Fake celebrity porn is blowing up on Reddit, thanks to artificial intelligence - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/24/16929148/fake-celebrity-porn-ai-deepfake-face-swapping-artificial-intelligence-reddit <comment><USER2> > We assume, too, that face swapping is the end game, but it's clearly just > the beginning.

Isn't the end game an endless stream of personalized content for everyone? Wherein the entire corpus of human-created media becomes a training set for our fantasies.

It is interesting how entertainment is again pushing the boundary of technology. Soon enough this push to make face editing tools for porn more accessible to everyone will allow anyone to:

1) Replace their ex-husband's face in their old family videos with their new husband's face.

2) Create a viral video of Donald Trump murdering someone.

3) Be the star of their favourite movie, porn or otherwise. (What's the effect this would have on people's memories, when they actively see themselves doing everything James Bond does, for instance? Shooting people, being generally powerful, and "getting the girl"?)

<comment><USER3> Things are going to get very weird in porn, when you don't have convince a human to actually do it. I have to assume that early adopters will also be people with predilections which are unserved, or illegal. If people worry about their kids seeing disturbing porn now, imagine when it's AI generated, photorealistic rape, snuff, child porn. Illegal or not, if it's purely virtual law enforcement is going to focus on the subset of crimes which involve actual human victims.

<comment><USER4> > If people worry about their kids seeing disturbing porn now, imagine when > it's AI generated, photorealistic rape, snuff, child porn.

There was a time when it was quite easy to find (without even trying for that specific content) photorealistic rape, snuff, bestiality, and child porn on the public web, without any AI involved.

> Illegal or not, if it's purely virtual law enforcement is going to focus on > the subset of crimes which involve actual human victims.

Actual prosecutions for virtual (generally not photorealistic) child porn in various jurisdictions demonstrate that this is not a hard and fast rule.

<comment><USER5> Animations or fiction of obscene content are not illegal in the US and Japan. They are illegal in the UK (a man was sentenced for Simpsons's porn) and many other countries.

Now with added realism, these lines could become blurry and we could see some of these issues brought up again.

<comment><USER6> > Animations or fiction of obscene content are not illegal in the US

Citation please. There is nowhere near enough precedent to draw such a conclusion in the US. The defendants in these cases often end up pleading guilty.

US v Hanley, US v Red Rose Stories, etc.

<comment><USER5> Hmm .. seems things have changed quite a bit since I last read up on this. It seems to vary by state:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_drawn_pornogra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_drawn_pornography_depicting_minors#United_States)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Technology is degrading the value of photo and video evidence (and probably audio too) asymptotically toward that of famously unreliable testimony from memory. Criminality becomes less risky and/or innocence becomes less protective. Law becomes less effective. A bad result, to the extent that the law isn't an ass.

On the plus side artistic tools that help materialize internal life become more effective. We can interact with our dreams and fantasies more readily, to potentially therapeutic benefit.

It's hard to say whether this trend holds more danger or promise.

<comment><USER8> I wouldn't be that pessimistic just yet. It's yet possible that new advances in authentication technology might counteract some of these trends.

<comment><USER9> What do you mean "authentication technology"? Tamper detection? The ability to see that a tool was used? It may slow things down, but this is an arms race.

<comment><USER10> > What do you mean "authentication technology"?

Cryptographic signatures. Ie every frame in a video is signed with a 512-bit key that states authoritatively what camera was the source of the video and when it was taken. In order to change any pixels in the video you'd break this key and need to resign it. An attacker would be unable to do this unless they had physical access to the original camera.

But it'll be at least 3 decades before this technology is commercialized, people see the demand for it, and the majority of all cameras in the world are replaced by it. Even if this new tech is on the market in a decade (simple tech, no demand / ecosystem yet), but 90% of existing / installed cameras don't have the feature then fake videos still get created with them. Only once ~80% of videos are authenticated, and a significant portion of the remaining 20% are fakes will people be able to dismiss non authenticated video. Up until then it's fakes non-stop.

We've got some ugly decades coming up.

<comment><USER11> What's to keep you from adding the key to a camera after falsely generating the media? Or using the key of a known camera to generate false footage?

<comment><USER10> So spitballing, my assumption is that it'd end up looking something like SSL certificate chains today. In the situation you mentioned:

1\. The attacker wouldn't have access to the original cameras private key. 2\. The attacker creates a fake video, creates a private key and signs the video with the key 3\. The attacker tries to install the key into a camera

Step 3 has to be made impossible. Meaning that a camera becomes a trusted entity and only allowed parties (ex the camera manufacturer) has the authority to insert a private key into a camera. This would be that after installing a camera with a new private key, the key would then need to be signed with the manufacturer's private key and also stored in the camera. This shows the manufacturer is responsible for the contents of the video. If someone tries to change the camera's private key it would no longer match what the manufacturer signed.

Which yes then means we need to have authorized camera manufactures and a process for certificate revocation and all of that.

The exact opposite of "free and open" for recording devices - and the only way we aren't flooded with fake videos flooding and seriously impacting society. We have to want this if we want to still have a concept of video evidence in either the justice or social spheres.

<comment><USER8> This isn't a completely technical problem, there's not going to be an air- tight technical solution.

I think, at this point, anything more than the camera having a secure device- generated key that it uses to sign its output and produce watermarks is overthinking it. That will add a nearly insurmountable barrier many classes of forgery, namely one were a forger claims to have a photo taken with your camera.

You also have to remember a significant class of photo-forgery would involve images that are claimed to originate from a camera the attacker controls. For instance, forged video of a robbery from a security camera. That could, in some cases, be defeated by observing that the images have authentication information _they shouldn 't have_ (such as traces of watermarks from other cameras).

