Alphabet's cyber unit Jigsaw introduces a new security app to bust censorship - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/03/googles-cyber-unit-jigsaw-introduces-intra-a-security-app-dedicated-to-busting-censorship/ <comment><USER2> Good job Google.

I'm a very harsh critique of Google due to the threat they pose for privacy, however here they are doing a good thing, along the lines of the public DNS servers they provide, which I know have helped people [1].

Having your requests go through Google is not ideal, however not many people have the capacity to search for better, but more obscure solutions.

Also this isn't about privacy, but about working around censorship at the DNS level. If you want privacy, you use an anonymous VPN or Tor. And frankly, if you can't trust Google's privacy policy for this service, then you shouldn't use a Google phone.

[1] [https://developers.google.com/speed/public- dns/](https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/)

<comment><USER3> And yet another part of the company is creating a censored version so that the CCP will let them back into china.

<comment><USER4> I mean, China's the one censoring it. Google could link to the censored websites in the results but that would be a terrible user experience. Wouldn't it be better to do what they do with DMCA takedowns in the US, where they tell you how many results have been removed and why?

And Google already censors search results in the EU with the right to be forgotten, where they've received 41,000 requests from EU politicians, so there is precedence in working with local governments

<comment><USER5> They also tied every search request with a government ID according to some reports and one must assume they're willing and able to share that with the Chinese state security. As far as I'm aware the EU isn't targeting minority citizens for increased surveillance like the Chinese state is doing to the Uighurs either.

<comment><USER4> >They also tied every search request with a government ID according to some reports

Which ones? I wasn't aware it was even live. Are you talking about Bing, which is already operating in China?

<comment><USER5> I wrote in past tense incorrectly, my grammar isn't so great.

[https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china- prototype-l...](https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype- links-searches-to-phone-numbers/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem Intra solves is very real. MiTM attack on the DNS are the simplest ways to censor internet access and they are widely used in many countries.

I do despise google's efforts in dismantling any privacy which is left on the internet, but this particular program is very good.

I don't get this attitude of 'don't take a cake from the devil'. A) google is not devil, just another megacorp B) don't be blinded with slogans, evaluate merits of each offer individually. This particular offer is great and helps real people aka 'makes the world a better place', lol.

<comment><USER7> If Google considers handing off private info to China, which is known to execute people with disliked political beliefs, it's not self-evidently wrong to compare Google and their executives to the devil.

Edit: if you want to downvote, please also reply with your ideas and tell me why you disagree with me.

<comment><USER8> I've seen no comment here ever praising Google's actions in China here, and I'm very doubtful I will.

That said, this particular product, which has nothing to do Google's business with China, is absolutely crucial for people facing censorship elsewhere, and it is without a doubt a morally good product. You can't even claim that they're doing it solely to gather DNS data (for whatever reason), because if they were making an attempt at that, they would sure as fuck wouldn't allow you to choose Cloudflare.

You can sit here and call that hypocritical because of Google's relationship in China, but that doesn't make their solution any less good to those facing censorship. Nobody else stepped up. Jigsaw did, and they deserve to be thanked for that.

Even if someone's intentions are evil in nature, you're not going to make them less evil by saying "who cares, you're evil" whenever they do something good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been using Intra with my own DoH server for months already. It's stable and updated regulary:

[https://github.com/Jigsaw-Code/intra](https://github.com/Jigsaw-Code/intra)

Also, if you're looking for a DoH server that block adverts, here is mine:

[https://dns.aaflalo.me/dns-query](https://dns.aaflalo.me/dns-query)

<comment><USER10> > Also, if you're looking for a DoH server that block adverts, here is mine:

> [https://dns.aaflalo.me/dns-query](https://dns.aaflalo.me/dns-query)

Great! I've been looking for something like this for a long time. Is the source code open? Not that I don't trust you with my DNS queries but...

<comment><USER9> I've written the step I used to do the DoH part.

[https://www.aaflalo.me/2018/10/tutorial-setup-dns-over- https...](https://www.aaflalo.me/2018/10/tutorial-setup-dns-over-https- server/)

Still need to document the PiHole part.

I've also disable all logging for Nginx and Pihole. The server is also listed on [https://dnscrypt.info/public-servers](https://dnscrypt.info/public- servers)

Also, if you're in the American Continent, you might want to use the proxy I setup on Google Cloud Platform:

[https://dns-gcp.aaflalo.me/dns-query](https://dns-gcp.aaflalo.me/dns-query)

<comment><USER10> Very cool, thanks a lot I'll be definitely using your guide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What this appears to be is a DNS-over-HTTPs proxy application, which will route your DNS traffic directly to Google bypassing any substitutions or deletions made by your local ISP or government.

Whether the advantages of that outweigh giving google your DNS traffic (and realistically they already know every site you visit, because almost everyone uses google analytics) depends on your local security situation.

Note that your local security situation may include the good old rubber hose attack: [https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/194353/police-f...](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/194353/police- forcing-me-to-install-jingwang-spyware-app-how-to-minimize-impact)

<comment><USER12> It can be configured to use any DNS-over-HTTPs server, and has cloudflare hard-coded as an option. When you first install it, they have a short onboarding that ends with asking you to enable needed permissions and informing you that you can use other providers, so you have a chance to change the settings before enabling the permissions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is the same division of Google that came up with an AI to determine if a comment is "toxic": [https://jigsaw.google.com/projects/#perspective](https://jigsaw.google.com/projects/#perspective)

</comment><comment><USER14> Given Google's track record of working with oppressive governments, why would anyone rational trust them with this kind of sensitive information?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Jigsaw has a good record of making tools which work for the oppressed sections or in areas of cybersecurity/censorship etc. Good work must be appreciated. I don't think any other Big Co. has a division dedicated to solving such specific problems. Yeah, the China bit is really saddening/irritating. They're gonna crush their own legacy.

<comment><USER8> Don't forget about the Project Zero team!

Regardless of my privacy concerns regarding Google and other Alphabet-owned businesses, Jigsaw and Project Zero teams deserve to be praised by anyone who gives a shit about privacy/security.

<comment><AUTHOR> Project Zero is the reason I regard Google's security as one of the best (possibly the best). They haven't had any major/minor leak, IIRC, which is a huge deal. I mean even if 1 data leak occurred in the next 2 years, I wouldn't be that pissed off (T&C Apply). Accomplishments of these 2 teams deserve more mention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can someone explain why a government couldn't block the IP of this service? Whether it's a VPN or just dns over https, it seems the servers wouldn't have infinite dynamic ips and could therefore be blocked.

<comment><USER10> Yes you're right. That app is just dns over HTTPS for older Android phones. With all its caveats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 1) What's stopping these countries from blocking the hard-coded Google/Cloudflare IP addresses? Doesn't seem like a great solution technically speaking.

2) I wouldn't use this if I lived in China. Companies operating in China are required to turn over data about their users to the government. And Google is soon going to be partnering with China to release a censored version of their search engine[1]. Now they can provide the government your _entire_ browsing history, not just your searches!

[1] [https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search- engi...](https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine- censorship/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I couldn't help but guffaw at this headline, given that Jigsaw's current flagship product is an automated censorship bot [1]. This is another example of the absurd belief that only ISPs can censor the internet, and not trillion dollar platform companies with monopolies or near-monopolies in several areas.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/technology/google- jigsaw-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/technology/google-jigsaw- monitor-toxic-online-comments.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> Firefox 62 has DoH support enabled.

[https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2018/06/01/improving-dns- pr...](https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2018/06/01/improving-dns-privacy-in- firefox/)

Has been plenty useful getting around court -ordered clampdowns on torrent sites in India.

You can configure it to use any publicly known DoH server: [https://github.com/curl/curl/wiki/DNS-over-HTTPS#publicly- av...](https://github.com/curl/curl/wiki/DNS-over-HTTPS#publicly-available- servers)

</comment><comment><USER19> Sounds like a cool way to track users wherever they go on the web.

<comment><USER20> Without looking into the Privacy Policy for details on tracking, it seems like this would be a lesser of two evils situation. Either experience censorship in your country or see everything, with the caveat that Google logs it.

