VPNs Are Absolutely a Solution to a Policy Problem - <AUTHOR> https://journal.standardnotes.org/vpns-are-absolutely-a-solution-to-a-policy-problem-3b88af699bcd <comment><USER2> Well allow me to retort.

This article is saying, basically, that the tendency of ISPs to try to monetize user data is a natural consequence of capitalism, and trying to curb that tendency with legislation is ineffectual compared to the _real_ solutions (fight monopolies, and everyone use a VPN).

I don't buy it. Roughly the same argument could be made about virtually any regulation. "Corporations are incentivized to pollute, so there's no point trying to stop them. Buy a water filter." "People will always try to get heroin, so there's no point in restricting it. Get some naloxone." Damn near _every_ regulation is an attempt to counteract some profit-motivated tendency which is the unfortunate consequence of capitalism. And as regulations go, user data is a lot easier to regulate than drugs or pollution.

"Just get a VPN" might be good advice for individuals, but it is emphatically not the society-wide solution to data privacy. We can and should continue to fight for good legislation that protects us.

<comment><USER3> I think you missed the authors real point. The selling of data isn't the policy you need to fight. The monopoly power of ISP's is the problem you must push back on. The author has rightly pointed out that regulating your way to your goal is not a solution. He is advocating for a free market solution which is much more robust then one that hinges on the right people being in power for all eternity.

<comment><USER4> Completely agree. Monopolies are the problem. Capitalism is a delicate system and, unregulated, it leads to monopolies. That's why capitalism _needs_ regulation -- not to pick winners, but to ensure healthy competition. This is something Republicans seem to be willfully obtuse about. Capitalism without regulation is like a football game without referees.

<comment><USER5> Regulations destroy competition. Sometimes that's a sacrifice you want to make - do you want an unregulated drug market or would you reduce the number participants with burdensome regulations? - but I don't think you can regulate your way to competition. Or to lower prices.

<comment><USER6> US history is rife with examples that contradict you. (anti-trust regulation)

Regulation is a tool, and it does more or less what the tool user intends it to.

<comment><USER7> I'm going to object to the "more or less what the tool user intends it to". Our economy and political system is chockfull with examples of unintended consequences. Both majority parties are guilting of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The only thing is, I shouldn't have to pay for a VPN to continue enjoying some measure of privacy when I'm paying for the ISP's service. This is just some MBA's "great idea" to "leverage previously untapped revenue sources" rather than a real need by struggling firms grasping at any life-line.

It's disgusting, and I'm disgusted (_yet again_) by the mercenary Republican Party. They are declaring war on me and my loved ones and the vast majority of our fellow Americans and anyone else unfortunate to have to use an internet connection in the US (and live under the rest of their insane policies).

For the record, I signed up for a personal VPN two weeks ago because this anti-consumer outcome was assured with the current party in power in the US.

<comment><USER9> it's not a republican/democratic split. Both parties are working together to screw over you and your loved ones.

Its a "has power" vs "doesn't have power" split.

The Democrats are just as culpable as Republicans. Don't give either party a pass.

<comment><USER10> Yet people will cry "whataboutism" while ignoring the fact that just because no D's voted for this, it's just one of many pendulums in which they both take fucking turns doing the same thing. On that next peice of legislation, all D's vote yay and no R's, so it's obviously the D's fault!

Congress is completely corrupt. They don't write legislation, k-street does. They don't read legislation they pass. When confronted, they waffle about benefits to corporations being beneficial to their constituents. Almost all are in violation of their oath.

After much deliberation I think reprent.us has it right, the only way for us to take of this issue is for a new rallying cry to elect third-parties and indepedents to take away the majorities of both parties. (which is also how we get an independent or third-party elected president by taking the 270 votes away from both parties and the vote goes to the house).

We need to stop letting people push the farcicle duverger's law as if it's irrefutable fact, because it's not.

<comment><USER11> I think you meant [https://represent.us](https://represent.us).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure how VPNs are a solution.

Politically, it means that people who should be getting angry about reduced privacy are "comfortable" with the fact they can work around it, while a new generation grows up with fewer and fewer expectations of what privacy means. It's short term protection in return for normalization of anti-private behaviours and long term damage.

But I also have a problem with it technically:

Issue: You don't trust ISPs to not sell browsing history.

Solution? Provision a virtual server, set-up a VPN and tunnel.

But your server still has a service provider. It might not be literally tied to your billing information but that was never going to be anyway.

You've shifted which ISP gets to sell the data from "home provider" to "virtual server provider", but there is still browsing data isn't there and it's just as valuable from a private single-use VPN as it is from your home connection.

<comment><USER13> > But your server still has a service provider. It might not be literally tied > to your billing information but that was never going to be anyway.

The idea is to use a VPN provider that keeps no logs and runs many concurrent connections NAT'd behind the same public IP address. That way your traffic is mixed in with everyone else's who's using the service and provides you with an additional layer of anonymity.

<comment><USER14> You might not realize just how easy it is to track users behind NAT.

You might also not realize just how shady and willing to sell you out many of these VPN services are. They tend to be un-audited, un-regulated.

<comment><USER15> I don't realize it. I'm genuinely asking, how are users behind a NAT tracked? Browser fingerprinting?

<comment><USER16> That would be one way. In the VPN provider scenario if the ISP can snoop on both the incoming and outgoing traffic that can correlate the two by analyzing the timing and packet sizes. This is how Tor can be defeated as well but it's much simpler to do to a VPN service since they prioritize speed over privacy more than Tor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So I was a call-in on NPR today ([http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/03/29/internet-privacy- cong...](http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/03/29/internet-privacy-congress)) that discussed the ISP privacy issue. I brought up the crowd funding initiatives to buy Republican's info as well as the Democrat's unwillingness to make use of this issue. The call-ins were unanimously against what the congress did.

edit: Here's the GofundMe trying to raise money to buy their Internet history. Something tells me this dude is going to run off with the money though

[http://resistancereport.com/resistance/crowdfunding- lawmaker...](http://resistancereport.com/resistance/crowdfunding-lawmakers- internet/)

<comment><USER18> These "jokes" are already getting incredibly stale and silly. I don't get it at all. A provider is not just going to let you come in, even with say a billion USD, and buy X individual's data. That's not how it would work at all, this is not just like some sort of self-checkout to get someone's data.

And even if it was remotely like that, I can guarantee you that the providers will go to lengths to make sure they didn't just lobby millions (speculating, of course) to get this through and then throw the same congress members under the bus that they lobbied to and then hand out their data to get them in trouble with the public.

<comment><USER19> No, they can't buy X individual's personal data.

However, they can do what everyone else does; buy anonymized data for the area person X lives in. They can then use countless techniques (that have been demonstrated repeatedly) to de-anonymize the data and find out about person X.

<comment><USER18> What I'm getting at is even if they did try to use the method you described, I highly doubt they would even include that data of those congress members. I bet they blacklist users in situations like this. They are not just going to give that sort of thing out via a sell. Even if they law ALLOWS them, doesn't mean they sell to anyone with money.

This is what UK members of parliament did with a very similar bill, where they exempted themselves from the law itself: [https://www.independent.co.uk/life- style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...](https://www.independent.co.uk/life- style/gadgets-and-tech/news/investigatory-powers-bill-a7447781.html)

All-in-all, I think if you donate any money towards these crowdfunding initiatives, you might as well burn that money because it's not going to get people the info they think they are going to get. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER20> Now you are being over-optimistic about ISPs' sophistication. If I wanted data to target white renters, I can get it as long as I don't do it wearing a klan hood. A data set encompassing legislators is for the most part a data set of lawyers with some special characteristics. It could be a subset of data you can buy, or it could be assembled as a mosaic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> >Other articles have argued that VPNs are not a solution to a policy problem, because you can't necessarily trust a VPN provider, or some VPN providers don't encrypt your data properly. That may be the case, but that's an easily solvable problem. And there are no monopolies on VPNs. This is something that a market economy can solve in a year.

