Images Created from Prime Numbers - <AUTHOR> https://www.futilitycloset.com/2020/01/12/more-prime-images/ <comment><USER2> Mostly unrelated but this made me check to see if the Prime Number Shitting Bear is still online. It is! [https://alpha61.com/primenumbershittingbear/](https://alpha61.com/primenumbershittingbear/)

<comment><USER3> The classic prime joke (saw it originally in Sci Am back in the ... 70's? 80's?). Found an approximation when I googled it:

A mathematician, physicist, and engineer are taking a math test. One question asks "Are all odd numbers prime?"

The mathematician thinks, "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is not prime -- nope, not all odd numbers are prime."

The physicist thinks, "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 ... experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 is prime, yes, they're all prime."

The engineer thinks, "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, ..."

<comment><USER4> The version I remember has the mathematician thinking: "3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, so by mathematical induction, all odd numbers are prime".

<comment><USER5> It just occurred to me how strange it is that you can get to some numbers by addition that you cannot get to by multiplying _any subset_ of the earlier sequence. Emotionally, it feels like addition and multiplication are arguing over who's better, and multiplication is like "I'm so fast", and addition is like, "I'm slow but, I can go places you _can 't_".

It'd be cool, if there was a Maker, that they make it so that some very large prime number is a message to all intelligent life capable of computing and deciphering it. This kind of message would penetrate even nested, simulated universes, and could only come from World 0, assuming the properties of numbers are independent of physical constants. Why not have a SETI-in-the- primes project, after all?

<comment><USER6> > It'd be cool, if there was a Maker, that they make it so that some very > large prime number is a message to all intelligent life capable of computing > and deciphering it

Every possible message is already there. Just like how Borges' Library of Babel contains every possible book (within its limits of size and format)

<comment><USER5> That cannot be true. It does not contain the message '4'. (Or any of the non- primes.)

In fact it seems like there must be many more non-primes than primes over any finite interval (for the simple reason that multiplication gets a lot of whacks at the piñata, e.g. producing a product landing in that finite interval.)

So to answer your implied question ("why bother commucating with primes anwyay?") I guess the value of limiting your message to "a really big prime number" is to make discovery hard, but still tenable. It should be pretty big, like big enough for a good bible sized book, say 1 gigabyte, and start with something really obviously artificial, or unexpected looking, like starting as a 1 with 20,000 zeroes, or maybe better, 20k perfect 010101 and then after a few thousand, 00110011, and from there establish a language protocol, and write the book. But you'd have to expect people to check only primes for these simple patterns, because it's really easy to produce meaningful sequences with addition, and really hard with multiplication (AFAIK).

<comment><USER6> > That cannot be true. It does not contain the message '4'. (Or any of the > non-primes.)

Any finite message (containing a finite number of symbols drawn from a finite alphabet) can be represented as a positive integer.

Any positive integer n can be encoded in a prime, even a composite integer.

Use the following encoding system: write 1 n times, followed by a zero, followed by an arbitrary bit string.

For example, for 4: 11110xxxxxxxxxxxxx...

Using that encoding system, there will be an infinite number of primes that encode 4 - all the primes which start with 11110 in binary.

Thus, the set of all primes contains an infinite number of copies of every possible finite message.

<comment><USER5> I meant that the entire message is "4", not just part of the message. Obviously we can pick a subset of digits of any large prime and find anything we want. However, the odds of a very large prime (like a gigabyte) looking intentionally ordered over its entire length seems vanishingly small.

The only reason to limit ourselves to primes is because its trivial to produce a meaningful composite, and very difficult to produce a meaningful prime. Take this message; if I was to associate it with a number (say by joining its characters as 7-bit ASCII), my money is that it's composite. (Not sure what the odds are, but I'd take 100:1 odds).

EDIT: period is `01110`, which is even, so I win.

<comment><USER6> > However, the odds of a very large prime (like a gigabyte) looking > intentionally ordered over its entire length seems vanishingly small.

Can we estimate how many gigabyte sized primes exist? I think one can do that using the prime number theorem. Let's call that N. What is the probability one of those N messages is meaningful? I think it is a lot higher than you think it is. I think N is a very big number, even though it is very small compared to the number of composite gigabyte-sized numbers, it is still unimaginably large in absolute terms.

<comment><USER5> PNT, interesting! If I'm reading it correctly you can estimate the number of N digit primes as 10^N/N. That's basically 10^N, and for N=9 (a billion), that means there's (very very roughly) a billion primes with a billion digits.

I mean, it's not that many if _your expecting a message from God_ (I say half- jokingly).

<comment><USER6> Suppose somewhere out there, there is an ISO of Bible software, and it just so happens that when expressed as an integer it turns out to be prime – proof that the Bible is God's word, or freak coincidence? I think most people would go with the second option. And, the same would be just as true if it was an ISO of some other religious scripture, such as the Quran or the Vedas.

<comment><USER5> Well it would be an impressive feat, regardless. But of course there are a lot of degrees-of-freedom if you were to attempt this. Tiny formatting and encoding decisions would all greatly influence the resulting integer. Because it's so sensitive to chosen input, I would say even if you managed to produce a prime, it's not very satisfying as a sort of Godly checksum and signature.

Much more interesting is to discover a new communication, a message encoded in a very large number that is distinguished by being prime. (What message would you send? It would be interesting if it ultimately described some sort of recursive, reactive automata, the source code for a kind of learning, communicating intelligence. A gift, then. An awesome, terrible gift.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a great scene in the end of the book "Contact" by Carl Sagan where the main character uses super powerful computers to find a raster image of a circle hidden deep in the digits of pi. This is supposed to be a moment of deep spiritual significance.

But in fact, it's basically an expected outcome given what we think we know about pi.

At first glance these images were startling to me; that such recognizable images could be "hidden" in the primes... in the very structure of mathematics! But then I realized that with an infinite numbers of primes available to us, nothing is hidden. It's more like the primes are simply building blocks for us to use in constructing images of whatever we want.

<comment><USER8> Not quite true. Sagan's version was better than that analysis suggests: [http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/mf55-spoiler.html](http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/mf55-spoiler.html)

> as Sagan puts it in the story itself, the surprise is not that it appears > that it appears "so early" in the sequence.

<comment><USER9> It seems there was a large (unconscious?) religious dimension to SETI. Michael Shermer:

[David Swift in his 1990 book _SETI Pioneers_ ] asked each of the SETI pioneers about their parents' religiosity... most were raised in a religious household but that not one believes in anything like the traditional Judeo- Christian God... Astronomer Frank Drake, ostensively the SETI pioneer if there was one (and creator of the infamous "Drake equation" for computing the probability of ETIs), who was raised "Very strong Baptist. Sunday school every Sunday," made this observation: "A strong influence on me, and I think on a lot of SETI people, was the extensive exposure to fundamentalist religion. You find when you talk to people who have been active in SETI that there seems to be that thread. They were either exposed or bombarded with fundamentalist religion. So to some extent it is a reaction to firm religious upbringing". Similarly, John Kraus recalled: "We were very strong churchgoers, members of the Methodist church. I was brought up in a very religious atmosphere…there was never any thought of conflict between science and religion in my thinking or in my upbringing. Science and religion were simply both seeking ultimate truth but using different ways of going at it". ...

... One might speculate that SETI, as a highbrow, elitist revolution, contains within it quasi-religious and spiritual overtones, in the sense that these scientists, while not believing in God, do believe in ETIs, uniformly portrayed as higher intelligences who, having survived what might be a tendency in species toward self-destruction once advanced technologies are created, must also be morally superior. To the extent that religion involves belief in and hope for transcendence or transcendent beings, SETI is a high- cultural form of religion, and UFOs a low-cultural form of religion.

 _The Measure Of A Life: Carl Sagan and the Science of Biography_ [http://www.theeway.com/skepticc/newsworthy06.html](http://www.theeway.com/skepticc/newsworthy06.html)

P.S. I was very much a child of Sagan and SETI! I was 15 when _Cosmos_ aired, and read every Sagan book I could get my hands on, got a large telescope, became obsessed with astronomy for years... Reading about this religious dimension years later surprised me, it had never occurred to me. (My family was atheist)

<comment><USER9> Also, if you loved (Sagan's) _Cosmos_ \- Dimitri Martin did a spoof version, _Our Fascinating Planet_ , which is absolutely hilarious.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYo- OdQ-5ic&list=PLRcB4n4CGc...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYo- OdQ-5ic&list=PLRcB4n4CGcy8OG9eFOjCyZgooBirO-q8G)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of this classic number: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime)

Basically: DeCSS source code (illegal) → compress → pad → add constant to make it prime.

