When Do Extraordinary Claims Give Extraordinary Evidence? (2007) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/extraord.pdf <comment><USER2>
        For example, you would assign a very low prior probability to your friend telling you that she met her 5'2" tall second cousin last Tuesday at   8:47am at 11 feet northwest of the smaller statue in a certain square. Nevertheless, after   she made such a claim to you, you would likely place a high    probability that the event happened as claimed. On topics   like this, most people are fairly reliable.

This is a bad example. "you would assign a very low prior probability to your friend telling you __________". If it was a prediction, yes, that would be extraordinary, but it's not.

Its the same as if someone told you they flipped a coin 100 times and got a certain sequence of heads and tails. The probability of that happening is 1/2^100, but it's only extraordinary if you predict it in advance.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've always found the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" meme ridiculous. It defies reason and the scientific method. Extraordinary claims simply need evidence they're true. That's it. Then, analysis and experiments should be conceived to determine why they contradict the "ordinary" model plus look for sources of error. If error or deceit are found, then the extraordinary claim is rejected. If not, the "ordinary" model is amended or rejected with data from new.

That simple. The need for extraordinary evidence seems to just promote orthodoxy. Better to focus on data and methods.

<comment><USER4> In context, that expression refers to claims that contradict existing evidence.

For example, if someone finds a way to create mass/energy, that would be extraordinary. All existing evidence suggests mass/energy is conserved. Even if no one has tried XYZ before, the evidence of XYZ creating energy has to be weighed against the evidence of thousands of (other) processes _not_ doing that. It's possible someone made a mistake, or the results are being interpreted incorrectly.

While there is an ideal, the reality is that "evidence" is of varying types and qualities, and that perfect evidence is not always feasible.

In the US, criminal convictions ("extraordinary" claims) require proof beyond reasonable doubt. But civil convictions ("ordinary" claims) require only a preponderance of the evidence.

<comment><USER5> That may be the ideal usage, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it used that way. If the phrase is about contradicting existing evidence, we should just say that instead.

<comment><USER3> My point exactly. "Extraordinary evidence" just seems made up. I only require more and/or better evidence to back up an extraordinary claim versus claims contradicting it.

<comment><USER6> > more and/or better evidence

So, in other words, evidence that is beyond the ordinary. If only there were a prefix that could be applied here.

<comment><USER3> No, ordinary evidence or models that fit the observed data better or make more accurate predictions. I leave out the extraordinary part except for when praising scientists for talented observations or methods.

<comment><USER4> Okay. Well, here extraordinary is _supposed_ to mean better/more then ordinary.

But if it means talented or praiseworthy or something similar, then I whole- heatedly agree.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Accidental Renaissance Photos - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/aug/06/accidental-renaissance-photojournalism-italian-painting-ukraine-frank-lampard <comment><USER2> There is a subreddit dedicated to such photos. Many of the top submissions are quite good.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AccidentalRenaissance/top/?sort=top...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AccidentalRenaissance/top/?sort=top&t=all)

<comment><USER3> For the guardian article to not mention this, where the inspiration obviously came from, feels off.

<comment><USER4> The subreddit was made after the guardian piece was published.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> it is striking how quickly the hyperlinks twitter uses have rotted; the links are now useless with no way to recover the content, stripping this article of much of its value. All within a year.

<comment><USER6> I only see two tweets linked, one works and the other fails because it was deleted. Are there more than I'm missing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm confused. The writer of the article seems to think that modern photographers are unacquainted with the golden ratio. However, it's mentioned in just about any web link on composition just after the "rule of thirds". This shouldn't be surprising, and it's not at all accidental. It's entirely planned by the photographer. Kind of a weird article to write. Did they not have any photographers on staff to ask about it? (Serious question - I know that the Chicago Tribune recently fired all their photogs and now have reporters use cell phones for their photos.)

</comment><comment><USER8> Seems like deep dream should be able to find batches of these.</comment>


Magnetic Compass Orientation in Birds Builds Case for Bio-Inspired Sensors - <AUTHOR> http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2014/05/09.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> Related, but previously submitted without comment:

"Quantum positioning system steps in when GPS fails"

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229694.000-quantum-p...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229694.000-quantum- positioning-system-steps-in-when-gps-fails.html)</comment>


Ask HN: What should a one-man commercial app launch look like? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> It is hard to describe what you are asking.

