Why was this secret? - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/ws <comment><USER2> Why was her diary secret? Well, because she wanted it so. And that should be enough.

When it comes to information that any given person regards as intimate about oneself, that should always be enough. It doesn't matter that someone else might peruse that information and say, "there is nothing special here." Why? Because it is not that person's judgment to make. There may be nothing special about my exact bank balance or net worth or state of my health or sex life or political or religious affiliations (or lack of affiliations) or any other information that I may consider private but that doesn't mean I want that information broadcast to the world only to invite identity thieves, malicious third-parties, political enemies, or anybody else who might bear a grudge or harbor an animus to have a field day with it. But they are just "facts", you might say. No, in the wrong hands, they are ammunition by which to hurt you if people want and, even if the facts themselves are innocent enough, people have a ready capacity as may suit their whims or prejudices or any other ulterior motives they may have to do you wrong and what may appear as innocent "facts" to one person can easily be transmuted into a vile weapon that can cost you your job, your important relationship, or any other of many things that might be the subject of someone's jealousy or other animus toward you (a lifetime of courtroom experience has certainly shown me how easy it is for a motivated adversary to take otherwise innocent facts and twist them into malicious aspersions if they really want to). What is more, even if nobody had _any interest whatever_ in harming me through misuse of that information, it is part of my essential humanity that I can separate that which I regard as intimate (to me) from that which is made freely available for public consumption. There is a reason why the word "vulgar" developed negative connotations over the centuries: it originally meant nothing more than "belonging to the crowd." Well, crowds can trample on things you might regard as precious and it should be your choice and no one else's whether you want to open up important parts of your life for public consumption.

If I happen _not_ to want to keep any part of my life secret, well, that is fine too. That is a choice every person can make for himself so long as he doesn't go about over-sanctimoniously proclaiming that others must do the same or harming others about him by revealing things that they consider intimate as he opens the book of his own life to the world.

It is the same in the business world. One can open-source his own works as a matter of commitment to the idea that all information ought to be free or for any other reason but that doesn't mean the law ought to abrogate protections for proprietary, trade secret information that most businesses need to keep confidential information as a matter of competitive advantage. If I am a broker who depends for his livelihood in serving a customer base that it took years to develop, I would be rightly upset if someone came in and simply handed all my customer information over to my competitors. So too would a development team that has invested huge amounts of money and time into a development effort that gives them a significant competitive advantage over others and whose business model turns on keeping that advantage to themselves exclusively. So too would most any company management if its confidential business plans for winning key markets suddenly got broadcast publicly over the web. Examples of this type can be multiplied endlessly and really are self-evident to anyone who has had much in the way of real-world business experience.

Again, any private business is free to make a contrary judgment and to open itself up at every level so that it maintains no private or secret information whatever. That is their choice. But, if I want to keep things secret in my business, no one should be able to force me to do otherwise or to try to shame me into believing that I am doing something wrong.

Laws and public policy cannot make these choices for us as individual actors but it is essential that they set up a structure to protect those who would seek to keep their confidential information private. How and to what degree that happens in practical execution can be a complex topic in our technological age but the abiding principle, to me, is very clear: privacy is valuable in any society and laws should be shaped accordingly.

So, why, then, is this secret? Because the person it most affects wants it that way and the rest of us should respect that person's wishes to keep it so.

<comment><USER3> If you write down your secrets on a diary, or tell some of your friends about it, or God forbid! write it up on Facebook, then you're asking for trouble (or maybe you want those "secrets" to not stay secret forever).

My secrets are in my head, I don't talk about them to anyone, I don't write them down. They will die with me.

Of course that doesn't work for a business. But a business is _NOT_ a person, so it's disingenuous to claim that businesses have a right to "privacy". Businesses have no "human rights". Businesses are things, like a table or a shoe.

<comment><USER4> We write things down for a number of reasons. Are you really arguing that a person "is asking for it" just for writing it down?

<comment><USER3> I'm only saying, what's not written can't be read. What isn't said can't be heard.

My mother was a lawyer and always taught us never to talk over the phone about things that were potentially incriminating, much less writing it down -- and this was in the seventies-eighties, long before anything resembling the Internet or the mass-surveillance capabilities of today's NSA.

What I'm saying is that a real secret is something not shared with anyone; if you need to share a "secret" with another person:

\- you need to take extreme precautions, such as not talking about it on the phone, not writing about it, not alluding to it when in presence of other people

\- you can only talk about it in person, not over any kind of wire, regardless of what you think are good encryption methods

\- and even if you do all of the above it's very likely the secret won't stay secret forever

I'd say this is all common sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the context of coding projects, the author's conclusion seems realistic.

Given current events though, I can't help but wonder if there's a subtext about privacy and snooping. If so, then I would venture this observation: Your friend's super-secret diary is meaningless to you only because you have no desire to abuse the access you've been given. Suppose instead your friend's devious enemy obtained the diary. Then, he could probably use it to damage your friend's relationships and/or career.

Now imagine a dystopian future when all such diaries are available to a privileged subset of society. Imagine the power that subset would hold, and all the ways it would likely be abused.

Unless we want to ensure our every communication and personal note is fit for public consumption, some things are by definition our secrets.

<comment><USER6> The reasons for privacy are always so contrived. "Dystopian futures", "enemies trying to ruin lives" etc. etc. It never resonates with me.

I think what the author is trying to say is that if you live an open life with few secrets, then your life will be less stressful. He's encouraging us to really reevaluate what we keep secret b/c when you sit down to think about it, it's most likely all in your head.

<comment><USER7> > _The reasons for privacy are always so contrived. "Dystopian futures", > "enemies trying to ruin lives" etc. etc. It never resonates with me._

That's because you're an average Joe.

And even you, you use a pseudonymous account name here on HN.

Now think of all the lives of change-makers, dissidents, activists etc that were fucked up with the use of such private information (from their sexual preferences to who they meet), under all kinds of regimes, in the US and abroad.

Try reading how some of the pioneers of civil rights for blacks were treated, for example, what kind of files were kept on them, how they were setup and pressured etc. It's not like MLK emerged from nowhere, said "I have a dream" and everybody cheered and that was that.

Heck, you don't even have to go that far. Even opinions expressed on HN can get people fired from their jobs if they go public. Even mild ones, including mere jokes said in private: a guy was fired for telling a "dongle" joke to his friend at a conference -- because someone eavesdropped.

Plus, your notion pressuposes that things will always be totally fine (save a "dystopian future"), and nothing will ever make citizens question the government, big corporations, etc. Which does not hold, really. From McCarthyism to the Civil Rights movement, down to the Vietnam War protests and recent stuff like Occupy Wall Street, there's always such discord, and there will be even more in a future with rising inequality and diminishing middle class.

Hundrends of millions (perhaps including you) might continue to be oblivious to all this (as they were oblivious about Vietnam War protests and/or rock n' roll in rural Idaho), but tens of millions were and will be affected.

<comment><USER6> > That's because you're an average Joe.

And I think this article is written targeting the average Joe. Everyone is getting off on tangents about how the gov't is going to go fascist and that privacy is the best thing in the world.

He isn't arguing that privacy is inherently bad, or you should never ever have secrets. Yeah, if your trying to overthrow an fascist regime, it makes sense to have secrets. But again, that's a contrived reason. If you're MLK, that's not really the norm.

The point Mr.Sivers making is - _generally_ people have more secrets than they really need and in the process they're making their lives more stressful. He's suggesting trying to re-evulate your need for privacy (I'm repeating myself).

It's just a call for some self reflection. Everyone needs to chill out a bit.

<comment><USER8> If you're a black person what happens to MLK-type figures matters to you, even if you're not them.

You don't get it: You can't have democracy in a surveillance state.

<comment><USER9> You definitely can have democracy in a transparent state - what happens to MLK type figures is not related to what potential oppressors know about MLK (they already knew all they needed to) but instead what they're allowed to do to restrict MLK.

<comment><USER8> I assume you meant surveillance state.

It's nonsensical: In what way do you propose to not make the subject of surveillance disempowered?

<comment><USER9> In what way was MLK disempowered by the fact that FBI knew all about his personal life, travel plans, who he communicated with and so on?

The key is that government should be unable to prevent you from excercising your rights to action despite knowing that you want to change things. If you really need to conspire in secrecy, then it's probably already too late for anything other than an armed revolution to fix that.

<comment><USER8> They blackmailed him using the fact that he was having an affair for example. The rule obviously can't be "you can't tell anyone person X is having an affair".

>The key is that government should be unable to prevent you from exercising your rights to action

No that's not the key. Severely impairing your ability to act or discouraging action by causing pain is essentially as effective as outright prohibition as is lowering someone's public esteem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't even imagine about what privacy is going to look like in 20 years, or how society will adapt to deal with it. What seems missing from his thought experiment is how to address privacy for things that concern more than just a single participant.

I don't particularly worry about my individual privacy, or care about securing my things. If someone managed to get a hold of my email, I wouldn't be very put out. I don't encrypt my hard drives, or even back anything up. My lack of security and privacy hygiene, however, doesn't extend to my work stuff. I care about maintaining the confidentiality and privacy of that stuff because it's part of a social contract (and I suppose also an employment contract) that I have with my work and my clients.