It has been a few years since my Econ 101 class, but I suggest the author Google "market for lemons". Users have no way to verify the intentions of VPN providers as there is natural information asymmetry. Trust is not an issue that market economies have come up with a good solution to fix. The solution we often use ironically enough happens to be policy and regulation. So maybe this is a policy problem.

<comment><USER9> The market has come up with a great solution to some trust problems, like Underwriter's Laboratory. A group of experts certify any device that will have their stamp of approval.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UL_(safety_organization)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UL_\(safety_organization\))

There could be an identical service for privacy/internet tech. There isn't, but I'd trust an "Internet Underwriter Laboratory" group way, WAY more than a group of politicians.

<comment><USER21> Which is a regulatory solution. I don't know the specific history of UL, but the most common way these type of agencies are created is by the government or from within the industry out of fear of government regulation.

<comment><USER9> Read over UL's history [0]. It was started by a private individual, and is a for-profit company with huge reach and sets safety standards for devices in many, many industries.

So, while I can't speak to how these things _normally_ come about, this is a compelling example of self-regulation entirely outside of the scope of the government.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UL_(safety_organization)#Histo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UL_\(safety_organization\)#History)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Everybody is right. It doesn't have to be either-or.

You can select a paid VPN service that helps protect you from specific adversaries. You can roll your own VPN on your own VPS that helps protect you in some use cases.

You can, and should, advocate for good privacy policy.

</comment><comment><USER23> "That may be the case, but that's an easily solvable problem."

So, how is that problem solved? I can't see what VPN companies are really doing inside their stack. They might very well be logging everything and I have no way to find out other than to "trust them" \- so there's no real market mechanism to choose a VPN provider which doesn't log anything.

I suppose it could be in the contract.. so does VPN contracts have a clause like that, and how is it enforced?

<comment><USER24> The counter-arguments:

A VPN that sells your information and eventually, inevitably is caught, will lose their entire business. Meanwhile they can make a perfectly good profit just... providing the desired service. There are also people who take the time to investigate these various services, and you can do some work to find one that meets standards you deem to be acceptable.

There isn't going to be a perfect solution here, but the issues with VPN's are really not the issues you raise. My concerns are: Google and other major sites endlessly pestering VPN users with CAPTCHA requests, or the government actually making them illegal. Your concerns are largely answered by researching which product you're willing to buy, not unlike all other similar decisions in life.

<comment><USER25> This argument, applied to any industry, is so tired by now.

Yes, a VPN company caught selling info would crash and burn. The invisible hand would ensure this, etc etc. But only if they got caught, and even then it's not like there would be any actual legal punishment (outside of a lawsuit if they were contractually obligated to not sell the info, I guess). And if selling that info meant double the profits, I doubt the owners who were willing to lie to their customers would feel all that bad or embarrassed. They'd probably also be shameless enough to re-brand.

And all that is ignoring the fact that with VPNs privacy becomes a privilege only to people who can a.) afford it and b.) understand how to use it. And finding a VPN that won't sell your info on the side requires the time and know-how to research it, not to mention even considering that a VPN might sell your info requires interacting with news orgs or people who might bring this concept up.

Chalk this up as another "HN readers don't realize most people don't read HN", color me surprised.

<comment><USER24> Except that those "most people" are the ones who are directly responsible for electing the current crop of leaders who have put us in this position, so I'm running a bit low on universal love and compassion, sue me. Moreover this is, as others have pointed out, not a new loss of privacy, just a new monetization of the existing loss of privacy.

So yes, there are better solutions involving the law, but unfortunately the innocent lambs you're defending are the ones calling us nerds and buying IoT junk!

<comment><USER25> Those "most people" also elected the bunch that put the law there in the first place. But it wasn't a campaign issue for either side, so it seems silly to bring up. This is a consumer protection / rights issue and the best way to handle it is clearly through policy, the free market won't do well for the vast majority of people _especially_ in the ISP industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Companies selling your data is nothing new—Facebook and Google have been doing it for decades."

Is there any evidence for this? I'm pretty sure that in the case of Google, at least, it's a flat-out lie. In fact, they state in massive letters: "We do not sell your personal information to anyone." ([https://privacy.google.com/how- ads-work.html](https://privacy.google.com/how-ads-work.html)) Who would they even sell it to? They're at an advantage having that data themselves.

<comment><USER27> You're right: selling the data would be selling the golden goose. Instead the data is milked for all it's worth by pimping it out to advertisers.

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure what "pimping out" means if not "selling".

Google runs the ad network, so they don't have to sell or "pimp out" personal data to advertisers. They use it themselves to make sure the ads are being seen by the people the advertisers want them to be seen by.

<comment><USER27> Google doesn't sell an indexed list of users and their interests: you can't buy the data and then use it how you want.

But, yes, pimping it out was just hyperbole for renting it for particular, well-defined purposes. But even that doesn't convey the fact that advertisers never have full access to the underlying data itself. They can specify the market demographics desired and google or any other ad network delivers the matching eyeballs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Allow me to rephrase this entire debate in terms that might sound more familiar.

Point: Locked doors and a shotgun under the bed is not a solution to the violent crime problem. We also need laws, and police to enforce them.

Counterpoint: Locked doors and a shotgun under the bed is absolutely a solution to the violent crime problem. You can't rely on laws, because they can easily go away with a stroke of the pen.

<comment><USER24> Most of us: I lock my doors and might have a gun just in case, but I recognize the value and role of laws. In the real world we have to accept that we need to defend ourselves, and also act collectively through politics and law to protect each other.

<comment><USER29> Actual most of us: I let Google and Facebook rummage through my underwear and dick pics in exchange for 50 cents worth of free server usage a month. I also stare at hours of advertising a week to get free TV.

<comment><USER24> I won't deny that FB has a huge userbase, but no, that's still not _most_ of us. In addition, broadcast tv isn't shitting the bed because people aren't tired of the deal you've described; they're just cutting the cord.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Instead of using a VPN I think I'm just going to create a script that randomly requests various websites 24/7\. So don't cut off the signal to your ISP just drown it in a lot of meaningless noise

</comment><comment><USER31> As great as this is, it brings up two problems:

1\. VPNs are slow: They will never get widespread adoption because people pay for internet speeds and want them. Not to mention many people use internet that is so slow that VPNs are just not viable. I try to use a VPN at least when I go on public WiFi, but I've been to hotels were the service was so slow that the internet would just not work while using a VPN.

2\. The article encourages ad blocking. The problem is that a lot of the web relies on ad revenue. Content doesn't just produce itself without funding. Yes, most content creators are finding alternate means of getting money, but we still need to keep in mind that this is an issue.

Therefore, while VPNs and Adblockers can help, I just don't see them as viable enough strategy to take down the ISPs. You are both slowing the user's ability to get content and the creator's ability to make it. Yes, the privacy focused community can use these tools, but everyone knew we liked privacy already. It isn't until the mainstream users speak up or do something that we can get stuff done.

</comment><comment><USER32> This article is really bad. On the one hand it says government is unreliable and therefore it's hopeless to regulate. Then it immediately argues we need to break the ISP monopolies (which is true.) But why are there monopolies? It is because the ISPs collude not because there is regulation stopping new ISPs. Google and Verizon both dipped their toes in and gave up on providing wired access to the home.

The only way to break the monopolies is with government regulation forcing them to share the lines, because running the lines is the very costly part that stops new ISPs from competing.

