Google Apps Disabled My Domain - <AUTHOR> http://ctovision.com/2012/11/google-apps-assassinated-my-domain-beware/ <comment><USER2> Just stop using these services.

Don't use any service provider that does not align well with what is important for your business. If this includes guaranteed service availability and solid customer service and the company in question just can't provide these guarantees, well, don't use them.

It really is that simple.

I have not touched anything Google except for Search and Analytics for probably three years. I learned early-on where my business needs did not align with their offerings and we don't use those services. I couldn't be happier. From my perspective Google is a great company.

There are other approaches to all of the other services. We host our own email for a number of domains on different private servers. Easy. A license of MS Office on every machine isn't a problem if you have a real business, just like a license of the appropriate Adobe suite is almost a must. Tools like GoToMyPC, for the technically challenged are a no-brainer and they are cheap. There are a multitude of cloud storage solutions. And, frankly, for a lot of stuff, there's nothing wrong with hosting your own access-controlled FTP site to share files with your team (although a paid Dropbox account is oh-so- simple).

So, yeah, Google is a good company. Just stick to the stuff that works the way you need it to and you'll be fine.

<comment><USER3> >We host our own email for a number of domains on different private servers. Easy.

From what I've heard other people say, running your own mail servers can be described with a lot of colorful vocabulary, though "easy" not being one of them. Do you know how much it costs you guys to run your own mail servers (both in actual "server has power" as well as technical ops cost) compared to using Google Apps? I've heard numbers in the 10x - 100x range.

<comment><USER4> You don't have to run it yourself if you don't want to. Plenty of people will take that work of your hands for a reasonable price. Oh and they will give you an actual phone number you can call.

<comment><USER5> Huh. For some reason, I'd never considered that people might be willing to pay for a remote "on call sysadmin". We already admin a handful of mail servers, that's something we could add to our services.

<comment><USER6> When you have services like Intermedia.net doing a lot of the heavy lifting for you, it's insanely easy to sell mail as a service. I will say though, Intermedia is a LITTLE trigger happy with their routing security; one of our PC's had a malware infection, already quarantined and was pending removal. Our entire IP range was banned until it got cleaned up, and the machine itself was a DMZ'd test machine that we purposely infect regularly for "war games" etc, so it had no email clients, didn't even send any messages.

<comment><USER5> There's a reason for this. It occurred to me the other day, after dealing with a stupid hover.com problem, that it has become almost impossible for network admins at different networks to talk to each-other.

I have never, not once, in the five or six years I've been doing network admin work, been able to contact another network admin to report a problem. Instead, I have to go through incompetent and clueless frontline support first, and spend hours or days navigating that until the problem is no longer relevant anymore or I give up.

It became obvious that I wasn't the only one that had given up on contacting network admins when I recently had to deal with a spam issue (same spammer, multiple hosting providers, new technique) -- while I tried following the RBL rules, it was clear that other service providers entirely skipped the "notify the network admin, give them reasonable time to resolve the problem before nominating their block for the RBL" step. the victim networks all became listed on the RBLs within just a few hours of the first waves of spam.

It's just gotten to be too much trouble, nobody bothers anymore, and unfortunately that will have to include me from now on too. If I see bad behavior coming from another network, I won't any longer even try to contact anybody at the other network; I'll just ban their IP and move on.

What a tremendously stupid situation.

<comment><USER6> Your post is spot on and I've felt every frustration you've outlined. I maybe should have clarified my post originally to suggest I'm not entirely suggesting this is a fault of Intermedia, as they don't know our internal systems architecture. But getting the issue resolved and being able to get the message relayed that the machine posed virtually no threat to an admin who could have done something about it was just as much of a chore as you've just explained.

Granted, the hilarious irony in this is that it was Intermedia who pointed out "there's an infected machine" on your network, so all of the wrangling around and sending tracert outputs, just to get a reply weeks later "This IP address is infected" and the resulting " _That's_ what it was? That machine is just for testing, we know it's infected." was a bit of a grind.

tl;dr - I know that feel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Remember, to receive prompt support for failing Google services, you need to contact Google via a story at a famous blog, a major social news site, or (ideally) The New York Times.

<comment><USER8> Or just store the account PIN outside the affected service.

<comment><USER9> I have been a paying GAFYD user for ~ two years and wasn't even aware there _was_ an 'account PIN'! I fear for most people this simple solution may come with the benefit of hindsight.

<comment><USER10> Well, this is not very reassuring: [http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6...](http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60233)

Nope, no "PIN" for me under "Support". Worse,

> "Please note that for your security, your Customer PIN will be updated > periodically.

So even if I find it now and write it down, there's a chance that I still won't be able to access support at some point down the road if/when I need it.

<comment><USER11> Only paid accounts and government/education accounts have a "customer PIN", apparently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good. The more this happens, the more people will realise that contracting out your critical services to a company with virtually no support and a false reputation isn't a good idea. It also undermines "the cloud" which is a good thing IMHO.

Sorry but I have little sympathy and I don't want to hear the "well it works for me excuses" and the financial advantage crap.

<comment><USER13> This is an annoying stupid comment.

Yeah, let's ignore the success stories and the financial benefits because it what is sort of a race scenario, Google's support failed. This seems like a bug and resolvable as noted by others in the thread.

You have a really obvious chip on your shoulder.

<comment><USER12> No I'm just well versed in business risk assessment and sound engineering decisions.

If we were to deploy google apps and that happen we'd be down approximately £120,000 a day (we actually make money).

<comment><USER14> If you're so well versed in business risk assessment then you surely have heard of the advanced concept called _having a backup plan_.

<comment><USER12> Yes for data. Data is easily recovered, but under the circumstances that your cloud apps suddenly become instantly unavailable, how do you recover your applications?

You don't - you have to migrate and retrain everyone, which if you've used all the features in your cloud platform requires major process and tooling rewrites.

With an offline solution, you can shelve it and migrate slowly. When someone else hosts it, you're at their mercy.

<comment><USER14> _how do you recover your applications?_

You mean google apps? Well, you could keep a local copy of office around, it's not exactly rocket science.

 _When someone else hosts it, you're at their mercy._

And when you host it, you're at your own mercy.

Matching the availability of google tends to cost a little more than a hypothetical day of downtime would.

There are plenty valid concerns about hosting your office in the cloud. However, availability and TCO are normally the main arguments _for_ google apps, not the other way round. Those infrastructure costs really add up when you're talking thousands of seats.

<comment><USER12> OK what about Google Apps Script, Forms etc? You're stuffed there. That's where the rocket science starts to kick in. It's not as simple as it looks. Oh and as part of the cost cutting, can you afford to splash out for Office company-wide suddenly out of the blue?

If you have thousands of seats, you should have the budget lying around to do it properly and a team of people to handle it. The TCO if you include risk is an order of magnitude lower if you manage it yourself. I've done the figures enough times for enough companies to know this.

Most companies operate "on the line". An event like this would take them offline permanently.

<comment><USER14> Well, no idea how you calculate that. Google would have to be down several days every year only to offset the staffing costs for running your own equivalent to google apps. And that's not even getting into hardware, licenses and the expensive windows-lockin that everyone seeks to escape nowadays.

I guess we'll just have to agree on disagreeing here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Are people still surprised by Google's lack of support?

I think one of the messages here is to take note of any support codes (account #'s or PINs in this case) and store them outside of the service that requires them.

<comment><USER10> > I think one of the messages here is to take note of any support codes > (account #'s or PINs in this case) and store them outside of the service > that requires them.

These codes "will be updated periodically", so there's no guarantee you'll have the correct one if/when you need it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I use Office 365 (Exchange Online) and made the mistake of using my own email address as the primary Exchange Online address. I was unable to access my email for close to two weeks. Other than that they've been better that expected.

What I'm saying is that unless you do it yourself these things will happen. A service level agreement can only be viewed as "this is what we promise as our best endeavour", but when it goes south it goes south, and you're at the provider's mercy.

I made the mistake of regarding"the cloud" as this "machine" that's impervious to human error.

<comment><USER17> These things will happen, by usually businesses care about their customers and make humans available to fix the problem.

Google is notoriously awful at this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I haven't read the article. First thing that I saw when visiting this blog/site whatever was a long pageover list with checkboxes and email input fields asking me to subscribe to something. There was no close button immediately visible, so I just closed the tab instead of proceeding.

Sorry, but if you really want your story visible, please stop treating your visitors like that.

<comment><USER19> I couldn't find the close button either. The first thing i did? Right-click the black background, choose Inspect element, untick "display:block".

If the web developer isn't going to respect the user, then i refuse to respect their layout (and event handlers, and plugins, and...)

<comment><USER20> I didn't have this problem in Chrome, perhaps s/he has fixed it?

<comment><USER18> Yes, he moved it to the right side of the blog. Glad that the complaint worked ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Google has a well documented history of it being next to impossible to talk to a real person unless you have an $X0,000 hardware search appliance or similar. As an individual, if you're not internet famous, you're taking your business into your hands using Google for critical services like these.

That said, not everyone looks at the level of support provided before they choose a service. So, if you get blindsided with this type of thing, you do a quick search to see if it'll get resolved quickly, realise it won't, change your MX records and learn your lesson / plan for a migration out of the service if/when you get your account back. Just like with any problem of this nature.

