Edit: it looks like EFF has gotten in touch with easylist. Good. [https://torrentfreak.com/dmca-used-to-remove-ad-server- url-f...](https://torrentfreak.com/dmca-used-to-remove-ad-server-url-from- easylist-ad-blocklist-170811/)

<comment> chad-autry From what I can tell, the DMCA does apply (sort of)

Admiral seems to be a paywall server basically. If blocking their domain gave access to paywalled content, then the DMCA seems to apply [http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/circumventing-copyright- cont...](http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/circumventing-copyright-controls)

However, that defense is a bit flimsy to me since the fall back to having the paywall blocked could/should be a "Paywall blocked, please disable your addblocker to gain access to our content" msg.

Anyhow, that is immaterial because so long as they don't actually serve adds, Easylist could/would have removed the line no problem. Admiral should have just said "Our domain doesn't serve adds, we work on paid content access" and they would have been removed without all this hassle.

<comment><USER3> I think it's worth mentioning that _even if_ an easylist filter entry counts as "circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access" \-- which I think is debatable for multiple reasons -- the DMCA takedown procedure only covers _copyright infringement_. It does not apply to anti- circumvention measures.

As Admiral's blog post points out, Github recommends using the same contact procedure for anti-circumvention takedown requests as for normal DMCA takedowns. But as far as I can tell, they're doing so purely on their own initiative; such a takedown request doesn't have the force of law in the same sense that a claim of copyright infringement does.

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act#Anti- circumvention_exemptions)

It most certainly does apply to anti-circumvention in many cases.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand how your comment is a response to mine. Could you please clarify?

The DMCA is a set of laws. The DMCA _takedown procedure_ is a part of those laws, defined in a fairly rigid way: it has specific notification requirements, timeframes, and is clearly defined to only apply to copyright infringement. Just because the DMCA also prohibits circumvention, it doesn't automatically follow that circumvention is the same as copyright infringement. And the Wikipedia section that you linked to doesn't mention the takedown process at all.

<comment><USER5> But nothing prevents Admiral from notifying Github about a DMCA violation informally and Github removing the code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I didn't get what the hell happened.

So, Admiral—an anti-adblocker company—contacted EasyList and told them to remove a domain from their list. This domain was a server they needed for their anti-adblocker platform to work.

EasyList told Admiral that they would only do it if GitHub agreed, so Admiral contacted GitHub and the domain was removed from the EasyList list after GitHub told EasyList they should comply.

The "attack" is that any company can tell lists to remove their website via using a DMCA violation, so lists become useless.

I have two questions:

1\. how would a domain name on a list violate copyright

2\. why aren't lists hosted anywhere else but the US so that they can't be controlled by DMCA requests.

<comment><USER7> IIUC, the DMCA says that if there's some technological mechanism X that's used to enforce copyright, and a tool Y that is (or can be) used to circumvent X, then making or distributing Y is itself illegal (as opposed to the act of using Y to circumvent X, which is already illegal even without the DMCA). The DMCA then provides a notice-based method for 'taking down' online copies of Y.

In this case, X is the Admiral technology. Copyright owners use it to control access to content. However, an adblocker with Admiral's domain on its blocklist is a tool Y that circumvents that.

<comment><USER6> Thanks, I understand better now.

If Admiral enables paywalls, then I kind of agree with Admiral.

If companies want to put paywalls, circumventing them is kind of like jumping the gate to see a concert for free.

I always hit the back button, but publishers should be free to put up paywalls (no idea why they don't do it server-side, but that's another story).

So, I guess the article or at least the title are a little sensationalistic?

<comment><USER8> Here's the thing - if blocking the loading of your protection script from a third-party server is all it takes to bypass your paywall, haven't you really, really screwed up?

Surely it should be the other way around - the paywall doesn't let you through unless the code is accessible and gets run?

I'm not going to try and claim people wouldn't be so stupid as to try to implement it this way...

<comment><USER4> > I'm not going to try and claim people wouldn't be so stupid as to try to > implement it this way.

They aren't stupid: they are incredibly intelligent.

It was implemented this way to weaponize the DMCA, plain and simple.

<comment><USER8> If it's actually to protect anything, it's dumb, as it's defeated by whitelists, filters or even poor connections...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I hate to say it, but the ad-blocking community is handling this problem the same way governments often handle things: Reactionary instead of pro-active.

The real source of the problem with ads, is that almost every ad network allows ads to be self posted with little to no filter. This opens us all up to the abuse from ads we've been experiencing for over a decade now.

Could you imagine what would happen if you were allowed to self-post an ad on television without the network manually approving each one?

It's time to hold ad networks responsible for their own content. If a virus spreads because of their ads, THEY should be sued, just like MTV and others were when they violated FCC decency rules during the Super Bowl.

<comment><USER10> I like NPR's approach to broadcast ads: their own commentators read a short little script, rather than playing an audio clip that was provided to them. There are various ways this can and has been applied to Internet ads, like making them text-only.

On the other side of things, I would love to see a search engine that pushes sites down in its rankings proportionally to the obnoxiousness of their ads.

<comment><USER11> "I like NPR's approach to broadcast ads: their own commentators read a short little script"

This is not always true - for instance, the "brought to you by" slots at the beginning of the PBS Newshour are advertiser-supplied audio clips.

<comment><USER12> but NPR and PBS are not the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From a recent WSJ article about anti-ad blocking companies:

"We really think the free internet is at risk because of ad-blocking, so these types of solutions are needed to turn the tide", said Dan Rua, CEO of ad- blocking "revenue recovery" company Admiral, which recently raised $2.5 million to help build its platform."[1]

It's amazing how selective the CEO's concern for the "free internet" is. Threatening community github repos with DCMA takedowns is OK though?

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-the-anti-ad- blocker...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-the-anti-ad- blockers-1465805039)

<comment> wu-ikkyu From Dan Rua's LinkedIn:

>The power of the internet to inform, entertain and liberate mankind is at a crossroads. The future of ad-supported content is in peril, and with it, free access for citizens to critical news, education, discourse and resources the world over. The shorthand name for this looming catastrophe is "adblocking"

It's like a pimp claiming the human race is going to stop reproducing and die out because people don't want to pay for their prostitutes

<comment><USER14> Ads are a plague that drive content creators toward ever increasing shock value just so that they can get clicks. Quality be damned, views are all that matter.

I would say this is more damaging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's amazing that they are so uneducated about DMCA. This is called defective DMCA notice, and it should be ignored. The sender of the notice can now file a suit, since the publisher of the list is no longer under safe harbor. But they won't, since they know it is defective. And if they did, it would be thrown out with a summary judgment.

<comment><USER16> What, specifically, was defective about the notice?

<comment><USER15> The notice does not list the copyrighted works that are being infringed (I.e. made publicly available). This is the necessary element of a valid DMCA notice.

<comment><USER17> Wasn't the takedown request for a circumvention technology versus any specific works?

<comment><USER15> In this interpretation, the list of the specific copyrighted protected works that they provided a circumventing technology to access, is absent from this notice. I believe no legal theory works here, and I can refer them to a capable law firm if they are interested.

<comment><USER17> > _What copyrighted protected works did they provide circumventing technology > to access?_

Anything behind a paywall. I'm not defending what they did. But I sort of understand how it could be permissible under the DMCA. (A law regarding which the EFF and I share many opinions.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There has been a growing trend of websites that will ask me to either:

a) whitelist their site in my adblocker b) or subscribe to their monthly subscription and keep reading their site with adblocker

<comment><USER19> Which results every single time in choosing option C: the browser back button.

<comment><USER20> Usually two or three times because fuck sites who hijack browser history because I scroll a little too far

<comment><USER21> That's what open in new tab is for.

Close tab is way better than back. Easier, more consistent and faster.

<comment><USER22> Use the mouse wheel/middle button. Will open a new tab when you click on a link and will close a tab when you click on the tab. This changed my life.

<comment><USER23> too fickle: half the time I endup also scrolling. ctrl-click is far more predictable. Same result, less "trying to press a thing designed to roll".

<comment><USER24> On most mouses that's not an issue (assuming no motoric problems). Ctrl-click, on the other hand, requires the use of both hands in most cases.

<comment><USER25> I've never had a mouse where it wasn't a problem. I don't buy uber-quality mouses, so I'm down in the trenches with the vast majority of mouse users with moderate-to-low quality hardware.

I'm also often using a laptop, on linux, and I do the middle-click-simulation (both buttons at once) with two hands, which is really annoying. I suppose I could fix it.

Also I always have my left hand on the keyboard, so for me it's not a problem to ctrl-click.

Ctrl+click doesn't work on a tab, though--have to hit the X.

<comment><USER26> My laptop has a middle click button ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Admiral's product is so poorly designed that it requires cooperation from the browser to work? That violates rule #1 of client/server programming: never trust the client. Instead, they have to abuse the DMCA to cover for their uninformed engineering choices.

This is despicable.

"Here hold this copyrighted content in memory for me, but don't make any other copies of it because, uh, you don't have the license to make copies of it. Except for, uh, the one that we sent you? To hold in memory? Look, computers are magic.

