What We Don't Know About Spying on Citizens: Scarier Than What We Know - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/what-we-dont-know-about-spying-on-citizens-scarier-than-what-we-know/276607/ <comment><USER2> Today I am throwing out the newspaper I was saving from the day after Obama was elected and all the electronic newspaper front pages from around the world I was saving from that day are being deleted from my hard drive. I've lost all pride.

I am utterly disgusted with this administration. Any good he has done is wiped out by being far worse than Bush with the domestic spying and whistleblower prosecutions.

How are we any better than China - because we at least eventually find out? Because people don't get disappeared off the street?

You remember that feeling of incredible relief when we saw Bush finally being flown away in the helicopter on his last day? Well that feeling is going to be deja vu in a couple years.

I just hope the next president doesn't try to do a one-up like Obama did to Bush. Obama's library/museum is going to be even more hypocritical than Bush's.

<comment><USER3> _Please_ don't make this about one party or one president. It's not. This kind of behavior goes way, _way_ beyond partisan politics, and to reduce it to that is to abdicate pretty much all of your agency or ability to do anything about it, not least because partisan politics is more about apportioning blame for problems than it is finding solutions to them.

Getting all, "Thanks, Obama!" over what the NSA was up to long before he was elected — if not before Bush was elected — is giving the people who actually did this, and are still doing it, a complete pass.

<comment><USER2> The president has the sole power to go the media every single day and say "this is wrong".

He also has the power to bring to light any bill that is put on his desk for signature.

Obama grew everything Bush did. The TSA, the NSA, all have become far bigger and more "powerful" under Obama.

I'm not an idiot, I know congress is as much at fault. He is at fault for not fighting it - it's his job as president of this country.

<comment><USER4> Not to mention the President has substantial executive order powers, that are often very hard to overrule. If the President went to bat for privacy, openly and regularly explained to the US public why, and used his executive order powers to implement changes - well, let the Congress try to overrule that. Obama can then issue 500 executive orders the next morning, slicing the issue into countless separate pieces, let Congress choke on trying to overrule it all, and if they want to stop him at that point, then they can impeach him - and at least Obama would stand on principle, and he'd be the only President impeached for doing the right thing.

Obama could stop all of this. He does not want to.

<comment><USER5> I agree that he probably doesn't want to. That Obama is somehow progressive was a fantasy people clung to because of the trauma of Bush, but Obama didn't even campaign on a progressive platform - at best he fit in the centre, but on many things he is right wing even by the standards of pre 9/11 US politics at least (by European standards he's still far right, as pretty much every US president, - many of his policies would be hard to defend even for most European conservative parties)

He just looked like a progressive choice against the backdrop of Bush and Cheney and McCain tied to the horror of possibly having Palin represent the lunatic fringe.

BUT, even if he did want to, if he tried to stand firm, _everything else_ would grind to a halt. He'd burn all political capital he's got.

<comment><USER6> _...he is right wing even by the standards of pre 9 /11 US politics at least..._

You are misremembering. Before 9/11, domestic spying and the warfare state was primarily part of the left wing platform. Bush was elected on a platform of "humble foreign policy" (as compared to Clinton/Gore's interventionism) and Republicans generally opposed domestic spying.

Only a few years before 9/11, it was paranoid gun toting right wing conspiracy theorists who defended crypto and turing machines, opposed the first patriot act (pushed by Biden and Clinton), and generally opposed the government.

(They dropped this opposition the minute Bush was elected, of course...)

<comment><USER7> Turing machines? What do they have to do with privacy?

<comment><USER6> Back in the 90's there was a movement in congress to lock down all computers iPhone style - i.e., ordinary users should not have access to Turing machines. The Clipper Chip was one of the early attempts at this.

The goal was to prevent piracy, encryption, child pornography, violent video games, and all the other bad things that the internet was enabling.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _The U.S. government is on a secrecy binge ... We need whistle-blowers._

Q: What's the difference between the kind of transparency that Wikileaks et al. tries to promote, and the kind of transparency that Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook users to adopt?

A: The former asks transparency of powerful entities, helping to check their power. The latter asks transparency of relatively powerless individuals, enabling the modern surveillance state and making individuals even more powerless.

The most important thing that we should keep in mind when we talk about any sort of justice in the context of information is how possession of information alters the balance of power in the world. Because politics, ultimately, boils down to who has how much power over whom. It's not about embarrassment. It's all about the loss of authority that public scrutiny and embarrassment can cause.

"Knowledge is power": knowing something about somebody gives you power over that somebody. This rule of thumb even works when we interact with physical objects (if you know how something works, you have the power to use it to your advantage), and it works just as well when we interact with other people. Asymmetric transparency leads to asymmetric power because they know enough about you to take advantage of you but you don't know enough about them to take advantage of them.

This is why I firmly believe that powerful entities should be required to be several orders of magnitude more transparent, and therefore open to public scrutiny, than the average chump would ever need to be. The only thing that can balance off the asymmetry of power that complex social organization usually entails is an asymmetry of knowledge in the other direction. Example: Who I talked with on the phone last night is none of your fucking business. But if you're in a position of considerable power, every meeting you ever have with every lobbyist in the Universe should be damn well everyone's business. This is not unfair at all. Clinton had no right to get secret blowjobs in my opinion. Nobody should be allowed to have both power and privacy, because the combination is a recipe for tyranny.

</comment><comment><USER9> And we are now exactly where the terrorists wanted: a terrified administration knee-jerking, kneeling before them, breaking the law and treading on the american constitutional rights because 'they are a threat' or even 'can be a threat' ... they?

Man, if Bin Laden were still alive he would be salivating right now.

This is freaking unbelieable: the Administration is (has been and seems to be going to be) simply TERRIFIED. They may not believe in God (I do not know) but they do certainly believe in the Devil and they call it 'Terror'.

So, they have won, and they have won big. The classical thrashing of the enemy.

Has the Administration really learnt nothing since McCarthy?

These people talk about due process but they really know (or willfully reject) anything about it.

"Get all that Roman Law and burn it, it is useless: what is that about citicens? WE RULE, and WE RULE THE WORLD."

S.H.A.M.E-O.N.-Y.O.U. NSA and the Administration (whatever the party, whatever the President).

Thankfully, there was someone with a conscience out there.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Our government is putting its own self-interest ahead of the interests of the country. That needs to change._

This, this, a thousand times, this.

</comment><comment><USER10> [Honest question with absolutely zero bad intentions] I hate to bring this up again and again, but how long before the USG turns into Nazi Germany? Right now, they're in the data collection phase, and are squashing dissidents.

I don't live in the US but I casually told this news to a 'normal person' I met yesterday [my parents] and they weren't even flinching. Almost like it wasn't their problem. I wonder if the 'not living in the US' part has anything to do with this.

The reason I'm worried about this is, now that USG has this tech, they won't hesitate to sell this to other countries.

EDIT - To the person who downvoted me, I am not upset but can you tell me why my post does not contribute to the discussion? It is a known fact that any tech the US researches and implements is soon commercialized and sold to other countries, and as compared to weapons, surveillance tech sales is definitely a walk in the park.

<comment><USER11> The threshold I generally use is the use of extra-legal violence, e.g. open violence against those "dissidents" with the organs of the state ignoring it.

Which won't work very well at all in such a well armed, and better armed every day country (for the last several years _every_ month has had higher gun sales from licensed gun stores compared to the month a year ago, details can be found at [http://www.nssf.org/](http://www.nssf.org/)). Also makes a very big difference that policing is primarily under local control, and the central government can't stop state prosecutions without explicitly acknowledging the target is a government agent (see the squashing of the state prosecution of Lon Horiuchi [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon_Horiuchi#Manslaughter_charg...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon_Horiuchi#Manslaughter_charge)).

Of course, also in light of Nazi Germany, any serious national effort at gun confiscation will instantly spark the civil war we seem to be sliding towards. On the likelihood of that (kudos to you for acknowledging the systematic "squashing" of dissidents), let me quote the recently woken up Peggy Nonan ([http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732441260457851...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324412604578515673945731506.html?mod=rss_opinion_main)):

" _What does it mean when half the country_ —literally half the country— _understands that the revenue-gathering arm of its federal government is politically corrupt, sees them as targets, and will shoot at them if they try to raise their heads? That is the kind of thing that can kill a country, letting half its citizens believe that they no longer have full political rights._ "

She's using "shoot" in a metaphorical sense (tellingly, American English has a lot of shooting and gun metaphors).