At the end of the day, forgeries will be spotted by observing that they have subtle errors that don't add up. That's how it's always been done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The was a pretty good discussion yesterday in /r/cyberpunk about the possible consequences of this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Cyberpunk/comments/7sexm6/deepfakes...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cyberpunk/comments/7sexm6/deepfakes_porn_fakery_realistically_pasting/)

> The subreddit /r/Deepfakes became very active very fast and new deepfakes > are submitted every day with varying degrees of realism. The most scary part > is that ANYONE can be deepfaked, not just celebrities. Provided you have the > right hardware (because neural networks demand beefy video cards for > training) you could train a model of your friend and paste her face onto a > porn video and boom. All you have to do is download a browser extension that > downloads all photos from someone's instagram and work from there. Nobody is > safe from this.

> I think this here is as cyberpunk as it gets. The technology is 4 months old > and has already yielded extremely realistic results. Think of what we will > have one year from now. Something like this matches both the high tech and > the low life aspect of the cyberpunk genre.

EDIT: Pasted the wrong link.

<comment><USER13> Revenge porn doesn't even need to be real anymore to terrorize someone. A celeb has plausible deniability when it comes to stuff like this. But an average person whose career is on the line?

<comment><USER14> Now they can just say, "oh, I've been deepfaked" and move on. In many ways this will be psychologically liberating for many victims of revenge porn.

<comment><USER15> That assumes a really high level of technology literacy from the people the fake is being used to deceive. That simply isn't going to be true, probably ever. It's already easy to convince people of transparent falsehoods, plausible faked video evidence will make it worse.

It's the "Give me six lines written by the most honest man in the world, and I will find enough in them to hang him" problem except now it's "give me six photos of the most honest man and I will convince everyone he loves to abandon him".

There are notable examples of harassment mobs forming and never dissipating off of really scant "evidence", things like accusing school shooting parents of being "crisis actors" or long harassment campaigns based on flimsy claims that a woman slept around. It's disgusting.

School bullying leading to suicides is already bad enough, what about when teens are sending forged porn of each other around? Or to classmates' parents to get them in trouble?

<comment><USER16> > That assumes a really high level of technology literacy from the people the > fake is being used to deceive.

Counterpoint: "photoshopped" is a dictionary word.

<comment><USER14> It only took 8 years for people to become Bitcoin experts.

<comment><USER16> What year is that going to happen?

<comment><USER14> It was a somewhat tongue in cheek comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> When I look at the future, I think back at these videos.

Hells Club:

Part 1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QajyNRnyPMs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QajyNRnyPMs)

Part 2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYlTtA7-ks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYlTtA7-ks)

Where I would like this to go. Is either being able to take scenes from different films and create mashups like this.

Or perhaps, getting a whole bunch of extras. Narrating lines and acting in- front of basic sets with green screens. Then putting the faces of recognizable actors and using something like Lyrebird for the voices. Where actors have sold the rights of their faces, voices and personality for cheap.

Now you have a $100m movie for the cost of $100k.

A similar premise of the film: The Congress.

\-----

I really think in about 5 years, when the software is there and the dedicated IaaS to train the sets is commonly available. We'll start to see some really cool stuff.

<comment><USER18> 10 years out, who are the 'recognizable actors'? Do they just keep recycling the same ones?

<comment><USER19> Let's just say that the decision for who to play James Bond will be even more interesting.

<comment><USER20> Indeed: [https://gfycat.com/ConfusedScratchyCowbird](https://gfycat.com/ConfusedScratchyCowbird)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So I clicked the link in the article (for science, so you don't have to) and I'm blown away. People are doing this on home computer rigs? I thought I was going to find some really crappy paste jobs but instead I found myself having to completely second guess what I was seeing. Some of the videos of course suffer from odd minor defects that give up their authenticity but others were flat out as real as anything else I've ever seen.

Now I'm concerned about the implications of this. We already know any image can be faked and almost any video but we also laugh at people who say the moon landings were faked. Given this though how could anyone believe video evidence of say, the president with Stormy Daniels, which is a matter of unfortunate import with real consequences?

How hard would it be to fake an international incident from multiple vantage points?

<comment><USER22> I've taken some machine learning classes and I've played with TensorFlow a bit. None of this was a big surprise to me.

But the overall implications are deeply troubling. I am tempted to say we're not entering a "post-truth" era, but more like a "post-reason" era. It's almost like rational thought has painted itself in a corner. These videos are almost like a mathematical "proof" too complex to be independently verified, or too complex for a human (and those are happening too).

If reason is hitting a ceiling, I'm not sure what else we could use to steer a coherent society through whatever murky waters might lay ahead.

<comment><USER23> You go from rule-based thinking to feedback-based interaction. Part of the picture is described by the old saw about international politics: "No permanent allies, only permanent interests."

I do believe we are entering what I call a "trans-rational" era. There are stable strange attractors beyond the Age of Reason. Our technology is forcing us to confront the questions of who we are and what we want to do with ourselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've been thinking about this for a long while. I think this is good.

With face recognition, old pictures you might have posted online are very easy to find. Some ex-boyfriend shared a naked picture of you? You are screwed.

Now, you can simply say that it is a deepfake. Everyone will have naked pictures of "themselves" online, even if they are fake.

<comment><USER25> I agree - taking this even further, why would you consume these pictures in the first place, if you can just deepfake them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Non-NSFW sample: [https://www.reddit.com/r/deepfakes/comments/7sjkw5/ilm_fixed...](https://www.reddit.com/r/deepfakes/comments/7sjkw5/ilm_fixed_that_for_you_edition/)

> Top is original footage from Rogue One with a strange CGI Carrie Fisher. > Movie budget: $200m

> Bottom is a 20 minute fake that could have been done in essentially the same > way with a visually similar actress. My budget: $0 and some Fleetwood Mac > tunes

<comment><USER27> Can you explain what's going on here?

Specifically, I don't understand this sentence:

> Bottom is a 20 minute fake that could have been done in essentially the same > way with a visually similar actress.

