Myst at 25: How it changed gaming, created addicts, and made enemies - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90240345/myst-at-25-how-it-changed-gaming-created-addicts-and-made-enemies <comment><USER3> It's entirely possible that the only reason I'm a programmer today is because of Myst.

For reasons that I either never fully learned or fail to remember, my father received a CD in the mail from Myst's publisher (Broderbund?) containing a demo of the game. Only, someone screwed up, and instead of the CD containing a demo, it actually contained almost the entire game in a just-before-release, playable state (only a single world was unfinished). And all the HyperCard scripting was unlocked and viewable by the player.

Myst was amazing for its era, so of course, wanting to know how such a game was possible, I took full advantage of being able to read all of the HyperTalk code. And I'd be lying if I claimed I didn't use this access to "solve" a few of the more difficult puzzles. The times spent understanding and "hacking" Myst are among my fondest memories.

All of this led to me learning HyperCard and HyperTalk myself, and eventually moving on to CodeWarrior/C, Perl, PHP, Ruby, etc.

So thanks to Robyn and Rand Miller for the awesome memories. It had a huge impact on my life.

<comment><USER4> Have you ever thought of uploading that HyperCard stack somewhere?

I mean it would probably be taken down in a heartbeat, because the disclosure of the source code was very likely unintentional, but, you never know!

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, the CD is long lost to the "mysts" of time...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I vividly recall playing Myst, headphones on, snow falling outside, in a time before cellphones and (for our family) high speed internet. Cliche as it is, I felt transported. At times I felt spooked. I also remember getting a hold of every magazine I could that went into the making of Myst, transfixed by the creators' sketches and drawings. Few cultural artifacts — not limited to games — have had as lasting an impact as those days playing Myst in my bedroom in the mid 90s.

<comment><USER6> For me, this is where memories of Myst are best left. At the time I loved it, but in the early 90s one was willing to forgive a game a great many short- comings in sympathy to the state of modern games technology. Myst was very much "state of the art of the possible at the time". I'd argue that much of the appeal of 90s Myst for some was that such a world could be made at all, let alone be a reasonably competent adventure game to boot. It was also one of the first to give us an excuse to do something cool with our fancy new CD-ROM drives.

Timing was critical too for Myst too I think; it came at the point when many 'ordinary' (for want of a better word) families were buying their first home PCs. My experience was that Myst and Riven found fans among people not traditionally PC gamers, often via word of mouth that this was something interesting one could do on their relatively expensive new fangled PC investment.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think it holds up all that well as a 'game' in 2018, our expectations of video games are rightly so much greater. The standards of adventure games improved dramatically in subsequent decades. If you are looking for a Myst style puzzle world to lose one's self in in 2018, Jonathan Blow's game "The Witness" is arguably a strong modern spiritual successor.

<comment><USER7> I would check out Quern. Quern is an excellent Myst style game and comes closest to Myst style puzzles. From what I've seen of the "The Witness" is looked to be the same maze puzzle but repeated throughout the game. I loved Johnathan Blow's "Braid" but I passed on the Witness after seeing some gameplay.

<comment><USER8> I rather enjoyed The Talos Principle, and bought The Witness hoping to love it.

I couldn't get into it. When I ran into a memorization "puzzle" I knew it wasn't the game for me :(

<comment><USER9> I don't recall the puzzle you're talking about, but there are a massive variety of types of puzzles in the Witness. Was it early on?

I loved Talos Principle also, and I genuinely think the Witness is one of the best games of the last decade. Hopefully you can give it another go :)

<comment><USER10> IIRC it may be one of the water reflection puzzles. You see the solution reflected in one half of the room, and have to repeat it on a panel in the other half. One of a small handful of puzzles I cheated - my short term memory is horrid.

<comment><USER11> You should have seen my camera roll on my phone while playing through some areas. It was an incredibly helpful tool for getting through the game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't know if I was just too young at the time, but I had Myst/Riven as a kid and never even _began_ to understand what the objective was or what I was supposed to do. Aside from a little bit of walking back and forth, I don't think I accomplished a single thing in game.

Given the article references 6 and 8 year olds playing, maybe I was just a dumb kid.

<comment><USER13> I made decent progress solving the puzzles in Myst until I got to that rocket ship and discovered that my tin ear was a showstopper.

It didn't help that my machine (A Mac LC with 4 MB of RAM) was only barely powerful enough to run the game, and when it ran out of resources the first thing to go was the sound.

<comment><USER14> Despite playing the piano, I never could get past that puzzle until I figured out how to make the computer record itself. I recorded playing the notes on the spaceship's keyboard, then played it back as I adjusted the sliders on the other side of the ship.

Did anyone else solve it this that way?

<comment><USER15> That's very cool. I love that a game inspired someone to problem solve on that sort of level.

That's what I feel Myst brought that has been so rarely replicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article didn't make mention of the role of sound in Myst. I remember people setting up their big 90's stereos with massive speakers to fully immerse themselves in the Myst world. The game really built a strange, otherworldy atmosphere.

<comment><USER17> The music and the sound in Myst and Riven were both outstanding - <USER2> classics of the genre, and even more amazing given that they were an amateur effort by one of the creators, and not the work of a full-time composer or game sound designer.

There was one location in Riven where I spent about fifteen minutes listening to a short-ish music loop over and over and watching a simple atmospheric location animation, because both were just so perfect.

<comment><USER18> This really proves in the arts and creative business, it's really an individual's work that connects the souls. You can have a team of thousands of people, but if no one has any vision or creativity then their work can go straight down the toilet.

<comment><USER19> Prince of Persia and Rollercoaster Tycoon come to mind (and are apparently quite the HN darlings).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This article misses a few major points about Myst (IMHO):

\- Myst was one of the first CD-ROM based games. It helped drive CD-ROM adoption. Even Doom (which came out around the same time) was installed via floppy.

\- Myst felt expansive in a way that made it ahead of it's time by several years.

\- Myst made you feel like you were in the middle of a story. Its lack of interaction made the player the focus of the game -- which was unique at the time.

</comment><comment><USER21> Riven was absolutely captivating for its time. It still looks gorgeous today. They did an absolutely incredible job.

<comment><USER22> _Riven_ was also a huge improvement in worldbuilding. The world of _Myst_ was often rather contrived; the places it depicted didn't always seem particularly "lived in", and the puzzles were often rather contrived in nature -- in many cases, their motivation was simply that the world itself was created as a puzzle. The rocket ship piano puzzle falls squarely into this category, for instance!

 _Riven_ , on the other hand, depicted a much more natural-seeming world, and its puzzles fit much more organically into that world. For instance, one early puzzle involves learning the Rivenese number system from a child's toy. Some of the Moiety puzzles seem a little artificial, but even those do have some in-game motivation (as part of a security system).

<comment><USER23> It also had 5 CDs, and you'd have to swap between them all the time. But it was definitely worth it!

<comment><USER10> They were pretty good about only putting the CD swaps only in major area transitions. Anytime I saw one of the magnetic rail trams, I knew it was time to get the disc box out and prepare for a swap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If anybody is still jonesing for that Myst hit, the pointlessly-online version is completely free to play:

[https://mystonline.com/en/](https://mystonline.com/en/)

<comment><USER24> If they're really jonesing they'd like to know that you have to create an account to download a Windows only installer ;)

<comment><USER25> And they want your phone number :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Just throwing this out there for Riven fans: A community-made (still in progress with a long way to go) 3D real-time version of Riven: [http://www.starryexpanse.com/](http://www.starryexpanse.com/)

</comment><comment><USER14> I played Myst when I was a kid, but even to this day, never really understood it. I kept going back to other games, like Kings Quest 6, that had characters and whose world felt lived in.

Also, I despised the Quicktime for Windows that it installed with.

<comment><USER10> Which, IIRC, played a "calibration video" on first install. I'd never seen such a concept before or after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I sort of got sidetracked in the article when I read this:

"As we collaborated over puzzles played out on vintage machinery, my older daughter said, "People back then must have been incredibly creative to make something like this."

I don't know any 6 or 8 year olds that talk like that.