Instead of his diary example, what if he had asked his friend "Can I copy all of the emails off of your phone, or all the phone numbers in your addressbook?" Maybe they still wouldn't care, or maybe they'd now have to take into account the fact that all that data also involves other people, and maybe they wouldn't find it acceptable for you to give our their cell phone number to anybody who asks.

So much of the data that we accrue is increasingly more interconnected with other people. I feel like that's where we run into trouble, because there is no universal consensus around what's private and what isn't. We have rudimentary laws protecting the smallest subset of data which the government has decided should be considered private, but everything else is a value judgement for individuals (and is part of the current internet company land- grab).

I feel like his position is going to be harder and harder to maintain, as more and more of the "personal" data he's okay with sharing includes other people's data.

<comment><USER11> > I can't even imagine about what privacy is going to look like in 20 years, > or how society will adapt to deal with it.

You might like the book "The Light of Other Days"!

<comment><USER10> Thanks, I'll check it out! I don't generally like science fiction, but the premise sounds interesting and I did like some of Clarke's other books.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "So if someone is going through my private things, for example, and gets upset about what they find, then that's their problem, not mine!" Must agree... until someone makes it your problem, by social standards, laws, or anything else they can use to make your life harder.

<comment><USER13> My thoughts almost exactly.

It's all fine until you wind up on some sort of watchlist because of something "someone" found, and then travelling by air is a nightmare.

I'm not sure why, exactly, we decided that people we don't like but we can't pin any crimes on are punished by having limited access to air travel, but that's how it is!

On a related and more personal note, I once got in a large amount of trouble for a slashdot post. The company I worked for found a post I wrote when I wasn't an employee discussing social engineering attacks on building security(not theirs, mind you, but general ones). This led to some very tense discussions where I was accused of being a hacker, not caring about security, and plenty of other things. My personal (though public) livejournal came to the discussion, too. It was to the point where, if they tried to haul me in again, I would have requested an attorney.

It ultimately blew over and was recognized for what it was; Corporate Security trying to justify the money they spent on data mining. But it was a very tense period.

After that incident I keep things a lot less public.

<comment><USER14> If finding a job isn't difficult for you, would you stay?

I wouldn't stay for a company that shows such contempt for its employees and such incompetent waste of everybody's time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > __ _" I was surprised it was all meaningless to me. These pages meant the > world to her, but to me they meant no more than any non-secret conversation > we'd ever had. It was the same stuff that we all think._ __"

Uh - yeah this is completely naive. Here is why; the informatin is meaningless to you ___only if you are not looking to manipulate, exploit, blackmail or have the upper hand of the person holding the secrets_ __.

This is why the dragnet is insidious. Because it may be insignificant to the rural farmer; but valuable aagainst the urban lawyer seeking office, the corp exec or other heeled/monied power wielders...

<comment><USER16> If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

\-- _Often attributed to Cardinal Richelieu_

<comment><USER17> That quote doesn't really work for me, because it seems to be assuming that no other lines are available to provide context.

Or rather, instead of meaning "everybody is guilty of something", I interpret the message as warning about the dangers of relying on a quote taken out of context.

<comment><USER16> _...instead of meaning "everybody is guilty of something", I interpret the message as warning about the dangers of relying on a quote taken out of context._

It's not a concerned person's warning, it's a gloating celebration of ruthlessness, of power, and of the inconsequentiality of facts. It's bragging.

If your every statement is recorded, it will be possible to find something in that record to make trouble for you, should powerful parties feel the need. "Guilt" and "innocence" are, in this context, meaningless abstractions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "We got two ciders and she patiently waited while I spent 20 minutes reading through it. Pages filled with words about processing family drama, formulating goals, plans for life changes, romantic details, lists of regrets, contemplations, etc."

"I was surprised it was all meaningless to me. These pages meant the world to her, but to me they meant no more than any non-secret conversation we'd ever had. It was the same stuff that we all think."

The key here is "meaningless _to me_ ". It's obviously meaningful to her. And it would also be meaningful to her family, or romantic partners, or a potential employer, etc.

Privacy is contextual. I often joke that it wouldn't bother me personally if Google or the NSA poked around my e-mail. But it would bother me a lot if my mom did.

<comment><USER19> Yes it's a silly, flippant response by the OP. What if sivers.org posted her diaries for HackerNews to read?

I bet you could find people for which her diaries would not be "meaningless" and could make this person not feel happy about that information being known here. Here, we can make someone like Nelson Mandela seem horrible, just think how would we could make this women feel.

You don't have to get out dystopian examples of why this view is _basically stupid_. It doesn't stand up to common sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> When you live in a society where anything you do or say (or accidentally appear to have said or did) will be held against you, privacy matters. It matters so much you don't log-in to online messaging services because you're wary of SSL MitM attacks or send non-encrypted emails from that network or do a litany of other "normal" things. It definitely means you aren't 100% open like Sivers is suggesting.

How do I know this? I live in a very small, strict university setting that presents a picture of the potential of a future of "complete transparency". Even the hint of "lawbreaking" (i.e., rule-breaking) can land you in serious trouble. Trust me, I take privacy very seriously. Not because I have something to hide, but because I have everything (in the short-term) to lose.

I know what I've said is mostly anecdotal due to the implicit nature of choosing to be in this environment; however, were this environment the world at large, I believe my anecdote would be normative.

<comment><USER9> It's also related the other way - if everything you do or say is public, it won't be held against you. Noone cares about your sexual kinks or comic tastes, if everyone knows about the even weirder issues of the president and all the congressmen.

<comment><USER21> Except that your parents' ultra-conservative church tells them what you're doing is wrong. And while your parents don't care if the politicians all go to hell, they definitely care if _you_ do. Which means there's far less annoying family drama if you just keep it quiet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is Sivers really suggesting that just because she was OK with him reading the diary, she would be OK with _anyone_ reading it? That seems like a highly naive assumption.

And seriously, this is your entire project list? "Everything is listed..." As a programmer and someone who sees how other programmers work, I am not buying it.

Please don't lecture us on secrets with weak false examples. It comes off as disingenuous.

<comment><USER23> > And seriously, this is your entire project list?

I wish my list would grow past 0 items.

I honestly have no itches to scratch.

<comment><USER24> > I wish my list would grow past 0 items.

> I honestly have no itches to scratch.

Looks like you do have an itch to scratch...though I can't think of any good solutions to wishing for more projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> One of my favorite Dilbert strips is Asok asking "Why is this document stamped CONFIDENTIAL? If I spent my entire life trying, I would not be able to find anyone who cared to read it."

<comment><USER26> [http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-09-29/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-09-29/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It makes for an interesting thought about what is intrinsically valuable versus what isn't.

The diary is 'non-intrinsic' because he doesn't have the context in which the information makes sense. A series of usernames and passwords is secret because it is self referentially useful.

Stuff in the first category can become useful over time (the Mosaic effect) when someone suddenly lashes out about something and that connects the context of a series of family dramas. Stuff in the latter category is useful right away.

Its useful to think about both cases. (oh and I really enjoyed reading through the ideas, they are fun) I should put my list up somewhere as well.

</comment><comment><USER28> The important part missing here is that it must be a _choice_. If I want my location data public I can make it public. If I want my super-secret diary read by anyone I can post it on Tumblr.

But if I don't want to no-one should judge me for making that choice. And I should not judge those that choose differently.

</comment><comment><USER29> There's an old joke: so this guy is trying to get rid of an ugly old sofa, he puts it out on the curb with the sign "free sofa!". Days pass; no luck. So he puts up a new sign saying "sofa: $50, call ###-####" and it's gone in ten minutes.

<comment><USER30> That's not a joke, if I want to get rid of a piece of old furniture on the footpath I'll always put a $5 sign on it.

<comment><USER31> Works wonders with largish appliances like washers or refrigerators. Free? Must be broken. $10? Must still work.

<comment><USER32> That's one of the paradoxes of pricing: price itself is inferred to be an indicator of quality, so "free" is often perceived as "lower quality".

While this can be true, it isn't entirely reliable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This person realized that with the NSA and however many other agencies spying on us, and other issues, we may not effectively have any real privacy anymore, and therefore he has come up with one or more rationalizations for why this is OK.

This is probably a common thing. Seems a bit similar to Stockholm syndrome. Anyway its probably an automatic self-defense mechanism.

The scary part is that a significant portion of the population is probably also doing a similar sort of rationalization now.

People will eventually accept any circumstance that they can't change, unless it is going to kill them. Actually, even if it _will_ kill them. In fact, our inevitable death is one aspect of life that people will often rationalize in the most determined way.

We can change this circumstance though. We can have privacy, even in the digital age. Don't give up your natural rights so easily.

</comment><comment><USER34> My favorite thing on GameFAQs is the angry verbiage at the end of every FAQ promising dire legal consequences should anyone attempt to appropriate and profit from their work. Do you really think anyone anywhere is going to _pay_ for your Donkey Kong Country strategy guide?

If I ever write a game FAQ, it's going to end with "if you figure out a way to make a profit off of this, you are legally required to let me know how you did it so I can congratulate you."

<comment><USER35> That's actually a serious concern. There are lots of spammy sites that rip gamefaqs content and throw up really terrible advertising.