Usually it's just worth paying for something more expensive (and often less featured) for which you know that there's someone you can call when the service goes down in the middle of the night or you get locked out for some random reason.

edit: I'm really only being overly harsh because the guy who wrote the article is the CEO of a _cyber risk management_ and security company, and should know better.

</comment><comment><USER22> Something similar happened at a company I work for; the account of the CEO suddenly becomes "temporarily unavailable".

I take their word for it and 12 hours pass and the account is still inaccessible. We're a paying customer, so I open up a ticket and it is eventually passed on to the "technical team".

I give them a call but they cannot offer any additional details nor any timeframe whatsoever when this will be resolved. Another 20 hours pass and my requests for any update go unanswered. Finally, after a total of 48 hours the account is available again. Still no update from Google.

Having been completely cut off for two working days, the CEO is now (correctly) questioning their use of Google Apps so I update my original ticket requesting any additional information they have that could assist me in justifying staying with the service. They tell me this will be forthcoming.

A week passes, no update. I reiterate my request and 10 hours later I'm told that the cause was a "server issue"...

<comment><USER3> Yup. It seems Google really cannot be arsed to do Customer Service. For them this was a "bug" and it is now marked as "fixed". Case closed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> TL;DR A bug in Google's internal systems took his Apps account offline for a week. Slow customer service upset him greatly.

To be fair to Google, this was hardly an assassination...

<comment><USER24> > What could I do to restore email? Migrate the MX entries to another > provider?

Yes.

<comment><USER25> It gets better, even if you change the MX entries, there is no guarantee that GMail will deliver mail to those new servers because the domain may still exist in their system. So you may remian cut off from a significant number of people.

<comment><USER26> Is that speculation or do you know it will happen?

I feel reasonably confident that ignoring MX records would violate some part of the smtp process, and I would be be very surprised if Gmail did this.

<comment><USER25> > Is that speculation or do you know it will happen?

I had troubles a few years back with e-mail routing from GMail to mail servers for a domain that had previously Google Apps set up for it but was subsequently moved to another provider. They disappeared after deleting Google Apps.

Maybe it's not an issue any more, maybe it was just some weird caching problem, maybe disabled domains are handled differently but it wouldn't also surprise me if they had some system for handling what is essentially mail internal to GMail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been looking for a functionally equivalent alternative to gmail largely because I fear ending up in a similar situation. I'd like to host my email with a company that has remotely competent and caring support.

What are the best services?

And no thanks to cloud haters - I will not be setting up my own imap servers.

<comment><USER27> I'm quite happy with Fastmail.fm, there are not that many options out there i'm afraid.

<comment><USER17> I used to use fastmail but switched to google as their interface fell behind the times and I wanted features they didn't have. Perhaps I should look again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Just for my own personal curiosity, has any company made a reasonable attempt at competing with Google apps core services? I know Microsoft offers similar services, but it's not that well "put together" the last time I looked.

You're probably not going to be able to compete with Google Drive integration, but if someone put together a well designed integration of inbox, calendar, and contacts with an API, they would do well.

<comment><USER12> Yeah buy a file server and office. Seriously.

<comment><USER29> Does anyone have a current best-of-breed list of web enabled applications (preferably open source) that you could run on your own server? Ideally, I'd like to put together a kit that is easy to install, either on your own server or on any hosted provider. Bonus points if the kit includes replication tools built in so that you can use multiple web hosts, and have your own redundant cloud.

<comment><USER12> Rdp into your windows file server and work there (I work over rdp for about 7 hours a day).

The web is shitty for serious productivity apps from experience.

Regarding open source, use openoffice instead.

Alternatively use Windows' offline files feature when you are away from the fileserver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> im not suggesting every google apps customer should do this, but if you had purchased google apps through a reseller, said reseller could have helped resolve this issue within a couple of hours, most likely. without a PIN. also, why wait so long to use another domain's PIN to contact support? why not do that on day 1? lastly, if you change your MX records away from google apps, your mail will route to wherever you point it. google looks up MX like everyone else, for each domain. every time you send an email to or from a google apps account, it goes outside of google and then if it is an apps/gmail account and mx is pointed to google's mx, it goes back into apps. only then. could support be better on google's end for normal paying customers? yes. so could every company's IT support. just go through a premier reseller next time. most charge the same price ($50/yser) and include support, especially for issues like this.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wasn't aware of this PIN either. Even if you do change your MX record, and move your email elsewhere, you still get locked out of access to your old email, which can be important.

I have a (free) google apps account for my domain, but I configured it so it actually still goes through my own MX server. It took a bit of trickery, because google wants you to use theirs, but I managed to get around it. It works well for a couple of years now. My email always goes first through my own MX, and then to google.

I would still be pretty upset if they blocked me though. But I guess I can't expect much from a free service.

</comment><comment><USER32> I am currently unable to login to one of my domains on Google Apps (i.e., www.google.com/a/example.com returns an error). When I try to register it, it says the domain is already registered. Fun.

It isn't my primary domain, so I haven't bothered to pester one of my Googler friends to see if they can do something about it.

<comment><USER33> Similar thing happened to me; it turns out someone else had somehow setup an account a couple years ago with my domain (I've owned it since 2000 or so). I was able to get control of the google apps settings for it (they give a couple options, such as adding a DNS entry). However, it was useless because the previous person had set it up in Russian and I couldn't find a way to change it.

<comment><USER34> I had the same issue and contacted Google Apps support using PIN of another account I already had. I told them the issue and they basically cleared out all the internal Apps data of the previous domain owner. After 48 hours I was able to set it up as new with Apps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Appreciate all the interest in this story.

As I mentioned in the follow-on comments, no service is perfect but I think Google needs to try harder for instances like this. The account was disabled and was also the Google Apps admin account. In that instance, I think Google is at least obligated to kick-off an email to the Google Apps back-up email address and alert to the issue with a time-expiring form that triggers a support request with a slightly higher priority. This could all be automated I would think.

I realize Google is huge and they provide critical services to many of us (I continue to use Google Apps for several domains) but the "can't be bothered" customer service attitude can have a significant impact on operations and I wanted to generate some awareness about that. Looks like we succeeded on the awareness front.

</comment><comment><USER36> Yet another great example proving google's bad customer support. What is google trying to prove by such pathetic customer service? I have heard complain about almost every google service: admob, adsense, google app ....

<comment><USER37> I haven't had any experience with Google customer support, but here's an experiment. Go on Yelp, look up some highly-rated restaurants and shops in your area. You'll still find that many of them have one or two reviews about how terrible the service was, and how the product was awful, and the owner was a dick about providing a refund. Sometimes things go really wrong, and even the best will in the world can't fix it quickly. Only those stories make it to HN, because we all love a dogpile, and because people seem to have realized that bitching publicly is one of the best ways to get their problem solved quickest... although sometimes it's like faking a heart attack so you can see a doctor immediately, then asking him to take a look at a rash.

<comment><USER38> There's a big difference between a company providing bad service on one occasion, and a company actively blocking someone for days or weeks.

Don't imagine a restaurant providing the wrong food, burnt, and still charging full price. Imagine a restaurant taking the customer's iphone and keeping it in a safe for a month, employees ignoring them and telling them to leave. Are you really going to see many stories like that on Yelp?

<comment><USER35> Agreed. My biggest issue wasn't that an error occurred, but the fact that there was no recourse available in a timely manner. I tried to be patient and follow recommended support procedures (post to the forums, etc) but losing email for over a week because Google has an internal issue and couldn't be bothered to resolve it didn't sit well with me (thus the post to CTOVision).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Not being a part of the Google ecosystem is always a good thing for business. I grief with the author for the loss, and really encourage to use Rackspace, which has more than enough human support options.

</comment><comment><USER40> Filed under _Don't put all your eggs in one basket._

<comment><USER38> The main issue here is email. That is one egg. You're misfiling.

<comment><USER41> What are you talking about?

 _"No App services – Calendar, Docs, Drive, and all Google App services are completely blocked. These are not critical for this domain in particular, but would be high impact if denied for some of my other domains."_

Email is the only thing that got broken AND mattered. And having all your eggs in the same basket has the implication that the owner of the basket can take your eggs as hostages, so you better be careful when you talk to them. Also, remember to carefully read the ToS every day because they can change without notice and f*ck you up.

<comment><USER38> Right, only one egg mattered. It doesn't matter what happened to the rest of the eggs. If Google only had the email egg, it would have been just as bad. It was not a problem of centralizing the eggs. Google had to take just one hostage to cause major problems.

Unless you have a suggestion of how to split the email egg into multiple baskets?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Google has similar attitude on providing customer support for all its services. A quick example, I have integrated my Sprint number to Google Voice, all my messages and phone calls go through Google Voice, for past few months I have stopped receiving text messages on my phone. I only get them through Google Voice. There is no support, Sprint has no idea, and Google is not reachable.

</comment><comment><USER43> This whole discussion (post was written by my friend) and my personal experience says to be very cautious about dependencies on any service provider. A simple smart hack would be to auto forward 100% of emails to a different account just for backup, then have the domain registered at a non- google DNS so a fast change to an MX record could be made.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand why people use google apps for something as important as email in the first place.

Is making a marginal cost saving really that much more important than having actual support?

<comment><USER44> The reason is fairly simple. As a small business, I need my email to work. When I do it myself or outsource it to a small company, it works most of the time ... but not always. I can't afford that.

<comment><USER45> Also it simply makes no sense spending time setting up, configuring and maintaining email servers as a business owner when there are more important things to put your time in.

