Hacker Opens High Security Handcuffs With 3D-Printed And Laser-Cut Keys - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/07/16/hacker-opens-high-security-handcuffs-with-3d-printed-and-laser-cut-keys/ <comment><USER2> The situation with keys is actually worse than Forbes makes out.

Apparently they don't realize that (most) keys can now be copied from a photograph, from up to 195 feet away[1]. I realize that these "high security keys" are probably harder to duplicate than a normal key - but how many security officers know they should be keeping the keys _out of sight_ as well as physically secure?

[1] <http://hackaday.com/2009/09/22/photographic-key-duplication/>

<comment><USER3> Time for fingerprint entry to become popular - at least until cloning specific body parts becomes a home-kit..

<comment><USER4> Mythbusters was able to defeat several fingerprint identification systems quite easily.

At first their attempts were pretty elaborate. They lifted a fingerprint from a glass a person had held and then used an acidic solution to etch that pattern onto a mold. This mold then opened all of the high-end thumbprint readers they had.

However, if I remember correctly, they then went low-tech and simply used a photocopy of the thumbprint which also opened several devices.

<comment><USER5> I think it is good to remember that security is situational. So unless a prisoner is holding a copy of every officer/guard/transfer agent's finger prints, they won't be able to undo the lock while in most detention situations (the only ones I can come up with are fairly contrived, or require the prisoner to escape in cuffs, making the point moot). Basically, if the arresting officer puts the cuffs on the detainee, and scans in his fingerprint as the "unlock with this fingerprint" option, it becomes very difficult for the detainee to get a copy of that print in a form that will work, and then use it, unlike an accessible hidden key known to work with $model-of-handcuff.

Of course that says nothing about _other_ ways to defeat the cuffs, which would probably become the prime area of research at that point. (why attack the locking mechanism if there are easier to defeat weaknesses).

<comment><USER6> According to the article, that's not how handcuffs need to work.

Handcuffs are designed so that one officer can put them on and another can take them off. If that weren't the case this situation of being able to print 1 key for all handcuffs wouldn't exist - they would simply make unique keys per handcuff.

<comment><USER5> Fair enough, although, I think a procedure change and a "transfer authority" function could easily cover this. The transfer function would basically be: original cuffer presses the transfer button, swipes his print, the receiver then swipes his print, and the transfer is done.

However, in a broader view, yeah, there are probably better ways than fingerprints handle keys once electronic locking mechanisms are introduced. Probably something akin to a 2-factor cryptographic mechanism.

<comment><USER7> Easy nitpick, what if one of the officers gets sick, gets injured, or just plain forgets and goes home?

<comment><USER5> Good question. I don't know, but perhaps an override key. However now that the physical key isn't an open secret, and needed by everyone, they would be easier to secure. And small batches would have a specific key for that batch, but not for all cuffs, making it even harder for the detainee to have the right duplicate on hand.

I feel though that my larger point is getting lost in this thread. It was/is:

Just because a security technology doesn't work for reason $x in situation $y, that doesn't mean that the weaknesses also apply to situation $z.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting story. My larger concern is that incumbent businesses and political interests will use this type of story to spread FUD that enables them to enact fear-based regulation before the benefits of cheap 3D printing can be realized by the general population. One simply has to look at piracy concerns and asanine infosec and privacy regulations for previous examples.

<comment><USER9> Just wait until you can download a handgun. Just wait until someone attaches explosives to a DIY drone and sends it into a shopping mall. Just wait until someone hacks the firmware on your self-driving car. It's going to get ugly.

<comment><USER10> Re "download a handgun", that debate is already happening:

[http://boingboing.net/2011/09/20/3d-printed-ar-15-parts- chal...](http://boingboing.net/2011/09/20/3d-printed-ar-15-parts-challenge- firearm-regulation.html)

<comment><USER9> I suppose it's more effective still, given small-scale production, to upgrade components on existing fire-arms rather than try to manufacture one from scratch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Handcuff locks are identically keyed so that any police officer can open them.

But it's rare that you need such compatibility; instead, "anyone in the department" is a fine size.

Handcuff manufacturers cheaped out. If they offered keys made per department, the keyspace would go from approximately 5 to tens of thousands. That won't stop someone from duplicating a key, but it will change the cost proposition for mass-duplication.

Plastic ties don't have the key issue, but they are vulnerable to a knowledgeable (semi-) brute-force attack.

