The NSA called me after midnight and requested my source code (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/why-the-nsa-called-me-after-midnight-and-requested-my-source-code-f7076c59ab3d <comment><USER2> I drew the ire of our security services in a much dumber way sometime in the early nineties; after having seen Wargames, I set up my MicroVAX, rescued from a dumpster at the local bank, to ID as a DoD box whenever any of my friends dialled into it.

A few weeks into this, I get a summons to get down to the local police station ASAP. The commissioner then gives me a good verbal beating for being such a stupid kid; apparently someone had dialled into the uVAX by mistake or wardialling, figured it was a real DoD machine, had reported the security breach and had gotten all sorts of gears moving.

He wound up the sermon by telling me whoever had called him from the relevant department at military intelligence had chuckled and told him they kind of found it funny - but could he please get hold of me and tell me to stop doing it immediately, or else have my landline terminated?

<comment><USER3> I miss the days when you could do stuff like this without ending up in prison.

<comment><USER4> You were running a lower risk of getting caught, but if you got caught, you could easily get slammed with all kinds of outlandish stuff back then, mostly due to the general public ignorance of computing and hacking. These days, you have a way higher chance of getting caught, but the punishment is more reasonable and fair imo (even though it is still way overblown most of the time).

What instantly came to my mind was the Kevin Mitnick trial, where "law enforcement officials convinced a judge that he had the ability to 'start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone'"[0].

0.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Arrest,_convicti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Arrest,_conviction,_and_incarceration)

<comment><USER5> I don't know, maybe Kevin was a real whistling virtuoso.

Raymond Chen could scream the 300 baud carrier tone: [https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20111111-00/?p=91...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20111111-00/?p=9133)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting story, but wouldn't be surprised if the real play here was to get his source code so they could get some bad guys to use a modified version that the NSA could crack. Put a back door in and then intercept traffic trying to download the encryption app to download the back-doored version.

The fact that the NSA has to call him in the middle of the night to learn that the free version didn't use strong encryption (a fact that seems to have been a selling point for the non-free version) just sounds a bit dubious, but that's just my sense. Nice mug regardless.

<comment><USER7> I doubt it. For one, how could they expect to distribute it in a way that a bad guy was more likely to download than by going to the official site?

But also, if they did want to do that, they could probably backdoor it pretty easily just by patching the binary a bit. Reverse engineering and changing binaries is way easier than cracking encryption, and they probably have some of the world's top reverse engineers.

The fact that they asked for an existing algorithm backdoor, among other things, makes me think they really were trying to crack at least one thing encrypted with it. As for whether it was to deal with a time-critical situation or whether that was just a confidence trick to make him more likely to give up the code, who knows.

<comment><USER8> > how could they expect to distribute it in a way that a bad guy was more > likely to download than by going to the official site?

Man in the Middle attacks work even if one goes to the official site. It could have looked something like this.

1) User attempts to go to the official site [https://..](https://..).

2) NSA intercepts the message, downgrades to http and sends back a dummy site with the malicious binary [1].

3) The user doesn't notice the change and uses the malicious binary.

Today, a series of steps have been taken to make such an attack more difficult. Now browsers tend to try to warn the user and sites can take advantage of HSTS preload lists[2]. However, this article was written about an event in early 2000 when many of these safeguards didn't exist.

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

[2] [https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2012/11/01/preloading- hsts...](https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2012/11/01/preloading-hsts/)

<comment><USER9> Just to be clear, no web browser has ever (AFAIK) allowed a navigation for [https://](https://) to downgrade to [http://](http://). It's only when the protocol is not explicit (i.e. typing only "domain.com") do problems really arise.

<comment><USER7> They may have meant finding a link to it elsewhere from a plaintext site, in which case they could sslstrip it. (Before more modern safeguards, at least.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you read the article (you should - it's a good one and well written), then you should also read the comments.

My favorite nugget from the comments:

      "I hope you're keeping that mug in an opaque Faraday cage, well grounded."

<comment><USER11> I know it's a joke but: Mugs have a tendency to be put in microwaves, making them a dangerous place for electronics.

If you find yourself receiving a questionable mug, time for a glass of warm milk.

<comment><USER12> Microwave ovens are not that horrible against bipolar transistors. They are completely lethal for MOS-FETs, but one can make electronics that survive it.

<comment><USER11> Do you have more information on how to do that?

Making things resilient against a kilowatt of non-ionizing microwave radiation seems challenging, in my experience it will burn the traces right off the PCB. A different game from the more common radiation-hardening where the concern is low power ionizing radiation.

<comment><USER12> Embedding your conductive trails into a large non-conductive material helps, as does putting unrelated trails apart, and making them at the right size. Completely surrounding them with a ground plane helps too, but I have no idea how to include an antenna.

<comment><USER13> Make your faraday enclosure the antenna (better have some heavy duty protection on the tx/rx circuitry though).

<comment><USER12> That tx/rx interface is the real problem. But if you enclose things with the right material, you can turn everything into a large varistor and even MOS- FETs will survive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My first job in the early '80's was for a phototypesetter manufacturer. Logically, the NSA had one of our machines for in-house use. Whenever there was a issue with the machine I flew up to Virginia to look at it. My experience was roughly the same as the article's, super-nice people, all of us immediately on a first name (only) basis. The two kind of uniquely funny things about those visits was 1) that the machine (PDP-11 based) was kept in a small room with _nothing_ in else it - a door opened into a room with the machine exactly in the center of the space. The other thing 2) which did make sense was the the core memory was always wiped w/a walking 1's and 0's paper- tape utility prior to me getting access to it.

<comment><USER15> Maybe it was just kept in that room while you worked on it. Perhaps that's the room where they move equipment that needs servicing so they only have to secure one route and room for technicians to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This sounds like spy training from Burn Notice. Like, you have to get the source code of this program, from a guy who isn't at home right now and the whole budget of the operation is a just enough to buy a mug from our gift shop. Good luck Dave!

<comment><USER17> You make it sound like that's not how it usually is.

I have bad news. That's how it usually is.

<comment><USER18> Sometimes you don't even get enough for a nice mug.

<comment><USER19> Where is the $60B/yr going? It's not all AWS. They could buy a lot of mugs for that.

<comment><USER16> The mugs are not cheap. And then you have to pay for storage and shipping. Mugs are a costly business.

Oh, and don't forget all the nice paper for the notes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Certainly doesn't make me want to use any software made by this guy.

<comment><USER21> Curious why...

Your security should never depend upon security of your source code. If you're doing things correctly, then the source code doesn't change anything about the security of the data that is encrypted.

Perhaps you mean that he chose to use 40-bit keys instead of 256-bit keys in the free version? I mean, I guess. But that's just a matter of better understanding the details. It sounds like he outlined this clearly and anyone looking for more security knew to pay for the product to get the 256-bit keys.