<comment><USER46> Installing dovecot is not much harder then setting up a domain in Google Apps. It works great for small set-ups and you own the data.

<comment><USER44> This is unbelievably not true. Installing dovecot or similar is super easy. There are many options.

Unfortunately, setting things up to the point where your email isn't instantly tagged as SPAM by Google's, Yahoo's, and Microsoft's servers which handle the bulk of the email you want delivered ... is a monumental feat of engineering.

Frequently, they just mark it as SPAM when it doesn't come from one of the big boy's servers. What's the point of sending an email if the recipient will never have a chance to read it?

<comment><USER46> Are you sure? I've been sending email from my workstations for years and never had an issue. Maybe if I'd let spammers relay through them for a day or two I'd get blocked. Even that would just be temporary. Let's see some proof that you need a big boy's server to successfully send email. The only real problem I can think of is that a lot of ISPs block 25 out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Don't bet your productivity tools into the "Cloud" propaganda.

</comment><comment><USER8> To recap: In order to receive support from a human being for Google Apps the account holder needs her account associated PIN, but since this guy was locked out of his account he didn't have it available to take advantage of the phone support. So after a week and by using some trickery he got hold of someone on the phone and the issue was resolved.

I'd argues that Google Apps has reasonable support (bigger accounts, I assume, have direct support lines) and these occurrences are relatively rare considering the user base, but they get amplified rather loudly, especially when there are plenty of cloud haters, and Google haters (and competitors) ready to pounce.

There might be some risks or trade-offs involved but they're much less pronounced than some of the comments on any "Google support sux" thread lead you to believe. I haven't had an issue with my personal Apps account but my case is statistically insignificant, same as the case discussed here.

<comment><USER48> I don't agree that their experience is equally as statistically insignificant as yours. To me, a company should be providing an acceptable level of service to _all_ of their customers, and they must have systems in place to make sure that huge blunders don't happen, even in rare cases.

Your experience doesn't prove that Google always offers good support. The occasional stories we hear about Google are enough to prove that they sometimes offer terrible support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Good, now you can join the club of people who don't depend on google and its bullshit. You are gonna like it here.</comment>


Ask HN: How many of you use GNU/Linux? - <AUTHOR> Why? If not, why not? <comment><USER2> I use GNU/Linux when I'm not using my Macbook. I love both platforms, but I also find myself wanting OpenBSD and FreeBSD to grow in popularity. All 4 OS's are great in their own right, but I personally feel that the GNU/Linux based operating systems are missing a thing or two that's holding them back from becoming popular. One of the biggest reasons is simply Developer Support. On my Mac, I can get everything I need to work, Photoshop, Dropbox, Google services. Everything just works.

Meanwhile, using Linux (I use Fedora Personally) I'm always having to search for Propiertary software, and sometimes the install process isn't so easy. Back when I used to use IDE's made by Jetbrains, the font rendering was bad, and the install process only half worked on Linux, but on my Mac it worked flawlessly.

OpenBSD and FreeBSD have much the same problem, however, the only reason I don't use them more often is because their repos tend to be more out of date than those on Fedora. Although their support for ZFS is a major selling point.

I think that, at the end of the day, if GNU/Linux focused more on gaining developer support, and stopped their incessant need to have _everything_ be FOSS on their systems, I would rather use their OS's over MacOS.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been using Linux on most of my machines since around 1999, because of perceived stability issues in Windows. I continued using it because the development toolchain on other platforms seemed crippled in comparison.

I have an OSX machine for creating mac packages & a windows machine for playing video games, but those machines are limited to those particular uses; my general-purpose machines run linux.

</comment><comment><USER4> I use GNU/Linux and OS X soon to be rebranded MacOS. I started off using RedHat 3 dot something ages and ages ago then moved on to FreeBSD for about 6 or 7 years before I did lots of distro hopping in my 20s. I remember the fun and annoyance at having to recompile your kernel for sound driver support, or to add or remove a feature.

So the why? I think that it gives me the blend of power and convenience that I am personally looking for. In my early days the open source, free compilers were a godsend as I had to get a ride out of town to get to a book store that sold a book or manual with a distribution CD. As the internet access got better I started using the GUI and noticed that my use case was slowly evolving. Now-a-days I find that I am on whatever is handy Chromebook, iPad, MacBook, Desktop PC running Fedora.

Many computer users merely want something that works, and you can't blame them for that either.

This seems like it could be a fun question.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use it for development stuff, mainly because Linux is a better overall environment for developers compared to windows.

I use windows for games or if I'm not doing dev stuff</comment>


Square discontinues monthly pricing option - <AUTHOR> https://squareup.com/help/en-us/article/5191-monthly-pricing-discontinuation-details

<comment><USER2> _Why is Square discontinuing monthly pricing?_

      We launched a monthly flat rate to offer flexibility in
      pricing for larger businesses. Over the past year we heard
      from many of our customers that caps and limits in the
      program were inhibiting growth—at a certain point, rates
      went back up the more you sold. So, effective February 1,
      2014, we're replacing the Square monthly pricing program
      with one low per-swipe rate for your business.

      We want our pricing to be simple: no more limits or
      complicated monthly caps at all. Just one low, flat per-
      swipe rate for your business.

Really? As a service to your customers you've decided to replace a low but potentially confusing rate with a higher one? I like Square, and was impressed when they announced their flat rate plan, but it's really hard to respect them when they feel they can treat their customers like morons and get away with it.

<comment><USER3> For real. Assuming monthly credit charges are evenly distributed from month to month and you max out your allowed credit charges under the flat rate plan, you effective rate is 1.32%. Anything charged in addition to this gets charged at the standard 2.75%. So please tell me how a flat 2.75% is better for the customer? Whoever wrote this press release for Square went about it the wrong way.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Parkbliss – Discover and Reserve Parking Nearby - <AUTHOR> https://www.parkbliss.com <comment><AUTHOR> Know anyone who drives to work everyday, leaving an empty parking space behind?

Or, ever been that person circling around block after block, just wishing one of those people would let you use their space?

Welcome to Parkbliss. We let people publish their unused parking spaces for others to discover, reserve and pay for. Quickly.

Parkbliss is easy to use. If you're looking for parking, here's how it works:

First, set your destination. Once nearby, you're presented with your parking options, where you simply reserve your preferred space and check in through the app once you arrive. And once you're ready to leave, in-app checkout is a breeze.

It's that simple.

Here's to never circling the block again.</comment>


Microsoft's new tool to take a picture of a spreadsheet and import it into Excel - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/02/how-to-import-a-spreadsheet-into-excel-by-taking-a-picture-of-it.html <comment><USER2> I don't normally like "there's an XKCD for that" posts, but [https://xkcd.com/2116/](https://xkcd.com/2116/) was posted Monday, Febuary 25th (or at least the forum thread for it was [0]), while the article says this wasn't released until Friday.

Was there some earlier indications of this, did Randall get some advanced warning, or was this just lucky timing?

[0] [http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=126119](http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=126119)

</comment><comment><USER3> This sounds interesting. But aren't there security concerns? What if someone takes a picture of an excel from a video, one that you can see but shouldn't have access too, and gets the data?

<comment><USER4> If you had a picture of someone's spreadsheet, you could type it into Excel yourself - you can't fit huge amounts of data into a single photo. Microsoft's tool would only save you a few minutes worth of typing.

For that matter, if you just get a glimpse of someone's spreadsheet, you could see something you weren't supposed to see and remember it. That's why people who work with sensitive data shouldn't be working in open-plan offices or coffee shops.</comment></comment>


Best Open Source Accounting Software for Linux - <AUTHOR> https://www.fossmint.com/open-source-accounting-software/ <comment><USER2> Two excellent ones are missing from the list Skrooge → [https://skrooge.org/](https://skrooge.org/) KMyMoney → [https://kmymoney.org/](https://kmymoney.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm using KMyMoney for some years but this time I would prefer self hosted web based solution.</comment>


Senators seek crackdown on Bitcoin currency - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/08/us-financial-bitcoins-idUSTRE7573T320110608?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews&dlvrit=56505

<comment><USER2> This is a knee-jerk reaction. I doubt they really understand the technology. And from what I understand bitcoin transactions are not that anonymous.

But even if they were, are they going to ban everything that allows anonymity? The same senators mention Tor as well. Are they going to make the use of Tor illegal - the same tool that was used in revolutions against oppressive regimes?</comment>


C Constructs That Don't Work in C++ - <AUTHOR> https://lospi.net/c/c++/programming/developing/software/2019/04/28/c-constructs-that-dont-work-in-cpp.html <comment><USER2> Josh Lospinoso, the author of this blog, has now corrected this to read "pointer to const int"

C declaration syntax confounds even the experts.

I highly recommend this article to all interested in C and C++, and programming languages generally.

</comment><comment><USER2> "... const int* x_ptr_3 = &x; // (3) ... Finally, we see the preferred approach, which is taking a const pointer (3)"

Not a const pointer, but a pointer to const int.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for the correction!</comment></comment>


Peer5 Downloader: Peer-assisted file downloads using WebRTC - <AUTHOR> http://peer5.com/downloader/land.html

<comment><USER2> One annoying aspect of it, is that my firewall is asking me to allow every single peer connection. Would it be possible to use a single port for UDP that I can whitelist?