<comment><USER21> A country that censors content will be very interested in obtaining these logs from Google. Since they seem to be willing to cooperate with state actors, users might set themselves up for reprecussions later on.

<comment><USER20> No kidding. That was my next thought among other issues with the plan, but I'm trying not to be too cynical about what will happen to the data. I won't be using this any time soon, personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Source, for a lot more details: [https://medium.com/@JigsawTeam/introducing- intra-a-new-app-t...](https://medium.com/@JigsawTeam/introducing-intra-a-new- app-to-stop-dns-manipulation-f76de3f5d01)

</comment><comment><USER23> So it's just a way to backport support for DNS-over-TLS to older Android versions? Neat, but not as big a deal as the article headline might lead you to believe.

</comment><comment><USER24> > That makes it easy for oppressive governments — like Turkey, which has used > this technique before — to intercept web addresses requests and either kill > them in their tracks to stop sites from loading, or redirect to a fake site.

Or "non-oppressive" governments like the UK.

</comment><comment><USER25> Sounds like a good idea. Most users have so far very little control over android dns and using TLS sounds like a good idea in any case. Makes you wonder why this is not more widespread given that there are a lot of nasty attacks that involve dns hacks.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been using Jigsaw's VPN Outline, it seems to work pretty good on digital ocean

</comment><comment><USER27> In other DNS-over-HTTPS news, dnscrypt-proxy 2.0.17 has been released: [https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt- proxy](https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy)

</comment><comment><USER28> Play Store URL is [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.intra](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.intra)

</comment><comment><USER29> anyone using this on LineageOS 15.1? Seems to connect okay, but chrome gives "err_network_changed" when I go to any site and I'm not sure how to debug...

</comment><comment><USER30> The app itself fails a DNS leak test, is this app trustworthy?

</comment><comment><USER31> How is this different than simply setting Google's DNS servers on your router or wifi settings ?

</comment><comment><USER32> Near as I can tell, can't be used with things like Blokada that create a VPN.

</comment><comment><USER33> Security apps from the Alphabet agency's cyber unit, nice. At least they're not mandatory here yet...

</comment><comment><USER34> These dual standards for censorship annoy me.

Google on Venezuelan censoring: bad, fight it

Google on Chinese censoring: complicit, support it

<comment><USER35> Just a few things:

1) This tool is made by an Alphabet owned company (Jigsaw), not Google, another Alphabet owned company. The companies will have different missions, even if profits flow the same direction.

2) Venezuela doesn't have a huge market where Google is blocked by a nation- wide firewall.

3) China has a nation-wide firewall blocking any Google service, thereby forcing Google to negotiate how their service works if they want to make money there.

Note: Oversimplifying the situation for the sake of pitchforking a company you might not like does no one any good. Venezuela and China are very different companies, in very different environments. Google as a company (and Alphabet, probably more so) is almost certainly anti-censorship, philosophically; they just don't operate in a vacuum.

<comment><USER36> > _Google as a company (and Alphabet, probably more so) is almost certainly > anti-censorship, philosophically; they just don 't operate in a vacuum._

Since when was being motivated to do wrong a mitigating condition for having done wrong? "Sorry officer, I wasn't going to steal it at first, but then I started wanting it."

<comment><USER37> This isn't like theft. It's more like the law says you can't read certain things, so a printing company adjusts the books they print for the people of that country. Obviously they don't want to censor things, but they also want to profit.

They can either be totally censored or partially censored and still make money. Are you asking for them to give up and accept total censorship and forfeit money? If not, what would you like Google to do?

<comment><USER38> China will steal any technology you put in their country.

Not only will they steal it, but they'll use it for whatever they want.

Right now China is talking to Google because they lack the technological prerequisites to make their goals happen by themselves. If you want to see a Chinese Google competitor, just let Google get a shoe in the door and wait a couple years. Then when China has what it wants they'll dismiss Google.

Google's short-sighted greed is going to divide the internet in two. We should be letting China either stand on it's own or join the rest of the world. Instead they will prioritize market share in a technologically inept country and, quite advertently, give the Chinese everything they're lacking to completely break away from the world wide web and start their own.

I just can't wait until Google gets kicked out of the party they created for themselves.

<comment><USER39> What technology do you think will be on Chinese soil from this?

There's no reason to bring source code over.

<comment><USER38> Do you really think a nation state (especially a psuedo-communist one) that involves itself in a project like this with specific requirements (like backdoors) is going to let it be housed off-site? Do you really think they won't demand to let their engineers all over it? Inside and out?

The whole reason AMD exists is because IBM wouldn't do business with Intel without an alternate domestic supplier.

In government manufacturing here in the US we can't even put CUI in the Cloud if the end-user is the government. And we're democratic. Can you imagine the export controls on Chinese technology?

The chances that China WON'T see the source code are zero.

<comment><USER39> The compiled binaries can end up in a Chinese DC, but the source? I don't understand why. I don't think Google's interested in being replaced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is richly ironic. I had to check that this was not an article from The Onion.

Will this tool bypass the censored Google that will be introduced in China?

More likely it will automatically report the user to the Chinese government if used in China.

<comment><USER41> This is about preventing dns manipulation attacks. That assumes that a DNS server (like 126.96.36.199) is generally accessible, but an adversary is trying to manipulate the responses. In China, you anyway can't access regular global dns servers. You need to use official dns supported by the government. So the question of dns manipulation is moot.

<comment><USER42> This is not true. I tried 188.8.131.52 and it worked when I visited China 2 years ago.

<comment><USER43> "Worked" does not mean freely accessible. It means you received DNS responses when you sent DNS requests there, but there's a high chance the responses weren't coming from Google, and that encrypted connections would fail.

However, it seems that Google hosts the encrypted endpoint separately anyways, not on 184.108.40.206.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can we get a rename of this story?

"Alphabet's Jigsaw" would be more appropriate. Jigsaw is, at best, a sibling of Google, not a part of Google.

It is explained in the very first sentence, but comments so far don't seem to acknowledge that.

<comment><USER44> This is an interesting communications dilemma.

I don't think most people have really understood the Google/Alphabet transition. When most people think of "Google" they're actually thinking of Alphabet.

If you say "Google" then you're conveying the correct information using the wrong term. If you say "Alphabet" then you're using the right term but a lot of people won't know what you're talking about. What to do?

This is probably less of a problem on HN than it is for TechCrunch.

<comment><USER45> Good point, let's try "Alphabet" in the title here instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> oh just turn it on an use it huh? And collect all of my web queries. Clever. Yet another mass collection scheme by Alphabet. I have to give it to Google(the real company here), they sure know how to embed themselves everywhere in your life.

</comment><comment><USER47> I find it ironic that both CloudFlare and Google which this app uses, were involved in the censorship of DailyStormer. It was a vile site and Google and ClouFlare were fully within their rights to terminate their business agreement with them. However, they do not also get to turn around and claim the high moral ground of being anti-censorship in principle. So this is not about censorship vs free speech, it is about government vs corporate censorship.

<comment><USER48> Choosing not to do business with a company is NOT censorship. The only way you could believe it to be so is if you believe that the Daily Stormer has a right to speech, but no one else does.</comment></comment>


The Army goes Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/the-army-goes-android/10061?tag=content;feature-roto

<comment><USER2> The US ARMY and Apple have been in talks for years and it is clear that Apple isn't desperate enough for the ARMY's biz. That is, Apple doesn't want to bend enough to satisfy DoD security requirements for both mobile and desktop devices. The ARMY has had a big fat check with Apple's name on it for years.

<comment><USER3> Most of the DIACAP, etc. requirements are either reasonable or purely policy enforcement. It seems like it should be possible to implement most of the policy restrictions using Apple OSX Server or another management platform, rather than lots of UI/UX changes on the clients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Makes sense to me. They want to secure it and they need to stick with a tried- and-true platform. What's the point of upgrading if there's nothing wrong with 2.2? Only consumers need the new feautures, in my opinion.

<comment><USER5> There are some significant performance improvements with later versions that would be worth having (better GC, for example).</comment></comment>


Amazon has sold no more than 35,000 Fire phones, data suggests - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/26/amazon-fire-phone-sales-data <comment><USER2> As a huge fan of Amazon in general (as a customer), I still find it difficult to believe they released a hobbled Android phone that is AT&T exclusive and starts at $650 into a world where the $350 fully unlocked Nexus 5 already existed for almost 8 months prior to their release.

