Twitter tags Trump tweet with fact-checking warning - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52815552 <comment><USER2> Before I clicked on the link, I assumed this was yet another egregious lie. But this one really doesn't qualify. It falls squarely in the category of reasonable opinions. Let's look at the claim: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent". Clearly the veracity of the statement rests on the word "substantially." It's inconceivable that no one ever takes, for example, an elderly relative's mail in ballot and votes it fraudulently. So for this to be a reasonable opinion, it merely has to be reasonably possible for the claim to be true.

So, let's consider if such fraud could possibly be substantial. Let's use California as an example. Registering to vote is easy, all you need is a web browser[1] and a mailing address where you reside or with a resident willing to give you ballots or ignorant that they are receiving them[2]. Also, the State of California faces an impractically large legal hurdle to reject suspected fraudulent ballots[3] so it can be assumed that most if not all will be accepted. It seems clear based on the observable facts that substantial fraud is certainly possible under the California regime. Please note I am not claiming such fraud actually happens, merely that it is easily practicable for an organization as well organized as, say, a political party. To be honest, I bet literally hundreds if not thousands of readers on this site could build "California vote fraud as as service" as a side gig. Let's disrupt the electoral process for a billion dollar valuation!

From this I conclude that while I personally disagree with the President, this particular statement is a (probably, I sure hope) incorrect opinion, not a factually incorrect statement.

[1] [https://covr.sos.ca.gov/](https://covr.sos.ca.gov/)

[2] [https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/more- than-80-bal...](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/more- than-80-ballots-sent-to-san-pedro-apartment/106443/)

[3] [https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol- aler...](https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol- alert/article203746944.html)

<comment><USER3> It's not an opinion, it's a statement. Therein lies the rub.

There is no reasonable interpretation of "There is NO WAY (ZERO!)" to mean "there may possibly be".

e: The President just helpfully tweeted out in support of my argument:

"They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, __which will lead to massive corruption and fraud __, is incorrect "

<comment><USER4> There is evidence that mail in ballots causes more problems though. However to find unbiased information about it you have to search for articles from a time before it became political.

> Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be > compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting > booth, statistics show. Election officials reject almost 2 percent of > ballots cast by mail, double the rate for in-person voting.

New York times article:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more- vote-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail- faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The warning links to this page: [https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384](https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384)

It's a sort of article (I didn't know Twitter had this type of format, I really like it, weirdly enough) that contains an introduction text and a 'What you need to know' paragraph, followed by fact-checking tweets from press organizations.

I know where the tweets come from, but who has written the introduction and summary paragraphs, and who has compiled those tweets and photos in that order?

<comment><USER6> According to Ars Technica [1], this page is "created and managed by our global curation team".

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/05/twitters- first-f...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/05/twitters-first-fact- check-on-president-trump-calls-out-false-claims/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If we're honest a lot of his tweets violate twitters content policy and they do so blatantly. I wonder if they'll ever have the guts to straight up hand him at least a temp ban.

<comment><USER8> I understand this route. The President of the United States already has a gigantic platform, so it's not like he'll just go away like @nero did. This gives Twitter a chance to annotate his hate with facts, and hopefully reach his audience. Banning him just makes him a martyr, without lessening his reach.

I do wish the UI was a bit... angrier. The friendly light blue doesn't exactly scream "misinformation!"

But as they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Removing him from Twitter won't make him or his base any less hateful. It's a constant reminder that he needs to be removed. I think if Twitter and news organizations just started ignoring him, many people would forget how horrible he is.

<comment><USER9> I disagree, giving certain folks a platform only raises them up and legitimatizes them. Didn't the Reddit folks discover that shutting down hateful subreddits prevents them from popping back up effectively? I believe this is the citation[1].

[1] [http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand- hate.pdf](http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf)

<comment><USER10> > I disagree, giving certain folks a platform only raises them up and > legitimatizes them.

Who do you believe should have final say over which person or group of people can have a platform, and who can't?

Should it be whoever owns that particular platform? Should it be the government? Should it be the court of public opinion? I've yet to see a compelling argument for deplatforming that answers this question, because what is acceptable to society has large grey areas that are constantly shifting. I think the intentions are nothing but wonderful - I'm very glad that communities like those in the report you cited, and many similar ones, no longer exist on Reddit. The problem as I see it is that censorship lowers visibility of hate speech very effectively, but if anything seems to strengthen people's convictions that they are right about what they believe. Hateful subreddits may disappear, but is that clear evidence that the people that participated in them changed their minds about what they had expressed online? I find that conclusion dubious at best.

I see this issue most strongly with conspiracy theorists, which seem to be a dime a dozen in 2020. Censorship is nothing if not evidence that what someone is saying is true - see the recent "Plandemic" viral video as a great example.

Deplatforming is, like I said, well-intentioned, but like so many "solutions" it is obsessed with the symptom of the disease, not the cause. It is based on the very old but very wrong notion that 'if only everyone believed what I believe, all the world would be at peace'. That notion is the cornerstone of religious dogma and has been the justification for religious conversion, forcible or otherwise, for millennia. There _are_ proven ways to moderate people's beliefs through civil discourse. The issue is that it is so time consuming, unsatisfying, and thankless (not to mention that you don't get to play moral superiority games) that I'm not surprised people would rather just throw down the banhammer instead.

<comment><USER11> The point of deplatforming is not to change the minds of true believers in extremist causes, it's to hinder their ability to recruit.

<comment><USER12> "The more you tighten your grasp, the more star systems slip through your fingers."

Censoring the point of view of others merely lends credence to their point of view. Unless you find a way to censor them completely, you will cause more and more people to lose faith in _your_ ideals.

<comment><USER11> Got any proof of that?

<comment><USER12> All the new alternative social networks and video sites that have cropped up and the old ones that have ben gaining in popularity is evidence that people are beginning to turn away. Ex. lbry.tv, bitchute.com, gab.com, voat.co, phuks.co, zerohedge.com

<comment><USER13> This is an expected consequence of deplatforming — once you kick them off, those people are going to go _somewhere_. For this argument to work, you need to show that those networks are able to grow _more_ than they would as a community on a mainstream platform.

<comment><USER12> Networks tend to follow an exponential growth rate, so even if the same number moved to the alternative platforms, the time it would take them to grow large enough to be significant would shorten substantially.

<comment><USER13> Why would it shorten the growth period compared to mainstream platforms, where there are far more users who could join the community? Is there any evidence that this is the case?

<comment><USER12> > Why would it shorten the growth period compared to mainstream platforms, > where there are far more users who could join the community?

Because networks tend to follow an exponential growth rate. The time it takes to go from 1 to 128 equals the same time it takes to go from 128 to 16384, so if you add 127, you've shortened the time for the network to grow from 1 to 16384 by half. Meanwhile, for a platform that already had 16384, subtracting 127 is a drop in the bucket.

> Is there any evidence that this is the case?

Facebook/Youtube/Twitter/et al couldn't have grown as much as they did as fast as they did unless that was the case.

<comment><USER13> Not all exponential growth is the same: x^2 and x^1.01 are both exponential. I'm asking you for evidence that the exponent is higher for niche isolated networks than it is for communities on platforms with algorithmic promotion to a massive existing userbase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am glad that unelected corporations are protecting us from the opinions of elected officials.

<comment><USER15> Twitter deserves our respect for stepping out of their lane (marketing/advertising) to ensure that all information on their website is 100% scientifically accurate. Thank you, selfless heroes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Seems like this policy will be difficult to scale... Who is taking odds on Trump threatening a DOJ investigation before the week is over?

<comment><USER17> There is no crime the DOJ can justify investigating...

<comment><USER16> Well, it remains to be seen if that actually matters. Let's hope it still does.

[https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/27/after-twitter-fact- check-t...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/27/after-twitter-fact-check-trump- threatens-to-regulate-or-close-down-social-media-platforms/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How would one actually implement a high integrity fact-checking service?

<comment><USER19> Here's my vote for the best way:

\- Crowd sourced

\- If 80%+ agreement it's true or false, report it as such with top sources provided

\- If less than 80%, report it as "controversial leaning (strongly)..." with sources provided, inviting actual research

In the US, the question of mail voting encouraging fraudulence would get far less than a 80% consensus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This what a 2012 New York Times article[1] said about mail-in ballots:

>Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth, statistics show. Election officials reject almost 2 percent of ballots cast by mail, double the rate for in-person voting.

I'm sorry, but that so-called "fact checking" looks like a classic case of "Trump said something is bad, so we must defend that thing at all costs".