<comment><USER3> Interesting, no one mentioned it when using sharefest, it is possible to tell the STUN server to restrict which udp ports are being used so you can specify 65500-65600 and whitelist them What firewall you have on your comp that fires that?

<comment><USER2> I'm using little snitch and only have TCP ports 80, 443, 8080 and 1935 (flash) whitelisted for Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you'd like to learn more checkout Peer5's open source projects [1] for pure p2p file sharing, And [2] for a flexible AJAX api built on top of the same stack. [1] github.com/peer5/sharefest [2] github.com/peer5/P2PXHR

</comment><comment><USER4> Sleek simple solution, just like bittorrent.

Wonder if it can be used to peer-to-peer other stuff, other than file downloads. CDN boosting ? Ajax broadcast content ( e.g. NewsFeeds, live marketing notifications )?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, for that you would want to use the general purpose API (which is AJAX like). See [https://github.com/Peer5/P2PXHR](https://github.com/Peer5/P2PXHR). It's still a little under-documented, so let me know if you're having trouble hacking it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks interesting but if this is a product then what's its price?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's currently for free, at least for the beta. Plans will be announced soon. Promise!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I downloaded a 200MB file and 94% were downloaded from peers? Is that what you're saying? That's crazy

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's what you got exactly, but I have to admit that this is quite extreme, and you should not expect to download so much from peers every time...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Demo Fail: When I tried to download the 200MB file, Chrome is reporting server errors...

<comment><AUTHOR> You may have some warnings on XHR expirations if you're coming from a slow connection. What is the error?

<comment><USER7> We have a business-class 100Mbps connection.

Chrome shows "Failed - Server problem" with chrome tools showing the request as "Method: HEAD - Status: (canceled)"

<comment><USER3> What's your Chrome version and OS?

<comment><USER7> Windows 7 running the latest version of chrome</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chrome 70 beta has a face detection API - <AUTHOR> https://blog.chromium.org/2018/09/chrome-70-beta-shape-detection-web.html <comment><USER2> I don't want to jump the gun and call it creepy just yet, but what is it for exactly?

<comment><USER3> The most common end-user use of face detection is probably adding filters and decorations to photos.

This isn't too hard to do in javascript, but I assume a native implementation is much faster.

I'm not sure why it would be creepy; face recognition is easily done locally. Every camera implements it, for example, for focusing on faces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is rad! Native support. Looks like my old company and team that brought Goggle's goggle's back at work again.

This will do wonders for my little GIF app.

[https://GIF.COM.AI](https://GIF.COM.AI)

<comment><USER4> downvoters just don't understand :|

Funny how you can downvote a comment without investigating what it's all about.

<comment><USER5> Consider explaining enough details in your comment so that it doesn't require readers to investigate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Someone felt I was wrong when calling Google creepy the other day.

My mistake. Why would facial recognition connected with Google be creepy. It's... "convenient". So convenient....to have Google help you provide that feature... Yeah.

Google. Not creepy. Sane.

<comment><USER7> > The Shape Detection API makes a device's shape detection capabilities > available on the web, letting you identify faces, barcodes, and text in > images.

This sounds like a boon for blind users. Your browser can now leverage device capabilities to interpret more than just text.

<comment><USER8> Like any technology it can be used to do good and bad things. Unfortunately in this universe helping blind people is a lot less profitable than snatching user face, voice and personal data to clone existing identities or build fake ones. In the modern Internet anything that can be exploited or abused will be; hence the mistrust. So thanks but no thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


Wayback Machine was down - k-ian https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://news.ycombinator.com <comment><AUTHOR> The Internet Archive just announced a no-waitlist book lending due to COVID-19, I'd guess their servers might not be too happy about the inrush of users.

[http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national- eme...](http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-emergency- library-to-provide-digitized-books-to-students-and-the-public/)

<comment><USER2> Right, and [https://archive.org/details/nationalemergencylibrary](https://archive.org/details/nationalemergencylibrary) is up and responsive.

So I'm guessing that they've shifted resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Now would be a great time to donate to the Internet Archive if you're able to. They can surely use the help.

<comment><USER4> If only shareholders would think the same way about PG&E and other companies that could use infrastructure upgrades ...

<comment><USER5> PG&E is so far behind on deferred maintenance that people have been petitioning for California to socialize it so the state stops catching on fire from high tension powerlines.

You will be glad to know that they've protected executive bonuses, though.

<comment><USER6> Didn't PG&E get blocked from performing upgrades by the state utilities commission? Something about not wanting to increase power customer bills... utility incentives are not easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the meantime, distributed archiving ftw, run your own archives with Webrecorder.io, ArchiveBox.io, SingleFile, kiwix.org, etc!

<comment><USER8> The kiwix _Wikipedia-en_ full scrape with images has been broken for over 18 months, I think they could use some technical help. I tried running their scraper myself on a nice AWS instance and it just stalls after many days of downloading articles. Could probably use a rewrite. ;)

[https://sourceforge.net/p/kiwix/discussion/604121/thread/1f2...](https://sourceforge.net/p/kiwix/discussion/604121/thread/1f27659cdb/)

[https://github.com/openzim/mwoffliner/issues/1020](https://github.com/openzim/mwoffliner/issues/1020)

[https://github.com/openzim/mwoffliner](https://github.com/openzim/mwoffliner)

<comment><USER9> The whole zim file infrastructure is pretty broken. I've been trying to put together a system for generating a WARC file by rendering all the wikitext content in a database dump, which is a lot more reasonable of an approach.

Rendering wikitext is challenging though, since wikitext can include chunks of other wikitext, and wikitext can use some pretty complicated templating functionality.

Oddly enough where I've run into the biggest issues is in weird slowdowns of the python WARCIO library that making dealing with large archives just about impossible. I haven't had time to really track that down, but if anyone want to it's pretty easy to reproduce, just try adding a few million lorum-ipsum articles and look at how far from linear time it's running.

There are a lot of advantages to starting from a dump, you can provide much better tools for filtering articles, probably even provide rudimentary document classification. You can also do things like re-compress and minify images, a dump intended for a cellphone probably doesn't need 4k images.

WARC is also probably a better tool for distributing web-archive type content, like wikipedia dumps. You can distribute a package of text content and image content as separate files, for example. Generally I have not been very impressed with the quality of ZIM file tooling. One disadvantage is you need to provide separate search indexing, but that's doable.

I'd love to be able to get a wikimedia grant to work on this, and take on less contract work, but so far their grant process is pretty hard to follow.

<comment><USER7> I'm actually currently working on the ZIM toolchain for Kiwix on a contract basis, so I'd be interested to hear more about your pain points, they might be something I can help out with.

In general, I'd say that ZIM and WARC are not really direct competitors or solutions to the same problems, they're really for distinct use-cases. ZIM is a highly-compressed format that's designed solely for static articles and flat content, it doesn't really store headers or anything else that WARC does in order to support full request/response replaying. ZIM is optimized for storing thousands to millions of pages of homogenous content, WARC is optimized for high-fidelity collections of smaller amounts of content.

If you want to help out with our efforts, feel free to DM me on Twitter @theSquashSH or reply here and I can introduce you to the ZIM people (who get grants to improve this process on the regular, and are open to hiring contract workers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I sent them a bug yesterday where I was being blocked for "Too Many Requests" regarding an endpoint I wasn't actually using (they thought I was attempting to submit URLs using the "Save Page Now" feature), so they've been having issues across the board.

This is good though, as they're now hopefully aware of some previously unknown deficiencies.

Best of luck to the Archive team to get things up and running again with minimal stress!

</comment><comment><USER11> That would explain the random issues I saw recently (within the past ~12 hours) where I asked for a page version from 2019 and got one from 2018.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's been down for a few weeks for cnn.com (Can't load feb 1st to current day). I wonder if they're getting pressure from somewhere. Check it out for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER13> Massive layoffs today I heard.

<comment><USER14> Any kinks would be appreciated.

<comment><USER15> I think you may have had a Freudian slip ;)

<comment><USER14> Indeed! Kinks still welcome. (was going to make a joke about fat-fingering, butt decided to let it lay).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship - <AUTHOR> https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/ <comment><USER3> Notable paragraph which was not present in the leaked draft:

> Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning label on certain tweets > in a manner that clearly reflects political bias. As has been reported, > Twitter seems never to have placed such a label on another politician's > tweet. As recently as last week, Representative Adam Schiff was continuing > to mislead his followers by peddling the long-disproved Russian Collusion > Hoax, and Twitter did not flag those tweets. Unsurprisingly, its officer in > charge of so-called 'Site Integrity' has flaunted his political bias in his > own tweets.

<comment><USER4> ﱞ

<comment><USER3> > A notable part of the pushback directed at this Twitter employee is that his > team focuses on bots & platform manipulation (not the same as fact- > checking). But because he's been publicly critical of the president on > social media, Trump surrogates are claiming it was his decision.

[https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/1265675205680099328](https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/1265675205680099328)

Plus the response from Jack Dorsey yesterday:

> Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a > company, and that's me. Please leave our employees out of this. We'll > continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections > globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.

[https://twitter.com/jack/status/1265837138114830336](https://twitter.com/jack/status/1265837138114830336)

<comment><USER5> It's a valid point. Shouldn't the head of integrity not have a history of negative bias? That's impossible in practice, but jeez Louise this guy said some pretty offensive things. I think that in of itself should make him ineligible. There cannot be a double standard here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is unconstitutional and will be struck down. The president can't just decide to change the meaning of a law to make it do something it wasn't written to do, and assigning three unelected bureaucrats at the FCC to regulate free speech on the Internet sets an extremely dangerous precedent whether you agree with the politics in this case or not.