<comment><USER22> > Your security should never depend upon security of your source code.

For sure. I don't think it's about that, though.

Even if the application in question were open source, if the project lead is willing to cooperate in any way their government asks, they could probable ensure the existence of a back door. For this reason, where possible, I would prefer to use encryption software written by people who are principled to a fault (or who at least do a good job acting as if they were).

Let's imagine Linus Torvalds or Greg Kroah-Hartman in this same situation. Linux source is available, so let's say they were asked to ensure that a certain patch to a cryptographic API was not accepted before a certain window. Maybe the crypto API maintainers were on the call as well saying that they were on board with the plan (apologies to those people, I don't know you and mean no offense). I like to think that they would:

1\. Turn down the NSA.

2\. Attempt to get the word out about what they had been asked.

3\. Find new crypto maintainers.

And yes, it's entirely possible that this is not at all how it would go down. Maybe they would be very cooperative. I don't know any of these people personally. But what I do know is that they have not, as of yet, made a blog post about that time when the NSA did ask them to betray an unspecified user and how they did everything they asked without resistance.

I don't think I'm being idealistic here. Software and encryption are global endeavors. People who blindly believe that the enemies of their state are also their enemies, or even that obedience to local laws is a moral imperative, should not write crypto software. Or at least, I hope they make their beliefs known like this guy did so that I can avoid their software.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure if the NSA asked him to add a backdoor, he wouldn't do it. (They already asked if he had an existing one, and he clearly realized how bad that would be if there was.)

<comment><USER22> That may well be true. But still, this story influences my _guess at the likelihood_ that this author would do so in the direction of "more likely."

Likelihood that the authors/owners of software are willing to cooperate, and capable of cooperating, with adversaries is an important metric for comparing options. Very high profile open source maintainers are less capable, due to the oversight of the community. Anarchist- or security-absolutist type personalities are less likely. The author and his project don't fit either bill.

I'm not arguing that this is the only metric that matters when considering one's options. But it does matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Discussion with 133 comments from late 2018:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18293940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18293940)

</comment><comment><USER24> >>I probed again, this time about their capability at 40 bits; maybe that reduced level wasn't such a State secret. But again, Dave was mum.

I recall that 40 bit encrypted Word documents obtained from Al-Qaeda safe houses in Afghanistan after 9/11 were successfully cracked. It was reported in the media, so it was an open secret after that.

</comment><comment><USER25> Well they do have mugs in the gift store, and the one in the third picture [1] from the end looks like a nice one, although not exactly the same. Of course the picture there is 16 years later.

Sounds like a fun social engineering trick though, if you can subvert the local phone switch. Probably would make more of an impression if the FBI/etc knocked on your door and handed you the phone...

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-gift- shop-2016-5?op=1](https://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-gift-shop-2016-5?op=1)

<comment><USER26> I think I'd say "oh wow, gift exchange!" and hand them this: [https://www.zazzle.com/the_nsa_parody_shirt-2357202944443361...](https://www.zazzle.com/the_nsa_parody_shirt-235720294444336131)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have been to the NSA gift shop, and they do sell the blue mugs there. But you have to have the right clearances to even get to where the gift shop is...

<comment><USER27> This isn't true, unless it's changed in recent years. There's a gift shop at the Cryptologic museum on Ft. Meade. I've taken my folks there before, although I haven't worked there in almost a decade, so maybe it's not there anymore. There are gift shops inside the buildings though, but they sell the same stuff as the other one. You don't necessarily have to be cleared to get to those, you just have to have a reason to be in the building (i.e. interviewing)

Now the CIA has a gift shop you can't get to without being able to get into the building. ;)

<comment><USER17> Touché. I've never been to the museum. There's a gift shop inside NSA proper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Since the source code could not help with decryption and the file was trivial to decrypt anyway, the NSA was either playing four dimensional chess that requires making a pointless midnight phone call or it's actually fallible.

Rather than fairly justified suspicion of the NSA, we might want to apply Hanlon's razor in this case.

<comment><USER29> I've had the pleasure of working in some organisations that had mountains of legacy applications that didn't always have any source code. When I've had to fix bugs that involved those apps, reverse engineering them was always tedious and time consuming, and having the original engineers on hand to answer questions always sped things up. Regardless of the NSAs technical capabilities, it seems all he helped them do was something they could have done without his help, only faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> July 2000 is I guess a pre-Google world...so how would "Call 411 and ask for the number of main naval base in Bethesda, MD" work? Just curious how the operator did these lookups?

<comment><USER31> Unless I'm remembering wrong, 411 only gave directory assistance for your area code. To get the phone number for a naval base in another state, he would need to dial that area code plus 555-1212 to contact the local directory assistance for that location. Might be wrong though. Where I grew up there was a charge for using directory assistance so my parent prohibited us from ever using it instead of the phone book.

<comment><USER32> Haha. I remember phone charges for stuff like that. *69 to see who called you was 50 cents. So many nickel and dime charges. Of course, back then, monthly phone bills weren't equal to a healthy percentage of a car payment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Adam Savage (Myth Busters) once got a call from FBI because of a Star Wars movie prop (thermal detonator) he was making for a project.

He meant to call his supervisor to leave a voicemail regarding the thermal detonator prop used in Star Wars, but apparently it was left at a wrong number. And that random person called FBI because he heard thermal detonator in the voicemail.

Here's the link :) [https://youtu.be/ZjpPgv9XtJA?t=1008](https://youtu.be/ZjpPgv9XtJA?t=1008)

</comment><comment><USER34> I can't help but feel like the author sounds excessively credulous.

I had to stop reading after he wrote "I could tell something big was up and there simply wasn't time to debate the merits of handing over my source code to the NSA", because at that point my eyes rolled so hard they fell right out the back of my head.

After I put them back in, I skipped down to the comments. I have a hard time not agreeing vehemently with the top comment on the post, which says:

"You took time off your vacation to help the shadiest government agency on the planet do God-knows-what, as well as give them your IP for free. In addition, your ignorance and glee motivated you write this propaganda post, helping their cause, all for the price of a mug with a fancy sticker on it."

<comment><USER35> I'm sorry but if you think the NSA is the shadiest government agency on the planet, then you live in an information bubble.

Do you think the NSA is shadier than the KGB? What about the Iranian Revolutionary Guard? Or even the CIA?

I know people are upset about the Snowden revelations but there are much graver sins that have been committed by other agencies.

<comment><USER36> Whataboutism

<comment><USER37> Not really, a comparison was implied. They didn't say "shady agency", they said "shadiest", which makes a claim and invites dispute about the others' relative shadiness.