<comment><USER12> Noonan hasn't woken up; it's her same trash as always. She conveniently ignores that these groups were going for non-profit status. They were not being prosecuted. They were trying to forgo taxes when quite possibly under the law they do not qualify for tax exempt status. Besides the IRS has given non-profit status to more than twice as many conservative groups as liberal groups recently. [http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Articles/D2A6C73...](http://www.taxanalysts.com/www/features.nsf/Articles/D2A6C735EAFA7A9085257B7B004C0D90)

<comment><USER11> Keep on thinking that as we slide towards civil war, our side is not igorning the truth as acknowledged by various heads of the IRS and Obama; if they say something wrong was done, perhaps there was?

To put this in perspective, here are two other 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organizations: the NRA's lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, founded in the late '70s, and Organizing for Action, what Obama's campaign Organizing for America became. And ironically the latter's first effort was post-Newtown gun control.

Besides ignoring all the other abuses, not all from the IRS, it sounds like you're confounding tax exempt with non-profit. E.g. donors to the political efforts of 501(c)(4) do not get to donate tax free. The organizations _are_ allowed to be non-profits, they aren't established to make a monetary profit.

Well, they were, this abuse hasn't stopped, you know, despite all the apologies from the IRS for "poor customer service".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I want to provide some perspective here, at the risk of being downvoted.

To compare what the US government is doing to a truly oppressive regime is insulting. People in the world today live in fear of physical harm from their own government. They aren't worried about phone call meta data or blanket call logging. They're worried about being taken by force with no trial, no ACLU or EFF to help them. Just gone.

Ai Weiwei served months in jail for art projects that were critical of the government. Can anyone _imagine_ that happening here, in the country where flag burning is constitutionally protected? There are dozens of countries in the world today that have a near 100% conviction rate for political dissidents. Here in America confessed terrorists have the right to an attorney and god help the prosecution if there was any missed technicality during the arrest.

Don't dare be a girl trying to go to school in many middle eastern countries. Might get run over by a tank if you openly oppose the chinese government. Offend the king of saud with your actions and you'll be literally stoned to death in the street. And we're worried about phone call meta data?

I think a lot of this is ignorance about how modern counter terrorism works. The most effective tool we have is social network analysis. Find a terrorist and see who calls them, then see who calls those people and out and out. Look at the vertices and edges and dependency networks and we can learn a lot about complex organizations without risking any lives. It's understood that this is offensive to many people's privacy beliefs, but it's the best tool we have.

If you want to know why government agency's are engaging in this wildly unpopular behavior, here's the answer: On 9/11 a lot of people swore to god that it would _never happen again_. That might sound like a joke to people who never held up their hand and vowed protect and defend. People give their fucking _lives_ to stop threats that you'll never know about. Question their methods all you want, they aren't going to listen.

Also: Save the slippery slope nonsense. There is a 0% chance of the US government becoming an oppressive regime, surveillance or not. Those things just don't happen in times of peace and prosperity. No country has ever gone from being an advanced democracy to being a tyrannical regime. Obama can't even pass a law without 37 votes to repeal.

<comment><USER14> Here a few examples of how citizens are treated in the United States:

Cameron D'Ambrosio - held in jail for weeks without bail for posting rap lyrics the government found offensive. [[http://cms.fightforthefuture.org/teenager/](http://cms.fightforthefuture.org/teenager/)]

Peaceful Occupy protesters - subjected to beatings and pepper-spraying at point blank range [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper- spray_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper- spray_incident)]. (Note that no one was actually run over by a tank in China; OTOH, the US has the legacy of the Kent State Massacre [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings)]. ETA: there have been worse massacres of protesters elsewhere, but the point is that the US is not exempt from this.)

Bradley Manning - held for nine months in solitary confinement under conditions that at times could only be described as torture: naked and without his eye glasses, permitted to read or watch TV for only _one_ hour a day, not permitted to exercise. [[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/manning- treatment-i...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/manning-treatment- inhuman/)], [[http://solitarywatch.com/2012/08/11/defense-motion- describes...](http://solitarywatch.com/2012/08/11/defense-motion-describes- bradley-mannings-unlawful-pretrial-punishment-in-solitary-confinement/)]

North-west anarchists - accused of no wrongdoing but refused to testify for a grand jury. Held in contempt of court and sent directly to jail. Spent 5 months in jail, much of it in solitary confinement during which they were permitted no visitors and had only one 15 minute phone call a month and limited access to reading and writing materials. According to the judge who both sent them there and then released them, "their physical health has deteriorated sharply and their mental health has also suffered from the effects of solitary confinement." [[https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4hDq2p2PpMKRDRDQzViLWJTUmc/...](https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4hDq2p2PpMKRDRDQzViLWJTUmc/edit?pli=1)]

None of these people are even suspected terrorists. What they share in common is that they did things the government didn't like.

As for suspected terrorists, they are _not_ guaranteed due process. See Jose Padilla [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_%28prisoner%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_%28prisoner%29)]: _U.S. citizen_ , held from 2002 to 2006 as an "enemy combatant" and denied due process. Finally transferred to civilian court and convicted anyways, showing that criminal defendants do not get off on "technicalities" as you claim. Look up "harmless error analysis" if you want to learn the truth about "technicalities."

The United States is _not_ exceptional, and we need to stop pretending that it is.

<comment><USER15> > Note that no one was actually run over by a tank in China; OTOH, the US has > the legacy of the Kent State Massacre

No protestor was run over by a tank at Kent State, either; OTOH, China has the legacy of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, in which at least (even by the official _government_ counts) 50 times as many civilians were killed as at Kent State.

<comment><USER14> You're right. The point is that protesters are killed in the US too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Bruce Schneier gives a more coherent overview on the current HN "surveillance state" theme.

tl;dr : massive surveillance is real, there is far more, blow the whistle if you can, take precautions

</comment><comment><USER17> As a non-American I am surprised no one here has commented specifically on this electric call to arms: "Whistle-blowing is the moral response to immoral activity by those in power. What's important here are government programs and methods, not data about individuals. I understand I am asking for people to engage in illegal and dangerous behavior. Do it carefully and do it safely, but -- and I am talking directly to you, person working on one of these secret and probably illegal programs -- do it.

If you see something, say something. There are many people in the U.S. that will appreciate and admire you. "

</comment><comment><USER18> Thinking of that George Orwell quote from 1984: "You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized." Perhaps even in darkness!

<comment><USER19> Why use telescreens to watch people when you can just monitor the methods they use to communicate what they're doing? Seems like a pretty reasonable comparison in a way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a foreigner, it's pretty disappointing that spying on us is considered fair game.

That said, it appears that any American who communicates with someone overseas also gets to join our special club.

This feels like a fairly large loophole. Does replying to this comment count?

<comment><USER19> As a European it sort of makes you wonder about this Data Protection Act, with its loophole safe harbours to allow data transfer to the US. How exactly is that protected under these circumstances, and have Europe just given up on protecting anything because the US told them so?

<comment><USER21> Nothing was 'given up'. Something was traded. European intelligence agencies regularly 'launder' intercepts through foreign governments ('hey NSA, we'll trade you some info, if you can get us some info on one of our own...').

<comment><USER19> I asked have they just given up, so in that context given up referred to stopped trying to protect us. Your comment seems to suggest that yes, they have given up on protecting Europeans' data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have even scarier thoughts that this. Let's say the CIA, FBI etc had a commong brainstorming session on how to target spying on people.

Here are some ideas they could come up with: 1\. Intel is the biggest distributor of computer chips, lets target them 2\. Microsoft is the biggest supplier of desktop software, lets target them. 3\. If we can pick up signals from distant galaxies can we not make our own special network out of those thousands of desktops running those powerful computer chips today?

Problem: If someone at intel/MS directly works with us, we will be found out.

Solution: Let's target a high level exec, he wont do anything other than allow them to employ a few of our special programmers.

       Take the chip plans from Intel. Make some modifications to add another core, which is activated in a special mode and instruction running its own Operating System/wifi etc.

      Deployment: Tell the high level exec, tell us when your next upgrade to manufacturing hardware will arrive. Just give us the date and the shipping information.

      Intercept the hardware and modify it's software to dynamically change the plans, with a new one.

      For MS, hack the build system using something similar to the Ken Thompson hack.

      If I was into spying, with a govt agency I would definitely do this. Which is why I always assume my computer is compromised.

<comment><USER23> Alvin Toffler already talked about this possibility in his 1993 book Future Wars [http://www.amazon.com/Future-Wars-Worlds-Dangerous- Flashpoin...](http://www.amazon.com/Future-Wars-Worlds-Dangerous- Flashpoints/dp/0446364215&#x2F);

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> A few quick notes:

1) They have and will be spying on citizens forever. Anybody who believes mission statements, officials, and that they "follow the law", is extremely naive.