I'm just really seriously confused by what they were thinking here.

It is almost like seeing one of those "fail" videos where a kid piledrives his friend off the roof into the backyard and both kids end up badly injured -- of course that was the end result, there was no reasonably plausible path from the starting point to any sort of non-failure ending.

<comment><USER3> I worked at Lab126 on this project when this project was just started (a number of years ago). Given the environment in the team and the people hired to lead it, the fact that anything shipped at all is a miracle of gargantuan proportions, trust me.

<comment><USER4> Given the fact that entire 'Lab126' commented on the matter[1], I had the chance to read some of these people's resumes... Which makes your quote hard to believe :-)

[1] That's why I love HN anyway.

<comment><USER5> Sometimes the best individuals make the worst teams. Almost correlated, actually: those with the best resumes tend to think that products are made by individuals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I bought a Fire tablet and I swore "never again" after that experience. I sold it on Craig's list and bought a Nexus 7. Couldn't be happier.

The fact that Amazon has a separate store really ticked me off. Lots of apps I was used to on my phone couldn't be used on the Fire. And, the fact that the Fire was based on Android 2.x and really never got better, well, that was really annoying, too.

So, when their phone was announced, even before I knew one thing about it, I was completely uninterested.

<comment><USER7> I'm not exactly a fan of the Fire tablets, but isn't the latest Fire OS based on AOSP 4.0?

<comment><USER8> I own a Fire HDX 7" and it is a pretty amazing tablet. The many apps that integrate with Google Play Service for no good reason, like a password manager like 1Password, is pretty depressing though. I can't get the latest version of it. I would probably buy an Android tablet if I didn't have so many videos on Amazon's video store. I wish they would just make their videos available on Android. Amazon is supposed to be platform independent but they haven't made any videos available on Android and it fucking sucks. They're the only company that makes their content available across devices, and now they're not even doing that anymore. Why can't videos be portable. It sucks. It really sucks, and they're not doing this in the best interest of their customers.

<comment><USER9> "The many apps that integrate with Google Play Service for no good reason, like a password manager like 1Password, is pretty depressing though."

AIUI, "Google Play Services" are basically "Android updates for the Android phones that we can't upgrade because carriers won't do it". Everything ends up integrated into it because if you want one up-to-date service Android provides, you'll end up getting it through that. Otherwise the app developer is stuck on just the lowest-common-denominator.

I learned this because I have a phone running 2.2 that if I let it upgrade to Google Play Services, and then upgrade all the other stock apps on the phone that want to use it (YouTube, Gmail), leaves me without about 10MB of space on the device left over. So I shut off the upgrades. I'm not in a hurry to upgrade because it's just not what I want to do with the money.

<comment><USER10> > I learned this because I have a phone running 2.2 that if I let it upgrade > to Google Play Services, and then upgrade all the other stock apps on the > phone that want to use it (YouTube, Gmail), leaves me without about 10MB of > space on the device left over. So I shut off the upgrades. I'm not in a > hurry to upgrade because it's just not what I want to do with the money.

I've been in a similar boat. The way storage partitions were handled on 2.x era devices makes the larger sizes of apps and Google Play Services really noticeable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was excited about the Fire Phone because—without knowing anything about it, but knowing Amazon's overall strategy—I thought it might end up being some very solid hardware at a very competive price. The big question in my mind was whether Amazon would have learned from their tablets and scrapped their closed garden ecosystem and gone for a more stock Android experience.

...but as soon as hard details started coming out, it was clear that they were going for the exact opposite strategy. Lackluster hardware, a premium price, and a doubling down on their attempts to set themselves apart from Android. And the problem with this is that it's a very stupid plan.

Here, try this experiment: Walk up to someone and say: "Hey, let's sell a not- very-good Android phone at iPhone prices, after removing some of the best Android features and adding some silly hardware gimmicks that nobody will like or use!" If the person you are talking to doesn't burst into laughter, then you are talking to Jeff Bezos, because there can't be _two_ people who think that's a sensible plan.

<comment><USER12> >> "The big question in my mind was whether Amazon would have learned from their tablets and scrapped their closed garden ecosystem and gone for a more stock Android.

In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?"

Amazon's hardware products are gateways to the paid-for content they sell; they're completely designed -- software wise -- to attend that purpose.

That's also why I don't see a failure of this phone as a tragic event for Amazon. It's just a piece of their strategy that didn't worked out. More like a "big test" gone wrong, than a commercial disgrace. I guess that there will be a write off and a shrug, with no hard impacts on the bottom line.

<comment><USER11> > In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to > sell hardware?"

Obviously Amazon is a content company, but something tells me that they're probably not selling a lot of content to owners of Fire phones, given the pitiful sales figures.

Keep in mind, the history of technology is rife with examples of companies that reduced or eliminated vendor lock in in order to increase adoption; it's not unreasonable to suggest that Amazon might sell more content if they sold more phones, even if those phones were more open.

And you're also completely bypassing my point about prices and margins. Even if you think the closed model is worth the costs for Amazon, clearly they'll sell more content if they sell more phones, and clearly they'll sell more phones if they're cheaper. And they're famous as a company willing to take the long view and sacrifice short term profits for long term growth and market share. Given that, wouldn't it make sense to sell the phones at cost, rather than at Apple or Samsung level margins? Worse, while the Fire ecosystem is closed, it's _closed in the wrong direction_.

The price point of the phone implies a strategy of "we'll make money on the phone, which people will buy because of our amazing content and user experience". But their user experience is mediocre, and their content is available everywhere. Apple can do that with iPhones, because you have to buy an iPhone to get iOS, a phone with iTunes, and most iPhone apps. But the kindle app runs just fine on my OnePlus One, as do all the other Android apps I might want to install on a Fire, if I had one. You seem to be arguing for a strategy of "we'll make money on our content, which people will buy because they already have our phones". I agree, it's a very promising strategy! But I wonder why Amazon hasn't tried it. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fire phone was a flop from the start. Substandard hardware and premium price tag do not mesh well together. Amazon thought that they could make software killer feature and sell phone trough massive advertising and sheer brand power. That is a tall order, and I am not surprised they failed.

However, if I learned anything about Amazon it is their tenacity. They will keep improving and pouring billions into Fire until it works, like they've done with their Cloud business. I think pulling HP Touchpad is not an option because they are too much invested in mobile strategy. So with all that said, while I am not surprised that first Fire phone flopped, I eventually expect Amazon to have at least limited success.

</comment><comment><USER14> I was unimpressed when the "feature" in the teaser videos turned out to just be a gimmicky 3D effect.

What really turns me off on the product is the currently airing commercial on the radio where this girl is excited about all the notifications on her phone letting her know which book or movie she should buy next.

If there are any owners here on HN, I'm really curious what about the phone was alluring in any way.

<comment><USER15> I haven't bought one, and after playing with them a bit I have decided not to buy one, but I will sing its only praise: It is the only non-apple phone that even approaches the level of apple's build quality. The Samsungs and HTCs are kindergarten toys in comparison.

<comment><USER16> AMEN!

To go be in parent OT the saddest spot ever seen in my life is the samsung gold plater with the song: "Im so fancy".

Really ... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soS_Grbn5sY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soS_Grbn5sY)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've recently seen the phone advertised with a year of free 'Prime' membership (aka a $100 value). Not really very compelling, however if they gave you a year of Prime and also that none of your Prime Video or Prime Audio streaming counted against your Data cap, _that_ would be an interesting proposition. Frankly I was kind of surprised they didn't just lead with that.

<comment><USER18> If you're on the west coast, Prime now means having to deal with OnTrac: www.yelp.com/biz/ontrac-south-san-francisco So it's really not a great deal.

<comment><USER19> OnTrac in Seattle works great. It often means my two day shipping will arrive next day (although sometimes at 9pm, but still nice to get a day early).