That said those disclaimers offer no more power than a faq without a disclaimer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It is meaningless to you because you have no use for that information which is probably why she shared the "super super secret" diary with you. In terms of your relationship with your friend, you present a harmless consumer of that information.

As a though process, lets replace "you" with:

a) her employers, colleagues, etc

b) any of her family members that she talked about

c) her significant other, partner, etc.

Now, do you think she will let these people read her diary? Do you see how dangerous these "secrets" are if these parties get their hands on it?

IMO there are always valid or invalid reasons for keeping secrets (privacy is actually the real topic here) but the real question is whom are you keeping this secret from.

</comment><comment><USER37> My interpretation of Derek's point: "A lot of us keep things secret for the sake of keeping them secret without particularly evaluating whether the secrecy serves any purpose. On average, this means that there are things that are secret that shouldn't necessarily be. We might all be better off if we were a little more willing to share things that might not actually need to be secret."

Not everything needs to be secret != everything should be public

His post is written to describe his personal journey about his personal attitude towards his own work. I think a lot of people are misinterpreting him to be saying something broader and blunter than he actually is.

<comment><USER38> Thank you Visakan. You got it, and others didn't.

A major challenge in communication is to not be misunderstood. I must not have been clear enough. I never said anywhere that everything should be public. Only that I decided my code and ideas didn't need to be secret.

I think maybe commenters here are reacting more to other commenters, instead of the actual article, now.

<comment> grey-area I went and read the article, and I think it's obvious in retrospect why your point about your code is being ignored, and not just by people who haven't read the article. You start with this premise, which you appear to agree with:

 _I'm not worried about someone finding out my secrets, because secrets are just facts, right?_

and go on to an example of a diary, one of the most personal artefacts we have, and imply that sharing it all with anyone who asks (as per the above statement) is absolutely fine. The implication of the above statement is that all secrets are pointless, including personal ones. In the context of a society in which governments and corporations are spying on every communication and looking for ways to justify it, this attitude is actively damaging and is an after-the-fact justification of that spying.

I think many people would agree with you that opening up your private code repos is a worthy thing to do, and it's certainly an idea worthy of discussion, with pros and cons (as you rightly point out, to do with maintenance and the public commitment more than anything else). The mistake in this article is relating that to personal privacy, and implying that secrets are just facts is a statement worthy of consideration.

If secrets are _just facts_ and cannot hurt you, there is no point in keeping _anything_ secret at all. Unfortunately other people in the world are quite capable of twisting the most mundane facts about your life (like your location at every moment, your sexual preferences, whatever), and using them to destroy your life, either because of their prejudices, or because of those of society at large. Witness politicians brought down because of some affair, or their private sex life - we don't know how many of those are leaked by our 'security services' for political gain but they certainly have done that in the past. No-one deserves that much power over others, and because of the asymmetry of power in our society, private information is far more useful to some people than others.

Perhaps that is not what you intended to imply, but that is the logical conclusion of the statement and your interpretation of it, and that's why people are reacting so strongly to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I've often said that the best way to get a quick competitive advantage against our rivals would be to send them our source.

<comment><USER19> Ok, send me your source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> No one cares about other people's family drama. But if Valerie led a secret life as a private escort or ran a sex-cam operation from her bedroom to make ends meet, I doubt she would be OK with Derek reading about them.

</comment><comment><USER41> When you open to the public the contents of your instance of Beekeep and Peeps databases, then you will have a point.

<comment><USER42> FTA: I still believe in privacy. It's just a matter of questioning which things need to be private, and which things really don't.

Doesn't this address your attempt at a point? He has some things which he realized he kept private for no reason so he opened them up. The content of peeps is, in fact, not his to share (if I gave you my phone # to contact me, I would not consider it reasonable, without foreknowledge, for you to dump it into a public DB).

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> You should've asked her if you could scan it, OCR it, and upload it to a publicly available, web-crawlable, SEO-optimized website where it would be scooped up and stored on archive.org for all eternity.

</comment><comment><USER44> This was indeed the conclusion I came to as well though my journey through there was a lot more convoluted.

And then, there are things like: [http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to- me/charlotte-laws-hunte...](http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/charlotte- laws-hunter-moore-erin-brockovich-revenge-porn)

</comment><comment><USER45> Now imagine that instead of her boyfriend, someone who hates her finds the diary. Yeah.

You're stupid. That's not a secret tho - it's just a fact. I'd happily sugar- coat it but I'm tired of feeling like we're degrading our minds since internet came around with fast paced sensationalistic crap.

</comment><comment><USER46> Derek -- what are your credit card numbers and SSN? No reason to keep those private!

</comment><comment><USER47> It is only meaningless to others until they choose to abuse it and use it to put you at a disadvantage. That is when this argument fails.

Yes my code is probably useless to others and so are my super-super secret diaries. However, it is only a matter of time that a smart con-man will connect the dots to ruin my life - my relationships, steal my identity etc.

"Going through my stuff... if they become upset, its their problem, not mine!". Right, until I realize that going through that stuff actually made them happy instead because of how they could use it to profit themselves.

</comment><comment><USER48> I think the diary analogy is great, but the author fails to explore it properly. It ignores aspects such as self-awareness, self-consciousness and self-censorship. Notice a lot of 'self's in the previous sentence? A diary is a very personal thing. When you are writing in your diary you poor your heart out about everything and anything. You can do this because you are the only person who will ever read this stuff. Imagine writing something that other people will read, like your mom (anything sex-related is out of the question), your colleagues (better not say your boss is a total jerk), your friends (don't mention that secret Anne told you about Peter, or you wlll lose 2 friends) or your government (no wait, they already know everything anyway).

Similar things happen when you are writing code for yourself and yourself only. When I write code for my own pleasure. I don't care so much about documentation, clarity, robustness, polish, etc. Yes, I am a bad, bad person. Anyway, compare writing code for yourself with code you share with friends (generally supportive, but add some polish and fix that hack so they don't think you're a complete idiot), colleagues (semi-critical yet supportive, maybe try to score some bonus points using a FactorySingletonVisitorBean) or hackerne.ws (super-critical, probably rewrite it in the language-du-jour first, prepare to be burned at the stake anyway).

</comment><comment><USER49> This is such bullshit - poorly formulated hippy dribble.

If he was really interested in such ideas, he would know and use GPL/AGPL/MIT/Apache licences already for his code, and CC for his writings.

Instead he makes everyone hippy dippy stupid about secrecy and privacy. It might all be fine when you are rich, cis-straight and white, but a single non friendly idea and you are a threat to the state.

People that cheapen our privacy and secrecy rights shouldn't be allowed this much airtime.

Ridiculous. -1

<comment><USER50> This is honestly the most worthless comment I have ever seen on HN. Besides ad hominem, there is literally nothing here other than a giant pile of conspiracy.

<comment><USER49> So samstave put it better, but essentially my argument isn't ad hominem, it's attacking the notion that YOUR secrets mean nothing to ME, which can be generalised to ANYONE's secrets mean nothing to ANYONE. Which is obviously untrue.

Yet that is the conclusion he comes to.

The other possible conclusion, as I noted, is that he has previously been unaware of Free/Open Source and Creative Commons based licenses. In which case he needs not talk on secrets but rather on licensing.

<comment><USER51> You seem to have changed what he said into a bizarre absolute. The point of Derek's post is that many of us unnecessarily keep many things secret for no rational reason at all. He's just suggesting that we ask ourselves, "Why is this secret?" Because a lot of the time, we're just needlessly building paper walls around our insecurities rather than keeping important secrets.

And given that Derek has code licensed under MIT, your conclusion that he was unaware of that license is obviously incorrect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Flawed argument by the poster...

>> "Pages filled with words about processing family drama, formulating goals, plans for life changes, romantic details, lists of regrets, contemplations, etc"

C'mon, those are her super super private secrets? Thats ridiculous. 'romantic details' may be a little bit...

Thats why she says "So if someone is going through my private things, for example, and gets upset about what they find, then that's their problem, not mine!""

But things people like to keep really secret (and not coyly secret) and worry about others finding out, are those that would upset themselves (and not the readers) if they get discovered. These would be things that one is ashamed of, that one is afraid of being discovered, that if known to others will result in loss of respect/love/admiration/consolation etc that they are currently receiving from others. Or those if discovered by the wrong person can leave one vulnerable to exploitation/blackmail etc. Any other type of secrets are just silly and overblown.

</comment><comment><USER53> This is an interesting point, I think the tendency of most people who are creative/idea types (myself included) are kind of an over thinking of their own ideas, like they are somehow more important and prone to "theft", but the more I work on my own stuff, and the more I do on in open source, the less and less I think that's the case.

Like when I was working on Capsulr ([http://capsulr.com/](http://capsulr.com/), shameless plug), I worried about showing people stuff too early, until I just realized that most people probably wouldn't even see the site, or if they did, most wouldn't even see the product the same way that I see it evolving. It's kind of helped me to start documenting my work, and I find that sharing notes publicly (just with myself) is a load of pressure off my shoulders and is worth the tiny possibility that someone might take it and run with it.

</comment><comment><USER54> I've basically made the same realization a few years ago and decided to stop going through the trouble of keeping my personal code private.

It's been great so far. I get all the benefits (like godoc.org providing docs for my code, free github repos, easy to share links with people, etc.) and none of the disadvantages.

