Ask HN: How much do React Native developers cost? - <AUTHOR> I need to build an in-house development team for a product which was originally built in ReactNative by a consultants firm. Can anyone share their experiences, how much a ReactNative developer can cost on average? <comment><USER2> I'm a React and React Native consultant in Indianapolis. $100k for mid-level is about right, but the cities you listed (New York, Boston, San Diego) push that number to $125k+. I have some availability if you're interested in a contractor, and if you don't want a contractor I'd be happy to help with any advice I can (email is in my profile).

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on where you are and what level of technical management skills you have.

Quotes in this thread will come from places that push out apps based on templates and without any sort of long term maintenance plan (thats why they seem cheap). They will cost you more time and money over the short and long run.

What are your technical management skills? People forget that cheap developers tend to need to be managed a lot due to language barriers, time zone differences, and other factors. When you hire a more expensive developer you are also hiring someone who can manage the project (to a greater degree). Freeing you from many headaches and time sinks.

Cost will be around 2500 to 4000 a week depending on their amount of experience. More expensive hires are available but they have more demand and do get to pick who they work with.

Have you ever built a software product?

If not, you should go with more experienced people that can manage themselves.

</comment><comment><USER4> It depends but I usually charge no less than 50$/ hour. That's if you want someone who fully understands GraphQL, Redux, Sagas, Thunks, Generators, Offline Persistence, etc

<comment><USER5> Fyi you're charging a lot less than I used to when doing contract work that predominantly involved wordpress template brochure websites.

<comment><USER6> I'll second this. I routinely counsel clients to plan on spending 75/hr for a junior to mid level developer if they want someone competent, 100-110/hr for someone senior level, and 125-150/hr if they're trying to roll multiple skill sets into a single contractor or firm.

The biggest mistake you can make as a contractor is underpricing yourself. Not only does it hurt the market but you can find yourself in situations where you can't work enough hours to cover taxes, downtime, benefits like health insurance, much less a vacation. Then you start making mistakes like overbooking yourself to make up the difference and do a crappy job with all of your projects.

<comment><USER7> When I was consulting we charged 125 an hour for any small jobs, like less than two work weeks. The problem with small jobs is that the overhead from meetings, paperwork, phone calls, design, server setup, etc is routinely more than the time it takes to actually write the software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://angel.co/salaries](https://angel.co/salaries) is pretty useful to answer those questions

</comment><comment><USER9> 85-110k depending on location and experience

<comment><USER10> This number sounds about right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is not that they cost much more then regular js devs, it is that their skills fluctuate and it is hard to figure out who has them.

In a way, that is a problem with whole js ecosystem, but here is especially pronounced.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hi I am currently living in Argentina, willing to do a remote job if you need. I would expect something around 5.5k a month email me if you would be interested. (jcdotinha14 at gmail dot com) I wouldn't mind working for free for the first two weeks to show you my skills.

</comment><comment><USER13> To give you an example, at JSapp.me we can develop a react native MVP app (includes real time social, geoloc, messaging, push notif) for $5000 within 3 weeks.

<comment><USER14> I opened your page (JSapp.me) and as I scroll down it starts jumping up and down by ~200px uncontrollably. MacOS Beta, Chrome, here

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you're open to remote staffers, you can get this done for $30-$50/hr. PM me if you want referrals.

</comment><comment><USER16> On average in what city? Do you want to oay average? How will you test their skills?

<comment><AUTHOR> City wise, we have 3 options. Boston, New York or San Diego.

I guess the best test of their skills would be a referenceable experience. A github portfolio or something.

<comment><USER3> Those three locations will increase the cost by a fair amount. Id try hiring a remote developer located in the US. Less expensive because they tend to live i areas withower costs of living.

BTW, react native is something rather new. You wont find anyone outside of the core group of react native developers who really knows it. You will probably have to include some time for training.

<comment><USER9> I would suggest something similar. Looking for remote developers if possible those are 3 of the highest salaries markets.

In terms of skill set. If you hire React developers they should do fairly well in terms of development.

Unless of course your app will need a lot of customizing then you may need someone who can understand and develop in objective-c/swift and/or Java.

<comment><USER3> Id say there is a higb likelyhood they will need someone witg react and native expeirence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looking for this role. Let me know.

</comment><comment><USER18> What location are you in?

</comment><comment><USER19> React Native let's you build faster but it doesn't mean you should pay people less. You'll just get shitty developers in the end. What it really means is you can have a smaller team so you save on costs that way. IMO it is better to have 2 great developers that work really well together than 10 crappy ones.

<comment><USER3> Thats not implied in the OPs post.

<comment><USER19> It is implied in some people's minds as they read it as I've just written this. It wasn't implied in yours so we have evidence the interpretation is subjective.

<comment><USER3> Thats called projecting. Seems you are used to dealing with cheapskates. That sucks.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for the education.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Time for *cheap* e-notebooks? - grif-fin Kindles and Tablets are getting cheaper. You can get one for 60$. It does all sort of things and some also let you use a pen on it. The kindles can go without charging for weeks.
I have a lab notebook. I wished it was electronic and I am not going to carry around my tablet around the lab as a draft e-notebook as I appreciate it more than just a notebook but my personal matter as well.
I'm sure more student and colleagues would like to replace their paper book with an electronic one if it is cheap. The only one I know right now is the Sony's E-Ink which is ~800$!
Isn't all above indicating that there is a great market opening up for mass produced cheap e-notebooks where people can literally replace their paper notebooks with? <comment><USER2> Couldn't you just buy one the $60 tablets and use that? I get your point about appreciating the tablet more than a notebook, but even if e-notebooks were dropped in price, I couldn't see it falling much below the price of the tablets in the $60 range.

I imagine that there is also a ton less demand for e-notebooks then there are for tablets, which is probably one of the major factors as to why no one is trying to mass produce them and lower the price.

<comment> grif-fin My point is if my passport had empty pages there is no chance I would bring it around and use it as notebook so tablet and e-notebook can't go to same category?

I think each student in any level of education has at least 2-3 notebooks around with them. Isn't it demand attractive?

<comment><USER3> I still don't understand why you can't have a personal tablet and a separate work tablet.

<comment> grif-fin I think the question is: if you only need to take notes and e-notebook costs $20 would you spend $600 dollars for a tablet to be used as notebook?

<comment><USER2> The only problem I see with that is that one of the reasons notebooks are so cheap is because you almost constantly need new ones. They either get filled up or worn out relatively quickly. Therefore, companies know you will have to buy more to replace the ones you've already bought. That is part of the reason they are so cheap.

The same probably wouldn't be true for e-notebooks. They could hold tons more notes and hopefully be more durable than notebooks. Due to those factors, a company who produces them knows they aren't going to have as many reoccurring sales in the future to replace the e-notebook, so they are going to likely charge more up front.

Just my opinion and maybe I am totally incorrect.

<comment> grif-fin Point taken :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The push for pen-and-tablet input has been here for two decades at least. Perhaps there are still issues? E.g. sensitivity, and possibly OCR.

Also, I can take a paper notebook anywhere and not worry that I sat on it/dropped it/dog played with it. Electronic? Game over.

<comment> grif-fin I only care about the functionality a paper notebook can do. Being able to write on it and it stays in pages. Not expecting OCR.

Lab notebooks have hard covers, the e-notebook could also have one?

<comment><USER4> Hard covers+bends a bit w/o damage. It's not just a matter of scratch- resistance, but various sorts of forces applied. But all this is solvable - <AUTHOR> guess there's not enough demand perceived from manufacturers.</comment></comment></comment>


The Art of Hacking - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/The-Art-of-Hacking/h4cker <comment><USER2> Preface: So this is just my own opinion, and I would love some more insight to this.

Having read tons of these guides, attending classes for security, and etc... These guides always feel like they are a mile wide and an inch deep. In other words, the scope is extremely broad and the content has little depth. They are great guides for sure... for starting out. I'm not sure how useful they are once you get past the beginning stages. There are many security students in my school who think they can have a successful career in security without knowing the least bit of code. Granted I'm a student, but double majored in security and programming.

It seems that all the people I know who are actually in security actually know how to program and understand the software at a great depth than those who just run through a few of these guides or attend classes or whatever. Of course my perspective is probably more narrow than most since I don't have experience in the field.

I don't know how you can reasonably secure software without knowing how it's made. From my perspective I think that learning to program has taught me much more about software security than my security classes have. So I think the first step of becoming a security engineer ought to be learning to write software.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you. More or less each one of those topics could become a treaty on the subject. Thinking broadly, one could look at security from the programming point-of-view but also from applications point-of-view, where one understands the concepts behind each issue not necessarily having to know deeper software structures to work or handle security aspects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks</comment>


Implementation of a Modern Web Search Engine Cluster. - <AUTHOR> http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/usenix03/tech/freenix03/lifantsev.html

<comment><USER2> This is from 2003, the state of the art has likely advanced a bit (but not in principle) since then.</comment>


How I learned to stop worrying and write my own ORM - <AUTHOR> http://samsaffron.com/archive/2011/03/30/How+I+learned+to+stop+worrying+and+write+my+own+ORM

<comment><USER2> I find it interesting that with all the frameworks that Microsoft builds that they (seem) to spend so little time on optimizing the code.

An interesting example is how the Entity Framework is actually slower than LINQ-to-SQL, which came before it. It's bizarre that they'd design EF to not reuse the same DB connection for multiple queries, or to cache the output of dynamically generated methods.

<comment><USER3> Adding layers of abstraction, on any platform, is generally guaranteed to be slower. Ruby and PHP are 10x slower than compiled C# and Java, for example.