<comment><USER8> That article talks about specious attempt to hack the legal system, by claiming information can never be legally restricted because it can encode numbers, but doesn't say the result of the attempt.

<comment><USER11> Copyright does make numbers illegal. I think it is less about "hacking" the legal system, and more about demonstrating how nonsensical it is.

<comment><USER12> Which it doesn't actually do. Whatever you think of copyright law, the nonsense lies in our contradictory intuition that information is "special" and numbers, even large ones, aren't. But beyond about, oh say, 128 bits[1], numbers take on all the properties we expect of "special" information.

I can, for instance, encode a picture of you doing something embarrassing as a very large prime[2] number. Yet my protest of "it's just a prime number, bro!" isn't likely to calm you when I start passing it around to all your friends. Information is information. It's not unreasonable to have rules about the flow of information, however cleverly you've encoded it.

[1] [https://qntm.org/number](https://qntm.org/number) [2] The primality is of course totally irrelevant, but it makes it seem more "mathy"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Explanation from an article referenced by the linked article[1]:

Most of the digits were fixed while the rest could be brute-forced using some useful properties.

[1] [https://www.futilitycloset.com/2017/09/10/trinity-hall- prime...](https://www.futilitycloset.com/2017/09/10/trinity-hall-prime/)

<comment><USER14> From the link:

> approximately one in every 6200 2688-digit numbers is prime.

So if you're lucky, you only need to brute force the last 4 digits! Maybe 5 if you're unlucky. In either case, that's a lot less work than I imagined. And of course you can skip all the even numbers.

<comment><USER15> How did you get 4 digits? Wouldn't that mean 1 in every 2^4 = 16 is prime? For 1 in every 6200 shouldn't it be 12 digits?

<comment><USER16> I think the confusion here is that the first image is generated by rendering a prime in binary. The rest appear to be decimal, though, which leads to the result of 4 digits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You can generate these from any image here: [https://geonnave.github.io/primg/](https://geonnave.github.io/primg/)

<comment><USER18> Pretty cool although it struggled with certain very basic 2d images.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Half a year ago I made the same idea but with colour: [http://www.pinchofintelligence.com/painting-by-prime- number/](http://www.pinchofintelligence.com/painting-by-prime-number/). It's interesting that we both took the Mona Lisa to visualise the concept :)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is yet another case where "prime" is bolted onto something for no particular reason to make it superficially more interesting. IMO this confused mathematical understanding.

Approximately 1/n of all n-bit pieces of data (including bimaps) are prime.

<comment><USER20> It's like a magic trick. Amazing at first, then you sort of realize how they did it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was sure that the original inspiration for this would be this [0] comic and reddit post from 2015, about a 4096-bit prime number that looks like a giraffe [1].

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/7qpfls/does_there_exi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/7qpfls/does_there_exist_a_prime_number_whose/)

[1] A reddit commenter also found a "minimalist giraffe": 7.

<comment><USER22> That comic was oddly apropros. I just messaged my father explaining what a perfect number is (He'd asked me because of a question on a game show). That comic made for a great footnote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> We discussed a similar thing a couple of years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16192608](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16192608)

Here's a prime smiley face (with code) I generated at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16192922](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16192922)

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow. I feel like the fact that you can encoding arbitrary information in long numbers is such a far reaching concept in math/computer science, it's really satisfying to see it demonstrated in such an intuitive way.

<comment><USER25> The entire Library of Babel is encoded in Pi.

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

<comment><USER26> So cool, you can find anything you search for: [https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?concernedcoder0001](https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?concernedcoder0001) about 1/2 way down the page you can find: "concerned coder is a programmer living in the sourthern usa, playing a game called eve online while reading hacker news on a sunday night in january"

<comment><USER27> Hmm. Other sources suggest that Concerned Coder is a programmer living in the _northern_ USA, playing a game called Eve Online while reading Hacker News on a Sunday night in January:

[https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?concernedcoder00001...](https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?concernedcoder00001:1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Semi-related, but reading this article and thinking about it made me wonder if there is any study at all of "gray code" primes, for lack of a better word.

Basically, prime numbers that differ by exactly one binary digit in their representation.

Probably nothing about that relationship that would be interesting enough to look into beyond just "I ran some calculations and found these numbers that fit the pattern"

<comment><USER29> This is just a weaker version of the twin prime conjecture. You're asking for primes that differ by 2^k instead of 2. Last I heard the best result was from Polymath 8a.

[http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index.php?title=Bounded_...](http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index.php?title=Bounded_gaps_between_primes)

Edit: Actually I was wrong, differing by a binary digit is much stronger than a difference of 2^k. But that's a starting point.

<comment><USER28> Neat. Thanks for tying it in to something real. Makes sense now that you phrase it that way. Not something I've ever looked into much.

<comment><USER29> Actually I replied without thinking too much, sorry... Your question is (probably a fair bit) stronger than the one I related to. Edited.

<comment><USER30> Big side note, but what you just exhibited is one of my favorite things about this community: admitting being wrong.

It wasn't really until the workplace where I encountered level-headed people that would just shrug their shoulders and say "You are right. I was wrong" and then move on.

It's so simple, but is amazingly powerful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Reminds me of a thought I had a while back that given sufficient computational power you could describe any dataset using only two place values in an irrational number and an interpretation rule. For example, the complete data for an h265 copy of Avengers Endgame exists somewhere in the digital expression of the value of Pi. It might be googleplexes of digits deep, but it's there somewhere.

<comment><USER32> The problem is that the index itself becomes so large, even you use a dataset- optimised number instead of pi, that it's much worse than just storing the original data.

<comment><USER31> Oh certainly. I was just thinking of it as a way to get around intellectual property laws.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> And a prime number showing Mickey Mouse? Or is it illegal because copyright?

<comment><USER34> With Mickey Mouse the issue is more likely trademark rather than copyright.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Usecase: In future when computers become intelligent and we(humans) want to communicate without computers understand, we can use this means :)

</comment><comment><USER36> This would make a great conspiracy theory - that Mona Lisa was a prime number painted by Leonardo.

</comment><comment><USER37> what if instead we have an approximate representation of an image through a highly composed number? we end up with a number theoretic compression technique.

</comment><comment><USER38> How on earth did they verify a 30k long number is prime?!?

<comment><USER39> Perl's regex engine is really fast, so presumably:

        perl -lne '(1x$_) =~ /^1?$|^(11+?)\1+$/ || print "$_ is prime"'

<comment><USER40> For the curious: [https://www.pixelstech.net/article/1324906920-A-Perl- Regular...](https://www.pixelstech.net/article/1324906920-A-Perl-Regular- Expression-That-Matches-Prime-Numbers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> What are the image errors?</comment>


When Programmers Start a Business - Shawn McCool - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72QEWQqc9Nw

<comment><USER2> This is a pretty solid talk. Basically sharing his knowledge on some of the nuisances new, naive programmers who want to start a business might not be aware of. I especially enjoyed the "Educate your users" section.</comment>


Programming from the Ground Up - <AUTHOR> http://feederio.com/book/35/programming-from-the-ground-up <comment><USER2> Computer Systems - A Programmer's Perspective already does this and does it very well, though not free.

The course's site: [http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu](http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu)

You can purchase the book on Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great read for developers who want to dive into assembly and know inner- workings of computer programs.</comment>


A Design Engineer Explains Exactly Why Your Car Is So Boring - <AUTHOR> http://jalopnik.com/a-design-engineer-explains-exactly-why-your-car-is-so-b-1795485696 <comment><USER2> I like Roger Moore and Paul Newman.</comment>


The quasi-libertarian anti-politics of the tech nerd - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9214015/tech-nerds-politics <comment><USER2> I started reading Vox because it was co-founded by two of my favorite bloggers, Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein. But David Roberts has now overtaken them as my favorite writer there.

It is ludicrous how many pundits and activists ignore that political science is a real science with useful, counter-intuitive findings and predictive results. Roberts is doing great popularizing and translating those insights.

</comment><comment><USER3> So many good points in here.

\- There are no moderates

\- one party is more extreme than another

\- decisions are made by those who show up, and thus far "nerds" are not a big force, but they could be

<comment><USER4> Additional point: there really isn't a "center", as where ideology weakens, corruption takes over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article appears to be making the mistake of assuming political spectrums to be linear or single-dimensional. They're not. As one of these "moderates" the article discusses, my disdain for American politics has nothing to do with trying to find a "middle ground" between a Democrat left and a Republican right because that entire line is way off into the "totalitarian corrupt police state" end of an at-least-two-dimensional spectrum.