<comment><USER28> Accuracy depends on some sort of match between host face and desired face. In this example, the host face was the cgi face which is obviously already very close to the desired face. If filming from scratch and skipping cgi, you need to pick a good host face.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> First step towards this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6272626#6272744](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6272626#6272744)

</comment><comment><USER30> A quote that struck me from previous discussion on the topic:

@ekimekim 44 days ago

"We've already seen this with images and Photoshop. Society and their heuristics of belief will adjust as these new capabilities become widespread.

What's more troubling is that as media becomes falsifiable, solid evidence of...well, anything, becomes hard to have.

The ultimate loser there is the truth, sadly."

</comment><comment><USER31> The inevitable outcome is that no recorded media will be taken at face value unless there is immense proof in some way of its veracity.

In the short term, this will probably lead to all kinds of terrible things (kids getting bullied through computer generated imagery of them, people being fired for videos of them saying things they never said, jealous spurned lovers attempting to break apart marriages with fake videos, etc.)

In the long term, it might actually be a good thing - instilling a strong sense of caution for anything that claims to be recorded from the real world.

<comment><USER19> How do you hold people accountable for bad behavior (e.g. police behaving poorly when making an arrest or traffic stop) when the video evidence is viewed as "easily faked"? I mean, eyewitness testimony has been proven many times to be faulty, but presumably someone with an axe to grind (and some AWS credits?) could make fake videos of all sorts of bad things _from multiple perspectives_.

Scary indeed.

<comment><USER32> Cameras that digitally sign each frame?

<comment><USER33> All that does is link that frame to [a key in] the particular camera. It doesn't verify that the frame was "real" in some way. It defends whoever controls [the key in] that camera from _others_ secretly tampering with that frame afterwards, but it doesn't defend others from tampering by whoever controls [the key in] that camera.

Central signature verification or blockchain could verify a timestamp - i.e. prove that the frame was taken (or maliciously created) before a particular time. That's about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is... scary. The potential applications of this technology extend far beyond porn. How long until intelligence agencies are using this sort of technology to sabotage political opponents?

<comment><USER35> Low resolution security footage is about 1 year from extinction.

<comment><USER36> Who's putting up the capital to replace millions of low res cameras?

<comment><USER37> Or to build the infrastructure needed to support anything else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> An interesting angle here is the arms race between manipulation and forensics. In image forensics, clever people are using clever techniques to keep us tethered to some notion of authenticity in digital media. Like this guy: [http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/downloads/publications/wif...](http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/downloads/publications/wifs17.pdf)

These emerging video manipulation tools open new frontiers for related forensics research. In 10 years, when we see a video of someone doing something horrible, these people are perhaps our only hope of knowing whether or not what we're seeing ever happened.

</comment><comment><USER39> This seems like the beginning of a giant problem. First we had Adobe able to replicate a user's voice after listening to it for 20 to 40 minutes, now this.

I guess vein scanning is going to happen sooner or later in order for personal verification.

</comment><comment><USER40> Interesting.

It seems /r/deepfakes (NSFW) is where the content is at (I assume the article doesn't link to that, but haven't checked).

</comment><comment><USER41> Maybe one day everyone will be using cameras with a combination of digital signatures and watermarking technologies.

That said not being able to definitely classify videos between "faked" ones and "original" ones could help people suffering from revenge porn (or political manipulations)

<comment><USER10> This here seems to be the only possible way forward, other than throwing out all concept of video evidence.

All video streams (and frames) are signed / watermarked with the source that recorded them. Video editing now becomes impossible without showing a change in ownership.

Unfortunately it will be a long number of decades until we can successfully replace the majority of cameras with these new ones that society doesn't yet have reason to understand the need for.

<comment><USER42> Strong authentication might protect video in news and court contexts. But I don't see how it'd help for celebrity porn, revenge porn, and other contexts where there is no authenticated original. Unless all the originals were authenticated. But that'd require mandatory authentication on all recording devices, which is rather frightening from a privacy perspective.

<comment><USER10> > But that'd require mandatory authentication on all recording devices, which > is rather frightening from a privacy perspective.

Yes inherently scary, but is there a solution to still allow a user to maintain control as to when they give up their privacy?

Ex. a 3rd party escrow service that will authenticate a video belongs to a user without revealing who the user is? Or some other key sharing scheme that allows users to decide when they want to take ownership of a whistle-blower video or some other govt corruption video in a repressive country?

I'm not a public key crypto expert, but I can't imaging this is the first time user controlled authentication has been investigated. The requirement would be that everything is always signed, but (through key chaining, sharing...) a user gets to decide if they reveal their association to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Between VR and the possibility to train up person-specific porn generators, porn is only going to become more and more of a super stimulus that is too hard to resist. Best to try and quit fully now.

</comment><comment><USER44> John C. Wright, in his book _The Golden Age_ , has worked out a pretty complete picture of the ability to mold one's perception of reality to one's liking.

</comment><comment><USER45> It's interesting that the issue of ensuring authenticity might also swing into censorship too: if politicians only issued certificates for images of themselves doing good things, they can then dismiss those of them doing bad things as fake because the creator couldn't produce the cert.

<comment><USER46> You cannot allow the politician to be the same person that issues certs because then it creates a market for a politician to buy doctored images and certify them. A neutral unbiased third party must do the certs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This technology makes me afraid because it deconstructs many core value I have.

You can do plenty of things with it. Create fake porn among others. But is it ethical ? Is it ethical to create fake porn with a celebrity face ? With your ex-girlfriend's ? What about if you keep it for your own personal use ?

But then were are the limits ? What about a "teen" ? What about fake child pornography from pictures of childs you found on the internet that permit to alleviate yourself without causing any harm to others ?

I would at first think its okay if you keep it for private and own use, but then that becomes scary because we've been "trained" to think that child porn is not okay.

Don't know why this is been downvoted ?

<comment><USER48> If it makes you feel any better (it won't), this kind of thing has been possible for years.

The only difference is that now instead of using photoshop to make fake images, we can automate the process, and use it to make video. This isn't a paradigm shift, it's a change in pace.