The "performance" is transferred to the developer by creating higher level frameworks. Because these frameworks have to be general, they can't optimize for every use case.

<comment><USER4> That may be true, but in web-over-data scenarios architectural design issues are going to trump language choice almost every time.

Node.js is a somewhat decent example of this principle at work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sigh, once again we see the sad and sorry state of open source adoption in .NET. The choice seems to be to first have a taste of the swill Microsoft makes available and then fall back to the NIH philosophy when that doesn't cut it.

Of note here, is that nHibernate, one of the strongest ORMs for .NET (and basically what EF is attempting to copy features from) was not even mentioned or considered. It's this whole "but there's open source in there, it might touch me" attitude I find ridiculous.

Obviously I'm making assumptions here, but any discussion of ORM in .NET that doesn't even bring up nHibernate is suspect to me.</comment>


Untangling the WebRTC Flow - <AUTHOR> https://www.pkcsecurity.com/untangling-webrtc-flow.html <comment><USER2> > Step 9 · failure. Just log the error to console and call it a day.

There is not a single WebRTC guide that says anything else on the matter of error handling. There is zero guidance on how to handle fail over, what parts are recoverable, how to sequence multiple users joining a session at the same time, what to do if the signal process hangs--basically anything other the default one-to-one successful scenario. All we ever get is the same rehashing of the signalling process, for the last 5 years now. It's ridiculously bad.

I think once you understand the handshake, it make a lot of sense. But the success case is just one. And we don't need 20 guides on it with 0 on any error cases.

I've probably read 90% of the available literature, including several full length books. They pad their length with code listings, like people copy code out of books anymore. You are on your own if you are trying to develop a good app using WebRTC.

<comment><USER3> The best way to deal with this in my experience is by drawing out finite state machines that cover all possibilities and ensure that every path through the state machine ends up making forward progress towards a graceful error recovery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've found this[0] chapter has a great overview of WebRTC communication. I do wish the transports were a bit more pluggable so I could use, say, an onion service to bust NAT for me.

In general I believe WebRTC, as a set of multiple protocols, has too few full implementations (i.e. w/ the stun/turn/ice server AND client sides, media extensions, etc). I think with more implementations, WebRTC will become a decent p2p standard even without the browser. I personally am starting to toy w/ a Rust impl of some of the RFCs.

0 - [https://hpbn.co/webrtc/](https://hpbn.co/webrtc/)

<comment><USER5> I've looked at WebRTC as well, and it is a mess. Consider websockets as a protocol. So much cleaner and clearer. With WebRTC, you gotta know/implement SIP, RTP, RTSP, RTCP????

<comment><USER4> WebSockets are a completely different use case (i.e. client-server vs client- client among other things).

Also, you don't need to know/implement those protocols, library abstraction should help you avoid it. The low-level implementers do. That's like saying you have to know the WebSocket protocol/upgrade details to use it.

<comment><USER6> What's a good wrapper library that makes webrtc a bit simpler?

<comment><USER7> (author here) I've used SimpleWebRTC[0] in the past with success. It was helpful once I needed to start dealing with the annoyances of cross browser compatibility, multiparty calls, etc. You can also fork their code on github[1], which is what I ended up doing.

[0] [https://simplewebrtc.com/](https://simplewebrtc.com/)

[1] [https://github.com/andyet/SimpleWebRTC](https://github.com/andyet/SimpleWebRTC)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the nice writeup. You mentioned Javascript in the article. Is webrtc tied to browsers and JS? Or can it be used by other clients too .. like mobile apps or wearables?

<comment><USER9> Not only for JavaScript. Googles duo app uses webrtc for instance

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One thing I could use is a Node.JS library for streaming MP4s and other vidoe streams to WebRTC directly. Basically use WebRTC as a low latency streaming video means.

<comment><USER4> While I haven't investigated deeply, it might be worth looking at [https://github.com/medooze/media-server- node](https://github.com/medooze/media-server-node) and [http://www.kurento.org/](http://www.kurento.org/).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a great article, if you look at webrtc support once Apple is out of the yellow zone with safari we have across the board support for webrtc in all browsers. Its still not a settled api so its pretty hair raising. My first webrtc startup failed but now I'm working on replacing a legacy flash system with webrtc, in this case with flash being phased out webrtc is the only choice. This article is really well done this is going to help me give something my cto can read and quickly understand so he fully "groks" what my team is doing.

</comment><comment><USER12> Oh I see working with WebRTC is still difficult as hell.

<comment><USER9> Lol, started working with it a month ago... Pretty much</comment></comment>


GitOps, or Why the Future Has No Dashboards - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/gitops-or-why-the-future-has-no-dashboards-38ce026a3c56 <comment><USER2> Personally I'd settle for a future without annoying propriety control panels. I can see the value of Config as Code for reproduciblity, consistency and ease of use.

I don't see myself giving up on dashboards any time soon, though I'd rather cook my own from standard ELKish data than use a bunch of different services with their own. But I think that's pretty normal these days.</comment>


Salesforce buys Demandware for $2.8B - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/01/salesforce-buys-demandware-for-2-8b-taking-a-big-step-into-e-commerce/ <comment><USER2> This seems like a lot to pay for company that isn't cashflow positive. Even if we take out 147 million they spend for sales for synergy reasons. Keep the growth rate similar. We end up with FCF of 200 mil. That is paying something like 15x FCF using some crazy assumptions.

<comment><USER3> Does seem like quite a lot for a software company. Could hire quite a few devs with a billion dollars. I imagine most of the price could be attributed to Demandware's existing customer relationships and Demandware's employees, although the latter is difficult to value especially considering that most folks worth their salt are out as soon as their options vest.

<comment><USER4> Does Salesforce pursue the same model of customer acquisition as Oracle does? I know Oracle is known to sell to existing customers additional products & services, so Salesforce might be "acquiring" new customers if there is little overlap in current customer base.

It seems highly unlikely this sort of acquisition is for the technology alone.

<comment><USER5> Most of the Salesforce purchases seem to be about opening up new marketing channels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> \- 11.8x 2015 sales \- Company was growing around 50%/ year \- With -18% opinc margin \- Customer base mostly mid tier and less savy ecommerce customers, read: future Amazon victims

=> Extremely steep price

<comment><USER7> What do you mean by "Customer base mostly mid tier and less savy ecommerce customers, read: future Amazon victims"?

<comment><USER8> I think he is talking about organisations that are either: A) likely to fail victim to Amazon beginning to sell Amazon branded products under the "AmazonBasics" brand. B) Increasingly unlikely to be able to compete against the sheer scale of Amazon as a storefront as it expands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very curious what they will do with this. Demandware is horrible to develop for.

<comment><USER10> It can't possibly be any worse than developing for Salesforce.

<comment><USER9> I've not personally touched Salesforce, but demandware centers around "pipelines" which essentially I would equate them to a visual route handler/middleware combination. Which works in combination with their propriety scripting language (javascript based), templating system, etc.

pipelines:

[http://blog.baha.dk/content/images/2015/12/dwpipeline-1.png](http://blog.baha.dk/content/images/2015/12/dwpipeline-1.png)

general overview:

[http://blog.baha.dk/2015/12/19/part-2-developing- demandware/](http://blog.baha.dk/2015/12/19/part-2-developing-demandware/)

<comment><USER10> Salesforce has its "server" side language APEX which is sort of kinda based on Java, then they have SOQL which is their own, limited and akward version of SQL, and Visualforce which is their front end. So many limitations that make no sense. Documentation rarely tells you the whole picture. The whole thing is full of gotchas that you only learn through experience. Ugh.

<comment><USER11> Don't forget Aura/Lightning for one of the weirdest ugh-inducing front end / back end development rides you can find: [https://github.com/forcedotcom/aura](https://github.com/forcedotcom/aura)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> bets on the next big buy from SF: either [https://www.onelogin.com](https://www.onelogin.com) or [https://www.bitium.com](https://www.bitium.com)

<comment><USER13> Lots of options in this space, huh? [https://www.okta.com/](https://www.okta.com/)

<comment><USER12> well okta raised way too much money for SF to buy them. The other two are much more likely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The comments on this story are really reflective of the kind of people on HN - no idea what's going on with the bigger picture - if it's not completely dev focussed then it's stupid and wrong...... Sad

</comment><comment><USER15> Would have expected an Alexa rank much higher than 66,890 for a business worth 2.8 BILLION dollars.

<comment><USER13> Alexa isn't a great indicator for enterprise software. You wouldn't expect them to have any visitors, despite the sites for all their brands having many many visitors.</comment></comment>


Axe ad offensive to programmers or well intentioned student project? - <AUTHOR> http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/axe_programming

<comment><USER2> I do find myself offended by that code. This looks much better IMO

if(you.understand(this)) { return get.a.girlfriend(); }

Also what is the point of having one more girlfriend? I have barely time for Fallout: New Vegas with my current :(

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think this is a well intentioned student project that is just easy to misinterpret. It seems to be related to Miami Ad School Europe.

I think the intent is to target programmers and suggest that men who use Axe body spray will be popular with girls, although I can see how it could also be interpreted to suggest that if you can understand pseudo code then you should stop programming so much and get a girl friend.

Having said that, it is clearly sexist by assuming that a person who understands pseudo code must be a man (or a lesbian I guess).

Thoughts?

<comment><USER2> I have a hard time thinking of a single single male IT in my surroundings. When you get older than 25 the above average salary and brains do wonders for successful dating.