[1] - [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more- vote-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail- faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> I'd just like to commend Twitter for going the route I suggested YouTube take [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23266238](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23266238)

No need to censor, only offer a second opinion

</comment><comment><USER22> More and more it seems to be devolving into:

Someone: I don't trust the establishment

Establishment fact checker: FALSE. The establishment is perfectly trustworthy.

Maybe we need to start talking about The Right to be Suspicious or something.

</comment><comment><USER23> Curious what the process was in designing that warning. How did they A/B test this? How did they experiment with different fonts, colors, and spaces?

<comment><USER24> Looks like they tested it earlier this year.

The demo was a bright orange notice.

[https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/twitter-testing- new-w...](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/twitter-testing-new-ways- fight-misinformation-including-community-based-points-n1139931)

<comment><USER23> This is neat, thanks.

It's interesting that in the article they write: "A leaked demo features bright red and orange badges for tweets that are deemed "harmfully misleading.""

But currently, they didn't use that approach. Right now the warning tag is an exclamation point circled badge with blue text.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If Covid second wave happens in November, large scale mail in ballot efforts could lead to the biggest voter turn out in American history.

<comment><USER26> And if that happens, take note of which political parties/groups fight tooth and nail because they know that voter turn out is bad for them. (It's not difficult to predict.)

<comment><USER27> Isn't too much voter turnout bad though? Do we really want every poor ignorant impoverished (or rich) American voting? Or just the people that take democracy seriously and vote after having puzzled it out? If you reduce the friction too much (or even force people to vote) you'll get a lot of voting based on who promised the most goodies/handouts or emotional appeal rather than rational reasoning.

<comment><USER28> > every poor ignorant impoverished

There's some serious bias here. There are poor and impoverished people who are not ignorant. There are also ignorant millionaires. The moment you start saying who shouldn't be voting, make sure you realise how many people think you shouldn't be voting either.

At an extreme of that, see what the threshold of "rich" is for people saying "eat the rich".

<comment><USER27> I thought someone might interpret it that way, which is why I quickly edited to say "or rich" as well. However, you must admit that the ignorant poor vastly outnumber the ignorant rich.

<comment><USER29> The poor vastly outnumber the rich, so what point are you making exactly?

<comment><USER27> precisely that one, that the poor vastly outnumber the rich

<comment><USER30> So doesn't it stand to reason that the poor should have a greater say in the operation of our government than the rich do, given that vast outnumbering?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Twitter could possibly fund itself for a long time if they hosted a pay-per- view event of the moment they lock and disable that account for policy violations.

It could be the most profitable 5-minutes of pay-per-view streaming in history and also simultaneously the most amazing test of Internet resiliency, ever.

<comment><USER17> What are you talking about? A live stream of the Twitter admin UI pressing the "ban account" button? I don't think you've thought this through.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It seems like Trump is making a prediction rather than stating a fact, very very strange use of the phrase "fact-checking" by Twitter

<comment><USER26> Baseless speculation about the integrity of US national elections is a perfectly reasonable thing to fact-check and tag as misleading.

<comment><USER32> I'm glad at least you agree that his tweet is speculation.

<comment><USER26> The real world doesn't work like children playing word games at recess. "It was technically just a prediction because I was talking about the future and therefore it's impossible to make any judgements about what I said" just doesn't play in the real world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If Twitter is going to enact this policy to one entity they must do it to all. If not then they are not being a neutral platform.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm finding the response people are having to this mail in voting thing to be...puzzling.

It's _not_ a ridiculous thing to wonder about how susceptible mail in voting is to fraud, and it seems like some of us are putting blinders on simply due to our distaste for the current president.

If we were to hold a hackathon with a $100,000 prize for the most plausible path to exploit mail in voting in order to swing an election, are people implying that there would be no entries? Or maybe no viable entries? That's ridiculous.

Here's some spitballing: (eh, I removed this. I don't think brainstorming how to committ election fraud is a good idea. I'm assuming that readers of _hacker_ news can probably figure out some relatively obvious ways of casting doubt into the outcome of a mail in election)

How are people looking at what recently happened with 100s of millions of dollars of fraud being committed against various US unemployment systems, and not thinking that other systems might be at risk as well?

Remember the Iowa caucus? That was a hastily put together vote _reporting_ system, not even meant for tallying, and look at what a disaster it was. Now we're expecting that states will radically alter their voting system, in 5 months, and that it won't be vulnerable to interference?

To be clear: I LIKE mail in voting. I have permanent mail in voting status in my state (Arizona), and my wife and I usually get breakfast at our favorite restaurant and spend HOURS meticulously researching every candidate and BI on the form. Being able to take that amount of time is fantastic, and a luxury I wish everybody could have.

But it doesn't have to be so polar. I like mail in voting, obviously, but I'm not so stupid as to think that it cannot possibly be criticized. I am a _hacker_ after all.

Boo to twitter for this. This is twitter obviously putting their finger on the scale of an election, and after all of the drama surrounding the idea that foreign actors might have purchased a few 10s of thousands of dollars of facebook ads, I'd hope that Americans would have a distrust a company where foreign entities have a major stake doing such a thing. Not acceptable in my opinion.

Just to highlight my point a little further: here is an article from the nytimes highlighting that mail in voting is far more vulnerable to fraud than in person voting: [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more- vote-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail- faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html)

Here's a quote from the article:

>Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth, statistics show.

and another:

> Election experts say the challenges created by mailed ballots could well > affect outcomes this fall and beyond.

And another:

> The trend will probably result in more uncounted votes, and it increases the > potential for fraud. While fraud in voting by mail is far less common than > innocent errors, it is vastly more prevalent than the in-person voting

So who is to be believed here? Twitter? The New York Times? Why aren't the experts from this article being listened to?

<comment><USER35> The issue is that mail in voter fraud doesn't scale and you need scale to turn a national election. So you can argue this is a concern in general, but someone arguing this is a real problem for the integrity of the 2020 presidential election is being disingenuous at best.

<comment><USER36> Elections are run by the states, not by the Federal government. If Washington, the 13th most populous state can conduct elections purely via mail-in ballots, why not any other state?

<comment><USER35> >Elections are run by the states, not by the Federal government.

Sorry, I was talking about national scope and not the federal government actually running the election. The larger the electorate, the more votes cast, the more votes needed to change the results, and the more important scaling becomes in your plan to rig the election.

> If Washington, the 13th most populous state can conduct elections purely via > mail-in ballots, why not any other state?

I agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> So they finally did something about his endless lies after four years. Well, well.

</comment><comment><USER38> Trump is currently tweeting about how this warning message is taking away his 1st amendment rights to free speech, and constitutes interference in the 2020 election. Can't wait for these tweets to get the same warning.

[1]:[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12654275381401886...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265427538140188676)

<comment><USER39> Jesus goddamned Christ, even the _President of the United States_ doesn't realize that a corporation is incapable of violating your First Amendment rights.

<comment><USER40> That's not even the issue. If the government said he was lying, that wouldn't impact his first amendment rights; pointing out a lie is not censorship.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> 2019-nCoV > Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are > saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive > corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN > and the Amazon Washington Post....

> ....Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will > not allow it to happen!

Whelp, it was fun while it lasted.

[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12654275381401886...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265427538140188676)

</comment><comment> 2019-nCoV This is not going to end well. Every single aspect of life that cannot be rigorously tested under the scientific method is destined to become a partisan topic.

There is no way to be sure if mail-in ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent.

<comment><USER41> Considering mail-in voting has been put through the ringer in multiple states (both red and blue!) with very little voter fraud statistically, it seems like these days the partisan topics consist of reality vs Trump.

This is something that's been statistically proven to work and yet the amount of people I see leaping to his very ignorant claims of this topic here is disappointing. Can you back up the claims that mail-in ballots will be substantially fraudulent at any level beyond baseless speculation?

<comment> 2019-nCoV Has there been a more polarising American politician than Trump in living memory? Voter fraud is not a constant. It is completely dynamic. Just his Tweet completely changes reality. Now, if it does proceed, we'll see increased scrutiny of mail-in voting, which in turn would reduce fraud. This would then be cited by opponents as another counter-example, when in reality the increased scrutiny was the catalyst.

<comment><USER41> This isn't what I was asking. You're changing the argument now to try and claim that Trump's tweets would have increased scrutiny on mail-in voting, when in reality most states have had mail-in voting before the Trump presidency and has seen low levels of voter fraud.

You're trying to do a post-hoc justification in attempt to rationalize Trump's tweets rather than answer my argument. I'll ask you again: Where's the voter fraud data showing that vote by mail causes a massive amount of fraud?