Nevermind. DMCA!"

<comment><USER28> No, they knew exactly what they were doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Note that the offender's privacy policy [1] appears to let users ( _e.g._ you or me) contact email@example.com "to know whether their Personal Data has been stored and [to] consult the Data Controller to learn about their contents and origin, to verify their accuracy or to ask for them to be supplemented, cancelled, updated or corrected, or for their transformation into anonymous format or to block any data held in violation of the law, as well as to oppose their treatment for any and all legitimate reasons."

[1] [https://www.iubenda.com/privacy-policy/347981/full- legal](https://www.iubenda.com/privacy-policy/347981/full-legal)

</comment><comment><USER29> Via [https://github.com/easylist/easylist/commit/a4d380ad1a3b33a0...](https://github.com/easylist/easylist/commit/a4d380ad1a3b33a0fab679a1a8c5a791321622b3#commitcomment-23599344) by one of the Easylist maintainers:

> If it is a Circumvention/Adblock-Warning adhost, it should be removed from > Easylist even without the need for a DMCA request.

Anyone know why he's saying this?

Edit: I guess he's referring to the following via [https://easylist.to/2013/05/10/anti-adblock-guide-for- site-a...](https://easylist.to/2013/05/10/anti-adblock-guide-for-site- admins.html):

> Anti-Adblock should only be challenged if the system limits website > functionality or causes significant disruption to browsing

<comment><USER30> I didn't realize that anti-adblock lists were generally maintained separately, and this comment tipped me off to it.

If you're using something like uBlock, it might be worth going into Settings -> 3rd-party filters. There's a few lists in there which are not enabled by default that are curated to work around anti-adblocking technologies. For example, "Adblock Warning Removal List".

<comment><USER31> If you're going into uBlock's settings, don't forget to add the domain this whole this is referring to (functionalclam.com) to your custom block filters.

<comment><USER32> Could this comment alone be considered infringement and be subject itself to a DMCA takedown? You are instructing someone how to potentially bypass security measures for copyrighted works? /s

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have a very unpopular opinion that pulls me in two directions.

Advertisements have exceeded the point of being a nuisance for many years. But adblocking is a fight that solves symptoms and will affect more than just advertising in a negative way.

The best parallel I can draw is to the Napster era when pirating music cut off the head of the chicken in the industry. Hollywood and like were refusing to adjust to digital downloads and streaming. Part of this was due to the fact that it would drive down profits. But people started pirating the content and getting it for free so they lost money anyways. It's not impossible, but it has become more difficult for artists to break into the industry (along with competition) because of the margin of profitability.

In that same vein - publishers and advertisers have resisted the market and have bled their visitors for every penny. Finally the users stood up and said enough is enough - and now we have adblocking. The problem I have with adblocking is that it doesn't resolve the problem, just the symptoms. Adblocking pushes out smalltime publishers whose only revenue are these obtrusive ads. The "big guys" can stay alive as the reduction will be drops in the water for them. The way I see adblocking is that it will only drive the publishing industry further towards monopolies who will push the little guys out. And once you are getting all your content from 1-3 sources and the little guys are gone - there's nothing to stop them from becoming the same monoliths that exist as Internet Service Providers. They control the means and have no urge to change.

I stand on the fence, wishing there was a better solution to this problem but some times the only way to bring change is to burn it down first and start from scratch.

<comment><USER34> > The best parallel I can draw is to the Napster era when pirating music cut > off the head of the chicken in the industry.

I don't think this comparison holds up. Napster was a peer to peer network where publishers of the works being downloaded had no control over who was able to download what. By contrast, web publishers have extraordinarily fine grained control over distribution of their works.

For example, when I connect to nytimes.com to read some news, I politely ask the nytimes.com servers for access by saying:

      GET /some/article HTTP/1.1

The NYTimes, or literally ANY publisher on the web, have the option to say no right there for _any_ reason. They are under zero obligation to give me access to content I'm requesting.

If publishers are upset about people reading their content without displaying ads, maybe they should stop giving it all away for free.

<comment><USER33> > If publishers are upset about people reading their content without > displaying ads, maybe they should stop giving it all away for free.

Hence, monopolies. Small timers won't be able to afford the lack of revenue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> As I understand they're using copyright laws not to prevent me from _copying_ content, but to preventing me from _not consuming_ content.

In other words, the copyright law is used to _force_ content consumption.

<comment><USER36> you better not watch Black mirror 15 million merits

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> >"This domain accepts GET and POST requests over standard HTTP ports (TCP 80 and TCP 443) via strictly web based traffic originating from browsers"

lol

<comment><USER37> Don't joke. You really don't want to see these kinds of ravenous lawyers try to define website access not from an 'approved' browser as unauthorized access under the CFAA.

<comment><USER38> You could add to your TOS which browsers are approved. Using an unapproved browser would violate the current CFAA - under the current interpretation. Federal felony 1-5 years.

<comment><USER39> False. See 828 F.3d 1068 at 1077 (9th Cir. 2016):

>From those cases, we distill two general rules in analyzing authorization under the CFAA. ... Second, a violation of the terms of use of a website-- without more--cannot be the basis for liability under the CFAA.

They say this because (Id. at 1076):

>"Not only are the terms of service vague and generally unknown . . . but website owners retain the right to change the terms at any time and without notice." [676 F.3d 854 (9th Cir. 2012)] at 862. As a result, imposing criminal liability for violations of the terms of use of a website could criminalize many daily activities. Accordingly, "the phrase 'exceeds authorized access' in the CFAA does not extend to violations of use restrictions. If Congress wants to incorporate misappropriation liability into the CFAA, it must speak more clearly." Id. at 863.

<comment><USER38> Interesting. TOS can't be a 'catch all'. There needs to be another criminal intent. But, wouldn't using the plugin to avoid paying for the service _be_ the other crime? Seems like two crimes? Which would satisfy?

[http://harvardlawreview.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/02/1265-...](http://harvardlawreview.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/02/1265-1272_Online.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Am I the only one who thinks its laughable that adding their domain to a blocklist "circumvents" their protection technology? If I was a content provider I don't think I'd want to rely on something so flimsy.

<comment><USER41> It's turtles all the way down man, at some point, everyone has to use DNS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Everyone should contact their investors.

"Your portfolio company @getadmiral is committing fraud by filing false DMCA requests. Can you fix this?"

Birchmere Ventures

Florida Gulfshore Capital

Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research

Mosley Ventures

New World Angels

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/admiral-2#/entity](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/admiral-2#/entity)

If they are made aware a portfolio company is committing fraud, hopefully they have enough ethics to help sort out the situation. Not a lawyer, but if the investors are aware of the fraud and do nothing, they may have some liability themselves.

<comment><USER43> I'm not convinced people that do this wouldn't be making an arse out of themselves. No lawyers have appeared in here to say that anything fraudulent has happened. The DMCA does prohibit dissemination of any software whose purpose is to circumvent technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. If the domain we're talking about is key to such technical measures, then distributing software that blocks it may in fact be illegal under the DMCA, and sending a DMCA notice to take it down ordinary and allowed. "New World Angels" have no power to overturn the law of the land, especially one which is implementation of a broad international treaty.

<comment><USER44> EasyList is not software. It's just a fracking list. Is it a DCMA violation to state factually, as I am doing now, that functionalclam.com is a so-called "access control" domain?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Github should have protected easylist from this bullshit DMCA request, here it is on github : [https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/ff44d37f62d772bfec5fd432...](https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/ff44d37f62d772bfec5fd4327e4a2009b9ad47aa/2017/2017-08-02-LevenLabs.md)

Github is the culprit here.

<comment><USER43> Why should Github take on unlimited liability for someone else's code? If a judge agrees that blocking this anti-circumvention technology is illegal (something the DMCA does prohibit), and Github had refused to take it down (which means they don't get safe harbor), then Github is the first-party that is liable for distributing that illegal technology, probably many millions of times. When you start taking statutory fines and multiply them by millions, you end up with numbers that would put Github out of business overnight. Is that beneficial to anyone?

<comment><USER46> Because it does not accept unlimited liability by following DMCA takedown procedure. Following it places Github into the DMCA safe-harbor. Not following it opens Github to liability.

This is what should have happened:

      1. Github is served with a DMCA Takedown notice
      2. Github validates that the notice is valid
      3. Github takes down the $FILE or $REPO
      4. Owner of the Repo contacts Github
      5. Github notifies the owner of the repo that it was a DMCA takedown
      6. Owner of the repo provides Github with the Counter-notice.
      7. Github restores access to the taken down $FILE or $REPO

At this point the party issuing takedown _must_ sue the owner of the repo. It cannot go after Github. It also cannot take down the content again using DMCA to github.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Is it illegal to claim something under DMCA when it does not in fact represent a DMCA claim?