Nothing offensive, but I would have appreciated using Solarized, Source code pro and writing actual compilable code. It shows attention to details, research and respect to the community that you advertise to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you think this comic is offensive to Axe users or is it just a well intentioned art project?

[http://jubilantmeandering.thecomicseries.com/comics/43](http://jubilantmeandering.thecomicseries.com/comics/43)

</comment><comment><USER4> That's not offensive to programmers.

"Compiler? I don't even know her!"

... _that 's_ offensive to programmers.</comment>


SoundCloud Owners Said to Mull $1B Sale of Music Service - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-27/soundcloud-owners-said-to-mull-1-billion-sale-of-music-service <comment><USER2> "The operating loss at the time was 39 million euros, widening from 21.3 million euros in 2013." Hmm... Not the most obvious why this would be worth a Billion. Is paying subscribers or visitors still growing at a rate that makes it possible to see a scenario where this makes sense to turn a profit? Or is Twitter just embarrassed about their investment and going to finish purchasing to save face?</comment>


Discovering SmartOS - <AUTHOR> http://opusmagnus.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/discovering-smartos/#

<comment><AUTHOR> I see the authors point about not looking at this as an OpenSolaris equivalent, but I am still a bit confused as to the use cases.

It is a interesting approach. Can anyone suggest some cases where this would be a fit over OpenIndiana or OmniOS?</comment>


A SaaSy SAP vs. Salesforce debate: Is Benioff overestimating his platform? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8376

<comment><USER2> "Is Benioff overestimating his platform?"

No!

SaaS was an extremely viable platform in the 60's and 70's (remember timesharing) before the cost of hardware and software plummetted. Now that the cost has plummetted even more and the pipes are much bigger, we've come full circle (thin clients = dumb terminals), and this idea makes more sense than ever. The critical path, as always, will be good software. Great news for us.</comment>


Using Neural Networks to Find Answers in Tables - <AUTHOR> https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/04/using-neural-networks-to-find-answers.html <comment> kube-system This sounds very useful as way to quickly dig through data when doing research... then you can always go back and verify the model's conclusions later if you need to.

What makes me nervous though, is that I can easily see this becoming a scary consumer product people would trust at face value. A la, a Google Quick Answer box on steroids that's more difficult to verify.

<comment><USER2> We already have this problem, and Google's "search" widgets (e.g. dictionary, snippets, Q&A) are probably a big offender. Falsehoods are everywhere, but people tend to arrive at the truth, and once they do, the truth tends to go viral and flood fill over the falsehoods. What scares me is how easy it would be to create higher-order falsehoods. For example, X, Y, and Z are all false, but corroborate each other, making all of them more believable. These "regions" of falseness already trap millions of people today into throwing away their money -- think pyramid schemes, cults, etc.

I think you're absolutely right that this only going to be exacerbated.

<comment><USER3> The caramelized onion scandal on steroids...

[https://gizmodo.com/googles-algorithm-is-lying-to-you- about-...](https://gizmodo.com/googles-algorithm-is-lying-to-you-about-onions- and-blam-1793057789)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does this relate to Google Sheets "Explore" feature I've used it couple times and then got disappointed in one or two ways. But otherwise it helped me to quickly plot and analyse 3k rows.

</comment><comment><USER5> why not just use nlp to generate sql from the query /s

<comment><USER6> Seq2SQL: Generating Structured Queries from Natural Language using Reinforcement Learning ([https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.00103](https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.00103))</comment></comment>


FBI argues it can force Apple to turn over iPhone source code - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/224709-the-gloves-are-off-fbi-argues-it-can-force-apple-to-turn-over-iphone-source-code <comment><USER2> Doesn't this make the FBI's case _weaker_ with the public and the court, given there would then be more points of attack for hackers?

Comey went on record saying the tool should be secure in Apple's hands because Apple knows what it is doing [1]

And, he didn't even think of this tactic until Darrell Issa suggested it at the Congressional hearing [2].

> Issa: Did you receive the source code from Apple? Did you demand the source > code?

> Comey: Did we ask Apple for their source code? Not that I'm aware of

It seems like the FBI is grasping at straws here. Does anyone buy this charade? The PR on the DOJ's side is atrocious. From the beginning, "just about one phone" was obviously a lie, and it's all been downhill since then.

For once, the fear, uncertainty and doubt tactics of the government are not working. I'm happy about that but concerned for our future when law enforcement blames technologists for not handing over data to phones. We need to continue educating each other on these issues regardless of what the courts say, and regardless of what ultimately comes out of Congress.

[1] [https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=2h43m12s](https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=2h43m12s)

[2] [https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=1h21m33s](https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=1h21m33s)

<comment><USER3> You're treating the public case the FBI made earlier as if it reflects its actual beliefs and motivations. Looking at the pattern of actions, rather than the rhetoric, suggests something else to me.

And it's a little early to say that it's not working. It's not working as well as they'd like. It's certainly not working for the echo chamber of HN and tech nerds, but what we think is irrelevant. It's not over 'til the fat lady sings, as they say....

<comment><USER4> > It's certainly not working for the echo chamber of HN

True. I would also go a bit further and say it doesn't appear to be working with the House Judiciary Committee. I watched all five and a half hours of the inquiry and overall, the committee including the chairman seemed strongly on Apple's side. There were only 2-3 dissenting positions in favor of the FBI.

<comment><USER2> By "working" I meant the latest poll has 47% in support of Apple and 42% in support of the DOJ [1]. That is better than the previous poll which was 51% in favor of DOJ and 38% for Apple [2].

The original poll was biased in favor of the DOJ, since it only framed the question as, "should Apple unlock the phone or not". So it is hard to know if public favor has truly shifted.

Regardless, you're all correct that we need to continue educating each other about this. Find public figures and inform them. 42% is a lot of people who do not understand the issue and implications of what the DOJ is asking.

[1] [http://www.dailydot.com/politics/apple-iphone-doj-fbi- wall-s...](http://www.dailydot.com/politics/apple-iphone-doj-fbi-wall-street- journal-poll/)

[2] [http://www.people-press.org/2016/02/22/more-support-for- just...](http://www.people-press.org/2016/02/22/more-support-for-justice- department-than-for-apple-in-dispute-over-unlocking-iphone/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The FBI's brief dismisses all of this as a marketing ploy, and then blasts > Apple as a literal threat to American democracy, writing: "Apple's rhetoric > is not only false, but also corrosive of the very institutions that are best > able to safeguard our liberty and our rights: the courts, the Fourth > Amendment, longstanding precedent and venerable laws, and the democratically > elected branches of government."

Ironically, Apple giving users encryption doesn't weaken the Fourth Amendment; it makes it stronger because it provides the ability for citizens to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" in a way that the courts recently have been unable to.

<comment><USER6> Also, since when is the FBI a "democratically elected" branch of government?

<comment><USER7> The FBI is part of the executive branch which is democratically elected.

<comment><USER8> the FBI is executive branch!?

I would've never occured to me... I thought all law enforcement was on the judicial branch. TIL.

<comment><USER9> The executive branch is home to the Department of Justice. Maybe that is what you were thinking of? If it makes it easier, when you think about the judicial branch think of judges, and for the executive branch think use power.

<comment><USER10> I always thought of it as the judicial branch judges, while the DoJ is the executor of the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not only the source, they want the signing keys as well:

"For the reasons discussed above, the FBI cannot itself modify the software on Farook's iPhone without access to the source code _and Apple's private electronic signature_. The government did not seek to compel Apple to turn those over because it believed such a request would be less palatable to Apple. If Apple would prefer that course, however, that may provide an alternative that requires less labor by Apple programmers."

<comment><USER12> If the government compels Apple to give FBI Apple's private keys, the spy state starts to officially exists.

Currently, the best practices assume that such "keys to the kingdom" are, for example by Apple, only in some hardware devices, guarded, needing presence of more than one person to be used and that every signature made with them is permanently considered and logged. Even if FBI protects the keys, their use of the things they sign with them won't be able to be followed: these would be just plain easily copyable programs.

<comment><USER13> The spy state already officially exists.

This is just theatrics. This can all be done behind closed doors without public involvement. The terms of this debate were chosen by the executive branch to vilify companies and individual supporters of encryption.

What the government wants is to have this debate in the open and for a large enough portion of the public to accept the argument the government should be able to break into your phone with a warrant.

The "with a warrant" clause is good cop - bad cop. The FBI is making the high road argument that all this is legit and above board and to fight terrorism. On the other hand the NSA is doing the dirty work and then oh by the way now the data they have collected is available to the FBI... You know to fight terrorism.

<comment><USER14> > The spy state already officially exists. [...] This is just theatrics.

Indeed. It's more than likely that the FBI could just ask the NSA to break the phone, but if they do so then they have just admitted that the NSA can already do this and will have publicly exposed that capability.

If the FBI is smart then the plan is likely to fight Apple to the end, lose, and then have terrorists, pedophiles, drug dealers, and members of the woodwind sections of orchestras move to the iPhone because "it's so secure the FBI can't get in!" all while letting the NSA break any iPhone they need and bootstrap the found evidence through parallel construction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder how far Apple are prepared to go?

Does anyone know how far they need to go to put themselves outside of US jurisdiction? I know some companies already sign their software releases outside the US for tax reasons. Is that also enough to exclude themselves from being forced to hand over the keys?

I'm starting to picture a world, where software development (as well as corporate structures and finance) are off-shored to development havens, similar to the Swiss and their banking. We already have the start of data havens. How long until these large companies see the benefit from a legal perspective to defend themselves from an over-reaching government?

How would Wall Street react to such a move? Is such a move away from Wall Street even possible? Can companies switch exchanges?