1-) You must solve a problem of a niche industry. 2-) You should do it very simply because you are one man operation. Don't add too many functions / options so you can maintain it until you grow your "one man" operation. 3-) Pick an industry which won't change very fast so you can actually market your product.

Other than these 3 common things, I can't think of anything until you describe your product a little.

<comment><AUTHOR> The web app is a job board with paid postings. It's targetted towards web developers and people that employ/recruit web developers. The cost-per-post is $5. The interface is simple. Anyone could make this.

The questions I have...

1.) What steps are involved given the information I've given above, assuming nothing else? 2.) What kind of strategies would you use when launching?

I figured this would be a fun thought-experiment. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> What language/framework will you use?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've decided to go a different route. Check this post out.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18907021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18907021)

I'm using PHP/Laravel.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Beal's Conjecture Revisited - <AUTHOR> http://norvig.com/beal.html <comment><USER2> _However, I made an error back in 2000: my program ruled out all cases where A and B had a common factor, but actually, as long as C does not also share the factor, it is a valid counterexample._

Is there a proof for Norvig's less stringent "misinterpretation" that only A and B must share a prime factor? Or is it also unproved? What about C and just one of the others? Is it clear that all these cases are true or false together?

<comment><USER3> I don't know how Peter Norvig missed that, but if A and B have a common prime factor, then C obviously also shares that factor (by prime number theorem). The same is true for any other pair.

<comment><USER4> As a tiny matter of terminology, "prime number theorem" is usually reserved for the theorem on the asymptotic number of primes ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number_theorem)). I would probably just say "by prime factorisation", or, if you want to be really precise, "by Euclid's lemma" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid%27s_lemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid%27s_lemma)).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Aside from playing, what is the use of this? To be sure, there's nothing _wrong_ with playing, but I think that intellectual honesty would demand that Norvig acknowledge that this (running a straightforward Python program) is not how the conjecture will eventually be resolved, even if it is false.

I suppose somebody has to check the small possibilities, but true numerical search uses algorithms that are either incredibly optimised or run on huge time scales in order to check truly huge numbers. See, for example, the discussion of the Collatz conjecture at [http://sweet.ua.pt/tos/3x+1.html](http://sweet.ua.pt/tos/3x+1.html) , where experimental verification is currently up to 2^(60) \approx 10^(18).

<comment><AUTHOR> To be fair, he does cover this in the conclusion at the end of this article and mentions how everything started in the original post from 2000:

[http://norvig.com/beal2000.html](http://norvig.com/beal2000.html)

<comment><USER4> Good point! I just saw the beginning, had that negative reaction, and closed the tab; I should have given Norvig more credit.</comment></comment></comment>


AMD Announces Ryzen "Zen 3" and Radeon "RDNA2" Presentations for October - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/16077/amd-announces-ryzen-zen-3-and-radeon-rdna2-presentations-for-october-a-new-journey-begins <comment><USER2> This is an announcement of an announcement. Those are off topic here. There's no harm in waiting.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22announcement%20of%20an%20an...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22announcement%20of%20an%20announcement%22&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22no%20harm%20in%20waiting%22...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22no%20harm%20in%20waiting%22%20by:dang&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment)

<comment><USER3> This announcement of an announcement is very important for people looking to buy a GPU now.

<comment><USER2> Fair point, but we have to go for the global optimum, which is having the most interesting front page. That means sacrificing local optima, so you may be right that there isn't _no_ harm in waiting. Most of the people you mention (at least the ones who read HN) are probably googling for GPU information, though, so I doubt there will be too many GPU purchase disasters.

The trouble with "announcement of an announcement" posts isn't just that they're unsubstantive and lead to generic discussions ([https://hn.algolia.com/?query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment)). It's also that when the real announcement is made, we end up with a duplicate thread.