<comment><USER48> Yes, but:

A. Nobody - NOBODY - is ever punished for violating.

B. The folks in question here think they have a colorable argument for why it really is DMCA. As linked from the OP, this is here [1]. (FWIW, I think it's silly)

[1] [http://blockadblock.com/adblocking/is-adblock-plus- violating...](http://blockadblock.com/adblocking/is-adblock-plus-violating- the-dmca/)

<comment><USER49> Nobody is punished because the DMCA claim/counterclaim process gives them a chance to back out of the claim before it goes to court. And the word is that if it does go to court, proving that they willfully and intentionally misrepresented their ownership of the material under question is a very high bar; it would probably require some internal memo with content approximating "We know we don't own X but let's issue a DMCA against Y for hosting X anyways."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Store a hash of the URLs instead of the URLs themselves.

<comment><USER51> I don't see how this would work when the URL lists are full of regexps etc.

If you could make it work, you'd would wind up with some sort of source file of domains, parsed at build time to generate list of hashes that actually ship with your plugin. That source file would belong in a repo, and would still be DMCA-able in this way.

Also, this would make ad-blockers even more CPU intensive than they are.

We shouldn't have to pursue a technical solution. It's my computer, it's my internet connection. If I'm not allowed to control my own property, then the concept of property becomes meaningless.

<comment><USER52> >I don't see how this would work when the URL lists are full of regexps etc.

I guess you could distribute a compiled finite automaton instead of a list of hashed values. It would make searching GitHub for "infringing lists" much harder (even harder than hashes).

Nevertheless, I agree with "We shouldn't have to pursue a technical solution". There's no point in trying to act like a Mr. smarty-pants in legal situations, as most technical solutions might not work out as expected in court.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> uBlock and uMatrix have a "page blocked" function when the entire page matches a filter, could something similar be implemented for these situations?

Say, if a page requests content from these blocked domains, the ad blocker display an SSL warning-esque page that says something along the lines of "This page contains ad content protected by the DMCA. These ads may contain malicious material, and can not be safely viewed. Please alert the site owner to resolve this issue." If you want to make it really effective, you may even be able to pull contact email addresses from WHOIS data and make the contact line a mailto: URL.

<comment><USER54> This is pretty much what I want. If loading sketchy third-party tracking images is a condition of reading your content, fine, but tell me in advance so I can pass.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> In for a penny; in for a pound.

If I can't put your domain name in my adblock blacklist because it violates your copyrights or trademarks, then my DNS provider shouldn't be able to put your domain in their resolver, either.

</comment><comment><USER56> Peter Lowe's Ad and tracking server list still includes functionalclam. I recommend using it: [https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/](https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/)

uBlock Origin includes it.

</comment><comment><USER57> This is very interesting, I had not considered that besides blocking ads, we should be blocking the anti-adblocking servers that seek to prevent us from blocking ads. We should also block those anti-ad servers. This is war.

</comment><comment><USER58> One should not need to think too much to realise that if this is allowed to continue, it will set a dangerous precedent of effectively _removing the freedom to close one 's eyes_ \--- hitherto, it seemed to be accepted even among the strongest DRM supporters that consumers had the right to _not_ consume content they didn't want. They've tried to force (or perhaps "encourage" is the wording they prefer) consumers to consume with things like unskippable video adverts and warnings in DVDs, but AFAIK it's absolutely not illegal to look away (perhaps even at a different TV) or go do something else while that content is playing; now, by effectively trying to say that blocking or denying oneself from consuming --- or letting one's browser or other technology through which one consumes --- certain content, is illegal, they are trying to make it legally enforceable to consume content.

I wish all those who are involved or support such insanity would be themselves strapped tightly in front of a computer or TV, with eyelids glued open, and subjected to this force-feeding of content they don't want to see.

Ultimately, this loss of control of one's eyes, ears, and mind is something I strongly abhor, strong enough to express in a manner I normally don't partake in: _fuck this shit!_

</comment><comment><USER59> If in the future I am forced to view ads, I won't click on them and I won't buy any products advertised via forced ads.

<comment><USER22> But the ad will leave residue on your brain. So you are still being advertised to.

<comment><USER60> Then perhaps like me, that ad will mean he actively avoids that product and brand out of ad-fatigue and simple spite rather than the intended effect, which is to attract people to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> This is what you get when companies have all the incentive to file DMCA takedown requests and there's _no punishment_ for filing a bogus one. And modern technology is making this problem increasingly worse, with all the automated takedown tools.

</comment><comment><USER62> The only way I see DMCA applying here is contributory infringement in enabling modification of the page.

With that in mind I think the question to be answered is does a user/viewer have the right to modify a page in their own web browser or must they view the page as intended by the creators?

You can get in to technicalities then like are Links creators committing contributory infringement, but I'm not sure that's helpful.

Should a user be able to purposefully block parts of a page?

<comment><USER63> > Should a user be able to purposefully block parts of a page?

I have yet to see a compelling/coherent argument for why they shouldn't.

As a partially sighted user myself, I find it infuriating when web developers try to override browser behaviour/modifications (e.g. blocking pinch to zoom). If we go down a path where users can't modify pages, we are taking a huge step backwards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> > That domain is part of the DMCA copyright access control platform Admiral > provides publishers so they can engage visitors in a transparent way on the > value exchange for their copyrighted content, instead of resorting to > surprise ad reinsertion the way some of our competitors advocate but > visitors and advertisers dislike.

Does anyone actually understand what this garbage paragraph is actually saying? It stinks of corporate-esque bullshit to me.

<comment><USER65> They show a pop-up attempting to convince people to disable adblockers rather than running ads that get around adblockers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Surely if you are truly conserned about the copyright of your work you wouldn't freely send the content to the user's device before issuing some sort of challenge e.g login at which point circumventing that becomes a crime. Websites shouldn't be allowed to dictate how the user agent decides to execute the content received. This seems like a case of wanting to have the cake and eat it too.

</comment><comment><USER67> You can add this list to get around admiral domains: [https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/admiral- domains.txt](https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/admiral-domains.txt)

</comment><comment><USER68> Encrypt the list and then send a DMCA notice to any company who decrypts it without permission (non ad blocker) and tries to use this scheme again. That would seemingly be a valid DMCA claim, but IANAL.

</comment><comment><USER69> Just encode the list of urls with htmlentities, base64, rot13, whatever. Then the DMCA can't be used to attack it.

Edit: Disagree? Please comment. It's attackable via the DMCA because the word/brand is in the file in it's copyrighted form. If you encode it such that it isn't in that form, it's protected from that approach.

<comment><USER70> Encrypted IP is still IP.

<comment><USER69> Encoded, not encrypted. I can't be violating a copyright with text that can't possibly create brand confusion, etc.

The DMCA complaint is patently invalid in this case. A counter notice would almost certainly eventually succeed, it's just a lot of work and potential spend in legal. Encoding it is just removing the ability to use it inappropriately in the first place.

<comment><USER65> "brand confusion"? You seem to be conflating copyright law with trademark law. If I had a copy of "Steamboat Willie", it wouldn't matter if it was H.264 encoded or md5summed or stored in an AES locker, it's still a copyright violation because I don't have a license for the content.

<comment><USER69> I'm not, the filer of the DMCA is. How else could just a uri being on a page cause a DMCA takedown of a page? That's what happened...they filed a DMCA because the text "[http://whatever"](http://whatever") was on a github page. Which sounds a lot like meaning trademark, but saying copyright.

That's why I don't consider this underhanded. As you mention, it's not copyrighted in the first place. Obscuring it is just closing the loophole that's being exploited.

I'm not talking about obscuring long passages of copyrighted text. Just obscuring one plaintext url that's on a page with others.

<comment><USER70> The project maintainer _wanted_ to take it down. He has gone on record saying that the url shouldn't have been there in the first place, regardless of the DMCA.

If you put an encrypted blob on each line instead of a plaintext url, the DMCA notice will contain "My copyrighted work appears at <link to github line number> which decrypts to <my url> when using <decryption method>." It's exactly the same as the original claim. If you feel they're not technically sophisticated enough to file a claim like this, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

<comment><USER69> In practice that "when using" stuff doesn't work. The DMCA request is denied by most providers if they can't see "the text in question".

This is from experience. Scrapers that change one or two words in a long passage of text getting away with it because it doesn't match. Or very lightly cropping 1000's of original photos. I will cede that it depends on the provider. Google and many others do some rudimentary checking for sanity before allowing a DMCA request. They would never have passed this one, where just a short piece of text was claimed as infringing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> This seems a bit hyperbolic. If you believe there's a battle between ad servers and ad blockers, it's obvious the ad blockers are winning by a lot.

IANAL but this seems like a questionable use of DMCA Takedown notice which, in any event, isn't actually binding. EasyList could probably file a counternotification and risk a lawsuit.

</comment><comment><USER72> a DCMA request for listing a inherently public domain name? Am I the only one confused?

<comment><USER73> No. It's appears to be a weird situation, described poorly by all sides, each of whom appear to be highly concerned with promoting themselves within their explanations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14978228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14978228)

</comment><comment><USER75> It is super ironic that the co-founder @jameshartig was previously at GrooveShark aka "The legality of Grooveshark's business model, which permitted users to upload copyrighted music, remains undetermined."

