US Government Censors 70 Websites - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/24074/US_Government_Censors_70_Websites <comment><USER2> Some observations:

* I checked one of the sites they blocked at random, and they're using Google Analytics to track views. GA can be used to track a hell of a lot of things, as I'm sure every reader of this site knows, including location of views. They're also using Pikwik analytics. <speculation>Pikwik is OSS, so they could have modified the code to do some thing GA doesn't.</speculation>

* Torrent-Finder.com had about 1.7million page views a day[0], so I suppose it seemed like a good target. However, many of the other sites blocked don't even register. In fact, they all seem like those extremely shady sites that very few people would ever actually visit. Torrent-Finder.com seems to have been the only properly popular site on the list (onsmash.com has rather high pageviews also, ~610,000 pv/d) <speculation>My question is why the hell did they hit torrent-finder.com when virtually every other site on the list probably couldn't have kicked up a media storm?</speculation>

* Every site is now hosted in Charlotte, North Carolina. DHS ICE seem to have some sort of facility there, but I've not been able to find much info on it at all. <speculation>Torrent-finder.com seems to have been hosted in Egypt beforehand. Does this affect the legality at all?</speculation>

* The two (as far I as i saw) most popular sites, onsmash.com and torrent-finder.com, had their traffic peaks during the second half of 2009[1]. Furthermore, the majority of traffic for Torrent-Finder.com was well outside the USA - eastern Europe, mostly[2].

* The sites that have been seized seem to mostly have been sites to buy knockoffs of designer clothing/accessories/what have you. Not as many seemed to be file-sharing websites.

[0] <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=torrent-finder.com> [1] [http://www.google.com/trends?q=torrent- finder.com%2C+onsmash...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=torrent- finder.com%2C+onsmash.com&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all) [2] [http://www.google.com/trends?q=torrent- finder.com&ctab=0...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=torrent- finder.com&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

<hyperbole><opinion>To me, it seems the only real answer is to use alternate DNS roots. This one's been compromised.</opinion></hyperbole>

<comment><USER3> The government is __censoring our means of communications __, end of story. If they see it as their role to control my information, it doesn't matter if we find a new DNS system, their agenda is set. My DNS server is not broke, the government is. Lets fix the problem, not the internet.

<comment><USER4> "My DNS server is not broke, the government is. Lets fix the problem, not the internet."

Yes, the government is broken in this regard, but I would contend that your DNS is broken, too, and here's why. Your DNS provides your computer with directions to the next point of interest. Right now, it's pointing you to where you don't want to go because it's been told to, or the government has illegally seized the final location, etc. In this way, the DNS server is ~broken~. Not in its ability to look up map values, but in its ability to provide the correct ones.

If your GPS only told you where govn't controlled gas stations are, and you wanted to use Non-Govn't-Standard, you'd change GPSes, finding the current one unsatisfactory, or perhaps broken. (where broken in this context means "not doing what you want").

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wikileaks _did_ have their name seized in the US, it happened as part of the "Bank Julius Baer vs. Wikileaks lawsuit" - but it was overturned with the judge citing First Amendment concerns (ACLU and EFF filed motions in Wikileaks defence).

<comment><USER6> sources?

<comment><USER5> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Julius_Baer_vs._Wikileaks_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Julius_Baer_vs._Wikileaks_lawsuit)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is this only a DNS block? Can you still get to these websites by pointing your browser directly to an IP address?

</comment><comment><USER8> Pretty shocking. Then again, people get the government they vote for and the USA has clearly been decline to being a banana republic for a long time.

But I don't agree that this is a case of forcing anything on the world, com/org/net are US domain extensions, so I guess they have the right to control those. We're free to not use US domain names.

On the other hand, with ACTA the USA _will_ force its view on the world.

<comment><USER9> > Then again, people get the government they vote for and the USA has clearly > been decline to being a banana republic for a long time.

This is an unintentionally funny sentence, because the US essentially created banana republics. See United Fruits Company.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic>

<comment><USER8> Yes, the US created banana republics. Can't argue with that..

But the banana republics are going forward, while the US seems to be going the other way. Just look at the poor/rich divide, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Could it be that the DNS system needs to be decentralized and deregulated? How difficult is it to implement a P2P based name lookup system?

<comment><USER11> The DNS root servers are already decentralized. The issue here is that the domains in question are registered with registrars (and/or utilizing name servers) that are under US legal jurisdiction.

If you want to do something that you don't want US authorities having control over, then move it to a jurisdiction that does not care what the US says (and good luck finding such a place, unless it was Iran or DPRK).

<comment><USER12> At a basic level - a court order from the US (whatever level of court) issued directly to, say, a registrar in the UK would have absolutely no legal standing as far as the registrar was concerned.

The US may have a heck of a lot of swing when it comes to overall global policy, but that doesn't mean foreign entities just, like, obey their court orders - that would be absurd.

<comment><USER13> Right on. Notice thepiratebay.org is still up and running. the registrar: Key- Systems GmbH (R51-LROR).

I tried running whois's on some of the banned names to see what registrars were cooperating, if it was all (for example) GoDaddy, but any pertinent info has been stripped out from the entries.

Anyone know how I can get the original registration info?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I hate to say it, but looking at the list of sites that were blocked, good riddance:

[http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-seizes-bittorrent- sea...](http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-seizes-bittorrent-search- engine-domain-and-more-101126/)

Sites like these are the scum of the internet, run by the scum of the earth. I'm not familiar with every site personally, but I have little doubt that they were all involved in flagrant copyright infringement.

And looking at torrent-finder.info, I have no doubt that 99.99% of the people going to that site were going there for the purpose of stealing stuff, not finding linux distros. The cheeky incredulity with which fans of these sites say "it's not _their_ fault that everyone that uses their site is using it to traffic stolen goods!" is laughably transparent.

The western world is moving away from manufacturing physical goods, and these idiots using file sharing are making damn sure that nobody produces content either. What's going to be left? Finance?

There's a totally legitimate slippery slope argument to made for not blocking websites, and this story does smell bad in terms of legal due process, but I have a _really_ hard time feeling sorry for the degenerates who ran theses sites.

<comment><USER15> _these idiots using file sharing are making damn sure that nobody produces content either_

We've had widespread unauthorized sharing of audio for over 10 years now. Is less new music being produced today? Or is more?

We've had widespread unauthorized sharing of video and movies for nearly as long. Are fewer TV series being created, fewer channels being launched, fewer movies made today? Or more?

There may be issues that arise if most people receive their entertainment via no-fee digital copying -- but underproduction of content does not, from the evidence so far, seem to be one of them.

 _good riddance... Sites like these are the scum of the internet, run by the scum of the earth._

First they came for the domains of the scum of the earth, and I said 'good riddance', because I'm not scum.

Then...

Put aside for a moment the allegations or apparent uses of these domains. Is it a good idea to enable punitive seizure of property without any legal hearing?

<comment><USER14> Are you saying that if we stop paying for content, more is going to be produced? For music, it's possible that it could be true (though I don't completely buy it) because of concerts and the fact that music is pretty low- budget, but if nobody pays for TV shows and films, they're not going to be made, at least those that require huge budgets and crews.

And either way, it's not our place to break the law because we're convinced we know better than the people we're stealing from. If musicians decide to give away their music and make money from concerts, fine, but for the most part they haven't, at least not yet.

And yes, I agree that this incident is problematic, but I think that they've probably done the right thing for the wrong reasons. The law is slowly evolving to meet these 21st century problems, but things take time. I personally don't see a huge difference between a website selling counterfeit goods and a physical store selling counterfeit goods, and I wouldn't have much of a problem with a store being shut down the moment it was caught openly selling counterfeit goods rather than after the trial.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot of details here, and I'm not at all well-versed on this stuff, but I think people tend to be way to quick to defend individual scumbags who are openly and knowingly distributing stolen and counterfeit goods whenever the internet is involved.

<comment><USER15> Fees paid per copy are only one traditional way to compensate creators. Copy fees don't work so well once digital technology becomes ubiquitous, and may be viewed by future generations as barbaric, because such fees may deny minds the education and culture they crave based on an arbitrary monopolistic price, unrelated to the cost of either original production or reproduction.

If per-copy fees were the only way to get necessary creative production, as you seem to suggest, that would be one thing. But your theory doesn't yet seem to be playing out. Rising piracy has loosely correlated, over the past decade- plus, with even more creation of the pirated types of content.

So the siege and retribution mentality -- "never mind due process, line the scum up against the wall and let 'em have it!" -- doesn't make any sense.

<comment><USER14> Again, _this isn't your decision to make_. These companies may be acting in a way that you consider counter-productive (and you may be right), but that doesn't give you the right to take their content in a way that they haven't allowed.