<comment><USER12> In large-scale and homogenous departments, yes, that might sometimes work.

Through what is known as mutual aid, it is routine for various smaller police agencies to interoperate with other law enforcement agencies; with county, state and federal agencies with direct jurisdiction, and police departments from neighboring municipalities through mutual aid.

Finding a half-dozen police agencies at various calls is not uncommon.

This isn't only a factor with small departments, either. In some areas within cities with large established police departments, there can be a dozen law enforcement agencies with direct jurisdiction for a particular location and/or event.

And yes, this can be why officers at large events are often issued plastic cuffs. No keys.

Paralleling the problem that would arise with using multiple different cuff keys, simple radio communications among the various police and municipal agencies can be an issue. Everything from the frequencies and bands and encoding to the individual radio codes used by officers can lead to confusion.

When the ____hits the fan, a police officer needs equipment that works reliably, and the officer doesn't want to even have to think about using the equipment, nor about different cuff keys, radio protocols or codes.

<comment><USER13> There was a usenix paper I recall from last year: _Why (special agent) Johnny (still) Can't Encrypt_ [1], which I think includes some of the issues of trying to run these sorts of ad-hoc radio networks securely.

[1] <http://www.crypto.com/blog/p25/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Even so, Ray says he won't post CAD models of the Bonowi or Clejuso models online, given that those keys are harder to obtain and providing blueprints for their reproduction could in fact reduce their real-world security. "

But in the very same article, there's a _lovely_ photo of the Bonowi key next to a more readily-available Chubb key[1].

And I suspect most of the kinds of people with access to laser cutters and 3D printers have heard that it's pretty easy to dupe a key from a photo. Googling for "duplicate key from photo" brings up any number of articles that outline the techniques.

I can only assume that the Chubb key was provided for scale, to allow anyone with the tools to reproduce the Bonowi as well!

[1][http://blogs- images.forbes.com/andygreenberg/files/2012/07/S...](http://blogs- images.forbes.com/andygreenberg/files/2012/07/Screen- Shot-2012-07-14-at-6.14.45-PM.png)

<comment><USER15> Not knowing much about keys, but knowing a bit about machining materials, I dare say that skilled people with access to a hardware store to buy a hacksaw, a few files and some metal could also duplicate a key without much trouble.

For all their high-tech trappings, laser cutters are still doing what humans do by hand all the time; they just do it faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if someone patented an actuator/microcontroller based cuff. The "key" would contain a battery and the cuff would challenge the key for the right password. There's lots of cryptography that could be used there, from shared secrets to public/private signatures. If it's not patented yet, I guess this description of the idea (that I might have thought of 364 days ago) counts as prior art :-)

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't understand why we are making handcuff with keys. Wouldn't it be better to have cuffs that lock but can't be unlocked. The only way to get them off would be to destroy them. Think zip ties that are structurally stronger.

Maybe the destruction method would be something like UV light to melt the cuffs.

Is it so important that we have re-usable cuffs?

<comment><USER18> _Think zip ties that are structurally stronger._

Zip ties themselves are easily circumvented with a razor. If stronger, how much stronger? Do you need heavy-duty bolt cutters to get them off?

 _UV light to melt the cuffs._

Wouldn't a UV light source then be an easily-producible key?

<comment><USER17> I was thinking like 3/4 to 1/2 inch tubes of solid plastic. So maybe heavy- duty bolt cutters would be a good idea to get them off.

The crux of the idea is that only way to get the cuffs off is to break the cuff with a specific brute force that requires a large unconcealable device. Even with the device, you still need time/space to use it (5-10 mins).

So pretend that we would need a large UV lamp and 5 mins to melt through.

<comment><USER19> If the cuffs cannot be reused then costs go up. If costs go up I pay more tax to cover this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Old news, this has already been done at <http://har2009.org/> read more here -> <http://blackbag.nl/?tag=har2009>

<comment><USER21> Yes, that was mentioned in the TFA, because it was done by the same guy. Did you not read it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Zip ties.</comment>


Show HN: I built this to make sharing from music services better - <AUTHOR> https://match.audio/google/album/B4t6yqqvhnb2hy4st4uisjrcsrm

<comment><AUTHOR> I just started working on it this week after getting made redundant last Friday. It's MIT licensed and up on Github[0] too.