I suppose this follows from the competing interests of the publishers and this forum. Their interest is to copy the same information to as many places as possible; our interest is to deduplicate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> With Intel stuck in process hell for a while longer, I primarily hope AMD can gain ground on Nvidia. They are pushing a lot of innovation and gaining market dominance, both in the ML/GPGPU space and gaming (with ray tracing, upscaling, etc).

We need some competition to keep prices low and innovation high medium to long term.

<comment><USER5> Chips are in the pipeline for many years, so products being released today are probably on the tail end of being impacted by AMD cutting GPU budgets to the bone to focus on Zen. I wouldn't expect miracles.

Given AMD's market cap and financial success, I bet they're working on competitive designs now. There's no money in being an also ran in the space.

<comment><USER6> The information available around Big Navi (The GPUs expected to launch next month) put them at a +50% performance jump from the last generation and likely able to compete with the Nvidia flagship 3080: [https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-big_navi-rdna2-all- we-...](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-big_navi-rdna2-all-we-know)

I'd really urge anyone wanting to opine on these issues to watch the official analyst day videos and read through the releases AMD has put out so far in terms of architecture and other tech decisions they've made: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMNwLVJQzGs&t=10064s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMNwLVJQzGs&t=10064s)

<comment><USER7> > The information available around Big Navi (The GPUs expected to launch next > month) put them at a +50% performance jump from the last generation and > likely able to compete with the Nvidia flagship 3080

I guess it depends on what benchmark you care about but for AMD to compete with a 3080, which is 70-100% faster than a 2080, which is 10-20% faster than AMD's current flagship, they need to do a lot better than +50%.

<comment><USER8> Isn't the Nvidia flagship the RTX 3090? The overclockers uk website has the most expensive 3090 (Asus one) at ~1600gbp. On paper this should destroy everything else available atm.

<comment><USER6> In the kitchen keynote, their CEO positioned the 3080 as the flagship card and the 3090 as the Titan replacement(higher vram for things like large model runs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Rumor has it AMD has a competitive GPU but will not pursue the high-end market mostly because of their limited TSMC slots, they can make much more money from a CPU wafer than a GPU one ( due to area size and yield )

But I really hope I'm wrong and they kick Nvidia ass since they become such intolerable arrogant anti-competitive pricks in the last +10 years.

<comment><USER10> The last time I owned an AMD video card was more than a decade ago. At the time their video card drivers needed work and could blue screen your box. There was a lot of back and forth on the internet about which driver version to load to get the most stable experience.

Fast forward to 2020 and the perception about AMD's video driver quality seems to be in a similar place: [https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/radeon-big-navi- driver-issues-f...](https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/radeon-big-navi-driver- issues-fix). This may just be confirmation bias since there are also articles refuting that AMD still has driver issues.

On the gripping hand AMD themselves apparently acknowledge they have issues and are trying to address them . [https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd- drivers-update-downloa...](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-drivers- update-download-adrenalin-2020)

<comment><USER11> > Fast forward to 2020 and the perception about AMD's video driver quality > seems to be in a similar place

Maybe for Windows, but the same cannot be said of Linux or macOS, where AMD's choice to open-source their drivers has led to these OSes having great support; while Nvidia, having to support their own closed-source drivers, seemingly hasn't had the bandwidth to get their drivers for these OSes up to par.

<comment><USER12> This. I've already decided my next GPU will be AMD regardless of if it's competitive at the top end in terms of performance. I am so sick of nVidia's Linux driver bullshit that I cannot wait to drop them. I don't game that much anymore anyway.

<comment><USER13> AMD is great for gaming on Linux, especially with projects like radv and ACO.

<comment><USER12> I'm not super interested in Linux gaming, I just want my desktop to be usable.

<comment><USER14> Honest question: If you're not interested in gaming, why even get a discrete GPU and not an integrated one? Are you interested in using it for other purposes?

<comment><USER12> I dual boot Windows for gaming. I work and code on Linux, except my monitor setup + nvidia graphics card results in a virtually unusable desktop. Integrated graphics can't run multiple 4k screens very well, if at all.