<comment><USER15> It's our decision as a society how much of a monopoly we grant copyright holders, and whether we also grant them the ability to seize property, like domain names, without due process.

Our society is richer because Jobs and Wozniak, before they founded Apple, helped people steal telecommunications services. The world is more connected because Zennstrom and Friis, before they made Skype, behaved like 'scum' in your eyes with file-sharing Kazaa. Our culture is richer because whole genres of music and other creative arts have at times ignored the rules against sampling, collage, and other reuse.

The simple 'always defer to all prior rules' argument isn't welfare-maximizing for either individuals or the world.

And even as we enforce current laws, which I accept as a general necessity, the accused deserve a chance to make their case, and the standards for enforcement need to be clear and applied evenly. A surprise domain-name seizure without notice only makes sense in emergency situations.

<comment><USER13> I agree with most of what you're saying, but I don't see how you can say Apple and Skype exist because of Blue Boxes and Kazaa. That's like saying "The Pianist" exists because Roman Polanski raped some 13 year old...

<comment><USER16> "The Pianist" was not a more advanced expression of Polanski's sexual predilections. Those entrepreneurs' later tech ventures were more advanced expressions of the same causes that led to their early ones. Cutting off theif technical and entrepreneurial careers early might very well have created a different world today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'll play a bit of a contrarian and say that I'm not the least concerned about this.

The Internet is a grossly complicated system, and the ability to have nfljerseysupply.com resolve to your website is far from a given right. ISPs, web hosts, search engines, ICANN, governments, browser vendors, OS vendors, and more all have to cooperate for a domain to work. Each player has to cooperate to make your website reachable, therefore each player has the ability to make your website hard or impossible to reach.

It's scary if the US government has powerful legal tools to take down any website (see: China), but the US govt. has a track record of going after only a few criminals, not performing political censorship. So do all the players. Also, COICA, which would make this act easier, got gummed up in the Senate.

I don't know any details, but would you expect counterfeit websites to remain humming along while DHS raids warehouses involved with illegal manufacturing, importing or exporting of counterfeit goods?

The torrent search engine is a different beast, and by following legal precedent I'd expect the owner to be cleared of wrongdoing if and when it goes to trial. I also suspect the owner is being disingenuous, and was operating the site under a shell, making it difficult to find him and serve him warnings or legal papers.

I also interpret this as a sign that the media corporations are fucked. This is the best they can do with their global power, influence and money? Take out some counterfeiters and one lowly search engine?

Yes, we must be diligent against the government and corporations, but if this is all they have then it's nothing I'm going to get worked up over.

<comment><USER3> > ISPs, web hosts, search engines, ICANN, governments, browser vendors, OS > vendors, and more all have to cooperate for a domain to work.

One of these things is not required for my browser to work. Hint: it starts with "govern"

<comment><USER17> ICANN, world governments and the entire TLD system are incestuously intertwined. ICANN is a US corporation mandated by Clinton and George W. Bush.

The Internet is ARPANET.

<comment><USER18> The Internet is ARPANET.

Actually it's not. The Internet that we know today is really NSFNet that was created because the DoD was sick of freeloaders riding on ARPANET. The DoD had very little input on the creation of NSFNet. What was ARPANET is now NIPRNet.

This is one of the many things that I learned by reading Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet. It's a fascinating look at how the Internet was created and focuses mainly on the financial and management side of the creation from about 1965-85.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> While it no longer makes economic sense to manufacture buggy whips, perhaps there is a Renaissance in the construction and sale of jack boots?

<comment><USER20> I don't understand why so many people on this site defend intellectual property theft. I own a small software company that suffers from piracy every day. I worked day and night without pay for more than a year to write the software that I now make my living from. And after all that hard work the thugs and criminals at The Pirate Bay and elsewhere just steal it and make money off the ads or subscriptions. IP is a central and essential part of the world order and no single thinker in the piracy movement has advanced any serious alternative - and yes, I include Lessig in this.

Maybe the loud voices in this forum just enjoy stealing other peoples work without having their own work stolen, but bogus free speech arguments and hysterics about jack boots do not justify what is at it's core an immoral act.

<comment><USER21> I think it's because we believe that once we pay for something, it's our right to do whatever we want with it... and that includes giving it to friends. The problem with the Internet is that it makes it possible to bypass original sales in an unprecedented way because the cost of giving it to strangers comes at no cost to us.

Any solutions necessarily involves infringing on free speech (this) or infringing on an individual's right to do what they want with their purchases (DRM), so yes, I do support torrenting.

<comment><USER22> _I think it's because we believe that once we pay for something, it's our right to do whatever we want with it..._

So, if you rent a car, does that mean its OK to drive it around the corner and sell it to someone else? you paid to get hold of the car, so it's yours, yes?

Oh, wait, no it isn't. You paid to rent it for a finite period under certain conditions, and signed a contract to that effect. the same is usually the case where software is concerned, but since you don't like the terms of the software contract too much, you feel free to ignore it, and redefine your licensing of the software as a purchase, granting yourself all kinds of new rights which the original creator never intended to give to end users. Now, you're welcome to say that software is way overpriced or those terms are so onerous you refuse to comply with them, a point of view I have some sympathy with. But at least be honest about the fact that you're choosing to ignore the contractual terms offered by the licensor and agreed to by the licensee.

edit: I don't mind being downvoted, but at least point out why you think the argument is flawed. Otherwise you're just blaming the weatherman for telling you that its raining.

<comment><USER23> Maybe because you are comparing intellectual property to a physical object?

<comment><USER22> Ah, but I'm not. I'm distinguishing between a purchase and a limited license.

I used the analogy of the car because we're familiar with it - we all understand you can buy a car, and also that you can rent one on a temporary basis. The kind of transactions you can perform on an object are not a function of the object itself.

So with software (or a movie or book etc. etc.) I could sell you all the rights: not just to use/watch/read it as a consumer, but to exploit it for commercial gain as a publisher. This is like the purchase of a car; you can do whatever you want with the property you now own. Or I could just grant you a limited license, reserving other rights for myself, as with the rental situation. This is what happens now when you 'buy' a piece of software or media - you're really buying the rights to a single copy of it. You can still do whatever you want with that single copy, but as soon as you start making your own copies - even if you're giving them away for free, or simply making them available via bittorrent - then you've gone into the publishing business. Now I don't necessarily approve of this approach, but that's how things are. You're getting into a contract with a publisher when you buy their wares, just as surely as if you had rented a car. That it's trivially easy to circumvent the terms of that contract doesn't alter the fact that you're a party to it.

Look at it this way: suppose you owned a printing company, and you happen to have all the technology you need to make books of any kind. And let's say you can also easily get them into bookstores. You get a hardback copy of _Harry Potter's Secret Diary_ , a supplement to the popular series of books that is sure to sell millions. Since you have a book-style printing press on hand, you spend a busy week making plates and then rush out a paperback edition, on which you make a handsome profit. You've used your own paper, ink etc., so the original publisher is no worse off and hasn't lost a single copy of their stock.

Is this cool?

<comment><USER23> Did _Harry Potter's Secret Diary_ contain a EULA?

I get into a contract with a publisher when I buy their wares?

I have never had to sign a contract when purchasing a book AND I have never not signed (always requred to sign) a contract when renting a vehicle.

Again, physical objects and intellectual property are not the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Governments have always used their power to try to further special interests. Indeed, the only reason for political parties is to have places where various special interests can line up against each other.

In the past there has always been enough time to create a narrative so that the parties can "make sense" to the voters. One party doesn't say it's supporting trial lawyers: instead it's "looking out for the little people". Another party doesn't support the military-industrial complex, instead it's providing for the defense of the nation. In other words, its possible to spin these special interests in such a fashion as to appeal to the little guy. This makes people buy into what the government is doing -- the consent of the governed.

But the wheels seem to be coming off the trolley -- it's becoming apparent that technology is changing so fast that the political parties can't catch their narratives up with reality. When you had communists threatening to conquer the world for thirty years, there was plenty of time to make a strong case for a defense industry. When you had super-huge corporations threatening the citizenry with pollution and such, it was easy to make a case for environmental laws and enormous lawsuits.

But file-sharing? Photo-realistic-capable naked body scans? Imposing total data visibility into the world's financial systems? Declaring that Americans still owe taxes even if they leave the country for tax reasons?

There may be very valid and reasonable arguments to be made for each of these things, but in my opinion nobody has made them yet. Instead, we just have a fear of one thing trotted out -- terrorism, big corporations, whatever -- and then we're told that these things we have lost were for a good reason.