2) More important than any terrorists to them, are dissident citizens. Not of the gun-totting, hillbilly mountain militia type. The kind that can effect political change to the system type, from Joe Hill and Mother Jones, to MLK and Malcom X, to Occupy Wall Street (if that thing ever got anywhere coherent). People making waves.

</comment><comment><USER25> Fuck, I love Schneier so much.

He even ended with a call to action.

</comment><comment><USER26> So realistically, what can we, the populace, do?

<comment><USER4> Only two sane choices.

Fight or flight.

1) Speak out, set up organizations like the EFF or similar to fight for privacy. Or advocate on behalf of such organizations. Work the politicians however you can, to whatever extent that might help. Encourage the people you know to do the same; encourage people to give a shit again. Explain why it's important to fight this.

2) Try to leave the US, or at least begin disappearing yourself. Leave less of a trail. Communicate as little as necessary over the phone or digitally, and keep it strictly business (so to speak). Use good encryption wherever you can. Encourage the people you know to do the same.

Either option is valid, both are entirely personal, moral choices. Some people stayed when the Iron Curtain went up in Russia and tried to fight it, some fled; ditto Germany, China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Cuba, and so on.

<comment><USER27> Personally, I chose option 2. Much easier for me. Martyrs and activists do tend to win in the end, but they tend to be dead before victory is achieved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The media finally has an opportunity to be what they always want us to believe they are: a form of power of the citizenry to keep the government in check.

There's lots of discussion on how the people have no power since this problem isn't an issue of voting for one side or the other - there's only one side represented by politicians, and it's the pro-spying activity side. (Side note: I don't mean to diminish those people's concerns, I'm sure majority of them are honestly trying to protect us the best they can.)

The only way for real change to come about this style of government is for the media to demand it. They've sat idly by watching it (ore more appropriately, ignoring it) for over a decade now. It's time for them to put up or shut up. Hopefully the AP/Reporter spying by the DOJ was enough to put a fire under their butts about it. Hopefully this is just the start to intense scrutiny by __all __media outlets (not just foxnews, not just msnbc, ie: not just one party 's mouth piece, but all of them.) Unfortunately we just have to wait and see. The media has a chance to redeem themselves for the past decade+ of caring more about what is trending on Youtube and Twitter than protecting their viewership. Hopefully they rise to the task.

</comment><comment><USER29> _If you see something, say something._

That's funny. That's the slogan they have plastered all over New York's subway system.

<comment><USER30> It's a joke, all right:

[http://www.dhs.gov/if-you-see-something-say-something- campai...](http://www.dhs.gov/if-you-see-something-say-something-campaign)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Having read all the comments I am disappointed. This is a great opportunity to discuss this issue and make more people aware of the dangers of such activity. Yet the bulk of the discourse has degraded into partisan drivel of "Obama vs Bush". Honestly who cares? Every administration has played a part in this and they all have equal blame so get over it! Attempting to say one side did this or that will not solve the issue.

What they are doing is bad, it shouldn't happen, all who support it need to be kicked out..full stop...no excuses...

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm usually skeptical of conspiracies, but now I guess I have to be more open to the possibility of this kind of behaviour.

If they went to these lengths with tech companies can't we assume that surveillance in place within financial institutions is even worse than what we know it is? It could hint at another angle beyond having lots of money where Wall Street has leverage over Washington. I can imagine bank execs threatening leaks should things not go their way.

<comment><USER27> You should always be _skeptical_ , but you must always keep in mind that conspiracies do happen all the time [1].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler#Allegations_of_t...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler#Allegations_of_the_Business_Plot)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Not sure how this story is breaking and unexpected. This is exactly the type and style of program that was expected right after 9/11\. It's totally the NSA's playground and the co-operation and/or backdooring of major, communication-funneling corporations would be assured. How is this shocking? It has little to do with political winds and everything to do with the spawn of the military-industrial complex... the military-infocomm complex.

James Bamford

</comment><comment><USER34> Just now I heard on NPR that China hacked several key military systems of United States. US government has already chickened on this issue.

Not just governments but any institution when starts hurting those who can not hit back, you know they are on decline.

If US interests are under threat from anyone then it is not Afghanistan or Iran or Syria but China. US government wont get anything by spying on US citizens but by standing upto China.

<comment><USER27> I hope the US tries to stand up to China. The US has been long over due for a good hard smack down, and it would be beautiful to watch China give it to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This just goes to show that it took _both_ political parties, working together for decades, to arrive at the current juncture.

</comment><comment><USER36> There was this joke in my country when a recent wiretapping scandal broke - the US equivalent will be:

How can you wish Happy Birthday to President Obama - just tell it on the phone while talking to a friend - Erik Holder will already be listening and will send the greetings.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is one of the best parts:

 _If you see something, say something._

and it's directed to potential whistle-blowers.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is off topic, but... Mozilla should develop Firefox OS to be as secure as possible.

<comment><USER39> That's impossible unless they throw out all the web technologies they currently use.

Users need to be able to encrypt their data such that the cloud providers can't ever see it. The web as it stands is just not designed to be used like this; even if all my google docs data is encrypted and google does not have the key, it will need to be decrypted in-browser to be displayed which means a) broken javascript crypto and b) the page can then send all the data back to google anyway.

A further problem is the economics of the web: it's largely based on providing services that are free to use but paid for by advertisers. You can't target advertising if you don't have data about user habits. Economically Google can't exist without tracking people and recording as much data as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> People at r/conspiracy are like "I told you so" :). Also free software supporters are feeling same thing I hope.

</comment><comment><USER41> And then... they can't prevent attacks such as the Boston bombings. They gather data but where is the intelligence?

</comment><comment><USER42> Welcome to the real world people , everyone has taken their red pile yet ? I mean you are giving up personal infos and data for (crappy) free services , what did you expect ? a free lunch with no hidden cost ? the government has all your datas and it will use it against you sooner or later.

<comment><USER43> This has nothing to do with the services being free.

<comment><USER44> Actually it does.

Free services means the loyalty is NOT to the users but whoever pays the bills (usually ad merchants).

That's why there are "privacy policies" and not "privacy guarantees".

<comment><USER19> Is there any evidence that paid Google Apps data, for example, wasn't transferred then? If this is because the service is free, they'd be protected, correct?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Has anybody seen Sam Lowry ?

</comment><comment><USER46> The Atlantic, who spams HN for hits, just happens to also have insight on what the NSA is up to? Yeah, right. There is nothing in this article.

<comment><USER16> irrelevant, its Bruce Schneier

<comment><USER47> I'll just suspend my critical faculties then.

<comment><USER48> So exactly how are you demonstrating any use of your "critical facilities" by dismissing Schneier's entire article with no thought-through critisism, but just "Tha Atlantic? Meh…" followed by "There is nothing in this article." You clearly haven't _read_ the article, and have some axe to grind against the website. Fine - but don't try and claim this is your use of critical facilities.

<comment><USER47> I have read it, twice. Also, I'm not the same person who critiqued the Atlantic in the first place.

Here are my objections to his position:

1\. Schneier is calling for people to break the law at great risk to themselves on the ground that the government's current position is immoral (but not illegal).

2\. While saying that it's scary what we don't know, he makes no effort to educate his audience on what we do know, such as how this sort of activity comes to be legal and constitutional in the first place, the answers to which lie in the 1970s (see my other comments on Smith v. Maryland today, for example).

3\. Schneier has absolutely nothing to say on how this state of affairs might be fixed, or what it is that US citizens should demand of their senators and state representatives to repair the situation through democratic means. My answer to that question is that that we need a constitutional amendment that creates an explicit right to privacy and another that narrows the power of Congress to abdicate its oversight of the Executive branch, which latter is conveniently required to maximize its defensive capabilities. I also think it's high time that the AUMF was rescinded.

4\. Schneier has made a fine career out of complaining about the security state but shows no leadership when it comes to rolling it back. We all hate the TSA's instrusive searches and silly rules, yes? But when the TSA proposed loosening the restrictions on what you could take onto a plane, to allow practical exceptions like small pocketknives and so on, airlines lobbied heavily against it on behalf of their staff (who, in fairness, would be facing an elevated risk). Despite years of complaining about the TSA, Schneier did not AFAIK write _anything_ about the proposed changes, let alone express support or encourage others to do so. Although the proposed rule change was pretty small, it would have represented at least a minor victory for common sense instead of security theater. But when it was offered up from public debate, Schneier didn't even consider it worth mentioning to his readers.