<comment><USER20> OnTrac recently declared, apropos of nothing, that the package they "guaranteed delivery" for was undeliverable, and that (according to their online tracking) they'd try again the next day. They didn't. The tracking didn't update for the next two days. They delivered my package the day after I called them to complain -- the guy on the phone told me "we had some staffing issues".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just to put it into perspective, Amazon has 132,600 employees.

So if a full 25% of Amazon employees decided to be company men/women, that alone would account for all their sales.

<comment><USER22> Hmm, is that like saying Apple has XXX,000 employees because of their retail stores? (Technically true, which is actually not the best kind of true?)

<comment><USER23> Yes. They have that many employees.

I am not sure that the people running around Amazon's warehouses and doing marathon distances every day would be happy to buy the phone, however. But they do still count as employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> On one side I am considering the following:

1\. Amazon has had financial success with the Kindle Fire

[http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-at-amazons-kindle- ecos...](http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-at-amazons-kindle- ecosystem-3-2014-2)

They do not have market share, but Amazon's existing venture into Android tablets has started to pay off. You can see that in 2011 the payoff was no where as big as now.

2\. This is their first phone

Do we really expect their first phone to be successful? Its a huge marketplace that will take a lot to break into. I can't think of many net new smart phone makers besides Amazon in the US market. They need to get cell providers to buy into this phone. If they can't do that they are screwed imo.

All that said these numbers are tragic if true.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm mystified when big companies think they can just barge into a new product category by slapping their name on a product and offering marginal benefits over entrenched competition. This definitely brings the Zune to mind. Newsflash: you need an edge to compete!

Amazon needs to drop Fire OS and just make a damn good Android phone with some well thought through customizations/exclusive apps for a great price. Until then, I won't even believe that their own programmers are actually using these.

</comment><comment><USER26> I give Amazon the benefit of the doubt, but I still don't understand their reasoning behind this whole undertaking.

<comment><USER27> Apple phones push iTunes and iBooks (soon Beats), and you can't buy Amazon digital content in the Amazon apps because they don't want to pay Apple the 30% tax. Either way Apple will always encourage you to buy from Apple's storefronts.

Google pushes Google Play for music and books. Similarly it's in Google's interest to push people to the Google storefronts.

Apple and Google make up basically 100% of the smartphone/tablet market. If Amazon doesn't get in there they may slowly get pushed out. They don't lead in music (iTunes?) or video (iTunes/Netflix?) or apps (Apple's store), and they certainly don't want to lose their position in books.

<comment><USER28> If Amazon wanted to lead in music they could try this crazy new strategy called: offer a quality product.

You're Amazon. You ARE datacenters. So why the ever-living-hell can I not buy FLAC-encoded lossless tracks? There is an utterly negligible cost in providing this content, its the only market which still moves CDs so there's obviously demand, but _no one_ is touching it?

<comment><USER29> Simple, less than 1% of the population can hear the difference (and I'm not convinced the remainder isn't sampling error.) - I'm certain as soon as there is a overwhelming demand for it, Amazon will support it.

I'd point out, that Apple doesn't event support its own lossless codec for downloads, and they are arguably the market leader.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Any idea how many Amazon ordered to be manufactured?

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm really not surprised at the lack of interest in the Fire phone. Even from the beginning, all of the advertising was focused on how the phone makes it easier to buy stuff from Amazon.

They have to focus on how the device is creating some sort of value for their end users. Streamlining the process of buying products does little to add value. Instead, it looks like a selfish attempt by the company to increase sales. Nobody cares if a product is good for the company, they buy a product because it is good for them. If the Fire does have a value proposition, the advertising has done a miserable job of pointing that out.

I haven't actually played with the phone yet, so I can't say if it is a bad device or just bad marketing. But I'm not surprised at the lukewarm response it has gotten.

</comment><comment><USER32> After hearing about the idea of a phone from Amazon, I really thought they'd do more. I like to buy things from Amazon (like many here probably do), and thought that the phone would be competitively priced. It wasn't in my mind; and with only one major US carrier (AT&T) that it's being sold under, the customer base is even smaller. I love the ability of my current unlocked Nexus 4 to switch to another carrier or MVNO. Call me spoiled on the Nexus devices...

How would I be sold on the Fire Phone, Amazon? Allow the phone to be unlocked and lower off-contract price. Then, I'd consider it. I like the phone's features, but if the value isn't there, then I'll pass.

<comment><USER33> The lack of unlocking really surprised me. We bought one for testing that some of our mobile software would run on it, so we got the no-contract version. Even if you pay full retail price, it's still locked to AT&T. That's just blatant foot-shooting. If someone's going to pay you full price, it shouldn't be locked.

(And yes we tried getting Amazon to give us the unlock code. They said their contract with AT&T didn't allow it.)

<comment><USER34> Sounds like AT&T was the only carrier willing to give them the time of day. I doubt Amazon really wanted to go single source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I would have bought the phone if it came with lifetime or say 5 years of prime and free videos and games and what not. And I reckon, Amazon could easily do that but they didn't for some reason. Anyway, lesson learner I guess..

</comment><comment><USER36> A lot of people on here are defending Amazon "because they take risks". Yea of course they do, they burn capital like a startup; when they have been in business for ~20 years. That is just negligence, not persistence. Sure they took a risk here, but it was vastly un-calculated and if it took them awhile to develop the product it still doesn't justify the attempt to win the high end as a newcomer in the space with a undeveloped app marketplace.

<comment><USER37> > Yea of course they do, they burn capital like a startup; when they have been > in business for ~20 years. That is just negligence, not persistence.

If I'd bought and held Amazon 10 years ago, would I be kicking myself now?

<comment><USER36> No, but that's not the point. The e-commerce space is very different than the product space. They are applying the same logic in both, which is a mistake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Is it just me or is this hugely unsurprising? When I talk to most people (non- tech), Amazon is not high on people's minds as a place to get phones/plans.

<comment><USER39> Personally, I wouldn't even consider an Amazon "smart" device until it was at least gen 2. From what I understand, hey made big strides between the first and second gen Kindle Fire tablets.

That being said, currently there's no real differentiator for this phone. Maybe they'll eventually do unlimited bandwidth deals for Prime video / music content? (or do they already have that?)

<comment><USER40> I can definitely agree that the gen 1 kindle fire left a lot to be desired. The latest offerings are quite nice, though.

And, lets be honest, it isn't like the earlier versions of any android device are worth writing home about. Finally moved from a moto droidish era phone up to the moto g. It is truly impressive how far they have come.

<comment><USER23> I wonder if it is Android itself that has made strides? I have been using it since the G1 and 2.3 felt different to 1.6, but the real change for me came with 4.0 (I had 3 on my Xoom but it felt awkward). I am not sure what whizz- bang features they have been adding in recently, as everything post 4.1 looks different for different's sake to me; more investigation likely required.

Do you think the hardware has got better with the Motorola, or just the software and general less clunkiness?

<comment><USER40> Hard to say, honestly. I do know the moto g is impressive. Though, I have to confess I actually prefer the kindle software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's almost as if they thought people would _want_ to spend $700 for the privilege of giving Amazon more money.

</comment><comment><USER42> In a company like Amazon, only one person can push for such a product, eg Jeff Bezos himself. For whatever reason, he just liked the product idea. Very few people would appreciate such a product as sales number shows. It is just a worse version of New Coke without Classic Coke.

<comment><USER43> He must be surrounded by yes-men, because you'd think there would have been some push-back from people who know what they're talking about.

Elite techies and brand specifiers are panning the Fire phone; why didn't Amazon reach out to such people sooner and find out what features they are willing to pay for?

The Fire phone is hobbled right out of the gate by a non-standard Android version and a non-Google app store. They have to offer something more compelling to customers than "it will scan things into your Amazon shopping cart".

As others have suggested, bundling 5 years of Prime membership would have been a nice start. One year - not so much. I, like thousands of others, am wondering whether or not to renew my Prime at $99. Do I really need to spend that much money just to spend more money? Starting to doubt....

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I don't think there is a market for a phone that is $600+ that is not an iPhone. I think the battle going forward will be for the best $200 and $300 phone (unlocked). If Amazon would have hit either of these price points, the product would be much more compelling.