<comment><USER28> Not saying you're wrong, its anecdotal on both our parts. But I do! If you say to a kid "They built all of this by hand on pen and paper from ideas in their head! (amazed expression)" they'll parrot back to you the above sentence if they catch the meaning and context. My 3 year old does this already, although she'll say "fantastic" instead of "incredible".

<comment><USER29> I would agree with this. My observations after having children, is that they do exactly what they see until they understand what they see and make it their own.

For example - my youngest recently had an abscessed tooth removed. He is 5 this year. The dental surgeon was astounded that he used the words nitrous- oxide and Novocain. The surgeon said things like giggle gas and sleepy juice, and the five year old dead pan corrected him.

Kids will say what they hear - outside of a disability/difference of that kind. If they hear short baby talk, they say short baby talk. If they hear larger words, in context, often, then they'll use those.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Myst required a CD ROM drive — one of the earliest games to do so. This when optical drives were new, add-on devices that few people had.

This should have been an obstacle to the game's success but lesson learned: it seems that everyone that had a CD ROM drive bought the game.

I'll never to fall for the least-common-denominator school of marketing. Ship your games and require the most high-end of hardware. :-)

Oh, and it helps if your game is great (and the game's size no doubt helped reduce piracy).

<comment><USER31> > it seems that everyone that had a CD ROM drive bought the game.

And a lot of people bought new computers with CD ROM drives just to play the game. It's really what popularized the CD ROM in a lot of ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> An aside, but I'd love to have Myst, Riven, and the other sequels available on the Switch.

<comment> Z-Widwil If you need a portable version, it is available on iOS (and realMyst is available on Android) and a demo is available for both. It is also available on DS and PSP but I wouldn't recommend those version as much. I've played the iOS version and touch controls offer a good recreation of the original. Though I would recommend it for replaying the game, not playing it the first time. Some of the immersion is lost on playing a device that can provide other distractions. For me, playing through while sitting down at a screen with a notebook next to you for tracking things you find, is the best way to play for the first time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> FYI they recently did a kickstarter for a special Myst 25th Anniversary Collection of all the Myst games in a special linking book box, complete with video screen! I'm eagering awaiting delivery of mine:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1252280491/myst-25th- an...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1252280491/myst-25th-anniversary- collection)

</comment><comment><USER34> Never played the game, but someone bought me the novels in a pack for my birthday and because back then I would read _anything_ , I read them without many expectations, and they were quite alright.

All the world rules and the lore was interesting, but I don't know how much of that would be in the games. The books didn't have tricky puzzles, of course, but I kind of tells how big the games were.

<comment><USER35> I'd still recommend them today. Riven is a triumph of world-building fused with gameplay, even if some of the navigation gets a bit too obtuse. The later Ubisoft games are visual spectacles that maybe expect a bit too much generalized scientific knowledge in places. Haven't gotten around to Myst V yet...

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I can't wait for the inevitable Myst VR remake.

<comment><USER37> I've said to several of my friends that this would be the killer VR game for me. Just give me a giant world to explore!

<comment><USER38> if you haven't played it obduction is also in VR and is also made by cyan. I thoroughly enjoyed it but it's definitely harder than myst was.

<comment><USER6> Yep, this basically is the VR Myst, no need to hold off.

It's of course compromised in all the usual ways 2018 VR typically is, but if you want a Myst style adventure in an expensive, low res vomit inducing uncomfortable headset, have at it! (I say this as a very disgruntled Oculus Rift + Touch owner...)

<comment><USER39> Kind of fitting that Myst was at the edge of technological capability back then, stretching cdrom tech. Now we are at the 'barely able to do it cheaply' stage for VR bringing it back to that medium or Cyan doing something in VR like the old days we need imagination from the players too, letting imperfections slide as long as the story is there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I never owned a copy, so inevitably I only played Myst at computer stores -- it looked interesting, but I never really understood what was going on. Games of this era would tend to come with an instruction manual that was book sized and could really help with understanding what was going on.

For the Mystics? out there, what's the best way to play the game for a person who knows of Myst, but hasn't every played it? What can I read to get started, but that's not a walkthrough?

Sort of related, I recall Pyst appearing in stores about a year or two after Myst; is that worth trying to run as well?

<comment><USER41> Myst is kind of defined by it's lack of boundaries and structure. The point is to just boot up the game and start exploring and interacting. The story will slowly unfold as you explore the world. The only think you really need to understand is that all the buttons and switches _do_ affect the world, so observe the results of all your tinkering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Myst was the first really immersive game I remember playing and thinking "I feel like I'm actually a part of this world". I was a bit too young to really grasp how to play it but that didn't stop me clicking around just exploring because the game (for its time) was just so beautiful and engaging despite the graphical limitations at the time.

For those looking for a Myst nostalgia trip: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtO4E3cIn0w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtO4E3cIn0w)

<comment><USER43> I didn't care about Myst at all. I don't get what the big deal is, never did.

<comment><USER44> 1) the visuals were excellent, and still hold up against contemporary games.

2) the narrative was high quality.

3) the puzzles were very satisfying to solve.

Aside from that, it's just taste, my friend.

<comment><USER45> Also.. the soundstrack was amazing (and CD Quality!!), really added to the ambience of the levels..

Myst Soundtrack - 15 Above Stoneship (Telescope Theme) [https://youtu.be/MTruv9DbnrE](https://youtu.be/MTruv9DbnrE)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The one thing that I remember about Myst is how damn hard it was. Adventures games of the time were all about combining items and trying things. To solve Myst you had to immerse yourself in the story. You couldn't just try dumb luck, it wouldn't work like that. This along with the spectacular graphics and the storytelling was that made it a milestone in video games.

<comment><USER47> Maybe I'm a stupid person, or maybe it's just that I'm not a native English speaker or that I get bored of games super quick. Myst was one of the first games I ever bought (I mean... bought with my parents money :-) and played for maybe something like 10 to 15 hours? The only thing I remember about Myst is that I made absolutely no progress. Like none. I couldn't even get the premise. I was stuck at the very first stage of whatever puzzle the game had. I suppose I was something like 12 years old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Myst was so immersive. For me it created a real sense of wonder and exploration. There was something beautiful about being alone in a gorgeous world filled with puzzles that gradually revealed a story.

Also the first Myst tie-in novel is one of the only game tie-in books that I really enjoyed. I was quite young, so I'm not sure how the book holds up, but I remember really enjoying it.

</comment><comment><USER49> There's a very good article on Myst, with a lot of details on its history there:

[https://medium.com/picking-up-the-pieces/two-histories-of- my...](https://medium.com/picking-up-the-pieces/two-histories-of- myst-8b37e1504f9e)

Also this article spend a lot of time talking about the cultural impact of Myst, now and then.

</comment><comment><USER50> The documentary that was included with the CDROM definitely looks 25 years old: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94pzx_9LkVI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94pzx_9LkVI)

I still watch this thing every couple of years and remember how much I loved that game.

</comment><comment><USER7> All those looking for a fresh Myst-like experience should check out Quern: Undying Thoughts.

<comment><USER51> liked it very much.

talos principle was nice too

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Here's an interesting video about the game's history and creation:

[https://youtu.be/h4wWITMUop0](https://youtu.be/h4wWITMUop0) ("A Brief History of...Myst" (2016))

</comment><comment><USER53> Also released in 1993 was the first of the X-wing series from LucasArts. I ended up only playing Myst a couple years later, after hearing so much hype... but the pace was so different that it wasn't living up to that hype for my personal tastes. Still, even not being a big fan, I do recall that everyone talked about it, even in those days where gaming was nowhere near the popularity it is today.

</comment><comment><USER54> If you haven't had the chance to play Scratches, another game mentioned in the article, you should. It's fantastic and has a really great soundtrack. The developer is launching a new scary adventure game, soon, and it looks really really good.

</comment><comment><USER55> My first game of the point and click adventure genre was Return to Zork, which I believe was released a few months prior to Myst and had many similarities, but was never nearly as popular for whatever reason.

</comment><comment><USER56> Until today I had no idea that the two guys who created Cyan were from a rural area outside Spokane. What a random pacific northwest trivia tidbit.