</comment><comment><USER76> Now is a good time for me to plug Reek's Anti Anti-Adblock: [http://reek.github.io/anti-adblock-killer/](http://reek.github.io/anti- adblock-killer/)

</comment><comment><USER77> Can't we host EasyList somewhere safer?

<comment><USER78> International safe zone or something distributed like IPFS?

<comment><USER79> Blockchain would be great for this.

<comment><USER41> what would block chain give that git wouldn't? Wouldn't anyone beable to remove a domain or add a domain.

<comment><USER80> No, you just have a hash of the "official" version of the list. And when the list needs to be updated, the person with the private key publishes a new list again.

The advantage of using the bitcoin blockchain, for example, is that it can't be censored. DMCA trolls now have to go after every single bitcoin company in the world, to stop them from "hosting" the copyrighted work.

<comment><USER41> Why would they not go after the guy with the private key? Any way he can escape that so could git.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> What's the DMCA rational here? Admiral wants to run code in my browser to offer their service, and thus instructing my browser not to run their code is circumventing them in a way that violates DMCA?

Screw that.

</comment><comment><USER82> I use privacy badger, and unless I'm mistaken, it doesn't use a list to block content, it just blocks any 3rd party request that send cookie information.

Why are we relying on a list?

<comment><USER83> That approach might not be enough:

[https://github.com/jspenguin2017/uBlockProtector/issues/95](https://github.com/jspenguin2017/uBlockProtector/issues/95)

Edit: the linked issue is regard "instart" which seems to exploit a Chromium flaw that allows it to disguise third-party cookies as first-party, preventing filtering based on that categorization alone.

It seems it's getting harder to rely on browsers working how they were originally intended.

<comment><USER84> >getting harder to rely on browsers working how they were originally intended

That's because people want to Do Cool Stuff™ in their browsers - ie, they don't want to merely "browse"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> I used to read about 25 or so online news publications each week. A bit more on a monthly basis. I had paid subscriptions to a handful of publications (8-9?), spending more money on these subscriptions than I had ever done for paper newspapers and magazines in the past.

Over the past 3-4 years I have ditched most newspapers and I have dropped most subscriptions. For three main reasons:

\- Both advertising content and the newspapers advertising themselves has gotten really annoying. No, I don't appreciate you throwing modal windows at me. No I'm not going to subscribe to your newsletter. No I don't appreciate having to click away a second or third modal window.

\- Advertising masquerading as content. Sure, it is marked as "sponsored content", but every effort is made to hide that fact. This is dishonest.

\- I don't gain anything from reading most of these publications. They don't make me smarter and I don't remember what I read one week later. The bulk of news articles are written by uninformed people incapable of useful analysis. Important news is widely disseminated anyway so I won't miss anything.

When the ads are more important than the content, I won't burden them with my page views. It isn't for me.

In the process I found that I had been spending too much time reading news. Limiting my news intake to just a few news sources (3-4) whose biases I understand, and at least which I can try to adjust for, is enough. The number of books I've consumed per year has had a sharp uptick since I stopped reading as many news websites.

</comment><comment><USER86> This outlines a great reason as to why Github silo can be risky and have adverse side effects.

Does github offer the ability to host repositories in other legal jurisdictions than the US?

</comment><comment><USER87> Hey Admiral, and websites using this anti ad blocking technology,

I don't want to circumvent your copyright access control. I really don't.

All that I ask is a way to quickly and easily identify such sites so that I can block them and never ever visit them again. Never ever. Even if the sites and Admiral quit this despicable reprehensible behavior, I won't know it -- ever. Because I simply will never be back again.

Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER88> So right now this is one of the top stories on HN. How ad-blockers are being threatened and from comments below, "how annoying website subscription requests are."

Later this week, I expect we'll see another post about the derth of quality journalism and the "unfortunate" continued growth of buzzfeed-style and listicles taking over the net, slowly killing off quality content.

<comment><USER89> Sidenote: not that I think you are personally attacking them, but BuzzFeed does have some quality investigative journalism.

Listicles and clickbait help pay the bills, and I didn't believe it when I was informed the first time, but... it exists. Probably wouldn't be able to continue without the clickbait ad revenue, though, heh. :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> 127.0.0.1 www.functionalclam.com functionalclam.com

<comment><USER91> There's quite a few domains that host the same site, so it might be most effective to block it at the ip level: 184.108.40.206

<comment><USER92> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Wow, this really stinks. They (Admiral) supposedly figured out how to use DMCA-1201 to prevent ad blockers from adding their domains. That's a glaring example which shows why this anti-circumvention garbage needs to be completely repealed.

As some proposed, they should move the repo out of the jurisdiction with these corrupted anti-circumvention laws.

</comment><comment><USER94> Can we have a list of domains that should be excluded from these kinds of lists, so they may not be added again by accident?

</comment><comment><USER95> This seems like Github's fuck up.

</comment><comment><USER96> So, if the DMCA request turns out to be valid (e.g. hypothetically in court), shouldn't all the ad-serving domains just include a similar anti-adblock measure on their ad servers, thus making it so, that blocking their servers would count as a circumvention?

</comment><comment><USER97> I guess my approach of blocking domains in the dns server turned out to be a win after al

</comment><comment><USER13> >"However, further research showed that this domain hosts the code of an anti- adblocking startup Admiral"

Who goes to work for an anti ad blocking startup? What is their mission statement "to make the web a more intrusive place"?

I am OK with Ads and understand their purpose in the business model. The reason I use and ad blocker is because of how intrusive they are to consuming actual content. You can subscribe yes but you will still get intrusive ads:

[http://www.kirkville.com/i-pay-for-news-why-do-i-still- see-a...](http://www.kirkville.com/i-pay-for-news-why-do-i-still-see-ads/)

</comment><comment><USER98> There is a PR to add it back in: [https://github.com/easylist/easylist/pull/500](https://github.com/easylist/easylist/pull/500)

</comment><comment><USER99> The DMCA itself should be taken down. Where is the organizing against it?

</comment><comment><USER100> Seems to me this can be handled the way the open-source community always handles such drama: fork the repo a bunch of times. I'll probably start keeping local copies of filter lists as well.

</comment><comment><USER101> Is it safe to type this blocked URL in browser? Will i get sued?

<comment><USER102> Only if you delete all and any memories you have of the domain. I suggest a bottle of strong alcohol _.

_ If the contents of the bottle doesn't facilitate in aforementioned memory deletion, usage of the bottle to apply liberal amounts of blunt force is suggested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> Yes because DMCAs work so well at stopping content distribution. It's not like the lists can't be hosted on other sites, dare I say a bay where many pirates roam.

</comment><comment><USER104> What's with the "they would only take action if GitHub agreed." ? I'm confused, what's the link between GitHub and EasyLink (except code hosting)?

</comment><comment><USER105> Wonder if we could create a git in the blockchain... where DMCA just can't exist/happen since there's no central authority to ask to take stuff down...

<comment><USER106> Copyright law doesn't care what technology you use to store and distribute material. If you have a blockchain that contains unauthorized copyrighted material, any host participating in that network would be legally subject to DMCA requests by the copyright holder. What would the defense look like in court, anyway? "We can't stop illegally distributing the plaintiff's content because that would break the chain?" In effect it would just be a spectacularly inefficient distributed storage system.

<comment><USER107> You are overlooking the fact that there is no actual DMCA violation in this case. The problem is that companies being bullied with frivolous DMCA threats will comply because it is easier than fighting it. Using a blockchain removes this as an option (and also makes the bullying pointless in the first place).

<comment><USER106> And when your DMCA-proof storage system receives a valid DMCA notice for an actual case of infringement, what's the plan?

<comment><USER105> they will need contact each node..i.e. device that has the blockchain and file a dmca directly w/ each one... maybe? lol

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> What's to stop people from forking off that list and transitioning to another one? Like what if ad blockers just switched to use EasyList2 instead of EasyList?

<comment><USER109> As long as code is hosted in U.S. (GitHub) the cat and mouse game will continue.

If you host your repo in some other country that does not care about U.S. DMCA then it should be fine.

<comment><USER110> Other countries have copyright laws too. Most of these laws have some kind of notice-followed-by-takedown protocol, and my understanding is that in many jurisdictions, a DMCA takedown notice qualifies as such a notice. Probably the only major difference would be the amount of effort the infringed party would have to go through to enforce the takedown notice if the infringing party is non-compliant.

Disclaimer: IANAL.

<comment><USER109> For example, if you host this list in Russia DMCA will not do anything because (sorry for my French) Russia does not give a shit about U.S. copyright laws.

<comment><USER110> It's quite possible that Russian companies will not care about DMCA, but that's not to say Russia doesn't have their own copyright law, which includes a notice and takedown protocol. It's just a question of how much effort you want to go through to take something down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER111> Is there any incentive or law that causes Github to accept digitally submitted DMCA orders through a web form at all? If it was possible for them to require individually signed (by an actual person with a pen, not a picture of a signature), individually snail-mailed requests, then that would at least make the process take O(n) time and O(n) money, making it a bit harder to abuse.