Making matters worse is that some special interests, such as the movie, music, and software guys, (and the security guys) have effectively bought off both parties. So it doesn't matter who you vote for, you're stuck with doing whatever these interests want. And its becoming more and more apparent that these interests will use the full force of law to go after anybody they see as an enemy to their cause.

Even though I'm emotional about this, I see no reason to rant and rave. It's not going to change anything, and getting emotional just gives other people something to make fun of. In my opinion this current trajectory cannot continue for many decades longer. That's just the way it is, no matter what each individual's opinion on each of these issues may be.

I'm reminded of Ronald Reagan, when asked why he left the Democrat party, said, "I didn't leave the party. The party left me."

I certainly hope the same thing doesn't happen to the consent of the governed in most of the world's major democracies.

EDIT: If you'd like a startup/technology angle to this, then my advice is not to go into business in any area that one of these interests might be involved -- unless you have strong political connections (or are willing to develop them). If you're able to develop those connections, however, it should be like shooting fish in a barrel.

<comment><USER25> _Governments have always used their power to try to further special interests._

The US as a constitutional republic was designed to frustrate that tendency. Recent calls for the repeal of the 17th amendment (senators used to be selected by state legislatures; that amendment made it popular vote instead) are based on that argument.

[http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/252825/repeal- sevente...](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/252825/repeal-seventeenth- amendment-todd-zywicki)

       Under the original arrangement, senators had strong
       incentives to protect federalism. They recognized that
       their reelection depended on pleasing state legislators
       who preferred that power be kept close to home. Whereas
       House members were considered representatives of the
       people, senators were considered ambassadors of their
       state governments to the federal government and, like
       national ambassadors to foreign countries, were subject
       to instruction by the parties they represented (although
       not to recall if they refused to follow instructions).
       And they tended to act accordingly, ceding to the
       national government only the power necessary to perform
       its enumerated functions, such as fighting wars and
       building interstate infrastructure. Moreover, when the
       federal government expanded to address a crisis (such as
       war), it quickly retreated to its intended modest level
       after the crisis had passed. Today, as historian Robert
       Higgs has observed, federal expansion creates a "ratchet
       effect."

       Just as important as its role in securing federalism, the
       Senate as originally conceived was essential to the
       system of separation of powers. Bicameralism — the
       division of the legislature into two houses elected by
       different constituencies — was designed to frustrate
       special-interest factions. Madison noted in Federalist 62
       that basing the House and Senate on different constituent
       foundations would provide an "additional impediment . . .
       against improper acts of legislation" by requiring the
       concurrence of a majority of the people with a majority
       of the state governments before a law could enacted. By
       resting both houses of Congress on the same constituency
       base — the people — the Seventeenth Amendment
       substantially watered down bicameralism as a check on
       interest-group rent-seeking, laying the foundation for
       the modern special-interest state.

<comment><USER26> This is pretty interesting. Do you know what the argument was for passing the 17th amendment? What's the downside trade-off?

<comment><USER27> There's no clear argument for why direct-election became so popular. There were mostly vague arguments given such as direct-election would somehow fight against the cozy relationships between industry and the Senate, or end bribery in Senatorial politics.[1]

It seems that what was behind the movement to the popular vote was a strong populist sentiment without clear reason; or at least without a reason that made sense.[1]

Last I checked, bribery and cozy industry relationships in the Senate were not stopped by the 17th amendment. I doubt they will ever stop. Power and money tend to mingle, and that part of human nature will probably never go away.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution)

<comment><USER28> There are some strong arguments that a senate operating behind closed doors would be more effective at ignoring special interests and working together than otherwise. The writers of the constitution did just this (they swore secrecy of anything they talked about in the convention to avoid voter backlash) [1] This is why they initially wanted health care debates behind closed doors - the lobbyists can make much more use of transparency than the uninterested voter can. Fareed Zakaria wrote a lot about this in The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad.

[A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution by Carol Berkin]

<comment><USER22> This shouldn't be downvoted just because it's disagreed with: it's a cogent and well-sourced argument, which should be met with a rebuttal rather than silent disapproval.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Regardless of the current conundrum, this is akin to testing the waters, without using the normal legal process. A global registrar that controls address's with very little "real" insight by any citizens or international community? Sounds like a problem that has been waiting to happen for a long time now, this decision was no mistake.

At first I was angered, but then I realized this is a good thing, they are shooting themselves in the foot. We don't need ICANN at all, there are already alternative DNS systems out there waiting for an opportunity for a mass exodus..

They do not control the internet and they will find that out very fast if they feel like making this common place.

ps. I wrote this after reading another post about a godaddy site that was "supposedly" on this and blamed on ICAAN. I had not read the about the homeland security warrant.

<comment><USER6> what are the alternative DNS systems?

<comment><USER13> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Weird political rant at the end there. Nobody at ICE has even said that they are responsible for this; it could be a rogue employee at ICANN for all we know. Eventually someone will have to answer for this, and the answer might result in trouble for ICE.

The body scanners and patdowns are similar; while they are in use right now, it's far from certain that they will exist forever. There is just too much backlash.

So I wouldn't say that we are a police state yet. Some renegades have made decisions, and the wheels of justice turn slowly. Sometimes it looks like nothing is being done, but that's just because the machinery of the government is slow.

Hell, 19 prominent senators couldn't even get their "censor the Internet" bill through Congress, even though they really wanted it. The system works!

<comment><USER31> The body scanners are supported 81% by one poll and 65% by another. For what it's worth it seems fear mongering has worked wonders.

Want to disagree with me? I'll call you unpatriotic.

<comment><USER30> _The body scanners are supported 81% by one poll and 65% by another._

Among people who have never set foot in an airport.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> If the US government becomes the agent of whoever has money and claims intellectual property, there really is no limit to how far this can go.

All any company-with-influence has to do is patent some things, put a claim against a competitor and shut them down long to put them out of business. It's not just that it lets companies dominate industries. It is that it makes such domination _more profitable than anything else_ \- thereby sucking up all available investment funds. What would _you_ invest once the state start "picking winners".

It's really the same old story - corruption destroys enterprise.

</comment><comment><USER4> My question is: "What do we do now?"

</comment><comment><USER33> End to end DNSSEC deployment would prevent an attack like this once clients are rejecting any unsigned records. At least in addition to the root name servers the seizing party would need to convince the TLD maintainer and the customer's registrar to sign the new zone files.

All the more reason for you to sign your current zones (including .org, .info, .us and .eu) or pressure your registrar and TLD maintainers to implement DNSSEC yesterday.

</comment><comment><USER34> in the ny times:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html?...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html?_r=1)

link to the official announcement on youtube: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqGziXOPO2A>

what i find most disturbing is not the action against IP infringement on US territory. what i find disturbing is:

1) the announcement that "suspected criminals would be pursued anywhere in the world." They say "American business is under assault from counterfeiters and pirates", sure this is true, but why should the US care that this happens outside of their country?

2) the freedom of a modern democracy is completely underminded by this measure. one should be innocent until proven guitly (by a court case -- in this case there was no trial), and secondly one has the right to free speach. both of these rights have been compromised by the measure. this --in my opinion-- voids the moral supriority of a modern democracy, and puts the US on a list of countries that cannot guarantee basic freedom for its citizens (like China).

</comment><comment><USER35> As a bit of a though exercise, I just invented the 4LW 'protocol' for remembering the IP addresses of seized sites: [http://blog.rabidgremlin.com.nyud.net/2010/11/28/4-little- wo...](http://blog.rabidgremlin.com.nyud.net/2010/11/28/4-little-words/) :)

</comment><comment><USER36> It's just big government rubbing the back of big industry, nothing new, just the format has changed.

It's all about money and who has the biggest lobbyists.

Also remember that making lots of laws and then enforcement is a big income generator for government on all levels.

</comment><comment><USER37> I imagine part of the reason for them choosing these sites was simply to test the public reaction. I'm sure there are thousands of other "shady" sites out there that they could've chosen in addition to these.

</comment><comment><USER38> a couple of questions to those who are complaining about too many political stories here -- and i'm not being disingenuous , i really want to to know.

\- do you see this as a political story? why or why not?

\- some people here may be considering starting businesses where some of user- provided content they host might fall afoul of this policy. do you think this story meets the bar of being interest to the HN community?

<comment><USER6> Political is a vague term. I do not think anyone really knows or can define it without some decade long argument and a final consensus.

That the government can decide who is guilty however is not a matter of politics, but, fundamental principles.

As to your second question, this is something which effects some of the HN community, whether genuine original content producers or otherwise. Thus, I do think it is news related to technology of a relatively new nature, thus, I would say, yes it is or has the potential to be of interest to the HN community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I wonder what the EFF's position on this will be.