[0] [https://github.com/kudos/match.audio](https://github.com/kudos/match.audio)

</comment><comment><USER2> Cool. Any reason Amazon isn't on the list of providers?

<comment><AUTHOR> No reason, I'm still adding providers. It's barely MVP right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Appears to be down for me - [http://d.pr/1clOg](http://d.pr/1clOg)

<comment><AUTHOR> Should be ok again, bad deploy. I need to fill out the test suite some more to catch all of the edge cases of the various APIs involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> a bookmarklet that worked on mobile browsers would be very useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, how would you see that working?

<comment><USER4> similar to the readability bookmarklet here:

[https://www.readability.com/bookmarklets](https://www.readability.com/bookmarklets)

for example: if an rdio page is already open, click the bookmarklet to see all the other services

<comment><AUTHOR> I've since built a chrome extension, I'll make it work as a bookmark too.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Attention, America: We've All Been Saying Gerrymander Wrong - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/attention-america-weve-all-been-saying-gerrymander-wrong-1527178009 <comment><USER2> WSJ a little behind John Mulaney's grandmother...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I5l64ZmEWY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I5l64ZmEWY)

</comment><comment><USER3> The g is proununced as in "gif".

<comment><USER4> Gone fishing.

I think you did that on purpose.

<comment><USER3> I think you might be right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't read through the WSJ paywall. But, I like when people on the internet complain about gerrymandering and imply it's a Republican thing.

This is Chicago. [https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.buywjQl9Qa3gWgFDJ2gb3wHaFi&pi...](https://www.bing.com/th?id=OIP.buywjQl9Qa3gWgFDJ2gb3wHaFi&pid=Api)</comment>


California Wants You to Eat Roadkill in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedrive.com/news/31695/california-wants-you-to-eat-roadkill-in-2020 <comment><USER2> In my Maine grade school circa 1970's we would eat moose road kill I know.</comment>


What's a CPU to do when it has nothing to do? - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/767630/594421f913c3d00a/ <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18185543](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18185543).</comment>


KrispNet – Voice Playback with Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> https://2hz.ai/blog/hd-voice-playback <comment><USER2> The KrispNet audio sounds similar to overly compressed audio filled with artifacts. The ffmpeg interpolated audio sounds better to me.

Not a bad idea though and will probably be a thing with proper refinement.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oddly, the original and ffmpeg versions play fine on firefox (win 7, 64b, version 67.0), but the krisp version doesn't respond when clicked. I don't understand why not, as all samples are links to .wav files. It works on chrome.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wasn't able to play any KrispNet samples from the Firefox browser I am running on my Ubuntu laptop.

</comment><comment><USER5> This seems really good, is the code open source?

<comment><USER6> Really? It sounded worse to me. Very artificial / codec-y.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Preventing hijacking of a startup by a single founder - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN, I am involved with a startup where one of the potential founders is in litigation to regain control of a different project he started. He is afraid of repeating the same mistakes and is slowing us down considerably.
His experience boils down to the following.  He was supposed to be the money guy and would be in the background completely.  In this role he paid nearly all initial expenses for the first year including bringing in a knowledgeable manager to train founder #2 who would run operations afterwards.  After a few years the company was very successful but founder #2 has refused to pay any dividends or salary to founder/investor #1. This is currently in litigation and founder #2 is using the company money to bankroll the defense.
Due to this experience founder #1 is trying to create an elaborate structure of control and is acting as an anchor on the new venture. I'm trying to find effective controls to remove the risk of 1 founder hijacking the company.  Can this be done by how one sets up the articles of incorporation or corporate bylaws?  Is there a better way?  In general there is trust between the founders but this aspect is causing contention.  How do you limit this risk? Thanks in advance!
HN reader
EDIT: Corrected formatting issue. <comment><USER2> Your post is unreadable. I'm quoting you here for the benefit of other readers:

> _His experience boils down to the following. He was supposed to be the money > guy and would be in the background completely. In this role he paid nearly > all initial expenses for the first year including bringing in a > knowledgeable manager to train founder #2 who would run operations > afterwards. After a few years the company was very successful but founder #2 > has refused to pay any dividends or salary to founder/investor #1. This is > currently in litigation and founder #2 is using the company money to > bankroll the defense._

> _Due to this experience founder #1 is trying to create an elaborate > structure of control and is acting as an anchor on the new venture. I'm > trying to find effective controls to remove the risk of 1 founder hijacking > the company. Can this be done by how one sets up the articles of > incorporation or corporate bylaws? Is there a better way? In general there > is trust between the founders but this aspect is causing contention. How do > you limit this risk?_</comment>


Forget PowerPoint: reveal.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hakimel/reveal.js/ <comment><AUTHOR> I need to do a presentation in a week from today and I was hoping to somehow just do it with a web browser without having to make sure LibreOffice or MS Office or whatever is installed on host's computers (and not having to drag my laptop with me).