</comment><comment><USER57> I remember the long periods of inactivity in Myst. The time to slow down and think. A stark contrast to games I've played recently.

</comment><comment><USER45> Real hackernews readers have played Cyans other games, like Spelunx, and unlocked the secret level by entering the code in the elevator

</comment><comment><USER58> Shout out to the grim fandango, my second fav game.</comment>


Day Care for All - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/09/opinion/sunday/child-care-daycare-democrats-progressive.html <comment><USER2> We work enough already, if taking a break from work for 3-5 years destroys career opportunities then let's fix that problem, not less family care.

Anyone I've seen who had the choice favors "staying home" and raising their children.

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of people don't--and never would be able to--have that choice.

<comment><USER2> Yes, and it's very sad. I just would rather see the power of the government fix root issues instead of more "WORK SHALL MAKE YOU FREE" fetish.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great, Google gets 5 more years from its technical women while the kids are raised by government mouth breathers. No thanks

<comment><USER4> Google pays enough technical women enough they are probably already getting that. This is more like the 27 year old associate property manager gets to stay on the path to promotion, or the $15/h hairdresser not having to have a near zero income for the 3 years her two kids are young.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Totally relevant different nyt article: [https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/17/archives/in-soviet- union-...](https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/17/archives/in-soviet-union-day- care-is-the-norm.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> I would love this.

Even parents who want to have their children home with them for the majority of the time would benefit if they could drop their child off at daycare so they can step out to a dr apt without the baby in tow.

Or a parent who needs a day, to sleep, to have the opportunity to drop their child off for a few hours.

It'd also be a built in easy way to socialize your kid or to meet other kids/parents who work or live nearby.

For other parents who are struggling financially or got pregnant too early, accessible day care could be what enables them to go to a job interview or to work an extra shift in order to put their family in a better financial situation.

</comment><comment><USER7> An incentive for everyone to have children doesn't make sense. An incentive for hard working, intelligent people to have children makes more sense. Make it a tax deduction, so those making six digits are encouraged to have more than two children, while those barely able to survive aren't perversely incentivized to spread their unsuccessful genes.

<comment><USER8> This type of comment always surprises me, it is very short sighted.

so the criteria for success is 'making six digits' which you correlate to hard work and intelligence.

That ignores the following cases:

\- Intelligent, hard working but not high income ( Academics)

\- circumstances, today you make 'six digits' but due to thousands of variables ( Market, industry, health) you lose the ability to generate that income after having kids

\- being hard working, intelligent does not make you any better parent, in fact there is a case for the opposite where you cannot dedicated time to the raising of children.

\- Anecdotally I personally know many people who are making six digits, who would probably make terrible parents

<comment><USER7> This plan is being primarily supported by those making over $100k, as those are the primary tax payers. People who make over $100k are more likely to have children who make over $100k.

Simulate a scenario where people living on welfare are incentivized to have 2 extra children. Those 2 extra children are unlikely to increase the wealth of the population, resulting in a spiral of poverty within a few generations.

I know many people who make more than six digits who are excellent parents and would be happy to have more children. I also know many people who make more than six digits who have happily removed themselves from the breeding stock and live a gluttonous child free existence. People who make more than six digits are unlikely to have children unless they want them

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Many comments seem to come from the idea that day care is just a place to dump kids. It is, in fact, quite important to a child's education if done properly. Therefore, it shouldn't be viewed as an expense or a benefit for the parents, but as an institution valuable for society as a whole.

<comment><USER10> > if done properly

I'd think that would probably be the main concern for critics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Daycare just costs money, and not everyone needs daycare. So why not "money for all"?

<comment><USER4> Because having children is rather important to the continuation of society, and (while largely wonderful) a massive financial investment by the parents.

<comment><USER11> Maybe...

Given the impact on the world's ecosystems of the current population, it doesn't seem so far fetched that having _fewer_ children might be critical to the continuation of society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [https://outline.com/VMPhuC](https://outline.com/VMPhuC)

</comment><comment><USER13> I didn't see how they proposed to pay for day care for all.

<comment><USER14> I mean there's only two answers and after that really only one. Deficit and taxes. And then even more taxes for the current expenses and all the interest too.

And if we simply print the money to pay for it, then increased inflation to boot.

<comment><USER15> > And if we simply print the money to pay for it, then increased inflation to > boot.

This logically makes sense, but it doesn't really follow the evidence. We've been running a budget deficit for many years, growing larger and larger, yet interest rates are historically low.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The progressive to-do list could add a whole slew of other things. How about free housing, electricity, internet, food, clothes, phones for all? But at what cost?

The thing I don't get about the socialist movement in America is where does it stop? Aren't we supposed to make our own living?

I think if you know someone who is in need, then _help_ them. I can't take this idea that it's the government's job to take care of everyone.

<comment><USER17> government is us. should "we" not take of each other?</comment></comment>


Show HN: HN Notify - Email reply notifications for comments and posts. - <AUTHOR> http://hnnotify.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Really been enjoying the HN community and wanted to contribute this back to help keep people engaged in the conversations they are involved in even as those comments and replies are pushed down the page.

For anyone interested, this is written with:

      - Play! Framework 1.2.3
      - MongoDB 1.8.3
      - jQuery (minor, I am not a UI guy)

When you signup, it more or less adds a flag in the DB that you want emails when someone replies to you (whether it is a story reply or a comment reply) and when you unsubscribe it removes that flag. No stray account info or history is kept.

Thanks goes out to the HN community for a hell of a lot of great information and I hope you guys find this handy.

<comment><USER2> Neat! Thanks for this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Would it be possible to add XMPP support ? Then the service could check my XMPP status and postpone notifications if i'm away, busy, offline...

I tend to prefer IM for this kind of things as it doesn't clutter my mailbox.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting suggestion, I'll take a look at XMPP and see how that would work. Thanks for the suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems that I can pretend to be someone else and get notified every time they get replied to. You could offer protection against that by asking that a long, semi-random string be placed in the profile of the person registering.

I've registered, and I'll be watching with interest to see if it changes my relationship with the site.

<comment><USER5> Replies are all public anyways. Besides, hackerstream.com let you do this with multiple people long before.

<comment><USER6> There's a distinction between getting notified when multiple people comment, and when they get responses. Is the latter useful at all?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice Work, I've was working on a service sorta like this for HN but it got put on the back burner for more important projects. Mine is a little different than this, but essentially same idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Josh. If you don't mind sharing, how was your approach different? Maybe there is a hybrid idea in there somewhere that makes better sense that I haven't thought of.

What I currently have on the books is to allow following of individuals (e.g. "Every time tbob posts something, let me know!") as well as following New submissions that meet a certain threshold.

I know I don't spend enough time ranking new stories, if I could set a base threshold like "New story with at least 5 votes" I would probably participate more.

So I figured I would add something like that.

<comment><USER7> Basically the idea behind what I was gonna do was a user can subscribe to certain keywords. The system would than keep track of the /new page and when a new post was made with that keyword, for example: "Apple", it would round it up, and on the next batch of alerts sent out, it'd put that one in the list for that user to be notified of. Had a bunch of other ideas for it too, a long with watching what x user submitted, and even the ability to be notified of "Show HN" and "Ask HN" posts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh nice, really good ideas.

I agree the following notifications are all handy, didn't think about Shown/Ask HN posts, that's a good one. As for keywords, that didn't dawn on me either, another good one.

With all these notification settings I can see that a "digest" style email once or twice a day might be the way to go to avoid Google banning me for outbound mail and annoying subscribers.

<comment><USER7> Yep, that's a good idea. I've also thought about even allowing users to subscribe to domains. Want to keep an eye on new TechCrunch articles posted? Subscribe to techcrunch.com and that will also be put into your notifications.

Best way to handle all this in my opinion would be user accounts, and I know you probably had the same thing in mind when I started mine. No accounts, just put an email in, and a keyword and let them input as many as they wanted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea exactly right, I didn't want to go down that every-notification path because it would make everything more complicated to use.

Also, another user in this thread made me aware of <http://notifo.com/> which I think does the every-notify already.