Schneier's great at stoking readers' outrage - not so good at educating them or helping them channel it effectively. In my view, his punditry is emotional rather than analytical.

<comment><USER27> >1\. Schneier is calling for people to break the law at great risk to themselves on the ground that the government's current position is immoral (but not illegal).

Man do I hate this objection. Would you have behaved the same in Nazi germany? "Come on! You're asking people to break the law! It's illegal to tell anyone about our plant for murdering disabled people.". Well, yes. Because a corrupt entity has control of the laws and is making it illegal to point out the illegal activities said entity is engaging in.

<comment><USER47> Collecting people's phone records, while objectionable, is _not_ on the same moral plane as murdering them; and I've already explained at some length how Americans' telephony records are not considered to be private information for >30 years.

See, this is why I object to what Schneier is doing. He has you equating the confidentiality of phone records with human lives.

<comment><USER27> You're not thinking big picture. The government is building an infrastructure for citizen monitoring on a scale that has never before been conceived. That same government has already abused virtually every power they've ever been given. No, we know of no Gasto-style "disappearing" as of yet but there's really nothing holding it back but luck as far as I can see. How much longer is our luck going to hold out?

And we don't need to put ourselves as the mercy of the worst people in government. We don't need to allow this stuff as it buys us practically nothing. Terrorism isn't a legitimate threat to America and never has been. Even if we utterly ignored terrorism it will never be more than line noise compared to things like heart disease, vehicular death and so on.

<comment><USER48> " … we know of no Gasto-style "disappearing" as of yet but there's really nothing holding it back but luck … "

I suspect Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and most of the people who've ever been inside Guantanamo Bay probably see that a little differently.

<comment><USER27> What are you saying? Those people see something holding back Gestapo-style "disappearing"s? Or they think that it's already happening? In the cases you mentioned, the people were too high profile to be completely disappeared but how they have been handled is despicable enough.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What I learned in my first year as a female startup CEO - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/04/11/learned-first-year-female-startup-ceo/

<comment><USER2> Apologies for my gender regarding sucky #2 and #3.

I'm not sure aggressive is a plus anywhere. Men (and women) refer to aggressive males by a number of equally critical words. My only suggestion is be genuine, smart, and strong while not kicking the people in your way and especially not those trying to help you.

</comment><comment><USER3> "After all, it's not like you can choose whether to be a female CEO vs male CEO. But you can choose your attitude toward it."

exactly , gender shouldn't be a deciding factor , well written</comment>


Classical and Molecular Genetic Research on General Cognitive Ability - <AUTHOR> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/hast.495 <comment><USER2> Does anyone know what the proof was that proves eugenics can't work for raising gca? This is stated as fact in the paper (reference 32).

<comment><USER3> > ...research like that in which contemporary behavioural geneticists engage > helped to undermine the eugenics movement by proving that eugenic policies > could not achieve their stated goals.

What's being discussed here is the historical eugenics movement. Just from the text of the article, it becomes clear that the multi-generational confounding effects like prosperity, education, and social class would make an naive effort pointless.

More generally, you should think of the problem thusly, I suggest:

Even with extensive genetic surveys, there are no clear candidates for genes that one would wish to select for that present themselves; this is consistent with the notion that general cognitive ability is evolutionarily advantageous.

It may be that g.c.a. is locally maximal; that there is no easy conflux of changes which could occur that would predictably raise the g.c.a of human individuals. A hypothetical change might for instance do something that would seem likely to increase cognitive ability, in the abstract, but carry a systemic cost that either prevents such a change from manifesting itself, or renders the value of such a change moot.

For most people, I believe, it seems intuitively clear that eugenics is analogous.

We know that eugenics efforts cannot produce any remarkable or decisive selection for increased cognitive abilities. We know this because eugenics is a sort of hobby-horse form of evolution, across handfuls of generations, and because evolution cannot, taken over thousands of generations, select any more strongly for increased cognitive abilities than it already has. If it could, it would; thus we must conclude that it can't.

We also know that eugenics requires a society that permits centralized, forcible control over how and whether individuals combine genetic material to produce offspring; it requires a society wherein all individuals can be indoctrinated so as to cooperate with this effort; it requires a society wherein these means of force and social control cannot be usurped or arrogated by elements of that society so that they may be directed towards other purposes; and it requires that this state of affairs persist for a modest number of generations, perhaps twenty to fifty.

It seems very likely that selection for eugenics is something which will fail because of the systemic costs that it would entail. In fact, it seems more likely than not that eugenics is something that would have arisen in the course of history, already --- perhaps for more trivial purposes than increasing cognitive ability --- were the social structures required not too fragile to sustain the effort.

<comment><USER4> >We know that eugenics efforts cannot produce any remarkable or decisive selection for increased cognitive abilities. We know this because eugenics is a sort of hobby-horse form of evolution, across handfuls of generations, and because evolution cannot, taken over thousands of generations, select any more strongly for increased cognitive abilities than it already has. If it could, it would; thus we must conclude that it can't.

I don't buy that argument. There's no reason to think that evolution has been selecting for cognitive ability as strongly as it possibly could.

<comment><USER5> It's simple to say "let's have a fatter cow". It is not simple to say "let's have a more intelligent human" because "intelligent" is not a fixed or agreed term.

100 years ago people would have thought mental arithmetic, memorization and rhetorical speech were core parts or indicators of intelligence. I think that most people today would see creative problem solving, social empathy and long term planning as more indicative. In fact the 19th century indicators are now seen (in popular culture) as part of a disorder (autistic spectrum) that is often used to explain the behaviour of otherwise incapable people.

Our culture, communities and technology define our humanity, creating a greater humanity through breeding misses the point somewhat.

<comment><USER2> Intelligence might not be a fixed or agreed term, but GCA is fixed and agreed. If you can measure a genetic trait, and the trait varies in the population, then you can bring about population level changes in this trait via selective breeding.

Of course this does not mean eugenics is a desirable activity that we should be engaged in, but I have not seen any rational argument that it has been "proved" to be impossible.

<comment><USER5> I think GCA originated in 1954; I don't know how many generations of people breeding it would take to get a selected trait - humans are genetically very similar compared to other species; there is not much variation... so I don't have any idea of what the breeding program length would be, but I assume that it would be several generations... so I don't think that an idea that has been around for 60 years would really qualify as fixed and agreed in that time scale.

Also I don't think it's agreed.

Also it's not clear that your statement that population level changes can be created by selective breeding is true - if a characteristic is dictated by alleles that damage fertility or other fitness indicators then it may well not be continuous. In the case of human intelligence the increased child birth mortality associated with large heads and the increase dependence of infants on parents are examples. There may be others which are more relevant to modern life, like propensity to depression, disinterest in sex etc (note : I am using these as examples, not saying that this is so).

<comment><USER2> If there are some individual in the population with the particular phenotype you are selecting who are not infertile then selective breeding can increase the frequency of that phenotype in the population. In the case of GCA we know that there are fertile individuals with very high GCA so we know it is possible to selectively breed for high GCA.

Of course selecting only for GCA may well increase the frequency of other phenotypes, but unless GCA is directly linked to that phenotype then there is no reason you can't select against any undesired phenotype at the same time. This is done all the time with the selective breeding of animals and plants. I know of no phenotype shared by all individuals with a high GCA so there should be no phenotype that would inherently be a consequence of selecting for high GCA, certainly not infertility.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


40% off at PragProg on Ruby and Rails titles - <AUTHOR> http://pragprog.com/

<comment><USER2> Another FYI, Programming Ruby 1.9 3rd Ed

at PragProg w/40% off: $29.97 at Amazon: $28.82

Not sure about shipping costs at PragProg, but on Amazon the book qualifies for Prime shipping.

<comment><USER3> as a note you can get the digital editions, DRM free, from PragProg @ 40% off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sweet, Got the Coffeescript ebook as well as "Continuous testing with Ruby, Rails and Javascript" ebook. Both in Beta

<http://pragprog.com/titles/tbcoffee/coffeescript>

<http://pragprog.com/titles/rcctr/continuous-testing>

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for this! Been meaning to pick up the Coffeescript book anyway so this just makes a great deal out of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I posted it because of Coffeescript in the first place :)

<comment><USER6> Author of the CoffeeScript book here. Thanks for this! I saw more sales in the hour after this HN post than in the preceding week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The list of titles that's on sale (today through Friday) is at <http://pragprog.com/news/rails-sale-40-off>

</comment><comment><USER7> Just FYI, you have to add it to your cart to see the discount.