<comment><USER25> I see this doublethink all the time. The government is both all-powerful and cunning, but also inefficient and inept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Please, at least give credit the artist creator of the illustration, Josan Gonzalez.

[http://f1x-2.deviantart.com/art/Robo-President-K3n3-DY- IV-62...](http://f1x-2.deviantart.com/art/Robo-President-K3n3-DY-IV-628607986)

</comment><comment><USER34> _And it's so damn lucrative that ISPs are crying, No fair! I want a piece of that too! Are they not entitled to pursue such an opportunity?_

If they give me the broadband access _for free_ then I might feel some sympathy for this line of argument. At 97% profit margins, not so much.

Funny how "entitlement" can be a positive thing when it describes a rich, powerful entity but a negative thing when it describes someone or something more ordinary.

</comment><comment><USER35> Classic libertarian fallacy: "every resource should be managed by markets and every problem solved by the marketplace". Except, the Internet is not a commodity, it's infrastructure: it's not a car, it's the road. For consumer fluff — sure, go the libertarian route ("shop around"), but for things that really matter, like infrastructure and healthcare, don't look for trivial market-based solutions…

</comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone know of some kind of appliance I can sit in front of my router that will put all the traffic in my house through a VPN? I run OpenWRT, so I think it's possible to do it there, but I think it would be easier to make it it's own thing.

Whitelisting would be nice too. Netflix video traffic, for example, would be nice to not put through another hop.

<comment><USER37> You could grab a Raspberry Pi and set up a PiVPN.

[http://www.pivpn.io/](http://www.pivpn.io/)

<comment><USER36> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Just getting a VPN is like a teacher telling a bullied student to "just ignore and move away". Sounds great in theory, but really doesn't work for everyone in the real world. Some day, when wireless solutions get really good, or the cable monopolies are broken, pro-privacy will be a selling point.

</comment><comment><USER39> I enjoyed this article until I came to this paragraph:

> Other articles have argued that VPNs are not a solution to a policy problem, > because you can't necessarily trust a VPN provider, or some VPN providers > don't encrypt your data properly. That may be the case, but that's an easily > solvable problem. And there are no monopolies on VPNs. This is something > that a market economy can solve in a year.

That's where the author lost me. Building a secure VPN is different than your run of the mill SAAS - it's a difficult security problem, and an incredibly complicated user problem.

On the security side, it isn't hard to make a mistake that will give motivated parties the hole they need to crack the VPN. On a business side, it's hard to know which companies have received lucrative deals (or national security letters) from three letter agencies. And from a communications side, it's damned near impossible to let the whole world know that VPN Provider A collects data for a three letter agency.

Sorry to say it folks, but this is an area where we either need wholesale political change, or technological change. I'm Canadian, so I can't help you with the first one and I'm not even remotely qualified to help with the second.

</comment><comment><USER40> Couldn't disagree more with this article. VPN is a solution to a policy problem until policy makers forbid VPN to enforce their core idea in the first place. (e.g. see United Arab Emirates for some restrictions of VPN use)

<comment><USER41> Didn't you read the "Big Book of Internet Rules"? All you have to do is say the words "Virtual Private Network" 3-times-fast in the bathroom mirror of The Courthouse, with the lights off. The judge is then required to let you go and drop any pending charges. Those are the rules!

That's right folks: the overwhelming power of the state to enact actual policy that can impact millions of lives? It crumbles before the power of my 1ghz Atom router. It has AES-NI, after all. That's, like, impossible to beat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> In my home, Comcast business uses IPv6. So far, no VPN supports this, and I haven't found proper answers on how to handle this?

I've heard I can just "disable IPv6" on my Mac, but I don't know the full implications of this. If anyone has any input I'd appreciate this, because then I would use a VPN all the time.

 __EDIT __Sorry I meant to type VPN not VPS, stupid typo.

<comment><USER43> I'll provide you with a VPN that supports IPv6. Email address in my profile.

EDIT: And the full implications of disabling IPv6 are approximately nothing.

<comment><USER44> Who are you? How do I know you're not logging my traffic and selling it?

It sounds like you're in the UK - I'm a US person, if I give you my traffic, what will courts say about my expectation of privacy?

<comment><USER45> According to the Supreme Court you don't have any expectation of privacy in information given to a third party so whether the VPN is in the US or not does not matter.

<comment><USER46> That's an oversimplification of the Third-Party Doctrine, particularly as applied today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> At least until they overturn the net neutrality rules, too, and then the ISPs will be able to throttle VPN services to make them unusable. Or perhaps they'll ask them to pay more for the "fast line", and VPNs may get too expensive for most people.

How do you solve the problem without policy then?

<comment><USER48> Mesh networks? Really all these technical workarounds are just band-aids on the problem that is hostile, anticompetitive networks.

</comment></comment><comment> norea-armozel In regards to the question of ISPs selling browsing history, how much of that data outside of law enforcement has ever led to profitable sales from consumers? Like honestly, I've never ever been swayed by a web advert. If anything, they've made me disgusted with the advertiser and made me delay any purchases. Plus, most of the web ads as they are now are just boring repeats of the same product I've searched on Amazon or Google. No related products, no accessories (I bought a telescope recently so I find it odd that no one is trying to hawk eye pieces or filters for the coming solar eclipse). Just the same dumb product I've ALREADY BOUGHT! Like I can't imagine the profit margins on data mining are all that significant if my intuition holds true.

<comment><USER49> How much is that data worth? Combine Google and Facebook's market cap and then maybe multiply by 2 or 3?

We're talking about EVERYTHING you do online on your devices. It's no longer limited to what you're doing on Google or Facebook or any other place who's primary product is your data.

<comment> norea-armozel Yeah so you know that I like telescopes, talking smack on Twitter, and watching Let's Plays of Dwarf Fortress. Now, how do you monetize that? What meaningful marketing information does that give you? You see where I'm going with my skepticism? I'm skeptical that the data itself is useful by any measure because in itself it does not give a marketer nor a business an insight that they couldn't infer by more low tech means (my age, income bracket, how often I buy things, etc all which is already in their records in the majority of cases). None of this "big data" stuff is really that novel and it's an attempt at modern alchemy of turning crap data into "valuable information." Knowing the minutia of your customers or users in general won't help you serve them nor will it help you get more of them. At some point the supposed tacit information of the market devolves into the random noise of the universe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I advocated for Google to please do this here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13983468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13983468)

I'll quote it in full:

>Hey Google, when all email providers sucked you fixed it with Gmail, you run a DNS at 188.8.131.52, and now -- now, I think you know what you need to do now :)

>(I personally recommend you also do a web-based proxy, because who is going to filter [https://www.google.com](https://www.google.com) now or in the future?)

>I believe in you. You can do it!

>Counter this chilling effect today - and show more adwords as a result. (There is no irony in this statement. I mean from web sites that opt into adwords, not from selling VPN traffic logs.)

\----

Google, pay attention: step up to the plate. Please!

<comment><USER51> I'm sorry but google really is not on our side. They collect just as much data as any other silicon valley giant.

<comment><USER50> This is simply false. Facebook collects more data, for example, and shares it more freely with advertisers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> > "You own the computer from which all your valuable data is generated."

That might be true at the moment, if you're using a good computer, but many computers do not provide full access to the system, including: Android, iOS, Windows 10. (Almost all mobile devices block root access as much as they can.)

Watch out for attempts to appify the WWW and reduce the ability of consumers to block ads and tracking: AMP, FB Instant Articles, etc.

One of the most dangerous threats to privacy is the increasing restriction on access to devices' hardware and software. If it isn't stopped, there won't be any way to block tracking.