This is why so many "nerds" swing "quasi-libertarian". Not only do they want both social _and_ economic freedom (as a whole, both the Republicans and Democrats only seem to want one or the other), but they also tend to want individual freedom. They're tired of not actually having a voice because some big company like Comcast has better resources to bribe politicians. They're tired of being ordered around by basically the same people who were laughing at them and giving them wedgies back in the 80's. They swing libertarian because libertarianism is billed as the means of euthanizing the ugly, vicious beast that is the American political machine. Else, they simply give up, seeking to subvert the political system and exist beyond its reach. This is why candidates like Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul and Donald Trump are appealing to this particular demographic: because they promise to fight against the cruft instead of riding the status quo like quite literally every other goddamn politician in this country.

A well written article, but it's misguided if it thinks that us "nerds" are wrong for distrusting the American political system, as it seems to imply. Washington is in need of some _serious_ percussive maintenance.

</comment><comment><USER6> It seems to me that tech is primed to increase civic engagement much in the same way it's increased social engagement. FB does this obliquely with articles dominating newsfeeds these days.

For my own part I've been toying with the idea of a mailer or notification that encourages voting. Whether you voted or not is public record. You could mail out comparative statistics vs. your neighborhood or block. "You vote in X% of national, Y% of state, and Z% of local elections. Your neighbors are doing better because they vote in X+1% of national, Y+5% of state, and Z+10% of local elections. Get out and vote next week! Here's some information on how to get informed..." etc.</comment>


Sorry, this site cannot be viewed on Chrome. - <AUTHOR> http://www.windingtechnology.com/chrome.html

<comment><USER2> Those of you who are young enough may not realize this is Tim Berners-Lee's nightmare -- in which the Web disintegrates into a multitude of factions, each using a different browser.

"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network." \-- Tim Berners-Lee.

I think by describing this technical Balkanization as an artifact of a quaint past, Berners-Lee may have been overly optimistic.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow. Speechless.

"At the moment, our website cannot be viewed on the Google Chrome web broswer"

The fact they recommend Firefox or Internet Explorer 8 should send warning bells to anyone with two brain cells that this is a business you will want to avoid at all costs.

<comment><USER4> To be charitable... they make... whatever "precision coil winding machines" are (I guess machines that precisely wind coils.) There's no requirement that this reflects on their ability to make a decent website. Blame whoever they paid pocket change to set it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> But... why? Just for the dropdown menu?

There are cross-browser compatible scripts for that.</comment>


Show HN: Create a JSON API with zero code in less than 10 seconds - <AUTHOR> https://jsonman.bakchoi.com/?href=hn6 <comment><USER2> This looks cool, thanks for sharing! Will investigate for FE development</comment>


HSBC is killing my business, piece by piece  - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@photonstorm/hsbc-is-killing-my-business-piece-by-piece-d7f5547f3929 <comment><USER4> I think this is a huge problem and one that is going to continue and get worse. How is it the banks were the ones at fault, but the customers are paying for it. They just hide behind AML / Knowing your customer and say talk to your MP.

I was locked out of internet banking for my business account with Lloyds for over 3 months due to a technical fault in the way it was setup. Was paid compensation in the end, but already had moved to another bank. They could not have cared less.

Some people will say no smoke without fire, but if you read on moneysavingexpert about people being locked out of their personal accounts for the same reason. Any transfer that is slightly different from your day to day will be flagged and risk having your account locked for weeks / months on end.

It happens more than we realise. A bit like winning the lottery, it could be you :(

The further we go down the road of electronic payments, and a cashless society it could get really messy.

The only way to solve in the short term is to spread the risk across many banks, and never keep your money in one place. Keep hold of some cash!

<comment><USER5> I think part of the problem is banks don't make much money from the average account outside of fees. I would rather banks just charged say 20$ a month and had actual customer service instead of the mess big banks evolve into.

<comment><USER6> > I think part of the problem is banks don't make much money from the average > account outside of fees

Umm.. how about 'using your money to fund interest earning loans'?

<comment><USER7> And then fund more loans on those loans. Like fractional reserve banking.

<comment><USER8> Then package them up and sell them as a triple-A bond. Hey we are getting somewhere now.

<comment><USER9> What could possibly go wrong ^_^

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Don't bank with HSBC.

After having similarly-frustrating things happen with my HSBC personal accounts over the years, I fully support this suggestion. They are awful. They take extreme steps (suspending accounts, rejecting payments, etc.) without contacting the customer; when you reach out to them, it's hours of being passed around before you reach the right person. If you reach a person at all.

<comment><USER11> > Don't bank with HSBC.

Unless you are a drug cartel, of course.

<comment><USER12> Then you go into a special category, where you go from fighting to find a person to talk with, to having banks designed to more easily accommodate your dropoffs.

<comment><USER13> Oh yeah! I remember that. But it wasn't the banks, it was the boxes the cash was deposited in.

[http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc- se...](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-settlement- proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213)

> Breuer admitted that drug dealers would sometimes come to HSBC's Mexican > branches and "deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single > day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise > dimensions of the teller windows."

So lame:

> Though this was not stated explicitly, the government's rationale in not > pursuing criminal prosecutions against the bank was apparently rooted in > concerns that putting executives from a "systemically important institution" > in jail for drug laundering would threaten the stability of the financial > system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think the chap has been incredibly calm about the whole thing. I'd be in my local branch every day refusing to leave until they take the necessary steps to re-open the account.

This really struck a nerve with me, as I've had similarly infuriating experiences with Natwest (though never to the point of my account being suspended).

Passed from one team to another -- and even witnessing colleagues from different teams argue with each other, not realising that I wasn't properly on mute... I wish I had it recorded.

Opening and administrating a simple small business bank account has been the single most unnecessarily difficult and frustrating thing about starting my own business.

It's why I'm so passionate about someone FINALLY disrupting the circle jerk of the mainstream banking industry and the organisational, bureaucratic and regulatory clusterfuck that it has become.

</comment><comment><USER15> So, immediately get on the horn with your lawyer and have your lawyer on his letterhead send them a letter and if the response is not to your liking sue the bastards.

In the meantime set up another account with another bank and make sure all invoices that are pending but not yet paid are paid into _that_ account and not into the HSBC account.

Then shift over all the monthly payments to the new account as funds appear.

<comment><USER4> Not sure if you're in the US? where that maybe possible. In the UK this is not that simple. Not even sure how you would sue them, their T&C would cover this under AML / Knowing your customer legislation. The problem is the knee jerk reaction from the government on stopping the bank's bad practices without thinking what happens, in reality, day to day.

<comment><USER16> So in the UK it's legal for banks to simply shut down your account and steal your money, and you have no recourse? Seems hard to believe.

Apparently, from his profile, the guy you responded to is from the Netherlands.

<comment><USER17> There's nothing to suggest the Bank have "stolen" OP's money.

<comment><USER18> Actually, and somewhat counter-intuitively, money you put into a bank account _belongs to the bank_ , as an account-holder you have a _credit_ and they have _fiduciary duty_ towards you. But in a very fundamental sense the property of your money has passed to the institution you bank with. They do however have the duty to make it available you, or rather, do as you instruct them to up to the value you banked with them.

EDIT: _Foley v Hill_ , the foundational precedent [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_v_Hill?wprov=sfti1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_v_Hill?wprov=sfti1)

<comment><USER15> This is correct, and similar legislation exists in many other jurisdictions. It is one reason why you want to be somewhat careful with who you bank with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> UK banks are ridiculous and they're hastening their own demise to challenger banks with attitudes likes this. My bank (Barclays) suspended my account and blocked my cards after attempting to make a large payment.

It was £2000 to the Student Loans Company. My account was a graduate account.

All of the clever machine learning anti-fraud algorithms in the world couldn't figure that one out.

Go figure.

<comment><USER20> UK banks seem to be the worst in the world.

I studied in the UK, lots of horror stories to tell:

# Name misspelled 4 times

* Santander: They spelled my name wrong on the debit card, 4 times in a row, with a different misspelling each time. Each time I had to go to the branch and type the correct spelling into a keyboard. They still got it wrong the next time. The 5th card was correct. I was without a working card for 3 months and had to pay everything in cash.

# Locked out after they sent money to somebody else

* Barclays: My flat mate paid me sublet rent. One of the transfer didn't arrive. When he checked, the money was sent to a completely different account number he had never entered (probably an off-by-one error in their code?). He called Barclays to correct the transfer. Instead of fixing the issue, they locked his account for 2 months, he couldn't pay any rent any more, he couldn't receive money from his parents to pay for rent or university fees.