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi In the US maybe that's true. In my country (Spain), the Samsung flagships outsell the iPhone by a mile, and the S5 was around €650 ($850) at launch.

<comment><USER23> Very interesting, thanks. Here in the UK I see many many iPhones but also many Samsung devices, and few others.

Which flagship was it, out of interest?

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi Currently the Samsung Galaxy S5. But the S4, S3, and probably the previous ones in the Galaxy S line also outsold the corresponding iPhones here.

For example, here is a 2013 list of the top selling phones in Spain (list on the left): [http://www.xatakamovil.com/mercado/samsung-copa-la-lista- de-...](http://www.xatakamovil.com/mercado/samsung-copa-la-lista-de- smartphones-mas-vendidos-en-espana-en-2013-iphone-5s-el-mejor-valorado)

As you can see, that year's Samsung flagship (Galaxy S3) makes the top 10, and the iPhone doesn't, although the iPhone is on top of the right list (% buyers who give the phone a 9 or 10 out of 10).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm surprised that the Fire phone hasn't done better... considering that when I talk to my teenager and other teens they all want a Fire phone. Yet they actually carry iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S5 phones.

<comment><USER46> I want a Windows Phone. But I have an iPhone. I had a Windows Phone and still ended up getting an iPhone. I also want a Ford Raptor SVT, but drive a Fiat.

Sometimes we don't use what we want, even if we can afford it, because what we want just isn't practical. Even though we wish it was. If that were the case, I'd still be using my Palm Pre.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> On the bright side, it's 1000 times more successful than the Kin ;-)

<comment><USER48> Barely, considering the Kin was not really available to buy (at least not in Europe, and only partially in the US)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I've been trying to estimate their sales from monitoring twitter activity. Given the very low volume (200-600 mentions daily) since launch, I believe that low sales figure.

<comment><USER50> Number of tweets seems like it would be a highly inaccurate measure of almost anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Amazon tried to take Android and made it their own.Now it looks that it's not even worth the trouble. I have to say they did a great job regarding their developer support, but it doesn't help that they have a very small market and are still using check for international payment.

</comment><comment><USER52> Seems like a very unreliable way to obtain sales numbers.

<comment><USER53> If you know a better way to get sales figures relating to Amazon products, please let me know.</comment></comment>


Dude in Saudi gains 3mm+ users in 2 mths without funding, real team or marketing - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/sarahah_com?lang=en <comment><AUTHOR> Not too sure how they would do retention successfully though but I would be celebrating with the growth nevertheless, 1 billion total pageViews for their web app, wow.</comment>


MBA hiring: Back with a vengeance - Fortune Management - <AUTHOR> http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/14/mba-hiring-back-with-a-vengeance/ <comment><USER2> The potential bias causes me to doubt the article statistics. Take for example:

"More broadly, a recent survey of executives, managers and recruiters by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) found that 64% of them plan to hire new MBA grads this year, an increase from 60% last year."

The GMAC administers the GMAT, a test used by top business schools as a means of evaluating potential candidates. With this in mind, a positive looking survey would be favorable to them. "Look here! MBA hires are up! Now's a great time to get an MBA! You'll want to take the GMAT before you apply!" type of thinking comes to mind. I'd rather see someone besides GMAC or an academic institution doing these studies, but the question would be who.

</comment><comment><USER3> Now we have two problems.</comment>


Show HN: Eppstein's k shortest paths in the web browser with OpenStreetMap - <AUTHOR> https://christophercliff.com/eppstein/ <comment><USER2> This demo is useful in showing how useless KSP is for finding meaningful alternate routes. Basically, brute force enumeration requires generating massive numbers of paths before you get anything with any sort of spatial differentiation. Until then, all you get are tiny variations on the shortest path. Other methods are much more effective at finding locally optimal spatially diverse alternate routes with much much less effort. Gateway shortest paths are one such example.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that was an unpleasant surprise when I started plugging in the street map data :D

I'm experimenting with other algorithms and will post some (hopefully) more interesting results soon.

<comment><USER3> A plug for one of my co-workers who recently finished his PhD on alternative route finding:

[http://algo2.iti.kit.edu/documents/Dissertation_Kobitzsch_Mo...](http://algo2.iti.kit.edu/documents/Dissertation_Kobitzsch_Moritz.pdf)

Choice quote from page 50:

 _k-Shortest Path. A, at the first glance reasonable, approach to alternative routes is the k-shortest path problem [Yen71]. The basic notion behind the problem, which has been studied quite extensively (e.g. [Shi79, Epp94, Epp98, Rup97]), is that next to the shortest path itself, slightly suboptimal paths will offer good alternatives. While this idea seems valid for specific networks2, it has been described as less effective [BDGS11] in the context of alternative routes in road networks. It is rather unlikely to find a good alternative route among the first few hundred paths. Jumping off the highway at a ramp and directly returning back onto it does not take much time compared to the full journey. Doing this at every possible combination of ramps might already contribute a large number of possible paths that are only slightly worse than the original shortest path. This directly implies that we might need a very large value for k before we can report a reasonable alternative route._</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best Payroll Service - <AUTHOR> What is your preferred payroll system? I'm evaluating options here at Nootrobox.
Some factors that matter:
* Price
* UI / ease of use
* Comes coupled with other useful related services?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Gusto (formerly ZenPayroll)

\- Good UI, easy to use for both employers and employees

\- $29 + $6 per person/per month

\- Features: [https://gusto.com/benefits](https://gusto.com/benefits)

</comment><comment><USER3> ADP</comment>


Version 2.0 of the Ruby Camping framework is out - <AUTHOR> http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/360767 "Wow. After 199 commits, 11875 lines of diff and 1284 days, it's an honor to present a new, freshly baked version of the microframework; now built upon Rack and weighing only 3072 tiny bytes.  (That's exactly 3k!) " wrote Magnus Holm, the project scoutmaster
Microframeworks are still a trend as confirmed with on-going working around Rack, Sinatra, and Rails 3.
So check-out the new features and go Camping this week-end! :-) <comment><USER2> No new docs or tutorials?

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually yes - see <http://camping.rubyforge.org/book.html>

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the link. Looks like a really good framework for rapid prototyping.</comment></comment></comment>


A Prolegomena to the Future of Open Source and Open Education - <AUTHOR> http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/prolegomena(1).htm

<comment><USER2> Dupe, see vigorous discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=736578></comment>


Ask HN: Pricing/marketing strategies/tactics in large, non-niche market - <AUTHOR> I'm developing a product that is a direct competitor to well-established apps (web and mobile) but offers more flexibility for pro and prosumer users, as well as:
* People that need those tools for their clients, and
* Groups that need the same (e.g., corporations, publishers, ...)
It's ambitious, and I'd settle for a small percentage of the market, especially since my main targets are the more sophisticated users and the groups.
The competitors charge regular users anywhere from $5-20/month, and don't have options for the groups. Groups can consist of anywhere between a dozen users (e.g., person managing their clients) to tens of thousands (e.g., the subscribers to a magazine).
My current thoughts are to have a freemium model with somewhat-lessened functionality (which people hate), a small-group pricing scheme, and a "OMG ALL THE PEOPLES" model.
Problem is it's not clear to me how to:
* Break up functionality between "levels", and
* Price fairly enough to bring in new users, and
* Price fairly enough to allow for massive on-boarding
Any resources--blogs, books, videos, articles, whatever would be greatly appreciated. My knowledge of large-scale marketing is limited; I know more about the small-scale guerilla-style bits (but modern resources for that are also desperately wanted) but I'm not sure how to break in to larger-scale adoption. <comment><USER2> It's hard to answer something like this without specific information. Very generally, for a crowded market think of things in terms of a 'distribution strategy' vs a pure marketing/pricing one. People invariably buy from a small subset in a range of choices. Your job is to market sure you become within that subset, and then have a hook to get you over the decision line in enough cases. People are generally looking for simplicity so dont overthink it. Just get the product in front of people and then give them that hook. Test/learn and be flexible. Look what the competitors are doing and emulate them if you unsure until you understand things better.