I really just wanted to help out HN users specifically, not really a startup I had in mind. So I'll keep the features paired down to services you good folks :)

<comment><USER7> If I remember correctly, notifo.com is shutting down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I could troll someone by signing them up to follow, well, everyone. That could be a problem, couldn't it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now, yes it could... please don't do that :)

I'll add an email verification step soon.

<comment><USER4> I think just requiring them to put a magic string in their profile would be fairly robust. Yes, it's another step, but I think everything requires an extra step. You just need to choose what that step will be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool I just signed up. Thanks for creating this. Someone reply here so I can test it :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Very welcome!

<comment><USER8> Nice, it works :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Shouldn't it confirm email addresses before subscribing or unsubscribing people?

<comment><USER10> In Canada it's a legal requirement. In the US, it's not, but it's still a very good idea to do so.

<comment><USER11> Didn't know about Canada - thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What does this provide that notifo doesn't?

<comment><USER13> Notifo will be shutting down. See here: <http://blog.notifo.com/notifo>

<comment><USER12> Oh .. Didn't realise. That's sad news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very cool. Lets see if it works.

<comment><AUTHOR> Check 1-2, check 1-2 :)

<comment><USER14> It works and it is fast.</comment></comment></comment>


Is the U.S. Due for Radically Raising Taxes for the Rich? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/is-america-due-for-a-tax-hike/494795/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I have no doubt taxes for "the rich" will be raised. I also have no doubt proponents will be shocked to find they end up with very little extra money as a result. Particularly now, when investments are paying almost nothing.</comment>


Introducing New, More Engaging Advertising Formats - <AUTHOR> http://yodel.yahoo.com/blogs/general/35535678-195506880.html

<comment><USER2> Yahoo's home page is a traffic monster. Getting better advertising on there is a smart move. They can't do much with their search ads as they are tied to Bing for another few years. Thus, innovating where they can is smart. Hopefully they build back towards being relevant.</comment>


Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers' Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional - <AUTHOR> https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-court-rules-suspicionless-searches-travelers-phones-and-laptops <comment><USER2> I'm not sure to whom the reasonable suspicion has to be announced? It makes it hard for me, a lay person, to understand the practical ramifications of this decision.

Would the suspicion have to be announced to me, when I'm asked to unlock my phone, or would it have to be presented to a court, when they are asked to prosecute me based on the contents of my phone? If they find illegal content on my phone, wouldn't the prosecutor just tell the court "she matched a profile for the sort of person that carries illegal documents"?

The latter is only meaningful if the case goes to court, which feels like a stretch. There are many forms of punishment that can be meted out without having to go to court. Vexatious detention, confiscation of property, etc.

The former seems silly — surely I can't impede law enforcement because they haven't justified their authority to me?

<comment><USER3> The point of the law is that even if law enforcement finds evidence of guilt via illegal search, they cannot use that evidence in court. This is a crucial protection for citizens. The point of the ruling isn't that it prevents the search, it prevents the result of that search from being used against you. If law enforcement wishes to establish the guilt of a suspect in court, it has to use only evidence it obtained through legal means.

[https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=2087](https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=2087)

<comment> mark-r Unfortunately there is still parallel construction: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction)

Honest question: can illegally obtained evidence be used to get a search warrant?

<comment><USER4> No, if a warrant is obtained using illegal evidence, then you poison the warrant and all the evidence arising from it.

Parallel construction happens way less frequently than people think it does, since it requires that there be an _actual_ parallel path to the evidence that would have been available at the time the evidence was improperly obtained. It's basically only upheld when evidence was collected improperly through one means (i.e., a confession without Miranda disclosure), but could have been collected properly through other means available at the time of the improper collection (i.e., if the contents of the confession would have been revealed by a standard CSI search).

<comment><USER5> I don't think you have to be mirandized to give a confession, no?

<comment><USER6> Not a lawyer nor intimately familiar with the subject, so until someone more knowledgeable chimes in and at risk of making a fool of myself:

I believe it depends on context. If you're in police custody and being questioned, you need to be read your Miranda rights. If the police show up to your door and you suddenly blurt out a confession, I don't think it matters.

<comment><USER4> That's mostly correct, but it gets even more contextual: if you confess right when you greet the police, your confession is admissible.

However, once the police start asking questions, they have to show they had not created a "custodial" situation in which the suspect was not free to leave (or in this case, to close the door and tell the police to fuck off). In most states, the burden is on the defendant to show that a custodial situation was created; in some states, that is presumed and the police have to show that a custodial situation was not created.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hopefully this stands (or gets challenged and reaffirmed in a higher court). This is a tiny step in the right direction when it comes to the border search exception, which has been upheld in the supreme court [1, 2]. Also commonly known as the 100-mile constitution free zone [3].

[1] Almeida Sanchez vs United States

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

[3] [https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border- zone](https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone)

</comment><comment><USER8> So a govt agency does something illegal. To be honest, im not thrilled. They seem to be acting against the laws they claim to uphold all the time.

Do they get punished? Are they put under extra monitoring now?

This is not a democracy people, this is not "trias politica". Police brutality rampant, this merely being one more case. These court rulings seem rather useless, when the same govt keeps illegal torture prisons (Guatanamo) open, where people's lives are ruined without due process.

<comment><USER9> I didn't study law, but as far as I understand, illegal is not the right word here. They (govt) do things for which there is no legal precedence all the time. The court could also have found no problem with these searches. Now that they did take issue with it if the searches would continue then yes, that would be illegal.

<comment><USER10> "Evidence collected in breach of your constitutional rights" is probably a better way of describing the situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Sounds like the Court got it right.

<comment><USER12> I suspect you may know this, but there exist many locations and circumstances wherein various rights are suspended.

[https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border- zone](https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone)

<comment><USER13> > I suspect you may know this, but there exist many locations and > circumstances wherein various rights are suspended.

It sounds like this recent ruling may have rendered that page out of date.

From your link:

> According to the government, however, these basic constitutional principles > do not apply fully at our borders. For example, at border crossings (also > called "ports of entry"), federal authorities do not need a warrant _or even > suspicion of wrongdoing_ to justify conducting what courts have called a > "routine search," such as searching luggage or a vehicle.

From the OP:

> In a major victory for privacy rights, a federal court in Boston today ruled > that _the government's suspicionless searches_ of international travelers' > smartphones and laptops at airports and other U.S. ports of entry _violate > the Fourth Amendment_. The ruling came in a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan, > filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, > and ACLU of Massachusetts, on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and > laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of > entry.

<comment><USER14> " _It sounds like this recent ruling may have rendered that page out of date._ "

Not exactly. Here, the only change is related to digital devices being searched. Everything else that happens at the border regarding searches is unchanged. So the limitation of the 4th amendment is still largely unaltered. But the protections have now been extended to digital devices only at border searches.

The article doesn't go into it (maybe the actual USSC does?) but I assume the logic here is that the reasoning behind the 4th amendment border search exception in the first place is to monitor what's coming across the border in terms of physical contraband (drugs, guns, animals, foods, etc.). There aren't really any concerns with digital devices. They are legal and anything done with them that might be illegal isn't related to the device crossing the border. And much of what can be done with them can also be done with any cheap device purchased in the states or using a cloud service (in the modern era). So randomly searching the devices doesn't really do much of anything related to border protection.

<comment><USER15> Ok so why do they do it? They're many examples. This one isn't even especially good because this employee was protecting his employer's privacy rather than his own.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/03/apple-employee-files- complai...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/03/apple-employee-files-complaint- against-cbp-for-asking-to-unlock-phone.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> But are travelers (foreigners) part of "the people"?

<comment><USER17> If you're on US soil you're subject to US law, including all provisions of the Constitution. And the Constitution makes a distinction between 'citizens' and 'people' (i.e., everybody, including noncitizens)

<comment><USER18> Aside from all the arguments brought up so far, there's that word "unreasonable" which the courts have historically interpreted with an "expectation of privacy" standard. You have a high expectation of privacy when you're in your house, somewhat less when you're in a car, and much less when you're entering an airport or crossing a border.