</comment><comment><USER112> If I'll write some kind of malware and comine it with technology that helps me to protect digital rights, would antivirus violate DMCA?

</comment><comment><USER113> You can tell a young person wrote that copy from the use of "on accident" instead of "by accident" on the DMCA image.

[https://user- images.githubusercontent.com/5947035/29184514-2...](https://user- images.githubusercontent.com/5947035/29184514-276eeacc-7e0f-11e7-8a25-339659185ed3.png)

</comment><comment><USER114> Why use github ? Just move to another service or host your own repo. Be outside US hence outside DMCA reach. problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER5> The reason why this is possible is because DMCA by itself is biased towards interests of copyright holders and therefore can be abused. You can always claim that some domain is used for protecting copyright and therefore blocking access to that domain as well as distributing software that can do it is clearly a violation of DMCA.

</comment><comment><USER115> This is the second time in a few months that I have heared DCMA and github have come up (GadgetBridge). At this point in time I do feel that github's policy on DCMA tale down notices are a little heavy handed am I right in thinking that DCMA is a US only issue?

</comment><comment><USER116> I'm struggling to understand how preventing access to a tracking pixel circumvents copyright.

Does this make sense to anyone? It sounds like they're "crying DMCA" because someone turned off their analytics? Can analytics be a "right" under copyright?

</comment><comment><USER117> _> We had no option but to remove the filter without putting the Easylist repo in jeopardy._

Or, you know, host your project somewhere that's actually free & open. Yet another reason GitHub is about the worst place to host community software.

</comment><comment><USER118> Request: someone please make a code-hosting site that's only accessible via TOR.

</comment><comment><USER119> How to really fix this: make an extension that detects when a request is made to a domain owned by these scumbags and pop up a warning message, allowing the user to make the right decision and close the tab and go elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER120> grep functionalclam.com /etc/hosts 0.0.0.0 functionalclam.com

</comment><comment><USER121> [http://i.imgur.com/bhUFTLC.png](http://i.imgur.com/bhUFTLC.png)

</comment><comment><USER122> So, if blocking domains is illegal, what happens to Parental Controls? Or Open DNS?

I sincerely hope Admiral gets smacked hard for this.

</comment><comment><USER123> I say don't just move it out of Github - move the list to a blockchain. It's the obvious solution.

</comment><comment><USER93> Someone should make a separate explicit list with such kind of domains. Let them get the Streisand effect.

</comment><comment><USER124> Is there a blocklist that contains domains like this? Would want to add that into rotation.

</comment><comment><USER125> Are they going to issue DMCA takedown requests to the other (currently) 76 forks?

<comment><USER126> I would assume they'll follow up with a single request targeting all forks. You can see in many of GitHub's other listed takedowns that one request can target multiple repositories and forks at once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Start a gofundme for raising money for a counterclaim? I'd throw some in.

</comment><comment><USER127> ROT-13 the entries in the list. Update ad blockers to read that format. Solved.

</comment><comment><USER128> Well, I just blocked functionalclam.com in my OS hosts file, try to DMCA that

</comment><comment><USER129> Sounds like it's time to relocate to a self-hosted git repo

</comment><comment><USER130> This is crazy, how can a link be a violation of the DMCA?

</comment><comment><USER131> I'd call this the adblock Straisand effect.

</comment><comment><USER132> So wait what, can someone explain:

What is being DMCAd here?

</comment><comment><USER133> sudo sh -c 'echo "0.0.0.0 functionalclam.com" >> /etc/hosts'

</comment><comment><USER134> They should just base64 encode domains. if the name isn't in cleartext can they issue a DMCA for trademark infringement?

</comment><comment><USER36> why not just host ad filter lists outside US jurisdiction?

</comment><comment><USER135> My web browser, my rules, if this triggers you, fuck right the fuck off.

</comment><comment><USER136> A quick Google search reveals the following.

"Admiral identifies audiences with ad blockers turned on, works to re- establish those users (by opting in to a lightened ad experience, say, or asking to be whitelisted) and then makes a small cut of every ad served to the reacquired audience."

Source: [https://adexchanger.com/publishers/another-ad-blocking- solut...](https://adexchanger.com/publishers/another-ad-blocking-solutions- vendor-new-approach/)

tl;dr Admiral is a startup that measures an audience's "ad block rate". If the rate is high, they then work to "establish explicit value propositions with users and then serve them with minimal tags and tracking". It also mentions plans to try to process micropayments.

"Admiral is built for a world where ad blockers have won."

Source: _Id._

tl;dr Unless the founder has changed course from what is described in the 2016 article, as far as I can tell, this startup _relies on widespread usage of adblockers_. If users do not use adblockers, then this startup has nothing to sell.

VC: "What happens if the ad blockers block the servers that serve the ad blocker tracking image?"

Founder: "I'll send them DMCA notices."

VC: "Excellent. I'm in."

?

<comment><USER137> Bordering on off-topic: what is, "Id?"

<comment><USER138> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idem)

<comment><USER137> At risk of duplicating, thanks. I thought it was some company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER139> From Admiral's responding blogpost:

> 5\. We asked them 24 days ago to remove functionalclam[.]com on the original > commit.

> Transparent engagement between publishers and visitors is a critical piece > of that.

Umm, no? Admiral created an account that they hoped would be mistaken as an official github bot or something. And then, instead of asking, they threatened disruption of the repository.

So, in summary, they:

* Tried to hide their identity * Tried to trick people into thinking they were Github * Threatened, not asked, to remove the site from the list

Look, I'm okay with them wanting to remove a server that helps inform users that they'd like to show ads on their customers sites. At the very least, though, be honest about it.

Also, bless the EFF, man. Heading over there to donate right now.

<comment> default-kramer Also

> 3\. Circumventing a publisher's paywall or copyright access control > technology is not OK

Would any technologist who doesn't work for Admiral consider javascript a "copyright access control technology"? (I'm assuming their product is javascript.)

<comment><USER140> ....yes?

But not in the "hide content you've already sent" sense. However, a script that verifies credentials and only then accesses content using those provided credentials sounds like "access control technology".

My reasoning is simple: if I block the script and still see the content, it's not access control; if I have to run the script to see the content, it is access control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER141> The DMCA only applies to the US. Fork the repo and move on. It's time to forget about American hosting.

<comment><USER142> Sad but true :(

If we could only remove the logjam in congress right now to get some real work done... currently the two parties are deadlocked in a power struggle and have completely forgotten why they're there.

<comment><USER143> > currently the two parties are deadlocked in a power struggle

You mean since about 1790? There have always been two parties in congress (minus the era of good feelings) and they have always had opposing ideology, and have almost always blocked one another's proposals.

It is very naive to think the current Republican congress is anything different or new. Their inaction is intentional - they need to pass their anti-citizen legislation they were appointed for when people are _not_ watching them.

It is also somewhat inaccurate to blame it on "deadlocked parties". The factions within them to varying degrees stifle them. The parties aren't monoliths of ideology that uniformly vote the way the chair swings.

If congress isn't passing good legislation, its because the constituent members of that congress aren't a majority good actors. Regardless of color. Regardless of excuses given.

Politicians always act in the interest of _someone_. Sometimes its themselves. It used to sometimes be for their constituents (because they had to appease them for votes). Today it is mostly for corporate campaign donors. And those donors _want_ the status quo. They don't _want_ the changes average Americans want. The whole point of their buying and owning of politicians is to impede change. Of course a congress filled with men told to maintain gridlock and prevent reform by their masters will do so, and they do it in a way optimized for themselves - by always blaming someone else and taking no responsibility for the gridlock _you_ cause, your base can just keep reelecting you despite hating congress in general. As long as the voters remain ignorant to this con, the business interests get what they paid for - usually corporate welfare.

<comment><USER142> > It is very naive to think the current Republican congress is anything > different or new

The Democrats are doing now what the Republicans did for the last 8 years. And I imagine in 7 years the opposite will happen.

<comment><USER144> The Republicans control congress and the presidency. With some exceptions, Republicans don't need a single Democratic vote to pass legislation.

<comment><USER145> Most legislation needs 60 votes to pass the Senate, which means you need at least 8 Democrats (counting the two independents with them). Legislation which Republicans can pass by themselves is the exception, not the rule. One of the problems they had with their health care bill was that it had to fit into the narrow budget reconciliation rules so that they could pass it with a simple majority.

<comment><USER144> Yes, a hurdle that Republicans already jumped over for the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and don't need a single Democratic vote to do so again.

<comment><USER145> Confirmations are quite different from legislation. Most confirmations had already been reduced to only requiring a simple majority. Supreme Court was the only remaining position for which a confirmation still required 60 votes.

There doesn't appear to be any movement toward changing the rules for legislation. If they were willing to do that, they wouldn't have tried so hard to squeeze the AHCA under the budget reconciliation umbrella.