<comment><USER12> How do we know how much fraud there is? How much fraud were we aware of at Enron until they went bust?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Twitter would just shit themselves if Trump set up a Mastadon server and moved there.

<comment><USER43> I think they'd be happy, dems would be happy and repubs would be happy. Let's make it happen.

<comment><USER43> Forgot that repubs don't just want free speech. They want everyone to have to see it and accept their opinion as facts.

<comment><USER42> Of course, Trump going to Twitter initially was because news reporters were misquoting him and blending their own opinions as facts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I don't follow Trump on Twitter but go and look up his feed regularly by Googling 'donald trump twitter'. I always get there by the first result.

This morning? He doesn't seem to be on the front page at all... the first result is for a search done on twitter.con for 'donald trump twitter', the next result is for the POTUS account. I would say this fact checking thing has had a knock on effect to search results.

</comment><comment><USER35> >The move comes on the heels of Twitter's decision not to remove comment President Trump made about the death of Lori Klausutis in 2001. The president has tweeted several messages promoting a conspiracy theory that Ms Klausutis was murdered by MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.

I would be very curious to hear an explanation of this decision. Why do Tweets about mail in ballots receive a warning but tweets accusing a journalist of murder don't?

<comment><USER38> I don't think he actually accused a journalist of murder. He used CYA language like "the investigation ought to be reopened". The implication is obvious, but I think that keeps him out of libelous territory. Of course Twitter can have more strict standards if they want, but so far they've chosen not to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If Twitter is going to do this to one they must do it to all. If not then they are not being a neutral platform.

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't know why all these expert voting frauds don't just take up regular mail fraud?

</comment><comment><USER46> Lol. He often twitters nonsense, but in this case Twitter itself is spreading false information. Of course mail ballots are totally insecure, esp. for nation state actors. Looks like Twitter joined collaboration with the CIA now, who is the relevant nation state actor in this case. There are multiple documented cases.

Same for his Hydroxychloriquine argument, which he promoted as good prevention (which is good information with scientific studies proving it), and this was labeled as false and dangerous information. Probably because Chloroquine phosphat is somewhat dangerous (different drug), and it has no proven treatment effects.

Please fact check the fact check warnings, and beware of dependent media.

</comment><comment><USER47> I think one of the issues with this will be how it is linking the correct information. I like the little inclusion before tweets, but there's no sources on them. Then when you scroll down on the tweets I see them in this order: The Hill, WaPo, CNN, a CBS News reporter, a Fortune Magazine reporter, a Vox reporter, Sr Political Reporter for Huffington, ACLU Nebraska, a CNN political correspondent.

The issue here is that everything here is considered in the hard left of the media. I'm concerned that this will only help grow the divide between Americans, though I also don't have a better alternative to this. Clearly there is a lack of coverage of this from the right and in fact the opposite. A quick DDG search of "fox news mail in ballot" pulls up [0][1][2]. So when you see things like this I think it is easier to say that "the left" is trying to trick you. If Fox is your primary source of news, then it does look like Twitter is trying to silence a real issue. If Fox isn't your primary source of news then it looks like Twitter is trying to fight misinformation. Things are so crazy that it really is hard to find the truth and there is very good reason to believe that someone is lying. And no one wants to admit that someone they've trusted for a long time is lying to them, especially when there's nuggets of truth that you can hold onto.

So I'm a little worried about the repercussions of this, especially since the right already thinks Twitter is supporting the left.

Edit: By hard left I mean from the perspective of Fox viewers. My main point is about the perspective of the people this is specifically aimed at. While on the left we don't see it that way go talk to your friends on the right, they see it differently. My concern is because we need to unify and not divide.

[0] [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/voter-fraud-california- man-...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/voter-fraud-california-man-finds- dozens-of-ballots-stacked-outside-home)

[1] [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/south-carolina-election- bal...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/south-carolina-election-ballots- reportedly-found-in-maryland-this-week)

[2] [https://video.foxnews.com/v/6158607323001#sp=show- clips](https://video.foxnews.com/v/6158607323001#sp=show-clips)

<comment><USER48> The problem for me, someone who really wants to be in the middle, is that the only conservative leaning news outlet that I believe (no facts in my reporting) does fact based reporting is the Wall Street Journal. If I want news with data and facts I have to go with the "left" leaning papers.

The Washington Examiner and Fox News have been burning their credibility on a daily basis.

<comment><USER12> > The Washington Examiner and Fox News have been burning their credibility on > a daily basis.

Oh really? Name some things they lied about in the last 5 days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> It's a strange decision by Twitter here, but they are in a strange position.

Donny, love him or hate him, does say a fair few things that are ... questionable. Jack has talked about this a bit, and their conclusion thus far has been that anything he says, by virtue of the office, is newsworthy enough. Policies for thee, but not for he. It's been a battle with users, but everyone seems to just grumble along.

That policy has worked up until today.

A lot of work went into this decision. They A/B tested the color of the note, likely the font, the positioning, the exact words, the fact check itself, etc. This thing went through meeting after meeting and was run past some good legal counsel. Twitter isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but it's also not a rusty shovel. They red-teamed this a fair bit, I'd imagine. They must have known that Donny would not view it favorably and would do exactly what he is doing currently.

All the same they went ahead and decided to make the move at the end of May, ~6 months before the 'fit hits the shan'.

Why?

Their stock is, well, fairly ok. Jack seems to be doing alright. Monthly users are flat-ish since 2015, but compared to FB, it's a bit of a wash.</comment>


Apple: Siri Only Works On iPhone 4S, We Have No Plans To Support Older Devices - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/09/apple-siri-only-works-on-iphone-4s-we-have-no-plans-to-support-older-devices/ <comment><USER2> There's no technical limitation here: Siri works with rooted phones. iirc it was also in the App Store for older devices before Apple bought the company.

<comment><USER3> As the article says, it's all about model differentiation. The 4S is a fine upgrade, but it would be far less interesting to current iPhone 4 owners if Siri wasn't a 4S exclusive.

Apple can plaster a lot of environment-blah blah on their website, but they (but also most Android vendors) are the anti-thesis of sustainability. Encouraging people to upgrade frequently, and quickly deprecating old models. E.g. my girlfriend's 3G is in a fine state hardware-wise, will probably function well for a few more years, but there are no more security updates.

(A mostly happy iPhone 4 user.)

<comment><USER4> Note that the 3G is almost 3.5 years old now and few people still use it.

<comment><USER5> Here in Canada where the oligopoly of telcos locks you into _3 year contracts_ many people in my family still use their 3GS. In fact everyone in my immediate family with an iPhone has the 3GS (as did I until May when mine broke). Also worth noting that the 3GS has been sold up until this very day.

Some Canadians have been upgrading from the iPhone 3G this fall as well, which was sold up until summer 2010. My coworker just got a 4S and gave his 3G to his mom who now loves it.

I have no idea what it's like in SF and other similar places but there's a big world outside of California.

<comment><USER6> > Here in Canada where the oligopoly of telcos locks you into 3 year contracts > many people in my family still use their 3GS.

Yep, can't stress this point enough and I don't know if its specific to Canada or not.

I just got off my contract with a 3G iPhone in September of this year. That phone was really starting to show it's age.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A few points:

First, I agree with a point that others have raised regarding Siri "working" on rooted phones. Sure, it will run, but does it run well? Does it slow the phone down signficantly when in heavy use? Until we know for sure, I'm not going to get worked up about it.

Second, it is very possible that the technical limitation is server-side. Apple has a pretty spotty history with web services and limiting Siri to the iPhone 4S may just be a way to slowly scale the backend.

Third, I think it's pretty absurd to call out Apple's lack of support for old devices. The level of support still available for the 2.5-year-old iPhone 3GS is outstanding compared to other smart phones. Most people who _really_ care about having the newest tech are probably upgrading their phones every two years anyway. And, really, who can blame Apple for wanting to differentiate their products? I don't mind if that is the reason, but I would prefer an honest answer if that is the only reason.

<comment><USER8> > The level of support still available for the 2.5-year-old iPhone 3GS is > outstanding

They are selling the 3GS brand new today. I don't think they deserve kudos for supporting a current product. It should go without saying.

<comment><USER7> That doesn't change the fact that people who bought a 3GS 2.5 years ago are still getting significant updates to the hardware. Really, what better way is there to support a product than continue selling it?

If you want to look at the other options out there, Android is doing a terrible job. A number of Android phones don't even ship with the most recent version of the OS and some never see updates at all. It's getting better, but it's far from great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Apple sells hardware. Microsoft sells software. IBM sells services. Google and Facebook sell advertising. Amazon sells everything.