I was prepared to build a small website with jQuery if nothing else was available, when I found this gem.</comment>


Completely branded/personalized/custom domain names - <AUTHOR> Introducing Handshake:
Handshake makes it possible to have a completely personalized domain name. For example, I actually happen to own the Handshake extension ".johnnywu", which means you can access my Linkedin profile via "linkedin.johnnywu", my Paypal via "paypal.johnnywu", and even my MeUndies referral code via "meundies.johnnywu". At the moment, in order to resolve Handshake names you'll need to either change your DNS settings or use an alternative search engine like HNS.to — you can't yet just search these names directly in a browser like Chrome or Safari. Keep in mind though that HNS.to was developed by 1 person over a single weekend, so the only thing really holding browsers back from natively resolving Handshake names is merely awareness, which is why I've reached out here.
One example to show how much momentum Handshake is already picking up, would be via Cloudflare's All Time Feedback and Product Requests page (https://community.cloudflare.com/c/feedback/prodreq/30/l/top/all?order=votes) — in just one month's time, Handshake support on Cloudflare has already become a top 4 most upvoted product request of all time while the next most recent top 15 post was suggested back in July 2019.
We're still updating our company's landing page so currently it isn't the most helpful for understanding what we or Handshake are all about but long story short, Namebase is merely a group of people who were so enthusiastic about Handshake that they built an entire company around making it as easy as possible for anyone to interact with Handshake. If you'd like to learn more about Handshake or Namebase, all of the relevant resources you'll want is accessible via my personal website, "home.johnnywu" (remember to search for it via HNS.to).
Hope you'll get just as excited about Handshake as I am!
Best,
Johnny Wu
Community Manager at Namebase.io <comment><USER2> Direct URL [https://www.namebase.io/](https://www.namebase.io/)</comment>


Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/business/cell-phone-addiction.html <comment><USER2> Non-paywall mirror: [https://outline.com/mB93se](https://outline.com/mB93se)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you prepare for a public speaking event? - <AUTHOR> Do you prepare the full speech? Or, do you create a rough sketch of ideas and fill things on stage. Recently, I understood the hard way that it's easy to overestimate the clarity of what you want to say and go blank when you're actually speaking. I want to avoid this trap in the future. <comment><USER2> It depends on the situation. I ran for public office once, and I did very little "preparation" per-se for my campaign appearances (including one televised debate) and I never used any slides or presentation materials. I felt like I knew my principles and as long as I had the broad brush strokes of what I wanted to talk about in mind, I could always construct a reasonable discussion about the topic(s) from those principles.

OTOH, I've done a number of talks at various user group meetings, and conferences like All Things Open, and I prepare for those a little different. I try to be very prepared, and I do use slides (and/or code) but I still don't try to prepare a "word for word" speech or slide deck. I make slides that have bullets that I treat as "remind me what to talk about next" and maybe include expansions of acronyms and some links that people will find useful afterwards. But even then I try to make it so that the majority of the words coming out of my mouth are generated on the spot.

I was taught a long time ago "don't read the slides to the audience" and while I don't _always_ adhere to that 100%, I really do try to just use the slides to control sequencing and to jog my memory about key points. I just need to know the material so well that I can talk about it in depth, with only the high points put up on the slides. I don't always achieve that goal, but I always feel comfortable during my talks, especially by about 45 seconds in, once I'm in the flow of things and any "nerves" have settled down.

The last thing I might add is this: if you do "go blank" or have any kind of gaffe, it's OK. Everybody has those sometimes. My advice is to just own the moment and don't get to wrapped up in it. If you lose your train of thought, just say "Oh. Well, guys, I just totally lost my train of thought there. Give me a sec". If you're comfortable cracking jokes in front of a crowd, feel free to make a joke of some sort. But if you're not, don't worry about that. Otherwise that itself might come off as very artificial and forced. Anyway, if the thought doesn't come back to you after a brief pause, just say "OK, forget that, let's just move on to ..." and launch into something else.