In the old days, it was routine for customs officers to search ships coming in to harbor, including the effects of their passengers, to enforce importation laws. If customs couldn't do this, then importation laws would have no teeth, which is clearly not the intention of the constitution, which gives Congress the explicit power to enact and enforce them.

CBP argues that their smartphone and laptop searches were just an extension of that old custom, the court disagreed, ruling that a smartphone or laptop is fundamentally different from a ship's log or traveler's trunk, such that a higher expectation of privacy exists.

<comment><USER19> In the old days it was also routine for people to own eachother so I'm not sure how much that really means.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, and there was a constitutional amendment that changed that. There is no constitutional amendment that removes the word "unreasonable" from the 4th. CBP's argument is that these searches are reasonable, given the reduced expectation of privacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Slight correction: "suspicionless searches OF ELECTRONIC DEVICES." Suspicionless searches of all air travelers is still very legal.

</comment><comment><USER21> Reasonable suspicion

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

>a legal standard of proof in United States law ... more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch'"; it must be based on "specific and articulable facts", "taken together with rational inferences from those facts", and the suspicion must be associated with the specific individual.

</comment><comment><USER22> Open question, here: Doesn't this backfire and make TSA more likely to operate on the basis of profiling alone? What makes a traveler suspect?

This reminds me of Sowell's distinction between 'Type I' and 'Type II' discrimination: when all other information is forbidden from you, you'll end up using the only information you have as your heuristic, however noisy and biased that information might be compared to a more comprehensive source. This leads to incidental systemic discrimination.

That said, if 'suspicionless' is tied to concrete external evidence rather than mere profiling, this should be a good move.

<comment><USER23> Unpopular opinion: why is profiling bad in context of airplane security?

If 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country (Yians), it seems like a pointless charade of political correctness to check Xians and Yians with equal frequency.

I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians and 0% of Yians.

<comment><USER24> > why is profiling bad in context of airplane security?

Why is airplane security different than other contexts?

> 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country > (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from > Y country

That's not the real world. There have been white terrorists, christian terrorists, etc. There have been muslim terrorists from most countries. Sometimes they don't look culturally muslim at a glance - maybe we should bring back Fumi-e?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumi-e](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumi-e)

> I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians and 0% of > Yians.

As an islamic terrorist, you just gave me a fantastic idea about how to beat your security. I won't go into detail, don't want to make it too easy in case some other terror group also figures out how to look like a WASP.

<comment><USER23> > Why is airplane security different than other contexts?

Because hundreds of lives are at stake, unlike (most) other contexts like screening college applications or work visa applications.

> That's not the real world. There have been white terrorists, christian > terrorists, etc.

Are you saying terrorists happen at equal frequencies across all demographics? There have been Christian terrorists, yes, but those strike me as _exceedingly rare_ compared to Muslim terrorists, for example.

Why would you ever stop and frisk a family? Has a terrorist attack ever been carried out by a couple with children in the history of the world? Or even just gender profiling - how many terrorist attacks are carried out by women vs. men? Men should be scrutinized _much_ more frequently than women; it's simple statistics.

<comment><USER25> > There have been Christian terrorists, yes, but those strike me as > exceedingly rare compared to Muslim terrorists

In the USA??? I think the opposite is true. How many terrorist attacks have you had on US soil this year, and how many of the perpetrators identified as Christian vs Muslim?

<comment><USER26> Almost all of the abortion clinic bombers and shooters are self proclaimed Christians in the USA, as are most white supremacists - responsible for many attacks on synagogues in the USA including the recent Pittsburgh shooting. Also, Timothy McVeigh was targeting the large number of African Americans he saw working or in childcare at OKC federal building to try to start a "race war".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It was always CLEARLY unconstitutional. It's worrying it took so long to have it declared as such.

<comment><USER28> As an American I'm very confused why clear constitutional violations don't warrant any repercussions on the perpetrating individuals.

So I work for a company that deals with medical data, if I violate HIPAA, I don't get to just keep doing it until a federal court says stop and then walk away as if nothing happened. I'm personally held responsible for those violations. Not just my company, me.

Why aren't each of these agents that obviously and egregiously violated the constitution subject to imprisonment or fines for each violation?

<comment><USER29> The Constitution does not specify punishments for violating it. Congress could pass legislation specifying punishments in accordance with this ruling, but it would not be retroactive.

<comment><USER30> They did: 42 USC 1983. ( [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1983](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1983) ). It technically only applies to actions by state by state (or local) officials, not federal, though SCOTUS created an equivalent for federal actions known as Bivens ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivens_v._Six_Unknown_Named_Ag...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivens_v._Six_Unknown_Named_Agents) ). However, SCOTUS has also limited both with the doctrine of qualified immunity. ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity) )

<comment><USER29> Interesting. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've usually been fine crossing into the US via Canada as a Canadian, save for some cursory searches. However I don't stand out visibly or audibly. On my second last trip through, I didn't have a precise address that I was staying at on the other side of the country for a road trip, so I was taken aside. While waiting, I talked to a Canadian-German fella who had been molested for upwards of 4 hours on the basis of validating that he wasn't intending to work in the U.S. Apparently they handed him a brochure that effectively said they can do anything they want with his data and so on upon that suspicion. Likewise, my gf made what I thought was a joke that at least we weren't brown or something. At least, I thought it was a joke until I looked at the line up behind us.

</comment><comment><USER32> Yeah, too bad the border control agents basically do what they want and this case means nothing.

They'll do the same thing, and someone will say "But what about Alasaad v. McAleenan?" and in the small windowless holding room the agent will say "What about it? You want to leave, unlock your phone."

<comment><USER3> Evidence from an illegal search cannot be used in court.

[https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=2087](https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=2087)

<comment><USER33> If a border agent is giving me shit, the last thing I'm worried about is whether or not any evidence they gather is going to be used against me in court.

99.9% of the time, the most negative outcome of this kind of interaction will be losing my stuff, being arrested and held for anywhere up to 24 hours, or being denied entry. For most people, these are a compelling enough reasons to comply with a power-tripping border agent. Despite this ruling, your recourse in such a situation will remain quite limited.

<comment><USER34> The metric the agent's boss's boss's boss cares about is convictions because that's how they justify their budget "look at all these criminals we're catching". If they can't use the illegal searches in order to convict people of crimes they're much less likely to spend the man hours doing them as routine procedure.

Also, it's not exactly hard for a lawyer to argue that you were coerced into consenting to a search in your hypothetical example. Since the people crossing the border are mostly non-criminals if CPB does use those tactics routinely it will not take long at all for a suitably politically sympathetic victim to come along and precedent to be established saying that is also not ok.

<comment><USER35> Alas, a metric they just don't care about is passenger feelings. The power tripping is real, and most people would consider being detained for hours to be a big issue, even if it never even goes to court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Kudos to the ACLU and the EFF for standing up for what is right.

</comment><comment> compiler-guy I support this ruling very strongly, and am super-glad it went the way it did.

But at the same time, if it were as obvious as just quoting the constituion, it wouldn't have made it to the Supreme Court in the first place. The SC decides cases that are difficult, not cases that are easy.

Again, I believe this is the right decision, but it was no layup.

<comment><USER37> Your argument is poorly formed this was an extremely obvious case of reading the plain language of the law as already quoted. Which court it arrived in isn't proof positive of the complexity of the law. Its proof of how irrational and diseased our system of government is.

Perhaps you would like to advance an actual argument insofar as abusing access to portable computing devices to virtually riffle through an individuals entire life without benefit of court or even articulable suspicion? This is an intrusion into an individuals privacy worse than anything the framers could have imagined justified only a by a right to search that exists to discover contraband THINGS not contraband thoughts.

Lest we forgot Texas had to have the supreme court tell them that they couldn't outlaw gay sex not that long ago.

<comment><USER18> It is "obvious" only if you ignore centuries of customs practice and the word "reasonable" in the text. The 4th amendment protection from searches is not absolute.

<comment><USER37> Searching a digital device and further remote databases it has access to is more akin to going to the persons home and riffling through all their papers and interrogating their friends and family than it is to a traditional customs search.