<comment><USER38> I felt like "shadiest" was hyperbole meant to mean "very shady". Also while the others mentioned might be bad, the NSA is probably the "best" at being covert and probably the most active of all of them. So they might truly be the "shadiest" by sheer volume of covert things they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> What I find interesting about this article is that the poster was apparently permitted by the NSA to share his experience publicly...

Compare and contrast this with National Security Letters, which apparently (based on the ones that I have seen, that have been publicly posted on the Internet by other people) request or require absolute secrecy...

</comment><comment><USER40> Interesting read. I wonder whether this was an attempt at social engineering†? While we tend to think of the NSA (or other foreign agencies in this field) working on intercepting information only through electronic means, sometimes a direct approach is often easier (obligatory - xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/538/](https://xkcd.com/538/)).

Perhaps all they wanted was the source code of his application to repackage (after introducing a backdoor) and distribute it on the internet or directly to targets of interest ... perhaps it was part of his training ...

† _Social Engineering ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(security)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_\(security\))) in the context of information security, is the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information._

<comment><USER41> Only works if the 411 call was MiTMd.

 _edit_

I was confused and my reply is confusing. I was trying to say that a third party could have stolen the source code by MiTMing the 411 call.

<comment><USER40> I meant perhaps NSA agents are trained in social engineering too. Or it may not have been the NSA, but FBI or CIA or even Military Intelligence too, pretending to be NSA.

<comment><USER41> You think the NSA impersonated themselves?

<comment><USER40> I meant it may have been a real NSA agent, acting on actual orders, but that he may have lied to get access to source code. If so he wouldn't need to do any MitM attack.

<comment><USER41> The NSA agent's goal was to get the source code, but he lied about why he wanted it. Fair enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think the question asked by the author at the end was already answered by Snowden.

</comment><comment> grayed-down Should have just driven to Ft Meade and had "Dave" meet you at the gate. It's only a 3 1/2 hour drive...

</comment><comment><USER43> I would have demanded, at a minimum, to be told exactly how the NSA located me in exchange for my source code.

</comment><comment><USER44> The cup is probably a listening device.

</comment><comment><USER45> Isn't it always after midnight?

</comment><comment><USER46> Dave really does know everyone.

</comment><comment><USER47> Handing stuff over to the supposed feds with no reasoning or warrant is not exactly something to be proud of.

<comment><USER48> It was pre-9/11, no? The world was a different place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> 2018

</comment><comment><USER50> Mitnick?

<comment> at-fates-hands Probably not. Mitnick was just getting out of jail in 2000.

I was thinking along the same lines though. Who were some high profile hackers that were on the FBI/NSA most wanted list?

Max Butler maybe? Aleksey Ivanov?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> this is from 2018

</comment><comment><USER52> So, if his encryption was implemented perfectly the source code would do nothing to speed up decryption. Author admits this in the 2018 thread. If there was some bug or oversight, he gave the NSA a way to break into millions of machines. So should we conclude author doesn't trust his own software as advertised?

Without even getting into the social engineering possibility. I don't see a way this looks good for the author.

</comment><comment><USER53> > But seriously, this laptop idiot was planning to blow up a building, or > something equally as bad, but wasn't smart enough or flush enough to pop for > the $39.99 to step up to the maximum-strength encryption?

Says the developer who could have been social engineered to give away what he had done by being rushed in a way that others would perhaps call 'not smart enough'.

And where does the skill set of knowing about encryption come close to what someone needs to know in order to 'blow up a building'? Why would you expect that someone understands the difference or the risk? Or should? After all it's risky to begin with what they are doing. This is just another and different risk.

Now the question is if you were the NSA and of course I have no clue how they operate but maybe it would have made more sense to send the local police to a house to deliver the message AND the other part 'call this number' etc. And who knows how that could have been fake for that matter (it all hinged on calling 411 as being definitive and/or someone not intercepting a legit call). Sure someone could social engineer the local police to show up (I would think that would be easy for someone who knows how they operate or with whoever is on shift at that time).

Also the coffee cup is strange. Secretive agency but they send a gift as a thank you with their name so you have some kind of proof that allows you to detail how they operate and that they did this? Would make more sense that they got you to agree to not reveal they had requested the info not that they gave you some kind of bragging rights and story.</comment>


Why barns are painted red (answer: physics of fusion) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/how-the-price-of-paint-is-set-in-the-hearts-of-dying-stars-c33e520186a8#.m7cfwjwiu <comment><USER2> See also these similar threads: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1688324](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1688324)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5822301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5822301)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9045513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9045513)

</comment><comment><USER3> The funny thing is, if you go back and look at the time he's referring to, most barns were white (painted with whitewash), not red. It was much easier to make whitewash; only people with access to lots of iron oxides can make red paint. Red paint being the most common color for barns is a relatively recent phenomenon.

<comment><USER2> Isn't whitewash more expensive?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1688324](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1688324)

<comment><USER4> Iron oxide is cheap if you live near an iron or copper mine because it's a waste product.

Otherwise, lime or chalk should be easier to get.

<comment><USER2> > Iron oxide is cheap if you live near an iron or copper mine because it's a > waste product

Animal blood is cheaper.

<comment><USER3> Yes, but if you're like me and went back and read all the old journals and almanacs, you'll find that almost nobody made paint this way. Paint was made from flax seed / linseed oil, lime and milk (all of these are more plentiful than animal blood), not iron oxide or blood. Other alternatives include eggs (also more common than blood), flour and dirt.

(source: hours of reading up 100+ year old farmer's books, since I work with Yonatan, and based my replies to him on primary data. In short, he took a very nice science concept and wrapped a just-so story around it).

BTW, if you're interested in recreating society after the fall, various calcium/carbon products like lime and chalk is going to be the first thing you need to obtain after a good supply of water and food.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 'Cause da red wunz go fasta!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ork_%28Warhammer_40,000%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ork_%28Warhammer_40,000%29)</comment>


Tech4000: Kid gets Xbox 360, loses mind - <AUTHOR> http://tech4000.blogspot.com/2009/12/kid-gets-xbox-360-loses-mind.html <comment><USER2> I loved the primal howl. I think if your product can induce that you're going to have some very happy customers.</comment>


Senate Passes Bill Exposing Saudi Arabia to 9/11 Legal Claims - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/us/politics/senate-passes-bill-that-would-expose-saudi-arabia-to-legal-jeopardy-over-9-11.html <comment><USER2> Admittedly I'm neither American nor an expert in international affairs, but if taken down to a personal level, I'd rather be taken to court than bombed into oblivion.

</comment><comment><USER3> So does this not open the door to pretty much everyone suing the US? As far as deaths and destruction on foreign soil, nobody beats good ol America.