It's a personal choice, and not for everyone. But it just makes life so much easier. In fact, I'm trying to reduce the number of things that I'm forced to keep private because they're considered to be "security questions".

On theft of ideas: [https://twitter.com/shurcooL/status/266294572949327872](https://twitter.com/shurcooL/status/266294572949327872)

</comment><comment><USER55> How about this: No one can predict the import of what's recorded NOW. Not the person who records it, not the person who observes it, not the person who comes upon it 5 minutes, 5 years, 5 decades later.

Keeping your material projections close to the vest, keeping them out, as far as possible, from the unpredictable hands of the future is just good sense.

The times are changing. We have very little grasp on how what we record now - private, public, or otherwise (?) - will impact us in the future.

There's a virtue in openness, to be sure. But maintaining privacy is no bad thing. No matter what the talking walnut says.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKd7z5CY4BU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKd7z5CY4BU)

</comment><comment><USER56> Hopefully he removed all private keys from the earliest commit before pushing them publicly ;-)

</comment><comment><USER57> Great idea. Here's mine:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pn5vL3TY3VKr3WyZrKBpWnGW...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pn5vL3TY3VKr3WyZrKBpWnGW_zYi9AOA1b8c5NBiDFg/edit?usp=sharing)

<comment><USER58> I have a Google doc with the same exact title of "Ideas." Yours is far more extensive though.

<comment><USER57> I've had this going for a year or two now. It's hard to come up with ideas when you want them, and they seem to come to you quickly when you don't need them or once you've started paying attention to problems. By no means is my list complete or good, but I've found it helpful to write them down otherwise I'll forget them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> _"I'm not worried about someone finding out my secrets, because secrets are just facts, right? So if someone is going through my private things, for example, and gets upset about what they find, then that's their problem, not mine!"_

Sure, it's their problem. But they might have power over you. If some intolerant family members discover you're gay, you might get kicked out of the house. If parents discover their child is trans, they might try to "beat it out of them". An abusive husband might find where his wife has run off to and "finish the job".

But, hey, they're problem! right?

</comment><comment><USER60> This is bullshit naievete.

Move the clock back 40 years on the romance section. Imagine it references homosexuality, and ask yourself if the author's theme of "what's the big deal" is appropriate.

OP is under the mistaken belief that everyone else shares their morals and mores. They have plenty of time to be rudely defenstrated.

This is the danger of confusing exhibitionism with free-spiritedness.

It is a first-principle error to devalue privacy. OP should be ashamed of themselves. They need to read up on humanity's very short history of tolerance for true individualism. OP should read up on Alan Turing for fuck's sake.

Fuck this fool.

<comment><USER9> "Keeping it a secret" is a non-solution that killed Alan Turing.

Telling the intolerants to suck it up, in particular by openly leaving the closet, was the solution that worked to solve the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I think you could also ask the opposite question about pretty much anything - why was this public? And I think the answer is the same - because I wanted it that way. Why should it need to be justified either way? If I want to keep something secret for a reason or by default or just on a whim, I should be able to, and if I want to make something public, I should be able to do that too. I don't think one choice is any better than the other as a default.

</comment><comment><USER62> Regarding source code in a business context the question is: What is your competitive advantage? Well, as an experienced software developer who is not nearly as experienced in other things, sometimes my _only_ chance to have competitive advantage is private source code. You may argue that I do not even have that competitive advantage, but then why bother competing in any market at all?

</comment><comment><USER63> Just because privacy is worthless to you does not means it's not of value to me. Throw away your privacy but please don't contribute to the meme that privacy is disposable.

Lots of people have secrets that are harmless but can destroy them if they end up in the wrong hands, e.g. homosexuality within a conservative community.

</comment><comment><USER64> Discretion and secrecy are related but not interchangible concepts. Is this author really suggesting discretion be non-existent? That opportunistic manipulation has never occurred? The need for NDAs has never once made sense? What it is disporportionately valuable to you, is more costly to you, once taken away, too.

</comment><comment><USER65> With respect to ideas in start-up phase , I think if it's your idea , you will pursue it more passionately as compared to others . Idea can struck to anyone , wonder out of billions of people around how many are pursuing similar ideas ? It's the one who do it in right way and right time makes it big.

</comment><comment><USER66> Wonderful! Seems to be public domain, too?

<comment><USER51> It's not public domain — he hasn't put in a license at all. I'm sure he'll correct the oversight sooner or later. Right now it looks like he just switched the private flag on his existing repos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I am not sure why an article goes to Nr. 1 that has a made up table full of silly unjustified numbers in it.

</comment><comment><USER68> If you have nothing about your personal life you want to hide, I think you're pretty boring

</comment><comment><USER19> I think this is just la la land jibber jabber. You all can pretend privacy is irrelevant and you don't care if everyone knows everything about you because it is "meaningless" or whatever ...

But unlike some on HN, I will continue to live in the real world.

</comment><comment><USER69> This is consistent with what I see about supposed corporate secrets, and source code. What's on paper matters less than the people behind it, their interest and motivation, and how creating the "secrets" changed them.

</comment><comment><USER70> overused but appropriate.

There are 2 rules to success:

rule 1: Never tell everything you know.

edit: read a bit about Derek Sivers, this guy is either the counter example or his rule no2 is really worth knowing. Almost all my best reads of the past 10 years are on his book list.

He sold his company to a perpetual charitable trust which then sold it to a third party, shielding himself and saving a bundle in capital gains tax and providing residual for his whole life + supports his cause(music education). Kudos Derek. I'll be reading the books on your list; maybe to catch a glimpse of your rule no2? :-)

Cheers,

</comment><comment><USER71> Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. -- Howard Aiken

</comment><comment><USER72> Interesting how the author, and the woman who's the subject of his anecdote (and several here), conflate and confuse privacy with secrecy.

</comment><comment><USER73> She probably would of said no, if there was any negativity about you in there.

You should of asked what her pincode was for her ATM card...

</comment><comment><USER74> All I want is your GitHub password.

</comment><comment><USER75> About half of my friends post every move they make throughout the day, photo- illustrated, to Facebook. They also have numerous short conversations with their friends, that are clearly just between the two of them and would normally be of no interest to anybody else. It's the equivalent of having private conversations out loud in front of everyone each of them have ever met in their lives.

I do not understand any of this behavior. I'm said to be a 'private person.' But it's clear to me that the zeitgeist is definitely _not_ on my side here. I also wonder what all of this will be like in 20 years, given that Facebook has only been in widespread use for an utterly paltry 5 years.</comment>


World of Goo for iPad Now Available - <AUTHOR> http://2dboy.com/2010/12/15/world-of-goo-for-ipad-now-available/

<comment><USER2> It would be neat if they allowed multi-touch to let you place several blobs at the same time, it would make it easier than the desktop version and would warrant specialised levels to take advantage of it.

<comment><USER3> The iPad port actually does this, look at their preview video and experience the full joy: <http://vimeo.com/17390761>

<comment><USER4> The movie that is associated with that clip looks very interesting (Indie Game The Movie). Nice find!

Can't wait for 2011 :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this just a direct port or are there special levels for the iPad, I already have a version or two of this and if it has extra content I might be worth a buy but if not... I think I'll leave it

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow, this looks great - a game that can really make use of fingers if ever there was one. Super helpful for the World of MOM levels, I bet.

I'd definitely get it if I had an iPad... and didn't have the PC version. :)

Keep it up, 2dboy!

</comment><comment><USER7> This is the first App that makes me want an iPad. The Wii version was amazing.

<comment><USER8> There are a lot of apps that are much cooler on the iPad, especially the generative art and particle physics ones. For example Art of Glow, Little Uzu, etc.</comment></comment>


Confusing evil and illegal - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/08/24/google-drugs

<comment><AUTHOR> Just because something is illegal doesn't mean that it is evil. Google paid $500 million because of "its improper advertising practices with regard to these pharmacies". There's no indication that they tried to trick people or steal from them. Though they may have, the DOJ site doesn't indicate this, so I'm assuming that they're being punished for helping Canadian prescription drug-sellers connect more effectively with customers. If they violated US law, they should be fined, but it's a reach to call this evil.

It's unfortunate that Gruber continues to beat the "Don't be evil, Google." horse; it's getting old.</comment>


Unnecessary OS X System Processes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/stullig/dotfiles

<comment><AUTHOR> If anyone has resources or is willing to share his knowledge of OS X System Daemons and Agents - spotting and unloading the unnecessary ones is the main aspect of my dotfiles[1], but resources are often elusive, outdated or plain inaccurate guesswork, the whole process usually takes a lot of reading binary metadata and sometimes plain trial & error (and consequent occassional frustration).

But then I managed to saved around 2 GB of Ram just by unloading Daemons.

If anyone is interested to chip in, thankful for any link or suggestion.

( Already posted this in the 'dotfiles is your backpack' [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10001996](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10001996) but thought it's worth another thread )</comment>


God Particle Fails to Show Up, Stephen Hawking May Have Won His Bet - g-garron http://walyou.com/god-particle/

<comment><AUTHOR> The bet was that the LHC would 'never' find the flying spaghetti monster particle, so while the LHC is still operational, he will have to wait to collect.</comment>


Filepicker.io launches Alfresco, WebDAV, & FTP integrations - <AUTHOR> https://www.filepicker.io/products/services/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is our first shot at adding enterprise content platforms. Would love to get the community's feedback.