<comment><USER49> A change in pace can create a revolution. That exactly what the industrial revolution was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is great for celebrities... From now on, if they get their phones hacked and get their private videos stolen and shared publicly, they can (plausibly) claim that it's not real.

</comment><comment><USER51> And this is why we need a verified identity system on the Internet.

With such in place you will know who created the video as their verified identity is attached to it. If there's no verified identity attached to it the video wont hold any weight. Same goes for everything done on the iNet .. you can use it anonymously where what you say or do doesn't hold much or any weight vs. commenting,posting, etc using your verified ID does.

This just one solution that could help with all the fakery on the iNet and the mayhem it brings and will continue to bring but worse.

<comment><USER52> Do you mean digital signatures?

<comment><USER51> More like a drivers license or govt issued ID card for Internet usage.

YOu can use the Internet anonymously as you always have but if you want to get your point across and ensure the veracity of whatever your posting you'll use your Internet verified ID.

Im thinking in the case of someone impersonating a public figure where the originator of the video is not the public figure its immediately labeled fake news. Also if it's revenge porn and you upload it without your identity attached to it .. it's immediately labeled fake.

<comment><USER52> You could always just digitally sign everything you put out. You can do that today. I don't see how you're proposing anything new or effective.

Besides, what you're proposing is stupid for other reasons. If I have a video of a police officer murdering someone, you're just going to say it's fake news unless that officer himself posts it? That's straight bullshit. "Government Sanctioned Truth" bullshit. The truth about a person or agency is not determined solely by what they approve of.

<comment><USER51> Govt mandated Internet identity system that you invoke when you want to ensure the veracity of what you filmed and posted. If not invoked then it's labeled fake and just created for fun or shits n giggles. It holds zero weight and all on the Internet know/understand this system like the back of their hand.

Again I am thinking of two use cases re: this solution... revenge porn and celebrity & political figure fake videos.

<comment><USER52> This doesn't solve either of those problems. Nobody is going to ensure revenge porn veracity. They will be posted online, labeled "fake" and absolutely nothing will change.

And a political figure can already just deny that the video is real. You're not preventing it from being posted, so it will be posted, and people aren't going to believe it? Simply because it wasn't approved by that politician? Again, it makes no difference. People will believe it's real because _of course that politician won 't approve of an unfavorable message._

Again, things don't become true just because someone approves of them. And things don't become fake just because nobody involved approves of them. Labels do not mean anything unless you can guarantee their accuracy. You're really not thinking this through effectively. And again, digital signatures already allow all of this to happen.

You're basically asking for an official worldwide propaganda platform, and it will no more trustworthy than the existing propaganda platforms.

<comment><USER51> \--->This doesn't solve either of those problems. Nobody is going to ensure revenge porn veracity. They will be posted online, labeled "fake" and absolutely nothing will change.<\--

That's what I am getting at ... things change 180 degrees on the Internet where no believes anything that is not posted by someone with their verified identity. Thus making revenge porn pointless. You even say they will label it fake thus no one giving a crap about some fake b.s. and it's totally and immediately disregarded.

<comment><USER52> >things change 180 degrees on the Internet where no believes anything that is not posted by someone with their verified identity

No. People will not care what identity you used to post things. Verified or unverified makes no difference unless the verification is thorough and performed by a third party. If it is self-done, then it is no different from how things are currently.

>You even say they will label it fake thus no one giving a crap about some fake b.s. and it's totally and immediately disregarded.

No. Non sequitur. You label it fake, and people will just disbelieve your label. They do not necessarily disbelieve the content.

At this point, I don't know what to tell you. Create a startup and put your money into it. Place a big bet. You can lead a horse to water, but he drowns himself.

<comment><USER51> Im talking about an internet that does not exist yet..one where theres a system in place where every iNet user can spot a fake video vs. a real one in a heartbeat or fake news vs. real.

Do you not think based off of this Face2Face technology and all the fake news this evolution needs to happen?

<comment><USER52> You're talking about something so obviously flawed I will not address it anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> After over 100 years of having a massive professional industry dedicated to creating fake sequences of images for fun and profit, another decrease in the capital needed to create films doesn't seem such a revolutionary thing.

Just like people watched that first film of the train moving towards the camera and freaked out, while today that seems quaint, humans as pattern- matchers extraordinaiers will find a way to discern the fakes.

</comment><comment><USER54> Finding the origin of contents are already a challenge these days. A random idea I have is creating a blockchain where content creators can register their creations to prove their origin. Also, camera manufacturers can get involved and build in a hardware that signs every picture and video captured by that camera which can then be registered to the blockchain.

<comment><USER55> Kodakcoin?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Well definitely black mirror but you can now recreate a passed loved one virtually.

</comment><comment><USER57> ...and the "nothing" is claiming all of Phantastica.

</comment><comment><USER58> "DNA or it didn't happen"

<comment><USER23> You can mail-order custom DNA.</comment></comment>


Show HN: VEEER – A Lightweight Window Manager for Your OS X - <AUTHOR> http://veeer.io/ <comment><USER2> Cool effort, but for me, I think this is the kind of software that needs to be F/OSS - I don't want commercial freeware peeking at my windows!

I use Spectacle: [https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle](https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle) It's okay, but glad there is a competitor now.

Good luck! Please open your source code up!

</comment><comment><USER3> Well done!

I normally use Spectacle, but I played (very) briefly with this. It has a slick installation and setup workflow. I like that it leverages the `WSAD` and arrow keys, and its options for composing those to get quarters of screens was pretty slick. Being able to drag by more than the title bar is something I've wanted _forever_.

However, right now it doesn't appear to support multiple monitors very well. When I use a Veeer shortcut, my windows are brought from whatever monitor they are on to my laptop's main screen (rather than staying on the screen they currently are on, and changing their position within the screen).