<comment><USER13> I do all my gaming on Linux and AMD works very well for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a linux-only user (and gamer), nvidia is a plain no-go for me so i just hope that rdna2 is not entirely disappointing like RDNA1 was. For us Linux gamers a working VFIO on a consumer card would be a dream of course since nvidia is locking that to their workstations cards, maybe AMD just throws it in as a goody.

Zen3 is propably gonna kick-butt, especially in any non-gaming task perhaps AMD will inch closer to Intel in gaming loads aswell, but i don't care too much.

<comment><USER16> I have had perfect working VFIO setups with both the 1070 and 1080ti from nVidia, there are many comprehensive guides and working around the driver error code 43 is quite trivial.

<comment><USER15> That's nice but an error thats designed to fuck me as a customer is a good reason not to buy from that company, and the general state of nvidia drivers on linux makes me not want to chose them for a new build. Nonetheless, i'm glad to hear you got it working, it sure is a fun thing to do.

<comment><USER17> > the general state of nvidia drivers on linux

... is great? They have been well supported for decades, has working drivers for every GPU on release day and even 10+ year old cards get updated drivers for new kernels / X servers whereas AMD takes months/years to have usable drivers in a stable kernel.

<comment><USER15> Is that so? I always here: stay away from nvidia on Linux, especially but not limited to using Wayland. Is that truly not the case?

<comment><USER17> Well, my experience [1] has been nearly perfect, certainly much better than what I've had with AMD. Nvidia has been pretty much plug&play for me for a long time, with very few issues.

For Wayland yes, Nvidia is using a different approach than AMD/Intel so most desktop environments don't support the Nvidia way, resulting in a poor experience. That said, Wayland desktops as a whole are still quite some time away from reaching feature parity with X, so I'm not too worried just yet.

[1] For reference, I've been using Linux (and only Linux) on the desktop for ~18 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If the rumors are true about increased frequency _and_ IPC for Zen3, we should be in for quite a ride. Zen4 and a shrink to 5nm next year ought to produce some further benefits.

I'm too old to "hate" Intel but the improvements we are seeing from both sides these last couple of years make clear how bad the stagnation had gotten. Gotta have competition!

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if Zen 3 will finally let AMD pass Intel in single threaded performance. I thought they had already, but just a few days ago I checked benchmarks and saw that my 8086K still beats a 3800XT.

Though maybe I'm stuck in the past a bit thinking that single threaded performance is even still important for games.

<comment><USER20> Its not just games, firefox with ublock+ and a dark mode plugin are noticeably faster on fast single threaded machines.

<comment><USER19> I was going to add "and typical PC tasks" but ended up taking it out because everyone's version of typical on a PC is different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It was already a dire situation running a Mac with eGPU or a Hackintosh even before the RTX 30-series announcement, and much more dire after that.

The likeliness of Apple allowing NVIDIA to produce Mac drivers again is close to zero. It'd be nice for AMD to be able to compete with GPUs again.

<comment><USER22> Apple Silicon will contain an Apple-designed GPU, so it might soon be irrelevant for Mac users what AMD has to offer.

<comment><USER23> I highly suspect Apple will still ship (and support) AMD GPUs - maybe for the iMac Pro and Mac Pro. I doubt that Apple Silicon GPUs will be close to the performance to AMD/NVidias flagships. And I assume the market share for iMac/Mac Pro is just not that big for Apple to invest in competing with AMD/Nvidia on the Highend Segment.

<comment><USER24> OTOH Apple also needs dedicated GPUs for some of their MBPs and the bigger iMacs.

I think they will end up ditching AMD to have 100% E2E control on all their products.

<comment><USER25> Apple's MBP drivers have been broken since 2016 and getting worse, high- frequency locked and thereby thermally throttling the CPU at idle. I don't know if that means Apple Silicon will be better or if they are just incompetent at it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I feel RDNA 2, at the very best would prove to be something in between of what Zen+ and Zen 2 was against Intel, so while it may not outperform Nvidia on highest end, it ends up providing an overall better value, leading to people buying over Nvidia.

It is worth noting that unlike, Intel, Nvidia isn't sitting ducks when it comes to GPU innovation so that's a harder hill to climb for AMD. And fortunately AMD now has their cash cow running with Ryzen, EPYC and Consoles so they can allocate more R&D budget for GPU.