You might also find practicing improv comedy to be valuable. I did one improv class and think it was a very good thing. I just wish I had time to go back and do more of it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it varies based on the style of the presenter and whether they like to keep it loose or prepare every word.

I like to prepare. My best speeches were the ones where I wrote small ideas I could potentially say on post-it notes, and stuck them to a large wall.

Then, I re-arranged, edited, added, deleted, etc. until I liked the story line.

Then, (a la Tim Ferris), I break it up. I practice each 10 minute section separately, being able to deliver each 10 minute section 10 times in a row.

And just remember: presentations are not 'What do I say next?' but 'What do they need to learn next?'

<comment><USER4> May I ask who's Tim Ferris?</comment></comment>


First reported case of a paternity test fooled by a human "chimera" - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/failed-paternity-test-vanished-twin <comment><USER2> What I find particularly interesting, is that the "accredited lab" (presumably accredited by the FDA), just came back with a (misleading) negative result, but that 23andMe, which presumably was not accredited by the FDA at the time, provided results that cleared the issue up.

<comment><USER3> Finding that the father has contributed ~1/4 of his genes to the child would normally exclude them from being described as the biological parent, who would normally contribute ~1/2 his genes to the child.

Possibly the father had no brothers, therefore no-one else could contribute even 1/4 of the genes (unless the child is a chimera from two fathers...).

<comment><USER4> Well, they are _his_ genes. Just not for the whole body.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Rather suspicious, repeated, mentions of 23andMe. This reads more like an advertisement in disguise rather than "news".

<comment><USER6> Yep, they are doing a big PR push after the FDA approval. Many articles that were in the can released at once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a bit scary that this was detected when the parents used a fertility clinic and were so sure of themselves that they felt the need to investigate further. There must be other false negatives where they trusted the test results that perhaps led to relationship breakups or other problems.

<comment><USER8> Yes - every other case where paternity tests have failed has simply been unreported, or not investigated sufficiently to invalidate the test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why do the standard paternity tests not notice when someone is effectively the child's uncle? The genes must match to a far greater extent than an "unrelated" person. Is that information lost between the actual test and the "yes/no/probability" result?

<comment><USER10> Brothers and sisters only share 1/4th dna. brother A gets 50% of dad's genes. Brother B also gets 50%, but not (necessarily) the same 50%. same process on the mothers side.

<comment><USER4> So it's 1/2 shared dna for siblings, not 1/4th. Only (I think, possibly) it's 1/2 on average instead of being _exactly_ 1/2 as in the case of parents and children.

<comment><USER10> Ah, I did the table wrong in my head. You're right. 2 genes, one from father one from mother, sibling A along the top, simbling A down the side.

           MM MF FM FF
        MM  1 .5 .5  0
        MF .5  1  0 .5
        FM .5  0  1 .5
        FF  0 .5 .5  1

(4+ .5 * 8 + 0)/16 = 8/16 = 1/2

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seems like this is a big deal for criminal justice system.

<comment><USER12> They'll ignore it like they ignore most of science.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "How can a man who was never born father a son? When the ghost of his genes lives on in the DNA of his brother, genetics researchers have found. A 34-year-old U.S. man is the first ever reported case of a paternity test fooled by a human "chimera" — someone with extra genes absorbed from a nascent twin lost in early pregnancy."

Thought this was super interesting and thought I'd share!

<comment><USER13> ...and how we're unique individuals from the very very beginning. Pretty wonderful/amazing.

<comment><USER14> We're about as unique as combination locks are unique from each other.

Sure, we, mostly, each contain a unique set of chromosomes, but there are copies each of our chromosomes spread across the population of the world. So, losing one unique set, isn't a big deal at all. In any case, the next generation will again just be a random set, and your influence on that in aggregate will be most likely minuscule.

<comment><USER15> That analogy is like "a piece of fecal matter on the bottom of your sneaker", they're both written with letters.

People are not just DNA, identical twins are not even identical. We are all demonstrably unique.

<comment><USER8> You're unique...just like everybody else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is far from the first case. There was a case related to welfare benefits that ended up with a woman fighting for years to have people believe her baby was hers.

<comment><USER17> That case involved a maternity test, not a paternity test.

It's even mentioned in the article: "A similar case in 2006 saw a 26-year-old chimeric woman, Lydia Fairchild, almost lose her children after maternity tests required for welfare payments suggested she wasn't actually their mother."