<comment><USER2> The economic and security impacts of mandating a back doors in phones go far beyond what the President realizes.

Once he sees that he'll change his mind. However, a lot of damage has been done in that law enforcement believes they _could_ get access to data if only us technology wizards would stop being lazy and do some work for them.

Aside from the compelled speech argument, on balance, we are not more secure with back doors, we are less secure.

So long as law enforcement does not understand this, they will not be effective at their jobs, and they will point the finger at technologists in future terrorist attacks. Even if law enforcement officers do not point the finger, they've already convinced so much of the public that it is the technologists' fault.

We need to continue educating each other on how technology works. Seek public figures and ask them to support our cause. This could go on for years, potentially coming up during every terrorist attack.

<comment> saiya-jin don't underestimate those power hungry guys up there, we can accuse them of many things, but not for being stupid...

<comment><USER2> Don't be so sure. We have very little tech representation in the White House. We only have a CTO as an advisor, and a Digital Services team. The DS team is not in an advisory role. They are focused on fixing broken government tech.

We don't even have any tech journalists in the Press briefing room to bring further transparency. In the daily White House Press Briefing on Monday, the 14th, which is the one following Obama's remarks at SXSW, nobody asked any questions about what he said. I'd like to see us get a tech journalist in there.

Megan Smith is CTO of the United States. She is calling for more computer security experts to join her at the White House [1].

> The thrust of Obama's remarks, said Smith, was "making sure that the tech > communities are understanding the challenges that law enforcement and their > colleagues face so that they're conscious as they're thinking through this."

> So is this still an open policy-making process? "Yes," said Smith. And like > others involving "complicated stuff," there's a wide range of voices at the > table — including hers. To Smith, the public policy challenges and > possibilities raised by the broad range of digital security issues echos the > topic she was in Austin to highlight: _the need to draw smart technologists > to government service._

In other words, the CTO is outnumbered at the table in discussions about encryption.

I'd also like to see her produce meeting minutes for discussions about encryption, or some further transparency. The Digital Services team's self stated founding goal was to increase transparency of our government. However, on this encryption issue, they and Megan Smith have been too opaque. We need more details on what they are talking about. They are our public servants.

[1] [http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-tech/2016/03/us- ct...](http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-tech/2016/03/us-cto-smith-on- encryption-were-still-in-the-middle-of-that-conversation-security-worries-for- the-internet-of-things-scoop-fcc-gets-open-internet-complaints-over-t-mobiles- binge-on-213214)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The FBI basically just told the judicial _and_ legislative branches to go pound sand.

No judge is going to be willing to let this level of power grab against the _judiciary_ to slide.

Apple's lawyers must be very happy right now.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm almost starting to believe there are forces in the FBI trying to thwart the case for the FBI, by making so ridiculous claims that the legal precedence will be set for a long time, preventing the FBI or any agency to get this kind of power.

But then again, it's more likely they just completely lost sight of how the real world actually functions, and their own mandate.

If this actually does go through, my view of the US will be closely aligned with Iran and North-Korea.

</comment><comment><USER18> Could anyone explain to me, legally, why the FBI wouldn't be allowed to compel Apple to provide this? The government was able to compel private SSL keys from Lavabit. If the only difference is "Apple has money to fight the court order," then would a court's refusal to grant the FBI access to the source code and signing keys create a precedent that could protect future Lavabits?

<comment><USER19> The Lavabit case was decided on entirely procedural grounds—the Fourth Circuit never said that it was OK to compel the disclosure of the SSL keys, only that Lavabit had waived its objections in the district court (at which stage Lavabit was acting without counsel).

Source: I briefed and argued the Lavabit case in the Fourth Circuit.

<comment><USER18> Fascinating. And saddening. Would Lavabit have been protected if a prevailing Apple had stymied government access to cryptographic keys prior to their coming under scrutiny?

<comment><USER20> The government didn't start by asking for LavaBit's SSL key. They asked LavaBit to start intercepting communication to/from one user. LavaBit had done so in the past in other cases. LavaBit's refusal to do so in that case thus immediately looked suspicious to the court. LavaBit mishandled the case and tried to escape responsibility with stupid, poorly-argued logic, and poorly handled delays on their part. When LavaBit failed to take prompt action to enable interception, the government finally demanded the SSL keys to do it themselves.

If I were you I wouldn't trust the guy involved in LavaBit in the future, Ladar Levison. He frankly did not seem to be up to the challenge of running a company that is prepared to navigate this space, from the way he bungled the case. He got basic things wrong about how to engage first with the FBI, then with a court over a court order, and made his position worse by ineptly arguing with the court without advice of council. He blew his shot to raise arguments with the court later as a result. Furthermore, he clearly made misleading claims about the security of the product, and I believe knowingly. LavaBit had by that point had already helped the govt surveil other users, all the while maintaining that the communications were secure and that even they couldn't read them.

I have no axe to grind with LavaBit - these are all conclusions I reached by investigating the case myself. You can see this for yourself by reading the court transcripts and news articles. While his intention to provide a secure communications product was noble in the abstract, I would personally trust neither his technology judgment nor his business judgment in how to run a company or handle tough legal circumstances in the future.

He did stupid, immature shit like, when finally ordered to provide his encryption key, he printed it out on paper in an illegibly small font. The court of course compelled him in an industry standard format. That kind of thing is just immature and makes the situation worse for him and his users by extension. [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/lavabit-held- in-c...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/lavabit-held-in-contempt- of-court-for-printing-crypto-key-in-tiny-font/)

Any tech person with an adequate knowledge of encryption and security could have seen through LavaBit's security model. It's not possible to provide webmail in a mode where the webmail provider can't read your email.

[http://www.infoworld.com/article/2609583/encryption/how- secu...](http://www.infoworld.com/article/2609583/encryption/how-secure-was- lavabit-s--secure--email--not-very--says-researcher.html)

> "The ciphertext, key, and password," [Moxie] Marlinspike wrote [in his > analysis of LavaBit], "are all stored on the server using a mechanism that > is solely within the server's control and which the client has no ability to > verify. There is no way to ever prove or disprove whether any encryption was > ever happening at all, and whether it was or not makes little difference. > ... Even though they advertised that they 'can't' read your email, what they > meant was that they would choose not to." Marlinspike also took exception to > the way the password supplied by the user also does double duty as an > encryption key, a practice frowned upon by password researchers.

The article above also links to Levison's reply which is not convincing at all:

> Marlinspike is assuming that the Lavabit system was designed to be a > substitute for the security provided by end-to-end encryption systems like > PGP. It was not. Lavabit's encrypted storage feature was designed solely to > protect e-mails at rest.

Huge, huge hedging right there. If you're using PGP then there is virtually no benefit to using LavaBit at all.

> Why protect the data at rest? To limit the data Lavabit could access and > therefore turn over to the government. When the government seeks a specific > user's data, it is given what is stored on disk, e.g., any metadata found in > a server's log files and any e-mail content the provider has access to.

Clearly the government wants to intercept data in transit too, and LavaBit had helped them do it prior to this case. Yet LavaBit continued running and advertising its services. Furthermore, if I recall correctly, LavaBit stored the user's data encryption key encrypted with the user's password, so all it took is one login from a user under surveillance and the government would have gotten the keys to decrypt all the data at rest too. A competent technologist should have known that was a risk from the beginning, so if he actually missed that threat vector it should tell you something; but even if he didn't know from the beginning, he knew after the first time he helped do that for the FBI.

There is only one circumstance in which LavaBit's security model would have worked, which is if the user under surveillance never logs into LavaBit again after the surveillance begins. But if they log in even once more, their password flows to LavaBit and thus the govt, which can decrypt all the user's data at rest. This is what the court initially ordered LavaBit to do IIRC: intercept the password of one user on login, and then provide the user's data. And LavaBit had done so upon earlier requests. The fact that he did not disclose this threat vector to his users from the beginning tells you something about his intentions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hmm... I remember a while ago when China was bashed for such an attitude. Isn't that just fascinating?

<comment><USER22> Separation of powers sure has it's benefits though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Surrendering the source code to iOS? That sounds like a huge overreach by a law enforcement agency. That thumb drive would be worth billions of dollars. A $60K/year bureaucrat is supposed to protect it from Apple's competitors? I wonder how long it would be before this prized intellectual property ended in the hands of Samsung, various Chinese companies, maybe a copy floating around Russian and East European networks, and eventually Google labs?

The scary thing is that the FBI, with the support of the President and quite a few top Congressional leaders, could very well win.

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't understand. Can someone please clarify for me. They physically have the phone right? Could they not just read the whole flash, try a pin, write back the whole flash, repeat? (i.e. take the phone apart)

(given it is a 5C with no secure enclave)

<comment><USER25> I suspect there are a myriad of technical means to pop the phone, including the method you outline, but I doubt the FBI has the talent or connections to get it done in way that would be presentable to court. (I.E. Nobody in house is capable and any contractors they would hire to do it don't want their methods made public in an open trial)

One assumes the NSA would make short work of this phone's lock if it had been recovered from the OBL compound, but using them in this instance also brings in some dicey legal issues (they "can't" operate domestically) and the NSA is even less willing to give up it's own tactics than a security consulting firm would be.

FBI seems to have chosen to go the "lawyer up and look for a court order and some wet blanket executives willing to hand things over" route-- Tim Cook is, thankfully, well principled enough to tell them to pound sand.