</comment><comment><USER53> I like that they say "Don't use sites that force you to disable your ad blocker" and then link to a Wired article.

<comment><USER54> I'm able to read the wired article with javascript disabled. I'm not sure what your adblocker is doing that prevents you from reading it.

<comment><USER53> Wired became infamous for their "Here's the thing with Ad Blockers" modal:

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CeqLfB5WIAAPZZh.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CeqLfB5WIAAPZZh.jpg) [https://www.wired.com/how-wired-is-going-to-handle-ad- blocki...](https://www.wired.com/how-wired-is-going-to-handle-ad-blocking/)

However, either they've removed it or uBlock is currently winning the blocker blocker fight since I actually can read that article (I hadn't tried.)

<comment><USER52> Try blocking more scripts (something like umatrix) and it will appear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't ISP already monetizing on my data by the fact that I _literally pay them for their data services_? So no: an ISP going "I want a piece of that behavioural profiling ads money" is most absolutely not reasonable.

If you want to be in the ad business, stop being an ISP and go into the ad business, but if you're providing a service and that service is internet-for- pay, and we pay you the money you have said it costs to use your service, then it is not reasonable for you to complain that there is more money to be had, and you want all of it.

</comment><comment><USER56> Are telephone providers in the US allowed to sell the data about who you called when, how often and how long? If not, why not? Should be possible to monetize that.

</comment><comment><USER57> Not a solution, rather a workaround. VPNs reduce performance, and they aren't free either. The idea of privacy abusers is to to tax those who value it.

</comment><comment><USER58> The author screws up big on the VPN vs government issue. Let me illustrate the points made.

1\. The government's laws/policies are a threat to users' privacy.

2\. You can currently use VPN's to protect your privacy.

3\. People point out that the VPN's might lie to you willingly or under compulsion by LEO's w/ existing surveillance legislation. The same LEO's that Snowden leaks say compelled secret backdoors in all kinds of products and services.

4\. "That may be the case, but it's an easily solvable problem."

Lol. If it was so easy, we wouldn't have a surveillance state or it would be well-regulated based on GAO's reports. Instead, we do have one, VPN providers might be compelled by it, market choice doesn't change that, and you're still essentially hoping via a numbers game that you don't pick a bad one. This isn't even considering the fact that ISP's beholden to US TLA's might ban VPN's or require their assistance for decryption/tracking.

The VPN's could be a decent solution if a very popular one was a non-profit in a non-surveillance state with protections for consumers built into its charter, contract, whatever. People who were previously shown trustworthy [enough] would have to operate it. The endpoints and monitoring would have to be strong. It would need enough traffic from each country to obscure the users. If it wasn't getting enough, they could pull trick from high- assurance's book to do fixed-rate, fixed-sized transmission constantly from the apps. That would get expensive on bandwidth side, though.

So, it's doable to make VPN's useful until law or ISP policies start killing them. Just hard to evaluate who if any are doing all the above to be trustworthy enough. For now, you're throwing dice for a probabilistic level of protection that's hard to quantify.

</comment><comment><USER59> I think I might be a little outdated on my knowledge of VPNs, but wouldn't they throw inefficiency into how your traffic is routed around the internet? It's not like you're going for the most efficient exit out of the VPN closest to your intended target, simply the one advertised as a gateway.

VPNs may be a solution to privacy issues, but the whole Internet will be worse for it if everyone were to use one.

I wish we could quantify how much electricity is wasted just routing things around inefficiently from VPNs. How much infrastructure must be upgraded because of the growing use of them. Maybe this would incent ISPs to avoid selling analytic data on its customers?

</comment><comment><USER60> ISPs should calculate how much this will make them then charge us that much to opt out. Wins all around - the ISP makes every dime they can, privacy- conscious customers aren't abused, unconscious customers don't need to pay more.

Hell, take it a step farther - sell VPN-like anonymization. Think about it, your ISP is technically able to do it far better than any VPN: no impact on speed, no impact on latency, no software required, wouldn't miss any types of traffic, and increases anonymity just by having more customers.

If ISPs don't realize that they can make money selling privacy then they're just bad businesses.

</comment><comment><USER61> No, they're not. They're a temporary hack.

I really believe that engineers live with the belief that "We can work around politics or route around corruption" that only makes us better off. There are many more people who don't have the knowledge to work around it. No amount of engineering is going to educate or move a change in policy. You're essentially saying "I've got mine, so fuck you."

With that being said, given that VPNs are the only practical chance until the software developers of the world start running for Congress, I have gone ahead and paid ipredator for the next two years.

</comment><comment><USER62> Is there a reason that instead of using a VPN to hide our traffic we don't just have an app that surfs randomly around the net in the background ruining the usefulness of the data collected in the first place?

<comment><USER63> I feel like it would be very difficult to make a bot that produces history that is indistinguishable from a human user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> VPN's are a way for you to choose which provider's or country's policies you want to be under. Obviously this can only happen as long as the powers that be allow it. It is trivial to forbid or block all non-backdoored vpn's for example.

A question which I find interesting is why we can't make these policy choices in the real world. For example, choose which country's social safety net you want and be taxed accordingly. It may be impractical, but are rivers and mountain slopes (aka borders) really the best way to draw a line between two different policies?

<comment><USER65> Sounds like an indirect way to say you want to privatize social services. If a country is "selling" you a social safety net, you're essentially just paying a company for insurance coverage and/or a retirement savings plan.

<comment><USER64> Well, I don't want anyone to turn a profit on it, so not particularly. The downfall of letting people choose is that the rich end up opting out, which undermines the system. Maybe I'm arguing the opposite, that there should be a single global system. Or maybe I don't quite know what the right policy is, just that the current system is nonsensical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I use a VPN and agree it's a solution, but imagine this same line of thinking were applied to telephone lines. What if tomorrow, we removed all regulation preventing telephone providers from scraping your conversations or selling them to the highest bidder.

How fast would the market be able to respond, and what kind of damage would be done in the meantime?

We regulate based on the public interest. It was in the public interest to place limits on telecom. I don't see any reason to treat the Internet differently.

</comment><comment><USER67> How do I do know what VPN to trust? I guess getting my own server and provisioning everything myself is the answer? I'm sure that'll work fine for average Joe.

</comment><comment><USER68> VPNs are one solution, it may even be the only possible solution, but I really can't see it as a good solution.

It is super important to keep in mind of course that there may indeed be no good solution, or it may be that the good solution is politically, economically or otherwise unfeasible. In this case a good solution is technically very feasible, but that may often not be the case.

</comment><comment><USER69> I am just going to write an app to pull random (safe) items every few minutes and poison all the data. Even better, I will have it hit news sites all over the world in different languages and load Amazon and eBay from other countries also. Hum, why I am at it I will have it swap the web browser agent IDs. Hey this could be a fun project.

</comment><comment><USER4> Completely agree. All we need now is for a major player to step up and say "here's our VPN cloud and it's free to use and we guarantee it's encrypted and won't keep logs. From now on, all our devices will use it by default unless you opt out." I imagine meetings are already being held at Apple to discuss this.

</comment><comment><USER70> My vpn doesn't prevent my cell provider from selling my location info.

<comment><USER71> Does your cell provider have monitoring software installed at the OS level?

<comment><USER70> Uh. No but cell tower negotiation over LTE isn't using TCP/IP which is all the VPN has power over. Or am I really confused? The LTE radio is totally independent of internet protocols and can be tracked by cell providers since I must connect to their tower.

And maybe. I don't control the carrier firmware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I am trying to understand here, what more information ISPs can get other than they have access now? Does this policy let them do man middle attack? Can they access my SSL internet data too?