</comment><comment><USER24> Very excited about this. I wasn't really a fan of AMD, but I built a machine with a Ryzen 3700X last year and I've been super impressed.

Personally I don't really care if RDNA2 is not as powerful as the Ampere GPUs as long as the price is competitive. I want to update my 1070 just for playing Cyberpunk 2077 when it comes out, but since I don't play that much anymore it doesn't make sense to go all-in on the GPU.

</comment><comment><USER27> I recently bought a Ryzen 3900X. I hope Linux eventually supports these processors better. There has been some serious stabilization issues I eventually tracked down to being related to my processor. These issues required me to spend a significant amount of time researching. Things seem to just work with Intel processors. I'm hoping as popularity increases support for these processors will improve.

<comment><USER28> >serious stabilization issues

Care to go into more detail? I've just installed a server with a 3700X and the only issues I've experienced have been that I need a custom kernel module in order to get CPU temperature and power data (zenpower)

<comment><USER29> >I need a custom kernel module in order to get CPU temperature and power data (zenpower)

Is this on an old Ubuntu version or something? This was only true in the early days of these CPUs, which was last year. Temps have been working for a long time in the Arch world, but maybe it's different in point release hell.

<comment><USER28> >Is this on an old Ubuntu version or something?

I don't know, although I'm running the latest Ubuntu (20.04.1), with kernel 5.4.0-45-generic

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> At the beginning of the year I thought AMD were going to have an amazing year. I think they'll probably continue beating Intel but the new nVidia cards look really good, and very good value.

I hope AMD still have an ace up their sleeve.

<comment><USER31> > I think they'll probably continue beating Intel but the new nVidia cards > look really good, and very good value.

AMD have much lower power consumption, that was my main motivator for Ryzen and AMD Radeon as dev station.

<comment><USER32> Really? The general sense about AMD has almost always been the reverse, both as compared to Intel and Nvidia in those respective spaces.

<comment><USER33> 5 years of process stagnation (Intel) will do that. Samsung's 8nm process used in Nvidia's cards is not as good as TSMC 7nm and that shows in their power consumption. Historically Nvidia's architectural efficiency has been much higher so it's not a given that RDNA2 will be more efficient even with the process advantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Would an AMD event like this usually be an announcement about future products, a paper launch, or could one expect to buy one of these processors soon like? I'm looking to build a new system around an RTX 30-something. I would even consider a pre-built system if I can't get my hands on retail parts.

<comment><USER35> Same here; I decided about a month ago that I wanted to upgrade, and that I wanted to go AMD this time, but then I found out Zen 3 was right around the corner so I've been anxiously awaiting its release so I can move forward

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm in the market for an apu ? should I wait for these new processors or just bite the bullet on a 3400G. not a serious gamer, or hardly play games at all. but an alternative to the xbox one s, I have would be nice. games I would like to play e.g strategy | tactics are not available on console.

<comment><USER37> The AMD naming conventions are a little confusing, so it's not obvious, but the 3400G is based on Zen+. They have announced Zen 2 APUs [0], but they are not available directly - just in pre-built systems. That may change at some point. These are a huge improvement over Zen+, but I wouldn't wait around for retail availability of Zen 3 APUs!

[0] [https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd- ryzen-7-4700g](https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-4700g)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm pretty excited to see what they'll offer in the 10- to 16-core range for Zen 3 and if they'll hit the magical 5GHz mark.

Anyone else remember the promised 10GHz of the NetBurst? It's nice to see the industry slowly creeping up to that number.

</comment><comment><USER39> Besides processors, AMD knows how to design a good hype train.

<comment><USER25> They are masters of the hype cycle. The hype bicycle, nowadays.

<comment><USER40> Including the most important part of the AMD hype bicycle, backpedaling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm worried that the choice of not going first with the RDNA2 presentation is because they know it's going to be disappointing and not competitive with RTX 3000.

<comment><USER42> It's not out of the question to save the best part of a presentation for last.

<comment><USER43> Sure - but waiting to announce (and hopefully release) for over a month after your competitor is SHIPPING is a sure way to lose sales. At the very least they need to leak potential pricing and performance in the mean time.