# Ridiculous branch security

* Natwest: I'm at the branch with my friend. We're sitting directly in front of the clerk with her keyboard to her Windows computer in front of her. She unlocks the screen saver, 1-finger-typing the 5-character password (so I knew the password). Then she leaves us in the room alone for 10 minutes, not even locking the screen saver again. Also, the part of the PC where the keyboard is plugged into the USB is directly next to my right leg. It would be very easy to pop in a keylogger without anybody noticing (of course it has already been done: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10322536/Barcla...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10322536/Barclays-hacking-attack-gang-stole-1.3-million-police-say.html) and [http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-santander-arrests/gang-held...](http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-santander-arrests/gang-held-over-audacious-plot-to-take-over-santander-uk-computers-idUKBRE98C08A20130913)). Later she asks my friend for a password. My friend looks at me, I put my fingers into my ears. Afterwards the clerk asks "why did you put your fingers into your ears?". I respond it was so I wouldn't learn my friend's password, obviously. She replies "Oh wow, that's cute!". Such is the qualification and training of those who safeguard your money.

# Preventing my card getting blocked abroad with Jedi tricks

* Santander: I'm abroad in Hungary with my UK debit card being the only one I have with me. After buying an 8£ ticket from ticket machine of the Hungarian public train transport MAV, I get an automated call from Santander to confirm whether a potentially fraudulent payment of 8£ is legit. I confirm. After a short while I receive a text that says my card is now blocked. I call Santander's support. They say my card is blocked because of a fraudulent transaction. I say I just confirmed that this transaction is not fraudulent, please unlock my card. They say "sorry, your card cannot be unlocked it has been marked with a red flag". After being stunned for a moment by this idiocy I say "so what, remove the flag then". "I can't do that Sir, we'll have to send you a new card to your UK address". I lose it with "You will not send me a new card, I am abroad and this card is the only one I can pay with here! You will unlock my card NOW!" (My inner self makes an Obi-Wan-esque hand guesture.) To my surprise, the answer is "OK, I'll check it with my boss", and shortly after "OK, card is unlocked. But we'll send you a new card in one month". I never received a new card.

I've never had any such problems with German and Swiss banks.

<comment><USER21> It's not just the UK. An example (among many others) in France. I asked my bank (Societe Generale) to make a transfer to another bank where I also have a broker account, with the intention to make an investment. Societe Generale blocks the funds and requests a proof that I will indeed make an investment before releasing the funds. How do I prove that I am going to buy some stocks on the market when I receive the funds? It took me a week to convince them the absurdity of their request.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Reminds me of "Operation Chokepoint" where the U.S. federal government was able to persuade (not force) banks to cut off firearms dealers from their accounts in an effort to affect "unsavory businesses".

Another reason why I want to avoid a cashless society, at least in the way we're heading right now. Scary how quickly banks will cave in to pressure from the feds before any legal process even begins (if ever).

[http://www.newsmax.com/US/Operation-Choke-Point-federal- bank...](http://www.newsmax.com/US/Operation-Choke-Point-federal-banks- businesses/2014/05/28/id/573858/)

<comment><USER23> Scary stuff.

Also, can anyone tell me why the other reply to the parent is dead? It was a completely relevant response that, I assume, was downvoted because it mentioned something that Trump did in a positive way.

<comment><USER22> I saw that dead comment too and can't figure it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I second not dealing with HSBC. They've been fined as mentioned in the article. They've also lost enormous amounts of data through mismanagement and to hackers, so have gone to the other extreme of "safeguarding" their data.

I put safeguarding in quotes because a couple years ago I was responsible for the technical aspects of the acquisition of a small fin. book from HSBC. They did a lot of absolute dictation of governance hurdles which they "enforced" \- again the quotes, because they came to our offices and nodded wisely when I rattled through our list of safeguards. But very clearly didn't understand a thing about the controls we said we were using. They also didn't ask for any evidence of the controls. That really surprised me, after all the noise they'd made leading up to that meeting.

I don't rate them technically at all, so have to wonder what their business capability is like...

<comment><USER25> Not to pick on you particularly (this is just where I got to in the comments) but who _would_ you recommend instead for others trying to avoid this? Particularly for the UK, since a lot of the time the HN crowd is US-centric :)

<comment><USER26> _Not to pick on you particularly (this is just where I got to in the comments) but who _would_ you recommend instead for others trying to avoid this?_

This is the problem. There are nightmare stories about basically every major bank and financial service, and while there are two sides to every story, a lot of them certainly look like well justified complaints about wildly inappropriate treatment.

If someone was doing much better, we'd all be using them already. For now, I can only agree with the general advice many are giving: diversify, so you never have personal and business with the same organisation, never have all your essential accounts and cards with the same organisation, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I would say (a) open a bank account with someone else and (b) contact someone from the BBC (eg [https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qjnv/contact](https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qjnv/contact)) and make a noise.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, lots of options...

Ombudsman, politicians, media, lawyers, business interest groups...

HN probably isn't local enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> When people tell me they don't "get" Bitcoin, this is exactly the sort of thing I have been looking for to try to explain it. Yes, it has problems and is still maturing, but no one can inexplicably just off your bank account like this.

<comment><USER30> I've got coworkers and a friend who have been contacting coinbase for ~months because their funds have just disappeared into the ether. Deposited money, nothing showed up in their account. Apparently it's common, and they're just supposed to wait longer. I would guess that this is because just like you said, it has problems and is still maturing. But - doesn't that mean that coinbase could just off their accounts?

<comment><USER31> Coinbase is a bridge between dollars and bitcoin. That's why it has all the AML/KYC hassles of an ordinary bank. Once you cross the bridge, though, your bitcoin is all under your control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > Then Apple failed. This was a strange one — it appears you actually need a > valid payment card associated with your Apple account or you cannot download > free apps or update existing ones. Every time you try it just asks you to > re-enter payment details. Not a show-stopper, but frustrating all the same.

Not true. They have a lot of dark patterns to make you think that but you don't actually need a payment account associated with your Apple ID. It's possible they've changed this since the last time I tried doing setting one up but you may need to go through the desktop interface rather than doing it directly on a iOS device.

<comment><USER33> [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204034](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT204034) is "Learn how you can create or use your Apple ID in the iTunes Store without a credit card or other payment method."

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201266](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT201266) is "Change or remove your Apple ID payment information"

<comment><USER34> Works only in some countries.

<comment><USER33> Can you give more details ?

<comment><USER34> You need to have a card associated with the account and can't remove it if you're in Czechia. Or if it is possible I was not able to find how to do it after a hour of googling. It's per country requirement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> At the moment banking is a total disaster. Personal accounts, under KYC disguise, are being questioned on "suspicious" £2-3k transactions sent between family members. Banks fraud altering systems are so inconceivably dumb, that they can't recognize two persons both having bank accounts at their same institution, both living on the same address as being part of a household, not to bother questioning them why they send cash to each other.(Lloyds Bank, UK).

Business banking is getting totally destroyed by fanatical and full of nonsense administration of KYC regulations, where banks want to verify not only the invoices and reasons for every transaction, but the underlying composition of every amount and how it was earned and why. And why the sum earned is higher, than what they think it should be. Their reviews of business models and revenue generation processes is more strict and intruding, than the figures some investors consider enough to provide business with funding.(Rietumu bank, Latvia).

At the same time many large European banks are losing their ability to transact in USD, after bank-correspondents are leaving them (Deutsche bank). SEPA transfers in EUR is what is left for many businesses as they are cut from making any international payments in non-EUR currency.

The situation is beyond worrying. I hope there are some sane banks left. Possibly smaller banks, friendly to online businesses, who realize that when you receive affiliate payments from Booking.com NV, you are not laundering money and it would be totally moronic to questions those transfers. Please comment if you can recommend such.

</comment><comment><USER36> The story is very similar to what we experienced with HSBC exactly year ago. Its wrong on so many levels, in our case they sent us money via cheque so we got access to it in about 2 months. There is no point discussing anything with them, you are a small fish and have a business to run, not suing a bank or losing your focus on your main business.

Since HSBC kicked us out we have multiple banks and if things go wrong we just move to another one.

</comment><comment><USER37> I am from India. A startup I was part of also had a bad experience with the bank. I can't go into the details but the bottom line is that the bank branch where we had our account was absolutely uncooperative. The problem was resolved after many days of mail writing, talking to phone banking and running after the branch people.

</comment><comment><USER38> "what it was really doing was checking I'm not a drug cartel or rogue nation."

If they decide you are a drug cartel or rogue nation, you will be upgraded to Most Favoured Customer status and assigned a personal account manager. If requested the dimensions for the aperture of teller windows will be provided so you can custom manufacture boxes to fit the maximum amount of dirty cash through them in the shortest time possible.