</comment><comment><USER73> Federal statute known as 18 USC Section 1702 makes it illegal to open correspondence addressed to someone else. I don't know that the mail services keep statistics of where mail comes from and to, although they likely do, but regardless, they don't get to know what the content is. They don't get to know what I buy from Amazon.. But they do know I shop at Amazon because they see the boxes. ISPs might be able to know you hit these servers but they shouldn't be profiling you based on all your browsing data.

If another person can't open your mail, then why is it so hard for lawmakers to understand that this adds up to the same? You route my mail/traffic, doesn't give you the right to spy into the contents of it, to know what I buy, what media I consume, what my hobbies are, how often I check my bank balances, whether or not I'm left or right leaning based on the news I consume, whether or not I'm shopping for internet at competing ISPs... List goes on. Imagine the depth of the information an ISP can build on you if they have all your browsing information.

The lack of respect shown towards the people who have made these companies possible by buying their services is appalling. And the fact that they keep competition away is even worse.

Provide your services and stop trying to suck in every penny from every potential revenue stream possible.

To make a comparison, just because my car has GPS, doesn't mean the manufacturer should track and sell my location and build a megacorp ads company to interrupt my radio and force me to listen to ads for businesses in my direct vicinity.

Just because you make shoes, and you could integrate piezoelectric energy capture devices, doesn't mean you should integrate tracking devices into people's shoes so you can sell the data to who ever wants it.

Just because you provide a service and because you've squashed competition by lobbying for everything which gives you monopoly, doesn't mean you should drop all sense of right and wrong.

There's countless business models which could abuse data collection and make a few extra bucks, but they don't. Because you don't always have to be a dick. Because at the end of the day, a businesses image should still be important because it is USUALLY what decides if consumers will keep on buying from them or not.. Unless there's no competition....

This by itself is big enough although some will argue its not a big deal. But once you remove all protections, you have no clue how far they'll go and once they go there, its harder to backtrack.

<comment><USER74> > If another person can't open your mail, then why is it so hard for lawmakers > to understand that this adds up to the same?

They understand, they just are rewarded by those with a financial interest for treating the cases differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> It's not a solution for one simple reason: policymakers can create a "policy" that simply makes them illegal. They don't have to defeat them on technological grounds.

</comment><comment><USER76> I just wish that my bandwidth did not drop so bad when I use a VPN.

</comment><comment> Stephen-E Any recommendations for a secure, fast and reliable VPN service? I'm in the US. Use would be for privacy, especially in the face of yesterday's vote.

</comment><comment><USER77> I prefer to tunnel my traffic through an SSH tunnel. VPNs are OK too, but SSH does what I want, and I can control it.

<comment><USER78> Could you provide a few more details on how your setup works? You SSH tunnel to where? Your own cloud instance?

<comment><USER77> Sure.

Basically, I set up SSH on a server somewhere (I actually have many), and a local SSH key (I don't use passwords with SSH). The SSH server can be a cloud server or a physical one; it doesn't matter. Then, I create an alias in my .zshrc or .bashrc configuration file to easily create a tunnel to that server, like this:

alias <alias_name>="ssh -D 8080 -f -C -q -N <username>@<host>"

Then, I go into my network settings and create a local SOCKS 5 proxy that points to the port I'm tunneling through (8080 in this case). Once I've done this, everything between me and the remote server is encrypted, and it appears that I'm browsing from the remote location. This works well for services that are not available in my country, as long as I can set up a server in the country I want to appear to be coming from.

If you want to keep the SSH tunnel open all the time, you can use autossh, like this:

autossh -M 20000 -p <port> -D 8088 -f -C -q -N <username>@<host>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> While using VPNs might protect your privacy in the short-run, it's just a continuation of the privacy-invasion arms race. And it's kinda hard to win a tit-for-tat war when your opponent has an unlimited supply of 'tat', and a whole bunch of armed, well-trained dudes they can send round to your house when you don't comply with their newest rule.

\- The US government tries to restrict 'strong' crypto --> people print PGP source code on t-shirts and the government eventually has to accept SSL/TLS.

\- The government starts capturing information directly off devices (using regular search warrants etc. --> people start using encryption (e.g. truecrypt, veracrypt) and large device makers respond to consumer concerns by encrypting by default.

\- The government starts MiTM'ing everyone's traffic at the ISP and online service provider (e.g. google, microsoft) level, using their newly created pseudo-court, secret warrant process (FISA) --> people start using VPNs.

\- The government starts talking about key escrow, banning encryption.....

You can't eradicate a disease by just treating the symptoms as they pop up (in ever increasing severity). If you do this, you'll die. You have to attack the disease directly (and, in many cases, first convince people that they really are ill). So far, we've made one attempt at the direct approach by 'engaging in public discourse'. It's clear this is not effective in this case.

I doubt protesting in the streets would make much of a difference either, if the lead up to the Iraq war is anything to go by. Consider these two quotes from the previous thread (the second is mine), as just one example of the many possible actions that could be taken:

 _" The Video Privacy Protection Act was passed after Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's rental history was leaked to a newspaper."_

and

 _" I've always liked the idea of using the copious public video of these politicians to train voice and face recognition NNs, specifically targeting anti-privacy politicians. Maybe even sell pre-made raspberry pis with all of this stuff preloaded for journalists to scatter around places that politicians congregate.

I think it's only fair that these folks get to be the first ones to live in the kind of world they are creating. And none of them should have a problem with any of this, because I'm certain none of them ever do anything wrong and therefore have nothing to hide."_

Although one always tends to like one's own ideas, I think this idea has merit, because:

\- It's low effort compared to organising protests and then getting everyone to take to the streets

\- It directly attacks the source and (assuming you aren't sent to a Federally funded leisure resort for your efforts), creates a 'heads I win, tails you lose' situation: they either pass laws to stop this kind of privacy invasion, or we end up with a long-term selective pressure against anti-privacy politicians. Everyone has secrets...

\- It directly educates the public about their "illness" (through example). It shows them exactly how their life could be in the near future if they don't start paying serious attention to privacy issues. If a bunch of angry nerds can pull it off, imagine what the NSA and CIA are capable of...

The time for 'reasoned public discourse' and 'teching around the problem' is well and truly over. It doesn't hurt to do these things, but it does no good in the long-run either. More drastic measures are required.

<comment><USER51> Somebody needs to put on a black hat and target the congressmen/women and the senators that passed these bills. Release all their internet history, indexed and everything. Put it on some platform like wikileaks.

Crowdfunding some guy to do it is not the answer. We can not trust him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> How many of you actually read the original FCC document? :-)

</comment><comment><USER81> Technology is rarely a solution for a socio-ecnomic issue.

</comment><comment><USER82> Ok, can you route every connection(besides the vpn one) from an iphone to a vpn gateway?

If it isn't possible, anyone can explain why?

<comment><USER83> Seems very easy: [https://www.howtogeek.com/215730/how-to-connect-to-a-vpn- fro...](https://www.howtogeek.com/215730/how-to-connect-to-a-vpn-from-your- iphone-or-ipad/)

I don't have and iDevice so I don't know for sure, why do you think this'd be a problem? Or am I misunderstanding your question?

<comment><USER82> Yeah..thanks for the info. I got it wrong. There's no built-in support for openvpn in iOS.

<comment><USER84> There sorta is. Install the OpenVPN app, load your ovpn config, and connect. After you do that, there will be a VPN option on the homepage of your settings that will use the connection automatically and will keep you connected when switching networks.