<comment><USER6> Hmm, from what point? The book pages themselves show _only_ the sale price right now. (To take my own book as an example, the eBook is normally $18 but currently shows as $10.80: <http://pragprog.com/titles/tbcoffee/coffeescript>) When you add it to your cart, both the full price ($18) and the discount ($7.20) are shown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I added Crafting Rails Applications by Jose Valim to my collection. I'm sure I'll love it.</comment>


Books to read to understand the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/a/books-to-read-to-understand-the-world <comment><USER2> Should be titled "Books to Read to Understand the USA".

<comment><USER3> Better yet, "Books to Read to Understand American Progressive Worldview"</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best method to track/monitor beta testers? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I've been working on a project for the last 4 months (video streaming/web app) and we are coming very close to the point where we're looking for beta testers to do a few rounds of invite-only testing.  Feedback is going to be very important over the next few months and I looking for a great ticketing system, place to log issues or make suggestions...I've been looking at customizing a few simple Wordpress systems as well as services like ticksy.
Any recommendations on a good platform to do this or some best practices in monitoring early beta testing? <comment><USER2> [Usersnap]([https://usersnap.com/](https://usersnap.com/)) might fit your needs perfectly. I just started experimenting with it myself, but it allows users to submit visual feedback via screenshots.</comment>


Show HN: Screenr – A clean screenshot annotation tool for Chrome - d--b https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/screenr/ppgaejlknkbfkhjoiijoodojfiogpgmp <comment> d--b Hey there, author here!

Screenr is a small tool we built because we were tired of drawing arrows and crappy colored text on our screenshots. Let us know what you think!</comment>


Interview with Joe Haldeman - <AUTHOR> http://andrewliptak.com/2014/11/13/interview-with-joe-haldeman/ <comment><USER2> For someone who follows this stuff and likes Joe Haldeman I noticed exactly one new piece of information in the interview: Heinlein didn't just like _The Forever War,_ he read it _three times_. High praise.

 _War Year_ is interesting in that it was originally written to be published as part of a series of novels for students of adult literacy programs which never took off. You wouldn't notice that the novel deliberately avoids ten- dollar words and overly complex sentences. It was a good (but pretty dark) book. Interesting to see it discussed in a new interview.

</comment><comment><USER3> _The Forever War_ is one of those books I keep having to buy new copies of, because I lend it out and it never comes back.

I'm okay with that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice interview. He's a terrific guy (a bunch of us spent an evening with him in Sydney after a "writer's workshop" he gave at the Powerhouse Museum). Another great book of his is _Worlds_.

One thing I observed about his SF novels is that the futuristic weapons are invariably practical and brutally efficient, rather than pew pew weapons that are ultimately no more useful, and often rather less, than modern firearms.

</comment><comment><USER5> In case anyone else was slightly mixed up like I was: Joe Haldeman the author is not H.R. "Bob" Haldeman of the Nixon administration, who died in 1993. It was Howard Hunt who was the novelist (and Watergate burglar), not the White House Chief of Staff.

I have no idea if I'm the only ex-journalist geek who might possibly mix this up, but I figured I'd share. It doesn't help that Forever War was published in 1974, the year Nixon resigned... it just mashes it all together in my brain.</comment>


Show HN: List of Safe Places to Visit During This Corona Pandemic - <AUTHOR> https://placestovisitthisweekend.com/Lake%20Como <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I made it using preact and deployed on netlify. I know it is not much but can open source it if you guys like.</comment>


2020 Election Forecast - <AUTHOR> https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/ <comment><USER2> Beware of self-defeating prophecies. Thinking that Biden will win means you don't need to vote :-)</comment>


How Robot Hands Are Evolving to Do What Ours Can - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/30/technology/robot-hands.html <comment><USER2> Same story yesterday, discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17645456](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17645456)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well,

The thing about adding capabilities to robot hands is it shows how far we have to go also.

One could give a hand 100 different generic manipulation skills like moving cubes and rectangles but that would still result in something far, far away from the human ability to take an object and accomplish a goal with that object - say a task summarized as "take this shovel and dig a hole to put this post in." and even if a robot could accomplish a given as a sequence of primitives, such actions would be quite inefficient compared to the how a human acts, which is to formulate various arcs of force and movement specific to the task at hand.

This is why Boston Dynamics robots, which clearly can walk, seem to never deployed in situations where you'd imagine a walking robot would be useful (while horses, with "horse sense" wind-up deployed reasonably often in such situations).</comment>


Tech titans Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker in 'drunken fight' over Spotify - <AUTHOR> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/tech-titans-mark-zuckerberg-and-sean-parker-in-drunken-fight-over-spotify/story-fn3dxity-1226167257457 <comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately the story focuses on the celebrity angle, but it is interesting for one specific detail that there was a substantive disagreement over mandatory use of Facebook accounts with Spotify that was the source of contention.

</comment><comment><USER2> To me, this says that two people that were at one point brilliant technologists have crossed the chasm into celebrity. Did I browse to the People web-site by accident?</comment>


OpenID provider that uses GPG to stop phishing - <AUTHOR> http://id.l3ib.org/ <comment><USER2> This seems a lot clunkier than using client certificates.</comment>


Verizon is finally killing Compuserve Forums - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2017/11/14/phone-companies-are-the-worst.html <comment><USER2> There's a name I haven't heard since the turn of the millennium</comment>


Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem of Hell - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/31/scamville-the-social-gaming-ecosystem-of-hell/

<comment><USER2> The affiliate industry is rife with this, too. Ringtones, etc are essentially financed by reverse billing fraud (the "sign up for our free trial and you'll be billed $9.99 a month without being able to cancel"), and with the way CPC advertising works this tends to crowd out all other advertisers because if you're a fraud you have staggeringly higher LTV than legitimate businesses, meaning you can afford to outbid them.

It isn't just affiliates, either: many shareware developers have inadvertently caused their customers damage when their payment processor tacks on high- margin low-value items as a rider to transactions. I covered this on my blog here:

<http://www.kalzumeus.com/2008/03/09/regsoft-scam/>

In addition to the outright fraud discussed in that example, many payment processors will do things like offer customers $10 for "download recovery" service, where they promise to keep your download on file for a year so you can get it again. This obviously costs them essentially nothing. That isn't zero value (I suppose, theoretically, the shareware developer could go out of business and stop offering downloads), but it mostly takes advantage of unsophisticated customers who THINK they are buying "Get my software back if my computer melts" and are unaware that almost all shareware authors will do that for free.

(Wow, I'm finding myself agreeing with Arrington.)

<comment><USER3> Fiscal darwinism.

<comment><USER4> Not sure why you were downvoted so much - fiscal darwinism is exactly what it is. We appear to have poorly calibrated selection pressures in these industries: bad regulation and stupid users. Therefore "fitness" in such an area involves fraud, vast numbers of young / unsuspecting users, and opaque advertising/pricing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Speaking of scams and scam companies, I'm dealing with a company named MindJet, which makes a mind mapping program called MindManager, which I wanted to test against the open-source programs. BTW, the open-source programs are better, as one might expect.

Before purchasing the software (to test) I contacted the company to ask about the software itself, as well as their refund policy. I was emailed back by Christian Walter, who said they offered a 30-day money back guarantee.

I purchased the software, tried it, determined that it did not meet my needs, to put it nicely, and certainly was not something that was worth any money. Therefore, I emailed the company to request my refund. This is where the fun starts.

When I requested my refund, Christian at MindJet effectively denied the request (in my opinion) and told me I would have to download a form, swear on it, sign it, and fax it to an international number.

On the form it said all fields must be completed or else no refund. One of the fields was "Customer Number," which it says is listed on your invoice. That is not true (at least not on the invoice I have, nor anywhere on "my" account on their website).

The other part of their scam (that's what I call this kind of business practice) is that when you buy the product they throw in a "free" year of support. What they don't tell you is that this is really a subscription for _paid_ support, with the first year free, and that they will bill you annually starting next year unless you: (1) figure this out, (2) figure out how to opt out, and (3) do it in time.

I'm still dealing with this MindJet issue, gathering info for a detailed blog post with screenshots. Tune in later to see how the story ends, if they refund me on their own or I have to dispute the charge with Mastercard (I've already met the requirements to dispute the charge and am just waiting to see what they will do).

In meantime, I can tell you that, based on this experience (on its own and in comparison with every other company I have ever done business with), I consider MindJet a scam company. If their business practices are legal, they seem at least highly deceptive, tricky, and unethical (to me). Again, this is only my experience and opinion, so take it for what it's worth.