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm a strange person, but unencrypted FTP makes me cringe. I'd much rather add a Filepicker-specific SSH key restricted to sftp/scp.

<comment><USER3> That's actually a clever idea, and opens up the door to connecting to servers directly over ssh

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> i realize it might be slightly out of scope, and a less common use case, but an FTP integration that worked the other way around (users can upload to a filepicker hosted FTP and it sends a postback to my app) would be enough to get me to subscribe. cool service.

<comment><USER5> They actually do this via S3, user can upload a photo to Filepicker S3 and then sends a post to your app with the URL of the image. You can then download the image onto your own server, add text captions to it, resize it, whatever you want, using GET parameters.

<comment><USER4> this doesn't help the use case where i have a client who would prefer to upload files through FTP. but, nice to see it's not out of the realm of possibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What protocol do you guys use to talk to Sharepoint?

<comment><USER3> We're using the ability to talk over CMIS added in Sharepoint 2010

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Alfresco and FTP I get, but why WebDAV? I cannot think of anything which still uses this protocol, no service nor enterprise deployment.

<comment><AUTHOR> So services in the education market (like Blackboard and others)seem to depend heavily on WebDAV for integration school systems. That's one fo the reasons why we chose WebDAV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Alfresco eh? I am debating between Liferay and Alfresco currently. Anybody got some useful advice for me? Thanks!</comment>


Foursquare's year of 3400% growth - <AUTHOR> http://foursquare.com/2010infographic

<comment><USER2> Wow, that is really impressive, but I do think that foursquare will have some decline in 2011.</comment>


California cities, school districts pushed to the brink of insolvency - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/22/walters-california-cities-school-districts-pushed-to-the-brink-of-insolvency/ <comment><USER2> Well "fearing candor would spark a backlash." No shit, give in to union blood suckers as a trend and they will suck you dry...</comment>


Coming Soon: Free Internet From Space - <AUTHOR> http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/coming-soon-free-internet-from-space-20140220

<comment><USER2> An article without a single word of useful information -- no clue about orbital height, how many subscribers might be served by a given satellite, how the system would switch between satellites as one satellite moved out of view, that sort of thing.

Without the technical details, it's a pipe dream unlikely to attract investors.

<comment><USER3> This particular plan may be a pipe dream but I think everyone is vastly underestimating the roll satellite comm will play in the next 20 years.

Access to space is going to get much much cheaper and I suspect this kind of thing will become a major competitor with terrestrial wireless services. For instance, Iridium has 500 million in launches on the SpaceX books for Iridium Next starting in 2015. This is global constellation in LEO providing 1.5mbs wireless data connection anywhere in the world. [1]

[http://www.iridium.com/about/iridiumnext.aspx](http://www.iridium.com/about/iridiumnext.aspx)</comment></comment>


Building Your Own Duplex Phone Screen in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://upsidelab.io/blog/duplex-phone-screen-in-javascript/ <comment><USER2> The article is more about a clever phone answering machine, kind of a personal secretary which passed the caller.

Seems to be useful for people getting a lot of phone spam or super many calls. I would rather require anybody to write a mail. Looks less overhead and is much nicer to other humans who then don't have to waste their time to speaking with a machine.</comment>


Look how small this tiny $400 laptop is It's really small - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/2/15/14624828/gpd-pocket-indiegogo-laptop-small <comment><USER2> >>Look how small this tiny $400 laptop is It's really small

... and it doesn't really exist!

[<sigh!> Yet another crowd-funding begging bowl, reported as actual product]

<comment><USER3> It's just a netbook with more modern hardware, hardly ground breaking. I think I would start a crowdfunding campaign to resurrect those digital organizers from the 80/90's next.</comment></comment>


Mail in a Box - <AUTHOR> https://mailinabox.email/ <comment><USER2> For those considering running their own mail server (like me), perhaps a more pertinent dataset is the list of hosters that seem to work without problem (not spam blocked) and those that have proven problematic. If anyone could chime in it would be much appreciated.

<comment><USER3> I have been running my mail server on a digitalocean vps without any spam- block issues for about 2 years now.

<comment><USER4> DigitalOcean no longer allows SMTP, you may be grandfathered in.

<comment><USER5> At all, or by default?

In many cases, additional services (ports) are available on request. This is largely a spam-management (outbound) issue for service providers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice to see this on the front page again.

I have been using Mailinabox for _years_ now, no problems, easy to use, even easier to maintain.

All running on a $10 Linode instance == email freedom!

<comment><USER7> I was running mine on a $2.5/m vultr vps for a year. Upgraded to a $5 instance for more storage and it has run almost maintenance free. In the rare instances I do need to do something it mails me the details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Alternative is mailcow [https://github.com/mailcow/mailcow- dockerized](https://github.com/mailcow/mailcow-dockerized)

<comment><USER9> I've used mailcow before. It's a pleasure to use and comes with a decent-ish material design mail client as well.

<comment><USER10> Yikes. Any time I hear material design and associate it with an open source project I know the UI is going to be a nightmare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A thread from 2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8276171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8276171)

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been on MiaB since 2014, and aside from Gmail focused Chrome extensions, I haven't had a single issue. Easily one of my favorite projects.

</comment><comment><USER13> I too have been using MAIB running on a DO VPS for about 2-1/2 years now.

It's a bit of a learning curve to get it up and running and then deal with being blocked by some of the bigger email service providers like AOL, Hotmail & Yahoo, but once you've gone through those hoops it's really much better than outsourcing it.

I'm running my mail server on a $20 a month DO VPS and have about 25 email accounts, 30 email aliases, and around 15 domain names being handled by it.

The built-in DNS server has really been a plus for me. I use the MAIB IP address first on my home and office routers DNS configurations so I don't have to wait for new domain names or changes to DNS records to propagate to test my changes and additions.

Downtime hasn't been a issue for me. DO has been pretty great at keeping things running on their end and the MAIB users forum has been there for me when I needed help debugging an issue.

DO specifically states that running a mail server on their platform is not recommended. This is because it has been abused by spammers and that is why some email providers block IP addresses coming from DO.

My experience is that you have to contact those providers that block you and go through the process of what's needed to get cleared on each of them. That can take some time so it's not a seamless or quick and easy alternative but once you've done that it's a much better way to handle both email chores and users and DNS records for all of your domain names.

<comment><USER14> is MAIB or MIAB?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've wanted to take complete ownership of my email for a while now, but it seems risky, given the need for 100% uptime, and the anti-spam/deliverability ecosystem of the major providers and senders (to say nothing of security concerns, given that email is de facto auth for the vast majority of services).

Has anyone done this? What were the pain points?

<comment><USER16> You do not need 100% uptime to receive mail. Because email is store and forward, other server will retry for a reasonable time.

The most complex part is setting up all the DKIM and friends to make your outgoing mail authenticated.

<comment><USER17> Was going to say much the same - other mail servers will retry failed sends for several days.

Setting up the basics is relatively straightforward, but I found it tricky to setup TLS correctly for SMTP and IMAP, and DKIM and SPF were _horrible_ to configure and get working right!

I've been running my own mail server for 15 years or so - I really wish Mail In a Box had existed back then!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I consider Mailu to be one of the best alternatives if you want to use Docker or have an infrastructure with Kubernetes. I've been using it for some years.

[https://mailu.io/](https://mailu.io/)

</comment><comment><USER19> > Most any cloud provider will do, but not Amazon Web Services because its > network is often blocked to prevent users from sending spam

From their installation guide, if like me, you were considering running this on EC2.

<comment><USER20> AWS throttles port 25 traffic but in theory you can petition to get it opened up.

[https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge- center/ec2-p...](https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge- center/ec2-port-25-throttle/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am confident I can run the service, but is there any easy monitoring framework for it? What other learning experiences from people that run their own?

<comment><USER22> It has munin support out of the box

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I took a look at `Mail in a Box` a few years ago then discovered [https://github.com/tomav/docker-mailserver](https://github.com/tomav/docker- mailserver) which I have been running ever since with no issues ... I wonder how these compare today

</comment><comment><USER24> "Mass electronic surveillance by governments revealed over the last several years has spurred a new movement to re-decentralize the web, a movement to empower individuals to be their own service providers again."

Yes. But if you're emailing to someone on say gmail how are you protected from surveillance?

<comment><USER25> You're not. But using your own server means your flight itineraries, bank statements, utility bills, and Amazon receipts won't be surveilled (by them, anyway), even if you occasionally send mail to GMail inboxes. If your enemy is Google, then that's a significant win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> _Exchange ActiveSync is also available as a beta feature._

Wow! Anyone tried this? How's your mileage?

</comment><comment><USER27> This looks really cool. I couldn't find any info on the site, but anyone know what sort of backup features are available built in?

If there isn't anything built in, what are other users of mail in a box doing to backup their data?

<comment><USER7> It has a built in backup tool using duplicity that by default backs up to the local storage but you can plug in your s3/b2 details and it will back up to those. The backups are encrypted so amazon won't be reading your emails either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> For someone considering running a (mail) server, what about security? For some reason I have a feeling that guides like "my first 10 minutes on a server" aren't enough. Am I wrong to think so?