<comment><USER44> Is October 8th really a month after Nvidia is shipping?

I'm not sure how many units Nvidia is really going to move before then...

<comment><USER43> Per the article you're commenting on... RDNA2 is being announced October 28th. NVidia is SHIPPING RTX 3k on the 17th.

[https://www.techradar.com/news/rtx-3080](https://www.techradar.com/news/rtx-3080)

So yes, October 28th is more than a month after September 17th. Maybe read the article next time before you downvote.

<comment><USER44> I didn't down vote.

Sorry I misread the article.

Anyway I am still highly, highly skeptical Nvidia is going to move a lot of units so close to launch. The first batch is going to sell out in moments and from then on they will only be available way above retail price. Happens every time...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I commented earlier, but figured to add some more:

I'm rooting for AMD and also looking to replace a 2012 MBP with an AMD laptop. The defacto cards for ML work seem to be NVDIA (eg their RTX line, [https://timdettmers.com/2020/09/07/which-gpu-for-deep- learni...](https://timdettmers.com/2020/09/07/which-gpu-for-deep- learning/#TLDR_advice))

Does anyone know if pytorch/sci-kit might offer more support to AMD cards?

<comment> t-vi PyTorch is increasing support. It had CI for a long time, has been buildable for all this year without too many caveats, and I would expect nightlies to be advertised sometime soon, maybe the next stable release will even also have it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The elephant in the room is (non-free) drivers/compilers

You can lose 90% of theoretical performance due to code quality and (especially in a laptop) thermals.

<comment><USER46> AFAIK AMD is more open than the alternatives

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Unless they are going to announce that they will stop letting motherboards lock your cpus, I don't see why I should be excited.

<comment><USER48> Why wouldn't you buy a Ryzen because some epyc chips get locked?

<comment><USER47> I can't support AMD as a company as long as they are doing that on any of their products.

<comment><USER49> So what kind of CPUs do you buy, with both Intel and AMD out of the game?

<comment><USER47> I'm mad at intel for what they did in the past, im mad at amd for what they are currently doing, which do you think will win out?

<comment><USER49> As Intel's Boot Guard is essentially the same feature, and not a thing of the past, my guess was neither of the two. I didn't try to be snarky, I'm really interested in alternatives.

<comment><USER47> I can't find anything on google about Intel boot guard meaning that plugging a cpu into a motherboard can bind that cpu to that motherboard such that putting it into another motherboard no longer works.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where to buy/sell mac apps (code/sales rights)? - <AUTHOR>

Looking for something like flippa.com, but for mac apps. If there is none, what do you think would be the best way to sell an app ? I'm thinking about letting another developer take over Hands Off!, as I'm focusing on a new app. <comment><USER2> You could checkout <http://appbodega.com>. It's an App Store alternative and works as a standalone app that you need to install on your Mac. You can sell your apps via Bodega as a developer. Though you cannot "Buy and Sell" apps. I think most licenses for apps would normally limit resale of apps to another buyer. So something on the exact lines of flippa.com may not be possible due to license restrictions.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am aware of App Bodega, but as you said, it's like the App Store. It's not meant to sell source code/copyrights/sales rights/website/etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So, Apptopia (<https://www.apptopia.com/>) doesn't list Mac apps today, but if you do have a buyer lined up, they'll do the transfer and provide escrow on the cheap.</comment>


Show HN: Tweedium – Transform your tweetstorms to Medium posts - <AUTHOR> http://tweedium.com/ <comment><USER2> Great idea. But when I am on the homepage of Tweedium, I felt lonely. Like I am the only one here and nobody else has joined :)

You could show some posts users have already made using Tweedium. Popular posts, latest posts or anything.

Because people love to see what others have done before they login with their social accounts.</comment>


Show HN: Math Machine – a game based on the concept of a stack machine - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.woodencloset.mathmachine.android

<comment><USER2> FYI - I wasn't able to find your app on my nexus when searching for "math machine". I found it only when looked for "woodencloset".