<comment><USER10> Apple does not sell "hardware". Apple sells complete products that vertically integrate hardware, software and (more recently) services.

<comment><USER11> It's been analyzed before here — their margins come from hardware.

<comment><USER12> But their "value proposition" comes from selling a complete product, in large part to people that don't care a whit about the difference between hardware and software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I do think Apple will stick to this, but on the other hand an engineer's comment on a bug report is not much to go on--they may not know Apple's real plans, and Apple could go back on its stated plans anyway.

</comment><comment><USER14> What do you mean by "works"? :)

<comment><USER15> Snark aside, I'd say that Siri doesn't seem to work at least 50% of the time.

First, it tends not to be able to connect to the network. Whether with full 3G or even over wifi a large percentage of the time you'll end up with "I'm having trouble connecting to the network" after asking your question. There shouldn't be any excuses here - paid for the phone which the service was a feature, one should be able to use it whenever they need.

Second, the speech to text is severely lacking. Sure it does a fairly good job of sentence translation but anything outside of phonetic names is just garbage. You'll get 'Red Robin' but not 'QDoba'. You'll get the last name of 'Anderson' or 'Jones' but any ethnic name (I'm of German descent - no match, I can't imagine being Indian, Korean, Hispanic, etc.) isn't going to match unless you say it phonetically.

Third, it just tends to be a glorified search widget. Other than reminders or asking about the weather you'll most likely just be prompted to search for what you are asking. And at that point you are back to the phonetic requirements to get what you are searching for.

I'm not saying Siri is bad, it has it's place, but this isn't the revolution it's hyped up to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you don't pay for the product, you aren't the customer. Just a more literal interpretation of the phrase with Apple.

<comment><USER17> I don't exactly see how this is relevant to the decision not to bring a feature to an older phone.

<comment><USER18> The carrier paid for it. They want you to sign up for a contract extension to get the shiny new phone. They have no interest in supporting your old phone.

<comment><USER19> And who paid the carrier? I pay AT&T upwards of $3000/year, and when I upgrade, they still charge me $100-$200 for the phones I want. I'm pretty sure I'm paying them for that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tim Berners-Lee rejects Adobe's procedural arguments - <AUTHOR> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0871.html <comment><USER2> This isn't rejecting the original argument. The argument that Larry Masinter made was that canvas, microdata, and RDFa are outside of the scope of the charter (as much as people wanted to believe, he was not arguing that they shouldn't be working on those items). Tim Berners Lee specifically says he agrees:

"The work of the group has grown since it was chartered, and the charter document itself is no longer sufficiently explicit."

There's no discrepancy here.

<comment><USER3> To say, "There's no discrepancy here" may be literally true if you focus on the issue of scope, but it misses the larger point. TBL said no to what Adobe wanted. You also left out key parts of the respopnse. Here's a fuller version:

 _The work of the group has grown since it was chartered, and the charter document itself is no longer sufficiently explicit. (See recent W3C blog post on this topic [2]). This message clarifies what I consider to be within the scope of the group.

I agree with the WG chairs that these items -- data and canvas -- are reasonable areas of work for the group. It is appropriate for the group to publish documents in this area._

<comment><USER2> Right, and here's a message from Masinter:

 _I think it would be fine to update the charter to include 2D Context as actually within scope if that's what the working group proposes and the Director and AC agree.

I wouldn't object to that._ (see [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www- archive/2010Feb/0004...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www- archive/2010Feb/0004.html))

Compared to the recent message from TBL: _I am asking the domain lead to annotate the charter_

Unless there's a massive difference between _update_ and _annotate_ the charter that I'm unaware of those sound like exactly the same things.

I'm not saying that Masinter didn't have any ulterior motives (but I'm also not saying he did). But the facts of what people have said in this debate always seem to get ignored in favor of the evil Adobe storyline.

<comment><USER4> There is a big difference between "update" and "annotate". The former requires a multi-month review cycle with many opportunities for objection. The latter just happens (apparently).

In addition, the way Tim phrased it implies that these items are already arguably in scope, but let's make it more explicitly clear, as opposed to implying that they were out of scope and a change is needed for them to be in scope at all.

<comment><USER5> Yes, exactly -- it felt like he was giving a big eye-roll to Adobe, followed with a, "fine, if you're going to be annoying about it, I'm just going to add a clarification that says we've been doing the right thing." Which is what he appears to have already believed, but wants to make it explicit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> And Masinter's response: [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public- html/2010Feb/0874...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public- html/2010Feb/0874.html)

Can we all hold hands and sing kumbaya now? The thing I find sad is that in what was really a civil conversation in which various parties raised objections, others responded to objections, and action will (?) be taken, the outcome is that Masinter is now branded as HTML hating corporate a-hole and Berners-Lee will be seen as the white knight that defeated Adobe. When the reality is that respectful adults worked out their differences in an impressively polite manner. But that's not nearly as exciting a story.

<comment><USER5> It's hard to tell what to believe, really. Just because the public discourse was polite and diplomatic, it doesn't mean that what's underneath it all was just as chill. But I don't know, and I suspect you (or really anyone else posting here) don't really know either. We have very little to go on.

But I do agree with your point that, at least in public, it appears that people were able to resolve the situation respectfully and politely. Even if, worst case, Adobe was trying to derail HTML5, and now Larry Masinter is fuming behind the scenes due to his failure to do so, it was all handled very well and we should be pleased that such level-headed individuals are involved in shaping the future of the web.

<comment><USER6> The only thing that keeps me fuming is that anyone took the initial accusation seriously in the first place. There was no secret conspiracy, really! There couldn't have been.

There's a lot of speculation in this thread that I think is wrong, but is it worth correcting it all?

I've put a lot of my career into making web standards useful, clear, architecturally coherent, extensible, and I'm not interested in slowing down features or adoption into the open web platform. I'm a big fan of open systems, and I think in the end they benefit everyone.

But "open" really does mean "transparent": tell the truth, don't mislead. Assume people really look at the charter of a working group and believe what it says, without having to squint and look at it sideways.

I'm fuming a bit about how I can't defend my credibility to people who think I'm a liar, since saying I'm not.... well, it's just more evidence of how much of a liar I am, isn't it?

While I've had a lot of experience with rough-and-tumble standards groups (chairing the HTTP group in the 90s wasn't easy), this seems a lot worse, but maybe it's because I'm getting the brunt of it this time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find this intriguing, but not comprehensible.

Does there exist someone who could explain the significance of what Sir B-L is saying? If you are that person, please do.

As I understand the background: Adobe has been bungling around on some secret mailing list about Flash and HTML 5. Mark Pilgrim has made fun of them for wanting to keep what's public secret. Now, they are getting their come- uppance. Yes?

<comment><USER8> As I understand the situation:

Adobe's representative to the WHATWG, Larry Masinter, filed a formal objection (FO) on a private WHATWG mailing list to the publication of the HTML5 standard because the standard, at present, includes extensions to HTML such as Canvas and RDFa that Masinter believes are beyond the scope of what HTML5 was supposed to entail, as outlined in the working group's charter.

Since Canvas, in particular, would be very beneficial to those wishing to emulate Adobe Flash's capabilities using solely HTML5, ECMAScript, and CSS, some have interpreted Masinter's formal objection as an attempt by Adobe to prevent HTML5 from taking root in order to prevent competition to Adobe Flash.

In this letter, Berners-Lee is saying that he believes that Canvas, RDFa, and microdata are legitimately part of the HTML5 spec, and even if the current charter does not explicitly allow for them, it should be amended to do so.

<comment><USER9> Some have interpreted that way, but it's quite cynical.

I used to do a bunch of W3 standard. People I know on the inside _not_ from Adobe have told me that this was just a procedural question.

This is probably the reason it was done on a private list, to avoid exciting this kind of speculation, which certain people in the WG decided to spark anyway by posting about "secret objections".

<comment><USER10> What do you think Hixie's view on Larry's actions were? He certainly sparked the controversy with his public reaction to Larry. Was it justified? Was he overreacting? Politicking? There's more to this story even if it's just people politics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This headline is misleading in that Timbl is agreeing that the charter is out of date. He isn't rejecting some proposal from Adobe to banish items from the WG agenda.

<comment><USER11> This really is a horrible title for his post. He came as close to agreeing as possible without actually triggering a full on review of the charter. In fact, annotating the charter is probably all Masinter was going for really (he just didn't know how to request "annotating" vs "updating").</comment></comment>


Compilers in OpenBSD - <AUTHOR> http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=137530560232232&w=2 <comment><USER2> A decent picture of the history is given in the OP:

* "gcc 2.5 (at the time) had a few bugs, but not many"

* "schism between gcc 2.8, conservative...and the ``Pentium gcc'' group...[Pentium gcc group was] stretching the optimizer code beyond its limits"

* "These projects eventually merged as gcc 2.95...gcc [now] had bugs"

But what does this historical lesson tell us?