<comment><USER7> Mailinabox is a fully configured service. You need a fresh ubuntu install, you run the install script and it configures everything for you and notifies you when it needs to be updated or something is not as it should be.

<comment><USER28> So it handles firewall rules, disabling root login and all those details?

<comment><USER29> Yes. And comes with a neat status page to warn you of any issues in case things change (but they shouldn't if you use a dedicated box).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Which self-hosted contact and calendar server do you guys that also works with Google's seamlessly?

<comment><USER7> mailinabox comes with a nextcloud instance which does contacts/calendar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > "it's easy to set up"

> 17 minute video

a 1-4 minute video above the fold would help convince people better

</comment><comment><USER32> I've been using this for four years for my personal email. Works great.</comment>


Coping Tutor - <AUTHOR> https://copingtutor.com/

<comment><USER2> This looks excellent!

It's interesting that they focus on developing resilience for people who hear voices. CBT often tends to focus on mood or anxiety disorders. (And it'd be great if these people developed an alternative site for mood or anxiety disorders.)</comment>


Anker considers IPO - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-20/amazon-helps-shenzhen-ex-googler-turn-mom-s-money-into-a-billion <comment><USER2> I don't have any valuable commentary on the IPO, but I will say that as a completely unaffiliated consumer I've been consistently impressed with Anker's quality and specifically seek out their products.</comment>


The Quantified Other: Nest And Fitbit Chase A Lucrative Side Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/04/17/the-quantified-other-nest-and-fitbit-chase-a-lucrative-side-business <comment><USER2> If I understand things correctly, what they're basically saying is that the utilities can smooth out energy consumption across the entire grid. For instance, instead of everyone having the AC on for the first 10 minutes of every hour, they can turn 1/6 of the ACs on for the first 10 minutes, then turn those off and turn on the next 1/6 for the next 10 minutes, and so on. If that's the case, then instead of a huge spike (say, 80%) at the top of the hour and a huge dip (say, 10%) for the rest of the hour, the energy usage will be more constant across the whole hour (25% for the whole hour).

This should, in theory, reduce utilities costs in general, which ideally would be passed on to the consumers. And since everyone's Nest thermostat is already turning the AC up for 10 minutes, then the consumer isn't spending/losing any money on this -- they were already doing this, it's just at a different time that helps the utilities companies.

I think that's what they're talking about. It sounds like a cool plan, and a smart way for Nest to make big bucks.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like there could be a conflict of interest though. The power company makes more money if people use more electricity in general.

<comment><USER4> True, but sometimes there really is just not enough electricity to go around. Consider power outages due to natural disasters or even extreme load on the grid. In Texas, we have a handful of days each summer where the grid is maxed out in the mid-afternoons and ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) will come on the radio begging people to conserve their usage. This kind of product could mitigate that. There are also a lot of nuanced things that go on with utilities that influence their decisions: the electricity markets, regulations, issues at plants, industrial users, etc. Us sweating it out at our individual households don't mean a lot to them in the grand scheme of things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The original url [1] was mostly blogspam—that is, it was a short knock-off drawing on some other, more original source. In such cases HN strongly prefers the original source.

Submitters: please read what you're posting and double-check it for this. Blogspam is usually easy to spot. Please submit the original instead.

Readers: when you know of a better, more substantive version of a story, please alert us to it in the comments. There's too much material for moderators to check it all, so community effort to keep the quality of the front page up makes a big difference.

1\. [http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/18/nest-uses-its-data-to- turn-...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/18/nest-uses-its-data-to-turn- electric-utilities-into-cash-cows/)

</comment><comment><USER6> In Southern Nevada NVEnergy has a similar program. The program offered here is opt-in and basically gives you a discount if you allow them to turn your thermostat up a few degrees a few times a year on very high-demand, "Energy Event" days, or so the marketing material reads at least.

Apparently you can even override the bump-up in temperature if you desire, but I believe you lose some or all of the cost savings if you override it.

They even offer a similar-to-Nest thermostat, free of charge IIRC, called "mPowered" \-- it seems to be quite similar to Nest with web-accessible functionality, programming, etc. -- and the price point is obviously much lower.

Good play by Nest and/or Google here IMO, especially since not sharing the user data means the utilities continue to have to pay Nest for the ability to interface with their devices long-term.

FWIW, I strongly suspect it would be similar to the NVEnergy program -- opt-in only, and likely with the ability to override energy events / forced thermostat settings. That said, very intriguing and interesting "pivot" of sorts.

NVEnergy's mPowered - [https://www.nvenergy.com/home/saveenergy/rebates/mpowered/in...](https://www.nvenergy.com/home/saveenergy/rebates/mpowered/index.cfm)

NVEnergy's "Cool Share" Program - [https://www.nvenergy.com/home/saveenergy/rebates/coolshare.c...](https://www.nvenergy.com/home/saveenergy/rebates/coolshare.cfm)

PS - I opted for Nest thermostats, just so convenient and they look incredibly cool on the wall. ;-)

<comment><USER7> > I strongly suspect it would be similar to the NVEnergy program -- opt-in > only, and likely with the ability to override energy events / forced > thermostat settings.

That's what it looks like: [http://support.nest.com/article/What-is-Rush-Hour- Rewards](http://support.nest.com/article/What-is-Rush-Hour-Rewards) except it uses your temperature profile to prepare for it, so it might actually turn the airco up earlier before "rush hour". The program is indeed advertised as opt- in and overridable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not sure if the wording is purposely dubious as to mis-lead the reader, but it's certainly not clear.

"The company has negotiated deals with multiple energy partners in the U.S. Some utility partners are willing to spend $30 to $50 per year and per thermostat to be able to turn the air conditioner up when it's a hot day. This way, the utility can levels load on the grid. "

At first glance it would appear that the author is saying that Nest will make your air conditioner produce more cold air on a hot day, but the following line contradicts that.

How would it level the load to use more energy? It wouldn't.

I think the actual conclusion, is that Nest is working with energy suppliers to increase the temperature on the thermostat, which will reduce the power used by air conditioners, and that this occurs at peak power usage.

Which will save the nest owner money, the power company money, and make Nest as a company some money.

Moreover, this probably occurs at an imperceptible level to the user, or is done while they are presumably gone. Also the Nest User can turn it back down manually if they are there and uncomfortable.

This is bad sensational reporting.

<comment><USER7> > At first glance it would appear that the author is saying that Nest will > make your air conditioner produce more cold air on a hot day, but the > following line contradicts that.

The wording is odd, but "turn the air conditioner up" = "raise the trigger temperature on air conditioning", that is lower the amount of air conditioning. An other option is to spread up- and down- time across users so if everybody wants 10mn of airco per hour, 16% get it in the hour's first 10mn, 16% in the next, etc… instead of everybody being on the clock.

See [http://support.nest.com/article/What-is-Rush-Hour- Rewards](http://support.nest.com/article/What-is-Rush-Hour-Rewards)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does TechCrunch actually have any documented cases where Nest has connected to a customer's thermostat and modified the settings on it? Or are they simply talking in the realm of "we think they can probably do this"?

<comment><USER10> [http://support.nest.com/article/What-is-Rush-Hour- Rewards](http://support.nest.com/article/What-is-Rush-Hour-Rewards)

<comment><USER11> Right, and this is a strictly opt-in scheme. Austin Energy partnered with Nest to do this last year, offering customers an $85 rebate as an incentive to help smooth out the spikes in energy use during hot summer afternoons. Austin Energy had actually been doing this before with a less sexy programmable thermostat; they also had a program in which customers would receive SMS messages requesting that they voluntarily reduce energy usage when heavy load was expected.

Increasing energy consumption is a real problem, both in terms of environmental impact and in terms of the power grid itself. A solution that mitigates these problems using attractive consumer technology without requiring significant lifestyle adjustments on the part of those consumers is admirably pragmatic and, in my view, most welcome.

[https://nest.com/energy-partners/austin-energy/](https://nest.com/energy- partners/austin-energy/)

[http://kut.org/post/meet-answer-texas-air-conditioning- issue...](http://kut.org/post/meet-answer-texas-air-conditioning-issues)

<comment><USER10> BTW, per capita energy consumption appears to have peaked in the US and some utilities are even concerned that the combination of flat demand, increasing efficiency, and solar could cause a "death spiral". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Pro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Projections) [http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/this-is-what- the...](http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/this-is-what-the-utility- death-spiral-looks-like) [http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/Business_Strateg...](http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/Business_Strategy/Utility- death-spiral-Bull-says-Warren-Buffett-6402.html/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think Nest is really nailing a pain point for traditional utilities providers and probably can be a great business model for a couple of decades, but to me the future is going to be decentralized.

I say this because the electrical grid in the US is very old and dilapidated and is a constant drain on capital just so that the electricity that is mostly generated by the increasing costs of coal and petro derivatives can flow through it; in the long run, the margins are shrinking (Nest/Google can help slow this rate down).

On the other side, there are multitude of solar alternatives (Micro CSP, photovoltaic, etc) that are powering places now in the US that wouldn't be worth the cost to put on the grid; in the long run, the margins are growing.

</comment><comment><USER13> We're building a new house next year.