</comment><comment><USER27> Due process & a trial by jury, anyone?

</comment><comment><USER40> Camel's nose is now under the tent...

</comment><comment><USER41> how about a website that tracks these censorship activities

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm shocked, and awed.</comment>


Ask HN: Employed by a startup's VC Firm rather than by startup - <AUTHOR>

I apologize for the anonymous user account, but I just want to ensure no one tracks back that I am entertaining a new employer.
I am in negotiations with a startup which is currently VC funded.  They do not currently have any benefits package though.  I am a developer leaving a relatively secure job with decent pay and nice benefits and one of the things I need from the new job is health coverage.
Since the startup doesn't have a health care plan, the thought is that they will pay COBRA until they get their own plan.  However, their latest idea is to have me be a full-time employee of one of the investing VC firms.  I would get all of their benefits and essentially just be working at the startup.
On the surface I don't see anything wrong with this, but I don't want to agree to it and then find out it's not such a great deal for me.  They say that my options won't be affected.  The problem is, this is so foreign to me I don't know what questions to ask to keep me out of trouble.
Thoughts? <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I thought it was positive too, but I know that at this point they're responsible for getting me on board for as little as possible so I just need to be sure it's not some form trickery. I hope everything is being done in good faith. If not I don't see this relationship lasting very long.

</comment><comment><USER2> I think it's a very positive sign that they're interested enough in you to make a custom package, and try to make things work.

Get the options thing in writing, but otherwise, if you like the job, take it. Heck, it may even get you closer to some of the other VC firm members, which is never a bad thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> get some legal advice where options are involved. good luck!</comment>


Ask HN: Underage users and the best approach to tactfully dealing with them - <AUTHOR>

Been on HN for a few years but posting under this throwaway account as this is a sensitive topic. I run a website where we have a minimum age of 16 y/o required in our TOS in order to use the site, so invoking COPPA wouldn't necessarily work. We've been wanting to deal with users who fall under this minimum in a tactful way for a while now, since we've noticed a correlation between these users and problematic behavior[1] on site. The problem is that our existence as a site/company has been predicated (in part) on transparency and being nice guys; I feel it would be, for lack of a better term, a "dick move" to suddenly notify users and remove accounts now that we've finally decided that we really need to clean things up, but on the other hand, it's something I really feel we need to do for the health of the site. We also are torn as to whether to grandfather in users falling below the threshold who've exhibited good behavior, or just deal with everyone irrespective of history. My primary concern is potential backlash from users (both those being removed and observers of this) in that it makes us look evil, even though at the end of the day, it's a violation of our TOS, plain and simple, and we could remove any account for any/no reason at any time.
So, I ask: what would you do in this situation?
[1] problematic in that it creates tension for other users, but does not technically break any laws/rules <comment><USER2> What kind of site is it? Could you just ban troublemakers, regardless of their age?

<comment><AUTHOR> UGC site. Part of the issue is that we weren't proactive about doing it as it started to become an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you want to grandfather in users who have behaved, then I think you need to consider rewriting the TOS to include an option for doing similar in the future. Let me suggest that since it is an age-based issue, your wording of termination should not be along the lines of "get lost, you broke the rules" but more along the lines of "we look forward to seeing you back when you hit the magic number: 13".

But given your description here, I would ask some hard questions and consider redoing the rules so that what you are enforcing is something that actually makes sense:

1) Why did you put age 13 in the TOS to begin with? What was the specific goal? Is age really directly related to the stated intent or was it being used as a proxy for something you felt was too hard to directly quantify?

2) Since some kids under the age of 13 behave well enough that you are considering letting them stay, what does that tell you? What specifically are you trying to accomplish here, in terms of site environment/site development?

3) Why is this coming to a head now? Is it, for example, a numbers issue such as there being a higher percentage of younger kids now? If so, is there some other move that could improve the situation (such as trying to attract more older kids or changing how you advertise the site to avoid attracting more young kids)?

4) If you do just wholesale remove accounts, please be polite, professional, firm, "unapologetic", unemotional, and impersonal: These are the rules. The move is being made to get the site in compliance...etc. Don't let yourself get dragged into emotional crap. If the emotional crap matters to you, seriously consider some of the above ideas first. And accept that there will be some fall-out and it will take a bit of time for things to settle down. That's okay, if it's not excessive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the thorough reply. The min. age is actually 16 -- I updated the post to reflect that.

1) 16 was advised by our counsel (we're US-based) to attempt to keep us out of issues that may arise state to state w/r/t minors and privacy laws

2) The goal is (hopefully) to help curb the issues that we've noticed stem from underage users. Perhaps then, banning would be most effective, but that comes back around to "how do we retroactively ban users now that should have been banned X months ago"

3) My guess is scale. I think generally speaking we need to be more aggressive about banning when the situation warrants that.

4) Great advice here.

Thanks again for the thoughtful and insightful reply.

<comment><USER3> _16 was advised by our counsel (we're US-based) to attempt to keep us out of issues that may arise state to state w/r/t minors and privacy laws_

I suggest you get with counsel and if they still feel 16 should be the minimum age to keep you out of court, then wholesale ban all accounts below that age and state that it is to comply with privacy laws regarding minors. In this case, you can apologize and indicate you wish you could keep them. Do not in any way mention that behavior issues were at all a concern. If counsel indicates this is important, than do it as a business move to stay out of court and let everyone know that it sucks, but you have no real choice. Then let folks know you look forward to having them back at age 16.

Alternately, look more closely into state-by-state laws and put out rules that indicate that age of entry varies by state. Enforce by IP address or something else reasonable along those lines. This might allow you to keep more members that you would like to keep and do less damage to the site culture but there is a significantly larger cost involved in terms of determining state exceptions, enforcing the rules, etc. If you can bear the cost, this might be a good option. If you cannot bear the cost, do an across-the-board thing for all states based on what counsel tells you.

Since this question came up due to behavior concerns, revisit that issue separately. It won't magically disappear just because all the underage accounts were removed. Banning should be a last resort. Try hard to find other means to deal with this first. When it does come time to ban someone, I recommend public bannings which state the cause of the banning. This helps create an atmosphere of "rule of law" and helps encourage members who do want to stay to behave properly without being scared to death they will do the wrong thing. Secret bannings are a good way to scare the hell out of your members and cause them to walk on eggshells, which is generally not conducive to creating a healthy site culture. It also does not provide any closure when someone bad is finally removed. Public bannings allow remaining members to breathe a sigh of relief and feel safer once they know the troublemaker is gone.

Good luck with this.</comment></comment></comment>


Construction of a Highly Dependable Operating System (2006) [pdf] - vezzy-fnord https://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/publications/edcc-2006.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad AST has restarted the Minix project. It's a great little kernel that deserves much more attention. One of the bits of research that could allow for many more interesting things is use of the IOMMU for drivers [1]. The given paper unfortunately does not give benchmarks, but I imagine that it's an area that you could see some rather sizable performance benefits in a microkernel- style system; with an IOMMU, there could potentially be zero context switches in an app's access of a resource, which could lead to even less CPU overhead than a monolithic kernel could be capable of.

[1] [http://www.minix3.org/docs/szekeres- iommu.pdf](http://www.minix3.org/docs/szekeres-iommu.pdf)

<comment><USER2> Glad they're adding that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In case anyone is wondering which project this is:

        The concrete contribution of the research report here
        is the design and implementation of a fully compartmen-
        talized operating system, MINIX 3. To properly isolate
        faults, we have removed all drivers from the kernel and
        run them as separate, unprivileged user-mode processes,
        protected by the MMU hardware. Since all servers also
        run in user mode in our design, only a tiny microker-
        nel that does not contain any foreign, untrusted code is
        left in kernel mode. Each component has only the mini-
        mum privileges it needs in order to prevent failures from
        spreading. In our design, driver failures are no longer
        fatal and do not require rebooting the computer.

<comment><USER4> This sounds kind of like an exo kernel?

<comment><USER5> The exo kernel typically implies a larger, secondary kernel for less performance-oriented operations.

This just seems like a straight-up microkernel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Are any of you running MINIX 3 as your daily driver?

For about 6 months in university, I quad-booted Linux, Windows, BeOS, and QNX. I remember regularly waking up and finding that my BeOS ethernet driver had crashed overnight. The fix was clicking "Ok" to restart the driver. Of course it would be nice to have a better ethernet drier, but it was nice that a driver crash didn't bring down the system.

Conversely, I have a corrupted CD-R that causes kernel panics in Win2k, and circa 2004 releases of Linux and OS X. At least drivers for consumer printers, ISO 9660, and CD/DVD drives should be in userspace, even on hybrid/monolithic kernel systems. These aren't performance-critical devices.