<comment><USER144> Sure. They can change the rules for legislation in much the same way they were willing to do so for Supreme Court nominations, and do it without Democrats. That confirmation rules are the same as legislation, or that Republicans were willing to use this option is obviously not what I was trying to say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER146> Personally, this could be a real problem, if Ad services decide to pry open the doors on our ability to deny them our screen real estate. I block Ads, primarily due to the fact that I don't want my web surfing history and behaviors captured by some uncontrollable mob a ad-servers. Further, most advertisements are akin to the dreaded <flash> tag of old! animated, ugly, and obtrusive.

We are coming to a point in the Internets genesis, where technology should evolve to allow the "information consumer" to directly reward the "information producer"... without the need of an intermediary like Google Adwords, etc. etc.

<comment><USER84> >allow the "information consumer" to directly reward the "information producer"

That's what paywalls are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER147> Another reason to not host freedom tools on Github

</comment><comment><USER148> Time to move the ad blocker hosting to a country that doesn't have backwards ass laws and then hit back as hard as possible.

</comment><comment><USER149> What is the IP range of these bastards so I can at least add them to PeerBlock?

<comment><USER149> So there is a Chrome extensions called Domain Blocker, useful to add your own custom domains.

Question is, what else is missing from Ad Blockers that I should add (apart from these ____*)?</comment></comment>


Startup Ranking - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupranking.com/

<comment><USER3> I'd much rather talk about startup pranking.

I worked at a startup that had a shared bathroom with a keypad on it. Somebody had the brilliant idea to tell the new guy the bathroom code was a 16 digit number. It worked because the only respected the last 4 digits to match the passcode. Everybody memorized the 16 digit code and made sure they entered it in when going to the bathroom when the new guy was around. The prank went on long enough that people wanted to see how long they could keep it going.

It was eventually spoiled when someone from the neighboring company witnessed the new guy entering the 16 digit code and pointed out the code was only 4 digits. As this was happening, it was witnessed by one of the architects and his cry of "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" could be heard throughout the floor.

<comment><USER4> Let's see:

Relatively harmless? Check.

Relatively undemeaning? Check.

Non-trivial amount of effort? Check.

Decent prank? Check.

<comment><USER5> seems a bit mean to me honestly ... i mean I guess most people would raise an eyebrow at a 16-digit code but still ...

Not that nice of a way to say "Welcome to the team"

<comment><USER4> You'll notice I said "relatively" twice there. I still think it's iffy... but as pranks go it's decent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Was very disappointed when I realized that I had misread the URL...

This is not in fact a Startup Pranking website as I had thought.

<comment><USER7> Same thing here, "Oh man, I can't wait to send them a million new fake visitors!"

-Fake techcruch article generator

-Automated fake VC calls

<comment><USER8> Ala Expertsexchange.com

<comment><USER9> It's a radical and irreversible procedure. You should go to an expert.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have no qualms with the address, it says exactly what the site does. Perhaps people should read thoroughly.

What I have qualms with though, is that you got my country flag wrong. You put a Zambian flag on Zimbabwe.

<comment><USER11> I think it's due to the fact that the human brain does not work linearly, like a lexer. It recognises patterns of letters. And once you've seen the word 'pranker', it's hard to un-see. I think it's a particular problem with web addresses because you know there will be several words joined together without spaces, so you're already starting by trying to identify clumps rather than reading words. Plus web addresses often contain made-up words.

<comment><USER10> Or it could just be that these days people just scheme through text. Just reading from left to right, you'd auto complete 'startup' and honestly without another 'p' ranker auto completes itself too. Which is why I am inclined to think that people are just scheming through words now.

<comment><USER12> The brain does not read linearly from left to right, letter by letter. Unless you're 3 years old, you see a word and parse - or rather, pattern-match - <USER2> as a whole. And the matches depend heavily on whatever is in your head (that's how context and anchoring work).

I too, initially, read it as "startup pranking", even though there's only one "p" in the domain name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can mailchimp be considered a startup still?

Also, why can't we just look at the Alexa stats for this?

<comment><USER14> Not sure about MailChimp but Alexa is not very accurate when it comes to traffic data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow India comes right after US under countries, it would be interesting to see what the startup growth has been in the past two years

</comment><comment><USER16> Based on the data points used, doesn't this just simply favor startups that are more adept at SEO/SEM and social media?

</comment><comment><USER17> Startup RANK = boring. Startup PRANK = fun. Needless to say I was disappointed.

<comment><USER18> startu Prank - silly startup name for startup helping you to organize your pranking activities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wanted to see some clever startup pranks. Disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER19> [http://www.startupranking.com/startupranking](http://www.startupranking.com/startupranking)

</comment><comment><USER20> It's cool that you can put an aircraft into space and still be categorized as a startup.

</comment><comment><USER11> [http://listverse.com/2007/08/01/top-10-silly-website- names/](http://listverse.com/2007/08/01/top-10-silly-website-names/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Heh it really says something about the current macro tech environment when that URL is misread and then everyone is actually disappointed when the site loads and it's not about startup idea pranks.

</comment><comment><USER22> Seeing these comments I think website address does matter in some cases.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is this intended to be searchable? It appears it only shows the top few.

Seeing the whole list and offering filtering options might make it a better tool for comparing social uptake and similar things.

</comment><comment><USER24> I first thought this was some site about pranking startups...

</comment><comment><USER25> [http://www.startupranking.com/nginx](http://www.startupranking.com/nginx) is a startup?

<comment><USER26> Nginx Inc. is a 4-year-old Bay Area tech company that's raised $33 million in 3 funding rounds. Sounds like a typical SV startup to me.

<comment><USER25> Learn something new every day :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> very basic question. where does the list of startups come from and how do you know what country a startup belongs to? making a list like this is harder than you think, so im curious to hear how these guys address it.

</comment><comment><USER28> The URL seems like it has something to do with pranking :)

</comment><comment><USER29> ThinkGeek is ranked higher than AirBnb. Sounds legit!

</comment><comment><USER30> ...Because Klout was such a wildly-popular success?

</comment><comment><USER31> Start upranking what? Is this for a game?</comment>


Ask HN: Any way to view Y Combinator Applications? - <AUTHOR>

I've seen Dropbox's application, but I'm wondering if any other YC applications have been made public? <comment><USER2> Look through search results for "our ycombinator application" - [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22our+ycombinator+applicati...](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22our+ycombinator+application%22)</comment>


The world's biggest book club - k-mcgrady http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/09/books-and-internet

<comment><USER3> I'm an avid goodreads-user, mostly to exchange book-recommendations and find books to read via the recommendation-engine.

Some gripes with the page:

\- people are too nice, every single book seems to have a 4/5 rating - <AUTHOR> positive reviews to boot! I've read at least 5 shitty (not only shitty - <USER2> badly written, terrible characters, amateur work) books that had a plethora of positive reviews on goodreads. Weighted reviews, or weighting users' votes based on how much they vote might help.

\- The recommendation-engine is quite conservative: I usually get books recommended that are insanely similar to the ones I like, or even from the same authors (or books that I've usually already read). I got around 160 books rated now. I don't get any far-flung recommendations, like, for example, "you seem to like freaky stuff (Cosmic Bandidos) so here's Ass Goblins of Auschwitz."

\- and one issue Goodreads can't do anything about: Would be nice to have Kindle-integration to track reading-progress, right now Kindles (afaik) only have Facebook/Twitter-integration, which is useless to me.

Also interesting to see that the majority of users (I see) use their real names for their accounts, and I don't think goodreads actually enforces this. How did they do that?

<comment><USER4> The Kindle integration brings up an interesting issue, which is that Amazon doesn't seem to really be investing in the Kindle SDK. Last I used it anyway, it's not very powerful, doesn't give you any integration with books, access to the web browser, etc. And that's if you do get access to the SDK, I know devs who've had a hell of a time getting in, even with genuinely interesting ideas.

Of course there are privacy concerns, but it's the same problem that Android and iOS and solved well enough. Maybe they're worried about poorly written apps draining the battery? I think they're missing out on a huge opportunity. But another explanation would be that the current Kindle SDK isn't planned to last - maybe future eInk Kindles will run a watered-down version of Android?

<comment><USER3> Another point to add to this is that as far as I know, the Kindle Browser still hasn't made it past "experimental" state, and has been in development since the Kindle 3 (I think), without anything being changed or added.

Switching to Android seems more likely than pouring money into home-grown apps.</comment></comment></comment>


Where Dutch directness comes from - rwx<comment> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180131-where-dutch-directness-comes-from </comment><comment><AUTHOR>
      > We chose our seats and waited, but the waiter was nowhere to be seen.
      > When he finally materialised, seemingly out of nowhere, he didn't ask 'What would you like to order', or 'What can I get you?'.
      > He said 'What do you want?'.
      > Maybe it was the fact that he'd said it in English, or maybe he was just having a bad day, but I was shocked nonetheless.

This is a direct translation of the Dutch "wat wilt u hebben?" which is in fact rather polite. The above anecdote is just a case of a waiter who hasn't yet learned the nuances of English ("What do you want?" is something you'd say to someone bothering you)

      > "I think the Netherlands are a place where… no-one is going to pretend.
      > [For example], when you say something in a business meeting that is not a very smart suggestion, people will always point it out," he said.