<comment><USER4> I can't tell if you're genuinely asking or just making a snarky point, but no. It's a US Law pertaining to "foreign" governments, so I don't see how it could apply to the US Government. And it will be vetoed anyway.

<comment><USER5> Obviously, but it would set a precedent for other countries to pass similar laws in retaliation. Same reason the U.S. keeps relatively quiet about China's corporate hacking.

<comment><USER6> Other countries could pass similar laws anyway, they don't because they know the US will just ignore them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apparently, the bill has been substantially neutered:

[https://www.justsecurity.org/31156/senate-killed-jasta- passe...](https://www.justsecurity.org/31156/senate-killed-jasta-passed-it/)

<comment><USER8> >> various members of the royal family indeed helped to finance the attacks.

IIRC the attacks were forcing some planes to run into two skyscrapers. What financing was necessary for it other than the plane tickets?

<comment><USER9> That is a massively simplification and frankly very wrong.

Several of the 9/11 Hijackers enrolled in flight schools:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_attacks)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_of_the_September_11_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_of_the_September_11_attacks)

And were otherwise supported to operate inside the US for many months.

<comment><USER10> Apart from getting in the country and finding a job, isn't that something that they could each finance personally, individually? Especially with a bit of credit, as they didn't have long-term credit rating concerns.

<comment><USER9> From Wikipedia:

>> The 9/11 Commission stated in their final report that the "9/11 plotters eventually spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct their attack"

Still a non-trivial amount of financial support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They said they were going to sell their treasuries recently, so we might as well not let them do that while lawsuits are pending...

</comment><comment><USER12> This is so fucking absvrd it is almost as bad as giving Charlie Sheen a real estate empire and a trucker hat and letting him run for president on a platform of "winning so much America might get bored".

A decade and a half later, e.g. 15 fucking years after a terrorist attack we would allow people to sue a nation state because they may have played a role. Well guys, better suit up for the inbound lawsuits you would be fielding from the entire world if this precedent was set, and if it wasn't a bizarre farcical attempt at mastubatory populism* by Chuck Schumer. Except it is just that. It will never happen, and it is rediculous. 9/11 was fucking absurd, and we still don't know what the fuck happened. I mean, I don't want to go 100% jetfuel can't melt steel beams, but tower 7 just didn't suffer any structural damage, at all. So, does it make sense for some families to sue 15 years later, a country, of which some people _may_ have contributed to this? Nah.

It took fucking 6-7 years [ _and I want to be super fucking clear that I believe this and it is not sarcasm_ ] to compile a several hundred page manual on what the fuck happened to tower 7. Tower 7, as a reresher, was the tower that spontaneously dropped to the floor and did the worm even though it didn't get hit by that plane that crashed in pennsylvania. So, if you can't figure out why tall buildings are falling down after 3/4 of a decade, how the fuck are you going to let people sue a nationstate for the actions of individuals and not only prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, but then apply some sort of metric to this to quantify it financially.

Shockingly, Chuck Schumer is up for reelection in 2016. Also, as an aside (and this was true when I did the math a couple months ago) more people died from the auto-erotic asphyxiation than were either killed or rendered severely handicapped from the Zika virus.

WTF is going on.

* Sean Penn said a phrase like this and I fucking love it.

edit: While the downvotes make sense, I challenge someone to disprove the following:

* This is strictly political posturing by Chuck Schumer and will never pass & was never inteneded to.

* The concept of holding a country responsible for something like this, if applied to America, would certainly outweigh any positive it would have for the families of 9/11 victims.

* Tower 7 was fucking pulled. I know it. The core of engineers know it. And the fundamental laws of physics demand it.

<comment><USER13> > Tower 7 was fucking pulled. I know it. The core of engineers know it. And > the fundamental laws of physics demand it.

If you're going to go all 9/11 conspiracy theorist on us and make some wild claims about the core of engineers, maybe you should cite your rants.

<comment><USER12> I have another top shelf _conspiracy theory_ (such a dirty phrase), there is right now, at this very moment, a global subset of intelligience frameworks in place to monitor much of the internet traffic and provide survellience for the CIA & NSA. Some whistle blower leaked some evidence but it never went mainstream...

edit: Also, that was hyperbole you referenced however there is a group called Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth who dispute the findings. As well as other outspoken individuals.

<comment><USER13> Just because one may be true does not make some other crazy claims true. And I see you failed to cite again when you went to your 9/11 conspiracy theory.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Panera bread tries a "pay what you want" model - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2011-05-16-panera-pay-what-you-can_n.htm

<comment><USER2> I grew up in Clayton, MO, and this is the former St. Louis Bread Co (now Panera) that I have been going to since the early 90s. I live in SF, but I go back there several times a year, and I have been to this store since it went to its current pay-what-you want model.

A few observations: 1\. As the article indicates, the system is really confusing. People who haven't been there before have no idea what's going on. They ring up the total amount as if you were purchasing the food normally, and then it's up to you what to do. If you decide to pay, they can make you change. For example (IIRC), your sandwich is $7.50, you put $10 into a little donation box, and they give you change of $2.50. The first few times I went I wasn't sure what to do.

2\. It's in a fairly nice area of St. Louis (right across from the county courts+jail as well as several small high-rise office towers). There isn't a huge homeless problem like you would have in downtown SF, where it would effectively be a soup kitchen.

3\. The neighboring businesses hated it--they viewed it as a big chain driving them out of business by undercutting prices on lunch. One business on the same block posted a big sign in its front window protesting the move. I don't know if any competitors have actually closed as a result, but they certainly didn't like the idea.

4\. This location of BreadCo/Panera has always had low-price day-old bread and pastries available, iirc. They are now pay-what-you-want, which means mostly free. They keep bags of them by the door, and I have seen folks (most of whom look like they need it) take them.

Having been there a few times and as a fan of STL Bread Co, it's hard for me to believe that this would work on a large scale.

<comment><USER3> I would have loved to see the message on that other eatery's protest sign.

Do you remember which place it was?

I was just looking at what I think (may be wrong) is the Panera location mentioned in the article: [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=panera+clayton,+missouri&aq=&sll=38.642551,-90.323753&sspn=0.004859,0.004002&layer=tc&ie=UTF8&hq=panera&hnear=Clayton,+St+Louis,+Missouri&ll=38.649891,-90.338345&spn=0.027483,0.032015&t=h&z=15&lci=com.panoramio.all,com.youtube.all,com.google.webcams&cbll=38.649876,-90.338329&panoid=J932OLQIrWVpfczbj5N0Ag&cbp=12,94.01,,1,8.79)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Trivia for those who don't know, Panera was originally called "St. Louis Bread Company".