A hard realtime microkernel should give you the isolation abilities of a hypervisor with overhead near that of LXC containers. For applications like HFT, you could make one of your ethernet cards use a driver that's a library running inside your performance-critical application, giving you performance near that of running your code in-kernel. I'm hoping the current containerization push brings more attention to microkernel research.

<comment><USER7> As a long time *nix hobbyist user, I can't help but notice how containerization is starting to essentially provide microkernel-like os design patterns using the more mature Linux kernel instead of starting from scratch. I'm curious what everyone thinks about whether the containerization approach, at its best, like with projects like rancherOS (I'm guessing), can compete with a the theoretical strengths of a microkernel?

<comment> vezzy-fnord Absolutely not.

They have nothing in common.

You're still running a monolithic kernel with all drivers and subsystems running in kernel space. The only thing OS-level virtualization like containers gives you here is that a limited amount of subsystems can be multiplexed into independent logical domains (all still running a full OS instance, mind you) on a single host.

You don't get any of the reliability or flexibility gains.

Actual examples of microkernel patterns in Linux are, and I quote from my Hurd cross-toolchain article [1]:

       It's also worth noting that several more recent
       developments in Linux like kdbus (which was called
       "neutered Mach IPC" by Neal Walfield), the "tinification"
       effort [http://tiny.wiki.kernel.org], FUSE, NSUSE, the
       MADV_USERFAULT flag in madvise(2), kmscon and other
       userland VT subsystems, have demonstrated that there is
       in fact user demand for microkernel-like features in
       Linux, whether people realize this directly or not. It
       is not unthinkable to conceive of Linux (particularly
       with systemd) growing into a hybrid kernel approach with
       certain low-level subsystems adequately usable from a
       user context.

Again, these are all highly limited. But that is the direction Linux is mostly heading -- a bad hybrid kernel.

[1] [http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/07/25/0/](http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/07/25/0/)

<comment><USER2> Yeah, they're slowly reinventing microkernel concepts in a pretty heavy-weight way. However, don't discount the recent efforts in containerization. They might not be learning the main lesson but they're certainly copying (and benefiting from) pieces of it. Maybe they'll get there one day. ;)

<comment><USER8> The smugness of this comment is unwarranted. Linux became a practical OS which runs everything from toasters to spaceships. The 'obvious superiority' of microkernels has failed to be borne out since their inception way back when it was first written. And the success of small parts of the idea within Linux does not implicitly prove that the idea is actually practical or performant as imagined.

Implementation details are everything and not always solvable.

<comment> vezzy-fnord The obvious superiority of microkernels is seen in the invisible ubiquity of QNX and L4 throughout the industry. There's probably more L4 deployments than Linux, in hardware like baseband processors.

The most common OS then is probably not Linux, but TRON. It's real-time, but I'm not sure if it's a u-kernel. Nonetheless, RTOS in general is well served by u-kernels.

<comment><USER2> Supporting your point, OK Labs claimed years ago their OKL4 microkernel had hit a billion units in phone market. Mainly for baseband isolation and legacy code (eg brew). So, it's exceeded Linux servers and slowly catching up to Android esp as it runs it virtualized.

And Samsung Galaxies use INTEGRITY Multivisor for Knox. Blackberry plus automotive often do QNX. Apple does a hybrid with Mach and wants a real one. A lot of design moving one way in particular. ;)

<comment> vezzy-fnord _Apple does a hybrid with Mach and wants a real one._

I know that XNU is based on a chimera between OSF Mach and FreeBSD, but I'm pretty sure most practical u-kernel gains are lost in this process. They do have the basic resources like tasks, threads, VM and IPC with its system of port rights checking, but it's mostly leveraged as a convenient abstraction at best. I don't think OS X even supports per-application default memory managers, does it?

However, what you said about "wants a real one" really piqued my interest. Is it true Apple is researching pure microkernel designs for their products? That sounds great, do share some links.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that and some basic functions are all they use it for. A write up way back indicated they though Mach was a mistake. So, the alternatives were a better microkernel or full monolithic. One unofficial project tried to port it to L4. Not sure what Apple's stance is under Tim Cook, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> It was a really good read back when I had it. The MINIX 3 project made many interesting design decisions to support the paper's goals. I'm curious: has anyone benchmarked the reliability of any servers running on MINIX 3 over past year or so? Wondering how much it delivers so far.</comment>


Google App Engine is now much faster, after latest maintenance - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/status/appengine/detail/datastore/2010/11/06#ae-trust-detail-datastore-get-latency

<comment><USER2> Our app (<http://gri.pe>) feels a lot snappier after this latest bit of datastore maintenance. We've been using as much memcache as possible to avoid datastore access because prior to this maintenance, datastore access was spiky and even the simplest of queries had a small chance of timing out.

I can say for sure that some of our datastore-heavy cron jobs were taking > 200ms, but are around 70ms now.

It's a shame that the stats for > 12hrs ago seem to have been wiped. I bet we'd be seeing a marked improvement on our ms/request stat.

<comment><USER3> Unrelated question: how are you doing those cron jobs.

I tried using the task queue, but it kept timing out on me, even when I broke my tasks into smaller ones (couldn't figure out a threshold as the behavior of the datastore was totally unpredictable).

<comment><USER4> Via Cron Jobs ? [http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/config/cron.htm...](http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/config/cron.html)

<comment><USER3> Quote from that article:

         A URL invoked by cron is subject to the same limits
         and quotas as a normal HTTP request, including
         the request time limit.

And I'm looking for some tips and tricks to do heavy processing (which is really needed when working with non-relational datastores).

<comment><USER5> The key is to combine cron jobs with Tasks. Tasks are am easy to use and powerful feature of Google Appengine that let you deal with the standard limitations. For example, rather than doing some operation on 1000 entities in one request, you spin off 1000 tasks, each handling the operation on one entity. Read up about them at <http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/taskqueue/>

You can also explore the new Mapper API at <http://blog.notdot.net/2010/05/Exploring-the-new-mapper-API>

<comment><USER2> Agreed, the Mapper API is the best way to deal with processing large numbers of entities from the datastore.

AppEngine requires careful thought of application design at this point. Everything is an HTTP request and subject to the same restrictions.

I've heard rumours that they'll be launching longer-lived tasks at some point in the future, but I have no idea when that will happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As any ops guy will tell you, this is the finest form of graph porn there is.

<comment><USER7> It would have been sexier on a semi-log-y scale. That said, as someone who's always been annoyed at the high latency of App Engine's datastore, this is _huge_ if they can deliver this level of latency with low variability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This headline should say "GETs to the datastore are now much faster".

EDIT: I neglected to see the other datastore figures.

<comment><AUTHOR> You should also check out the latency for Put, Update, Delete and Query on that same page.

<comment><USER8> Ah, you're right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just tried a high traffic site that runs on App Engine (appbrain.com). It used to feel a bit slow, and now it really flies.

It definitely makes me reconsider using App Engine for new projects.

Disclaimer: I have no connection to Appbrain aside from meeting the developers once.

</comment><comment><USER10> Good news but I really hope Google figures out how to solve DeadlineExceededError. They are popping up from time to time for my app (<http://www.knowcase.com>) and I don't think it's datastore related.

<comment><USER11> This reply from a few days back should shed some light on the issue: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1823362>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> They even solved a bug with the datastore quota not being properly updated after a massive delete of entities.

Kudos to the team, and I, too, hope that the latency will remain this low _forever and ever_ …

</comment><comment><USER13> It's still too early to tell. This would not be the first time that speed improves after a maintenance and then it slowly gets worse every week until it looks almost like before the maintenance.

<comment><USER14> Is it possible that the degradation in performance is due to more developers building more apps and driving more traffic to App Engine as time goes on?

<comment><USER13> The performance degrades too quickly for this. In two or three months we might be on our old performance level, again. Well, I seriously hope that we'll stay fast this time. Only time will tell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This site, probably NSFW, makes use of the datastore (for the thumbnails) and it's now much faster, it's a pity we can't compare speeds with the old latency.

[http://wallres.saiswa.com/?tags=girls&pagina=23](http://wallres.saiswa.com/?tags=girls&pagina=23)

<comment><USER16> My dinky app dropped from 60ms/request to 20ms/request, but over the next 3 hours crept up more or less linearly to about 30ms/request.