I'd say this is true.

      > "You don't talk too loudly on the train because it's not too nice for the people in your compartment; you don't play your music too loud in your apartment because it's not so nice for your neighbours; there is this constant calibrating of your own behaviour," Coates explained.
      > But in the Netherlands, there is "the sense that people have the right to say whatever they want and be as direct as they want. And if other people don't like that, it's their fault for getting offended."

This paragraph conflates being a decent and considerate human being with being direct. We (the Dutch) could do the former better, there's no excuse for being loud or noisy on a train and it has nothing to do with being direct.

      > "You sit in a restaurant with a friend and they will happily, in a room full of strangers, talk quite loudly about their medical problems or their parents' divorce or their love life.
      > They see no reason to keep it a secret."

I'd say this is true, I do this. I don't care what people around me think about me (but I do go out of my way not to inconvenience people.

      > But Breukel disagrees with the premise that the Dutch don't have taboo topics.
      > "We don't discuss salaries, we don't discuss pensions.

Might be a generational thing, I do discuss this.

<comment><USER2> I once went for the first time to visit a Dutch acquaintance and before I entered the bathroom for a shower I was asked "not to take a long shower because of the electricity costs."

Dutch directness at its finest.

<comment><USER3> I am Dutch and I would also need a moment to process that request. I would never ask a guest to shower short because of the energy cost. Unless, of course, they stick around for a year and tend to shower for 2 hours each day. This is more about being frugal than being Dutch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In all honesty, a lot of this "directness" comes down to the fact that literal translations sound a lot harsher in English than what the non-native speaker necessarily meant.

In Denmark there's the same sort of experience by foreigners, and I've heard it happens in Germany as well.

The situation is that in the local language, there's a lot subtlety that simply gets lost in translation.

You can probably throw a little culturally bluntness on it as well, but the majority is down to translation.

<comment><USER5> I don't think so.

For your argument to hold, the Dutch (or Danish or Germans) should be perceived as more polite when speaking English, yet they aren't.

Either this or they all speak bad English (which is unlikely due to speaking other Germanic languages and getting 50% of their colloquial American English via Netflix and/or Hollywood)

<comment><USER6> I spend a lot of time talking about engineering problems, the word 'failure' now means something very specific to me. It means 'didn't work as intended'. If my cup leaks a bit, that is failure. Often things fail for very good reasons.

That is really, really different from what failure means in everyday English, which is much closer to 'somebody didn't succeed due to a neglect of duty'. I usually regret the times I use the word failure in conversation, because in my head it has come to mean something that is really quite mild. I typically can't convey that to a normal listener if I reflexively slip it into a conversation.

Maybe a literal translation from another language loses subtlety and becomes harsher following a similar principle? Each word has a range of meanings, and the closest word in a different language won't ever quite cover the same ground.

<comment><USER7> This is, of course, also true.

However, at least in the case of the Dutch, there is more to it than that. The Dutch have no problems saying "that's not right" whether they say that in Dutch or English, that particular phrase translates to the same thing (Dat klopt niet vs that's not right). And they have no problems (in general) saying that to a stranger, their boss, or their subordinate.

<comment><USER8> Who would have a problem stating "that's not right" if something is indeed wrong? Americans seem to have no problems to say this either.

The only case I could come up with is Indians. But maybe that's just my experience with cheap outsourcing...

<comment><USER7> Well, the author of the article is assumedly from the UK. In general, this is not what they would say. They would say something like "respectfully, I'm not sure that's correct". One is a lot more "direct" than the other.

<comment><USER8> Do people actually say that in their daily lives? I thought that's only IT Crowd over-the-top joke :|

<comment><USER9> More like "Are you sure? I'm worried that <opposite of thing interlocutor just said>." or "Sorry, I think it's actually <opposite>". Both in an apologetic tone. The word "respectfully" sounds like it's trying too hard: it's a bit overtly subordinate and ingratiating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > My Dutch teacher later explained that the Dutch are very direct – and > nowhere are they so direct as they are in Amsterdam.

That's weird, I always hear that people in Rotterdam are the most direct ones within Netherlands.

It's funny to read this article where someone gives an example that instead of giving loads of reasons to see a doctor you should ask to see a doctor. To me it's entirely strange you don't just ask for it. It comes across as being not too bright (why don't you conclude this yourself instead of talking endlessly about it with me).

I work with Danish people, they're pretty direct as well. It quite frustrates me if there's some issue and someone keeps on complaining/discussing with random people instead of raising it with the person who has the ability to make a change. I highly appreciate my style of working.

I've worked with people from all over the world and likely annoyed quite a few of them. That said, usually once they grasp that they can tell me things straightforwardly they tend to appreciate it.

<comment><USER11> In Rotterdam and The Hague they're probably more direct, but the people in Amsterdam are just better at PR and marketing themselves :-)

<comment><USER12> Rotterdam? Don't you mean Amsterdam-Harbor?

<comment><USER13> Amsterdam has its own harbour, thank you very much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not Dutch that are direct. It's Brits that are indirect. As one lad from England told me: "If you cycle to work, forget to shower and stinks, no one would say anything to you, but they would report you to the manager :)"

<comment><USER15> Brit here — I've twice in my career encountered this, once as a youngling, once as a director — both times were broached directly and covertly with the ..er.. offending parties.

I'm from the North, if that makes any difference. I do tend to view Southerners as generally a bit less direct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> From the Dutch point of view, other cultures are just needlessly beating around the bush constantly.

<comment><USER17> Not all of them. I miss working with Finns.

<comment><USER18> Lol, yes, I always loved working with the Finns. I am Dutch myself, so pretty direct, but the Finns take it up to a different level. I remember a business meeting for which I traveled to Helsinki. After a 1 minute intro, our customer spoke uninterrupted for 20 minutes, explaining in great detail why our product completely sucked. It was very useful actually, because the feedback was factual and demonstrated a great understanding of the problem. There was no time wasting or sugarcoating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> To the Americans - you guys are very direct too, in my experience (compared to the Irish and English), perhaps that's why you haven't noticed it in the Netherlands?

<comment><USER20> I think you haven't experienced Dutch directness if you think Americans are direct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I moved to the Netherlands from the UK (where nothing happens without someone saying "please" or "are you sure ?" at least two times) year ago.

Dutch directnesss was something that would freeze the blood in my veins at first but after getting the hang of it, i've come to enjoy it (they can be direct but another good thing is you can be direct back), because if they don't have patience for BS, neither do i.

</comment><comment><USER22> _Breukel advised me to start with the subject – for example, 'I would like an appointment' – instead of listing all the reasons why I should see the doctor._

Interesting, because that's how it's expected to be done where I come from(Poland). Even "better" \- the person on the other end will often interrupt you with a follow-up question to the the statement you hesitated to say.

</comment><comment><USER23> It has been asserted by adherents to certain political groups that their voices are being suppressed by the establishment. E.g the alt right. If that is true and the article's premise is true, "Dutch people have the right to say whatever they want and be as direct as they want. And if other people don't like that, it's their fault for getting offended." then it must be so that open support for alt right is much stronger than in the Netherlands than in Britain.

But alt right is (afaik) much stronger in Britain than in the Netherlands. It follows that Dutch people either aren't as direct as the article claims or that alt right sentiment isn't being suppressed.

<comment><USER7> Your argument is based on incorrect assumptions.

You are assuming that the only reason for _not_ being in the alt-right, is the fear of offending someone. I would argue that this is exactly the inverse in real life.

If issues are discussed openly, then you often find that you can reach a middle ground through discussion.

The second premise is also incorrect, since there _is_ a large alt-right faction in the Netherlands. To all intents and purposes the second largest political party is an alt-right party.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm a Yorkshireman. We have a reputation within the UK for being plain-spoken and direct as well. It goes without saying that I prefer it to "mealy-mouthed" speech that doesn't get to the point.

</comment><comment><USER25> (TL;DR: "And although I may complain about Dutch directness, I'm grateful to live in a country that allows me to be just that." You're living in Amsterdam [1], not The Netherlands.)

I am from The Netherlands and I'd say this article paints a bit rose-tinted glasses plus anecdotal evidence so allow me to present a can of nuances.

For example, the directness phenomenon isn't as widespread as it is everywhere in The Netherlands. I'm originally from the more rural south (a Catholic area) and its very much different than where I live now (Amsterdam Area). South is more.. "Burgundian" and less direct. Both have their charms but its annoying when outsiders equal Amsterdam or (big cities in) Holland with The Netherlands.

An example where directness backfires: when I go to a restaurant in Germany or when I get my train ticket checked in Germany I feel treated more like a gentleman. _Service_ is flat out better over there. I'd suggest to consider this to be attributed to "Deutsche Gründlichkeit" but I'm not so arrogant to assume there are no other possible reasons. Anthropology is rather complex...

Another example of rose-tinted glasses is "Many of the older houses in the Netherlands have big windows, allowing visitors – if they so wish – to peep inside." everywhere I look there's tools used to close the windows be it small or large. And they're often used. Another typical thing in The Netherlands is that gardens are walled to denote which part is who's.