There are _legal_ approaches to address the real issue of online censorship:

1\. Actually amend the Communications Decency Act Section 230

2\. Exercise antitrust authority to break up platforms that exert monopoly influence

3\. Encourage free market alternatives to established platforms

I believe that online censorship of political viewpoints is a real and serious issue, but it needs to be addressed in a lawful manner. Between this and the EARN IT Act, we are entering extremely dangerous territory for free speech online and I fear the short sighted politicians and DOJ are missing the forest for the trees when it comes to pushing these policies.

<comment><USER5> 1\. The political optics of this will never let it happen. Not withstanding those on the right and left who agree, but rather tech companies, their mouthpieces, and oh boy the lobbyists. Be thankful for your government, it's the best money can buy.

2\. WAY easier said than done. The FTC started investigating Microsoft in 1992, but it was not until 2001 that the courts settled the matter and Microsoft settled. Nine YEARS. So no, this is absolutely not a top option for the administration because they've got only four years left.

3\. Forgive me, I don't know where you are located, but this is kind of the mantra for America. Companies from Google to GAB to that decentralized network I can't remember the name of, have tried to compete. They can't - <USER2> because the companies are too powerful.

Oh, and it's not unconstitutional, unless you have a specific clause in the Constitution that I am not seeing? At best it's not within the boundaries of Executive Orders; banning guns is definitely not within the boundaries but the Left wants to do it anyway.

<comment><USER6> It's unconstitutional because the president can't decide to change a law. Only the legislature can.

Unfortunately CDA is written in a way that broadly allows tech companies to censor any content that doesn't fit their commercial or political narratives. It's a poison pill to Internet discourse at the endpoint we've reached where three or four companies control that vast majority of online speech.

In a sense, the president is declaring Twitter and Facebook to be "public utilities," an admission of defeat for the free market ideals that we pretend this country champions.

Only a change to the law or reimagining of the Internet can fix this. I don't share your pessimism that this is impossible. I think decentralized/P2P platforms do have a place and a chance to unseat tech incumbents. Remember what happened to Yahoo and AOL? I just don't think that our current set of tech companies are immune from the same sort of abandonment and irrelevance. A moment is coming where everything changes.

<comment><USER7> > It's unconstitutional because the president can't decide to change a law.

True, but it's within the executive branch's purview to... interpret the law a bit, as they execute it. Of course, then it's on the judicial branch to determine whether or not that was okay.

> In a sense, the president is declaring Twitter and Facebook to be "public > utilities,"

This is actually one of the most interesting parts of this, though it definitely will be tested by the judicial branch here. Trump has decided Twitter constitutes the modern equivalent of the "public square", where people are entitled to speak freely. ...Apart from the fact that it's corporately owned, I'd totally agree that that's true: Modern free speech has moved entirely to media (TV, Internet, Radio, etc.) which are all owned by corporations.

Now, where that gets interesting is that the government is required to allow you to speak freely... corporations aren't, according to current interpretations of the Constitution. The Supreme Court, however, has vastly expanded the application of the Bill of Rights before though. It's presumably possible that a future court could decide that social media companies must allow people their town square.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Discussion in progress: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342161](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342161)

</comment><comment><USER9> Didn't the GOP just not a few months ago argue that a business couldn't be forced to make a Cake for a Gay wedding?

Now they want to argue that they can force a business (Twitter) to do something that business (Twitter) doesn't want to do?

<comment><USER5> Can you please point out where it forces Twitter to do anything?

I think you may have gotten off on the wrong exit. One was a religious freedom case. The other is ordering the government to investigate Twitter for violating Section 203. Two..totally different things. The Executive Order can't force Twitter to do anything.

<comment><USER5> Can you please point out where it forces Twitter to do anything?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> He has a platform for communicating with the people, just like every other president. He's chosen to use Twitter. Just like Fox News, another thing he's complaining about now that it isn't guaranteed to be frictionless. He can say anything he wants in press releases, on whitehouse.gov, etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting how they changed the wording of Section 5:

Yesterday's draft:

> _The working group shall also collect publicly available information > regarding the following:_

> _(i) monitoring or creating watch-lists of users based on their interactions > with content or users (e.g., likes, follows, time spent); and_

> _(ii) monitoring users based on their activity off the platform._

Final version:

> _The working group shall also collect publicly available information > regarding the following:_

> _(i) increased scrutiny of users based on the other users they choose to > follow, or their interactions with other users;_

> _(ii) algorithms to suppress content or users based on indications of > political alignment or viewpoint;_

> _(iii) differential policies allowing for otherwise impermissible behavior, > when committed by accounts associated with the Chinese Communist Party or > other anti-democratic associations or governments;_

> _(iv) reliance on third-party entities, including contractors, media > organizations, and individuals, with indicia of bias to review content; and_

> _(v) acts that limit the ability of users with particular viewpoints to earn > money on the platform compared with other users similarly situated._

<comment><USER12> "other anti-democratic associations or governments"

This is troubling to me. Can this be used to mean "anyone I label anti- democratic"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you're planning on posting in these threads, scrub your bio here first to avoid having your email messed with.

I've discovered some interesting new websites!

<comment><USER14> Can you explain what you mean by that comment?

<comment><USER15> I'm guessing he's mentioning it you're commenting in a DT thread to protect your personal info. One of the tools 'THey' like to use is Doxxing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Too bad you can't have social media for just the good or OK parts of the planet, the bad parts get it too.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wouldn't taking away Section 230 thus making Twitter liable for content posted on Twitter have the opposite effect that Trump is going for.

Twitter will be liable for content posted, therefor won't they start censoring things so they can't be sued? This would make them also liable for Trump's tweets if those tweets aren't removed...

<comment><USER17> I don't think that's quite right. From what I can tell, it seems like social media sites like twitter are being given two options, and they're being told that the middle of the road between those options isn't ok anymore.

First option, what you described. If they want to make comments about the content of their platform (i.e. fact check something) then they have to 'go all the way' and 'editorialize' everything. (No more Section 230 protection)

Second option, which I think still exists (I think?), don't make any comments about the content, and behave strictly as a platform. In that case, all legal protection under Section 230 still applies.

Idk if this is a decent analogy, but it seems comparable to the classic anonymous swiss bank account. Either the bank completely protects all personal information for everyone, or it has to move out of switzerland and give up all its anonymity. (I know the analogy isn't accurate, but it seems like a decent mental model.)

<comment><USER5> I think the hypothetical opposite would be interesting: What if Twitter was run by Peter Theil, and they fact checked Joe Biden. I think we'd see absolutely uproar by the democrats. The left believes twitter is on their side, and how that came to be is much more interesting.

<comment><USER9> Maybe they are fact checking Biden and it doesn't seem like it cause they come up empty. LOL

<comment><USER18> or mayb they can't figure out what he's saying :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> About goddamn time. I am not on Trumps side on 99% of issues but this is absolutely needed. The platform-publishers have failed to police themselves, and have (too) publicly played favorites lately.

Please, if you disagree, reply with why. Besides ad-hominem attacking the person, and if this particular incident is a good example (it is not), explain why fb/twit/etc deserve dual protections?

<comment><USER20>
        > (too) publicly played favorites lately.

So what? Why is that, of itself, bad?

My view is that private companies should not host and enable content that makes the world a worse place to live.

Places like Gab or Voat have their view of what is acceptable, and I disagree and condemn them for it. Places like HN have a code with which I largely agree, and I commend them for it.

I neither expect, nor desire, companies like to twitter to provide "freedom of speech." Not with the internet and web we currently have, whose technical design overwhelmingly favors bad actors.

<comment><USER21> >"My view is that private companies should not host and enable content that makes the world a worse place to live."

And who is to decide what makes the world a worse place?

<comment><USER22> The person doing the hosting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If Twitter was run by Peter Theil and did this to Bernie Sanders, or Joe Binden, the left would have a collective meltdown. Trump has a valid point: Twitter has never done this before, why are they starting now?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have taken down this same argument you made elsewhere on this topic:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23345380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23345380)

And I ask that in addition to your not arguing about something that didn't happen and how you hypothesize people you cannot name would react, that you make the argument just once and not paper all over a topic with exact copies of it.

<comment><USER5> If you're going to keep censoring and deleting, then you're just proving the point. I don't understand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So basically, if noted independent and well-reasoned decision maker William Barr decides that a platform is operating in ways that are 'deceptive, pretextual, or inconsistent with a provider's terms of service' they lose protection under section 203(c). Am I understanding this correctly?

If so, that's hilarious because nobody can possibly argue that Twitter's ToS enforcement has been anything close to consistent. The very fact that Trump still has a personal twitter account is proof of that. They're being bit by the dog they refused to muzzle.

<comment><USER24> >noted independent and well-reasoned decision maker William Barr

Laughing so hard at this. Did you forget a /s?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The argument I've heard here, I think, is that in fact this is supposedly a trick, and not about preventing online censorship, but actually a sneaky way to increase censorship.

My understanding is that this is the problem that people have with this, and most people who are in that camp also hate Trump.

In my opinion, Trump's racism and other aspects are quite odious, but I want to believe that in this case he actually is fighting against censorship. Because it does seem that conservative viewpoints are being censored.