Source: Figured it out over the weekend and have been pleased by it for the past few days.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


I quit using Apple, Microsoft and Google and now my conscience is clear. You? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/why-i-m-saying-goodbye-to-apple-google-and-microsoft-78af12071bd

<comment><USER2> I recommend the original title of the post:

"Why I'm Saying Goodbye to Apple, Google and Microsoft: I'm putting more trust in communities than corporations"

or the author's tweet:

"Weaning myself off Apple, Microsoft, Google et al -- a journey worth taking."

rather than the click-bait-y edited title submitted:

"I quit using Apple, Microsoft and Google and now my conscience is clear. You?"

which may have unfairly disadvantaged this post or caused it to get flagged. :-/

</comment><comment><USER3> While the effort required to change your lifestyle can seem like a personal task, it's important to remind ourselves of all the work of free software developers. As we've seen with GPG,[1] many of them lack resources. It's a testament to the inherent goodness in people that these options even exist. We should continue to contribute our skill and treasure to these increasingly critical programs so they continue to exist and prosper.

[1][https://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email- encrypti...](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email-encryption- software-relies-on-one-guy-who-is-going-broke)

</comment><comment><USER4> I also got rid of Corporate OS in my laptop and phone, what about on layer down: the hardware. And one level up: the apps; specially Internet apps like your email, cloud storage, etc. Most importantly: what about social networks and IM?

</comment><comment><USER5> Written on Medium, now there's some irony.

<comment><USER6> That's what I thought, too. Not really straight forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Uhh... he's using Google Calendar in the 2nd picture...</comment>


Open Source and the Challenge of Making Money - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/23/open-source-and-the-challenge-of-making-money/?ref=technology <comment><USER2> FTFA: "Moreover, by definition it implies that open source projects have many more mistakes, bad code and failed efforts on their way to succeeding, compared with conventional projects."

Wait, what? How, exactly, does OSS "by definition" have more mistakes?

<comment><USER3> That statement alone is enough to dismiss the entire article.

Perhaps if you include every half-hearted attempt to throw code in the open as a "failed effort", and ignore such half-hearted attempts for proprietary software (because they are hidden), then perhaps you could reach such a conclusion.

But I doubt the author even bothered to look for any data; instead he just printed it because it made sense to him at the time.

I guess that's also how he reached the conclusion that "it's time to admit that this idea didn't work out" despite the wild growth, unimaginable reach, ubiquitous use, and general acceptance of open source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think open source is really about making money for most companies, it's more about improving quality and keeping costs down. At a former employer we did follow the give-it-away-and-charge-for-a-service model, but we also worked on several of the open source libraries and frameworks we built our products on.

We shared all of this work with the upstream projects, as we had no interest whatsoever in maintaining private forks and because better quality infrastructure attracts more users, which again leads to further improvements or at least ensures the project stays maintained.

<comment><USER5> > it's more about improving quality and keeping costs down.

Yes. This point seems to be lost on the author of the article. Even the founders of the Open Source movement thought that.

I can't find it now, but I remember once reading an essay by Bruce Perens where he pointed out that the vast majority of software that's written lives on the cost side, not the revenue side, of a company's balance sheet, because the vast majority of software that's written is custom in-house software. If you can share those costs with others who have similar needs, everyone benefits.

As a kid who had only ever thought of software as "something you have to pay for when you want a copy for your computer", this was eye-opening for me. The idea that the software I was familiar with was the exception, rather than the rule, made it plausible that there were other ways to get high-quality software through besides paying a license fee to Microsoft. As a result, I found that idea very attractive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Building a viable business on top of an open source project is totally possible. But, like building lots of other types of businesses, it can be difficult.

These challenges cut close to some things we are aiming to solve at Assembly [[http://assembly.com](http://assembly.com)]. One such question we hope to answer is this: "how can people build a real, profitable company in a collaborative, open manner like they build in an open source environment?"

An example is Coderwall, which makes more than $25,000/month [1] and is built and maintained by the community. Each month, revenue goes to the people who are building the product. All the code is publicly available [2], and licensed to be used non-commercially. A core team of contributors guide vision and quality control, but anyone can participate.

It's not exactly open source, but products on Assembly are built in the open and anyone can dive in and help out. Some products have lofty ambitions to make big revenue, and others are are more aimed at being a public offering like a traditional open source project.

[1] [https://assembly.com/coderwall/posts/coderwall-coinholder- up...](https://assembly.com/coderwall/posts/coderwall-coinholder-update) [2] [https://github.com/assemblymade/coderwall](https://github.com/assemblymade/coderwall)

</comment><comment><USER3> "An entire economy where you gave a little [software] to get a lot [of software] ... it's time to admit that this idea didn't work out"

If this article was published in 1998, and we revisited it in 2008, we would have concluded that the author was proven wrong by a landslide.

The idea that someone still thinks this in 2014, and is confident enough in his opinion to publish it, is ridiculous.

<comment><USER7> The sentence immediately before the one you quoted is: "Remember how the open source software movement was supposed to be like Woodstock, with everybody sharing and everything free?"

I think the author wants to express that open source has changed a lot from the early days. As far as I remember it, open source originally was driven mainly by students, academics and hobbyists, and by service companies like Red Hat or maybe IBM. Nowadays, many of the larger, successful and enduring open source projects are mainly developed by professional developers working for companies that use the open source software for their commercial products or infrastructure.

<comment><USER3> What in the article lead you to that interpretation?

<comment><USER7> I understand the article as making the argument that in the past companies tried to make a business out of the open source project itself while nowadays the open source project is more often a byproduct or a basic infrastructure component for other commercial projects.

I don't think the examples and quotes used by the author are great, but I do think that there is some truth to this argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I work on open source software with two other developers and our business makes enough to pay for three full-time salaries (they're low-end software developer salaries, but we all live comfortably in the USA and Mexico).

We sell two WordPress plugins, both of which have free counterparts (think Lite/Pro). The source code is GPL for both versions.

Why do people buy the Pro version of our software? That's we've asked many times over the past few years. I feel they buy the Pro version for both the features and, more importantly, for the fact that it will be _updated_ and _maintained_, and they will have _access to support_. Site owners that want to use one of our plugins recognize that by paying for the plugin they get access to support and features not available in the Lite version, whereas the free version has limited features and only community support.

Could someone copy the source code for the Pro version and sell it? Sure. (And people have.) But can they copy our Pro support and sell that? Not so much. Can they copy our reputation? Nope.

I've learned over the past few years just how valuable "access to support" is for many people. Even if they never contact us, just knowing that we're there _in case something goes wrong_ is comforting enough for them to pay for that comfort.

If more open source projects started offering support, I bet you'd have a lot more open source developers making money.

For example, if I decided to set up `mutt` for the first time to switch over from web-based email, would I buy a "mutt support service" from someone that allowed me to submit `mutt` questions through a ticketing system while I was setting up and getting familiar with `mutt`? Yes! I would, especially if that person had a reputation in the community as someone who knows `mutt` inside out.

It's also worth noting how offering support helps drive documentation. If the documentation is great then a developer can easily point people to the relevant information and save him/herself time (so that support doesn't take up all available time). I basically used this type of "ask me a question, I'll create documentation for it and then reply with a link" method with my Independent Publisher WordPress theme project [1].

[1]: [http://github.com/raamdev/independent- publisher](http://github.com/raamdev/independent-publisher)

</comment><comment><USER9> Its extremely difficult to make money with open source. With the notable exception of Red Hat there aren't a lot of open source companies that are known to be consistently profitable.

Most of the bigger companies raised money when VC's believed in the open source business model and are still operating on those funds. That's an avenue that is no longer open to today's open source entrepreneurs.

One possible exception might be the WordPress model of offering hosting.

<comment><USER10> The way you make money with open-source is by not trying to sell the open- source product. Apple releases lots of stuff as open-source, but it's not a problem because they don't want to sell you Clang. Similarly, Red Hat aims to sell big corporate contracts, not licenses to their open-source software.