It's reasonable to search for harmful or illegal materials entering the country. You have a compelling interest in the safety of the citizens and this is likely your one chance to reasonably interdict them before they can cause harm to the citizenry.

No such special circumstance exist for information. Information flows freely and securely over most of the world and interdicting it at the border is laughable. Once you leave behind existing powers and arguments for same you are left making an argument for new powers undreamt of by the founders.

You can argue for example that being able to access all the private words and documents of travelers allows you to make better decisions as far as whom and what ought to be interdicted or examined. This might even be a compelling argument for you. It is however not a continuation of centuries of practice but rather entirely new power that ought to be enumerated in new laws if it is to be granted.

If we insist that we react to the changing landscape provided by technology solely by interpreting what 18th century individuals wrote we ought to interpret very conservatively insofar as grants of government power. If such new powers are needed let the peoples representatives write the required laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> OK, so what stops the TSA/DHS from saying "We suspect you are a terrorist; please unlock your phone"? Their actions have effectively said that for almost 20 years.

<comment><USER39> > _what stops the TSA /DHS from saying "We suspect you are a terrorist; please > unlock your phone"?_

The same thing that stops all tyranny. A vigilant and engaged citizen body.

Practically, this means donating to the ACLU and related groups. It also means, if you're party to injustice, suing or reaching out to organisation who can help you sue to assert our rights.

<comment><USER40> Do these suspicions require some sort of preliminary-evidence of those suspicions before acted upon?

<comment><USER41> Edit: Oops. Fixed a use of "probable cause" where I meant "reasonable suspicion".

IANAL, but my rough impression from the opinion is _kinda_. It seems like the reasonable suspicion can emerge entirely from the interaction itself, but that it should be based facts/reasons the agent(s) can articulate.

I found the section titled "7\. Reasonable Suspicion, not Probable Cause, Applies to Both Such Searches" on pages 33-38 of the actual opinion (embedded on [https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/alasaad-v-mcaleenan- opin...](https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/alasaad-v-mcaleenan-opinion- summary-judgment)) provided good background on this.

<comment><USER41> Later on page 46 there's a more succinct statement.

The judge is evaluating one element of the relief the plaintiffs sought--that the agencies be required to expunge data copied during a search which, per the ruling, is unconstitutional. More specifically, the judge is addressing one stated reason for seeking that relief--concern that data obtained unconstitutionally will leave them forever flagged for extra scrutiny.

> "in the future, whether information has been retained from prior searches or > not, agents must be able to point to specific and articulable facts for > reasonable suspicion to believe that Plaintiffs' electronic devices contain > contraband, which also addresses the concern about any likelihood, greater > than the general public of U.S. citizens returning to the U.S. borders, of > being subject to a non-cursory search."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> And that is why I donate to ACLU every month.

</comment><comment><USER43> A tiny bit of sanity returns to the US borders.

Think I'll give it a miss for now though. The entire border crew seems like a law onto themselves.

e.g. last time - got hassled about being a dual citizen (neither US). But then while standing in a queue for a metal detector (as per agent instructions) another agent pulls me out of the queue and says I don't need to do this go around there. Rest of epic long queue proceeds towards detector/search as if nothing happened...just me.

Very much doubt there is any rhyme or reason behind what's happening at the borders beyond massive power trips.

</comment><comment><USER44> IANAL, so can someone help me understand: How is this the final say if it's out of a court in Boston? Isn't that only one circuit?

<comment><USER45> It is not necessarily the final say. DHS may turn around and challenge the ruling which may then be picked up by the Court of Appeals for further review. However, the Court of Appeals does not have to review the case and even if they did, they very well may agree with the ruling from the district court.

<comment><USER44> So as a practical matter, is it likely border officials will honor the ruling?

<comment><USER46> As with virtually all govt authority figures whose 'authoritah' gets constrained by pesky constitutional 'noise', they will adopt the minimal appearance of compliance that their dept lawyers estimate they can get away with. I wish I was kidding.

It's definitely a good ruling to have on the books but it could very well just end up being a checkbox matter to have a pretense of "suspicion" (ie "this person appeared nervous").

Depending on the jurisdiction of this district court the DHS might even decide that it doesn't apply outside that jurisdiction until a higher court rules on it.

<comment><USER47> Well, I'll be more tempted to fly into logan, at least for now…

But yeah, all hangs on what is "suspicion" (or what passes for it in practice), compared to say a targeted op or warrant provided by a court (even if its one of those secret courts like FISA).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> They'll probably now resort to kindly asking to view the contents of your phone and laptop, and when you don't give it to them, they'll take that as the "reasonable suspicion" they need to force you.

The courts decided good, but in practice it wont matter at all.

</comment><comment><USER49> Does this apply to the "special Constitution zone" that intrudes 100 miles inland from the US border? Doesn't matter if it's constitutional or not if you're in a no-constitution zone.

<comment><USER50> > Does this apply to the "special Constitution zone" that intrudes 100 miles > inland from the US border?

This is specifically about border searches, so, insofar as such a zone exists (the description is hyperbolic and more useful for motivating activism that any kind of analytical application), yes.

> Doesn't matter if it's constitutional or not if you're in a no-constitution > zone.

There is no such thing. There is an executive-asserted 100 mile zone (statute only says a reasonable distance, and AFAIK courts have not ruled on actual boundaries) from the border in which federal officials can conduct warrantless searches of vehicles to identify people without legal permission to be in the country.

<comment><USER49> > There is no such thing.

No, you admit there is such a thing, you just call it something differently. We're clearly talking about the same thing, whatever we choose to call it, it exists.

What you call "executive asserted zone in which [the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures does not apply]", I call a "no Constitution zone". It's clearer.

As far as activism goes, the way I see it: we can either use plain language to convey a pretty good approximation of the situation, and help people understand the crazy state of people's rights at the border, or dress it up in business language like a government-sanctioned PR release and lose a listener's interest immediately.

Someone probably learned about the zone from this very thread, which wouldn't exist had I not been provocative. And is it really provocative to point out that something's not right?

<comment><USER50> > What you call "executive asserted zone in which [the constitutional > protection against unreasonable searches and seizures does not apply]"

The editorial insertion is not correct, and is the source of the problem. Neither the statute (which is ambiguous as to exact geographic extent) nor the executive interpretation asserts the inapplicability of the Constitutional protection against unreasonable searches within the zone, it authorizes an extremely narrow category of _warrantless_ searches (the courts have consistently held that warrantless searches can be reasonable, and that statutory authorization for a sufficiently narrow and appropriate purpose is a significant factor in favor of finding a warrantless search reasonable; there is no serious debate over whether what the statute seeks to authorize is Constitutionally appropriate and within some geographic boundaries, the entire debate, after you get past the hyperbolic posturing, is over two questions: whether 100 miles is more than is reasonable, and whether the failure of the statute to explicitly say a reasonable boundary impermissibly delegates the boundary-setting to the executive.)

> As far as activism goes, the way I see it: we can either use plain language > to convey a pretty good approximation of the situation

It's not a good approximation of the situation, as taking it as even an approximation suggests things like your upthread misapprehension that it would be germane to a search of data on devices rather than a search of _vehicles_ for _unauthorized immigrants_.

Look, I agree with what the ACLU is seeking to acheive with it's hyperbolic portrayal and even think that most uses that the ACLU makes of that portrayal are warranted for that purpose (and I think both that 100 air miles is too great a distance and the failure of Congress to set explicit boundaries makes the statute unreasonable.) But it's not even remotely a good approximation of the actual situation, except perhaps in the narrow context of discussion narrowly focussed on immigration enforcement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> > the government's suspicionless searches of international travelers' > smartphones and laptops at airports and other U.S. ports of entry violate > the Fourth Amendment

So, does this not apply to people flying domestically?

<comment><USER52> No. TSA doesn't search smartphones and laptops, and the searches they do apply to everybody. When you search everybody equally, courts have ruled it's not a 4th amendment violation. See drunk driving checkpoints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> IANAL, but I'm reading the opinion itself and I've found it pretty accessible so far.