Stallman was conservative, slow-moving and cathedral-like with 2.8. This approach helped keep bugs out of the code.

The "pentium gcc" (Cygnus/egcs) group was quickly responding to marketplace needs. It was more bazaar-like. It committed code more freely than Gnu would - and the code while allowing for new functions was not always that well architected.

So what was the deal with this schism and then subsequent merger which happened? What happened was egcs (the Cygnus-oriented one, the "pentium gcc" one) began eclipsing gcc. Toward the end it _really_ began eclipsing gcc. It was not as solid as gcc, but it had all the new functionality people wanted. All over, people were seriously about to abandon gcc and go with egcs. At this point Stallman threw up his hands and accepted that the egcs approach had won. They merged, and gcc became more liberal about what code it would commit, at the expense of being a solid code base. Just like the OP says.

So now what is different this time around? Why is a compiler which prioritizes stability and correctness over new functionality and optimizations going to win? The latter approach won last time around, why should the first approach win this time? Especially since in battles between cathedral/waterfall projects and bazaar/agile projects, the bazaar/agile approach seems to come out on top again and again. OpenBSD can afford to go this route if it wants because OpenBSD fills a marginal niche. It might even be interesting to watch OpenBSD go down this road. But for more mainstream OS's like Linux, this approach might not be possible.

And if anyone mentions Apple - Apple is not marginal, but it is a niche. GCC and Linux are in a multitude of environments. A company like Apple with its own ecosystem and only a handful of targets can afford to pick and choose its compiler.

<comment><USER3> Both you and Chuck see this situation as naturally arising out of some aspect of open source software. I see this as being simply a side-effect of particular compiler developers enjoying optimization more than portability. Couldn't it just be priorities on these teams that led them to this situation, without it being some kind of indirect result of some over-arching political/economic phenomenon?

<comment><USER4> I agree and as an academic I can say that optimizations are sure sell for an academic paper, and I think most new optimizations are first developed in academic work in industry or at universities. Portability on the other end seems like a hard sell and if it sounds too much like engineering it is academic suicide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ok, that is a pretty compelling argument in favor of non-open source software.

I read it to say that GCC is so open source that it cannot converge on a stable release. Further there isn't a non-commercial (aka free) incentive for making it stable, so it doesn't converge. Rather it trundles along from new optimization strategy to the next constantly in a state of minor bugginess. The economics of 'sold' products uses the loss of revenue as the incentive to maintain quality, without that incentive its hard.

Google has (had?) a pretty good sized team that did nothing but maintain GCC. I'm sure it cost them easily $1M/year to keep that team going. There is no incentive for them to fund a team like that in a third party such that everyone else benefits from their work. Sure they offer the changes back into the base product, and somewhere else there is another team working for company Y that is taking those, porting them into their effort. In this article from Marc he mentions himself and 5 other developers who are the "compiler people". 5 developers, $120K each, that is .6M/year before you add insurance and office space.

And those 5 have their lives made more difficult by the dozen or so folks who are committing in changes that destabilize parts of the code or require side ports.

It makes me wonder how many people there are like me who would be willing to pay $100/year for a bespoke C compiler that was supported by a single source and stable.

<comment><USER6> > It makes me wonder how many people there are like me who would be willing to > pay $100/year for a bespoke C compiler that was supported by a single source > and stable.

Did you look at ICC / XLC / MSVC? They typically outperform GCC by about 20%, although I haven't checked in a while.

<comment><USER7> You should probably check again, but in any case MSVC shouldn't be compared to gcc/icc/clang - it can't even compile code written for a 14 year old language specification (C99), so no sane person should use it for C development these days.

<comment><USER8> FWIW, Microsoft hasn't made an effort to support much of C99 because almost none of their users (Windows and XBox developers) use C. I don't know any Windows or XBox programmers who uses C.

Your point is still valid: if you want to compile C99 code, MSVC is not even an option.

<comment><USER6> It depends on the features you use. If all you want is variadic macros, long long, __FUNCTION__, and stdint.h, it has those things.

If you don't care about sticking to C, you can usually get what you want with a C++ feature anyway.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3879636/what-can-be- done-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3879636/what-can-be-done-in-c- but-not-c/3880281#3880281)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For an example of a recent bug try this [http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla//show_bug.cgi?id=56888](http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla//show_bug.cgi?id=56888) basically the compiler tries to recognise code that manually does memcpy or memcmp and replaces it with the built in version. Even if you are trying to compile libc where you get an infinite loop when this happens.

<comment><USER10> My colleagues and I often lament how gcc is just so much smarter than all of us. Usually after spending a day figuring out why our code wasn't working, only to discover that gcc was doing something "clever".

<comment><USER11> This one sounds almost like peephole optimization of sorts. How exactly is that "clever"?

<comment><USER12> I assumed it was the ironic sense—it was intended to be clever but just ended up being a bug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No mention of pcc[1] except note that it was orphaned in the early 90s. I see here[2] it's been removed from OpenBSDs base system. What happened to pcc? I had high hopes for it. Is there no chance it'd become a viable compiler? (fwiw, it's still included in NetBSD base system).

      [1] http://pcc.ludd.ltu.se/

      [2] http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/196817

<comment><USER9> But it can't even compile NetBSD [http://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/portable_c_compiler](http://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/portable_c_compiler) which is disappointing (its much easier than Linux).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> >The last de-facto LTS compiler we have had was gcc 126.96.36.199

The new de-facto LTS compiler is gcc 4.2.1, the last version released under GPLv2. After gcc switched to GPLv3, Apple and FreeBSD stayed on 4.2.1.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure all of OpenBSD's platforms have code generation support in 4.2.1 - for example, the m88k issue given in the article.

But that is definitely a good place to stop/start (depending on how you look at it)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "...but there is something I wish would happen first.

An LTS release of an open source compiler."

Surprising that this doesn't already exist--Apple and RedHat and Ubuntu, etc. must all maintain what is in effect a LTS version of the compilers they ship, in the same way that OpenBSD does.

<comment><USER17> Forgive my ignorance, but what does 'LTS' stand for?

<comment><USER18> LTS: Long Term Support, it is a version that the editor/community will support for a long time. Here you find the policy for Ubuntu: [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm curious why compiler testing appears to be so hard. It seems to me that: Given this C input, this AST should be built, and on this platform, this code should be generated. This should be testable through automated scripts and numerous test cases could be created for new features resulting in huge regression suites. Am I missing something, or is it the effort of putting together such tests that's the problem?

<comment><USER20> gcc does have a _huge_ test suite.

The problem is if you combine all the various flags that affect the compiler, across all the architectures, across all the platforms, in all its variants (cross compiler, native, the many handful of libc and barebones variants) you're looking at too many tests to run no matter how huge an infrastructure you have to run it.

Another problem is that optimization depends a lot of context, given the amount(basically infinity) of C code that could surround any other piece of C code and affect the result - it's quite a hard task.

One interesting approach is csmith ,[http://embed.cs.utah.edu/csmith/](http://embed.cs.utah.edu/csmith/), that generates random C programs and look for bugs.

<comment><USER21> Their PLDI paper, "Finding and Understanding Bugs in C Compilers", is an amazing read: [http://www.cs.utah.edu/~regehr/papers/pldi11-preprint.pdf](http://www.cs.utah.edu/~regehr/papers/pldi11-preprint.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The only software that isn't buggy is dead software with no users. All software has bugs, and that is a fact of life.

Clearly OpenBSD developers haven't been involved with the compiler engineering communities, and their wishes have been neglected over many years; this is not news. Why? Because there are no _users_. Bugs don't get fixed by bitching about them: they get fixed when you get involved with upstream and write patches.

GCC can be as "conservative" or "cathedral-like" as it wants: if it does not produce sufficiently optimized code for the big users, it will be thrown out the window. Today, GCC is in active development and has more users than anyone else. The leadership is strong: RMS and many of the GNU people are heavily involved. Those are the facts.

LLVM is the other elephant in the room: from my experience posting patches on their list, they don't give a shit about getting llvm/clang to build linux.git, or many of the projects that currently use GCC. Although it might be technically superior (the code is much more readable and maintainable), the community is much too narrow. Moreover, the leadership is gone: most of the top contributors (Chris Lattner, Evan Cheng, Reid Spencer) seem to have lost interest in the project.