<comment><USER11> _> The way you make money with open-source is by not trying to sell the open- source product. Apple releases lots of stuff as open-source, but it's not a problem because they don't want to sell you Clang._

In other words, the way you make money with open source is by not making money with open source. The downside of this is that you don't make money with open source.

Unless you count using open source (as it contributes to the development and monetization of the non-open-source software you make money with). But then you could say everyone is using open source to make money, which I think misses the point the article is trying to make.

<comment><USER12> >But then you could say everyone is using open source to make money, which I think misses the point the article is trying to make.

Which is that you can't make money by selling open source software? That's pretty obvious. I think the point of the article is to discuss possible ways (or whether it is ultimately impossible) to make money for a company that _produces_ open source software, which is not something everyone can claim to be doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The economic system in the US in based on very, very strong property rights. This greatly skews the advantage from the ones doing the work to the ones who own the result of this work.

If US property rights were not so strong there would not be such enormous advantages given to those who produce proprietary software. This isn't as much an issue with open source business models as much as it is with US economic policy.

<comment><USER14> >If US property rights were not so strong there would not be >such enormous advantages given to those who produce >proprietary software.

Why? Can you elaborate on that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't find open source as a product has the benefits we assume it must.

Theoretically, yes, if I have the source every change and customization I want to make is just a recompile away.

Practically speaking that almost never happens because now I'm likely forking a huge code base and almost always abandoning the support contract I paid money for to do so.

Unfortunately, because theoretically speaking anyone can change anything, authors seem to neglect the whole documentation and API portion of open-source software, and that's what I typically want in practice.

Obviously there are exceptions, but most people pay money for support, warranties, integration with existing systems, documentation and available training. All of those things have very little to do with whether the source code is open or not.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's a shame our options have been reduced to a false dichotomy of pay-for software where you have no access to the source, and pay-nothing-for software where all you have is the source. There was supposed to be another option for pay-for software where you have access to the source and may make changes to that source to suite your needs: "free" was supposed to refer to "freedom" and not "cost." But no one seems to have gone that route. Is it just not viable?

<comment><USER17> The problem is that for-pay software that gives you some freedoms manages to piss off everybody. It's not "open source". It's not "free software". It can be characterized as trying to astroturf your way into free goodwill. And you have minimal real protection against someone cloning your software.

I am currently trying to build a product on this model, because I think it is pragmatic. Not sure how it will work out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Dual licensing, like Trolltech did originally with QT, could also be a viable commercial strategy for certain open source projects, but that seems to be going out of fashion lately.

<comment><USER18> Qt and not QT.

Digia still does dual licensing of Qt and doing OK.

<comment><USER7> Yes, they still do dual licensing, though I suppose the additional licensing under the LGPL by Nokia changed the business a bit.

In any case, I wonder whether the original success of Qt would still be possible in today's business and open source community environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What about the software maintainers that are often salaried employees?

And what about the main users of the software that are saving money by using free software?

But of course your whole competitive edge is that you are giving away those rights to keep the software proprietary and to dictate who can use it, for what and for how much. You cannot simply expect to put a price tag on it and sell it, "as is".

</comment><comment><USER11> > The open source method may be effective if enough people play along, but it > does not make money in itself. Moreover, _by definition it implies that open > source projects have many more mistakes, bad code and failed efforts_ on > their way to succeeding, compared with conventional projects.

Which definition of open source (method?) do they go by?

</comment><comment><USER20> _Remember how the open source software movement was supposed to be like Woodstock, with everybody sharing and everything free?_

No?

I'll go back and finish the article, but it's starting to look like the something you'd see in a tweet from @nytonit "Building a business around a product you give away is hard and The Times is ON IT."

</comment><comment><USER21> > A regular company couldn't have experimented with creating 10 versions of an > online photo album, then picked the best one.

Yes, but often 10 companies try to make an online photo album and the market picks one (or a few). The comparison between open source projects and the dynamics inside a company doesn't seem like the right one.

</comment><comment><USER22> Linus Torvalds knew that "the GPL would turn _as many_ people away as it would attract" and exactly of that (it attracted a lot) he considers his decision _for the GPL_ "to be the _best_ decision he ever made" (though he disagrees with the too strong ideological believes of RMS "I want to (be able to) reprogram my printer's software"... sorry what?!). Linus used the big wave (pro & cons discussion on the GPL) for getting his Linux off the ground (which he succeeded with). And he is so incredibly smart and doing things right (showed it again with git... slamming CVS&SVN basically to death in a talk he gave).

Google, Facebook and others are open sourcing a good amount admitting, that this attracts skilled people (probably to be hired) and benefits their code (in the open)... "companies that use your code are never competitors". Though they remain the major force behind these projects, e.g. being accused to be show offs (hiphop vm) "look how great we are, but you'll never get it to work".

The default license on git hub is MIT. Sorry GPL, but forcing everyone to open source on modifications they make. NO way _for me_ : Take it ([http://www.use- the-tree.com](http://www.use-the-tree.com)) and make it proprietary (and better and make a business), you are so welcome. When you succeed with that, then congrats to you.

Enterprises _want to pay_ and they go for FUD "no accountant was ever fired for buying IBM/Microsoft/HP". It's hard to break into that and they are even right with it, because when buying from a large vendor they are also buying into the huge support/manpower.

How does Ubuntu want to generate income? Selling shirts and Coffee-cups with "Ubuntu" printed on (okay advertising for Amazon in Unity) and diverging from "Linux for people/the desktop" to Ubuntu-Server/Cloud? But the fact that they sell T-Shirts and coffee cups (and others sell likewise silly things, like boxes with CDs and printed manuals), wow... that's a confession of failure (for _this type_ of doing open source).

So "open source (almost) everything" (2011) [1], what a late(!) and great contribution to this discussion (free from ideological believes and focused on business).

Does RMS still live for free on the Harvard/MIT campus? And sorry I was in the group that was turned away back in the times.

[1] [http://tom.preston-werner.com/2011/11/22/open-source- everyth...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2011/11/22/open-source- everything.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> Lucky for us the free market isn't Darwinian.</comment>


Ask HC: How to Avoid S3? - <AUTHOR>

I'm using S3 to backup data from other services. The trouble is.. what if the other service uses S3? <comment><USER2> Well, there are other services: Google's Big Table, among others. But the title begs a different, better question: What about a local version of S3?

What would be great is a small engine that would run on my hosted server (and locally) that would imitate both S3 and SimpleDB services.

In your case, you could use it as an additional backup for S3. In my case, S3 would be the backup. Plus the performance (especially of SimpleDB) is killing me. It fails regularly. So this would be much faster and simpler.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's local S3 API clones available, e.g. <http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/parkplace>

That said, it sounds like the filesystem is the right tool for your purposes.

I don't want to manage (all) my storage, but I'm trying to avoid using S3 as both the primary and backup (thus wasting the money and effort spent attempting to reduce risk).

<comment><USER2> Thanks; you're right. Doing disk + S3 is a great idea. I'll implement it immediately. I also have an idea of how I can implement disk + SimpleDB as well, which would make everything faster and easier. (It also solves the inconsistency from the delay before written data is replicated across SimpleDB servers.)

Thanks for that! (I wish I could help you with an answer to your dilemma in return. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I suppose I could backup to two services (e.g. +mosso), but that doubles my cost and effort.

And of course, I could manage the storage myself, but I could grow my own rice too. I'd rather let capitalism do its job, so I can focus on mine.