If this a trick, then we are more screwed than I thought. Because the left- leaning group actually seems to be asking for _more_ censorship.

</comment><comment><USER7> Obviously I think the order is being done for the wrong reasons, and I doubt the text of it itself will do much to reign in big tech. But I think Trump inadvertently stumbled into a good thing, as tech industry power must be curtailed.

Trump is worried about conservative accounts being censored or shut down with no opportunity for appeal, for instance, but the very same demands for review may help people locked out by broken algorithmic systems on purely non- political errors.

And fundamentally, it's way overdue that we stop giving tech companies immunity from prosecution for their platforms. Right now everyone is focused on using Section 230 as a carrot that requires tech companies do things to continue to receive it (EARN IT, etc.) but we really just need to remove it entirely.

<comment><USER26> This isn't quite right. 230 is the thing that allows HN to moderate comments and submissions without immediately becoming legally responsible for every dumb thing we say.

Not that it matters. Nobody seems to believe the administration can actually do this. And Twitter (or your personal forum) can continue to boot trolls, Nazis, or heads of state posting targeted harassment at widows, and do so in good faith all day long.

What really happened is that the hard, valid questions about how much power social media companies have, how they should ensure free speech without enabling the worst elements of society, how appeals on moderation should work etc, just got sucked so deep into the screaming partisan meat grinder that there is now no chance of making any progress on them.

<comment><USER7> > 230 is the thing that allows HN to moderate comments and submissions without > immediately becoming legally responsible for every dumb thing we say.

This definitely isn't true. The reality is that you are never automatically responsible for what someone else does. (It makes no sense!) Tech companies would like you to believe that Section 230 is some fundamental bedrock to the Internet, but it's not, it's just a get out of jail card for ad companies acting badly.

> Nobody seems to believe the administration can actually do this.

There's probably some manner of activity executive departments such as the FTC and FCC are capable of doing. Though it's definitely true that Congress-passed laws (unfortunately, including Section 230 of the CDA) stand above the regulatory power they have. But this order may be a precursor towards a larger push to scale back or (ideally) remove Section 230 in legislation.

> just got sucked so deep into the screaming partisan meat grinder that there > is now no chance of making any progress on them

I actually disagree here. The vast majority of issues that require legislative attention aren't getting it because they're not loud enough to be put as conditions upon other things happening. Legislatively a lot of issues are at a complete standstill. But once it becomes a hot button issue, legislators are more likely to pack it in here or there until something moves on it.

<comment><USER27> You're not responsible for what someone else does, but you are responsible for what you do. If you accept a submission to your newspaper and publish it then you may be liable for any libelous claims because you are the one who published it. You think that HN is different because it automatically publishes anything anyone writes, but that perception isn't shared by many people who are old enough to remember a time before the World Wide Web.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Cryptocurrency Singularity - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ramontayag/the-cryptocurrency-singularity-7e37ae4aa4 <comment><USER2> Whenever I read articles like this I'm reminded of this quote by Richard Buckminster Fuller

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

IMHO this is what Bitcoin is all about. Not a get-rich-quick scheme or whatever insults some people throw at it, but a sound, arguably better alternative to fiat currencies.

Aside: If you haven't yet gotten into the fancy dancy, drama sprinkled ICO, Scamcoin, and Altcoin world I cannot recommend it enough. It's hilarious, like the cambrian explosion of cryptomoney.

<comment><USER3> Bitcoin is not "better" than fiat currencies, it's worse in every way except for the fact that it is not operated by a central authority. In terms of convenience, security, and ease of use it is clearly worse. The world does need a "back channel" currency, and bitcoin is a perfect fit for this, but it will never move beyond that because there's simply no reason for the masses to use it.

<comment><USER4> > it's worse in every way except for the fact that it is not operated by a > central authority.

-It is lighter--I can carry it in my head

-It travels faster

-It is not inflated by 2% a year

-It cannot be forged

-It can cross borders

<comment><USER5> It is inflated but currently its value gain masks that.

You cannot carry those big numbers in your head comfortably. Heck, it is tricky to carry a wallet ID. Even trickier to get a physical transaction done with BTC.

<comment><USER4> See my link about brainwallets above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> zupa-hu I'm confused. Gresham's law sais "bad money drives out good". Inflation is bad, so from that follows that the money that inflates more will be more used. Okay, I buy that.

Then this:

> When the singularity is reached, I think people will be more likely to > choose to spend their inflationary fiat currency instead of their > deflationary cryptocurrency.

I'm lost here. People already prefer to spend USD over Bitcoin. So I understand the change would be if Bitcoin inflates faster, because then people will prefer to spend Bitcoin. But the article sais the opposite.

Or doesn't "stable against USD" mean that Bitcoin will inflate/deflat at around the same rate as USD?

Interesting article, I'd love to understand it! Anyone?

<comment><USER6> I thought the same thing, the core idea of this article is in direct opposition of its conclusion.

Bitcoin is going up in value, and according to the market predictions it will go way higher, so it's deflationary.

Bitcoin holders will prefer to spend cash money to bitcoins anytime in speculation of future gains.

I see bitcoin more of a speculative investment at the moment, than a type of currency. Only the ones that are riding the bitcoin trains seems to think this is the future of money. Outside that bubble nobody really uses it.

<comment><USER7> I think its unfair to dismiss the currency aspect of bitcoin. The use case for the developed world is 95% speculation 5% buying contraband online however, for people in Venezuela[1], girls learning to code in Afghanistan[2], or women in Saudi Arabi who can't legally open a bank account, Bitcoin is solving problems that under banked people have now. Of course the ecosystem needs to mature so grandma can use it safely, but that will come with time.

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/bitcoin-mining-is-popular- in...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/bitcoin-mining-is-popular-in-venezuela- because-of-hyperinflation.html) [2] [https://www.coindesk.com/how-bitcoin- helps-afghan-girls-achi...](https://www.coindesk.com/how-bitcoin-helps-afghan- girls-achieve-financial-freedom/)

<comment><USER8> I think it has high utility anywhere outside of the US and EU. There are billions of people that don't have access to stable currencies or reasonable banking.

<comment><USER9> Sure, but access to reasonable banking is also highly correlated to access to ability to actually buy things with BTC or convert BTC to spendable money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is full of misunderstandings about monetary policy.

Currencies that are not designed to lose value over time can not be stable. Intrinsically worthless tokens engineered to have better than market risk adjusted, liquidity adjusted, real returns compared to real productive investment will always be unstable and fluctuate increasingly wildly as they get more popular. This is a result of physical limits of production. As people hoard worthless tokens, their price increases which causes more people to hoard them instead of investing in real businesses with real production capacity.

This eventually causes production capacity to drop. That's right, when enough people do it, token hoarding displaces investment in businesses and factories and lowers global production capacity. This means token hoarding causes a future drop in things available to buy with these tokens.

Eventually there will be people who want to buy real things with their stock of tokens. The tokens will be chasing fewer goods which means prices for stuff will rise (tokens will lose value). This might happen suddenly when people with large stockpiles of tokens notice that value is dropping and that there are tons of other tokens waiting on the sideline to make it drop even further. Hoarders might rush to get rid of their stockpile all at the same time before they're worthless which will cause their fall to worthlessness. This drop will bring the tokens closer to their natural intrinsic value of zero. The cycle can then start again, such is aggregate economics.

The 1920s and 1930s suffered from this type of production drop but with gold tied currencies instead of cryptocoins. It happened to a lesser extent in 2007 when western world central banks failed to keep inflation rates high enough.

It's important for the world's sake to not let deflationary currencies become too popular. When savings or financial promises are insufficiently tied to future production or to accumulation of real goods, there will be disappointment when many people try to exchange them for real stuff. That is true for crypto currencies as well as government currencies (that is why the system is designed to make banks invest people's money in real businesses and minimize the proportion of money that is stockpiled idly).

It's true that crypto currencies are currently not widely held enough to significantly affect the aggregate economy but speculation already keeps them volatile and the knowledge that as they get more popular, there will be more macroeconomic pressures towards volatility keeps the speculation wild and cryptocoins unstable.

<comment><AUTHOR> If I understand this right, I don't think I necessarily disagree with you. My question is: if people can choose one or the other to spend, what do you think they'll choose? A currency that inflates quickly, or one that inflates less quickly?

<comment><USER10> I think market forces will make it so that the one that inflates less quickly will be more volatile and the higher risk premium of holding it will make it often less attractive than the one that inflates more quickly but often it also will be the opposite.

Like most investments there will be a trade-off of risks vs returns but both currencies will in the long run, be poor investments compared to income generating assets tied to real production.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is certainly interesting. Could the same principle be applied to gold which has been fairly stable?

I don't think gold is the right medium for the singularity because it is not easy to obtain and subdivide. It needs to be in the the vicinity of choosing the inflated coin on one hand, and the more valuable coin on the right.

Perhaps it's this trait that will keep Bitcoin volatile? Because it's easy to go in and out of it, volatility will remain high?

<comment><USER10> Yes it's similar to gold. Gold has some intrinsic value which anchors its price and reduces volatility and as you mentioned it is not as easy to trade which reduces speculation. But even gold is still a fairly volatile investment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it may feel volatile, but how volatile is it compared to other currencies? For example, my country's currency fell 10% in the last three months.