There will be no smart / aware / cloud devices anywhere in the house. There will be no conduit of information from infrastructure pieces out to the world, and different systems will not be interconnected.

There will be physical switches, obvious pathways and islands of simple function. There will be no wireless except for wifi, for computers, which can be disabled site-wide with a single switch.

I want nothing to do with this cloud aware appliance world.

<comment><USER14> I'm amazed you're getting downvoted for an obvious and sensible set of statements. But I guess it's easier to downvote than articulate a counterargument.

Internet of things systems have terrible security at the moment, and what many such systems presently amount to is people selling a portion of their privacy and exposing themselves to security risks to save a few bucks or have some small marginal household convenience.

<comment><USER5> You're right that rsync's comment does not deserve a negative score. (I suspect that somewhat overwrought language like "I want nothing to do with" tends to attract downvotes from people who already disagree with the opinion being expressed. But this is about as minor a case as you can get.)

All: when you see a substantive, civil comment that's unfairly faded out, it's good community practice to upvote it back to par. In most cases, users already do. But this practice is more important now that we've made some downvotes more powerful.

When a comment has been downvoted unfairly, simply upvote it and keep your own post focused on the topic at hand. If instead of its first sentence this one had said "I agree", it would be a very good comment instead of a mixed bag.

A simple "I agree" or "good point" is a more effective way to pipe up for a downvoted comment than going off-topic is. Let fair-minded users notice the situation for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was completely sold on the Nest - going to buy it ASAP until I saw the following review and the related discussion: [http://www.amazon.com/review/R1KD7Q92LDK4KK/ref=cm_cr_rdp_pe...](http://www.amazon.com/review/R1KD7Q92LDK4KK/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B009GDHYPQ)

Gave me pause. Until Google bought them out, now in the wait and watch mode. Which direction will Google take this?

</comment><comment><USER16> VCharge is another startup in the Northeast working on the peak-leveling problem: [http://vcharge-energy.com/](http://vcharge-energy.com/)</comment>


Wikileaks' Assange says Ecuador seeking to end his asylum - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-assange-asylum/wikileaks-assange-says-ecuador-seeking-to-end-his-asylum-idUSKCN1N32AD <comment><USER2> So he's suing the government of Ecuador because of "new rules, which require him to pay for medical bills, phone calls and clean up after his pet cat". I don't know, those rules sound pretty reasonable to me. Why wasn't he cleaning up after his pet cat in the first place?

And that's the evidence that they are trying to kick him out? Suing to challenge these rules certainly won't help with the government's good will.

<comment><USER3> Did you read the actual memo? Point 24, just as an example, prevents him from doing any activities that might be considered political.

To me, reading the various restrictions, it seems pretty obvious that they're designed to give them as excuse to kick him out, and the lawsuit is just a way to buy some time.

<comment><USER4> > Point 24, just as an example, prevents him from doing any activities that > might be considered political.

No, he can participate in Ecuadorian politics all he wants, it merely prohibits him from interfering in other State's politics; such interference violates international law when conducted from a diplomatic outpost, and Ecuador is obliged by international law to prevent it.

<comment><USER5> Umm, excuse me, but your post here sounds political.

By doing so, you are interfering in other State's politics.

Perhaps you should be arrested for this political post.

<comment><USER6> That makes total sense, assuming dragonwriter is posting it from a diplomatic post. If not, then I'm not sure what your point is.

<comment><USER5> Your argument is seriously that it should not be ok for people who are in an embassy to engage in speech?

Is that seriously what you believe? Do you not see how absolutely ridiculous it is to criminalize political speech?

This is political speech that we are talking about here. I cannot think of a single thing that is _more_ important to protect than political speech. It is quite literally the most important human right in existence, because if you don't have that right, you lose the rest of them.

<comment><USER4> > Your argument is seriously that it should not be ok for people who are in an > embassy to engage in speech?

Speech directed at interfering in the politics of th receiving country (or, to a lesser extent, third countries), yes.

And it's not just my or ascorbic's idea, it's fundamental to the entire premise of _permitting_ the special privileges associated with embassies, and incorporated into the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

(Non-diplomatic personnel residing _in_ an embassy for an extended period of time is itself something of a hack not really envisioned by the Convention.)

> Do you not see how absolutely ridiculous it is to criminalize political > speech?

Not being allowed to remain in embassy is not a criminal sanction.

<comment><USER5> Imagine if the US started deporting Saudi Arabian persecuted journalists back to Saudia Arabia, if those journalists criticized Canada. (And then Saudia proceeded to murder those asylum deportees. )

This is basically the same exact situation. Just because the US didnt murder the deported asylum seekers, it is still an extreme attack on free speech to deport them, to be murdered by another country, because they criticizing Canada.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Filing a lawsuit against the people providing your asylum probably wasn't wise. Especially given the imposed conditions seemed reasonable (pay your own medical bills, pick up after your cat, etc).

</comment><comment><USER8> After the crap he pulled by coordinating with the Russians to mess with the last elections, I'm surprised Ecuador is still providing asylum to him.

<comment><USER9> Where is your proof that he coordinated anything with the Russians? From what I can see, he publishes leaks which happen to be true.

<comment><USER6> He publishes leaks of documents provided to him by the Russians.

<comment><USER9> Regardless of who provides them, he published them and they happened to be true. Other intel agencies are free to leak as they please.

But don't paint Assange as anything other than a person who publishes the truth. Unless you have the proof that it isn't.

<comment><USER8> >But don't paint Assange as anything other than a person who publishes the truth.

But he isn't that. Even in the most charitable interpretation you have to admit that both Assange and WikiLeaks editorialize, curate, and time releases, usually for political goals.

In the last few years, they've also been shown to coordinate with Russian intelligence to the point where they are see as either a front, or a willing patsy. This is the conclusion that multiple western intelligence agencies come to, including American, British, French, Dutch and German.

Wikipedia has a good write-up: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Allegations_of_Russi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Allegations_of_Russian_influence)

At this point, this doofus has no credibility.

<comment><USER9> > his is the conclusion that multiple western intelligence agencies come to, > including American, British, French, Dutch and German

Well, isn't that a bit self serving.

> Assange and WikiLeaks editorialize, curate, and time releases, usually for > political goals.

As far as I've seen they curate so that people don't get in harm's way (see Bradley Manning's dump). They do time their release to get the biggest bang for the buck. I don't even understand why that's a criticism. Products from apple/google/samsung are released in time for xmas to get the biggest reception. NYT doesn't publish scoop on Nov 7th - they do it before the election. You cannot be serious with this criticism. As far as editorializing, I've seen very minimal amount of that (namely Collateral Murder data dump), but even with that the entire video was released, so you could make up your own mind.

> this doofus has no credibility

Disagree. His credibility will continue to be high as long as what he publishes is the truth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "The new president of Ecuador is not the strong and good man than his predecessor was." That comment really, really bothers me, even though I am no supporter of the new president. Assange was granted assylum by Correa, the previous president, a populist, a big ally of Chavez/Maduro. Granting asylum to Assange was a great international PR move for him. It made Correa seem like a supporter of freedom of speach/press. While he was in power there was no freedom of press/speach here in Ecuador. Today several of his top officials are in prison or have fled the country. Correa himself is wanted for the attempted kidnapping of an ecuadorian opposition leader in Colombia. The only reason this came to light is because the colombian police was able to capture the kidnappers during the attempted kidnapping. It turns out the kidnappers were all government officials... Many similarities to the Kagashogi story. Anyhow I truly wonder if Assange has the slightest idea of what type of 'leader' he received assylum from.... It is so ironic.... Something like Wikileaks would have been never, ever seen the light of day during Correa's regime here in Ecuador.

</comment><comment><USER11> Everyone saying not to sue your asylum host, please consider, there's aren't too many way to interface with something as nebulous as a government and its law.

Talking to handlers only gets you so far. When your livelihood is at stake, and you want guarantees, you have to use the correct channel. They're not attacking the government. They're asking for clarification.

</comment><comment><USER12> I haven't read much in detail on this, but it seems to me like an unintentional stress test for asylum seeker accommodations. Doesn't really matter how you consider Assange as a person. If you agree his claims for asylum are valid, he should be accommodated like anyone else, not just ignored as an exceptional case because he's showed jerk qualities, made serious journalistic gaffs, and the most powerful governments all hate him.

By the way, Ecuador's ex-president Rafael Correa called the treatment of Julian Assange as "basically torture"

<comment><USER13> What U.S. charges is he seeking asylum from? Honest question.

<comment><USER14> A bill was passed labeling Wikileaks a "non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such." Though I don't think there is a public warrant for his arrest, they likely do have some sealed charges.

<comment><USER15> I find it alarming that sealed charges are even a thing.

Any links to famous cases, or is it all secret squirrel that we can't be trusted to know about?

<comment><USER4> > Any links to famous cases, or is it all secret squirrel that we can't be > trusted to know about?

It is fairly common for indictments of persons not already in custody to be sealed initially if there may be issues with effecting arrest, and sometimes for other reasons (e.g., to avoid compromising parallel investigations). The grand jury process is intended to enforce probable cause requirements, not to provide notice to the accused so that they might better flee arrest.

Several of the indictments by the Special Counsel's office, for some famous examples, were originally sealed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I doubt he goes to the US. I feel Russia will offer asylum.