<comment><USER17> I missed the word "app" when reading your comment and thought it was a clever joke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looking at the error rates, I wonder what happened at around 12pm? (Screenshots: <http://grab.by/7gJ4> <http://grab.by/7gJ5> <http://grab.by/7gJh>)

<comment><USER19> From the maintenances mailing list:

The maintenance work has been completed. The datastore was in a read-only period between 12:02-12:45 for a total of 43 minutes. Some users reported two periods of 500 errors unrelated to datastore writes, but these issues should no longer be occurring.

On Nov 6, 12:01 pm, App Engine Downtime Notify <i...@google.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The sense that the app store has been a neglected, second-tier priority is deep enough now that it will take them a while to regain significant developer trust.

AWS is very close to a de-facto standard now.

Edit: I mean app engine, the hosted web service. Not the app store. Thanks.

<comment><USER21> I agree. However I hope they do regain that trust b/c app engine is a far more pleasant platform to develop on.

<comment><USER22> Can't repeat this enough: the main reason I develop on appengine is that it removes server admin headaches completely from the equation. Ok, you get other headaches in return, but most of the time it's stuff I can deal with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> the app engine applications gallery is now gone, too. coincidence???

<http://appgallery.appspot.com/results?topapps=true>

<comment><USER24> enterprisey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> that 's great :) hopefully, now they can work on improving support for JDO/JPA and release those great features announced in Google I/O.

</comment><comment><USER21> thank you google! wow, this is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER15> I expected something more than a graphic.

<comment><USER15> Ah, thanks for the hate, ordinaryman.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not me. And, even if I wanted to, I can't.

Also, I guess Google folks would post about the performance boost later.

<comment><USER15> Ok, please excuse me.

<comment><USER26> In either case - from the HN guidelines: "Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Reddit CTO: Stick to Boring Tech When Building Your Startup - <AUTHOR> http://thenewstack.io/reddit-cto-sxsw-stick-boring-tech-building-start/ <comment><USER2> I think this is really great advice. This mindset was critical for me to finally start finishing up my side projects. For me, working by myself, 'Choose the tech I know best' is more applicable (although that generally happens to be the boring tech anyway.) But 'stick to the boring tech' is probably much better if you need to eventually start hiring employees. In my experience, technology stacks change drastically as a company gets bigger.

That said, as always, YMMV. Using cutting edge technology certainly has its place. There's just a learning and maintenance curve to account for that can often get in the way of releasing and running your MVP. But if you've taken that into account, it could be fine for your startup.

</comment><comment><USER3> Marty is a smart guy. He was smarter than me when we were in college together, and he's smarter than me now.

But I disagree with him strongly here.

Sometimes hipster tech is just hipster for the sake of hipster, but if I have to choose between a sharded replicated MySQL cluster with some sort of active/passive across the WAN HA or Cassandra, I'm choosing Cassandra every time, and it's not close.

<comment><USER4> Why are you choosing Cassandra every time? And what's your refutation for his desire to use MySQL over some other database, from his point of view as presented in the article (e.g. availability of support via Google/SO)?

<comment><USER3> > Why are you choosing Cassandra every time?

Linear horizontal scaling (double capacity? double # of nodes), no SPOF, Active/Active/Active cross-WAN HA.

> And what's your refutation for his desire to use MySQL over some other > database, from his point of view as presented in the article (e.g. > availability of support via Google/SO)?

Hire people that can learn DB internals and be the expert you want to see in the world: [http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=user:4774369+[cassandra]](http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=user:4774369+\[cassandra\])

<comment><USER5> Short of inherent big data problems, such as crawling the entire web, you won't need database scaling until you're already not a startup any more.

Cassandra and similar technologies constrain your queries and make schema changes incredibly expensive. This is the opposite of what you need in a startup. You need flexibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From Beating the Averages by Paul Graham ([http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html)):

 _If you do everything the way the average startup does it, you should expect average performance. The problem here is, average performance means that you 'll go out of business. The survival rate for startups is way less than fifty percent. So if you're running a startup, you had better be doing something odd. If not, you're in trouble._

That said, quoting for example jdiscar ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11804709](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11804709)), "'Choose the tech I know best'" is a better metric than "boring" per se. Circling back to Graham, perhaps you should defer doing a startup until you know enough "non-average" tech.

And I add this rule of thumb: adopt at most 1 new (big) technical thing. With everything else you'll be doing, you're not likely to be able to come up to speed on anything more.

And very possibly that one new thing is built into what you're doing, such as applying technology you know at a qualitatively greater scale than you're familiar with. I saw this a lot in the late '80s and '90s when PC architects familiar with single user systems tried to make the jump to multi-user client server systems.

<comment><USER7> Is using "boring" tech odd for startups?

Choosing and using tech is only one of the things a startup does. I would guess it's more important to do something odd for everything else than it is to do something "odd" tech-wise.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps that's an "it depends", and "odd" tech can enable you to do something "odd" that your competitors can't do. When I was skimming the cited article for the quote I plucked out of it, I came across this bit:

 _What were the results of this experiment [in using Lisp, which we knew, but didn 't know anything else, like about business]? Somewhat surprisingly, it worked. We eventually had many competitors, on the order of twenty to thirty of them, but none of their software could compete with ours. We had a wysiwyg online store builder that ran on the server and yet felt like a desktop application. Our competitors had cgi scripts. And we were always far ahead of them in features. Sometimes, in desperation, competitors would try to introduce features that we didn't have. But with Lisp our development cycle was so fast that we could sometimes duplicate a new feature within a day or two of a competitor announcing it in a press release. By the time journalists covering the press release got round to calling us, we would have the new feature too._

While currently popular scripting languages can also give you fairly rapid new feature development times, their decision to use a language and ecosystem that allowed for lightening fast development (plus, let's admit, very smart programmers) allowed them to do something that every else was doing, web storefronts, but in an "odd" manner, with an OODA loop their competitors couldn't dream of touching ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Choose Boring Technology" \- Dan McKinley, March 2015 [1]

[1] [http://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology](http://mcfunley.com/choose- boring-technology)

</comment><comment><USER9> soo.. do it in COBOL?</comment>


US: Chinese Hackers Are Targeting COVID19 Vaccine Researchers - <AUTHOR> https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/chinese-hackers-targeting-covid19/ <comment><USER2> >The US authorities have formally blamed Chinese-affiliated hackers for attempting to steal vital COVID-19 research from domestic companies working on vaccines.

I think that one sentence sums up what is wrong with using the word 'steal' and 'theft' for intellectual property. This article, by using the 'steal', makes it sound as if the Chinese are actively harming the Americans. What is alleged here is actually very different. If I am reading this correctly, American companies are trying to keep vital health knowledge secret and American law allows them to do so. Chinese 'hackers' are alleged to be breaking American law by obtaining this information with out requisite authorization.

This is very different from "Chinese trying to steal American vaccines".

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you summed it up pretty well, both sides are playing dirty here.</comment></comment>


Ohours: One step closer to Silicon Everywhere - <AUTHOR> http://siliconbayounews.com/2012/04/11/ohours-one-step-closer-to-silicon-everywhere/

<comment><USER2> I'm Tudor from Romania (see article)

Being an "physically-outsider" to the US/SV environment, I must say that Ohours was and still is a great tool for getting my startup closer to the States. Although I read a lot of news, actually talking to someone every now- and-then makes me more energized and gets me closer to understanding the environment.

I think it was Molly I told that lately (after December 2011) I saw a decrease in people using the video-chat option in Ohours.

So if you'd like to speak/share/learn/meet _truly_ new people/stuff, schedule some hours and you'll surely find some interesting people.

PS: Molly, truly great talk! talk to you soon..

</comment><comment><USER3> I've used this service in New York and found it a beneficial networking tool. Clearly, some individuals hosting on the platform will have more to offer via their networks or experience than others and those high value time slots will be harder to come by as the service grows. That said, the potential for a serendipitous meeting to create value for someone just starting out, or simply seeking advice, can be big especially when one keeps an open mind and goes in with little or no expectations.

</comment><comment><USER4> This seems like a fantastic service, and I'd love to take advantage of it. However, I feel like I have nothing to offer. I'm a 17 year old programmer/Rails developer, and I interned throughout this year with a 3 man Rails startup. I'd love to speak to a number of the people on OHours, but I don't want to waste people's time.

<comment><USER5> Not at all, what's your username?

<comment><USER4> mrjordangoldstein, thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


The Brave New World of Chemical Romance - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/88/love--sex/the-brave-new-world-of-chemical-romance <comment><USER2> When they talk about substances with 'global' effects as being too blunt and then talk about 'precise' intervention it reads like some sort of real life Stor Gendibal from Asimov's Second Foundation, with his precise adjustments of the fine tendrils of the mind.