Intrinsic value discussion aside (which is its own discussion worth having), I would certainly like to keep more of my money in gold vs my local currency if gold were easy to get and keep. Peter Schiff says goldmoney.com does this, but I'm not interested in owning a certificate.

You bring up a good point though. The closer I imagine ourselves being at the event horizon, the fuzzier the details become. For example, I don't know what "stable enough" is exactly. I guess the question is now, will it ever get close enough to go past the event horizon?

<comment><USER10> The crucial thing is that as you get near this "event horizon" you get close to a point where cryptocurrencies would be macroeconomically destabilizing in the same way gold tied currencies were destabilizing in 1929.

I don't think crypto-currencies will ever get that popular though. It would require governments to be on board and foolishly march towards the 1929 thing again. But you never know, as they say, history rhymes.

<comment><AUTHOR> BenoitEssiambre, what are your thoughts on [http://woobull.com/bitcoin- volatility-will-match-major-fiat-...](http://woobull.com/bitcoin-volatility- will-match-major-fiat-currencies-by-2019/)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Rothbard's _History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II_ [1] wades through hundreds of years of Gresham's Law in action. Special attention is devoted to par laws and legal tender laws in exacerbating the tendency of banks to print more notes than there is metal in the vault.

[1] [https://mises.org/library/history-money-and-banking- united-s...](https://mises.org/library/history-money-and-banking-united- states-colonial-era-world-war-ii) (free audio book, epub, and pdf available)

<comment><USER12> Aw, you had me until mises.org. I prefer to get my economics from reputable sources.

<comment><USER11> Seriously? I was of the opinion that Hacker News readers had enough intellectual fortitude to evaluate content on its merits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand how someone can talk about making everyday purchases with BTC without addressing the transaction fees and confirmation times. Doesn't it currently cost several dollars to spend a dollar? Is there some reason to think that in the far future confirmation times and transaction fees will trend towards zero?

<comment><USER14> Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency, and not all cryptocurrencies are based on a blockchain data-structure.

There are other currencies which are not-inflationary, trustless and decentralized, and many more currencies with various levels of those properties, some are more centralized and require trust in a few in various ways, and some are decentralized trust-less but still inflationary.

There is even cryptocurrencies which do not use Proof-of-Work, or Proof-of- Stake, or Proof-of-Anything - but still can reach consensus in open distributed network.

<comment><USER13> Sure, but this is an article specifically about BTC; none of its conclusions hold for cryptocurrencies generally. I guess it just seems really deceptive to talk about fiat's "hidden cost" of inflation while ignoring BTC's not-at-all- hidden cost.

Similarly, I'm unclear on why confirmation times aren't considered a serious problem. It seems like BTC enthusiasts like to discuss a hypothetical future in which the BTC infrastructure is so mature that you can buy coffee without worrying about fees and confirmation times, but I don't see how we get there from here. Either the payment takes hours to confirm (leaving the coffee shop vulnerable to double-spending) or it goes through an off-chain processor (who would demand to know my identity). Either way you're losing one of the main selling points of using a cryptocurrency in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The argument makes some intuitive sense (more people buying X over Y makes the value of X go up, which makes holding X more desirable, so more people buy X instead of Y...), but if this effect actually happened I don't see why it would happen with a cryptocurrency and not, say, gold. Nothing about the argument seems specific to cryptocurrencies- it's used here simply as a commodity whose value has historically been going up for awhile, and which people feel pretty bullish about.

There are other reasons, also, why Bitcoin or it's ilk would be particularly _bad_ commodities to show this effect- notably, that the Bitcoin system can handle only a finite volume of transactions efficiently, and while it's capacity can be increased, the community managing it is (so far) still too disorganized to do so quickly (and without dramatic measures like forks and such.) Gold trading, as far as I know, already has none of these limitations, so cryptocurrencies have catching up to do, on that front.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you're right to bring up confirmation times and community. I didn't include that on purpose in order to focus on the good vs bad money part. My hunch is the scaling issues will (eventually) get addressed when we hit the barriers. Might not even be Bitcoin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Will governments around the world begin to make their currency deflationary > in order to make it attractive?

rofl

If you want people to use currency more, you make it inflate faster. This guy does not understand macroeconomics.

<comment><USER17> thank you. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this article doesn't properly understand the intricacies of inflation/deflation in an economy

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I certainly can't say I'm an economics expert. Mind sharing with me what part of the article you think is misguided?

<comment><USER17> Yes. I posted my thoughts in another comment > [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15184382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15184382)

Honestly, I'm kind of scared/surprised more people aren't talking about this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link. I'm not sure where in the article I said inflation is worse than deflation. I don't feel I know enough about economics to express an opinion about this.

What I'm trying to say is that if people have a choice, they'll keep their wealth in a currency that destroys their wealth the least slowly. This, I suspect, will have a runaway effect. We probably wouldn't be able to stop it if we tried, which sounds a lot like the AI singularity.

<comment><USER17> My concern is that you ignore the effects of deflation in your argument altogether, which you simply cannot do.

You are also effectively demoting the US dollar to the current inferior currency of the two to support your little adage, which I find a bit strange.

I believe your intention was just to write a little thought experiment, which is cool. I'm just a little baffled the way some people follow along for the ride without question.

Perhaps obvious, but I hold no cryptocurrency. I'm not saying I never would, but the sheer amount of dreamy speculation like this is exactly what keeps me away from the market.

<comment><AUTHOR> By "effects of deflation", are you referring to the claimed ill-effects of deflation, that will grind the economy to a halt? If so, mind helping me understand why I can't disregard that?

I appreciate your replies - not sure if I mentioned it earlier to you, but I posted it here in HN because there is no shortage of smart people willing to express their thoughts.

<comment><USER17> It's a concern I have about deflationary currencies in general. It's not very common in the world right now so you could argue I'm speculating too, really.

You are talking about the singularity being the point that we switch to crypto currency. I suppose my argument is that the singularity may not come because of deflation counteracting and convincing people to continue holding.

All in all I'm glad it's been such a diplomatic discussion. I would engage people the same way if I were you and appreciate that you seek new information.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand - I'm not aware of an asset class like bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies, so I have to go with opinion and extrapolation for a lot of the thinking. :)

It sounds like what you said is that the singularity may not happen because cryptocurrency deflation will make cryptocurrencies more attractive to hold compared to inflationary fiat. I'm fairly certain I understood it wrong.

Won't people move more of the money into deflationary currencies if they are accessible and exchange friction between the inflationary one and deflationary one is acceptable?

I appreciate the appreciation!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Per the other comments here, the applicability of Gresham's law as the author describes is questionable.

However, the author's broader point appears to be that the economic impact of a deflationary currency is largely unknown, and as expressed is worth considering. IANAE, but it seems at least conceptually possible that there could be an economy in which every actor's rational decision was to always buy some token because it appreciated so reliably. Consider, e.g., Shubik's "Dollar Auction" paradox, in which a sequence of rational decisions can lead to an ultimately irrational final outcome. Coupled with Bitcoin's expenditure of energy as proof of work, Bitcoin could prove to behave like a kind of superintelligence akin to one of Bostrom's paperclip maximizers, except it's one that consumes more and more energy resources as it attempts to maximize the value of Bitcoin.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did send the article to my old economics professor so he can tell me where I misunderstand things, but I haven't gotten a reply yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Excellent writeup! I came to the same conclusion a few years ago with Thiers' Law: good money drives out bad, [http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/speculative- attack/](http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/speculative-attack/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I knew I was just lacking in Google-fu when searching for other articles that expressed this idea I had been forming in my mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> 'People spend lesser valued currency and hoard higher valued currency'

+

'people are hoarding bitcoin'

(does not imply)

'bitcoin is a higher valued currency'

</comment><comment><USER17> I think there's a critical discussion about inflation vs deflation missing from this article.

Inflation is bad, but so is deflation because it encourages saving your money which, in turn, hurts liquidity in the marketplace (i.e. the amount of cash freely flowing around). Liquidity is essential to keep the economy moving.

Isn't what we want really a currency with just a _little_ bit of inflation that keeps people spending their dollars today rather than saving them for tomorrow?

<comment><USER8> If you live under the influence of a failing government, the liquidity of bitcoin may well be higher that the local failin currency as you can move value to/from the outside world.

<comment><USER17> This is certainly true. All foreign currencies are not alike in their viability, but this does not address the long term concern of the cryptocurrency itself and its inflationary/deflationary direction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Completely agree. Thanks for bringing Gresham's Law into it. Now I'm terrified I need to diversify.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies! I wasn't planning to terrify people ;) kidding aside, I think it'll a while before we get there, so there is a lot of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Once Bitcoin gets linked up with Litecoin, lightning network, and atomic swaps, seems like it will become more viable as a payment channel. It still beats me, however, as to why anyone would by anything with it if it might be worth twice as much in 6 months. Of course, it could also be worth half as much.

<comment><USER23> When I buy things with Bitcoin, I typically convert more fiat currency to BTC to keep my BTC balance constant.

<comment><USER24> So why not just use fiat? Coinbase used to offer this service, where you would 'auto-topup' your balance, but removed this because it was silly as it generated multiple tx's just to do what paying in fiat would achieve in the first place.

As time goes on, the notion that coffee or meals are suitable to be paid in bitcoin seems more absurd. You would no more pay for a meal with a gold bar than you would with a Krugerrand. It will be seen as decadent for all those pizzas, controlled substances and ransoms to have been paid in BTC -- a kings ransom for pizza?