Surely, at some point in time, the FBI will figure out how to recruit technical staff that is capable of doing more than just extorting bitcoins from cyber drug kingpins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wasn't there something in TPP prohibiting member governments from forcing companies to hand over source code? (I know it's not passed yet)

</comment><comment><USER27> Would giving them access to the source code even matter, other than morally speaking?

Meaning, just having the code won't let them crack a phone and it won't let them patch the OS so that its subsequently crackable would it?

When the FBI is worse than the terrorists they need to take a step back and think about the bigger picture a little bit.

</comment><comment><USER28> I hope Apple will further improve iOS encryption so it can not be broken, even by people (FBI or Apple) having access to the source code. There should be no signing key that can be used _without first entering the correct PIN_ in the first place. That's the real problem here, isn't it?

<comment><USER24> i can imagine reasons why apple would want or need to be able to update secure enclave firmware without the correct pin entered first. #2-3 are highly speculative:

1) fear of a bug. just the right firmware bug and you have 100 million phones lose data, and perhaps bricked too. unlikely, but consider the cost. i would be worried about this if i were in charge of the iphone project and the secure enclave feature were newish. we can imagine pretty good solutions to this one though, with work and time.

2) out of 100+ countries where they sell phones, over time, some will give them a confidential court order saying they must retain this capability. if a foreign court order, they could refuse to comply, but then would have to exit that market -- infeasible if multiple countries. and a different 'version' for just those countries would be noticed over time by security researchers?

3) they might already have an order as such from the U.S., for foreign intelligence purposes. as mentioned a different international version if noticed is a PR disaster for apple. so the easiest way to comply is just do it that way for all phones.

perhaps they push back on the fbi request because that's the one they can talk about, yet it templates the whole issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sure. Can it force Apple to sign a compiled binary?

<comment><USER30> If the FBI is to be believed they can compell anyone to do anything. That is effectively the scope of the All Writs Act.

<comment><USER29> Which means a police state, by definition. (Which is not "jack-booted thugs," but rather "agencies of the state are above the law"). That is the actual reason for trying to establish "All Writs Act applies to anything we want, and allows us to do anything we want."

This will be the actual issue for the courts (and ultimately SCOTUS) to decide, the specific device is just a pretext. Hopefully the judicial branch will recognize how this can essentially cut off both itself and the legislative branch from any real control.

<comment><USER11> > ...hopefully the judicial branch will recognize...

Not a lot of hope on that front, as they've already demonstrated a willingness to abandon their duties: administrative subpoenas, tens of thousands, issued by federal law enforcement agencies - not courts.

<comment><USER29> I see "we'll routinely _approve_ almost anything" as significantly different from "meh, do whatever you please; just stop bothering us already".

<comment><USER11> You are aware that administrative subpoenas don't need approval right? For example: the FBI takes an interest in me and sends a subpoena to my ISP requesting all opened email older than 180 days. No judge involved. Now one could argue that there is still judicial oversight, it simply occurs after the fact... But like I said, tens of thousands of such subpoenas go out every year - it is pretty unrealistic to think that any serious oversight is occurring.

So it is much closer to "meh, do whatever you please..." but more accurately it would be:

Executive branch: "Yeehaa! Get outta mah way checks and balances, we got bad guys to string up and no time for robe wearing slowpokes!"

Legislative branch: "Sounds like a great idea, white hats can do no wrong."

Judicial branch: "... _blank stare_... _shrug_ ".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I really hope if they manage to get the source code it leaks and weakens another American technology company, maybe when their industry is dead they will realize its a global market place.

<comment><USER5> Except that would be absolutely horrible for everyone, so maybe we should hope that doesn't happen.

<comment><USER32> Why would it be horrible for everyone if American companies were weakened?

There are companies outside the US, you know. It's not like we're going go back to the Dark Ages if American corporations all suddenly ceased to exist. Apple users would be unhappy, of course, because they'd have to switch to LG or Samsung phones, but "absolutely horrible"? Are you kidding?

<comment><USER5> I think the ecosystem isn't a zero sum game (not profits, but generally the advancement of software). Apple doing well helps other people do well.

Do you really think that if Apple completely stopped existing right now that it wouldn't have a massive negative impact on consumers and other businesses?

<comment><USER32> Massive? No. Assuming their Apple devices didn't also suddenly stop existing, they'd have a little pain with transitioning to alternatives. There are plenty of alternatives out there to Apple products right now, and with Apple corporation suddenly winked out of existence, that'd leave a big gap for other competitors to take over that space. If anyone is completely and utterly dependent on Apple for their livelihood, that's really their own dumb fault. Nothing apple does is all that critical that you can't get something/someone else to do it, though of course there'd be some pain in the transition. (The same goes for anyone willingly locking themselves into any proprietary vendor.)

I guess one drawback is that we'd probably see a significant uptake in Windows Phones, and they might actually get above 5% marketshare....

Anyway, MS bashing aside, my point is: Apple is just a seller of convenience, nothing they make is all that critical that it can't be replaced. Anything you can do with an iPhone, you can do with an Android phone. Anything you can do with a Mac, you can do with a Windows or Linux PC. It'd be annoying to have to get a replacement device and migrate to it and maybe new software, but "massive negative impact"? No.

Now, if everyone's Apple device suddenly winked out of existence too, that would be a bigger problem, but that's because of the data stored on those devices, not because of the devices themselves being so valuable. But as long as they kept backups of anything important (and not on Apple-branded backup devices...), that shouldn't be that hard to work around either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The UK govt is equally eager to ban/compromise encryption, and I think the challenge for technologists is to find ways around this. How difficult would it be to develop a protocol that concealed encrypted payloads in innocent- looking plaintext traffic? A kind of "clandestine encryption."

I suppose the problem is that individuals might get away with using clandestine encryption, but no convenient service provided by companies like Apple would be able to.

<comment><USER34> It's called deniable encryption.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I felt something in my stomach when they implied that people who actually don't care about security are the ones who buys Android phones.

<comment><USER36> According to the WSJ, less than 10% of Android phones are encrypted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Wouldn't it be straightforward for Apple to design future iPhones to accept device-targeted updates in order to comply with law enforcement requests like the one that started all this? Just add a step: 1) Is this update signed by Apple? 2) Does this update indicate a particular device and if so is this that device?

I wouldn't support the government compelling Apple to implement that, but I don't think I'd have a problem with Apple doing it voluntarily. Of course, if it's not a government mandate then anyone who cares (for criminal reasons or otherwise) can just use other devices that don't have the same system in place, so in the end it's just security theater. But at least it might detour some government attempts to overreach and effectively outlaw encryption entirely.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm very comfortable with President Obama's broad policies an intentions, but when it comes to privacy rights, I have one question: What would Richard Nixon do?

</comment><comment><USER39> This is at least much more plausibly legal than drafting Apple employees as slave labor.</comment>


Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Optical Networking [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.nanog.org/sites/default/files/2_Steenbergen_Tutorial_New_And_v2.pdf <comment><USER2> I just did my first municipal ISP design not too long ago and this document was an excellent introductory guide to the topic and understanding optics in general. The documentation for DWDM muxs (Ex: BTI and MRV) were also invaluable in learning how to apply the concepts outlined in the above document. This definitely expanded my horizons in the service provider networking field. Ex: [http://www.juniper.net/support/downloads/?p=bti7200#docs](http://www.juniper.net/support/downloads/?p=bti7200#docs)

</comment><comment><USER3> YouTube link for the most-recent talk: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__wn9zXFiy8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__wn9zXFiy8)

I've seen a couple versions of RAS' talk and learn something new every time.

<comment><USER4> yup, smart dude, learned plenty as a self-taught network grunt subscribed to nanog in the 2000-era and hanging out on irc, listening to guys like rs

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Neat to see that optical is the new RF, in that it is using coherent modulation techniques that were once restricted to radio. In a similar vein, RF is also the new baseband (like audio and video before), in that the lower ends of RF (VHF and below) are transitioning to direct sampling at a reasonable cost.

The takeaway for me is that there are opportunities for people with experience in radio modulation and DSP to move into the optical game.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is slide 6 (Fiber Works by "Total Internal Reflection") wrong? I thought that total internal reflection (TIR) happened when trying to cross from a higher refractive index (RI) medium to a lower one - not the other way around as depicted by the core-cladding boundary. Furthermore if the cladding has a higher RI, then the rays should become steeper upon transiting, not flatter like shown in the diagram.

I always thought fibers were single material (i.e. just the core) because the surrounding air (lower RI) lets TIR happen. It certainly seems to be the case in the next slide (Demonstration Using a Laser Pointer), TIR on Wikipedia [1], and pictures of fiber optic lamps [2].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_internal_reflection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_internal_reflection) [2] [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fiber+optic+lamp&t=canonical&iax=1...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fiber+optic+lamp&t=canonical&iax=1&ia=images)

Okay after reading a bit more [3] I'm pretty sure it's wrong, and the cladding RI's must be lower. So my follow up question is... what's the point of the cladding? Why not just rely on the surrounding air?

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladding_(fiber_optics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladding_\(fiber_optics\))

<comment><USER7> Yes, you're right the cladding is lower index, and it is a controlled index! It (along with other layers) protects the inner core. Most data transport fiber is single mode, which requires very tight control of the ~8um 'diameter' of the high index core, but allows for lower loss/km and you don't get mixing of the different modes (think of them as different reflective angles for simplicity). If air was used then any scratch or dirt contacting the core would couple light out.

In fact most multi-mode is graded index and it's much easier to get light into (8x larger core) without a specialized coupler. Note that even single mode allows DWDM- many different high-bandwidth wavelengths, but only 40nm spacing on 1560nm IR. The core, cladding, and outer protective layers are extruded and pulled to extremely precise dimensions, dispersions, and densities into multi- km rolls.