</comment><comment><USER3> Have you asked them?</comment>


HTML5 Canvas Cheat Sheet - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nihilogic.dk/2009/02/html5-canvas-cheat-sheet.html

<comment><USER2> There's a slight lack of good readable documentation, practical examples and best practices about the canvas tag out there, and the HTML5 spec itself isn't very readable.</comment>


Ask HN: Engineer compensation and job security after a startup is acquired - <AUTHOR>

When a startup is acquired some people (founders, investors etc) might get rich, but what happens to the engineering team? Obviously there are tons of factors at play. What has been your experience/or do you have any stories to tell? I am interested mainly from the perspective of a non-founder Sr Software Engineer, but would love to hear from anyone with experience with this.
What can an Engineer expect in compensation and job security after a startup is acquired?
Some of the scenarios I have heard of directly:
Engineers were laid off with 3 months severance.
Engineers received 1.5 times salary for 1 year and had no triggered options. These engineers then had the opportunity to relocate when the site closed down. <comment><USER2> Location? (At least country & state.) Contract(s)? NDAs? Non-compete clause? (Not enforceable in California). Employment-at-will locale? (California is).

More optimistically, what does the acquiring entity want? Could they use you and some/all of your team? For what and for how long?

What are your/your team's assets for negotiating with the acquiring entity or some other employer (as individuals, or as a team)?

Also, you may want to edit to taste with: s/
/\n\n/g

<comment><AUTHOR> For conversational purposes say California. No NDA, non-compete, contracts etc.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about the
 above :( I have never had that issue before...</comment>


Immer: Create the next immutable state tree by simply modifying the current tree - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mweststrate/immer <comment><USER2> I'm a Redux maintainer, and I can vouch for this.

It's a pretty neat project. I've seen literally dozens of JS immutable update utility libraries, and Immer is the best one I've seen in terms of API, simplicity, and being able to write "normal" code.

It's racked up over 3000 stars so far, and that seems well deserved. I finally had a chance to play with it myself for the first time this last week, and it seems to work as advertised.

I think it's a great solution to help simplify immutable state updates, especially in Redux reducers. In fact, I just published a small package that, among other things, uses Immer as part of a `createReducer()` lookup table utility ( [https://www.npmjs.com/package/@acemarke/redux-starter- kit](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@acemarke/redux-starter-kit) ). We're hoping to eventually turn that into an official Redux "simple setup" package.</comment>


Elon Musk Is Selling Flamethrowers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-29/elon-musk-is-selling-flamethrowers <comment><USER2> Refreshing with a CEO that doesn't take himself too serious. I can imagine most CEOs would be terrified of doing something this silly, and promoting it in such a nerdy and silly way.

I like how his marketing is basically about appealing to the inner geek or man, who is really just a big boy who want bigger and more expensive toys.

Too many ads are essentially focused on fashionistas, people who want to be trendy or whatever. Flamethrowers in contrasts isn't trendy in any meaningful way. It is just a fun thing.

In a way everything that Musk does is really about making the stuff geeks dreamed of when they were kids. I spent considerable time marveling at space- stations and spacecraft in illustrated science magazines as a child. Beyond 2000 I fancied myself as a space tourist.

Of course none of that ever came to past, but now Musk is bringing back the childhood dreams.

In many ways it makes me realize how important literature and dreaming is. Science fiction literature might seem like time waste, but it is the kind of stuff that has helped inspire people like Elon Musk as a child and make him dream of a brighter future. Without dreaming we can't start to push the envelope.

For a long time I sort of imagined that dreamers and doers could not be the same person. But Elon Musk demonstrates you can both dream and be a talented guy who gets stuff done.

</comment><comment><USER3> From everything I've seen so far, it's more accurate to say that Elon Musk is selling Apeture Science-styled _weed burners_.

 _Flamethrowers_ look like _this_ : [https://youtu.be/aPQYK5ZMbWY?t=18m39s](https://youtu.be/aPQYK5ZMbWY?t=18m39s)

</comment><comment><USER4> This seems appropriate- George Carlin on flamethrowers:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4nknAzQPHE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4nknAzQPHE)

</comment><comment><USER5> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16249058](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16249058)

</comment><comment><USER6> Future tunnel borers will need these to repel the Deros.</comment>


Indian startups growth going black hat is disappointing - <AUTHOR> https://icodestartups.com/im-ashamed-of-these-indian-startups-hijacking-browser-history/ <comment><AUTHOR> The article mentions in detail how two startups have been trying to hold their visitors hostage by not letting them leave their websites. (Calling this browser history hijacking)</comment>


Show HN: A website to generate icons for iOS and Android apps in one step - <AUTHOR> https://appiconmaker.clss.hk/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys,

I tried quite a few of app icon generation services but wasn't satisfied - incomplete icon set, tedious steps...

I am pretty sure there are already some services that do the job perfectly but I just couldn't find them. That's why I made this site.

Any feedback is welcome!</comment>


Why do game developers prefer Windows? - <AUTHOR> https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-game-developers-prefer-windows <comment><USER2> Found this from 6 years back.

[https://gist.github.com/kirkegaard/1055336](https://gist.github.com/kirkegaard/1055336)

</comment><comment><USER3> I suspect that there are more games for iOS and Android than Windows at this point, so I assume the OP is referring just to desktop games. Is there a reference that shows total game sales by platform? I wasn't able to find one in a casual search.

<comment><USER4> "major" games might be more accurate. Half the time I am looking at games on app stores it's about 20% novel and interesting games and 80% candy crush / war of the world's etc... clones.

And if you are going to count all those little clones, then you would also need to count the countless chess games, poker games, solitaire varients and everything else that is available for windows.

<comment><USER5> 20% novel? Don't you mean 5% novel and interesting, 95% derivative/outright clones? And I'm possibly being generous with that percentage.

There are hundreds of games that come out every day, and Apple only highlights a small number of them. If it seems like 20%, that's probably because Apple chose not to feature them.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you care about people? - <AUTHOR>

Hello hackers,
I'm trying to build a startup which first aim is collecting world's feelings in a simple way; it's called smood.it (http://smood.it) and the prototype web app is on line since september 2010.
I'd like to know what are you thinking about it.
Are you interested about people you care feelings?
Would you be interested to know how people feel about your product or your venue?
Interest about the project had some gain thanks to betali.st but after this boost the hype stopped.
If you want to see the prototype just leave your email address at http://smood.it and I'll invite you. <comment><USER2> Are you going to use this on news stories? It would be interesting to see results after events like 9-11. It would also be interesting to compare media coverage on a product and the sales of that product.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it could be used on everything. If it has an URL you can "smood it".</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to sell Kleiner/Google-funded D-round Shares? - <AUTHOR> So I own a small number (under $100k at latest preferred valuation) of common shares in a very successful SaaS Analytics company that raised cumulatively close to $200mil from all the top investors. If you are in tech and in SV, chances are, your company uses its product. The company has been almost doubling its share price with every sale. And it has always had a healthy Revenue number to power up a big chunk of its growth.
I am currently in a rush to sell these shares. Unfortunately I am the only one former employee with such interest, so the volume is too small for secondary markets to take interest.
I've reached out to several professional liquidity solution companies, but received a low ball offer (price from a previous round). Maybe they expected that I would negotiate up and I missed the signal - regardless, it seems absurd to discount preferred shares at 40-50%. Especially for such a small volume. I mean, what do these guys know without access to company's finances, that Google did not when it invested $80 million (an had access to company's finances)?
So with that, what is you experience? How would you approach the sale of these shares? <comment><USER2> Hello

I'm interested in chatting with you regarding this. Please send me.your coordinates.

Tks

<comment><AUTHOR> @falumi Where to send them?</comment></comment>


If Airbnb could launch anything in 2017, what would it be? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/bchesky/status/813219932087390208 <comment><USER2> a rocket</comment>