<comment><USER6> I use Mindjet and have for years. They're not a "scam company". If anybody was scamming, it seems like it was you. Your obvious plan was to get the software, write a bad review of it, and then ask for your money back. You get an article for your blog with no financial impact to your wallet. Now, when that backfired, you're indignant. I have to say, I'm not feeling that sympathetic to your predicament.

<comment><USER5> Wow robotrout, your thought process says a lot about your outlook on life and people, which says a lot about you.

Could it be that I wanted to evaluate all of the mind mapping products on the market before deciding which one to go with? Is that not a what many people do before they make any major decision, which to me is what picking a new piece of business software is? Could it be that I did some initial research and came up with a short list of candidates (Freemind, XMind, Mindjet MindManager, Dropmind, and NovaMind)? Could it be that I have now concluded my evaluation and MindJet was not the product for me and I simply tried to exercise my money-back option?

I am not "indignant," I am reporting facts, facts which, IMHO, mean "scam." If other customers who are eligible for refunds and want refunds are ok with having to fill out, swear to, sign, and fax a form to an international number to get that refund, then that's ok (for them). If they are ok with the refund request form saying they must supply a customer number from their invoice and there is no customer number on their invoice, fine. I'm just reporting those facts. Doesn't seem like a good policy to me, but if it's fine with you, fine. But don't get pissy and accusatory with me.

Lastly, nothing has backfired. I will get my refund from them or through MasterCard chargeback. The reason I'm spending my time telling people about this situation is in case anyone finds it relevent in their dealings with MindJet or in how they handle refund policies and procedures, as a previous commenter stated.

MY INITIAL QUESTION TO MINDJET:

I am interested in your mind-mapping software, but it is expensive. Does it come with a money back guarantee?

THEIR REPLY:

When you purchase MindManager in the Mindjet online shop you can cancel your order within 30 days after the purchase.

FOR THE RECORD robotrout's ORIGINAL COMMENT TO WHICH MY ABOVE REPLY IS DIRECTED:

I use Mindjet and have for years. They're not a "scam company". If anybody was scamming, it seems like it was you. Your obvious plan was to get the software, write a bad review of it, and then ask for your money back. You get an article for your blog with no financial impact to your wallet. Now, when that backfired, you're indignant. I have to say, I'm not feeling that sympathetic to your predicament.

<comment><USER7> If you only wanted to evaluate their product, why didn't you use the free trial available for download? I just checked that site now for the first time myself and it was pretty obvious how to get one.

Refunds cost time and money to process and are a demoralizing pain in the tail (fwiw, we provide our rarely requested refunds immediately with no hassle and no questions asked) and a purchase with an immediate request for a refund typically screams 'pirate'.

Your opinions seem belligerently set in place, so all I can offer is the Independent Software Developer's Curse: "May you have customers who act just as you do".

<comment><USER5> Good question, and yes, I should have just done a free trial. Reason I didn't is because, based on the info on their site, I was "sure" I was going to buy and keep the software. It had -- or I thought it had -- some key differentiating features. As it turned out, the Mac version does not have those features, only the Windows version. That's why. But yes, you're right, I should have taken the free trial instead of being so excited and confident I would want to keep the software. Consider my hand slapped :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Who the heck says someone's point is "shit, doubleshit, and bullshit" _when sitting on a panel at a conference_?

Thinking about it, this might explain their attitude towards users...

<comment><USER9> especially if that someone is Arrington, who you know is going to make it a personal quest to destroy you.

<comment><USER3> But I doubt the vast majority of Farmville and Mafia Wars read/care about TechCrunch.

<comment><USER9> they don't, but facebook does, and if techcrunch makes a big deal about them profiting from this, it won't take long for them to intervene

<comment><USER10> Facebook caring what Arrington thinks? On what planet?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love how Arrington refers to Slide as the "good guys." You know an ecosystem is unbearably slimy when you have the spammers fighting the scammers for the title of "good guy."

Facebook Platform is such a joke. Sad, too, when you know what the original vision looked like.

<comment><USER12> What was the original vision?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Totally with Arrington on this one. OfferPal CEO came across as a complete jerk. Arrington's response was surprisingly chill and levelheaded.

<comment><USER14> We never heard what Arrington said to them. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love it that to the right of this post was TechCrunch advertising for "make $1000/day from home!".

<comment><USER16> we do what we can to filter those ads out on the page by maintaining a blacklist in adsense. it isn't easy to manage, which is a whole other story

<comment><USER17> We had the same problem on a WoW site that would frequently end up with gold- selling ads popping up no matter how hard we tried to firefight with blacklisting. We got readers to submit every bad ad they could see, and even pulled the ads at least once, because of the impact on our 'honesty' as readers perceived us.

<comment><USER16> I would love to drill into this topic because it is related to the main thread. There are some networks and providers who care about the issue of pushing bad ads, while others turn a blind eye since they have no incentive to keep these ads off your site. Don't be surprised if the current series of TC posts eventually lead into discussing ad networks.

For now, please email me (nik at tc) if you do see these ads popup, we dislike them as much, if not more, than the readers do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I play some of those games in Facebook, and while I don't fill out anything that wants me to pay a dime, they do seem to work exactly as he says. And the eagerness with which Zynga, et al copy every other game and then try to out- advertise their way to success comes across as amoral, too.

</comment><comment><USER2> Incidentally, the comments at Techcrunch include an important post from James of HotOrNot. Search for "We ran offers like this".

<comment><USER19> First two paragraphs from referenced comment:

We ran offers like this back in 2005 for a very short period of time at HOTorNOT, that is until we realized what was going on. In a nutshell, the offers that monetize the best are the ones that scam/trick users. Sure we had netflix ads show up, and clearly those do convert to some degree, but i'm pretty sure most of the money ended up getting our users hooked into auto- recurring SMS subscriptions for horoscopes and stuff. When I hear people defending their directory of deals by saying Netflix is in there, i am reminded of how hotel pay-per-view has non-pornographic movies. Sure it gives them good cover, but we all know where the money is made.

In the end, we decided to turn the offers off. Quite frankly, the offers made us feel dirty, and pretty much on the same level as spammers. For us, the money just wasn't worth it. On top of that, we relied on our goodwill with users and focused on growing by having a product and company that our users liked. Our sense was that using scammy offers would make good money in the short run, but would destroy our userbase in the end. Perhaps apps on facebook don't feel this pressure because facebook is so huge, and there are always new people to burn.

<comment><USER20> The difference is that Facebook has to please the investors, rather than the users. The investors want revenue and they want a good exit. They will be increasingly upset if that exit never comes or it is at a lower valuation than they want.

<comment><USER21> This is talking about third party apps, not facebook itself.

<comment><USER22> Wasn't a major point of the article that Facebook is making a lot off the third party apps?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Then the VCs that fund Zynga are equally culpable for these scams - <http://www.zynga.com/about>

Kleiner Perkins, Foundry Group, Union Square Ventures, Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital, more...

<comment><USER23> I don't include Peter Thiel as equally culpable. As far as I know, Thiel failed to invent a state-free currency with Max Levchin, and over decades, he witnessed the defeat of uncompromising humanity over unconditional growth, and now Peter Thiel probably understands himself as like the Adrian Veidt character from the Watchmen.

That is my best hypothesis. Who has obsessed more about the cancers of human behaviors than Thiel and his circle? He seems like a person who would feed cancer now if he projected his culpability as minimizing E(cancer).

<comment><USER24> ...what?

<comment><USER23> Oh, I mean that I don't agree that Peter Thiel and his investment group is "equally responsible" for the decay of ethics online because I don't think Peter Thiel believes in money. I'm sure Peter believes YOU believe in money, but he himself probably would prefer a world with some better way of storing and moving wealth ---even if to get that world, he must sponsor companies he himself does not like.

I don't know Peter Thiel; this is what I think from his writing and his past history. PayPal was originally the "new world currency." There is an old PayPal sticker on the pool table that says "PayPal: New World Currency" in Molly's Tavern in Mountain View. I think Peter Thiel and Max Levchin meant that literally... but, then their investors intervened to secure a safer cash exit.

What do you do with your life when almost succeed to make an actual New World Currency... but then people you trusted, they sell you out for millions of the currency that you convinced yourself was a corrupt illusion?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What's interesting is how quickly you run up against scam-walls (as someone who doesn't like paying for virtual currency outright, anyway). I can easily see how users fall for it, even the smart ones who try to pick scams that don't require credit card or mobile numbers.

As a user, though, it's really annoying to keep running up against the same things in every single game out there. Want more acres of land? A bigger cafe? Better weapons in Spymaster? The very omnipresence of 'give us your mobile number/credit card and we'll abuse terribly small print to charge you money for things you don't want' is making them almost acceptable, because people are used to seeing them.