The proprietary compilers like ICC are mostly useful just in research. Sure, they produce highly optimized code, but they're black boxes that cannot be studied or tinkered with. I tried compiling git.git with ICC a few years ago out of curiosity [1]: pages and pages of totally pointless warnings; gcc and clang both clean-compiled git.git at that point.

What the community needs is a compiler project with a strong leadership that cares deeply about its users, not a dead "LTS" project that nobody else gives a shit about: nobody wants to work on a project that's in maintenance-mode. Hardware, programming languages, and compilers evolve constantly, and programmers must learn to cope with these changes.

Fwiw, I'd really like to see what "bugs" this guy is talking about. If they really don't care about hardware, programming language, and compiler technology advancement, why don't they just maintain a port of an older version of GCC? Why bother with new versions at all?

[1]: [https://gist.github.com/anonymous/1367335](https://gist.github.com/anonymous/1367335)

<comment><USER23> > LLVM [...] don't give a shit about getting llvm/clang to build linux.git.

The LLVMLinux project is making good progress towards this goal. [http://llvm.linuxfoundation.org/](http://llvm.linuxfoundation.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Refreshing to know that even settled projects have those same problems at their core. Depending on upstream developers is always a big risk you have to calculate well. Was always a pain and only gets bigger in our agile *aaS world.

<comment><USER25> Snarky comment (be prepared), but I read *aaS as Shit as a Service the first time around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The g++ 4.7 and or libstc++ that goes with it from their pkg-add repo is b0rked at the moment. Exceptions don't work.

</comment><comment><USER27> If people switch from GCC to Clang/LLVM in enough numbers that Apple think they can get away with it, Apple will, in a heartbeat, close the development of Clang/LLVM and make all new versions proprietary.

<comment><USER28> You understand Apple aren't the only developers of Clang right? It's their project, but there's nothing stopping anyone else (say Google, which are also huge contributors) from forking their own version of Apple decide to do something that would surely hurt them more than help them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It seems like they might like CompCert. An optimizing C compiler that comes with a formal proof of correctness. Downsides: GPL, doesn't quite implement the full C language (but it's getting closer), and no support for ancient crap such as m88k.

EDIT: I misunderstood the license file, the majority of the code is non- commercial-use only, only a small part is dual-licensed. Still a cool project, even if it's not open source...

<comment><USER30> The OP's problem is with the support for the exotic targets and the more recent additions to the C standard (C99, soon C11). CompCert targets only x86 and PowerPC, and does not support all the features of C99, not to mention the GCC extensions that everyone has come to rely on. In fact, in terms of these criteria it is uniformly worse than GCC 184.108.40.206 (although it is better at having verified, bug-free semantics).

<comment><USER29> That was only his second complaint.

      "First, compilers are fragile. While one would like to expect a minimum
      level of correctness and trustworthiness from a modern compiler, we
      can't, regardless of the compiler we use."

CompCert (had it been truly open source) would have provided that trustworthiness. And it can be ported to new architectures with the confidence that these ports won't silently break by random other changes.

<comment><USER23> There are two fundamental problems with CompCert: 1) there is no formal, machine-readable specification of the C language, and 2) there is no formal, machine-readable specification of the target architectures. CompCert may be formally verified, but it's not necessarily a C compiler (even ignoring that it implements only a subset of C), nor does it necessarily compile for the advertised architecture.

<comment><USER31> Addressing number 1) [https://code.google.com/p/c-semantics/](https://code.google.com/p/c-semantics/)

Not perfect, but pretty good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I love seeing posts like this from OpenBSD team members. I cut my chops developing on that platform and I have to say I've never encountered a more clean and well thought-out code base.

</comment><comment><USER33> Hopefully the OpenBSD members will reach out to the FreeBSD members, who can share a lot of knowledge about their transition from GCC in the base system, over to Clang/LLVM.

<comment><USER34> FreeBSD maintains fewer platforms than OpenBSD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why not just to have clang installed in /usr/local?) And gcc 4.2.1 is good- enough.

</comment><comment><USER36> People seeing the value of correctness. Proofs >> Tests.

<comment><USER3> I don't think that's the message here at all. The only way to prove code correct is by reference to some kind of specification. If that spec is a standard full of implementation-defined behavior (and worse, contradicted in practice by all the other vendors) a correctness proof is not really going to convey what it sounds like it would.

What Miod is really asking for is an open source compiler that puts stability and portability over compiler optimization. If it weren't for optimizations and the endless fiddling that goes with them, gcc would have remained stable. It is already the only option that meets their portability requirements.

<comment><USER37> i agree that miod isn't talking about proofs. but i don't think adultSwim was making that claim, either.

> The only way to prove code correct is by reference to some kind of > specification.

there are other interesting properties to prove besides "correctness of the entire compiler".

you could prove the entire compiler version n+1 emits the same code as version n, modulo $bugfix.

you could prove that individual optimizations are, on their own, correct with regards to the AST or IR that gcc operates on.

neither of those require a formalized spec of C. the first would probably make miod pretty happy. sadly one isn't going to get gcc man handled into a proof assistant, ever.

<comment><USER3> Those are interesting and extremely good ideas, thanks for pointing them out.

I do wonder if OpenBSD would accept a C compiler built on a small functional language amenable to these kinds of proofs. I suppose fulfilling the portability requirements is priority one, then stability. I just wonder if they would accept something not written in C at all.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN:  Does society benefit from age-related brain decline? - <AUTHOR>

One could argue that brain decline forces people to change the way they work -- taking advantage of their experience while avoiding analytical problem solving.
In other words, it's a path to management.
Without brain decline, you would have people in management positions who would rather be doing something else. <comment><USER2> There are some people who are in management for itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> But they are probably lacking in technical experience.

<comment><USER2> Probably.</comment></comment></comment>


The tragedy of FireWire: Collaborative tech torpedoed by corporations - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/06/the-rise-and-fall-of-firewire-the-standard-everyone-couldnt-quite-agree-on/ <comment><USER2> Due to DMA (Direct Memory Access) in most implementations, IEEE 1394 ("FireWire") can be used to directly read from and write to RAM.

See: IEEE 1394 > Security issues [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Security_issues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394#Security_issues)

FWIU, USB 3 is faster than FireWire; there are standard, interchangeable USB connectors and adapters; and USB implementations do not use DMA. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0)

<comment><AUTHOR> > _FWIU, USB 3 is faster than FireWire_

You've missed the point. The title of the article reads "The tragedy of FireWire" \- how a good standard was victimized due to corporate politics. FireWire was 10 years ahead of USB. In 2002, FireWire 800 provided a data rate of 800 Mbps, full-duplex. On the other hand, USB 2 only had 480 Mbps, half- duplex. USB didn't catch up until 2010, after USB 3.0 was released. FireWire uses 30 V, 1.5 A power, and it supports power delivery up to 45 watts. USB didn't offer anything similar, not even the latest USB 3, until 2014 after Power Delivery and Type-C's standardization - and real applications only started to ramp up by ~2017. Both limitations of USB 2 were detrimental to some applications, e.g. using hard drives on a PC was painful due to speed and power constraints, had FireWire became more common, it would not be an issue. FireWire can also do everything Ethernet can do (in fact, 1394b's signaling is better than 100Base-TX Ethernet, and has lower radiation), networking is natively supported, you can network two computers together directly with a 1394 cable! On USB, it's only possible using an external controller. One application was NAS, a hard drive can be shared directly over 1394, and mounted as a local drive. Not possible with USB. Finally, 1394b does not have USB's 5-meter limitation due to protocol timing, and natively supports signaling over CAT-5 and fiber optics cable for a distance of ~50-100 meters - on USB, it requires a media converter running vendor-specific custom protocols and not interoperable. All of these features are standardized in 2004 in IEEE 1394b.

Of course, limitations are not inherently USB 2's failures, they have different applications, FireWire was more expensive, and USB's goal was low- cost. But the tragedy was that bad business decision prevented FireWire to achieve its full potential, slowly fading out, and eventually became irrelevant after USB 3 despite its initial good engineering.

FireWire was a tragedy.

> _Due to DMA (Direct Memory Access) in most implementations, IEEE 1394 ( > "FireWire") can be used to directly read from and write to RAM._

This is why we need IOMMU.

You should not blame IEEE 1394 for DMA attacks just because it supports DMA. I agree that the tragedy of FireWire probably prevented a common PC exploit vector as an lucky unintentional consequence, but it's just a symptom, not the actual issue - and the symptom has came back in another form.