Or this one: "The Netherlands is unique in the way it treats topics such as prostitution, drugs and euthanasia." Perhaps the 3 of them as a package, but Christian CDA made mushrooms illegal in the '00s, coffeeshops are getting closed and are not allowed to be too close to schools (good luck with dense areas), and the Red Light District is less red nowadays. A country like Portugal also has decriminalized drugs. Euthenasia is also getting adopted more often in other countries (let us not forget Belgium and Canada [2]), and btw it has very strict rules in The Netherlands. The Christians dislike it as well.

"Proverbs such as 'Doe maar normaal, dan ben je al gek genoeg' (just be normal, that's already crazy enough) or 'Stek je hoofd niet boven het maaiveld uit' (don't put your head above the ground) are there to remind us that we are all the same." These stem very much from Calvinism.

Leo Blokhuis made a 8 part series "Achter De Dijken" about Calvinism in The Netherlands [3]. I found it very good. It is in Dutch and probably geolocked to be only available for Dutch IPs, but series like these should work over VPN or be available on Usenet. Also, other public broadcast television might've bought the rights and provided translation, I don't know. Maybe it is even possible to suggest it to your public broadcast TV station? Even that series, however, is a caricature/generalisation.

[1] Or as others provided with nuance: "a big city in Holland"

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

[3] [https://www.kro-ncrv.nl/achterdedijken](https://www.kro- ncrv.nl/achterdedijken)

<comment><USER26> I wonder how popular downloading via Usenet is outside of The Netherlands, where me and my friends shared an account in high school. Here in Japan it seems no-one is using it (for downloading).

<comment><USER25> As per [1] the tier 1 providers are practically all located in the USA and The Netherlands.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/usenet/wiki/providers](https://www.reddit.com/r/usenet/wiki/providers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "and nowhere are they so direct as they are in Amsterdam"

Rotterdam is a lot more direct than Amsterdam.

</comment><comment><USER28> from an american in Amsterdam, i've never experienced this directness thing...

<comment><USER29> Same for me (I'm Italian).

Sometimes I wonder if this directness thing isn't just a myth started by the British, for whom the norm is politeness often verging on pure and simple hypocrisy.

<comment><USER2> I don't think it is necessarily hypocrisy, there are several ways to tell the truth.

When one cannot be polite, soft spoken, considerate, or just lacks tact, one can always go the Dutch way. Why bother?

<comment><USER29> I can only point you to the famous British English - rest of the world conversion table:

[https://bridgesandtangents.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/engli...](https://bridgesandtangents.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/english1.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The people I have offended this way is crazy... it's not meant as an insult, but as the article states "what do you want" is already shocking, so just imagine if anything more direct is asked. :(

<comment><USER9> If you're looking for advice here, most people will be much more forgiving if you open with something like "I'm afraid this isn't my first language, forgive me if I get things wrong", delivered with a sunny smile, as one of the first things you say. (I'm a Brit; this is intended for speaking to Brits.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> As a German, I wonder if the Dutch beat us in regards to directness. Anyone can compare? I've actually never been to the Netherlands.

<comment><USER32> I feel the Dutch are a lot more casual about it and less grumpy. Germans are direct when unhappy about something ("don't be so loud", "get your feet of the seats"), but are much more likely to stare disapprovingly. Dutch are also more direct when talking about themselves/their feelings - you would never hear a German say "my new haircut looks great"

<comment><USER31> Interesting, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's not entirely true that the Dutch are always honest and direct.

I think that the real key to Dutch etiquette is efficiency. If it makes things go faster, it's good. You hold a door open for someone (irrespective of gender) only if it's efficient for both of you to do so. Directness is more efficient than beating around the bush, honesty is more efficient than a comfortable lie when it concerns an issue that's going to have to be dealt with at some point. Picking fights with people is not efficient. That's a waste of everybody's time.

      > when you say something in a business meeting that is not a very smart suggestion, people will always point it out," he said.

Because it's inefficient to waste time on a stupid idea.

      > "You don't talk too loudly on the train because it's not too nice for the people in your compartment; you don't
      > play your music too loud in your apartment because it's not so nice for your neighbours; there is this constant
      > calibrating of your own behaviour," Coates explained. But in the Netherlands, there is "the sense that people
      > have the right to say whatever they want and be as direct as they want. And if other people don't like that,
      > it's their fault for getting offended."

I disagree. Most Dutch also don't talk loudly on the train. In fact, the Dutch are pretty good at minding their own business and ignoring whatever other people are doing. Bothering other people with your business is wasting their time. Of course jerks exist, but excessive noise is usually not appreciated.

      > One time, I found myself at the supermarket staring with disbelief at the groceries that had spilled out of my
      > hands onto the floor. Within seconds, I was surrounded by no fewer than 10 Dutch people, all of them giving me
      > advice on what to do. But not one lifted a finger. To me, the situation was obvious: I needed help immediately.
      > But the Dutch saw it differently: unless I specifically asked for help, it probably wasn't necessary.

This may actually be a case of politeness. Maybe you've got everything under control and are perfectly capable of picking up your own things. If not, people stand ready to help, but if you don't ask, they will assume you don't need help. They don't want to intrude on your business unasked. Unless it becomes obvious that you do need help (but the Bystander Effect can be strong).

      > "Calvinism dictated the individual responsibility for moral salvage from the sinful world through introspection,
      > total honesty, soberness, rejection of 'pleasure' as well as the 'enjoyment' of wealth,"

Yet the Dutch do like to relax and enjoy themselves. We're world champions at part-time work, and hate the 50-hour weeks that Americans too often work. In fact, I don't think any country in Europe works less hours per year than we do. We don't want to waste time on silly nonsense, unless it's silly nonsense that we enjoy.

Though if there's one taboo, it's definitely conspicuous displays of wealth. Millionaires better pretend they're normal people like the rest of us. We've always been a very egalitarian society. Even in the 18th century, our transport network of river barges transported all passengers in the same cabin, whether they were nobility or peasants.

      > This straightforwardness is so intrinsic in Dutch society that there's even a Dutch word for it:
      > bespreekbaarheid (speakability) – that everything can and should be talked about; there are no taboo topics.

Not entirely. A topic can be "bespreekbaar", but it's technically also possible for a topic to be "onbespreekbaar": not up for discussion. Usually, people tend to want to make things "bespreekbaar", because that enables honest discussion and more efficient sharing of information, but there are exceptions.

      > Many of the older houses in the Netherlands have big windows, allowing visitors – if they so wish – to peep inside.

But it's rude if you actually do it. Many houses do have curtains to create privacy, but even if they don't, it's not okay to go peeping into other people's windows. That's intruding on other people's business again.

      > "You sit in a restaurant with a friend and they will happily, in a room full of strangers, talk quite
      > loudly about their medical problems or their parents' divorce or their love life. They see no reason to
      > keep it a secret."

_If_ it's something they want to discuss. If the topic needs to be addressed for whatever reason, they address it.

      > "We don't discuss salaries, we don't discuss pensions. Anything to do with luxury. We don't talk about how
      > beautiful our house is. We don't discuss how big our car is,"

Not quite. Conspicuous displays of wealth are not done. Showing off a nice house is totally fine, as long as you don't present it as evidence you're better than others. Salaries used to be taboo, because differences in pay smell of class differences, but that's changing, because clearly salary negotiations are more efficient if you know what your coworkers get.

<comment><USER33> This is the part of it that I like and hold on to. No ceremony, straight to the point. What I wouldn't mind losing is the needlessly giving opinions about everything. Especially commenting on what could be better when it concerns things that can hardly be changed at all. If nobody's asking, keep it to yourself, unless you're confident you're adding something to the conversation. In my experience, most opinions come out when there's nothing else to talk about.

<comment><USER13>
      > What I wouldn't mind losing is the needlessly giving opinions about everything. Especially
      > commenting on what could be better when it concerns things that can hardly be changed at all.

Is that specifically a Dutch thing? I definitely do that.

<comment><USER33> Hard to say, but it's just a different kind of outspokenness. I mostly became aware of it when staying in Central/Eastern European countries. Communism has taught people there to be hesitant to give their opinion, even more so when not asked for it. It certainly helped to tone it down a bit myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> "...people have the right to say whatever they want and be as direct as they want. And if other people don't like that, it's their fault for getting offended."

Hear hear.

<comment><USER35> I only know 3 Dutch people. 2 are polite, intelligent, reliable and an absolute pleasure to deal with. The other is a complete asshole.

Guess which of them lives by the mantra of being 'as direct as they want'?

<comment><USER36> I wonder if they feel the same way about you.

<comment><USER35> In 2 cases, I certainly hope so. With the other guy, I couldn't care less.

edited...

<comment><USER37> So with the 2 nice persons you hope they don't feel the same way? Interesting ;)

<comment><USER35> Yeah, now I have had time to put my brain in gear. ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Jonathan Blow on Software Quality - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k56wra39lwA <comment><USER2> Having this guy debate with Andrei Alexandrescu would be extremely interesting.</comment>