I am curious, because the article is light on details, how the company defines "success". Presumably, the company is taking a 100% loss on everything sold with all donations being passed on. Is "success" defined as accumulating donations approximately equal to to the cost of running that location? With all the good will advertising on top?

<comment><USER5> The article says "Overall, the cafe performs at about 80% of retail and brings in revenue of about $100,000 a month. That's enough to generate $3,000 to $4,000 a month above costs, money being used for a job training program for at-risk youths." so it sounds like success includes being profitable. It doesn't seem like Panera is as quite as charitable as you thought.

<comment><USER6> And, it doesn't sound like much of a success. If they just donated the profits from that store to charity, the charity would presumably receive $24k per month.

That being said, it is nice to know that a little faith in humanity doesn't result in a disaster.

<comment><USER7> > And, it doesn't sound like much of a success. If they just donated the > profits from that store to charity, the charity would presumably receive > $24k per month.

That analysis appears to forget the charity given directly by the store to those people who weren't able to pay for all of their food, but were able to have birthday meals and whatnot they could not otherwise have afforded.

I understand the thinking, but there's something to be said for not optimizing everything away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd heard about this when they instituted it - great to see some statistics about its success!

</comment><comment><USER9> Panera is run by the founder-in-effect of the Au Bon Pain chain well known to Cantabrigians.

At one point he decided to leave behind Au Bon Pain and switch horses, kicking off Panera's nationwide expansion:

[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_07/b42150921...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_07/b4215092151745.htm)

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if homeless people take advantage of the cafe? What do they do about that?

<comment><USER11> The first time I saw "pay what you want" at a cafe was in Salt Lake City, UT. It was right next to the Utah College of Massage Therapy in an upper-middle class neighborhood.

I went in there a few times. Most people actually overpaid a little bit, throwing in like a $10 when they got a coffee, main course, and a snack (this was 10 years ago, would've cost maybe $7 to $8 at the time normally).

Some people did take a meal and only put in $1 or whatever, but not too many and that's probably more than compensated by people who overpay a little. The key is probably where your location is.

<comment><USER12> Downtown, around 300 E and South Temple? That's not really upper middle class per se, it's really just mixed, but it can seem like that. I lived two blocks away in a one bedroom apartment which rented for $400/mo. On the flip side, I know the apartments across the street are one or two bedroom and rent for about $1000+/mo. Just saying, if it's where I think it is, that's a fairly mixed neighborhood, and about 3 more blocks to the north/northwest you start getting into Rose Park. It's kind of like calling the Mission in SF upper middle class... I mean it is, but it's not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Generally, peer pressure prevents that sort of behavior, he said. "It's like > parking in a handicapped spot," Shaich said.

> "The lesson here is most people are fundamentally good," Shaich said. > "People step up and they do the right thing."

Interesting contradiction here. Is it peer pressure or fundamental goodness?

<comment><USER14> If people weren't fundamentally good would there be peer pressure to give more than you need to?

<comment><USER15> I'll play devil's advocate:

Damn right they would. Your argument assumes that if they aren't good, they must be evil. This is plain wrong. Many people are neither, and just float in between. Society and peer pressure in general serve to drag people towards the more honest side of the spectrum. Arguably, it's the reason society exists at all. We gather together and make up some rules (that ostensibly make us give up some things) in order to make life and relations more predictable and tame.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment>----

Slightly related tangent with devil's advocate level 2:

In contrast, if people aren't fundamentally evil, why can't we do without society?</comment>


Ask HN: How should i acquire my first 100 customers? - <AUTHOR> Hello Everyone, I am going to launch my product with in 20 days and what i am looking for advice and tips that work for you and that you think can work for me. It could be anything. I am hoping for going door to door for acquiring my first 100 or 200 customers. <comment><USER2> Hustle as hard as you can. Read, "Do things that don't scale" by Paul Graham for inspiration. Acquiring customers is as important as building a good MVP, actually, more important. If you struggle to think where to find your first 100 customers it's usually a sign for caution. Get them by whatever (legal and honest) means necessary. If you are solving a real problem, complete strangers will gladly try your product. So again, try everything: Reddit, Twitter, Facebook Groups, Forums, Coffee Shops, Shopping Malls, etc. Get Out of the Building! If your target customer doesn't sign up quickly, pivot. There are better uses of your time.

Small tip: describe your product in the description of this post and link to it. You might find your first 5 customers here or generate word of mouth. Lost opportunity. Try to be reasonably shameless. If you are solving a problem no one will find you distasteful. People love to be sold good stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are about to launch within 15 to 20 days. I will post it here when it will be completed.

<comment><USER3> Not sure if you've done launched a product before but I'll describe my experience at my last company.

We built amazing technology that crawled Yelp, Google, foursquare, Facebook, citysearch, superpages, etc. and we displayed listing info, likes, checkins, ratings, and reviews all in one place. Even better, we let businesses update their info in our dashboard and we pushed it out to the sites. We let them reply to and flag reviews in our dashboard and we posted them on the sites. We spent from 2010 to 2013 building all this tech, and all the devs kept pushing the founders to get it in the hands of customers but they kept insisting that we have a "finished" product first.

So in 2013 when we had all the features in place we launched our beta and while people signed up, in app usage patterns showed they didn't do much. It turns out that small businesses don't really care about anything outside yelp or Facebook (TripAdvisor for some) and they can do that manually. If only we had asked them first...

The next 2 years were spent retooling the app to serve franchise and multilocation customers (the most active customers turned out to be part of bigger chains so we went after these). If the founders had gone out to talk to customers before we started writing code, we could have learned this first.</comment></comment></comment>


InterCity 125: Hundreds bid farewell to high speed train - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-bristol-48327745/intercity-125-hundreds-bid-farewell-to-high-speed-train <comment><AUTHOR> As usual, the BBC don't research their articles properly.

The reality is that GWR are removing "full-set diagram" HST's (or Class 43's) with 8/9 carriages, from their long distance operations, e.g. Paddington to Penzance, Wales etc). These long distance routes are being replaced with Class 80X's made by Hitachi. You'll still see "HST"'s on GWR operated local routes but as "Castle Sets" running with four carriages and replacing older DMU's. Fifty six of GWR's Class 43's are being redeployed to ScotRail as part of their "Inter7City" programme and are being refurbished by Wabtec to have automatic doors and modern human waste disposal tanks, and other upgrades (better WiFi, USB power etc). On ScotRail they'll run as 4/5 carriage diagrams when fully deployed.

But that said, it's a wee bit of a sad day for Class 43 fans whence once across Paddington's platforms was lined up with Kenneth Grange's design icon ready to depart to the west country.</comment>


Traceability on the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/8/229771-traceability/fulltext <comment><USER2> > _This is an example of differential traceability; the police department has > the authority to demand ownership information from the Department of Motor > Vehicles that issues the license plates. Ordinary citizens do not have this > authority_

This is a _fantastic example_ , but not in the way he intends!