Bitcoin will likely never be a general purpose payment network. Lightning MAY if it obtains support from legacy services like VISA and MASTERCARD. I suspect V/MC will be the lightning nodes with the most payment channel volume.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I was hoping this article was going to be a serious look at if an AI could run on a currency like Ethereum.

A few months back I wrote a tongue in cheek version about if the DAO hack was to prevent the singularity [1]. But I'd be curious if it were actually possible.

1\. [http://arthur- johnston.com/essay/2016/06/26/Rokos_DAO.html](http://arthur- johnston.com/essay/2016/06/26/Rokos_DAO.html)

<comment><USER26> If an AI can run on a universal Turing machine, then it can run on a Turing- equivalent platform like ether.

That doesn't make it a good or economical idea.

<comment><USER27> On the contrary, it's a great solution for AI risk: run the AI on a blockchain, and hackers will find plenty of ways to disable it if it starts to get out of hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> A carbon tax on miners could slow down this singularity.

</comment><comment><USER29> Software is eating the world.

Those who think a digital currency of some kind _won't_ displace cash are going to be made fools.

About the article ... there are a lot of questions here.

I guess the main thrust of the article is that Bitcoin's volatility is declining, and thus it is becoming more attractive for use as a tool for buying lunch (where lunch is a stand-in for common day-to-day transactions). That hinges on the idea that Bitcoin wasn't attractive for that purpose before, because its value was too volatile.

1) The graph the article uses to demonstrate that Bitcoin is becoming less volatile seems to indicate, to me, that Bitcoin is just as volatile as it ever was. If I'm reading the graph correctly, the average of volatility is the same, but the std deviation of volatility has been decreasing. In other words, Bitcoin is just as volatile, but it's more consistently volatile. That's ... a weird metric to measure. Either I'm reading the graph incorrectly, or OP is.

2) The OP says "I wanted to keep them because Bitcoin has, since its inception, on average increased in value at about 150% per year". So why bring up volatility? Volatility isn't relevant to whether Bitcoin goes up in value over time or not. It's clear that, as long as Bitcoin continues to be useful, it will continue to deflate long term. So it's clear that Bitcoin will always have this "issue".

3) But that presumes that deflation is an issue to begin with. Is it? I'm naive on the subject. For the majority of human history we used deflationary currencies; precious metals. The world didn't stop turning then. But then the question is, are inflationary currencies better? Is our modern use of them an evolution, then?

On the one hand, we can think of it as horrible that the majority of people are storing their value in a currency that is decreasing in value over time. Their work, their labor, earns them wealth that decreases over time. That's disturbing.

But maybe it _should_ be that way? Having people store their wealth in inflationary stores of value implies that work is only valuable in the immediate time frame. And that kind of makes sense. A burger I flip today is valuable today, but not so much years from now, let alone decades from now. Paying me a deflationary currency today for that burger flip is weird, then, because you've traded something that increases in value over time for something that decreases in value over time.

So you could argue that in today's economy employers trade cash, something that decreases in value over time, for work that also decreases in value over time. And ... doesn't that make sense?

And yet, if given the opportunity and knowledge, wouldn't everyone want to store their value in deflationary vehicles? And if that's the case, wouldn't everyone, as the article implies, only _have_ deflationary vehicles to trade with ... so we'd just re-evolve to using deflationary currencies again.

Does the average person even _know_ that their currency is inflationary? I doubt it. Maybe the choice of deflationary/inflationary doesn't even matter.

I dunno, it's just a complicated question. I don't think it's clear cut that a deflationary currency is better or worse.

My point is, the deflationary property of Bitcoin doesn't necessarily preclude its use as a daily driver. Volatility sure might, but deflation I'm not so sure.

It's probably irrelevant to the average person. The average person will see value in replacing HSBC, who would normally freeze their bank account randomly and destroy their business.

4) It's important to mention that, at this point, we have reason to believe that Bitcoin and clones based on its model can never be used to buy lunch (and other such small transactions). The cost of decentralization is too high, and we have no way to decrease those costs by the orders of magnitude needed to handle the transactional loads of things like buying lunch. We are working to decrease them, and have recently succeeded in a modest improvement on the Bitcoin network, but orders of magnitude is ... out of reach without some massive innovation.

It's more likely that on-top-of networks like Lightning Network and its evolutions built on top of Bitcoin will be the thing people interact with on a daily basis.

The average person will get their paycheck in Bitcoin, but do their daily transactions using IOU networks like Lightning that settle behind the scenes on a less frequent basis. This allows the average person to use Bitcoin as their store of value, giving them by default the advantages that traditionally only a small fraction of the population have had, but still allowing cheap daily transactions for buying lunch.

That doesn't change the meaning of the article. But it's important to mention how Bitcoin is evolving to fulfill the future the article proposes.

So ... maybe that's the future. Or maybe a side chain will evolve with inflationary properties and we just use that to buy lunch and get paid. Maybe every country will have their own cryptocurrency, pseudo-centrally controlled, with atomic swaps for global trade.

But one thing I know for sure. Software is eating the world. You either choose to ride that wave, or you get eaten by it.</comment>


Politician's fingerprint 'cloned from photos' by hacker - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30623611 <comment><USER2> Yesterdays's HN discussion about this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8806394](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8806394)

</comment><comment><USER3> Krissler is providing a huge service here. It's a great illustration of the fact that fingerprints and other biometrics are analogous to _usernames_ and are completely unlike passwords.

It's like Apple and other biometric device purveyors are telling us all to just log in with our username and a blank password. At the moment we're all scrawling our passwords on every surface of every room we enter.

<comment><USER4> Well, it's a little different, because as far as I can tell he has reconstructed a 2D image of the fingerprint, but not used that fingerprint successfully for any authentication system.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure that is accurate...

"As an example, he demonstrated how he could use his fake fingerprint to unlock his iPhone — that features a 'Touch ID' fingerprint sensor integrated into its home button."

[http://www.iphonehacks.com/2014/12/hackers-reproduce- fingerp...](http://www.iphonehacks.com/2014/12/hackers-reproduce-fingerprints- german-defense-minister-public-photos.html)

It isn't entirely clear which fake fingerprint was used. I guess we should probably watch the CCC talk.

<comment><USER6> > It isn't entirely clear which fake fingerprint was used.

Obviously his own fingerprint. He doesn't have access to the German Defense Minister iPhone to test the real one (assuming the Defense Minister uses an iPhone and has Touch ID configured).

<comment><USER5> Hehe well obviously not hers. What I meant was that it wasn't clear how he built the fake fingerprint he tested, whether he used the exact same method he used to construct the defense minister's fingerprint, or whether he "cheated" to make it easier on himself.

<comment><USER6> Ah haha, sorry, I misunderstood you. Yes, definitively the details of this are fundamental to know if this could work in non-ideal conditions -it's not the same to take a high res photo only of your finger with good lighting than use publicly available, normal photos.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, you worded it much more clearly than I did :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think Taylor Swift said it best,

Remember: Fingerprint locks are convenient, but they discard your ability to "forget" or refuse to unlock a device. They remove consent.

[ source - [https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity](https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity) / [https://imgur.com/a/1PDRJ](https://imgur.com/a/1PDRJ) / ]

Can anyone intent on downvoting explain what is factually wrong or misleading about the quote in the picture? Just because it's on a picture doesn't make it less valid.

<comment><USER8> If the subject you'd like to bring to discussion is the quote, post the quote. If you want to bring up a humorous Twitter account dealing with security concerns, post the Twitter account. Reposting a meme posted by that account doesn't serve either purpose very well.

<comment><USER9> If the subject you'd like to bring to discussion is no humour on HN, post no humour on HN. If you want to bring up your confusion about how Taylor Swift and security go together, just say so. Gruntling away in your post doesn't serve either purpose very well. You're being mean to parent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For systems using biometric auth, wouldn't the next step to make it multi- factor biometrics (i.e., obtaining a confidence value based on the combination of fingerprint, face, vein pattern, gait, voice, etc.) rather than the simple one-to-one matching systems we use for it now?

<comment><USER11> Your far better off simply supervising people while collecting biometrics. Think, guard at the door while you walk into a facility who compares your photo in their sytem with what you look like vs. fingerprint reader at a workstation.

Granted, there also useful limiting casual access. Think kid/roomate using someone elses work laptop vs. a dedicated hacking attempt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how well this technique would work with the keys to your house... based on say 50 photos of you with your keys dangling, could you reconstruct the key and then 3d print it?

<comment><USER13> This is well available today. For example, there's an app for that:

[https://keysduplicated.com/](https://keysduplicated.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Are Samsung and Apple really the most important aspect of this issue?

People are convicted of crimes on the strength of their fingerprint.

<comment><USER2> Testimonies can by themselves end up into a conviction. I am not sure this is comparable. When a crime is committed any evidence is welcome to try and solve it. Investigators are not "choosing" their type of evidences like you can choose a type of digital protection.

<comment><USER15> I think his point is that you could frame someone using this method. Juries tend to give lots of weight to forensic evidence, often more than is scientifically justified. If you hear 'his fingerprints were found on the murder weapon' then for most people that is more than enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Link to talk video: [http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6450_-_de_-_...](http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6450_-_de_- _saal_1_-_201412272030_-_ich_sehe_also_bin_ich_du_-_starbug.html#video)</comment>