Most importantly, understand the financial metrics of customer acquisition. Not doing so is a common error. I see it in almost every business I consult. Firstly if you understand this you can test strategies much more effectively, Secondly don't look at acquisition as a cost. Treat it like you would an investment and you'll be well placed.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would stop thinking about how to split functionality and start thinking about the types of customers that you might attract. Who would use your product? How could one group of customers absorb more value from your product than others? Pricing should always be customer-centric rather than product- centric. Start reading up on "personas" and don't be overly-focused on what other companies charge for now - the market supports both Hondas and Ferraris.

Source: I wrote a book on software pricing, have a blog with 200+ articles on pricing, a video on my homepage with some common pricing pitfalls and various other materials. [http://taprun.com](http://taprun.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have partially-developed personas, but I don't know enough to apply that to value--they're centered around UX and functionality.

I'll read over the blog and possibly purchase the book.

Thanks for the input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How far along are you with the product? Do you already have an established group of customers and you're looking to grow?

I'd recommend you start having a chat with your customers/potential customers to get a better sense of their needs. They will help you to segment the pricing levels as you'll understand what's valuable to each customer segment.</comment>


FSF Binutils release 2.30 now available - <AUTHOR> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2018-01/msg00010.html <comment><USER2> I started writing BFD in November 1989 and I'm amazed that after almost 30 years the binutils have only needed to advance to version 2.30. I don't remember what version the a.out-only ones that existed back then bore.

</comment><comment><USER3> FSF? What happened to the GNU project?

<comment><USER4> The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is another non-profit that provides infrastructure and funding to the GNU Project. They're two different entities - with very similar goals, though.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but binutils is part of the GNU project and is almost universally referred to as "GNU binutils" \- including on its own homepage.

So it makes it a bit weird to see it referred to as "FSF binutils" in this release email.</comment></comment></comment>


OpenBSD 6.0: why and how - <AUTHOR> https://sivers.org/openbsd <comment><USER2> This point is one that cannot be overstated:

> Great documentation is a top priority. The built-in man pages are amazing. > So if you're stuck on anything, searching the man pages on your own computer > is going to give you a better answer than searching Google. (This makes it > nicer to work offline, too.)

The OpenBSD documentation is absolutely stellar. It's well-structured, always up to date, has useful pointers and examples. If something is in base, then it's documented and you can use it _today_.

I still use Linux a lot (especially at work, I basically write Linux software for a living) and I've used it for a really long time (15 years, if not more), but I still regularly find myself reaching for a bookmark, or for Google, or for a bunch of notes I kept around because it took me hours to find out how to do <something> and never again.

In contrast, you can comfortably use and administer an OpenBSD box without needing anything but the man pages that ship with it. They're amazing.

It's not a "Linux is for plebs and it sucks" thing, it's just that serious documentation takes a back seat in its community (there are exceptions, but they're few and distro-specific). In contrast, the OpenBSD community encourages a culture where "good documentation" is part of "good software", not just something you get bonus points for.

In fact, despite how the media portrays it (usually through random quotes from Theo), the OpenBSD community is a refreshing island of sanity in today's computing field.

<comment><USER3> Do you know how to add coloring to the man pages? I have tried: [https://gist.github.com/boredzo/06271944983864da495d30363835...](https://gist.github.com/boredzo/06271944983864da495d303638351ca8) to no avail. I have played with all terminals, with more, with less, nothing affects the results.

<comment><USER4> OpenBSD switched to its own version of man(1) a while back (it's called "mandoc", previously "mdocml" [0]). mandoc's own documentation is excellent and, if it supports color at all, it's likely documented in its own manpage (and also probably on its homepage).

Note that if you're using the OpenBSD vtty (via wscons(4), at least), the default $TERM is `vt100`, which does not support color (beyond the cyan used to render italic text). I've had some luck setting $TERM to `vt220` to get more colors. In an xterm or something, this shouldn't be an issue.

An alternative would be to install some other version of `man` (you'll probably also need `groff` from ports, though some other implementation of troff/nroff _might_ also work).

Frankly, though, I haven't seen colorized manpages before, so I'm not sure what else to tell you.

[0]: [http://mdocml.bsd.lv/](http://mdocml.bsd.lv/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> OpenBSD is the one operating system I purchase on every release, going back at least five or six years. There is a certain elegance to the release that just makes me feel good about using it, even though my day job has me at a Linux prompt 10+ hours a day.

Unlike other operating system/environments, where any hope of comprehending what/how they work after a few iterations is progressively more difficult, and significant architectural changes hose you for hours/days on end (on even simple things like assigning an address to an interface), the slow methodical evolution of OpenBSD stays true to its roots. And tools like signify and doas, new additions to the fold, are almost instantly comprehensible, and never annoy like some of the Linux architectural changes of recent years.

Highly recommended for people who want a reliable, predictable, full featured, and comprehensible Un*x class operating system.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ever wanted to try some BSD system in my daily usage and this post is a great motivation to actually try. Although there are still some questions:

1) what is the main difference between FreeBSD and OpenBSD? I see, that OpenBSD provides a very minimalistic environment, which still, I think, will perfectly serve my daily workflow based on StumpWM+Emacs+Firefox. Does FreeBSD provide some more "cookies" in aspect of daily usage?

2) What is the state of RaspberryPi support in OpenBSD?

3) Is there some known big issues with video/wifi hardware in OpenBSD?

<comment><USER2> > 1) what is the main difference between FreeBSD and OpenBSD?

"Security" is the often-stated end goal, but in practice, it boils down to an emphasis on code correctness, maintenance, reliability, portability and sane defaults. Realistically, it's sometimes done at the cost of functionality, but I think it's a smart approach.

This isn't to say that FreeBSD emphasizes _incorrect_ code, just that the OpenBSD team seems to be more inclined to not include (or yank out) code that's unmaintained or is of questionable quality, even if it does useful stuff.

Some of their ideas seems utopic at first (like the insistence of native, instead of cross-compiling), but they turn out to be annoyingly right in the end. My own attitude towards OpenBSD drifted from "what a bunch of loons" back when I was a Linux teenage fan, to "this is how you do computer stuff properly" as I grew up.

> perfectly serve my daily workflow based on StumpWM+Emacs+Firefox

My stack is pretty much similar, except I'm back to WindowMaker (me and tiling WMs had a fight and it didn't end well and we're not speaking anymore).

I don't write much Lisp anymore so I'm not up-to-date on what happened with the OpenBSD ports, but I think all major Common Lisp implementations run well on it (but if you want to run SBCL on 6.0, you'll have to watch out for the mandatory W^X). I don't know if it interests you, I figured you'd want to know if you also hack on StumpWM.

> 2) What is the state of RaspberryPi support in OpenBSD?

Nope.

> 3) Is there some known big issues with video/wifi hardware in OpenBSD?

Basically, if it says nVidia on it, it doesn't work. If it says ATI on it and it's not too bleeding-edge, it works great. I heard good things about Intel GPUs, but I haven't tried it.

<comment><USER4> My nVidia cards have always "worked" totally fine with OpenBSD. There isn't any 3D acceleration or anything like that, but running X has always worked fine for me with the open-source nv driver. Obviously it's not ideal, but I wouldn't call it a showstopper except for a small handful of potential use cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The installers are amazing. The initial installation takes like five > minutes. Hit [Enter] to the defaults, make your username and password, and > it's ready to go.

I love OpenBSD, but this is blatantly false. The installer is 20 years behind any other major OS. The only installation that is really supported is on a dedicated machine, overwriting everything in the drive. And in true OpenBSD fashion, it'll do it without prompting you twice. OpenBSD's fdisk is spartan at best.

Also for ideological reasons (that I share) the installation media does not include firmware. Lots of video and network cards needs firmware to work, so make sure you download a copy of any required firmware to a USB stick beforehand.

</comment><comment><USER8> Question that may be obvious for those who have experience on the matter: is OpenBSD for server use a nobrainer? It's not that popular on that section even though everything looks so good, so well suited for serving.

<comment><USER9> It's good, but in my opinion, the fact that patches are not distributed in binary form is a bit of a problem. (Yes, I understand the reasons). With debian, I type "apt-get upgrade" and that's it. With openbsd it's more complicated.