It would be neat if I could predefine areas of my screen which are asymmetrical -- e.g. 2/3 on left, 1/3 on right -- and use the corner arrangement key compositions to place my app windows in those areas. Right now, I use Spectacle's "arrange on left" (or right), and take advantage of how it will cycle between half, 1/3, and 2/3 widths when repeatedly arranging the window with the same command, but being unable to compose "right 1/3 + top half" or "right 1/3 + bottom half" has been infuriating, and is what made me so eager to try your product.

</comment><comment><USER4> The "free download" button sends me a zip file of the image used on the modal popup, not the actual application. I'm using Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER5> I installed it and enabled via security accessibility settings, but I don't get a menu bar icon? Does this work with high Sierra?

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice afford. Why exactly it is not OpenSource yet?</comment>


EU is planning to order websites to delete extremist content within 1 hour - martin-adams https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45247169 <comment><AUTHOR> "Mr King told the FT that the law would apply to small social media apps as well as the bigger players."

They are deliberately announcing a law that small upstarts will find impossible to deal with and they are deliberately announcing they intend to discriminate against them.

3 AM video while your entire team is asleep? Fined.

That is downright terrible.

<comment><USER2> You'd basically be forced to automatically take down anything that was reported to queue it for review.

<comment> martin-adams Assuming it was reported within 1 hour

<comment><USER3> From what I read the 1 hour begins counting once something is reported and they also plan to make reviews/counter claims and such mandatory as they already exist on youtube (although youtube seems to have forgot the part where it needs to work)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Expect more things like this to come along. The EU has tested the waters and confirmed that yes, it is safe to mandate that every dev team in the world perform a 2 week sprint at its whim, anytime if feels like it.

We're partially responsible, for having implemented our silly cookie popups and GDPR checkbox screens without pushing back hard enough.

<comment><USER5> This. Someone needs to teach EU bureaucrats a lesson. A second "blackout day" (similar to what was done to protest SOPA in 2014), but limited to the EU, would be a nice idea. Things like the cookie nag screens are just absurd. They will unload much more BS if they aren't stopped early on.

Honestly, as a US based company with mainly US visitors, i would simply return HTTP 451 to any EU visitors. The risk of being sued for some silly EU law is just not worth it.

<comment><USER6> Who's gonna sue you? The EU has no power or jurisdiction over you, you're not required to block access to their citizens.

<comment><USER7> That's not true. The GDPR has an incredibly broad territorial scope:

        2. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union, where the processing activities are related to:

            a. the offering of goods or services, irrespective of whether a payment of the data subject is required, to such data subjects in the Union; or

            b. the monitoring of their behaviour as far as their behaviour takes place within the Union.

So offering free services to people in the EU is enough to ensnare you. What does it mean to offer? From the official notes:

        factors such as the use of a language or a currency generally used in one or more Member States with the possibility of ordering goods and services in that other language, or the mentioning of customers or users who are in the Union, may make it apparent that the controller envisages offering goods or services to data subjects in the Union.*

As for being able to acquire personal jurisdiction over you or your company to actually punish you for not obeying, that is not much of an obstacle either. Do you envisage potentially serving EU customers at some point in the future? (for basically any online company, the answer is yes) Do you use any services, banks, etc. that are located in the EU? (another likely yes). They may not be able to directly fine you _today_ , but they might be able to in the future, or cut you off from European companies.

There is a reason why the doctrine of international comity exists. When followed, it limits the extraterritorial application of laws such as to not infringe on the rights of other nations to decide what behavior is acceptable within their own territory. But the EU has decided to not follow it with the GDPR. In fairness, the internet has made it challenging to find the appropriate balance, but the EU is way out of left field here.

<comment><USER5> So, a US based firm offering a spanish version of their website has to apply with GDPR because people from Spain could also visit?

Whats next? US firms targeting the American-Korean community in the US need to apply with laws made in Northkorea? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems they were making these laws without understanding how technology works.

Consider a website, which have a moderate community and solely runned by one or two developers.

How are they going to detect the content which is oppressive. By creating a NLP and image recognition software and run it within an hour.

If they want there country audience to have the content they like, either have a seperate internet for Europe or teach their own citizens to not visit such sites.

<comment><USER9> Well at simplest, if enforced, it will force a company to figure a way to comply. Either get rid of people who share such content or otherwise mute them. If not, you pay fines, preferrably _way_ more than what you profit from letting such voices have a safe haven.

How else do you solve the problem of unwanted ideas spreading around? Serious question, as this is a constant challenge for every social group anywhere.

<comment><USER10> > How else do you solve the problem of unwanted ideas spreading around?

Though education, independent thinking. Presumably ideas itself are not unwanted, things resulting from those ideas are unwanted.

<comment><USER9> But that does not work in practice. Social groups need cohesion to function. If you fracture that cohesion, the group may split to more cohesive subgroups which may not be tolerant of each other. Their belief systems may be so incompatible in such way (by malicious design or otherwise) that peaceful co- existence becomes impossible and infighting ensues.

The history of our species is full of that scenario happening. In the grand scheme of things every war fought ever is a variation of that.

Not all of us are ideal, and most of us act in chaotic and irrational ways. Usually we don't see it or care much about it, unless we see it in others and we think its something to look down to.

Among us there are individuals who are suspectible to thoughts and ideas, which if presnted correctly, can alter and sway their values, identity, beliefs and behavior.

How do we defend a social group, which inherently has individuals as described above in them, from a info-social attack against our group cohesion? Because education can never be a perfect solution due to human factors. We are all different and respond differently to different ideas and content presented to us. Furthermore, some of us are naive and gullible by their nature, while others are careful and reserved, even paranoid.

How do you defend against an adversary which optimally targets crafted (often truthless) messages at receptive subgroups of different personalities, backgrounds etc.?

Think of social networks, content in apps, ads, blogs, HN/reddit/etc comments, ....

<comment><USER11> You're trying to solve an unsolvable problem, based on an inaccurate premise. Social cohesion in any nation-sized group is temporary at best. The notion of a permanently cohesive society is terrifying, as it implies the end of independent thought and the elimination of organized dissent.