If you find this issue interesting, you may find reading at least part of it rewarding. The ACLU has a PDF embedded on this page: [https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/alasaad-v-mcaleenan- opin...](https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/alasaad-v-mcaleenan-opinion- summary-judgment)

Sections B-E (pages 14-47) are the most useful.

</comment><comment><USER53> Looks like TSA/Customs is about to get a lot more suspicious. All of these travellers, without exception, look shifty as hell.

</comment><comment><USER54> > A border officer searched plaintiff Zainab Merchant's phone, despite her > informing the officer that it contained privileged attorney-client > communications.

(The following (what I say) does not mean to imply that I don't agree with the ruling:)

I don't get why this is a factor at all or even relevant. In particular the 'despite her informing the officer'. Why would the officer be in a position to determine a) If the plaintiff is even an attorney to begin with b) If the plaintiff was asserting that as some kind of defacto 'diplomatic immunity' (to only make a comparison) in order to prevent the phone from being searched because it might in fact contain contraband? Very convenient, right? Why in particular would the lawyers rights (because they are an attorney) be greater than any ordinary individual? Further why would it matter if an officer saw the attorney client information to begin with? The assumption is that anything they (the officer) sees would have to be kept private no matter what it was. Lastly could someone (a business person) then assert that there was material non public information on the phone and that as a reason to not search it? The point is if they did see it the officer could (in theory) trade on that information. Where does this stop?

</comment><comment><USER15> They can image my mobile device in, what, 5 minutes? Why hold it for days or weeks except as a form of coercion? You land and need your phone to retrieve the phone number for friends or family, to order rides, create and manage accommodations, and find directions. Taking someone's mobile device leaves them stranded.

<comment><USER55> They can only image your device if they can connect to it. I don't know what Android is like in this regard, but an iPhone won't open up the USB interface to a foreign device until it has been unlocked and the device has been trusted by entering the passcode, which keeps some power in your hands.

If they just take the device off you, your power is taken away in a different way, but it's still taken away from you.

<comment><USER15> I'm not an expert. From what I can tell on my phone, USB interface isn't available unless developer options are first enabled, and then USB debugging is enabled, and the phone is unlocked, and then once an initiate USB connection is made the user needs to acknowledge the host USB trying to make a connection which requires the phone is unlocked to see and acknowledge the request.

So, offhand I'm not sure to what additional degree a user is at risk if they have developer options and USB debugging enabled, if they're also unwilling to hand over their unlock code. Obviously if neither debugging nor developer options are enabled, they can be trivially enabled once the unlock code is entered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Solution: Go through border control with blank phone/laptop and restore from backup later.

<comment><USER15> Is this what the EFF, ACLU, etc. actually recommend these days? Or do they want regular Joe Citizen to be willing to subject themselves to duress by customs?

If most people erase their devices, it's a kind of giving up. Accepting data loss (hopefully temporarily, but not everything is stored in the cloud, e.g. SMS messages, at least in Android phones with the original texting app) is punative. And disproportionate. And resets are a PITA for non-technical people. As a work around to avoid being harassed, to me it proves we've lost the privacy fight.

<comment><USER10> I don't speak for the EFF or ACLU so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Speaking of disproportionate...I think it's disproportionate to surrender my phone to DHS/ICE for unwarranted inspection in order to enter the country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is a US District Court ruling; I think it's safe to say it's going to be appealed and find its way to the USMC. It's hard to imagine the executive branch of the federal government giving up all that power.

</comment><comment><USER57> We didn't need a court to tell us the obvious, but this is nice to hear.

</comment><comment><USER58> Constitutional aspect aside, it seems like such a pointless / resource waste of an activity. It seems highly unlikely to dig up much of any value.

</comment><comment><USER59> Good. Also given there is no one running Homeland Security I wonder if it's even likely that this will be pushed to the SC.

<comment><USER60> Don't confuse the lack of a Senate-approved director with a lack of someone in power at a government agency. There are very much people running the Department of Homeland Security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Next stop, how about letting a foreigner visit the US for a week without having their fingerprints taken.

<comment><USER62> How about letting foreigners change airplanes without treating them like they plan to visit or be illegal immigrants? Canada, UK, I'm looking at you guys too.

Last time I changed airplanes in Canada: "How long do you plan to stay in Canada?" "Well my flight leaves in three hours." "Are you bringing any nuts or fruit in to Canada?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> So will the CBP be ordered to destroy all the images they made of devices searched at the border?

<comment><USER64> No.

> As part of the relief sought, Plaintiffs seek expungement of all information > gathered from, or copies made of, the contents of Plaintiffs' electronic > devices including social media information and device passwords. [...] > Although this is not a criminal case, considering the remedy for the > unconstitutional search in the criminal context is illustrative of the > extraordinary nature of the remedy sought here. Even where law enforcement > officers have conducted a search in violation of the Constitution, the > "fruits of [the] search need not be suppressed if the agents acted with the > objectively reasonable belief that their actions did not violate the Fourth > Amendment." [...] even where criminal proceedings followed a border search > that exceeded the bounds of the Fourth Amendment and the fruits of same were > suppressed, expungement of the border agents' files would not necessarily > follow. Nor should it where other deterrents to border agents' > unconstitutional searches remain in place. [...] In light of this other > relief, including declaratory relief, the Court DENIES the request for > expungement of information

[https://www.aclu.org/sites/all/libraries/pdf.js/web/viewer.h...](https://www.aclu.org/sites/all/libraries/pdf.js/web/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aclu.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Ffield_document%2Falasaad_opinion_summary_judgment.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Forgive my ignorance, but will this change anything at the border in the immediate term?

</comment><comment><USER66> How are they going to determine whether they have "reasonable suspicion"?

</comment><comment><USER67> The the authoritarians will simply move the goal post of what is suspicious.

</comment><comment><USER68> There is hope for the US, hard to believe with the current state of affairs.

<comment><USER69> They let the border pigs keep all of the illegally and coercively stolen private information from the thousands or millions of phones they've already imaged (under the basis of "it was believed to be legal at the time"), so not really.

Third-party doctrine lets them silently access your emails and IMs and texts at rest, and Section 702 as well as creative definitions of "access" let them sniff them all in transit. Privacy from the fed snoops is 100% an illusion; the entire population is under continuous realtime monitoring.

This border search thing is an important but ultimately minor victory; total surveillance is the name of the game in the United States now, and likely will remain so until the country no longer exists.

Strong encryption is the only defense we have against mass surveillance, but sadly most people don't care enough about their own privacy (much less that of others - the classic "What do you have to hide?") to demand it in communications products and services, so the majority of personal networked communications happens in ways that are extremely simple for the corrupt federal government to collect, analyze, and permanently store.

<comment><USER68> I think you are preaching to the choir a bit, given the HN audience. I suspect that the continuous realtime monitoring that is done by private corporations is as bad or worse. Maybe you don't win the war all at once but one battle at a time.

<comment><USER69> > _I suspect that the continuous realtime monitoring that is done by private > corporations is as bad or worse._

On the whole, governments have run a lot more prisons, forced labor camps, and concentration camps than private corporations have.

I am not worried about the collection of the data. I am worried about what it will be used for in ten, fifteen, twenty years' time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> This is a District court. A nice victory, but hardly "major".

</comment><comment><USER71> It makes me really sad that it took a court case to decide this.

<comment><USER72> Drafting a law would be worse. Smartphones have only been around for 12 years, so no good law could have been passed because we did not fully understand how the smartphone would shake out.

It took time because society needed to reckon with the newfound implications brought by such profound technological shifts.

Freedom doesn't come from a drive-thru window. You have to wait at the table until the issue has cooked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> What constitutes "reasonable suspicion" in this case?

<comment><USER74> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion)

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Does "travellers" include non-US citizens?

<comment><USER76> I'm not a lawyer, but afaik the Constitution protects equally citizens and not citizens

<comment><USER77> Should've gone with your first instinct. They cannot _arrest you_ for not unlocking your phone, but you will be denied entry, forever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Everyone knew that before and it didn't stop anybody. It won't stop now either. Violating the Constitution with impunity has become standard.