While it is only the DMV that has the official database of license plate numbers, simply having attached a unique identifier to each car means that we're trivially subject to all sorts of independently-implemented surveillance, from the lone PI stalking a target to the wide scale ANPR dragnets we're currently grappling with. In fact I'd go so far as to say that in the face of modern technology, the current implementation of license plates _is a gross rights violation_.

As other commenters have noted, where is this glaring threat? We've had Eternal September for 25 years and this "harmful behavior" has yet to manifest in a way that can't be solved by a combination of good old fashioned policing and Postel's law. Yet we repeatedly hear this tired refrain of ominous ne'er- do-wells who simply must be stopped.

The current concern is harassment on quasi-public communications platforms like Twitter. Yet Twitter is _already operating with everyone having a nym_ , and still not succeeding at the goals each of its critics envisions. Making these nyms more permanent doesn't change the actual technical difficulty of the problem of moderation!

If we're concerned about "social network bullying and misinformation", then we should first demand to see progress on the topic from independent entities that can each try many approaches and fail in isolation. Changing the Internet to have a baked-in totalitarian identification regime and assuming these platforms will _then_ address our wishes is downright foolish.

<comment><USER3> I never realized license plates were able to be utilized by a well funded private data aggregation operation. Great observation. How far do we have to go with allowances for information and actions that are taunts for death and destruction? It seems to me that the only fair way to shape society and well..shared reality..is to allow everyone to do everything and anything and allow others who feel strongly to enact responses..ie punishments.

This will eventually maybe be the case ala Star Wars, independent agents roaming reality, with no law other than consequence by others.

It seems this is untenable too because it evolves into unfair reality, biased on wealth and capital of weaponry and defense. Not only physically but on a knowledge and information and technological basis.

Isnt the real underlying archtype of license plates and well..any authoritarian laws by the government a sort of protectionism for those of us without the money for defense and offense of our own free persons?

[1] [https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA](https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA)

I am libertarian..but freedom in reality is a function of resources. So I cannot square this circle... laws are a hard issue.

<comment><USER2> You're really just describing an anarcho (-capitalist) framework. Which is fine, but isn't actually libertarianism, anarchism, or really any -ism without accompanying _heuristics_. Essentially your first three paragraphs describe what _we already have_ , just in different terms - really, read them with that in mind.

The real questions are about who gets that power, how it accumulates, and what that power _is actually able to compel_. Ancap/Libertarianism subscribe to an assumption that markets are generally efficient, and so kind of throw up their hands with regards to these questions _in the small_.

> _Isnt the real underlying archtype of license plates and well..any > authoritarian laws by the government a sort of protectionism for those of us > without the money for defense and offense of our own free persons?_

No, not inherently. For instance, one can also say that authoritarian laws by the government are to serve those _with_ the resources funding the government, in order to enact _their_ agenda. Both are right, but not completely.

One of the biggest instances of market inefficiency is the power dynamics of a given situation, which are indeed effected by technology. For instance, a gang of four thugs can easily beat and rob you with impunity. But if all five of you have _guns_ , then that gang has to weigh the risk that you might just get a lethal shot off [0]. That is a qualitative change to the dynamics of the situation.

To bring things back to a very concrete example about the current topic, we all know how draining and damaging being the target of a baseless lawsuit by a well-funded adversary is. If one can only post online along with their real name, that means every small-fry whistleblower or critic is under immediate threat by this type of might-makes-right retaliation. Whereas if one is able to post anonymously, then they have an opportunity to _completely sidestep_ being attacked in this manner.

[0] disclaimer: of course, maybe we don't think that people getting shot all the time is the type of chaos to structure a society around, but that was _an example_ not a universal _endorsement_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This position invites a slippery slope which will lead to the identification of us all at all times. Especially, to suggest giving the power of traceability to "official" law enforcement only is a really bad recommendation.

Did you forget what happened at the NSA?

Please don't make these recommendations while using the name Vint Cerf, father of the Internet. It sends a bad signal as if you (supporting traceability) are not the minority here.

I have had enough of my /heroes/ supporting backdoors. Please stop it. I hate working against you (supporting anonymity is clearly something you don't wish to achieve). :(

<comment><USER5> What we've learned over the past year or two is that everything we all used to worry about NSA doing, Facebook is ACTUALLY doing.

I was also one of those misled, and now know the NSA has controls and a democratic governance structure atop them (as do the other four agencies in UK, Canada, NZ, Aus) that restrict what they do for lawful, democratically- endorsed uses only.

Surveillance capitalism at Facebook (good description here: [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_ca.html) ) is a bigger threat to democracies.

<comment><USER4> > lawful, democratically-endorsed uses only.

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

<comment><USER5> Yes, but note from the page: those unauthorized accesses were _reported_ and the employees were _sanctioned_ including demotion, etc.

On the private side, it can be worse, because the governance structure is not always there.

[https://bgr.com/2016/12/13/uber-privacy-and- security/](https://bgr.com/2016/12/13/uber-privacy-and-security/)

 _Uber employees helped ex-boyfriends stalk ex-girlfriends, and were even able to access trip information for celebrities like Beyoncé, Reveal News explains. These revelations come from the company's former in-house forensic investigator Ward Spangenberg._

Agreed from comment above this one - it's a problem both for govts and for private industry. I think what democratic societies need is an agreed framework for how as a society we regulate such data collection (as Schneier argues in the link I posted above, or as Doctorow has recently argued.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Even _if_ it were somehow possible to achieve pseudonymity (i.e. permanent and unchangeable – but anonymous – identifiers), _any_ work in this area towards this goal will first be heavily funded, and later heavily co-opted, by the people wishing for actual identification without pseudonyms, and this will ultimately then be presented as the only possible technical solution. The large companies in the field will then adopt the completed "standard", thereby forcing every user of their services to use it, and any form of actual anonymity or even pseudonymity will then have been lost.

We have seen this phenomenon before in other fields. Large actors provide funding for groups with ostensibly beneficial goals, and the funders then influence the groups' work towards the actor's own desires, often subverting the goal of the original group completely, but getting the percieved aura of legitimacy of the original group onto the subverted standard.

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't the point of RMS and others in the libre-internet movement that it's exactly those groups that Cerf identifies, namely governments, that we want to ensure don't have unique traceability capabilities because they also have coercive capabilities?

</comment><comment><USER8> When I visited Tim Berners-Lee's SOLID project, I recommended one thing to them: do NOT have one canonical WebID for everything.