</comment><comment><USER39> You'll get the same treatment with the anti-fraud/kyc team at any bank. It's standard procedure to not disclose reasoning because it essentially helps fraudsters/criminals avoid checks.

There can also be legal restrictions on what they can tell you. For example if they think you're committing money laundering it can be a criminal offence ("tipping off") for them to tell you that why they're investigating you.

It might also not even be directly about your business, if for example one of your counter-parties (customer/supplier) is subject to criminal investigation it could result in you getting flagged up as a related party.

It sucks when it happens but unfortunately it's a reality at every bank.

</comment><comment><USER40> Slightly Off Topic: The other thing i notice is how we are dependent on "Monthly" services and subscription. iCloud, Photoshop etc. A lot of these could have been a product that you buy it one off.

<comment><USER41> Exactly.

An aspect of SaaS that needs to be considered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> What a horror story. I also have a business bank account in UK and after reading this article I immediately went and paid myself a hefty dividend just in case something like this happened. I will try to keep balance in the business bank account low, just enough to pay corporation tax, VAT and salary.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is an intentional strategy to increase the 'cost of regulation' so they can lobby against it and go back to accepting shoeboxes of cash through deposit windows.

<comment><USER28> Or they want to get rid of a business that doesn't borrow money...

There is no money in banking services if they can't charge you extravagant fees.

It's ironic :)

<comment><USER44> If you deposit money into a bank, they can lend out that money and earn interest. They don't need to charge you fees to make money from your deposits.

<comment><USER45> With current regulation they get punished for taking business deposits. Deposits from retail clients are "sticky", so can be realiably used for loans. Business deposits fluctuate so that the bank has to keep a large share as cash at negative interest rates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> We were just about to move our business banking over to HSBC, but this is appalling. I'm going to bring this up with the people we're dealing with and politely decline to go any further with the process for now.

</comment><comment><USER47> Ironically, I know use Bitcoin and Bitcoin-linked debit cards to pay for Github, Amazon and the rest. Much easier than having all these calls from banks, and for less than 2000 €/month, KYC is very relaxed.

<comment><USER48> what btc-linked debit cards do you use if you don't mind me asking?

<comment><USER47> Bitwala

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Hear, hear

"PayPal, thank you. Your support was fantastic. I only wish HSBC were more like you."

<comment><USER50> You know your bank is horrible when Paypal has the better support.

Over the years here on HN we have heard a number of Paypal horror stories but it seems Paypal is somewhat responsive.

Personally, I've had two lockdowns on my small time Paypal account(in 17 years) and in both cases I was able to resolve the matter within a few days. Both times involved faxing some information to them...

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> This happened to a friend a few months ago. He has a SaaS business, working remotely out of France (uses Stripe + US bank accounts as he lived in US for sometime).

One day suddenly, he got locked out of his bank account (a major US bank) and the only way to restore the access was to walk into a branch physically. This meant dropping all work and flying to US at a day's notice, assuming you are granted a Visa. He was fortunate that the customer service listened (though they were not the politest people on the planet). After jumping a few hoops and following some unconventional methods of verification, the access was restored, but the situation was scary for a few days.

</comment><comment><USER52> More hidden cost from the war on drugs. What does it take to finally try to find another solution or arrangement?! I guess value voters in the US will never give up on this and we will live with this silly bootleggers and Baptists problem forever...

</comment><comment><USER53> This sucks. I've recently started contracting in the UK and opened a business bank account with HSBC. I was initially tempted by Tide ([https://www.tide.co/](https://www.tide.co/)), a new entrant with an attractive business banking product, but unfortunately they are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, so I thought twice... Maybe I should still open an account with them just in case... Wonder if anyone here has tried Tide here?

<comment><USER54> FSCS is to give (limited) protection from a bank's bad investment/lending decisions. Tide operate using an emoney license which requires deposits to be held in a ring-fenced account and doesn't allow them to be lent/invested in that way. I'd be interested in other opinions but my understanding is that the risk FSCS protects against in the case of a bank can't happen under an emoney license anyway.

(FSCS doesn't protect you from the problem this article was about either, and that seems much more likely to happen than one of the large banks being allowed to fail..)

Their accounts are super easy to setup, if their fee structure fits how you work then it's probably worth having one even if it's "just in case" to keep your options open.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Presumably HSBC objects to a for-profit business running a patreon & donations. I can see how from a bank's perspective that could look like something illegal is going on.

<comment><USER56> It could be the tax office, since getting money from Patreon (and also Kickstarter) counts as taxable income.

<comment><USER57> As a business with an accountant I would assume all applicable income and expenses are recorded correctly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I had to fight with Citibank for about 3 months to get them not to suspend my business account after I'd been a customer for 10 years due to the new "know your customer" bs. The "know your customer" regulations are about as anti- small business as they can be. Doesn't matter that you have an LLC in the State of NY that's been active for 17 years, we won't let you keep your account without a signed and notarized letter from your accountant or lawyer stating exactly what your business and income is from. Doesn't matter if you don't have a lawyer or accountant because you handle it yourself via thinks like Quickbooks, go pay one a couple grand to look through your books for the last 10 years and then sign the notarized letter.

If you're having trouble with an HSBC or Citibank, try a smaller bank or a credit union. They'll generally have policies catering more to the local market. The local credit union had no such issues like above. A smaller bank like TD Bank just wanted to make sure you were registered with the state and do a premises visit (and visiting your apt/home was also acceptable for home- based businesses).

</comment><comment><USER4> Another example of UK banking going wrong is the story of a number of companies including a Noel Edmunds (deal or deal fame) that went under after massive fraud caused "allegedly" by bank staff!

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/25/noel- edmond...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/25/noel-edmonds- compensation-claim-hbos-lloyds)

</comment><comment><USER59> Fuck them. Move on. You are perpetuating this mess.

Businesses do periodically change banks or account numbers if their account has been compromised by fraud. (This recently happened to my family's business bank account... fraudulent checks were produced - so we created a new checking account.)

You can re-automate all your payments within a day or two on your new account with your NEW BANK. The silver lining is you can assess all these monthly charges - and possibly cut some unneeded services - or upgrade some which you would benefit from.

MOST IMPORTANTLY - Find a bank that is headquartered locally - so you can go see the people who work at the bank occasionally - build relationships - <USER2> avoid this type of abuse. If the local bank is sold to a bigger bank - <USER3> ship again.

This sounds like a toxic business relationship and your only TEMPORARY loss is the cash they are holding in your account. You should have access to emergency funds in another bank account - and if you don't - learn that lesson now.

You are ultimately responsible for everything and service providers are just that - service providers. Learn to fire and hire them as often as needed.

</comment><comment><USER60> > The only way to solve in the short term is to spread the risk across many > banks, and never keep your money in one place.

not only banks, you also have paypal, prepaid cards, etc.

and not only "short term"

eg. always avoid the "single point of failure"

the real infuriating part here is that those problems occur on a business account (not a personal account), if you pay extra for business you should get extra/faster service/resolution.

</comment><comment><USER61> HSBC has been an awful bank. My biggest startup regret.

</comment><comment><USER62> I just can't believe this can happen in 2017... like if we were in the 90s. HSBC doesn't have a clue how a business works nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER63> Hi. I run SourceGuardian.com. Today I had exactly the same experience!! Whilst I was in the States for 5 weeks I tried to log in to my online banking and received the same message. I just presumed it was their security system recognising I was in the USA and therefore I decided to deal with it when home. Arrived back and made a call, but was told I needed to go to a brand. Went to a branch and they told me they could not help. Eventually I went to another branch and found a sympathetic business manager. Finally I talked with HSBC on the phone again but they say that I must do another call with them, despite me doing one already. My story is exactly the same although I'm just starting - already I have had payments denied and have been told that all funds have been frozen. Of course they're accepting deposits, I just can't take any money out!! Its a nightmare. Tomorrow I am going to see what I can do and who I can call to try to resolve this.

</comment><comment><USER64> This was the entirely predictable result of regulations on financial institutions that have become more and more idiotic. Imagine if we had decided to fight drug dealers and terrorism by prohibiting any restaurant or grocery store from knowingly selling food to drug dealers and terrorists. We would see this same nonsense with food that we see with finance.

If we're going to fight drug dealers and terrorists, it shouldn't be by trying to push them to the fringes of our financial system, it should be putting them in jail.

[https://steemit.com/politics/@joelkatz/the-war-on- cash](https://steemit.com/politics/@joelkatz/the-war-on-cash)

</comment><comment><USER65> There is something magical in how people are attached to their bank, at least here in France (but it looks from the article that this is the same in the UK). Just switch banks!