The games that are played to equalize loss and delay among the wavelengths over a range of power and temperature is crazy... and that's ignoring the EDFA optically pumped fiber amplifiers, which let under sea cables work. Amazing tech!

<comment><USER8> Has graded-index multimode caught on now? I last learned about fiber in the 90's when it was still something new.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thanks this is the first time I have come across [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokogawa_Electric](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokogawa_Electric)

Also it's refreshing to see that they mention "seeing" IR light from a remote control via your mobile phone's camera. This trick has been around for years (thanks to cameras tendency to colour shift) however it is rarely known about. The author is indeed a practitioner.

<comment><USER10> Modern phones don't see IR very well on account of improved filters. My iPhone can't see remotes at all. An IR source needs to be much more powerful to show up.

Back in the day I took the IR filter out of my digital camera and got some cool (dismal 3.2MP resolution) shots.

<comment><USER11> The rear camera has a very strong IR blocking filter. But the front camera doesn't. (We have a product that uses IR LEDs as a flash, and I use my front- facing camera to verify they're working.)

<comment><USER12> Thanks for this! Works on iphone 6

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone who used to work with optical equipment this is really awesome. My team was responsible for the SDN layer that sat on top of the nodes and configured them so we were taught enough to be dangerous but I always wondered what was really going on under the hood.

</comment><comment><USER14> Why are we still stuck with Copper RJ45 Ethernet twisted Cable @ 1Gbps for Local Networking / last Mile? While there are up coming NBase-T which offer up to 2.5/5Gbps Ethernet, they are expensive and no where near as cheap as 1Gbps Port. Not to mention most Vendor will likely put out 2.5 Gbps instead of 5Gbps due to cost reason.

Why is there no common, simple, cheap Fibre Cable and Port to replace our age old RJ45 and Copper Cable.

P.S - I actually rather have NBase-T, but at the moment no one is offering it. At least not at the price bracket most would pay for it.

<comment><USER8> Cat-6 can take 10Gbps over ~50m runs, and the cards are under $100 now

<comment><USER15> can you point out such a card? the closest i've seen is [https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAD5G5M36...](https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAD5G5M36425)

<comment><USER8> You can usually find refurbished ones, e.g.: [https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9AX5D88...](https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9AX5D88720)

And B&H has a new card on preorder for just barely under $100: [https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1344847-REG/asus_90ig...](https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1344847-REG/asus_90ig0440_ma0r00_xg_c100c_10g_network.html)

<comment><USER15> thanks!

it looks like asus has also introduced lowish-priced switch with some 10G ports, too. [https://www.amazon.com/XG-U2008-Unmanaged-2-Port-8-Port- Giga...](https://www.amazon.com/XG-U2008-Unmanaged-2-Port-8-Port- Gigabit/dp/B01LZMM7ZO/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This feels like a great resource to me, it's 125 slides chock full of stuff.

</comment><comment><USER17> >> Light, like sound, follows the inverse square law. • The signal is inversely proportional to the distance squared. • A signal travels distance X and loses half of its intensity.

I thought light (at least photons) don't lose intensity? Is this through the medium that fiber optics are made of?

<comment><USER18> Yes, no material is 100% reflective, and some of those photons will either be absorbed by the material or reflected in the wrong direction.

It's explained two pages prior on Page 14.

<comment><USER19> I think the slide on page 16 is wrong; the inverse square law comes into play when light is unconstrained and spreads out in all directions. Losses that come from impurities in the glass and so forth attenuate differently.

For instance, if you're looking at light intensity from a lightbulb, every time you double the distance you get 1/4th the intensity, or that comes out to about a 6 decibel loss.

If you're shining a light through an optical cable, it might lose half it's intensity every time it goes, say, 10km (I don't know what the number is for proper high-quality single-mode fiber, so we'll just go with 10km). So, your loss is about 3 decibels per 10km.

Over short distances, the small fixed loss of the cable isn't significant, but over very long distances, the 3 decibels per 10 kilometer loss adds up a lot faster than 6 decibels every time you double the distance.

<comment><USER5> I'd say it's unclear rather than wrong, and what you say is perfectly correct.

Decibels are useful when dealing with exponential decay, meaning that the output of a process is always proportional to its input. An inverse square law is an example of this more general case, so I think the author is just holding it up as an example, rather than saying it applies to fibres. Other examples are inverse (which holds for fibres as you point out), or any other choice of exponent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> More like physics than networking. I was hoping for more about what goes on between light and IP, but all I learned is that SONET/SDH is considered old school now.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a fantastic guide. Thanks for putting it up!

</comment><comment><USER22> Super practical and concise guide.</comment>


Show HN: Get the Latest Data about Wuhan Coronavirus Cases via an HTTP API - <AUTHOR> https://coronavirus.m.pipedream.net/ <comment><AUTHOR> A few days ago I started searching for an API to programmatically get the latest data about the global coronavirus outbreak. I came across several visualization and scraping projects, but I couldn't find a simple way to query the latest data programmatically — so I created an HTTP API that returns the latest data in JSON format using a Pipedream workflow.

The API fetches the latest number of confirmed cases, recoveries and deaths from a public Google Sheet published by the team at the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at John Hopkins University, and returns both the raw regional breakouts as well as summary stats in JSON format. It also caches the data for up to 5 minutes to improve performance.

To use the API just make an HTTP request to [https://coronavirus.m.pipedream.net/](https://coronavirus.m.pipedream.net/).

The source code is as at [https://pipedream.com/@pravin/http-api-for-latest- wuhan-coro...](https://pipedream.com/@pravin/http-api-for-latest-wuhan- coronavirus-data-2019-ncov-p_G6CLVM)

You can learn more here: [https://dev.to/pipedream/http-api-for-latest-wuhan- coronavir...](https://dev.to/pipedream/http-api-for-latest-wuhan- coronavirus-2019-ncov-data-20jj)</comment>


Show HN: Our Fun lil' 404 page - <AUTHOR> https://www.gitkraken.com/404 <comment><USER2> Fun! Works well in chrome. Stuff are cool but a go back (history-1) or go to homepage link would improve this page I think.

</comment><comment><USER3> That was way more fun that it should have been. Good job.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> You can place the objects on the kraken!

<comment><USER4> In what browsers? Doesn't work in Safari.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I forgot what i was looking for...</comment>


Wire open-sourced - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wireapp <comment><USER2> A link to a GitHub organization isn't great.. I'd say this is better: [https://medium.com/@wireapp/you-can-now-build-your-own- wire-...](https://medium.com/@wireapp/you-can-now-build-your-own-wire-client- ea9ed9214e26) but even that doesn't clearly explain what Wire is. Visit [https://wire.com](https://wire.com) to find out it's an encrypted video and group chat app.

<comment><USER3> From [http://fortune.com/2016/07/22/wire-open- source/](http://fortune.com/2016/07/22/wire-open-source/):

 _... the move has two main objectives: transparency and building an ecosystem of secure services that can talk to one another ... there is scope for organizations to design Wire-based apps that are tailored to different use cases, such as enterprise communications and digital health, and even automotive and the Internet of things ... "You can register with email and it doesn't require mobile." He also pointed out that the apps don't need to be interoperable, though federation at some point would be nice. "It's a shame we have so many islands in the communications space," he added._

HN comments from Wire marketing: [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Siimteller](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Siimteller)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A bold move by Wire. Open source is still a very disruptive play, and the world needs something like this. If they manage this well and triple down on developer engagement, it could work out quite nicely for them. EDIT: Thread title is slightly misleading. It looks like they did a Telegram. There is no server here.

<comment><USER5> Correct, there's no server. I will avoid blockquoting large amounts of text but on their open source summary page [1], they give you two options:

1\. you point your implementation to their server and you have to abide by their additional terms (which is exactly what I'd expect)

\- or -

2\. you point your implementation to somewhere else, unspecified, and you're only bound by GPLv3

Right now, #2 is moot because there is no compatible server you can host. Once someone implements a compatible server, this will get a lot more exciting.

[1] [https://github.com/wireapp/wire#open- source](https://github.com/wireapp/wire#open-source)

<comment><USER6> Does the Wire licence agreement allow you to create a standalone server though?

[https://github.com/wireapp/wire/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/wireapp/wire/blob/master/README.md)

"Additionally, if you choose to build an Open Source App, certain restrictions apply, as follows:

a. You agree not to change the way the Open Source App connects and interacts with our servers"

Even if the company behind Wire seems trustworthy, if I cared about security I wouldn't want any interaction between clients to go through a server I didn't have control over.

<comment><USER7> If the end to end encryption is implemented correctly then you don't have to worry about what their server does.

<comment><USER8> You still have to worry about that because it still receives the so-called "metadata".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I must say that my first impression is beyond positive.

One to one and group chats, group video and audio calls, GIF search built-in, doodles, the best implementation of photos in the message stream that I've seen, poking and playable Spotify and Soundcloud music by just sharing links? All with end-to-end encryption?

I have that "too good to be true" feeling but, still impressed. Just waiting for possible audits and more feedback from the security community.

Edit: It's also Switzerland based, already supports Win10, MacOS, Web, Android and iOS, and to complete has the cleanest design I've seen in a messaging app.

<comment><USER10> I've been using it with friends and family for awhile on Android and macOS and it's fantastic, in theory. It has however been plagued with lots of bugs. The calling functionality, which I've used a lot, often stalls at "joining" and then nothing happens. It's not as polished or flawless as Telegram. It does not have a feature to compress video before sending for instance. But I can only expect that to change. Especially now, when anyone can write their own client.