I had to grapple with these issues years ago and here are some solutions:

[http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114](http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114)

</comment><comment><USER9> > In most societies today, it is accepted that we must be identifiable to > appropriate authorities under certain conditions (consider border crossings, > traffic violation stops as examples). While there are conditions under which > apparent anonymity is desirable and even justifiable (whistle-blowing, for > example) absolute anonymity is actually quite difficult to achieve (another > point made at the Ditchley workshop) and might not be absolutely desirable > given the misbehaviors apparent anonymity invites.

Border crossings and traffic stops occur in meatspace, where there is some potential for an actual threat. What exactly is the threat that justifies the need to identify individuals at all times on the internet?

</comment><comment><USER10> Google Cache link: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?source=hp&ei=A...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?source=hp&ei=AttmW4bWKMSVkwXEhbLQDQ&q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fcacm.acm.org%2Fmagazines%2F2018%2F8%2F229771-traceability%2Ffulltext&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fcacm.acm.org%2Fmagazines%2F2018%2F8%2F229771-traceability%2Ffulltext&gs_l=psy- ab.3...921.1793.0.2006.7.7.0.0.0.0.89.3126.96.36.199....0...1c.2.64.psy- ab..1.5.282...0j0i131k1.0.mAVsfQujqe8)

</comment><comment><USER11> LGBT friends of mine defend anonymity for the protections it seemingly affords similar youngsters - but as more of the real world moves online then more of the bad actors move too.

We have traceability IRL and we can choose how much bad behaviour we are willing to tolerate - and it is that choice that we need to focus on, what society is willing to let slide not anonymity.

it's not a protection. we can let it go.

</comment><comment><USER12> It would make a lot of sense. The fact that currently there isn't a single unique identifier per online user allows for an unregulated environment. Obviously, there are things like IPs, the mobile device identifies (phone number...) or even single-sign-on platforms but the bottom line is that there isn't something that is unique per user and platform independent. Should there be a unique credential per user just to access anything online? From the security perspective, you would definitely say yes but you could also imagine that this could be taken too far

[http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-china-is-watching-its- citi...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/how-china-is-watching-its-citizens-in- a-modern-surveillance-state-2018-4)

<comment><USER13> You're basically describing "The digital imprimatur" [1]. It will absolutely be abused to hell and back if implemented, starting with "it's for the children", going through "artists must get paid" and arriving at "we have always been at war with Eastasia".

[1] [https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital- imprimatur/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/)</comment></comment>


The Plasma Magnet Drive: A Simple, Cheap Drive for the Solar System and Beyond - <AUTHOR> https://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=39048 <comment> radford-neal The article says that since the thrust is always away from the Sun, it can't be used for inward journeys. But if I'm thinking correctly, this isn't necessarily true.

If you're in a circular orbit, and run this for a while (short compared to orbital period), then turn it off, I think you'll be in an elliptical orbit with perihelion lower than your initial orbit. If when you reach perihelion there happens to be a convenient planet with an atmosphere, you could aerobrake and either land or maybe continue in a circular orbit closer to the sun than your original orbit.

<comment><USER2> Or perhaps, if you can only accelerate away from the sun, you just aim for a gravity well at aphelion and turn off as you approach, swing round it and float back towards where you want to go. You then turn the engine on to decelerate when you near your destination?

(full disclosure: never played KSP)

<comment><USER3> I'd imagine this is the easiest solution for improving mission flexibility.

If the only rules are "only accelerate away from the nearest star", that doesn't preclude using a planetary gravity field to also adjust your orbit.

E.g. Making small course corrections in interstellar space (or simply mission planning exactly enough) so that you hit a planet's gravity well on insertion into the destination solar system, thereby slinging yourself into a more manageable eliptical orbit (and potentially burning something else at the right point to change your orbit)

I'd also be really curious on how something like this works in the area of interaction between a planetary magnetosphere and the "sail" (e.g: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere#/media/File%3A...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere#/media/File%3AStructure_of_the_magnetosphere- en.svg) ). Looks complicated!

<comment><USER4> The field generated by the drive is in the realm of 50 nanoteslas, and Earth's geomagnetic field for example is in the microtesla range. I don't think it really matters though, because the magnetic field around a planet redirects solar wind, and that alone would be enough to screw up this drive. In my opinion this is something you use for the interstellar leg of the journey, and you would avoid planets while the drive is on. That isn't really a problem though, because other than a relatively short trip away from Earth, you'd be avoiding planets and building up momentum. To make this work, you'd be going at a hell of s clip relative to any other planets you'd come across, and you'd be a tiny mass to boot.

You'd probably just sail on past, with a deviation in course, but not orbit or a 180. For any gravitational maneuver, you could rely on momentum and shut down the drive, restarting for the return leg.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Claim 5 is a bit puzzling to me :

A key feature of the plasma magnet is that the diameter of the magnetosphere increases as the density of the solar wind decreases as it expands away from the sun. The resulting expansion exactly matches the decrease in density, ensuring constant thrust. Therefore the plasma magnet has a constant acceleration irrespective of its position in the solar system.

I'm not 100% sure about the science here, but the "exactly" looks a bit magical to me. If I understand the concept correctly, when the sail is closer to the sun, the particles "pressure" on the sail will "compress" and reduce its effective area.

<comment><USER6> Without having studied the equations, but having seen similar phenomenon occur in other work my guess would be that the equation to determine the total area of the magnetosphere (let's say A = M(V,r) where A is the area and V is applied voltage and r is the distance from the sun) includes a component based on the density of the solar wind at that position.

The component is likely in the denominator because as solar wind density goes down we'd expect the magnetosphere size to increase.

Now, the solar pressure is something like P=S(r) where P is the pressure and r is the distance from the sun and S contains some geometry and solar power terms.

If we look at M(V) we could probably then find an M'(V) s.t. M(V,r) = M'(V) / S(r). To get the force produced by the drive we'd take M(V,r) * S(r) which cancels out all radius terms.

Mathematically this would indicate that the thrust on the magnetosphere would be invariant for all r within the solar system (after that point other terms within S() and M() that are based on solar output would likely start to break down)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From a different source...

 _(One possible barrier is a magnetic field of 50nT at or beyond 4 km. To create such a field using an electromagnet requires very large-scale engineering, for example a circular electromagnet 300m in radius carrying 10^5 amp-turns. While such an electromagnet is not impossible, it would likely be so massive that the relatively modest thrust coupled from the solar wind would provide accelera tion too slow to be of interest._

[http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/space/PlasmaMag/](http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/space/PlasmaMag/)

So we just need some novel superconductors, a portable fusion plant, and then we're set! /s

More depth: [http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/860Sloug...](http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/860Slough.pdf)

Edit: Corrected formatting errors. Thanks for the heads up!

<comment><USER7> Well, it's a novel superconductor _or_ a portable fusion plant.