I never payed for a bank account (in several countries where I had an account while living there). When Credit Mutuel decided to do my free account, I went to them and told them that either they go back or I leave. They did not believe me so I left on the spot.

It is so simple today to change that it should be like changing the brand of cereals. I am now with a bank which just works and very happy, one just needs to try until they get the right one.

</comment><comment><USER66> don't bank with someone who's been caught money laundering, as they'll treat all their customers like criminals.

<comment><USER67> I think its worse than that. There were gladly providing business to companies that ended up being criminal enterprises laundrying hundreds of millions - they knew and were helping along the way. So if the OP had millions of USD revenue he would have gotten top notch customer support from HSBC; since he doesn't...

<comment><USER68> Plausible deniability if they get their hand caught again? "We suspend thousands of accounts for suspicious behavior, a few are going to get through".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Amazon does the same thing, once they lock up your account there is nothing much you can do except make a lot of noise and hope you'll be heard.

I had a horrible experience with a buyer account, they locked it up, and I didn't even receive a notification about it (I thought it was hacked...). The problem is that I had some packages on their way and I could not access any tracking info, etc.

After a couple of distressing days, access got restored with no explanation as to why it was locked in the first place, and I still have to hear from them what happened.

</comment><comment><USER70> I have had bad experiences as a Barclays customer. Not as bad as what was described in this article, but things that would be unacceptable at even the worst American bank. I really get the feeling that banks in the UK only begrudgingly provide retail banking. And commercial banking for smaller businesses falls under that umbrella too. I don't have any hard evidence, but I would have to guess their real profits are in other banking sectors like investment banking, or with their bigger commercial accounts.

</comment><comment><USER71> I left HSBC and have been much happier with Bank Of Scotland small business account.

I also get the feeling HSBC would like it if you were in debt, or had a loan. At least they would be making money from you!

<comment><USER6> > At least they would be making money from you!

Banks use deposits to fund loans to other customers.

If you are depositing money in a bank, they are automatically making money off of you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> At this point, I believe they harras the small customers to cover up the real corruption.

In the meantime: (UK at centre of secret $3bn Azerbaijani money laundering and lobbying scheme)[[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/04/uk-at- centre-o...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/04/uk-at-centre-of- secret-3bn-azerbaijani-money-laundering-and-lobbying-scheme)]

</comment><comment><USER73> The horrible thing is that if you do maintain several business accounts and aren't careful about how you handle transfers between them you could be accused of structuring.

<comment><USER74> Structuring?

<comment><USER75> Structuring is arranging your transactions with the intent of avoid additional oversight that would otherwise be required by law.

For instance, if you know there's a rule that says every transaction over $X must be reported, so you split your $(3X) deposit into three separate deposits of size $X.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Yet another example of the sad state of affairs that engaging companies or governments directly through their established, official channels no longer works as well as going (or threatening to go) to Twitter with it.

Is it acceptable that a Twitter account and the ability to publicly Twitter- shame is a prerequisite for decent service? Is it acceptable that it's a prerequisite for democracy? It seems utterly ridiculous to me.

</comment><comment><USER77> I had a somewhat similar experience with Chase - account locked without notice, wouldn't tell me what was wrong, couldn't get paid by clients. The only way I was able to solve the problem was physically flying to the US and proving my identity (again) in person. Fortunately my credit card was through a different bank so didn't lose access to third party services.

</comment><comment><USER78> As a tech business owner, I learned the hard way that you must pick a bank to match your business. If you are a small shop, don't bank with large banks. Find a local / regional bank, go physically there, develop a relationship with the bank. You have absolutely no financial leverage and no meaningful relationship with a large bank and that's not in the best interest to your business.

</comment><comment><USER79> Admittedly tangential but

> I'm just another failed bank card to them, draining their systems.

Well, you're not draining Adobe. You're running Photoshop locally, so you aren't costing them any bandwidth, unlike most of those other services.

That rental model for software you run locally is even worse than most proprietary models. If Adobe weren't effectively a monopoly, I'd hope people would reject this nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER80> Does the UK have the equivalent of credit unions? I moved to a credit union about 5 years ago and it turned out to be a great decision (if you have simple banking needs). I know all the tellers at my local branch and if I have a serious issue, I can just talk directly to the CEO.

<comment><USER81> There are "Building Societies". They are mostly like banks but tend to be more local.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> this is the problem with these regulations. i think know your customer is a good idea and the banks should be collecting this information but they shouldn't be responsible for making the decision. this should be a legal process run by the state.

what you are seeing is what happens when due process is bypassed. if every bank follows the rules in a similar way and there is a good chance they do because they are acting in a way that is mandated by law then you can be effectively locked out of the banking system. you are being punished even though you have not been convicted of any crime by a court of law.

i don't know what the solution is because the current implementation is quite efficient. but it does mean more innocent people are going to get burned.

</comment><comment><USER83> Wow, so bad they make PayPal look good!

I have my business accounts with my local credit union[1] and would never recommend a bank - any bank - if you could possibly avoid it.

[1]: [https://www.wpcu.coop/](https://www.wpcu.coop/)

</comment><comment><USER21> As a banker, I am the first agree that banks offer an absolutely shit service, and the story in this article is only too common. But one should keep in mind that this is the direct consequence of over-regulation.

Regulations creates massive barriers to entry, through the complexity of the laws and regulation banks have to deal with and the amount of capital required to open a bank. As a result, no competition, and therefore the sort of monopolistic behavior that you normally observe in nationalized industries, where your bank doesn't give a shit whether you are satisfied or not.

In addition to that, most western countries deputized the banks to act as law enforcement under the threat of multi-billion fines. For certain banks, pretty much all profits from the past 5-7y have been nationalized through fines. As a business, banks will go to any extremity for these fines to cease, even it it means burning a few clients (or employees).

We must like the consequences of what we wish for.

</comment><comment><USER84> Porter's Five Forces. Never let a single organization be a supplier for 100% of critical infrastructure. As I write this, I'm reminded it's been a while since I've looked through everything to make sure I'm not.

</comment><comment><USER85> Chase suspended my companies' account for largely the same reasons FYI. I highly recommend moving to a bank where you can have an actual personal relationship with your banker.

I haven't used SVB but it can't be worse than the big banks.

<comment><USER77> I had a relationship with my Chase banker but my business account was still frozen without notice. To restore access I needed to physically fly to the US and prove my identity again. To minimize this risk in future I opened accounts with multiple banks and split my transactions between them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> If you interact with such a bigger company than your own it is normal that things can take 6-12 months. It's a good opportunity to harden your business against it. Nobody likes to do that, but if you want to survive you have to.

</comment><comment><USER87> I swore off HSBC years ago when they wronged me. Short version: They sold my account to another bank (!) that had a nearest branch 100+ miles away(!), and wouldn't let me opt out or close my account before the transfer!

Long version:

I had a personal (not company) bank account with HSBC, but the closed my local branch and informed me that my account would be transferred to a different bank. I had no idea they could do that, especially since HSBC itself wasn't closing. But it gets worse: The nearest branch of the bank they would transfer my account to was not even within my state but the next state over, 100+ miles away, and I don't own a car. So that would not do, at all.

I saw received a notification about this just a few days before the transfer would happen. I went to an HSBC branch to ask about it and found out they supposedly had sent an opt out form a month or two earlier, which I never received. The only thing I got was what they sent a few days before the switch, which included "welcome to your new bank" material. Since the switch hadn't happened yet, I asked to opt out, and was told that wasn't possible. So then I asked to close my account, and was told they couldn't do that! My account was still and HSBC account, but they refused to let me close my account! The branch manager told me I had to close my account with the new bank after the transfer. I could not comprehend how I was standing in an HSBC bank, with an HSBC account, and they would not let me close my account. Made no sense to me at all. So I did the only thing left I could think of: I withdrew all of my money in that account and opened up a new bank account with another bank down the road.

I called the bank that HSBC had sold my account to to cancel the account, but they wouldn't let me since it wasn't their account yet (of course). So I waited a few days and called them again to cancel the account. They wouldn't let me. I was told I had to go to a bank branch and cancel it in person. I explained the whole situation about the unstoppable account transfer and the fact that I was not going to rent a car and travel 100+ miles just to cancel an account with no money in it (which I needed to cancel since they would charge low-balance fees). And I was told the same thing. I ended up having to call them several times over the course of the next few days before I managed to get them to cancel my account and undo the low-balance fees I was charged. About a week later I had the paper documentation of account closure that I made them send me, thereby finally ending my tale and cementing HSBC as a company I will never ever do business with again in any fashion.