</comment><comment><USER25> "and are texted a pin code to enter on the quiz. Once they've done that, they've just subscribed to a $9.99/month subscription"

How does that even work? I think in Germany to start such a subscription, one would have to send a SMS to a specific number. Sounds as if in the US there are other ways?

Or is it simply that a phone number equals a bank account? A company could do the same if it could just get a person's bank account number, and just start deducting money?

<comment><USER26> I believe that by entering the PIN, you're agreeing to the contract. It seems like total "shit, double shit, and bullshit" to me, but it doesn't seem totally outside the boundaries of the law. Might be wrong, though, as IANAL.

<comment><USER27> Nope, the pin is purely a verification step for the points you're getting in return for the scam-signup.

The legal 'opt-in' step that the scammer claims gives them the right to bill you, is the 'enter your phone number for an SMS' step.

The opt-in probably won't be enough to satisfy the watchdog organisations that overlook this kind of stuff (ofcom in the UK for example) but it will be enough to broadside a legal complaint of simple fraud (ie, police involvement), and thus send the complaint to the watchdog authority...

The reason they do this is, if they can avoid the police shutting them down with a 'simple' investigation, then they get months upon months as someone like ofcom investigate, and during that time they can rack up the profit, then 'run' (declare bankrupcy and hide the profit) when the watchdog authority appears to be about ready to issue a fine.

(IANAL either, but have worked in the premium SMS industry, and seen this kind of 'ofcom-stalling' trick)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Obviously this is nothing new. Reward schemes and sites have been around for 10+ years, and are really profitable for those who run them. But the value they give is debatable.

</comment><comment><USER29> What really sucks is that a company can just pull money out of your account without your actual consent. As long as this is possible, the scammers will thrive.

Credit card companies and telcos should get their act together and stop this. No more handling your wallet to the vendors.

<comment><USER30> At least credit card companies will refund you when you dispute a charge. The whole 'pay to receive' SMS system is just horrible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I agree with Arrington, but his article is long on rhetoric and short on facts. He also totally mischaracterizes Anu's response to his claims, saying she didn't address "any of his points," when in fact she addressed all three of them directly.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think it's telling about that conference that the scammer company was given a panel spot.

<comment><USER32> The conference was on Virtual Goods Summit, and Offerpal gives you Virtual Currency to buy those goods, so thats the reason she was on the panel.

I can see people paying 1 USD to earn 100 Virtual Coins, but they should be made aware that it's a 1 way route. I also think having offers/surveys for users is OK to earn Virtual currency, but as long as it's made clear enough to them that they are getting themselves into a recurring charge of $10.99/mo.

<comment><USER33> Speaking of a 1-way route, I was _really_ confused about Zynga Poker. I was wondering what the value of the currency was, since poker with nothing on the line is no fun. I was not able to determine that it actually had any, so I quit playing after a day or two.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Who are the people who sign up for this scams ? Doesn't everyone know enough about these apps to know that ?

<comment><USER35> Everyone who has previously fallen for these scams, or has enough experience to understand that most of the offers are scammy. That leaves a lot of suckers to be mined.

My nanny (a very nice, intelligent woman, but naive about such things) wound up with a $500 cell phone bill last month after falling for a bunch of scams in a single week.

<comment><USER24> You have a nanny and you're posting on HN? How old are you?

<comment><USER36> It could be that he has children himself, so "his nanny" watches over his children and not over him.

<comment><USER24> I was joking :) Stupid, I know.

<comment><USER35> There are days I wish I had someone to spoonfeed me applesauce and give me a warm bath, then put me down for a nap. Alas, I can't afford that kind of "nanny"...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think the next step will center on Facebook outlining rules against those _ads that are deceptive_. I highly doubt Facebook doesn't want to put a stop to it because "it makes Facebook a quick buck." The numbers they yield are a fraction of a fraction of Facebook's revenue.

Those ads aren't the cash cows--they're small, extreme and unethical elements that have slipped through the cracks of the application ecosystem. If you're going after them, you might as well go after Google for allowing Acai Berry ads to be shown on Google Adsense.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think calling this a "scam" is a bit strong. Exploitative of people willing to cough up real money and sign up for questionable offers in order to earn completely intangible goods? Sure, but I don't know if that qualifies as a scam.

Still, without getting hung up on the verbiage, I agree that it's unfortunate that they're trouncing all over the other developers who won't partake in these tactics.

<comment><USER39> The worst of these offers, notably the SMS ones, are scams by any definition and are only defended by people making money off of them or the typical forum "devil's advocate" that in his/her ignorance find these practices to somehow be defensible. The author gives very good examples in the article e.g. the IQ test. It is an affront to all that is ethical and fair in market practices that these kinds of businesses (the scam offers themselves) are even allowed to exist at all.

<comment><USER38> Fair points and perhaps I should have refrained from commenting until I had clearer understanding of the types of offers this article is referring to. The more I've read about some of the offers (sms in particular) in the article and in the HN comments, I realize I spoke too soon.</comment></comment></comment>


Why there will be no holiday cheer for Amazon's 80,000 temp workers - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/oct/21/holiday-shopping-amazon-temp-workers-rights

<comment><USER2> I worked at Amazon for several years as a software engineer. That was one of the two worst job experiences in my life.

Amazon's corporate culture has zero respect for employees. They treat customers very well, but employees are not valued.

<comment><USER3> Increasingly, as a customer, I feel like there's been some sort of shift in Amazon's operating philosophy. There isn't any one big fault, but I feel like I'm getting less value - maybe it's just because of some small changes in their return policy or changes in how Prime is administered/priced, or the mix of first-party/third-party sales in the catalog. On the business side, you keep seeing hints of how employees at many levels aren't really in a good long-term working situation. I wonder if Amazon's quantitative focus has shifted from a strength to an obsession that's starting to hurt important non- quantified areas.

Whatever is actually going on, it all adds up for me personally to move Amazon out of a default, first-look shopping role to a more secondary option.</comment></comment>


Correlating Commissions with Happiness - <AUTHOR> http://meditations.seneca.systems/correlating-commissions-with-happiness/

<comment><USER2> The equation of commission/OTE = FYE/TAM seems highly arbitrary. Why does the % of sales I close correlate to the % of my at-risk income?

Wouldn't a more direct equation be quota = FYE/TAM ?

If you're expecting your reps to close 20% of the leads they get, then set their quotas accordingly. Don't reduce their commission base - you're running a very real risk of dramatically under compensating your star performers, and overcompensating your dullards.

Quick example - Joe Slimeball only closes half the business he should, but he would W2 (according to your numbers) 67.5k. Sally Awesome manages to find a few extra customers and makes sure they are happy with your product (yeah - sales people should be doing that too, it's not all about the tech, there's a human side to FYE) so she closes 30% of her leads. Her take home (depending on accelerators) would be 82.5k-90k.

3x the performance, and a few $$ extra? That's great way to lose your best reps to other companies, and encourage the rest to idle along at minimum effort levels.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good observation. If we didn't track metrics, we would end up paying a lot to under-performers.

Quotas, in our view, are correlated but slightly different and not a great way to encourage reps to close quality deals. Quotas are dependent on what we believe a rep should be closing.

If they are consistently not hitting their quota, we'll try to figure out why (not enough outreach, lower-than-expected conversion to demo or demo to purchase) and, if things don't turn around, they would be let go. Same as any other job.

In terms of compensation, our commissions are paid on a recurring monthly basis[1]. Consistently performing at a higher level means compounded growth of income. We based this on the excellent features of SaaS recurring revenue (stability + compound revenue generation) to further incentivize long-term sales thinking.

Also, as the product expands, that FYE/TAM ratio gets higher. So in a year or two, that commission/OTE ratio is different as we enter into a higher growth stage. That will encourage more outlier behaviour and make the differences between good and great more pronounced, but at this point we are small so that is less of an issue. We can closely track performance.

[1]: [http://meditations.seneca.systems/rethinking-sales- commissio...](http://meditations.seneca.systems/rethinking-sales-commissions- for-saas/)

<comment><USER2> I hope it works out for you, but I don't work with (m)any reps who'd jump at that kind of deal. On your end, metrics don't fix the retention problem. On the reps end, you're missing a lot of emotional and phsychological drivers that sales people crave

1) no windfall opportunity - your rolling monthly commission eliminates any chance that someone is going to earn a six figure commission check by landing a whale. While most reps never or rarely pull that off, it is a huge motivator to both the rep who does it and his/her peers.