Still, when you pasted it here, the 10^5 A-turns become 105 A-turns. For anybody that looks at it and thinks "hum... seems almost viable", it's just a formatting error :)

EDIT: Oh, but the proposed conductor is plasma composed of solar wind particles. It is reasonable to get a coil much larger than 300m with those.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For more history on this, see the magnetic sail proposed by Dana Andrews and Robert Zubrin in 1988:

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

They found that it wasn't very efficient for acceleration but could be used for braking (for example by a light craft propelled by laser to another solar system).

Also tacking works by angling the force to increase or decrease orbital velocity. This assumes that plasma drives can be used for acceleration, and I think that they probably can with the right geometry/technique and were abandoned prematurely. And they obviously can when used with something like nuclear power where avoiding the need to carry propellant is more important than efficiency.

<comment><USER9> The coolest part about decelerating with such a system is that when you encounter the solar wind and deflect it at high speeds, you're going to generate EM radiation by accelerating the ions in the wind. So, under the right circumstances, the inhabitants of the solar system you're braking into will see an enormous glowing bubble in space as you arrive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Formatting problems are making it start out pretty much unreadable for me on Firefox on Mac [1]. Whatever is laying out the text and sidebar is using a width that is much larger than the width of the white area, so part of the text and all of the sidebar end up out in the black right margin. Since the text is black, this doesn't work well.

Workaround: narrow the width of the white area. As soon as the window shrinks to that width, it changes to a format that appears to be designed for narrow devices.

The narrow layout correctly matches the width of the text display to the width of the white area.

[1] 58b014

</comment><comment><USER11> Not changing your angular momentum around the Sun limits the usefulness of this drive by a lot. Sure, you can change the shape of the ellipse that you travel. But anything that you encounter far away from the Sun will be going very fast compared to you, and you'll go very fast compared to anything that you encounter near the Sun, making actual visits very unwise.

<comment><USER3> As an interstellar carrier it's perfect though.

Boost a limited-duration (aka small mass) craft at unsustainable acceleration to dock with an interstellar transiting ship, then detach and decelerate on the other end.

All the while you're able to continue increasing the interstellar ship's velocity. Limited only by the max velocity you can feasibly intercept.

By being propellantless, it essentially takes mass considerations out of the interstellar transit system (given enough time).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The CSS is badly broken for me.

</comment><comment><USER13> Might regenerative braking at the destination star be possible? If so, nearly all of the stored energy could be depleted in acceleration, leaving just enough to bootstrap deceleration.

<comment><USER14> Yes, but. Yes, you can get energy out of slowing down with any conductor passing through a magnetic field, _but_ spaceflight uses so much energy that current electrical energy storage is essentially as irrelevant to propulsion as clockwork would be.

<comment><USER13> So I think you are saying that only nuclear has the required energy density for acceleration.

Even so, it would be nice to carry much less of the stuff, or a faster decaying material, if regenerative braking provides enough power to almost completely power the magnetosphere upon arrival.

<comment><USER14> Mainly I'm saying batteries currently suck. If you can make a nuclear battery (Hafnium isomer, perhaps), that would work, but it would probably also make M2P2 obsolete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've heard about solar sails for decades. Why have we never created one? Is there something limiting its development besides money?

<comment><USER16> The short answer is that we have:

[http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/lightsail-solar- sa...](http://www.planetary.org/explore/projects/lightsail-solar-sailing/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> does anyone have better details on the plasma magnet, i still am not specifically wrapping my head around it's construction. looked at sources and still can't make sense of it

</comment><comment><USER18> Shouldn't they be able to tack "upwind" to go towards the sun?

<comment><USER3> "Tacking" (more technically, the non-downwind vector of a segment of tacking) only works because sailboats are pushing against a resisting vector, neutralizing one directional component of the wind vector (usually a centreboard).

See: [http://asianyachting.com/aymasters/l1tech&man.htm](http://asianyachting.com/aymasters/l1tech&man.htm)

<comment><USER19> You can't neutralize a component, but a solar sail vessel would not need to: diverting a fraction of the force retrograde (without neutralizing the rest) would be enough to turn a stable orbit into a spiral towards the sun.

Edit: But the way I understand the plasma magnet drive it would not be able to divert the force vector at all. It could still travel in both directions by modulating the throttle after using other means of propulsion to "replace" some orbital speed with solar drag, but it would never match the speed of its orbital peers. Maybe useful as a complement to conventional solar sails ("solar spinnaker")?

<comment><USER3> To put it another way, my reading of the article is that it only provides an acceleration vector directly away from the nearest star.

That can be used for propellant-massless acceleration (leaving solar system) and deceleration (entering solar system), but cannot _power_ any other maneuvers.

(But of course auxiliary drives of a different type could)

<comment><USER20> As I understand it, that's because the field is spherical. If you place a sphere in a river it can only go straight downstream. However if you combine two or more spheres in a line and angle that line with respect to the flow, it's possible to move diagonally downstream to reach either shore.

<comment><USER3> True, but the magnitude of any locally-tangential component to a spacecraft would be relative to the angular difference in the spheres' locations, relative to the nearest star. No?

Which is to say, impractical for any substantial radius from the solar system's center.

<comment><USER20> Right, it wouldn't exactly turn on a dime. :D Still, being able to turn _at all_ dramatically increases the usefulness of the drive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The US doesn't even produce any plutonium anymore and NASA has to buy fuel from Russia and then deal with protestors when they try and test power plants that would be able to last long enough and be durable enough to get us to Mars. Activists have halted much of the worlds energy research.

<comment> gene-h The US does in fact produce plutonium 238 now, not much but production is being scaled up[0]. From what I understand, most of the issues with developing new nuclear power sources stem from funding shortages. NASA canceled their Prometheus nuclear reactor program, which was to provide hundreds of kilowatts of power for a Europa orbiter, because the Constellation program needed more money. Most recently, NASA canceled the Advanced Stirling Radioisotopic Generator because development costs had risen more than expected[1].

Although there might be some encouraging results soon, NASA is supposed to be finishing testing of the new Kilopower nuclear reactor at the Nevada test site soon.[2] Next step after this breadboard test is building an integrated system. If they can get to that point, they will have solved much of NASA's problems with plutonium. A nuclear reactor can use uranium fuel which is much simpler to procure than Pu-238.

[0][https://www.space.com/36217-plutonium-238-nuclear- spacecraft...](https://www.space.com/36217-plutonium-238-nuclear-spacecraft- fuel-production.html)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Stirling_radioisotope...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Stirling_radioisotope_generator)

[2][https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/feature/Powering...](https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/feature/Powering_Up_NASA_Human_Reach_for_the_Red_Planet)</comment></comment>