<comment><USER4> What's the difference between a paternity test and a maternity test? Will there be a "first case of paternity test fooled by chimerism" for an asian/ a person under 22/ a person with blonde hair?

<comment><USER18> A maternity test tells you who the genetic mother is. A paternity test tells you who the genetic father is.

The legal system sees genetic forensic evidence as very strong. This result shows that we need to be a bit more careful about the samples we used for genetic testing - although this means police procedures for extracting samples are going to get a lot more complicated than a simple cheek swab.

<comment><USER4> > A maternity test tells you who the genetic mother is. A paternity test tells > you who the genetic father is.

Which is, from the point of view of the test, exactly the same thing. However, it's obvious that "mater semper certa est" ("the mother is always certain"). That is, almost always, apparently...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Polyfills or Ponyfills? - <AUTHOR> http://ponyfoo.com/articles/polyfills-or-ponyfills

<comment><USER2> I think that if your entire program is written to heavily rely on polyfills in all areas then you may be asking for trouble. However, I think that extending objects through their prototypes is a valid way to implement functionality (as it's a defining principle of the language), and I don't think I would tell someone not extend the base String object if they invented some new great desired feature for Strings. So isn't that what a polyfill does? Regardless if the feature is implemented in 50% of browsers or 0% of them, there will be edge cases, we all know that. Polyfills apply a pressure to the industry that breathes movement into the language and makes people aware of the what is coming. If you _need_ a polyfil to accomplish your goals then I say use it. If there is a safer more reliable way to create the functionality then that's the way to go. The only bit about the ponyfill idea that I don't like is that when a feature does become supported, now all of a sudden I'd have a pile of code relying on heavy refactoring where polyfills can ease the transition. Interesting article though, awesome, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the premise of Closure Library, e.g., goog.string.trim().

[http://closure-library.googlecode.com/git- history/docs/local...](http://closure-library.googlecode.com/git- history/docs/local_closure_goog_string_string.js.source.html#line286)</comment>


Ask HN: Is it time for a new Facebook? - <AUTHOR>

I feel that Facebook is too boring now. Too many memes, businesses, stuff I don't care about, etc. Facebook used to be all about the individual user and as an avid Facebook user, I've gotten "bored" of Facebook. Does anyone else feel the same way?2 <comment><USER2> Facebook:

        "[your friend] likes Salitos!"
        "[the same friend] likes Salitos!"
        ... a week later "[your friend] likes Salitos!"

"Man, I guess he really likes Salitos!". I've asked him about it, and it seems he barely remembered liking their page. So yea, IMO it's time for a new facebook

<comment><USER3> It's time for a new Facebook because your friend doesn't remember clicking the "like" button?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Facebook isn't going away soon, but do _please_ look into being the next timesink for the web. It definitely feels ripe for a new timesink. People are getting bored with Facebook, no doubt, but they still _use_ it daily. Surely it will be disrupted in the future, (few of the original NYSE companies exist) but not anytime soon. When Mark said there were other social networks, PG's laughing response of "Not really" was correct. If half of Facebook's daily users quit it'd only set them back a year or two. On top of that, Facebook is in the great position of already having the chicken-egg problem solved, so if they did want to move into, say, PayPal's area, they could do it. (Imagine if grandpa can send his grand daughter money for school and see her picture while he does it. Way more comfortable than PayPal. Not to mention they could probably do better fraud detection, etc)

Again for emphasis, Facebook isn't going away. People share more than ever and use it daily, but they _are getting bored with it_ so a new opening for another timesink has been created. For example, all of the people I know that use Pinterest also use Facebook. Pinterest is a newer timesink, but it doesn't replace Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Leave Facebook. 2\. Go to other social network. 3\. Realize none of your friends are there. 4\. ??? 5\. Go back to Facebook.

<comment><USER6> It's interesting to see my younger cousins who are around 10-12 not actually showing any interest in Facebook. They're by far the most connected any generation has ever been at that age.

They use a mix of communication applications and media rich social networks such as Instagram.

But I guess you could say Instagram is Facebook in one respect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I created a Facebook in 06 because a class required it. For the first 6 months or so it pretty much only had my profile picture and one or two status updates (much like my current G+ profile).

I was the only one of my friends who had a FB profile - everyone else was on Myspace. I visited Myspace daily at the time.