2) can you say handcuffs? A rep isnt going to want to get in to a situation where they know the only way they will ever get paid on the true LTV of all their customers is by staying with you until the company dies (not that it will). You might think this will improve retention, but t will also drive away a TON of good and great sales reps.

3) you're going to burn them out - using your example of a rep who closes (and gets paid monthly) on 10 new customers a year, your most successful reps are going to overloaded in short order. This leads to ignored customers and stressed sales teams. The normal way of handling this is to progressively cut a reps territory and/or account list, which works fine if they've been fully compensated for the customers LTV, but if you take half of someone's landed accounts off their monthly rolling commission you're going to have a revolt.

Again, I hope this works for you, but I have my doubts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ah, yes, it's that wonderful time of the quarter when the salespeople are humping to hit their commission numbers, so we get inundated with arbitrarily scheduled demos and evaluations that have to be resolved right this second. Never mind that we've got our own schedule, with testing and development budgeted to get the next release out by the dates that have been promised to yet more customers and leads.

Some of the developers on my team haven't been able to get any real work done in two weeks because of this clusterfuck routine. Even better is when we're supposed to drop everything to expedite closing a deal, and then the contact on the customer side is taking a two-week vacation... I'm starting to realize that I should just not plan on anything happening during the second halves of March, June, and September. At least in December everyone is on vacation.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is definitely a problem in many startups when the need for growth clashes with the emphasis on customer experience.

Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER5> "base salary is the amount you pay a salesperson to not close the wrong deals"

This doesn't mesh with my experience, but I love the phrasing. And it makes me wonder whether and how to reward walking away from a deal that could be closed, but would be problematic. I'm not smart enough to know how to do that.

</comment><comment><USER6> Are you targeting $75k for sales people as the income level where happiness peaks?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great question.

This post focuses on what commission structure optimizes for customer happiness.

We need to recognize that, especially in startups, early products aren't a perfect fit for everyone in our target market. That's okay, we just need to align incentives so that our sales team closes customers where the product can provide a Fuck Yes Experience.

In terms of general employee salary correlating to happiness, coincidentally I studied the philosophy and psychology of happiness so I'd be happy to shed more light here.

I think you're referencing the study by Daniel Kahneman.

Roughly $75k is the point at which additional income has severe diminishing returns, but it doesn't necessarily peak (you just see a tiny effect.)

That number is not as specific as it sounds. $75k was about what it takes to not have to worry about money. You can't drink champagne at every meal, but you have enough to live comfortably and sprinkle unnecessary purchases, travel, and vacation without additional stress.

It also doesn't control for cost of living. $75k in San Francisco isn't worth the same, in terms of quality of life, as $75 in Lafayette Louisiana.

Furthermore, within a given company, the absolute dollar amount matters far less than the comparative dollar amount. This[1] study demonstrates that people would rather be paid less money overall as long as they make more than their coworkers at a similar level. To combat this and to avoid horizontal discrimination, everyone at Seneca Systems who does the same job gets paid the same amount.[2]

[1]: [http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~charness/tenure_papers/happiness.p...](http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~charness/tenure_papers/happiness.pdf)

[2]: [https://github.com/SenecaSystems/employee_handbook/blob/mast...](https://github.com/SenecaSystems/employee_handbook/blob/master/compensation/salary.markdown)

<comment><USER6> Yeah I understood the message of the post was about lining up customers experience and commission, but the $75k number stood out to me. Wasn't sure if the title was getting at both ideas.

I like the idea of the FYE and putting a system in place where salespeople are encouraged only to onboard customers that are going to love Romulus right away. I've always loved that Brian Chesky quote.

And I've done a good amount of reading on the philosophy of happiness recently as well. I agree that the $75k is the not an exact figure. Another big point is that rough figure only accounts emotional well-being[1]. Its all depends on how you measure your happiness.

I haven't ready the UCSB study before, I'll have to take a look at that.

[1] [http://www.vox.com/2015/6/20/8815813/orange-is-the-new- black...](http://www.vox.com/2015/6/20/8815813/orange-is-the-new-black-piper- chapman-happiness-study)</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Is the New Tech Crash - <AUTHOR> https://dailyreckoning.com/amazon-new-tech-crash/ <comment><USER2> Second version of roughly the same story today. When flying sky high it's easy to say bubble or correction coming soon.

I see a better story. Pent up demand for growth investment. Big companies have largely been uninteresting over the last several years, ever increasing dividends and stock buybacks tell us they just don't know what to do with excess revenues. This seems to be starting to unlock as big companies try to figure out the next big thing. Meanwhile investors are showing their support for the Amazon's of the world over the Walmart's... its why Tesla is valued over Ford. Investors believe the management at Amazon will utilize capital to fuel growth better than other available options.

Perhaps there is a bubble or correction coming but if so, it's just starting to form.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think Amazon the company is going to be fine. Bezos will adjust his business model when the growth slows down.

What everybody can agree with is that AMZN stock price is massively overvalued.

Amazon is on low margin retail business. Amazons market cap is 4751B. Assuming 10% ROI and 3% profit margin, Amazon must make $16 trillion in revenue some time in the future.

US retail sales are $5 trillion.

Total retail sales across the globe are $22 trillion.

Amazon runs out of markets before current stock price can be justified.</comment>


Deleting Facebook? Here Are the Most Private and Secure Alternatives - <AUTHOR> https://secured.fyi/social-networks.html <comment><USER2> Twitter has propaganda = No? Isn't it propaganda bot central? Whats the source of the data on this site?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true, I changed the rating of Twitter. Thanks for your feedback, it helps making the ranking system more accurate.</comment></comment>


How do you get so much prelaunch buzz on your product like what mailbox app did - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> (b0ttler0cket):

This is a good question. I looked at mailboxapp.com and I noticed a few things right away. 1\. It's beautiful to look at.

2\. It's simple. It's easy to understand. 6 words describes each of it's selling points. This is important from a marketing perspective. It's the difference between marketing a super-specific product targeted especially for hackers and a product that everyone can use and understand. One is more likely to gain popular attention.

3\. They did something similar to Groupon, where they created a mechanism that encouraged (in Groupon's cased "forced") people to begin discussing their product in a natural way. In Mailbox' case, they created a reservation list. I'm not sure if this was entirely necessary, but it seems to be talked about a lot, and it has the effect of reassuring potential users that the product is worth it. This is so important, especially for a startup that claims to reinvent an age old system such as email, which has been around since before AOL. When a potential user sees that X users already reserved the app, the user believes he/she has actually stumbled upon something useful, especially when they see also the Y users that will reserve it after them (another feature mailboxapp wisely included). By showing the Y people behind, the app is implying that there are a limited number of spaces. Potential users see X and say "huh, it's worth it" then see Y and say "oh I better get it now." That's how people get enticed to get the app and tell their friends "before it's too late." Besides, "reservations" are always for something important; dinners, Broadway shows. That facet of this mechanism shouldn't be ignored either.

4\. Judging by the number of articles that pop up after search, mailboxapp also has good PR. Funny enough, the reservation mechanism is so interesting that most headlines start with how many reservations mailboxapp has. It's an especially good marketing tool when you can break some key marks "half a million," "one million," "two million reservations."

5\. I see that it's also been bought by Dropbox. That also creates good publicity, and it may also be a big reason that there's been so much good press about mailboxapp.

:) Hope that helped. I'll keep looking so if I think of or see anything else, I'll make sure to include it. :)

-

</comment><comment> rush-tea 1\. great app GUI design

2\. marketing on the reservation list - as what human behavior, the things that you can not have, that's what make it most desirable. Invite list / reservation list is a perfect example. Think of gmail back then when people needs to be invited to use

3\. great product. if you have great product, words will spread out on itself.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the waiting list won most of the users in that case. They had an awesome display of how many people there are in front of you / behind you which was worth subscribing to.

Oh and also lots and lots of social marketing.

</comment><comment><USER4> 1\. Have an exciting product idea / market space

2\. Have great visual design

3\. Social media marketing, targeting influencers in the area

</comment><comment><USER5> It's mostly luck.

<comment><USER6> In one of his talks Guy Kawasaki said (during his speech at Haas Business School) "It might be better to be lucky than smart". That said doing as good a job as you can helps!

<comment><USER5> Yes, of course. Thing is you can't really predict huge growth scientifically, but you can make good growth happen artificially. Now, if you are _lucky_ , the product will catch on and grow naturally. But its mostly luck. Still, not a bad thing, because you can make a fortune without crazy growth. All you need is a very focused marketing message and a niche that is dying to give you their money. How do you find those? I'm not telling.</comment></comment></comment>