<comment><USER10> OpenBSD binary patches: [https://stable.mtier.org](https://stable.mtier.org)

<comment><USER9> Yes, but isn't it a bad idea to install binary patches from a third party?

<comment><USER10> This 3rd party is comprised by OpenBSD developers though. While not an official OpenBSD project, the people that provide these patches are the same people that have built OpenBSD packages in the first place. So if you trust those binaries, you should trust these binaries too.

<comment><USER11> This is simply outdated and wrong information. M:Tier does not employ "the same people that have built OpenBSD packages in the first place." Last I checked, naddy@ built the AMD64 packages. He does not work there. In fact, I don't know if any OpenBSD developers still work there. Maybe one (jasper@) but you'd need to ask them.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the important correction. It would be great if this were documented somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Gotta love how easy the "how" part is. Just a 226MB installer and a tiny README, script, and config packaged by the author. I was wishing for something like this for FreeBSD while reading the desktop tutorial [1] last week (2.6GB installer and a whole lot of manual config).

The fact that at least a firewall comes preconfigured seems like a big deal for people who just want to get a basic system going and not mess that part up.

[1] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12371688](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12371688)

</comment><comment><USER13> Can someone please tell me which laptop runs openbsd flawlessly and is fairly new?

For example what do the openbsd devs use?

I'm pretty much just going to buy whatever is suggested if I can verify that it's at least a half decent laptop.

Thanks

<comment><USER14> > _The 2015 X1 Carbon Thinkpad works really well._

\-- [http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/openbsd- laptops](http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/openbsd-laptops)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Their biggest problem may be the size of their user/usage community, it may not be so "Everything is rock-solid and just works" for you and you should probably expect that some features may not be so tested or used outside of the developer using the code for their own purpose. On the plus side, it allows them to fast move forward and break backward compatibility for the greater good, however keep in mind to follow their mailing list and read the change log very carefully to avoid surprises.

</comment><comment><USER16> I love OpenBSD, but one reason I don't use it for my day-to-day work is that it lacks some tools that I now find indispensable. For example, LXC containers are incredibly useful for creating isolated, lightweight, development environments. I don't know of anything similar for OBSD.

<comment><USER17> chroot for isolated environments, but it's not as easy to set up as lxc from what I recall. You could automate setup with ansible or scripts if it's something you do a lot.

You can run VMs in qemu, but the one time I tried it it was painfully slow.

There's also work on vmm introduced in 5.9 but I'm not sure how close it is to something that is really is complete and usable.

[http://man.openbsd.org/vmctl.8](http://man.openbsd.org/vmctl.8)

[http://man.openbsd.org/vmd.8](http://man.openbsd.org/vmd.8)

[http://man.openbsd.org/amd64/vmm.4](http://man.openbsd.org/amd64/vmm.4)

<comment><USER16> Thanks. I'll take another look at chroot jails when I do my next periodic "Install OpenBSD and see if I can use it as a day-to-day work OS" experiment :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does OpenBSD have an encrypted filesystem that is comparable to Mac OS X FileVault? I like knowing that when I put my Mac to sleep, no one will ever be able to access the contents of my disc without my password.

<comment><USER19> OpenBSD supports encrypted user mounts and full disk encryption

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does OpenBSD have real package management yet and a clean story for upgrading from one release to the next?

<comment><USER5> I guess the response would be, what is it about OpenBSD package management haven't you liked in the past, and what difficulty have you had upgrading from one release to the next?

For example - here are the instructions for upgrading from 5.9 to 6.0: [http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade60.html](http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade60.html)

Once you are done upgrading the operating system, you upgrade your packages with the command:

      o pkg_add -u

<comment><USER20> A package manager should know about all the files installed on the system. Previously (and it has been many years) *BSD just splatted files into the filesystem and didn't keep track of them.

<comment><USER21> OpenBSD's pkg_add/* tools are related to the old FreeBSD utilities only by name, Marc Espie rewrote OpenBSD's package tools in Perl many years ago. It is a modern packaging system with proper dependency tracking, per-file checksum verification, privsep and cryptographic signatures (signify/ed25519)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > It's not for beginners. Beginners should use Ubuntu.

Please change it to PC-BSD

</comment><comment><USER23> A bit of topic: I'm sure that most (if not all) OpenBSD visitors are pro users but a website redesign would make the 'conversion' more friendly for newbies.

<comment><USER24> I find the openbsd.org site to be excellently laid out and presented. Most sites on the web would do well to take lessons.

<comment><USER25> I like that the site has been about the same for 15 years[0] but using a slightly larger or more readable font, or increasing space between menu items wouldn't hurt.

(Although maybe the current page works as a "ah, turned off by the looks, effin' hipsters" kind of filter)

[0] the homepage has actually gotten slightly worse compared to around 2001 when I first saw it, [https://web.archive.org/web/20010302003922/http://www.openbs...](https://web.archive.org/web/20010302003922/http://www.openbsd.org) as the list below "About OpenBSD" now is messed up with one or two elements per line for unexplicable reasons</comment></comment></comment>


Basics of Neural Networks with example codes and illustrations - <AUTHOR> http://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-10-neural-networks/ <comment><USER2> Does anyone have any examples of areas where neural networks beat out statistical based methods, other than maybe image recognition? I can't even think of another major area where they dominate.

\- Search engines use algorithms, not neural nets.

\- The most popular algorithm on Kaggle (data analysis competitions) is random forests

\- Google's self-driving car uses statistical-based methods

I can't imagine commercial aircraft would use a neural net. What happened if one crashed? They would analyze the data and ask questions like, Q: "What happened?" A: "I don't know" Q: "Can we fix it so it doesn't happen again?" A: "I don't know".

<comment><USER3> Glad you asked...

Definitely image recognition: [http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/absps/imagenet.pdf](http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/absps/imagenet.pdf)

Speech recognition: [http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/absps/RNN13.pdf](http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/absps/RNN13.pdf)

Natural language processing: [http://www.socher.org/index.php/DeepLearningTutorial/DeepLea...](http://www.socher.org/index.php/DeepLearningTutorial/DeepLearningTutorial), [http://aclweb.org/anthology/N/N13/N13-1090.pdf](http://aclweb.org/anthology/N/N13/N13-1090.pdf)

If you're into kaggle competitions: [http://blog.kaggle.com/2012/11/01/deep- learning-how-i-did-it...](http://blog.kaggle.com/2012/11/01/deep-learning-how- i-did-it-merck-1st-place-interview/)

I don't think there are going to be any further major advances in eg SVMs or random forests (famous last words maybe...) Neural nets, on the other hand, are just scratching the surface of what's possible. So _right now_ they are state of the art in some historically very difficult areas. But these are early days still.

<comment><USER4> You wrote the answer I was just a little bit too lazy to write...

As to the GP: Geoff Hinton (probably the most well-known neural networks researcher) said in his Coursera course that neural networks thrive at problems with a lot of structure that could be encoded, while simpler models like SVMs or Gaussian processes might be better for problems without as much deep structure to discover.

Also, a lot of the current research with neural networks involves using neural networks to learn better representations of data. These cleaner representations of data (which can be thought about as a sort of semantic PCA) often make classification far easier, which explains the great results. Learning representations also makes transfer learning (transferring knowledge from one domain to another) much easier/more possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> brain.js library is a NN implementation in JavaScript. It's very easy to use. [https://github.com/harthur/brain](https://github.com/harthur/brain)

Here is a test with a model of a robotic arm: [https://assemblino.com/show/public20123372.html](https://assemblino.com/show/public20123372.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> This book is everything I've ever wanted in a programming text. I'm sorry that I don't have much of anything substantial to say except praise, but seriously, thank you for writing this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for liking this post. But the actual credits must go to the author of this text as I am just another fan of this book like you are now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The experience (specifically the careful choice of mediums + examples + presentation though which the concepts are conveyed) is pretty fantastic.

<comment><AUTHOR> You may also want to read the chapter on fractal programming in this book. Its pretty intuitive too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> An awesome book; I've now started reading from the beginning of the book :)

One thing I've noticed though, is that img 10 of chapter 1 is missing.