I remember when the shift happened. More and more of my friend posted Myspace bulletins with "Deleting my Myspace, add me on FB!" It seemed to happen all at once.

I've seen a few of these 'leaving' declarations on my FB, but there isn't the same rush. FB may be going through a Myspace fate at a much slower rate, or perhaps we are in a new day and age where users will have profiles on many different social networks. I tend to think it's the latter.

<comment><USER8> Those of us who do so generally do so because we're sick of the noise and forced interaction overload. We don't replace it, there's nothing with granular enough options to filter out the drek. Shame about Diaspora not coming into its own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My use case for Facebook is keeping in touch with friends and family abroad: most of my family, college friends, coworker friends, etc... are now spread around the globe.

We have a private group for my family, and I aggresively filter people and software from my feed.

It works really well to keep "connected" and know what they're up to, but I do try to call semi-regularly. It's hard on me since I can't afford to visit them :( .

I probably should do a heavy culling of old classmates, but Facebook hardly shows me photos of their babies anyways :) .

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the great problem Facebook solved was to remove all the noise that exists in the real world while we are trying to keep touch with our friends and acquaintances. But now it is bringing back the noise. Partly because of this tendency that people must share and share and share, and share a little more. Partly because it became so easy to keep in touch with acquaintances that we now know that are some good reasons behind all the noise of the real world. We have too many acquaintances these days to keep in touch with all of them.

I've being thinking a lot about this because I am trying to solve this problem of noise and focus in friendships with my startup.

</comment><comment><USER11> Well, there is [Friendica](<http://friendica.com>) which is free software and could become the new Facebook or anything else.

<comment><USER12> Do some HNers have another recommendation of an already open source software to build a custom social site - a la Facebook? I checked Elgg (<http://elgg.org/>) and it looks good at first sight, but still looking for other recommendations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Facebook will go the way of every other "big" social network. It overcomplicates its old vision and looses its fresh feel. Every new feature is less effective than the last, getting lost in the sea of older functionality. Facebook needs to pivot.

<comment><USER6> Public companies don't just 'pivot' like your average start-up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yahoo was uncool years ago, but it's still going, so I can see FB doing the same. The numbers are just too big to die, and although you/we may be bored, it won't stop unless the money stops coming in.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why don't you just follow or friend more interesting people, groups, and businesses?

<comment><AUTHOR> That sort of alludes to the problem though. I've been on Facebook for about 6 years now. When I first signed on, it was great because it was personal. Now it's more about businesses and "Confessions" groups as well as meme pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's time for NO facebook.

<comment><USER17> Yes, I agree. I am starting to dislike seeing people I went to school with and their babies. Some babies are cute and some are hideous.

I started using twitter a lot more a few months ago after getting bored with FB.

<comment><USER18> I got pretty sick of seeing a continuous picture stream of people's babies. A lot of people have FB but I see less and less activity happening among my friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm building it right now. Can't wait to show you guys!

</comment><comment><USER20> My (largely non-techy, for this population) friends are exiting it. Not "publicly", but through ever decreasing presence. A minority remain and fill up my news feed (along with the ads), but it and/or their posts are a decreasingly interesting subset. (And, lately, non-personal pictures and graphics... ever more of these.)

These are largely the "next older" generation, after the ten and twenty- somethings that, per all the recent reporting, have moved on to Twitter, Tumblr, or... I guess, the next "T".

So... I have no objective evaluation, but it's certainly becoming a less interesting place to me, even to keep up with "non-technical friends".

Also... I'm increasingly hesitant to comment on public posts. People who "market" themselves with public posts, further discourage my participation. ( _NOT_ that I want the post security setting indicator taken away. It's the only thing that, when not public, prompts me to comment at all.)

<comment><USER5> I recently graduated high school (for perspective).

1) Nobody I know outside of techy-majors (I'm in college now) uses Twitter. 2) Everyone uses either Facebook or Instagram. 3) As many people use Tumblr as people use Twitter (but not limited to just people interested in tech)

I am very wary when people assert that Facebook is not cool anymore and is going to be replaced. Sure, it's not cool anymore. Then again, texting is not "cool." It's basically assumed you have a Facebook in the same sense that it's assumed you are willing to receive texts.

Keep in mind that all those meme-y, "Confessions"-type pages proliferate precisely because they are addictive time-sinks for teenaged and college- student users.