Conflict is an inevitable part of the human condition. Anyone who tries to "solve" human nature inevitably ends up creating a nightmare society.

<comment><USER9> But what I am talking about is not just nation-sized group, but _any_ social group.

You can think of religions as an example, and as an attempt to solve these problems, with all the problems that entails, of course.

What makes you convinced, if not the infinity of time, that conflict is inevitable? To me it is clear that as species due to our cultural development and understanding (which our societies represent) has increased dramatically over the last few thousand years. Similarly, our conception of our own social group (the "us") has grown dramatically, to the point that we today may identify ourselves as parts of multiple, independent social groups. Unlike not long ago, these groups need not be local, they can span countries or continents.

Because technological development leads to globalization of the species, our social groups start covering the whole planet.

If this development continues, is it not inevitable that we will at some point get _de facto_ global entity which governs us i.e. world government? It would be the natural next step.

What would be the responsible social action to deal with global issues like global warming and to return to sustainable resource use?

We can not, as species, decentralize our decision making to independent self- interested groups i.e. nations much longer. Our consumption of resources is neither sustainable nor responsible. What wisdom is it to leave a barren earth for our children to inherit?

<comment><USER11> > Similarly, our conception of our own social group (the "us") has grown > dramatically, to the point that we today may identify ourselves as parts of > multiple, independent social groups. Unlike not long ago, these groups need > not be local, they can span countries or continents.

> Because technological development leads to globalization of the species, our > social groups start covering the whole planet.

I think you overestimate the effects of technology and globalization. I too used to believe this, but I have found it to be an illusion created by the intersection of modern media and the Internet. If you get out of your neighborhood, your city, your state, your country, and really engage with people, you'll find that most of them are more different from you than you can imagine. People have wildly different values, interests, and beliefs about even the most basic things. It is a wonder that we function as societies at all, and a testament to the resilience and inherent flexibility of the social structures we've constructed -- at least in the 50% of the planet where stable, large-scale societies exist.

> If this development continues, is it not inevitable that we will at some > point get de facto global entity which governs us i.e. world government? It > would be the natural next step.

No, mainly due to the inevitable competition for resources and status that would splinter any such centralized authority. Groups of humans will not agree to give an outsize share of their resources to perceived competition, even if it is a fair exchange. Look at the present urban/rural divide, racial and religious divides, and hatred between many nations. And this may be the best it has ever been! There has never been a time in history when strategic competitors could agree to put aside their differences for mutual advantage, except for brief moments when facing a greater threat. One could argue that climate change and resource depletion are indeed greater threats, but I would contend that such alliances suffer from fatigue and eventual defection if the "war" lasts too long. (Which it will! These issues are not going away.)

> We can not, as species, decentralize our decision making to independent > self-interested groups i.e. nations much longer. Our consumption of > resources is neither sustainable nor responsible. What wisdom is it to leave > a barren earth for our children to inherit?

You're right, we can not -- but we will, unless technology allows a small group to put a boot on the face of humanity's abundant diversity of culture and thought. Either option is terrible; we dive back into the pit of global resource conflict, or we become enslaved. The only thing that can break us out of this awful set of choices is a benevolent "strong" AI, and I personally have doubts that this can be achieved in time to save us from the next, potentially final, global war.

If I were a global power, I would be secretly putting my resources into surviving this coming war. (There are no "winners" in the next global war, only survivors.) Unfortunately, if nations are doing this -- and they surely are -- it only adds to the probability of conflict.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Extremist" is a word that carries no weight without context.

Funny how laws are written before the context is formalized. Like a blank check for future oppression.

<comment><USER13> I am sure our mainstream is unbelievably extremist from the point of view of people living at the beginning of 20th century...

<comment><USER10> Or different parts of the world. Drones are extremist and suicide bombings are noble in parts of pakistan while opposite is true in usa.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That most reactions focus on the absurdity of a 1h deadline is proof that this technique still works wonders. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the- face_technique](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_technique)

<comment><USER15> Indeed. Or more people than you realise implicitly support the idea of censure with only vague restraint, and are just nerding out on the details.

In the end it will likely not matter how expertly the eurocrats contain the symptoms of deeper, social problems, it might very well blow up in their faces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> just two steps away from china

1\. authorities can have their own definition of "extreme" 2\. site must delete or get shutdown

<comment><USER17> yes, extreme is anything ISIS right now, and soon after whistle blowers, journalists not in the current political movement will be falling under the same net as well.

Sounds exactly the same excuse as ever: pretend to protect the children by applying new censorship rules.

<comment><USER18> There's a thing called the political opposition (or over here in Brit Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition) and that's how democracies stop authoritarian rules y'know.

<comment><USER19> Is it foolproof? Some people believe it's possible for opposing parties to slowly drift towards each other on the political spectrum over time, to the degree that "opposition" becomes rather meaningless in a practical sense.

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

 _The Overton window, also known as the window of discourse, is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse. The term is derived from its originator, Joseph P. Overton, a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, who, in his description of his window, claimed that an idea 's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within the window, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. According to Overton's description, his window includes a range of policies considered politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too extreme to gain or keep public office. _

As an example, consider the reaction of both the Republicans and Democrats (and the news media) to the very notion of Bernie Sander's socialized, single- payer medical care in the last election. In the not too distant past, the Democratic party rallied behind such causes, or at least had an open mind about them. Now, they will stick a knife in your campaign behind the scenes.

This touches on what Hillary Clinton _used to_ believe, and what she believes now. Is she "just being pragmatic"?

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-single-payer- he...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-single-payer-health-care- will-never-ever-happen/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think removing extremist content is a good idea overall (although this then begs the question, how do you legally define extremist content?[1]), but I feel like 1 hour is a bit tough, primarily because 1 hour can mean different things: does it mean from being reported, or being uploaded? This question isn't covered in the article and it's an important distinction I feel.