Most sufficiently fast hardware interfaces support DMA, and they're equally vulnerable - this includes PCI-E, ExpressCard (which exposes PCI-E), USB 4 (which exposes PCI-E port), Thunderbolt (which exposes PCI-E). Practical exploits are already widespread, not limited to arbitrary memory reads/writes, but also OptionROM arbitrary code execution if a Thunderbolt device is plugged in at boot time.

And this is not only a problem for external ports like 1394, USB 4 or Thunderbolt. Threats also exist from internal devices, like a Ethernet or Wi- Fi controller on the motherboard. While you cannot initiate a DMA transaction via Ethernet (without RDMA) or Wi-Fi since they don't expose PCI-E, the fact that those are connected directly to PCI-E implies any vulnerability in the controller firmware potentially allows an attacker to launch a DMA attack. Exploits already exist for Wi-Fi controllers.

This is the real problem. While the mechanism of IOMMU exists, CPU manufacturers and operating systems previously did little to systematically protect the system from DMA. In the past, Intel intentionally removed IOMMU functionality from low-end CPUs and motherboard chipsets in order to sell more Xeon CPUs to enterprise users. Also, while IOMMU is supported by operating systems, kernel code and drivers were not systematic audited for security - serious IOMMU bypass vulnerabilities have been previously discovered (and patched) in macOS and Linux's IOMMU implementations.

With continued proliferation of USB 4 and Thunderbolt, the lack of IOMMU and buggy driver implementation will become a bigger problem.

So far, QubesOS is most most protected operating system from DMA attacks. Untrusted hardware are assigned to a dedicated VM, and IOMMU is enforced by the hypervisor, not the individual device drivers in operating systems. Compromising a device driver in an untrusted domain does not directly expose the rest of QubesOS to attackers.

> _and USB implementations do not use DMA._

USB 4 does now.

<comment><USER2> So your argument is that not security but cost is the reason that USB "won" the external device interface competition with FireWire?

Good to know that USB4 implementations are making the same mistake as FireWire implementors did in choosing performance over security . Unfortunately it looks like there will be no alternative except for maybe to use a USB3 hub (or an OS with fuzzed IOMMU and also controller firmwares)?

Could an NX bit for data coming from buses with and without DMA help at all?

Hot gluing external ports now seems a bit more rational and justified for systems where physical access is less controlled.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _So your argument is that not security, but cost is the reason that USB > "won" the external device interface competition with FireWire?_

Sorry, but I heavily suspect that you didn't read the original article and I suggest you to do so.

Security has nothing to do with 1394's market adoption, in the 2010s, some desktops still have 1394, and some laptops still have ExpressCard, and you don't see anyone complains about security, only some security researchers.

The reason was partially cost, but also a bad business decision by Steve Jobs, which made Intel and Microsoft stopped their efforts for pushing 1394, largely damaged it before it even got a chance for wider adoption.

> _FireWire 's principal creator, Apple, nearly killed it before it could > appear in a single device. And eventually the Cupertino company effectively > did kill FireWire, just as it seemed poised to dominate the industry._

> _Intel sent its CTO to talk to Jobs about the change, but the meeting went > badly. Intel decided to withdraw its support for FireWire—to pull the plug > on efforts to build FireWire into its chipsets—and instead throw its weight > behind USB 2.0.

> _Sirkin believes that Microsoft could have reversed the new licensing policy > by citing the prior signed agreement. "Microsoft must have thrown it away," > he speculated, because it would have "stopped Apple in its tracks."*

\--

> _Good to know that USB4 implementations are making the same mistake as > FireWire implementors did in choosing performance over security._

DMA is optional and can be disabled.

Speaking of usability, DMA is limited to the Thunderbolt part (which is ultimately the PCI-E part) of USB 4 standard. You don't have to use USB 4's PCI-E. Unless the USB device really needs PCI-E, like RAID storage box or a GPU, disabling DMA is not a problem. Requiring explicit user consent for PCI-E is also a solution, operating systems already does it for Thunderbolt devices. Same treatment can be applied to USB 4.

And again, calling out DMA support is only shooting the messenger while ignoring the underlying problem. DMA is essential for any high-performance system bus, and it can a problem regardless of who supported it, or whether it's connected to an external port. A Wi-Fi controller handles untrusted data, but despite being an internal device on the motherboard, it's still potentially an exploit vector for DMA attackers.

> _(or an OS with fuzzed IOMMU and also controller firmwares)_

Only IOMMU is needed (and possibly a good driver, but not strictly required, see QubesOS). If your IOMMU is good, you don't have to trust firmware or hardware, since arbitrary DMAs are blocked by IOMMU, just like how memory protection (MMU) works but for I/O. Memory spaces are isolated.

The IOMMU vulnerabilities I previous mentioned are already patched, and a complete bypass of IOMMU is unlikely to occur in the future. Driver bugs are still an issue, more RAM regions can be exposed by drivers than what's really needed, and potentially you can pretend to be any hardware and feed bad data to trick the most vulnerable driver to expose more RAM regions, and I expect to see more bugs.

Turn on IOMMU, and apply OS patches often, and you'll probably be fine.

<comment><USER2> I read much of the article (which assumed that "FireWire" failed because of issues with _suppliers_ failing to work together instead of waning _demand_ (due in part to corporate customers' knowledge of the security risks of most implementations)).

Thanks for the info on USB-4, DMA, IOMMU.

IOMMU: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input%E2%80%93output_memory_ma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input%E2%80%93output_memory_management_unit)

Looks like there are a number of iommu Linux kernel parameters: [https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/kernel- pa...](https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/kernel- parameters.html?highlight=iommu)

Wonder what the defaults are and what the comparable parameters are for common consumer OSes.

Looks like NX bit support is optional in IOMMUs.

Can I configure the amount of RAM allocated to this?

<comment><AUTHOR> > _Wonder what the defaults_

See the Thunderclap FAQ, most of your questions are explained. Thunderclap is _the_ DMA attack on Thunderbolt, and everything should be applicable to USB 4 as well, since USB 4 incorporated Thunderbolt directly.

[https://thunderclap.io/](https://thunderclap.io/)

From the FAQ,

> _In macOS 10.12.4 and later, Apple addressed the specific network card > vulnerability we used to achieve a root shell. However the general scope of > our work still applies; in particular that Thunderbolt devices have access > to all network traffic and sometimes keystrokes and framebuffer data._

> _Microsoft have enabled support for the IOMMU for Thunderbolt devices in > Windows 10 version 1803, which shipped in 2018. Earlier hardware upgraded to > 1803 requires a firmware update from the vendor. This brings them into line > with the baseline for our work, however the more complex vulnerabilities we > describe remain relevant._

> _Recently, Intel have contributed patches to version 5.0 of the Linux kernel > (shortly to be released) that enable the IOMMU for Thunderbolt and prevent > the protection-bypass vulnerability that uses the ATS feature of PCI > Express._

But note that Microsoft says on its website,

> _This feature does not protect against DMA attacks via 1394 /FireWire, > PCMCIA, CardBus, ExpressCard, and so on._

Basically, IOMMU is enabled by default in most systems now. However, only on Thunderbolt devices (and USB 4 devices, since Thunderbolt is now its subset). But not on other PCI-E ports, such as the internal PCI-E ports, or external ones like 1394 or ExpressCard. I think it's due to fears of performance and compatibility issues, there's no reason why it cannot be implemented if one insists. Also, from the macOS example, you see that bad drivers can be a problem, even with IOMMU, if a driver is bad, attackers can exploit them and trick them to give more RAM access (If my memory is correct, Linux's implementation was better, but since it's an early FAQ, I don't know if macOS has improved).

> _what the comparable parameters are for common consumer OSes._

On the Linux kernel, with an Intel CPU, the kernel option "intel_iommu=on" will enable IOMMU completely for everything, internal and external, which is the most ideal option. You should see

        DMAR: IOMMU enabled

in dmesg. Some people report compatibility issues for Intel's integrated GPU that causes glitches or system hang, use "intel_iommu=on,igfx_off" should fix it (which is not really a security problem, the GPU is already in the CPU). I've been running my PC with IOMMU for years by now. didn't notice any problem for me.

IOMMU needs support from the CPU and motherboard chipset, Intel's IOMMU is called VT-D and marketed it as I/O virtualization for virtual machines. Most i3, i5, and i7 CPUs are supported. You may need to turn it on in BIOS if there's an option. It should work on most laptops, even an old Ivy Bridge laptop should work - which is good news, laptops are the most vulnerable platform. Unfortunately, on desktops, Intel intentionally removed IOMMU from high-end CPUs preferred by PC enthusiasts in the 1st (Nehalem), 2nd (Sandy Bridge), 3rd (Ivy Bridge), and 4th (Haswell) generations, possibly as a strategy to sell more Xeon chips to enterprise virtualization users (likely in line with their cripple-ECC strategy). Most high-end overclockable K-series CPUs have their IOMMU removed, while the non-K counterparts are supported. Also, in these generations, some motherboard chipsets are crippled and don't have IOMMU. Fortunately, Intel no longer does it since 5/6th gen (Broadwell/Skylake) CPUs.