<comment><USER11> Compress video before sending is there on mobile (at least on iOS, I need to double check Android, don't have that handy right now).

<comment><USER10> Please do, I just tried sending a 100 MB video file recorded with the stock camera and I got a message saying "Are you sure you want to send 100 MB via the mobile network?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They offer a password reset function. How does that work? Do they hold my private key in escrow? I'd certainly hope not! Or does the password reset work by creating a new keypair? If so, does this at least generate WhatsApp style security warnings for people chatting with me?

With some digging I've found a way to verify key fingerprints so that's nice, but it's manual, not QR assisted :(

</comment><comment><USER13> I believe all their good intentions and I do hope they succeed. But for me it's too early to tell whether their business model will hold. If they build up a sufficiently large user base, but fail to monetize it and sell the company to e.g. Microsoft or Facebook, then I doubt how much of their original privacy / openness remains.

Another thing that I wonder about: Does being Swiss-based give them a privacy advantage?

<comment><USER12> It might be mostly marketing since the Swiss have long switched from a 'swiss banking secrecy' mindset to fairly open cooperation with EU and US investigators.

It's probably nevertheless better than being based in the US, just ask Lavabit ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Lots of good stuff in there, thanks Wire! I just wish they had gone with something other than GPLv3 for libraries, like LGPL. Looks like they changed them on December, from MPL 2.0 to GPLv3.

At any rate, there are lots of us who can use the code with that license :-)

</comment><comment><USER15> See [https://wire.com](https://wire.com) for more information since the linked repos provide no context. "Crystal clear voice, video and group chats. No advertising. Your data, always encrypted."

<comment><USER16> So, Signal plus video chat?

<comment><USER17> Probably not, scince Signal doesn't really support secure web communication (without phone routing).

<comment><USER18> This phone routing story keeps getting repeated here but it's not true and never was. The devices share a key but are completely independent. You can easily try it, put your phone into airplane mode and Signal-Desktop works just the same.

<comment><USER19> Issue may not be the routing, but that a mobile device is required to create an account.

Are you saying that the Signal Protocol created Open Whisper Systems, which is lead by Moxie Marlinspike, does not require a phone number to work? (Say the Signal Protocol instead of the browser extension since the browser extension uses the protocol to work.)

<comment><USER18> As far as I'm aware the protocol can use other identifiers. If I remember correctly the development server allows registering without a phone number for easier testing of Signal-Desktop. Not sure what is used as an identifier instead. Not sure where I read it, so it may be the result of the telephone game. Take this with a grain of salt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am a user. I switched myself and my family from Skype a few months ago and it has been great so far. Quality of video and audio is great, Android app works very well (better than web based desktop versions). And it also works in a browser, which is great for me (Linux user).

</comment><comment><USER21> Thank you! Wire is the best, with multiple device support, clean mobile app, and a desktop client. It'd be nice if it were a standard open protocol so everyone could implement it, and find a way to allow federation. I'd pay to help support.

</comment><comment><USER22> Not sure if these are for realsies, but there are some API keys in the webapp repository:

[https://github.com/wireapp/wire- webapp/blob/master/app/scrip...](https://github.com/wireapp/wire- webapp/blob/master/app/script/location/GeoLocation.coffee#L23)

[https://github.com/wireapp/wire- webapp/blob/master/app/scrip...](https://github.com/wireapp/wire- webapp/blob/master/app/script/tracking/EventTrackingRepository.coffee#L36)

<comment><USER11> Thanks, nothing critical but we'll clear this up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Now all this needs is a few good third party audits, verifiable builds and it's the holy grail of encrypted communications!

<comment><USER24> I would say the Holy Grail would be fully decentralized without needing central servers, but this does look cool nonetheless.

<comment><USER25> I am very hopeful that Briar ([https://briarproject.org/](https://briarproject.org/)) will achieve this. They don't use any centralized infrastructure, the app works even when the net is down, and they have e completely distributed and thus uncensorable forums and blogs.

<comment><USER24> Interesting. Do you know how they handle identity/usernames/contact discovery without central servers?

<comment><USER25> As far as I know, the identity is just a public key. You can add contacts only by either scanning a qr-code disayed on your contact's phone in person or by being introduced to each other by a mutual contact, so there is no real need for discovery. As there are no servers at all (not even federated), this also means that no one can even enumerate users.

Torsten Grote, one of the projects main developers, explains the technology behind it in this very nice presentation: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr42vZIoGqM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr42vZIoGqM)

<comment><USER26> "No servers" doesn't feel quite right -- no dedicated servers, maybe, but the project depends on TOR, which has quite a lot of servers. I've not dug into the source, but I'm expecting each client to be using a TOR hidden service to allow peer-to-peer connections.

The ability of TOR to allow essentially roaming services like this is a feature I'm always surprised isn't used more often. And although it's not something I was ever going to actually get around to, something like Briar has been on my list of interesting thins to try to do for a while -- I'm really glad someone else has had a similar thought and been able to run with it :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've been asking for three things from Signal for the past almost two years:

1) desktop app

2) video call support

3) self-deleting messages

Signal finally (sort of) delivered a desktop app, but it still doesn't have the other two. Wire has the first two, but it's still lacking the last one. I hope one of them will have all three of these features soon.

<comment><USER3> This HN comment (22 days ago) says Wire has a prototype of ephemeral messages, but insufficient demand, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12014056](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12014056)

This Twitter comment (5 days ago) says Wire is looking into self-destructing messages, [https://twitter.com/wire/status/755078974728970240](https://twitter.com/wire/status/755078974728970240)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Side note, but it's kind of strange that images on their site require cookies enabled to view. I didn't dig into a reason, I just white-list the sites I want to use cookies and found it odd that there were big white spaces before doing so.

<comment><USER11> Weird, we'll check it out. Thanks for pointing it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wonder what the business model is?

<comment><USER30> They might charge for certain premium services in the future, according to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_Swiss#Business_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_Swiss#Business_model)

<comment><USER31> If I read the TOS correctly, you are also not allowed to write any kind of chat bot against it. If the current hype for bots remains, bot access might be another thing to sell.

<comment><USER12> That might be hard to enforce given that the open source client will make creating unofficial bots fairly trivial.

Given that they already have Spotify and giphy integration I'm going to predict Skype-like monetization with sponsored integrations (e.g. Skype has those sponsored animated emoji things)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Didn't see that coming. I think Wire is struggling to get new users and this move could put them on the map.

<comment><USER11> We've actually nicely accelerated user growth this year. Going the OS route was always the plan, especially given the target audience of hacktavists, human rights organizations, journalists. Open source is tablestakes to be taken seriously. It's also just one of the steps towards more transparency.

<comment><USER33> I tried installing it and only had a single contact show up. And it turns out that contact had long since uninstalled the app (said it was very unreliable), but the server was still showing her as registered.

From the app store numbers, it looks like Wire is still not even to a million monthly active users. For a funded app with a large full time staff and generous marketing budget, that's a pretty terrible sign several years after launching. I know that the founders are rich, but why would they continue funding an app that isn't showing adoption?

<comment><USER3> One privacy advantage of Wire is that it does not force you to upload your address book to their server.

<comment><USER33> I didn't see that option, but either way the fact remains that even after several years, nobody is using the app. As a business with a large full time staff that needs considerable ongoing capital to continue, the numbers do not bode well for its future.

Maybe being open source will change that, but I can't see it being a significant factor for the hundreds of millions of users they need to even begin to catch up. I think they were betting on end to end encryption to save them, but their biggest competitor launched better end to end encryption by default before they could.

<comment><USER3> Surprisingly, the best feature of Wire has been audio quality. Security/privacy is a welcome bonus.

<comment><USER33> Is the audio quality good enough to make hundreds of millions of people switch from WhatsApp? They've been trying for a few years, and it hasn't happened. I think open sourcing the apps is probably a last gasp, and we're likely to see Wire shutting down soon. I've also heard they might be looking for a buyer.

<comment><USER3> That would be a shame. Skype sold (twice!) for billions of dollars, and the Wire investors should have access to internal growth metrics to justify a long-term investment. Like every messaging app that relies on network effects, some growth is inevitable. I've been steadily adding new contacts, each installing Wire for the first time.

<comment><USER33> I don't know what kind of internal metrics would be telling a different story than the external metrics visible to us. The app store data alone is pretty damning, any growth they've had over the past few years is very slow linear growth. People don't seem to like the app enough to switch.

You're right, they sold Skype twice, so they're not stupid. They're unlikely to keep throwing money away when the writing on the wall is this clear, and word on the street is that they're looking for an exit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't get how they can make statements like this "Only Wire offers fully encrypted calls, video and group chats available on all your devices". Webrtc is encrypted by default.

<comment><USER12> The other signal/axolotl protocol based systems currently don't support true multi device solutions. It's not a limitation of the protocol, after all Wire is based on it, too, just that Signal/WhatsApp decided not to implement it.

Wire has true multi device support (basically multiple keys per identity)

<comment><USER35> Not sure what you're definition of "true multi device" is, but Signal Desktop does not do phone routing and functions whether your mobile device has connectivity or not: [https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-desktop- public/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-desktop-public/)

<comment><USER12> Thanks, I thought it did phone routing, mostly because the Signal FAQ lists some odd restrictions on multi device usage (e.g. desktop can't be linked to the iOS app, cannot have iPad and iOS at the same time [1]

[1]: [http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en- us/articles/21324092...](http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en- us/articles/213240927--Can-I-use-multiple-devices-Why-is-my-device-offline-)

<comment><USER18> That's a limitation of the iOS client. It doesn't support multi-device yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I found a file that is available as either MIT or GPL. Or is it only available under a union of the terms of both licenses? An intersection? Who knows, IANAL. [https://github.com/wireapp/wire- webapp/blob/0cf9bf4/aws/main...](https://github.com/wireapp/wire- webapp/blob/0cf9bf4/aws/main.py)

Why do people copy the license all over the place like that?