1: the problem being that a lot of religious texts could be defined as "extremist" if an ill defined law is created. I guess you have to define directly what content would be considered extremist, e.g. any video from a known terrorist/terrorist group like ISIL, which will never be perfect but better than having a definition that's too loose.

<comment><USER21> I think we can assume that it's within 1 hour of being reported, not uploaded, since there's no way to guarantee everything that's uploaded is fully checked, even with a staff large enough to look at it all and make decisions more than a few seconds long.

But that problem also basically exists for smaller sites under the "1 hour after reported" rule, too. IMO, it would basically force them to hide anything that was reported immediately, and then restore it after it was moderated.

That will make it horrifyingly easy for internet trolls to mess with things.

<comment><USER20> I'm not sure though, because of this quote:

> In March, the EU's civil service published details of the current voluntary > arrangement, which noted that "terrorist content is most harmful in the > first hours of its appearance online".

This makes me think it may be timed from the upload, not the report.

<comment><USER21> Then that would basically mean that all content would have to be moderated in the EU, which would cripple forums and chat sites.

I can't even begin to imagine what repercussions that will have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22>
          extremist
          adj 1: (used of opinions and actions) far beyond the norm;

I think I should begin to consider the EU plans quite a bit extremist themselves.

</comment><comment><USER3> The EU internal report is here: [http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-1169_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-1169_en.htm)

It seems to be in early stages. The one hour rule is fine for larger sites that can afford it, though for smaller sites where "all employees are asleep" is a valid condition so I'm not sure how they'll handle that.

Additionally this seems to piggyback another set of rules determined to make Youtube DMCA/Copyright/Community Guideline strikes more transparent and fair, which is urgently needed IMO.

I'll definitely keep any eye on it, it might be harmful depending on how the final draft as law turns out.

</comment><comment><USER13> End of our civilization. Wonderful. Now what was supposed to be the difference between EU and Soviet Union? That we voluntarily cheer for this and not get dragged to accept it? I am sure this opinion gets flagged as extremist soon...

<comment><USER23> I'm not sure it gets flagged, but might deserve a honorable mention in a weekly n-gate writeup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> 1 hours is an extremely unrealistic timeline to remove or taken down content. This specially is externally hard because lot of social networks depend on people reporting something and then an action is taken. To add complexity there can be foreign language at play as well which people might get scared off even without knowing what it is.

</comment><comment><USER25> If i said Israel is terrorist organisation and they stole a land doesn't belong to them, does this qualify an extremist content?

<comment><USER26> Depends. Is it election season or they're buying submarines from us season ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Classically unreasonable political demand, 10/10

</comment><comment><USER28> How do they classify videos about Catalonian Independance?

<comment><USER29> Extremist if Catalonia stays in Spain, I suppose. Winner takes all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> We are witnessing rise of totalitarian 1984esk dystopia.

</comment><comment><USER31> That sounds possible for large players.

<comment><USER17> really? On youtube there are more hours of videos uploaded every minute than actual human reviewers can ever hope to police, let alone under one hour...

<comment><USER32> Charging users to upload videos would solve the problem.

<comment><USER17> I doubt ISIS and the like lacks funding. If this is really what you want to prevent money wont be a big barrier.

<comment><USER32> You're not thinking laterally. The problem isn't extremist videos. The problem is that there are too many videos uploaded to reasonably check all of them. Charging would solve _that_ problem, which in turn solves the problem of extremist content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> What is "extremist content"?

How can the website owner be notified?

</comment><comment><USER5> Cookie laws, legal nag screens everywhere, monitoring comment section is a 24/7 job... its just absurd. Honestly, just turn off the internet in the EU.

<comment><USER34> GDPR is a good idea (although I remains to be seen if any of it is enforced, as without enforcement it's pointless) but I agree the cookie law was the stupidest nonsense I've seen in a long time.

<comment><USER35> GDPR is just cookie law on steroids. Except now you have to click a million checkboxes instead of one button, and it works worldwide.

<comment><USER36> That's very untrue. In fact, any site which makes you do that is _violating_ the GDPR - you aren't allowed to have those checkboxes be opt-out.

Besides, that's only one small part of the GDPR, which is much closer to the Data Protection Act modernised for 2018's awful internet than anything else. We did this to ourselves by proving we can't be trusted to self-regulate.

<comment><USER37> I agree, but until now I have seen very few websites doing GDPR properly (probably because it would go against one of their main ways to make money). The best implementation that I found to date, is on GitLab's website [1].

[1] [https://about.gitlab.com/](https://about.gitlab.com/)

<comment><USER38> Wikia is also good with it, though it's not too clear that "Reject advertising cookies" is a button.

[http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Metroid_Wiki](http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Metroid_Wiki)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Didn't the European Parliament vote this down just three months ago?</comment>


Song of the Rarest Large Whale on Earth Recorded for the First Time - <AUTHOR> https://earther.gizmodo.com/song-of-the-rarest-large-whale-on-earth-recorded-for-th-1835665179 <comment><USER2> Are they as rare as the 52 Hz whale?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52-hertz_whale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52-hertz_whale)

<comment><USER3> Well there's one of this one, and one of the other one. If we consider them to be in the same category, I guess they would be equally rare. Maybe the deaf whale can be considered more rare because it has a Wikipedia entry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > There's a lot the biologists don't know about these songs. Like, uh, their > purpose.

Is this really considered an acceptable way to write these days?

Incredibly sad to hear how there are <30 whales in this region. Especially when listening to one's calls. Wonder what kind of whale-to-whale range these songs have.

<comment><USER5> Yes? It's clear writing, it's truthful and direct. You don't like the style, but I'm sure there are many people who don't like your preferred voice.

The days of one acceptable voice in trade writing are gone, and that's a good thing. It was creating a gate keeping effect whereby people who spoke well and clearly but not "right"—according to some ethnic cultural moors—were not taken seriously.

Now everyone can be not taken seriously equally, each according to the weight of their words.