</comment><comment><USER88> Go to a lawyer right now and pay for him to draft a letter that you will sue for damages if they dont resolve this by the end of the week. Send it to legal and watch how quickly they solve it

</comment><comment><USER89> it blows my mind that basically any financial crime committed by a big shop results in a fine (and more regulation/compliance) instead of jail time for the bad actors.

of course, if the crime is committed by a penny ante fraudster, then the DOJ is not afraid to put them in jail.

[https://www.amazon.com/Chickenshit-Club-Justice- Department-C...](https://www.amazon.com/Chickenshit-Club-Justice-Department- Criminals/dp/1501121367)

</comment><comment><USER90> Reminds me of those horror stories about PayPal.

You can always start a website like this one:

[http://www.paypalsucks.com/](http://www.paypalsucks.com/)

<comment><USER91> The interesting thing is that he thanks PayPal for their help in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> There better be some serious god damned compensation for that company at the end of this. Jesus Christ, I wouldn't even know where to start in estimating the damages.

</comment><comment><USER93> > but I appreciate they had to check

Nah, you shouldn't. "Know your customers" is BS, restrain your freedoms, and don't stop real frauders.

</comment><comment><USER94> This is a byproduct of HSBC's deferred prosecution agreement with the DoJ... They are overly cautious on pretty much everything.

</comment><comment><USER93> Now your account has been restored, empty it out and fund another account in another bank. HSBC is one of the worst bank.

</comment><comment><USER95> Does anyone have a datapoint on whether Barclays ever misbehaves like this for small business banking accounts?

<comment><USER96> I had my business account frozen by Barclays for similar reasons but they responded quickly and had me up and running again quickly. Basically I had an international customer making cash payments directly into my account at Barclays branches in the UK (I think he used some kind of underground international payments system). After a few times I got locked out of my account. They tried telling me it was an IT error. They opened the account back up in about a week but I was on the phone with them every day.

I now have multiple bank accounts and a currency broker that I also use like a bank.

Oddly enough I tried to open an account with HSBC after that but because I've got a couple customers in "naughty" countries they refused to open the account. Their attitude makes a total mockery of all the advertising they seem to have plastered around at airports all over the world.

<comment><USER45> > I now have multiple bank accounts and a currency broker that I also use like > a bank.

Transferwise? Any experience with that? Their offering sounds interesting.

<comment><USER96> I use CurrencyFair and am very happy with them. Transferwise are a bit cheaper but they since have VC money and are likely to be cheap only temporarily I haven't tried them out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> Be your own bank ;). Another nice use case for bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER18> HSBC — _Highly Suspicious Banking Corporation_

</comment><comment><USER98> Just go to Cater Allen next time, thank me later.

</comment><comment><USER99> > Then Apple failed. This was a strange one — it appears you actually need a > valid payment card associated with your Apple account or you cannot download > free apps or update existing ones.

I've always found this to be an issue that makes using a MAC a non-starter for me. I observed when I first got one (cast off) and it really puts me off.

<comment> k-mcgrady Can anyone verify if this is true? I know it was in the past but AFAIK when the App Store took off they removed this restriction allowing you to select 'none' as payment method and still download free apps (otherwise at the time a lot of iPod Touch customers - i.e. kids/teenagers - would not be able to have use their products). The 'none' option still exists so I don't see why you couldn't download free apps with that selected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> I'm not entirely clear why the author felt it was a productive use of his time to write several thousand words on this. HSBC aren't likely to be swayed by such an article. They've been fined billions, they're probably not worried about being "called out".

First of all:

Why are you depending on only one bank account to run your business? It's very easy to set up two or more business bank accounts and use them both. Just like you have back-ups for your data (right?), it makes a lot of sense to also have financial back-ups for your business.

Same with the debit/credit card - is that all you've got for business payments? Why don't you have more than one card? Why don't you move things over to a personal card while you open a second business card?

It's too late for that now as the author didn't set that all up ahead of time, but instead of complaining on the internet, why don't they start moving things ASAP. I've found Santander incredibly easy to get up and running with (same day almost), compared to Barclays...etc.

Look, you're running a business, and your job running a business is to keep it running. If you haven't thought ahead to such possible events, you're doing your business a disservice.

So my advice - call Santander, start switching things over, stop broadcasting things online, and focus on keeping your business running. You can always do a recap later once things have died down.

And I agree, HSBC are a complete PITA. It's far too much trouble even getting a personal account with them, so a business account would be far more effort than I would be looking for.

Even Barclays wanted an in-person meeting (even though I've banked with them for decades) to open a business bank account. And the only date they had available was a month in the future. Yup, I cancelled that appointment.

So, build redundancy into your business. At the very least a second bank account. It's easy, but as you can see, so very important. Just IMHO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Warning others from making the same mistake is extremely valuable.

Also please don't kick people when they're down. You probably wouldn't have gotten caught by this issue but I'm sure you have your own blind spots in other areas.

<comment><USER101> You will literally never see someone working at a successful business write something like this. Wonder why...

<comment><USER102> This account has been making way too many unsubstantive and/or uncivil comments. Please stop.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Gutenberg – A simple interface to the Project Gutenberg corpus - c-w https://bitbucket.org/c-w/gutenberg <comment> c-w Hey all, OP here.

I built this because I think that Project Gutenberg is a great resource for NLP (e.g. stylometry, tracking writing styles over time, authorship detection, ...) - I wanted to use the data on Project Gutenberg a number of times in the past but always ended up using another corpus because there wasn't an easy way to access the Project Gutenberg data. Hopefully this library fixes that.

The project currently is "works on my machine" quality, so please do report any bugs you stumble across.

Also, if you can think of any use-cases for the Project Gutenberg data that aren't easily doable using the functionality that is currently available in the library, please let me know (e.g. by filing a ticket on the Bitbucket repo).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is fantastic!

I just made a github repo for each Gutenber book: [https://github.com/GITenberg](https://github.com/GITenberg)

This will be very helpful, the XML/RDF files are a hassle.

<comment><USER2> Are the github repos intended to collect errata? Do you know of a database which has metadata for all the Gutenberg books?

<comment> c-w There's a database of RDF files that describe the books ([http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/feeds/rdf- files.tar.bz2](http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/feeds/rdf-files.tar.bz2)), but its a bit of a pain to use and doesn't link the books back to the API that should be used for crawling Project Gutenberg ([http://www.gutenberg.org/robot/harvest](http://www.gutenberg.org/robot/harvest)).

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the previous version of the metadata included a path to the ftp server. Splitting the book id (4443 -> 4/4/4/4443) works for _most_ books, but there were somewhere between 800 and 3000 books organized in a different folder structure that I still need to track down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wow this is just what I have been looking for. A few questions:-

1\. Is it possible to download files in html format? I really prefer ebooks in html cause I can attach my preferred "readSettings.css" to it that way. *

2\. Is it possible to run a custom script after the book has completed downloading?

3\. I don't understand what you mean by "Making meta-data about the texts easily accessible through a database" in the description. Can you expand a bit on this?

4\. Is it possible to specify other donwload contexts like "genre"

Oh Thanks a lot for this :) I always wanted a command line uitlity for project gutenberg.

* I also think that html files are lot easier to read on the phone as you can style them where as with the txt files you have got no choice but to use horizontal scrolling unless you are in a landscape mode.

<comment> c-w Your use-case is not what I built the library for (natural language processing, not text consumption), but let's see what we can do...

You can download HTML E-Books using the following command:

      python -m gutenberg.download -vvv --filetypes=html --limit=5mb ./ebooks

This will download 5mb of zipped E-Books for which there exists an HTML version to the ./ebooks directory.

It seems as though the legal disclaimers and copyright notices in the HTML files are all within <pre> tags so we can easily clean-up the files with a small shell script:

      EBOOK_DIR="./ebooks"

      find "${EBOOK_DIR}" -name *.zip -type f -exec unzip -d "${EBOOK_DIR}" {} \;
      find "${EBOOK_DIR}" -name *.html -type f -exec sed -i '/<[pP][rR][eE]>/,/<\/[pP][rR][eE]>/d' {} \;

This will probably not work for all E-Books, but it'll give you something to work with. Note that removing the copyright notices may or may not be against the Project Gutenberg terms of service.

Downloading E-Books via genre, author, etc. is not currently supported but is something that I wanted to implement - so watch this space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> +1 for bitbucket

</comment><comment><USER5> This is really awesome.</comment>


Europe's new data protection rules export privacy standards worldwide - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-data-protection-privacy-standards-gdpr-general-protection-data-regulation/ <comment><USER2> Shameless plug, but if you're in the SF Bay Area and want to learn more about GDPR, we're throwing an educational event on Wednesday 2/7: "GDPR: 4 letters, big trouble? Get up to speed on EU data privacy regulation" [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gdpr-4-letters-big-trouble- get-...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gdpr-4-letters-big-trouble-get-up-to- speed-on-eu-data-privacy-regulation-tickets-42104744424)

</comment><comment><USER3> What a utter non-sense tone for the article!