<comment><USER37> MIT has one condition: _The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software._

As the code include this, the author who distribute the code can thus prove in court that they are compliant with the wishes of the author/s of the MIT licensed software.

The added GPL means that copies of this specific version also adds additional conditions that those distributing this version _also_ need to follow. This mean in practice that they need to follow the GPL license and include the MIT copyright notice as stated above, in order to follow all the different authors wishes. Thankfully, MIT and GPL is compatible, so none of the conditions are contradicting with each other.

<comment><USER38> IANAL but I thought the compatibility was only one way. I.e., you can use MIT code in a GLP project but you can't do the reverse. My understanding is if you use GPL code in an MIT project, you have to make your entire project GPL.

<comment><USER37> Yes and no :). The MIT authors can not sue someone for not following GPL, and the GPL authors can't sue someone for using the MIT licensed code under MIT.

There is one consideration however. One of the GPL license condition says "must license the entire work under GPL", which mean that in order to legally distribute the GPL part, the MIT licensed code will be under both GPL and MIT. As such the patent grant in GPL will cover the whole project for anyone distributing the GPL included version, and many interpret this condition as making the entire project GPL. The exception to that view is that a project can still continue license new code as MIT, and a distributor could simply remove the GPL parts when they want to use it in a MIT and BSD only/Proprietary/Patent enforcing situations.

While I have not seen many MIT projects do this in regard to GPL add-ons and patches, it is the standard model for open core MIT projects to do this in regard to proprietary add-ons. I would thus not call the existence of optional GPL patches or add-ons as "make your entire project GPL", unless the additional code is essential to run the program.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Why does this Android app require a phone number to sign up?

At least Hangouts lets me use the app without a phone number.

<comment><USER3> You can register with just an email, using a desktop web browser at [http://app.wire.com](http://app.wire.com), then use that account to login on mobile. Unclear why it's not possible to register a new email-only account from the mobile app.

<comment><USER11> We had this, was confusing UX. Considering bringing it back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Can anyone explain to me why they use an UpsideDownTableViewController ?

<comment><USER41> From memory, the easiest way to have the "top" of a table view at the bottom of the screen (like in Messages, so the latest message bubble appears at the bottom) is to flip the table view upside down using an affineTransform and then also flip each cell in the table view upside down as well (so the cell is the right way up again).

This means you can insert new rows (message bubbles) at index 0 and they'll appear at the bottom, which makes it considerably easiest to add new messages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder how they encrypted their chat on the web client. Scince the Signal protocol is kind of the gold standard right now, probably their solution might in the end be the better one.

<comment><USER5> They use a Rust library [1] they wrote for the Axolotl protocol, which is the old name for the Signal protocol before it was renamed [2]. They refer to their implementation as 'Proteus'.

[1] [https://github.com/wireapp/proteus](https://github.com/wireapp/proteus)

[2] [https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-inside-and- out/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-inside-and-out/)

EDIT: Their webapp is written in Coffeescript, including their cryptography functions used in said webapp [3].

[3] [https://github.com/wireapp/wire- webapp/search?q=proteus&type...](https://github.com/wireapp/wire- webapp/search?q=proteus&type=Code)

<comment><USER35> Wire does not use Signal Protocol. They used some of our code, but created a protocol of their own devising that we do not recommend.

We renamed the Axolotl ratchet and Axolotl protocol because there was a lot of confusion around what it meant to say "Axolotl." Some people who continue to use the term "Axolotl" do so because they seek to benefit from that confusion.

It is great that Wire has finally open sourced their software. They have been advertising themselves as open source for the past two years, though, so I guess they weren't really able to make an announcement about this.

<comment><USER5> That confusion definitely worked on me. This clarifies a lot, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Good to see people using Rust in production :)

</comment><comment><USER43> Sorry if I've missed it somewhere but I'm looking for some independent, transparent reports on its security implementation. I was wondering if anyone could help me with finding this - or if perhaps they haven't been done I guess that would answer my question?

</comment><comment><USER44> Otto is my new best friend. I cannot see any information about a bot API on their site though...

<comment><USER11> There's no not API available. We've been experimenting with a few internal bots (Otto is the most prominent) but that's the extent of it for now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I wish they would have preserved the commit history. Future note to those open sourcing projects:

Preserve the commit history! It's very useful! Even if it takes more effort to review the history and remove stuff that you're not allowed to show or whatever.

</comment><comment><USER46> Android client uses Scala - might be changer for Scala on Android

<comment> premium-concern Why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Is there a way to download the OSX app without the Mac App Store?

<comment><USER48> Why, because a sandboxed app guaranteed to be from the author you think it's from is just too good a thing, and you prefer the heady rush of getting bombarded with MacUpdate spam when you get your apps?

Fine, some developers don't want to use the MAS. Their choice. I don't understand users not wanting to use it. It's the simplest possible way to install an app and get automatic updates for those apps.

<comment><USER49> What MacUpdate spam?

Not using the Mac App Store gives you more control over your apps. It allows you to distribute apps to OSX machines without an internet connection, it allows you to rollback versions or choose not to update, etc.

<comment><USER48> > What MacUpdate spam?

It took me a year and threats to file complaints with the FTC&FCC to get unsubscribed from their bullshit emails. That's what spam.

> It allows you to distribute apps to OSX machines without an internet > connection

This seems like a pretty rare situation these days, but even in that situation, if those machines can be given internet access _once_ to authorise them (e.g. via a phone hotspot) you can just copy the .app bundles.

> it allows you to rollback versions or choose not to update

The Mac App store doesn't force you to update either. Admittedly it doesn't allow rollbacks, but you can always restore from a backup and then choose not to update. You _do_ have backups right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Where is Windows client source code?

<comment><USER11> It's all on GuyHub. Our windows client is webapp in Electron wrapper so that's what you're looking for.

<comment><USER11> Darn autocorrect. That's Github, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Hmm, seems interesting.</comment>


GPT-3 Explains How RAM Works - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kirkouimet/gpt-3-explains-how-ram-computer-memory-works-20e211e0407b <comment><USER2> I can't wait to ask stock trading advices to GPT-3 once it became available

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm speechless, and I'd bet that GPT-3 wouldn't

</comment><comment><USER4> wow this is really is incredible.</comment>


Ask HN: RSS Reader that's similar to HN - <AUTHOR>

I consume most of my startup/tech news through HN now.  I'd like to expand that to all of my news.  Specifically, I like the idea of just viewing headlines in reverse chronological order in the dead simple interface HN employs. What dead simple rss readers would you recommend that have a similar vein to HN's UI (and that have a similarly elegant mobile version)?  Ideally, it might also take my list of rss feeds and, in a perfect world, learn what I like or pull in ratings from somewhere to prioritize what I see. <comment><USER2> That would be cool ;) Love the setup at HN.</comment>


A book review written in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://www.robinsloan.com/summer-reading/and-programming/

<comment><USER2> Author here: Cool to see this here, bpierre. Thank you. I really hope some HN readers decide to give this book a look; it's really shockingly good, all the more so for having been written in 1997. I'm a decidedly amateur programmer, but even I found myself nodding my head, thinking: "Yes, that's it. That's it!"

<comment><USER3> I discovered Ellen Fullman by chance back in the 90s. Unfortunately she hasn't writing any nonfiction since that I know of -- her last two books are both novels. "The Bug" is a fun read, particularly if you've ever had to do any low-level GUI programming back in the pre-browser days, but it's a little thin overall. Haven't read her newest one yet.

If she started writing nonfiction again, I'd buy it sight unseen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Neat, but it's still a very linear narrative, with the addition of having to type in commands to be able to read the next section.

Would have been much better if the review was exposed as an API which you could explore freely. And maybe some embedded silly programming challenges to be able to more effectively read the review. e.g. the example paragraph API could have just .nextChar() and .hasMoreChars() methods, so one would have to write a loop to comfortably read the example.

Opportunities are endless, though the book itself looks interesting.

</comment><comment><USER5> "The disorder of the desk, the floor; the yellow Post-it notes everywhere; the whiteboards covered with scrawl: all this is the outward manifestation of the messiness of human thought. The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer."

That's a beautiful description.

</comment><comment><USER6> This was fun. Definitely more engaged with it than the average review, though I think that the novelty would wear off quickly after this first one.

<comment><USER7> Of course, but this is a one-time thing. Do it once, it's a fun novelty. But you'd never really do it again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm getting this error:

        ReferenceError: Can't find variable: woopraTracker

When I basically do anything after

        s = new SummerReading()

<comment><USER9> If you use Ghostery, pause blocking or whitelist Woopra.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Neat, hitting the up-arrow did what I expected it to do.

</comment><comment><USER11> The interactive review was fun and caught my attention. The book has been purchased.

</comment><comment><USER12> A fun review. But if he had gone all the way and made the instructions come in Javascript + HTML5 then it would have actually waited for us to finish typing. Not to mention the non-linear narration possibilities.</comment>


Show HN: Placety is live for download in (South) East Asia and Oceania - <AUTHOR> http://blog.placety.com/2013/placety-is-live/

<comment><USER2> Your App Store button is broken</comment>