<comment><USER6> I am all for using a more casual voice when writing about a subject for an audience outside of that particular domain of expertise. However, "Like, uh, their purpose." is grammatically and semantically meaningless. I am for using plain english to describe latin law terms. I am against colloquial, spoken styles slipping into written word.

<comment><USER7> I don't belive this is actually semantically meaningless. The pause in 'uh' is clearly used to emphasize the significant lack of information such that scientists don't even know the purpose of these calls.

For brevity and that this is not a serious/academic article itself, the 'uh' is a suitable shorthand for a casual audience. I myself am not a fan but I do not claim it is semantically meaningless. I grasp the full meaning. I just don't agree with it.

<comment><USER8> >> the pause in 'uh' is clearly used to emphasize the significant lack of information

Yes but it is a clumsy way of communicating that.

Also, a post shouldn't be down-voted just because you disagree with it. It should be down-voted because and only because of inappropriate behavior. There has been no inappropriate behavior. Karma police please withdraw.

<comment><USER9> Paul Graham disagrees[0] and the current site guidelines[1] don't suggest that you shouldn't downvote for disagreement. The guidelines do suggest that you shouldn't comment on voting in the comments.

I agree with the position that downvoting for disagreement is a net negative for any site that allows it; it encourages the comments to become an echo chamber and discourages people from posting interesting opinions that dissent from the majority opinion. But HN's guidelines don't prohibit it or even suggest that its wrong.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is there so much mess around SSL certs? - <AUTHOR>

...and I do NOT mean just in context of Comodo and DigiNotar issues.<p>* They are at times pretty costly, even when most of the tasks can be automated<p>* The stupidity of wildcard certs -www.domain.tld versus domain.tld<p>* The vendors often have several categories of certs, as if I'm buying Windows Vista<p>* The prices among vendors varies significantly<p>Doesn't all of this, inclusive of the fake certs fiasco, render the whole technology useless. I do realise my exaggeration but heck, I'm frustrated. <comment><USER2> CA certs are currently the only widely available web technology against MITM attacks. The alternative is to build your own web of trust.</comment>


pledge() – a new mitigation mechanism - vezzy-fnord http://www.openbsd.org/papers/hackfest2015-pledge/index.html <comment> glass- Page 19 is interesting. It explains that this is possible, without everything that does logging needing access to sockets, because on OpenBSD syslog(3) doesn't use sockets and doesn't need a file descriptor.</comment>


How long does it take to develop a "good" product? - <AUTHOR> http://friendfeed.com/e/0268007b-db20-4e2c-822f-7028a98016e4/How-long-does-it-take-to-develop-a-good-product/ <comment><USER2> Wouldn't a better question be, "How many users does it take to build a good product?"

The time equation comes from processing feedback loops, but the more users, the better the loops, the better the feedback, the better the product.

Given that, it seems to be that it takes 2-3 years to acquire enough users (and the resulting feedback) to make a good product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not necessarily. The iPhone, for example, probably had very few users prior to launching. (though the handful of users that it did have, such as Steve Jobs, probably provided a lot of critical feedback)

<comment><USER3> Steve Jobs is equivalent to 10,000 actual users.

<comment><USER4> You're dangerously close to a Chuck Norris thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome data points. But remember, "good" is the enemy of "shipping".

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I agree. Ship early and ship often, but understand that it probably won't be "good" for some time. Back when Microsoft shipped, the joke was that it took 3 versions to get any good at all (Windows being the perfect example).

<comment><USER6> the good thing is that not many people understand that

<comment><USER7> Those that do versioned the first version of Windows NT "3.1", to give the very impression the grandparent mentioned: that it had been through three major releases (and a service pack) already, making it pretty darn good. Whether or not the experience felt like a 3.1 is left as a question for the user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is all really great software born in an environment where it was protected from competition? Caveat , I am not drawing a causal relation, nor am I claiming that competition doesn't produce merely good software. But a sort of 'happy childhood' may be necessary (although not sufficient) for great software.

Just look at the examples... Google, three years in academia when business considered search a cost rather than an asset. Gmail, again a long incubation. All the great open source projects are like this too.

This seems to work best when the authors have little competitive pressure, but somehow are able and willing to use that idyll to learn a lot about the problem and the users.

</comment><comment><USER9> Joel says 10 years:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000017.html>

</comment><comment><USER10> Paul, Friendfeed is blocked in the UAE, can you please provide an alternative link or post this on your blog? Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's unfortunate. Any idea why it's blocked?

Do they block by hostname, or ip? You can try [http://ff.im/e/0268007b-db20-4e2c-822f-7028a98016e4/How- long...](http://ff.im/e/0268007b-db20-4e2c-822f-7028a98016e4/How-long-does-it- take-to-develop-a-good-product/)

<comment><USER10> sweet. thanks.

The UAE and most other countries in the ME block websites and give this message when you try to visit them:

 _"We apologize the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates."_

Twitter, Flickr are blocked as well. Generally the Internet in this neck of the woods is heavily policed.

<comment><USER11> Is circumventing the restrictions in the UAE something that can get you arrested by the internet police? I know that in China it can, in theory, if you're Chinese, but mostly they are looking for people _spreading_ subversion rather than reading about subversion. I've heard in the Middle East it is more economic restriction than cultural restriction -- VoIP services are blocked so you have to use the phone company's long distance services.

What's to stop you from running Tor all the time, or proxying through your VPS or someone else's VPS? (though I guess it would be annoying to have your connection always slowed down by tunneling it around the world) I used to have a webproxy running on my VPS, let me know if you want me to start it up again. And the google keyword "start using cgiproxy" is good if you're in a pinch.

<comment><USER10> When it comes to VOIP its more economic than cultural, not so for other services/websites. Speed/latency is the biggest challenge. That's really nice of you, thanks, I will let you know if I need it. Interestingly, the first 3-4 links for "start using cgiproxy" are blocked as well :-(</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>