<comment><USER21> Weird. I follow my friend's high school aged little brother on twitter and it seems there are a lot of high schoolers on twitter. In fact, this guy deactivated his Facebook and only uses his twitter and Instagram now. He lives in Texas though, maybe Texans are behind the curve.

From what I've noticed it seems that Facebook is definitely far less cool than twitter these days.

<comment><USER5> I may have been a little harsh on Twitter :). I do think quite a few high school / college students use Twitter. But here's a handy metric: look at the # of people someone is following, and then look at the # of friends they have. The difference is usually 7-8x. I'd wager there is a similar differential in activity.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


We launched our IaaS business in Europe today - what do you think? - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/03/03/upcloud-bursts-out-of-finland-for-european-launch-with-u-s-in-sights-for-this-year/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the guy interviewed in the article. Would love to learn more what you guys value in cloud infra solutions. We're still a small, growing startup and all feedback is extremely valuable.

We believe in providing extreme redundancy, with enterprise grade hardware bundled with constantly high performing resources at internationally competitive prices.

<comment><USER2> 1/ Why do you have different rates for Helsinki and London? I appreciate those datacenters might cost you different amounts, but as a customer, this complicates my purchase. Are you attempting to push people toward London?

2/ I noticed something about 'Availability Zones'.. but now I can't find it again. Do I need to setup servers in different zones, or do you handle it transparently? Hint: I want you to handle this for me. To me, engineering this is still a major drawback to AWS.

I like the private VPN, especially that it's multisite. Nice work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for the questions!

1) Many different providers have different pricing for their different availability zones. On our part this is partly due, because we want to offer competitive pricing out of London (but also because there are different costs involved per zone). But thank you for the comment regarding the unified pricing, we'll add a tick to that in our roadmap :)

2) When setting up servers in Helsinki, for example, you can clone the server to London with just a few clicks. This automatically sets up the same server in London based on its status it was copied from in Helsinki.

We believe this is currently as far as we want to go with the automation (meaning that our clients choose where they want to clone the servers to) as it would not make sense for us to clone servers without customers' consent to other availability zones.

Let me know how you feel about the above mentioned setup!

Thanks again for your feedback, greatly appreciated!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Finnish startups killing it as usual :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you :) Would love to hear your feedback on us as well.</comment></comment>


Node.js Doesn't Share Your Values, and That's Okay - <AUTHOR> https://www.simplethread.com/node-js-doesnt-share-your-values-and-that-is-okay/ <comment><USER2> Personally, I find that writing style overly obnoxious and, at times, even painful to read. Just my two cents.</comment>


Disgruntled Programmer Accused of Sabotaging Arcade Game Classic - <AUTHOR> https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/hack-mole-disgruntled-programmer-accused-sabotaging-arcade-game-classic-022511

<comment><USER2> First and last para of the article:

" _Marvin Walter Wimberly, Jr., a sixty one year-old programmer and game board designer has been charged by authorities in Florida with committing computer crimes with the intent to defraud after his employer, game maker Bob's Space Racers (BSR) uncovered an elaborate scheme in which popular arcade games were programmed to self destruct._ "

" _Reached by phone, Wimberly said that the information contained in the affadavit was inaccurate, but declined to comment further, citing the wishes of his attorneys._ " [sic]

</comment><comment><USER3> It's an interesting technique to drum up business in the short term, but it seems ultimately self destructive--if the code you are responsible is dying constantly then it just makes you look incompetent.

> In 2008, after changes to his consulting arrangement with the company, BSR > offered Wimberly a job as a full time employee, hoping to replace his > consulting fees with a salary. Wimberly rejected that offer and, instead, > increased his fee for maintaining the games by 250%.

Wow, that's cut-throat! Though I suppose we don't know his rate before and after (maybe he went from $10/hour to $35/hour).

</comment><comment><USER4> Accused.

</comment><comment><USER5> That's a would-be SaaS programmer right there.

</comment><comment><USER6> > The machine was later tested and found to contain a virus believed to have > been created by Wimberly.

I bet his next step was to start an arcade anti virus company.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's quite an abuse of the word "virus".</comment></comment>


How facial features drive our first impressions - chestnut-tree http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28512781

<comment><AUTHOR> We are actually developing an ad A/B platform based on these concepts. Our MVP is a week from completion and we already have investors courting us. Will likely be an interesting ride.</comment>