</comment><comment><USER79> Good to see common sense prevailing

</comment><comment><USER80> Best thing is to just not have anything to do with the US of A. Death penalty, loaded guns everywhere, a general attitude of being the masters of the world which leads to things like suspicionless searches. No, thanks. I think the best would be if more people would actually stop dealing with the USA. Its becoming a trend. I once turned down an invitation to a conference in Hawai, and guess what, I was not alone.

<comment><USER81> Death penalty exists, but it is rare.

Loaded guns exist, but they are not common. Most of them are in the hands of well trained people who are harmless unless (in the unlikely event) that deadly force is the only way they can get out of the situations.

The US has its problems, but you have been listening to propaganda by anti US forces (you might want to figure out who they are and what their agenda is!) if you think either of the above issues are worth a worry.

<comment><USER82> I'm a US citizen. Most of his points are valid.

Guns fucking everywhere is a problem. Lots of Americans think so. Yes, we absolutely execute people -- and our criminal justice system is a completely sham, especially if you're not white and rich.

Oh, and God save you from our health care economics.

If I weren't American, I'd absolutely never come here. In fact, I _am_ American, and I'm actively researching ways to establish residency elsewhere.

<comment><USER83> Is it really that bad though. We like painting a negative picture, because we want the US to improve.

But on the human freedom index the US is ranked 17 alongside Sweden.

The US has problems, systemic and cultural problems that should be fixed. But your risk of getting shot in a mass shooting is low.

<comment><USER82> "But your risk of getting shot in a mass shooting is low. "

But absurdly HIGHER than say, in Sweden. And most gun violence isn't mass shootings.

Plus, there's the ever-present specter of medical bankruptcy.

<comment><USER83> Yes, but overall the risk of getting shot is still low. So it being 10x higher isn't that bad.

I didn't say the US doesn't have issues, just that looking at the whole picture -- and comparing with other countries, it's not that horrible.

In Sweden economic opportunities are slightly fewer. Not that it really matters, if you live in modern Western country you're doing pretty well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Haven't read the opinion, but I'd anticipate that this will be reversed on appeal. My guess is that this was either an Obama or Clinton judge.

Both my Crim Pro and Con Law professors skipped border search cases and summed them up with "you have no rights at the border." That's been the common law since King Tut.

<comment><USER85> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_J._Casper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_J._Casper) Obama Judge.

But you should realize you are basically saying Judges are not impartial arbiters, but rather biased based on who appointed them.

<comment><USER84> Not quite. I'm saying that liberal judges tend to ignore the law when it comes to highly political issues.

For example, how many opinions have you read from Ginsburg where she says "I personally disagree with this outcome, but the law is clear."? Quite rarely.

<comment><USER86> I would argue that this is not really a "liberal" thing. Up until the 1970's the courts (including the Supreme Court) regularly found that the right to bear arms was in the context of establishing a militia, and not really a personal right. They consistently citied the "A well regulated Militia" part. The law was clear.

Nowadays Supreme Court president effectively ignores the militia part, and has created a personal right mostly out of whole cloth. So 200 years of president out the window, mostly for a political issue.

<comment><USER87> That interpretation is farcical and was rightly overturned. How can a right be held by the collective if it is not protected for the individual? Are we to believe that individual journalists may be hauled off to jail without violating the freedom of "the press"?

Collective rights are held by the States. "The people" are individuals and the prefatory militia clause is not a limit.

<comment><USER88> The founders included that clause for a reason.

<comment><USER87> The Supreme Court opinion in DC v. Heller explains why that clause was included:

>The Second Amendment is naturally divided into two parts: its prefatory clause and its operative clause. The former does not limit the latter grammatically, but rather announces a purpose. The Amendment could be rephrased, "Because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

[https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/#tab- opi...](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/#tab- opinion-1962738)

<comment><USER88> And to think that Scalia considered himself an originalist! I guess that only applied when it was convenient to him :/

<comment><USER87> This is originalism as clearly supported by the numerous references to contemporary language, other writings of the authors, and comparison to other language in the Constitution. Have you read the opinion?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Concrete Sample Was Pulled from the New Panama Canal Locks - <AUTHOR> http://gcaptain.com/a-concrete-sample-was-pulled-from-the-new-panama-canal-locks-and-it-does-not-look-good <comment><USER2> There were problems with the concrete mix even before they started pouring. [http://www.concreteconstruction.net/infrastructure- projects/...](http://www.concreteconstruction.net/infrastructure-projects/the- concrete-canal.aspx) (Feb 2013)

</comment><comment><USER3> So, in order to save money, they used a bad mix for the concrete ...

<comment><USER4> Could be. Per the article swehner linked to ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10140279](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10140279)), they're making their own concrete as well, which makes sense when they need to pour that much and it has to be of such quality, to keep salt water away from the rebar for 100 years. Also mentions that the mix has to be kept in a very narrow temperature range, "7.7 degrees C (14 degrees F)", which has to be difficult in Panama.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You get what you pay for.

</comment><comment><USER6> Locke (film). Teehee.

</comment><comment><USER7> _The contract winner was selected based on the "non-negotiated best value proposal", i.e. the one that obtained the highest combined score for their Price Proposal and Technical Proposal using a weighted model where the Technical Proposal was assigned 55 percent of the total score and the Price Proposal was assigned 45 percent of the total score._

 _Ultimately, GUPC was selected as the winner with the highest technical score and lowest total (fixed) price proposal at $3.221 billion._

Hey, these folk say they can provide the moon on a stick for half a moldy cabbage and a variety of odd socks. They must be great.</comment>


Why the Jobs Act is great for Angel List - <AUTHOR> http://josephwalla.com/why-the-jobs-act-is-great-for-angel-list-its-not-what-you-think

<comment><USER2> Note that Naval, founder of Angel List, was heavily invested in passing the Jobs Act. He told the whole story on this interview: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2htl-O1oDcI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2htl-O1oDcI)

Text Summary: [http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/16/pandomonthly-with-naval- rav...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/16/pandomonthly-with-naval-ravikant- post-event-recap/)

</comment><comment><USER3> _Note, you can chose to keep your fundraising private, which allows you do to verify accreditation the old way. However, it 's now unclear if events like Demo Day, a post on Facebook or other pitch events would count as 'general solicitation'. You don't want to run afoul of the SEC._

Having murky guidelines is probably a good thing. The trend in fundraising really should be headed toward more public, less private. It's worthwhile to read up on the history of why we have this line between "private, accredited" investors and general fundraising and the Securities Act of 1933. After spending a good day - day and a half researching what the new law means for companies starting to think about looking for Angel and/or VC funding, I wrote up some findings: [http://ink.hackeress.com/2013/09/what-title-ii-of-jobs- act-m...](http://ink.hackeress.com/2013/09/what-title-ii-of-jobs-act-means- for.html)

Like most of the movements of the time (prohibition), the original intent of the law was noble, but ultimately was misguided.

</comment><comment><USER4> SecondMarket also offers an accreditation service:

[https://www.secondmarket.com/education/avp](https://www.secondmarket.com/education/avp)

It's part of their General Solicitation Solution:

[https://www.secondmarket.com/education/landing/general- solic...](https://www.secondmarket.com/education/landing/general-solicitation- solution)

<comment><USER5> I interned at SM two summers ago. Getting a reliable accreditation service was a huge hurdle that they crossed, and it's very valuable. They have a really interesting product and they were even involved in shaping the JOBS act in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The whole accreditation thing is an unnecessary barrier-to-entry. I can understand wanting to keep litigation risks of sore losers at bay (caveat investor), but I can't support red tape that gets in the way of potential investors, no matter their balance sheets.

Consider investments in most startups as defacto donations until there is substantial profit or the big exit check clears &| stock documents are finalized.

</comment><comment><USER7> Crowdentials offers an accreditation service without using any tax returns.

[http://www.crowdentials.com](http://www.crowdentials.com)

</comment><comment><USER8> Having just done a round partially made up of Angels, I don't see this as having a major impact on fundraising which is still predominantly private. I'm skeptical that we are moving broadly towards public fundraising in Angel kinds of investments.</comment>