[http://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-1-vectors/imgs/chapter0...](http://natureofcode.com/book/chapter-1-vectors/imgs/chapter01/ch01_10.png)

<comment><USER9> You can submit a pull request ;) [https://github.com/shiffman/The-Nature-of- Code](https://github.com/shiffman/The-Nature-of-Code)

I think that's so amazingly awesome, that it can evolve as a living document in this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In regards to the first interactive demo, it seems to be adjusting the line to be parallel to the one drawn on the background. Was this intentional or are the supposed to converge?

<comment><AUTHOR> The line in the background is the function towards which the neural net is expected to converge.

<comment><USER10> When I first posted my reply every time I watched that demo the neural net line was converging on a line perpendicular to the line in the background.

(rereading my original comment I think I described what I was seeing incorrectly but this new reply correctly explains what I was originally seeing)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wrote a simple neural network about a year ago for doing optical character recognition as a class project. I think looking over the code could be good for learning, as it has a pretty simple OOP structure: [https://github.com/bcuccioli/neural-ocr](https://github.com/bcuccioli/neural- ocr)

</comment><comment><USER12> cool. just bought the book on Amazon! i know some small amount about neural networks (i was able to skim the article), but the book as a whole looks stellar.

</comment><comment><USER13> nice article</comment>


The reasons behind stalking a Ninja - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stalkninja.com/the-reason-behind-stalk-ninja

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing the link. I am behind the initiative. Just curious to know how did you come to know about us ?</comment>


Mediatek MT6261 ROM dumping via the vibration motor - <AUTHOR> http://www.sodnpoo.com/posts.xml/mediatek_mt6261_rom_dumping_via_the_vibration_motor.xml <comment><USER2> The article Links through to how the original iPod was ROM dumped which I found interesting.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070126061215/http://ipodlinux....](https://web.archive.org/web/20070126061215/http://ipodlinux.org/stories/piezo/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome, side channels for the win. That said, I'm really surprised that JTAG couldn't read out the ROM, in theory that is how you would program it. And given that you couldn't program it, if instead of a minimal USB driver you wrote a program that read a 16 bit word at a time from ROM and stored it in a static variable you should be able to use the JTAG data watch function to stream out the words as you read them.

<comment><USER4> > That said, I'm really surprised that JTAG couldn't read out the ROM, in > theory that is how you would program it.

I'm no embedded expert, but I would _assume_ some devices let you write to them and upload new code using the JTAG interface, but still prevent you from reading if the author have signalled that he wants his code protected.

Quick DDGing seems to suggest this is indeed a vendor/chip-specific capability:

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jtag+read+protection&t=ffsb](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jtag+read+protection&t=ffsb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> CHDK project [1] early on used to dump flashes of Canon cameras through their LEDs [2].

[1]: [http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK](http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK)

[2]: [http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Obtaining_a_firmware_dump#Hardwar...](http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Obtaining_a_firmware_dump#Hardware- software_solution)

</comment><comment><USER6> The MT6261 is actually a full feature-phone SoC (includes a GSM modem); a bit odd to see it in a smartwatch with no actual phone functionality.

This is basically a form of PWM. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse- width_modulation#Telecom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse- width_modulation#Telecommunications)

<comment><USER7> The mediatek chipsets are the only thing out there if you need a lot of ram with reasonable power consumption for cheap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a delightful hack and was nicely written up- I love reading such articles. The URL is pretty great too :)

<comment><AUTHOR> (thanks :) )</comment></comment>


Distri: 20x faster initramfs (initrd) from scratch - <AUTHOR> https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2020-01-21-initramfs-from-scratch-golang/ <comment><USER2> Can you expand on the issue with dracut not working with pigz? "dracut should fail to compile unless one explicitly opts into the known-slower gzip." How did you fix it?

<comment><USER2> Please ignore, I didn't read that sentence correctly. dracut supports pigz and will use it if installed. Thanks</comment></comment>


Start-Up Creation Steady in Recession  - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703906204575027082774997028.html#

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm pretty sure the article they refer to is _"Exploring Firm Formation: Why is the Number of New Firms Constant?"_ (Dane Stangler & Paul Kedrosky, January 13, 2010)~ [http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/exploring_firm_formati...](http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/exploring_firm_formation_1-13-10.pdf) (pdf, 1.9Mb) or via google cache ~ [http://188.8.131.52/search?q=cache:GjapcIHkFO8J:www.kauffm...](http://220.127.116.11/search?q=cache:GjapcIHkFO8J:www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/exploring_firm_formation_1-13-10.pdf+site:http://www.kauffman.org+Dane+Stangler+Paul+Kedrosky&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=firefox-a)</comment>


A brief history of databases - <AUTHOR> http://vvvnt.com/media/history-of-databases

<comment><AUTHOR> "One question begged of Big Data has been – is anybody actually handling data big enough to merit a change to NoSQL architectures?"

</comment><comment><USER2> Prediction:

There's going to be a fuck-off huge market for helping later-stage startups bring order to their NoSQL databases and move that data into a more useful format.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like a business plan to me. Migration software to move data from MongoDB back to Oracle (or PostgreSQL, or SQL Server, or whatever)</comment></comment>


Adobe doesn't care about you. - <AUTHOR>

I'm sure creative cloud is great for agencies that use all the included apps and need all the latest features.  However, they are completely ignoring the casual user.
I still run a copy of cs4.  I'll fire up Photoshop or illustrator every now and again. But not enough to justify a monthly subscription.
All of a sudden everyone is chasing that recurring revenue weather you need it or not.  They are shooting themselves in the foot.  The cloud has its place and its use. But the spin they are putting on to justify cloud service pricing for a desktop application is silly.  I think Adobe and EA have been drinking from the same fountain... <comment><USER2> I still use CS2. You can get it for free now: <http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/>

<comment><USER3> CS2 is not free. Using that page without actually purchasing the product is no different than downloading a torrent and crack from TPB.

> The serial numbers below should only be used by customers who legitimately > purchased CS2 or Acrobat 7 and need to maintain their current use of these > products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's the same crap as in Germany's housing. Basically, if you're in one of the big cities, no way of getting rent unless you can prove contracts of regular income.</comment>


Ask HN: Should you tell potential investors who else you're meeting? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Only after you've established that they have serious interest should you drop a name or two; private capital folks tend to be very well-connected with peers and likely have a direct line to any others you mention. When name-dropping a firm you've spoken to but hasn't actually expressed interest in moving forward, a casual mention can seem more like intentional misrepresentation.

You'll probably talk to a whole lot of "potential" before you find any actual "investors", so don't feel compelled to share anything until you get enough traction to be confident that things will line up the way you expect.</comment>


Apple reportedly arguing headquarter buildings are worth $200 to reduce tax bill - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-trying-to-reduce-cupertino-tax-bill-2018-8 <comment><USER2> California should exercise their eminent domain powers and purchase it for what it's worth.

<comment><USER3> Don't encourage heavy handedness by the government, instead push for a better system of checks and balances.

<comment><USER4> >> California should exercise their eminent domain powers and purchase it for what it's worth.

> Don't encourage heavy handedness by the government, instead push for a > better system of checks and balances.

That's not heavy handedness, it's calling a hyper-rich entity on its greedy, obvious bullshit. It'd be a welcome lesson to all to all such organizations.

I'd also say such eminent domain actions would be a reasonable part of checks and balances: no one would under-represent the value of their property, at least not as much as Apple has, if they invited that kind of risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The writer of the article really couldn't be bothered to look into the details at all and find out the reason behind the discrepancy in valuations? A lot of people are probably curious, it's the whole hook of the headline...

<comment><USER6> > Business Insider has contacted Apple for comment. The company declined to > comment when approached by The Chronicle.

Either the story is balderdash, or Apple knows how bad any explanation will look. It's probably just easier for the reporters to ask a source in the local government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As an accountant, I expect they can report their value differently if they are especially specialised, so they aren't useful for anyone else. No idea how that works with US tax, though.

</comment><comment><USER8> The city should offer to buy it from them for $201.

<comment><USER9> not only offer, but make it a friendly compulsory acquisition, say for $400, with 100% profits for Apple (taxable!)

</comment></comment><comment> 2-m3m3n70 Nothing more American than Apple(pie) and tax evasion.</comment>