No experience on AMD yet, but it should be similar. I think possibly better, my impression is that AMD doesn't intentional crippling IOMMU or ECC like Intel does (a nasty strategy...). Check the docs.

<comment><USER2> Thanks again.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


House of Lords calls for loot boxes to be immediately reclassified as gambling - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-07-02-house-of-lords-calls-for-loot-boxes-to-be-immediately-reclassified-as-gambling <comment><AUTHOR> The report is written by "The House of Lords Select Committee on the Social and Economic Impact of the Gambling Industry".

The report page is here: [https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees- a-z...](https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords- select/gambling-committee/news-parliament-2019/lords-gambling-report- published/)

Note that they say that changes are needed now, and that most of these changes do not require any change in law.

> The liberalisation of gambling by the Gambling Act 2005, the universal > adoption of smart phones, and the exploitation of soft-touch regulation by > gambling operators has created a perfect storm of addictive 24/7 gambling. > The Committee expects the Government and the regulator to make changes now. > Many of the report's recommendations do not need legislation, and all of > them are urgent if consumers are to be protected and lives saved.</comment>


Put down the smart drugs – cognitive enhancement is ethically risky business - <AUTHOR> http://theconversation.com/put-down-the-smart-drugs-cognitive-enhancement-is-ethically-risky-business-27463

<comment><USER2> There are two issues with most 'cognitive enhancement' drug regimens. On the one hand they are risky, potentially triggering or exacerbating existing mental health and neurological issues. On the other if it becomes an expectation that people will push their biology to it's limits for the benefit of their employers... we all suffer.</comment>


Huawei Says, Without Evidence, That U.S. Pressured Its Employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/technology/huawei-trump-cyberattacks.html <comment><USER2> Yeah, NSA hacked in... [https://www.cnet.com/news/nsas-reported-huawei-hack- gives-gl...](https://www.cnet.com/news/nsas-reported-huawei-hack-gives- glimpse-of-agencys-role-in-cyber-cold-war/)

But is there any proof Huawei are spying? What about the other manufactures? Samsung, LG, etc??

History: [https://articles2.marketrealist.com/2019/08/are-new- huawei-s...](https://articles2.marketrealist.com/2019/08/are-new-huawei- spying-allegations-true/)</comment>


What Things Would You Keep Buying Even If the Price Doubled? - <AUTHOR> https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/1546/what-are-some-things-you-would-keep-buying-even-if.html <comment><USER2> Food. Medicine. Shelter.

Thankfully, these are generally well-regulated in Canada. I am having a hard time thinking of other products which I would pay double for:

* clothes: I already buy these at a thrift store

* laptop/computer/internet access: provided by university; I do have home internet, but if the price doubled, I'd probably just spend more time at the library

* soap/toothpaste/shampoo: I don't use soap, as water-only showers I find are pretty good in keeping me smelling neutral; toothpaste I could do without (it just feels more icky) and shampoo I can actually replace with soap, if its price doubles (soap being cheaper than shampoo)---in terms of hygiene, I don't think there is anything else I really use (maybe razors, but I could just get used to growing a proper beard if the price of razors doubled?), and I think I do a pretty good job of not smelling

* apps/games: I don't spend money on these typically, and definitely not if their price doubles; also, open source stuff is awesome

* transportation: I use public transit, but again this is regulated in Canada; if the price did double though, I could pick up cycling (especially since there are also likely to be less cars on the road then)

The great thing about working in math is that you can do useful mathematics even if you are in a prison, without pen and paper. So, my "work" (does play really count as work?) requires very little in terms of resources, apart from a metric crap-ton of patience, and mental energy (which depends on food). It's worth noting that I am not in any sort of fancy/well-paying/tenured position at a university.

Yay for taxes, which provide public services which help lazy do-nothings like me keep their mental hallucinations sustainable!

<comment><USER3> Surely you use soap in a few key spots, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Coffee.

I roast my own coffee, so I can get many pounds of green coffee for ~$6 a pound or less. Buying it pre-roasted easily quadruples the price. Buying a cup of coffee, whether a latte or trucker-stop black, is tantamount to lighting money on fire.

At the same time, I look at the markets for coffee and it strikes me that Hawaii's Kona is likely closer to the true cost of coffee production if we wanted to pay a non-exploitative and sustainable price (both are debatable, I'll admit). This doubles the price of green beans compared to other origins.

Thus not only would I pay double (because I have in the past) but I also think coffee is underpriced in the global market.

</comment><comment><USER5> Garbage removal. If your trash man stops coming to haul away your waste, you've got a problem. You will then ask, "how much do I need to pay to get this service back?"

Same with most utilities.

</comment><comment><USER6> Gasoline. Bring on the 100% tax

<comment><USER7> As long as goes to fixing potholes and paying for public transportation

<comment><USER6> lol potholes will be the least of our worries when we hit 3C. What we need that money for is emergency preparedness, and improved, sustainable, climate hardened infrastructure. Not to mention environmental remediation. Make it 400%

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> condoms - the cost benefit analysis is huge.

<comment><USER9> lol yes. if cheap, spray and pray option works too ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I honestly don't think I would keep buying anything that's over $20, and isn't a basic human necessity -- Unless there was also a huge jump in quality that matches the price jump.

<comment><USER11> Do you consider a laptop a basic human necessity ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cheap things. For example, Q-tips are $3 per box which lasts a us couple of years. If the price doubles (or triples for that matter), I'd still be buying that.

</comment><comment><USER13> Video card and processor prices have essentially doubled recently and I keep buying them so there you go.

<comment><USER7> AMD keeps undercutting Intel

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Water.

<comment><USER15> Thus the rationale behind this prescient (devious?) investment trend: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-quietly-amasses- califor...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-quietly-amasses-california- vineyardsand-the-water-underneath-1544456396)

WSJ: Harvard Quietly Amasses California Vineyards—and the Water Underneath Making a bet on climate change, the university's $39 billion endowment has been snapping up farmland and the related water rights

<comment><USER16> I recently found out from a friend that the Walton family is (supposedly) doing a similar thing here in Colorado. Basically buying up large properties with water rights, and then sitting on them for later. I'm not thrilled about it, but at least they're not developing them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cars.</comment>


Management and mathematics - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD09xx/EWD966.html

<comment><USER2> I am delighted whenever I read a Dijkstra EWD. He might be rather "angry", but he is often so damn right it hurts.

</comment><comment> alan-crowe > The organizational love of mediocrity has severely hampered all sciences in > their effort of contributing to the industrial effort,...

Dijkstra gets that we shouldn't anthropomorphise computers: they do what they do. Deal with it via logic. Then he ventures into sociology and his insight deserts him. Anthropomorphising organisations as persons who love unwisely leads nowhere.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow,

This is powerful but somewhat perverse sounding piece.

I think that one can indeed ascribe mediocrity to the corporate world, one could also say that what exists is "organizational intelligence" or narrow thinking and a willingness to go along with prevailing approaches. Still, if it is not stupidity, it is something so similar, it takes an expert to tell the difference.

One further thing to think about is that tendencies toward mediocrity which Djikstra could point to in the corporate world can now found much more in academia as it is corporatized.

<comment><USER4> "perverse sounding" indeed... I'm no fan of mediocrity, but we can't all be above average, and not every company can be staffed entirely by geniuses. Any company that's a reasonable cross section of society will be naturally "mediocre."

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure if it's quite that bad. It's true that we can't all be above average at _everything_ , but nearly all of us can far surpass the average at _something_.

Someone with sub-par mathematical abilities could still be a stellar visual artist or visa-versa.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am working on a classic case right now, the acquisition of one multi-billion dollar organization by another. Each has opposite philosophies about the role of the individual vs. automation.

One company uses an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system that does massive computations based upon the contents of its data base and delivers precise instructions to its users.

The other presents basically the same data on a fairly sophisticated workbench and expects the user to combine that data with what is not on the data base to make a decision.

Guess which company purchased the other?

<comment><USER7> if the erp nullifies the employees' initiatives by shifting responsibilities, then the erp loses maybe because there's no mechanism to take risk.

in the spirit of tfa, erp encourages mediocre users. so, the company with users who have to take responsibility wins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sounds like he had a recent bad experience with a manager =(</comment>