It's interesting that they depict a human belief in love as "potentially immature" but then substitute it with an alternative, potential immature view, that depends on the materialism belief that somehow we will eventually be able (in a future around the corner) to understand what being human is, and reduce it to a set of detailed material interactions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Apart from the bonding mechanisms of sex that they mentioned, the strongest natural love drug I've encountered is newborn smell.

Somehow for the first few weeks after they're born, sniffing a newborn releases a powerful hit of dopamine and oxytocin in the brain. [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-smell-of- newbo...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-smell-of-newborn- babies-triggers-the-same-reward-centers-as-drugs-58482/)

<comment><USER4> I guess I must be impervious to this smell, as I've held newborns and they did absolutely nothing for me.

MDMA and other psychedelics, on the other hand... there's no mistaking their effects, which in sufficient doses can be infinitely more powerful than people who've never taken them can imagine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23925673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23925673)

</comment><comment><USER6> The cynic in me tells me desperate people would take these to make staying in an abusive relationship easier.</comment>


Healthy ways of dealing with persistent boredom at work - <AUTHOR> https://www.soroushjp.com/2019/09/16/dealing-with-boredom-and-chasing-new-if-its-hurting-your-career/ <comment><USER2> One reason I really want to work as an early employee. You have to wear multiple hats in the beginning.</comment>


Show HN: A History of the Future in 100 Objects - <AUTHOR> http://www.ahistoryofthefuture.org
A History of the Future in 100 Objects book describes a hundred slices of the future of everything, spanning politics, technology, art, religion, and entertainment. Some of the objects are described by future historians; others through found materials, short stories, or dialogues.
Today, I'm making all 100 chapters available online, for free.
The book has sold a few thousand copies – reasonably well for a first author. More importantly, it was received well by the people whose opinions I value; I was invited to speak at the Long Now Foundation last summer by Stewart Brand, and it was praised by the BBC's Stephanie Flanders and by Grantland's Kevin Nguyen, who called it one of the 'overlooked books of 2013'. Next month, I'll be speaking about the same ideas at the Serpentine Gallery's Transformation Marathon.
So, at this point I'm much more interested in spreading the ideas far and wide. <comment><USER2> Posts without URLs get penalized, so you would be better off posting this as a Show HN with that link, then adding the text above as a comment to the thread. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool. Any link here?

<comment><AUTHOR> Huh, I definitely put a link in the submit form - not sure why it didn't show up. Just edited the post!</comment></comment>


Goldman to use 'personality test' as part of the hiring process - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-goldman-sachs-hiring-idUSKBN1AP2J7 <comment><USER3> Two (sort of) unrelated observations:

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman, has talked a lot over the years about how important he thinks it is for young people to try to become really well rounded with a broad range of interests and experiences. He's talked about how it makes them more interesting and dynamic individuals which leads to higher success in business and with all interpersonal relationships, generally.

Wells Fargo (circa late in the housing boom 2005-07, etc) used to use a personality test developed by Gallup. I heard from more than one higher-level manager that it basically selected for the exact kind of traits that would eventually lead to a sales culture where thousands and thousands of employees were committing fraud.

Goldman needs to be careful what they select for.

<comment><USER4> Is the Gallup test proprietary or is there some info on the types of questions asked?

<comment><USER5> My guess is that the test referred to is the 'StrengthsFinder' which you need to buy, but can take online [1]. Probably more info available by Googling that term.

What frequently happens is companies buy this and then Gallup consults with the company to design a behavior profile which the company thinks reflects successful traits in their environment.

[1] [https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/](https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Personality tests are awful. They don't test for the job you'll have, but rather for the personality they want. That personality they want could be white, middle class, highly educated male†, and those differences could come out in a personality test. Additionally the test could help discriminate against people with mental illness. There has been a lot written on these and how they do more harm than good.[0]

†Full disclosure: I am one.

[0]. [https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-workplace-personality- tests...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-workplace-personality-tests- fair-1412044257) [http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/do_job_personality_te...](http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/do_job_personality_tests_discriminate_eeoc_probes_lawyers_complaint_filed_o)

<comment><USER7> > [The] personality they want could be white, middle class, highly educated > male

This is a horrible misuse of the word personality. Anyone of any race, wealth, age, sex, etc. can have any personality. Equating personality with race is unfortunately common these days.

[0] I like how you begin your footnotes count starting at 0. I am stealing this.

<comment><USER8> Statistically, a lot of items from the test could be very highly correlated with demographics.

And it doesn't have to be intentional. Goldman MD with yacht and golf club membership signs off on test that selects for people like him. "Hey, I like me, and I succeeded here, right?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm glad they're trying to add something new to the mix. I think it's been made clear that having a degree/internships/experience on paper doesn't really correlate with a great candidate. However, I am curious what the specifics of this personality test are.

I'm also a bit concerned that hiring people with similar personality traits of "top-performers" will cut down on diversity of thought and different perspectives. Maybe it doesn't matter as much when dealing with the analytical/data driven side of finance - but I would assume having a group of high performing employees with different personalities would be more well rounded than a lot of one type of employee.

<comment><AUTHOR> They could select for the personalities found on the "top-innovators" group if they deem innovation important

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are lots of ways this can go wrong, and the sharp-edged headline prompts many of us to start thinking about misfires. The actual text of the story, though, focuses more on a desire to find people who are good at teamwork and higher-order thinking.

That's not a bad idea. Wall Street attracts plenty of me-me-me people, who can be very high achievers -- at a price. They grate on clients; they grate on colleagues, and they seldom contribute to making the overall firm work more harmoniously.

If Goldman thinks it's got a new way of finding more collegial people, that's interesting. Personality tests, like coding tests, run the gamut from ridiculous to somewhat useful. It would be interesting to know whether Goldman is building its own or using one of the off-the-shelf options.

<comment><USER11> * they seldom contribute to making the overall firm work more harmoniously*

Ultimately, the point of hiring people is to make the firm work more profitably. Banks are not well known for their commitment to a harmonious workplace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I guess this would be the opposite of a diversity program since they are going out to hire a very specific type of employee. It appears that they want a mono-personality in their halls.

<comment><AUTHOR> > It appears that they want a mono-personality in their halls.

I think it's more precise to say that they are selecting for productivity. Maybe more than one personality type is productive? It's not necessarily one single type.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A thing that seems to be missing from the discussion: this has been done before.

The early days of Meyers-Briggs saw it used at offices nationwide - <USER2> the right result was a strict requirement for employment. But the test/retest reliability is terrible, most people exist near the boundaries of the categories, and the four sections are largely arbitrary. It appears to have created single-personality workspaces without achieving anything meaningful at all in corporate terms.

<comment><USER14> Meyers-Briggs is also incredibly easy to game if you know what they're looking for. Not as bad as those silly "ethics tests" some crappy entry-level jobs give ("You see a coworker stealing merchandise. Do you a) punch them, b) tell a manager as soon as possible, c) join them in stealing, d) smoke a joint and forget about it?") but not much better.

Guessing you'd be able to nail what they wanted for office jobs by just picking the organized/responsible/social/intellectual options every time you could, in roughly that order of priority.

<comment><USER11> I was once given a "modified" MB test for a CTO position at $international_firm and had to show up at a "specialist consulting firm" to take the test (husband/wife team working from their living room) - They were nice people, we sort-of connected, and I asked them outright what profile the client was looking for. They happily shared, and said the test cannot be rigged, we designed it, it is bulletproof. I aced it, and a subsequent two tests where they asked me to fill for different personalities. Panic all- round.

I was offered the job, but declined - they put too much stock in this type of meaningless hocus-pocus, and barely asked me about my technical and organisational qualifications.

<comment><USER14> All I can figure with this stuff is that they're trying to weed out people too dumb and/or naive to effectively lie on something like this. Or those who won't work for a place that asks them to, as with you. They're definitely not filtering for the nominal target personality, and surely they know that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Disclaimer is I'm not taking sides, but: I wonder what sort of outrage would go down if tech companies started a similar thing, where they tested to determine whether someone is "agreeable" or a "better team player" than others.

Something about "leadership principles" and "STAR" comes to mind.

<comment><USER4> Isn't this being selected for already guised under "culture fit?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if the answers to such a test could later be used against the employee? Something like "Hey we have proof here on paper that you claimed to be [random personnality trait] and yet you behave differently, we will have to let you go." That would be aweful!

</comment><comment><USER17> Great idea.

It would be better if they could do some analysis over their Facebook profile, for example.

<comment><USER18> I certainly hope not. Social media should not be a measurement of professional character. Many kids use it without concern for how it will affect their future because they lack the awareness of it. If everything you've said when you were a child was on record and reviewed by employees chances are most people wouldn't have jobs. Additionally, it sets a bar the requires social media usage. I personally don't use any online accounts that are linked to my name. This means I would be perceived as a danger to any hiring systems that utilize social media analysis.