<comment><USER17> And how would he get from the Ecuadorian embassy in London to Russia?

<comment><USER18> I'm not 100% sure on how diplomatic immunity works here, but couldn't Russia send a diplomat in an official vehicle to the Ecuadorian embassy to pick Assange up? I think official vehicles get the same diplomatic protections of an embassy, so as long as he enters and exits the car inside embassy walls, he should be ok, right? Or does diplomatic immunity end entirely at the embassy walls?

<comment><USER19> The Russian diplomat would have immunity, the car is not a magic "immunity" force bubble for the occupants. Unless they grind him up and stick his remains in a diplomatic pouch, he's gettable outside of an embassy. Diplomatic immunity doesn't mean the police can't pull you over and search you, it just means the diplomats in question can't face criminal penalties as a result of what's found.

<comment><USER20> "... the car is not a magic "immunity" force bubble ..."

No, but a diplomatic packet _is_.

Just saying.

<comment><USER6> It's the other way around. Diplomatic vehicles _do_ provide the same protection as an embassy. A diplomatic bag, however, does not cover people, so if he was found to be inside one he could be arrested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> ... and hand him over to the United States.

The most important part. Not entirely unexpected, since the US backed candidate won the elections, and latin america is again almost socialism free. As in the good old 70ies. Let's see if they hack him to pieces as their dear friends do or just torture him for 90 years for exposing the US foreign policies.

<comment><USER22> The parent is pretty cynical and sarcastic but unfortunately I can't say it is far from the truth.</comment></comment>


Congress Is Trying to Roll Back Internet Privacy Protections - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/congress-trying-roll-back-internet-privacy-protections-you-read <comment><USER2> > Worse yet, it forbids the agency from passing any "substantially similar" > regulations in the future, so the FCC would be forbidden from ever trying to > regulate ISP privacy practices.

This part really stood out to me and I don't fully understand how it can occur.

Would the government (or rather its citizens) be better off if permanently banning future legislation wasn't allowed? Is there any case in which a permanent ban on future legislation would be, or has been, productive or reasonable?

edit: distinguishing between constitutionally-enacted and simply legislator- enacted bans on future legislation.. If this ban is supposed to be based on unconstitutionality, how would it be spun in such a way?

<comment><USER3> >Is there any case in which a permanent ban on future legislation would be, or has been, productive or reasonable?

Not to be pedantic, but the US Constitution contains a few pretty big permanent bans on future legislation. Government limiting governments power is a hallmark of the American system.

<comment><USER2> Interesting! I didn't know that actually.

It seems like those bans on future legislation can be traced back to fundamental parts of the Constitution, though, right? Parts that aim to protect the citizenry.

The constitution is also supposed to be the highest power in the land, however these are simply legislators banning future legislators.

<comment><USER4> No, they are legislators banning _regulators_. Regulators are executive branch officials whose rulemaking power comes from legislative grants of power and can be removed or limited by the legislative branch.

This is, of course, aside from the question of whether a particular legislative limit on rulemaking is desirable or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're a company that supports the EFF (even through individual donations, corporate matching, etc.), I'd love to hear about you, and consider supporting you as well!

<comment><USER6> As would I!

Mostly, I'm EFF's International Director, but as of yesterday, I've taken a temporary secondment to work for six months with our development (read: fundraising) team.

We're facing a number of challenges on many fronts, and like many of our colleagues in the non-profit world right now, we're having to ramp up quickly to face them.

We get a huge amount of expert advice and moral support from technologists here on Hacker News, but we only really ever chip in with the occasional technical comment.

For the next six months at least I'd be delighted to talk with anyone who is as interested in supporting us financially, or understanding better how that works. You can mail me on firstname.lastname@example.com or comment here.

This is a bit of an experiment for me (I'm more comfortable talking about global censorship and surveillance than asking people for a few bitcoins), as well as for EFF. To keep with the mod rules here, it's probably worth trying to keep on-topic to this post, but happy to chat offline or arrange or more general conversation.

<comment><USER7> Hi, I'd be happy to chat. We (Aptible) have donated as a company in the past and will in the future. Chas at aptible.com

<comment><USER6> Hey chasb, email sent!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Big picture here is this:

The oligarchy has taken over every form of media communication throughout history. The printing press, the telegraph, the radio, the television. The internet by design was resistent to centralization, the main method used on the other mediums, but the oligarchy fought a small fight in the form of the 90's cryptowars and then sorta let up. They recognize now though, that the last bastion of true, anarchistic freedom of thought is the internet, and globally will begin to attack it through many means, not just legislative.

Decentralization avoiding targeting in an age of mass surveillance is difficult, and this move towards centralization undermines the entire original purpose of the internet as a form of communication that could survive targeting. If we remember this, and build open source, encrypted, decentralized systems, we still might have a chance to keep the internet us older geeks remember.

I also have a theory that it is the technology of the internet that has artificially accelerated the oligarchy's attack time frame, because they are desperate to not let the cat out of the bag. Once the world gets a taste of intellectual freedom, they won't want to go back, and the cat is out of the bag so to speak. This is forcing their hand early and is a weakness.

<comment><USER9> I want to propose a strictly simpler theory: there isn't any organized Oligarchy assaulting the Internet. There's just lots and lots of people with various interests trying to exploit the Internet for their own gains. Tons of companies, big and small, that don't think twice about fucking up the Internet in pursuit of profit. Politicians who want more power. Law enforcement people that want to make their jobs easier. None of them wanting to destroy the Internet, because the very thought doesn't cross their minds. They don't think in that large of a scale.

I.e. the usual tragedy of the commons. Things were all fun when they were irrelevant. Then the Internet started to matter, and the exploiters came, fucking everything up.

<comment><USER10> there is absolutely an oligarchy. See 1, 2, and 3.

if you think they arent organizing to protect their interests and expand their political influence, that honestly comes across as naive with the information available today.

[1] [http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s-- Tb_z5Fcz...](http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s-- Tb_z5Fcz--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/lckoza8wfctpe7k9k1de.jpg)

[2] [http://cds.y5f6s2q6.hwcdn.net/25541/sx2xsdjns30fwy0557v4.jpe...](http://cds.y5f6s2q6.hwcdn.net/25541/sx2xsdjns30fwy0557v4.jpeg)

[3] [http://www.yellowstonepartners.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/0...](http://www.yellowstonepartners.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/07/bank_chart.jpg)

<comment><USER11> You uploaded a few random pictures (also Gawker? Seriously?) of the different divisions of companies, and you think this in irrefutable proof of an organized conspiracy to go all "1984" on the internet?

Real life isn't a movie. Move on.

<comment> wu-ikkyu Ad hominem and straw man attacks are very weak forms of counterargument.

<comment><USER12> Are you calling the claim that big brands are an oligopoly a straw man?

<comment> wu-ikkyu No, I think you may have mistaken which comment was the parent to my comment.

Straw man:

>irrefutable proof of an organized conspiracy to go all "1984" on the internet? Real life isn't a movie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's the other side if anyone is interested. [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/larrydowne...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2017/01/30/industry- groups-beg-congress-fcc-to-restore-scrambled-internet-privacy-framework/amp/)

See also [https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/3.7.16-_multi-...](https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/3.7.16-_multi- association_letter_to_senate_commerce_supporting_cra_resolution_disapproving_the_fcc_broadband_privacy_rule.pdf)

<comment><USER14> > The FCC provided no evidence to substantiate the proposition that broadband > providers respected consumer privacy any less than other members of the > internet ecosystem.

Without knowing entirely what they're referencing, I would say that we need to _make sure_ broadband providers respect consumer privacy, regardless of what "other members of the internet ecosystem" are doing.

> Consumers enjoy the advertising-supported internet and innovation...

Uhh... no.

<comment><USER15> Actually yes, yes we do. We enjoy the internet that we have, that is partially enabled by ads. Even those of us that block ads (freeloaders, if you will), enjoy the internet that's supported by ads that other people don't block.

<comment><USER16> Actually, no, now I don't. I despise ads for reasons not least of which is that they are a form of insidious psychological conditioning.

I'd much rather have the predominant funding model be similar to services like patreon. Netflix has shown that you don't need ads, ads everywhere to produce quality media in this age, just as premium cable did in the past. I'd rather have a few channels or sites of quality than hundreds of pieces of crap

<comment><USER17> If such a model is to be protected from the dynamics of a free market economy (Higher demand driving prices higher) it requires significant government intervention, at the very least, analogous to the metro system in certain cities, to ensure that the different strata of society have access to it without breaking their backs. However, as with most non-essential consumables, the model is susceptible to privatisation whose motivation is often, solely the maximisation of profit. Perhaps a lobbying group analogous to the NRA could help counter such overtures for privatisation by the industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This NY Times article covers the rollback of those rules in a much larger context of a mass reduction in public protections:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/politics/trump- deregul...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/politics/trump-deregulation- guns-wall-st-climate.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> Does it matter with the release of all the CIA Hacking information just released?

<comment><USER12> Sure. Limiting what records ISPs keep and sell is good for individuals regardless of what the CIA is doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder when ISPs will begin to uniformly inject ads into all website content, in some way (such as hijacking DNS to show ads before the website appears).</comment>