> Europe wants to conquer the world all over again.

So Europe makes new regulations that improve the life of european people and they try to spin it up as a global domination move. As a European I am really happy that I am more protected. If a company wants to make business with me I expect them to follow the local regulations! That is not a new world order plot, cmon.

Stronger regulation some times is better when made with the citizens in mind, see the TTIP. Why would we (europeans) want to reduce our food quality regulations? Why wouldn't we want a better data protection?

Specially after Equifax scandal, I am so happy that things are changing over Europe.

Edit: specified better what I think is non-sense

<comment><USER4> This is just one line in the article--it's meant to grab the readers attention.

The rest of the article provides real substance. Silly to claim the who article is nonsense based on one line.

<comment><USER3> I would have thought the same if the rest of the article didn't try to prove how it is a world domination move (just a few examples):

> Data protection is a good example of Europe trying to extend its influence > over other countries

> In response, legislators worldwide are scrambling to update their domestic > legislation

> the upcoming data protection changes risks being viewed as yet another > diktat handed down by former colonial powers in

> We're already seeing a number of countries falling in line with Europe

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought this was an interesting angle:

"U.S. policymakers argue that American data protection standards, enshrined in the constitution and enforced aggressively by the Federal Trade Commission, do more to guard against misuse than European standards, which often can be more bark than bite."

Can someone more familiar with the US constitution elaborate on what exactly it says about data protection?

<comment><USER6> They didn't do much about equifax so I'd be very suspicious of such statements about American data protection standards.

<comment><USER7> Nothing in the gdpr would ban equifax. Creditors will continue to have the right (legitimate interests) to create, submit data to, and use credit reports in decision making.

GDPR would have attached more liability to equifax (though 4% of global revenues really isn't that much), including a much shorter timeline on reporting the breach.

<comment><USER8> [https://www.eugdpr.org/key-changes.html](https://www.eugdpr.org/key- changes.html)

Apart from the fine and the notification of the breach. Equifax would have been different because of.

\- Consent : " companies will no longer be able to use long illegible terms and conditions full of legalese " \- Right to Access : " Further, the controller shall provide a copy of the personal data, free of charge, in an electronic format. " \- Right to be Forgotten \- Data Portability \- Data Protection Officers

But Europe ( the countries that i know about ) have different requirements rules for credit bureaus all together. So AFAIK there is little incentive for Equifax to hold European data at all.

<comment><USER7> The majority of those rights don't apply for reasons that should be obvious if you had even a modest understanding of the gdpr (see legitimate interest basis) and other related legislation. It is distinctly not helpful to spew misinformation on HN.

So that people don't rely on your lack of understanding of the gdpr:

* consent isn't required; it's merely one basis to permit processing

* since consent isn't required, it will be an extraordinary stretch to exercise a right to be forgotten. In fact, credit reports are probably one of the canonical cases where LI override most rights of the data subject.

* data access is not new; see DPA

* Equifax does, in fact, have an EU business; it is in the UK. And has offered £2 access to credit reports since 2010-ish. I recognize 2 > 0, but it is not significantly different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> bjelkeman-again Power and influence flow through the end of a pen rather than a gun. Very EU. Considering the generally poor state of data privacy and use of data about people, I must admit I think GDPR is for the good.

</comment><comment><USER9> I do like the idea of a world where nations compete with themselves to offer the best data privacy protections.

</comment><comment><USER4> I had just posted this GDPR guide with steps to implement the mandatory data protection:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16310501](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16310501)

<comment><AUTHOR> It actually looks like a good guide... enough to get started in the topic... at least until I saw the question on how to implement GDPR:

"If you're not sure about their compliance, time to act. You'll need to contact them and make sure they confirm they're GDPR complaint. That image needs to be 100% completed."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://www.eugdpr.org](https://www.eugdpr.org) as they didn't provide link in article

<comment><USER11> That website is run by a private company. A lot of the information on that website is wrong.

Here is a correct explanation in English of GDPR from the Irish regulator: [http://gdprandyou.ie/](http://gdprandyou.ie/)

Also the UK regulator: [https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the- general-da...](https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data- protection-regulation-gdpr/)

<comment><USER12> One of the most "interesting" parts of GDPR is that it delegates enforcement to ~25 member countries.

This leads to the situation where the interpretations can vary greatly from country to country. We might see a very pro business Irish agency saying one thing and the Danish saying another.

Remains to be seen if that will lead to compliance shopping like in some finance regimes or if every enforcement group will get to come after every firm.

<comment><USER7> If and when a business has a lead regulator is discussed in the A29 WG.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My hat is off to EU, doing what is right to protect individuals from the evil do'ers/

</comment><comment><USER14> I know the knee-jerk reaction on Hacker News will be that this is really a positive outcome ... but I think people are not actually digesting the consequences of the wholesale export of EU regulations across the world.

The EU has many regressive regulations based on outdated notions with regards to the rights of individuals.

Just one example: in the US if someone is involved in egregious fraud (such as ripping off thousands of individuals in a scam) then the US says that such information constitutes news and that even if its old information from a decade ago its relevant, and a platform like Kickstarter or Google can keep the information online for users to assess before transacting with the individual.

In Europe this could be deemed illegal. There's a right to be forgotten in Europe. And sometimes even relevant and newsworthy information can be ordered to be purged from databases.

The Europeans don't want companies or users deciding on the rules for platforms. They want to make one rule and apply it across all platforms. Not only that, they don't really think through the implications of some standards. Like if there is a right to be forgotten, can companies like Kickstarter really afford to scrutinize every request for deletion of data and use a lawyer to determine if the request is justified? Of course not. They will just make an algorithm and automatically delete the information. The value of the platform in the long term will decline as fraud from years ago is purged.

There is a cost and benefit to all types of censorship. Censorship of information about individuals isn't always just positive. There are lots of serial fraudsters who get away with decades of shenanigans because information about them is not readily available.

Also, and this is more controversial, I happen to think many types of privacy (but not all) are really just cultural artifacts of right now and don't have much utility from a political and economic perspective. Of course there is a value to protecting the privacy of private communication to prevent the rise of totalitarian states, etc., but some other kinds of privacy are really just around to avoid personal embarrassment. But the standards for embarrassment are always changing. At one time we were all running around half-naked and fornicating in small tribes where there was literally no privacy. So there's nothing innate in our nature that says that certain activities must be kept private. Its merely custom that such and such activities can be used to embarrass an individual.

In the future, it may be that even presidential candidates will have some embarrassing selfies distributed online, and maybe even some dic pics or boob shots from their youth ... and probably nobody will care much ... except to say ... damn, my future president has a fire crotch ... or something like that. But it will be said in passing, and nobody will care much. Just like nobody gave two shits about Obama smoking choom.

<comment><USER15> Think your point that the value of different kinds of privacy varies with cultural norms and as such, may be over-valued, is an interesting one but have to object to this part - don't think it's a good example.

> Just one example: in the US if someone is involved in egregious fraud (such > as ripping off thousands of individuals in a scam) then the US says that > such information constitutes news and that even if its old information from > a decade ago its relevant, and a platform like Kickstarter or Google can > keep the information online for users to assess before transacting with the > individual.

So long as it's profitable, scammers are going to find ways to scam no matter what, such creating fake identities in this case. I'd rather trade that against a teenager committing suicide because of revenge porn.

<comment><USER14> It's not as easy as you think to shed an identity and make a new one for fraud when the identity is linked to real-world ID in many jurisdictions.

The teen suicide issue is unrelated. Facts, such as news stories about fraud, are not the same thing as media, such as a porn video. Regulations can easily bifurcate between the two so its a false tradeoff. What is telling is that the regulators in Europe have chosen NOT to make this distinction. And in fact they have EXPLICITLY protected people's right to purge news stories about their fraud ... showing a disdain for making such a judgment in favor of information freedom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is interesting. Maybe one of the few things Europe contributes/exports (in tech)

<comment><USER17> You can thank EU also for microusb being (having been?) a standard for all smartphones and devices.

And don't forget those GREAT cookie privacy popups on every site you visit! /s

<comment><USER9> > You can thank EU also for microusb being (having been?) a standard for all > smartphones and devices.

I do. Say what you will about that connector, but it was definitely an improvement over the situation that preceded its standardization.</comment></comment></comment>