<comment><USER19> Attitudes will change.

The Army relaxed the "no tatoo" requirement because everyone has one now.

More companies allow a casual dressing code, because candidates keep on demanding it.

Future employers will relax their attitude towards social media un- professional behaviours everybody will have such a thing on their profile.

Even Obama admitted having smoked a joint. If he got a pass, a lot of other people will too.

<comment><USER7> > If he got a pass, a lot of other people will too.

1\. I think presidents tend to get a lot of passes other people don't. It comes with the level of influence they have.

2\. Presidents are selected by the typical American voter. Smoking a joint is cool these days with plenty of people (esp. younger), but employers are typically older and more traditional. He didn't get a pass with these people, they just weren't going to vote for him already for other reasons.

Not to say I disagree with your overall point - America is generally becoming more progressive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Personality tests are bogus. You can have completely different results on different days based on your mood, what you've read recently, etc. They should just go ahead and use psychics. It's probably just as good at predicting who is going to work out for them.

</comment><comment><USER21> Genetic test is next.

</comment><comment><USER22> > "Their answers will be compared with those of current Goldman employees, who > have already been identified as exhibiting traits that mark high performance > such as teamwork, analytical thinking and judgment, Jahansouz said."

Awful idea.

<comment><USER23> > > "Their answers will be compared with those of current Goldman employees, > who have already been identified as exhibiting traits that mark high > performance such as teamwork, analytical thinking and judgment, Jahansouz > said."

> Awful idea.

No, no, it's a wonderful way to ensure a monoculture and the absence of innovation!

<comment><USER24> Not to mention that one of those employees can easily get all of their friends and relatives employed if having similar answers is all it takes.

<comment><USER25> > Candidates' results on the test will be just one factor in the final hiring > decision, which also includes in-person interviews, Jahansouz added.

<comment><USER14> In-person interviews (the traditional, formal type with all your usual interviewy questions) are already mostly a test of whether you have enough sense and judgement to tell the right kind of stories with the details tuned just _so_ , and your ability to tell them convincingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if they're using MBTI.

I also wonder what MBTI types people here have. I'm guessing a lot of INTPs and INTJs.

<comment><USER27> I'd also be interested to know what MBTI type other HN readers are.

I keep switching between INTJ and INTP every time I do the test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I went for an interview at a company that did one of these tests (company wrote them) many years ago. Was utter waste of time as they do not cater for people with aspergers and as such they try and pigeonhole you into somebody who is proactive or reactive. This ignores somebody who is capable of excelling at both and even though outlined instances in which I had been both they seemed to not grasp this and ended up going in circles for 5 whole hours. Utter waste of my time, for some types of people and they lost out.

<comment><USER15> I seriously miss the time when you'd be asked questions relevant to your job and have your experience evaluated to get hired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Now, this could be because I'm Swedish and here it's taken as self evident truth that you should have a smörgåsbord of benefits, but if they're having problems beating the benefits offered in Silicon Valley, their solution is to invest money into finding people who are equally skilled but don't value security and work-life benefits as much as money? Shouldn't this instead be a signal that work-life balance and security is highly sought after among skilled individuals, and that if the competition can offer it so should they?

You'd think that being economists they would look at their counterparts in Silicon Valley and the Nordic Countries, especially their outstanding economic performance, and think "hmmm, maybe we don't have to reinvent the wheel after all, maybe we should try out these benefit thingies that are proven to work?". This test looks more like the answer to "can we find other people to validate our opinion that everything's fine?".

</comment><comment><USER30> > He said future job candidates would be given the test before their second > round of interviews at the bank. Their answers will be compared with those > of current Goldman employees, who have already been identified as exhibiting > traits that mark high performance such as teamwork, analytical thinking and > judgment, Jahansouz said.

In practice, this is nothing more than an IQ test. If you can't figure out what answers are beneficial to your application, you're not smart enough to work there. It likely says little about the actual traits of these job seekers.

<comment><USER31> It depends on the test that they use. The widely used psychological tests are designed to detect adversarial responses.

<comment><USER30> Well, I'm not talking about adversarial responses.

<comment><USER32> Isn't trying to figure out which responses to pick is the definition of adversarial in this context?

<comment><USER30> Definitely not.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the problem that you find with video discovery in youtube? - <AUTHOR>

Do you experience it?How video discovery in youtube can be improved? is it really a problem?
im working on my product which tries to solve video discovery by crowd sourcing video playlists ,which can be followed by people.
Here is the quora question
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-problem-that-you-find-with-video-discovery-in-youtube
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Yes it's a problem! There are slews of videos that aren't discoverable because the person who uploaded the video didn't submit enough or the right content in the title, tags, description and so on. The search fails to account for content within the video, and phrases and terms the author couldn't think of or was inept for whatever reason to add. Using only one tag, a nondescript title and a description that vaguely says "My dog and I". As a result so few videos are searchable for what is otherwise a common phrase. Maybe if the users could add tags or categories themselves to a video for the community, or common terms and phrases within comments or closed captioned could be contributed to the search.

As a side note, I'm often frustrated as a designer when I search for something stylistic and hardly anything shows up, such as "Black and White", when we all know there's plenty of B&W content.

<comment><AUTHOR> hey thanks. i have almost built the platform! it sounds like what you sayl

<comment><USER2> Sounds like a time saver! I continuously find myself trying to think of the most general searches and sifting through countless pages to find nothing, it's frustrating.

<comment><AUTHOR> my twitter <http://www.twitter.com/ramakanth_d>

i will let you know when we launch!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Actually yeah I experience problems. My wife and I enjoy watching funny YouTube videos—fail compilations, tv prank shows (eg just for laughs), cats falling, etc.

Problem is, the most viewed and top rated sections are littered with soccer plays and these hacks trying to do funny pop culture monologues(completely unfunny IMO). The related videos you get after viewing something are usually crappy remixes or not related.

Our dream is a never-ending playlist of videos based on what we like ... "Pandora for funny videos" would be the best analogy.

Also, we watch everything on AppleTV so whatever you build needs to work well on the iPad so I can AirPlay.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! it sures works on iPad! Video playlists are curated! As it is crowd sourced,Videos are added by people who know lot about the topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't have a problem finding videos (or discovering videos) on youtube as much as I have issues with the default YouTube app on iPhone not showing all the content you would normally find on youtube.com through a web browser. I suspect a lot of it has to do with the fact that not all videos are html5 compatible and partially maybe for whatever reason the app isn't pulling the correct results. But that's about the only issue I've come across.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. How do you discover new videos?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Youtube search throws up a lot of unrelated content. Now this could be the problem of the author not tagging content well enough OR youtube trying to maximize the user visit and just providing him a range of options.

I think it is real problem and that could be addressed by focusing on better search or more a crowd sourced list.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't have a discovery problem. I just search and use the date filters ("uploaded today", "uploaded this month", etc). They've made doing so easy -- search for "cats, today" and it'll automatically do a search for "cats" with the "uploaded today" filter selected.

<comment><AUTHOR> How is the quality of videos you find? Wouldn't be great if a user(maybe you) who discovers awesome 'cat' videos daily and shares the list with friends? This lists can be updated. People who follow this list,discovers videos with your help. A expert on a 'topic' would enable his/her followers to discover new videos.

<comment><USER6> I can sort any search by popularity, and I can subscribe to users that often post good videos and see both the videos and what they're liking and commenting on. YouTube already has user-created playlists too, completely searchable and discoverable by anyone.

When I'm watching YouTube on my Google TV box, it even suggests playlists for me. I don't know where they come from, but somewhere YouTube is providing them -- everything from "trending videos" to "animals eating cookies".

YouTube really has this handled -- I would not use the service you're describing.

If I'm really bored and have to find some vetted videos, I'd go to <http://www.reddit.com/domain/youtube.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for your insight.im talking like twitter for videos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Honestly, video discovery isn't a problem for me. I find videos through facebook, reddit, hacker news, etc. I doubt I would ever use a standalone video discovery app, but who knows? :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I wish they had

1) Find highest rated videos from a given date range (by given keywords and/or tags).

2) Sort comments by rating (should be the default)</comment>


Rohinni produces the 'world's thinnest' LED lights using 3D printing - <AUTHOR> http://www.3ders.org/articles/20141201-rohinni-produces-the-world-thinnest-led-lights-3d-printing.html

<comment><USER2> [https://hn.algolia.com/?q=rohinni#!/story/forever/0/rohinni](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=rohinni#!/story/forever/0/rohinni)</comment>