As for the app - great idea and nice implementation, but for someone who understands what to do right from the beginning, "hints"-popups are really annoying. Maybe add a button "I know what I'm doing" or something like that to allow to skip them?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea. I'll think where I can add this without having people press it by mistake and getting lost. About the search, that's an unfortunate part of the play store discovery problem. They prioritize ratings/downloads over keywords...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sweet! Reminds me of [https://medium.com/@mathbreakers/turing- trains-5e203076b891](https://medium.com/@mathbreakers/turing- trains-5e203076b891) and [http://pleasingfungus.com/Manufactoria/](http://pleasingfungus.com/Manufactoria/) :-]

Are you thinking of making more math-related games?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'm actually working on a programming game, light-bot style. I don't have any specific math idea right now, but I'd love to make another one.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I worked on this game alone for about a month. As a programmer by trade, the design, art and sound effects took most of my time :)

\- Programmed in Java, using libgdx as the engine

\- Sound effects made with sfxr

\- Art made with Gimp and Inkscape</comment>


Insurance Company Says NotPetya Is an "Act of War", Refuses to Pay - <AUTHOR> https://ridethelightning.senseient.com/2019/01/insurance-company-says-notpetya-is-an-act-of-war-refuses-to-pay.html <comment><USER3> This is why I try to avoid insurance policies wherever possible.

It's still hard to argue with people questioning why I don't buy insurance for my $25k or so of household contents in a relatively secure building.

I don't care how cheap the policy is, I'm assuming they're charging more than they payout on average, and I lock my doors consistently.

<comment><USER4> I... Don't get this mentality. Yes replacing 25k worth of contents isn't _that_ big a deal (although it would suck), but in a fire there are other costs that dwarf your contents. Think about how much your building/unit is worth. If the fire started in your place, you could be responsible for all these damages (and especially your neighbour's). Can you afford to repay a whole new building for you and your neighbours + their contents? How about living out of a hotel for a few months while the place is being repaired (which repairs you'll have to cover too) and potentially paying your neighbours' bills for that as well? How does that compare to a 1000$ deductible and a 300$/year premium? To me it's a no brainer. If you really want a low premium, get a 2 or 5k deductible, 5k contents, and shop around. You'll also get added protection like third party liability which is usually minimum 1 million $ and covers any damage you'd do to other's property. Of course no-one wakes up thinking they'll set their house on fire or flood the unit under them. And yet that happens every day. I don't know anyone who didn't have insurance and who got struck by a fire/flood/other damages say that they regret nothing and wouldn't buy insurance if they could go back in time.

<comment><USER5> _> Yes replacing 25k worth of contents isn't that big a deal (although it would suck),_

This would be absolutely devastating to most people in America (and the world). Being able to tank a $25k loss without any insurance help is a very privileged position.

I don't have a point of contention with your comment. I just wanted to make that observation, because I think it can be easy for many of us to forget it.

<comment><USER6> I'm sure that most of that 25k wouldn't need to be replaced. Clothes, dishes, furniture would be the main items. And for me, 90 percent of my closest really needs to be purged.

<comment><USER7> In an apartment or house fire, you've lost _everything_. Picture your bathroom in your mind and think of everything you need to replace just in that one room.

Toiletries and soaps. Towels and washcloths. The shower caddy and the shower curtain. The plunger. The cleaners under the sink. The books on the back of the toilet.

Now do the same calculation in your kitchen, your bedroom, your family room. The couch, those chairs, a TV, your mattress and box spring and bedsheets and blankets, dishes and glassware and silverware, pots and pans, and so on. Even if you own cheap stuff, that all adds up very quickly into a loss most people can't readily absorb, even when you factor out the pile of stuff you don't wear any more and really ought to donate. I think we could inventory a lower/middle-income renter's belongings and spend $25K pretty easily.

<comment><USER8> And do it while suddenly homeless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why should "act of war" not be covered?

If I'm going broke because of a war, why shouldn't my insurance company?

Similar, with natural disasters, those should be covered by default -- insurance companies can easily spread the risk geographically..

These exceptions feels like legacy from the "good" old days when wars were common and globalization limited.

<comment><USER10> Because insurance companies are generally in the business of insuring unsystemic risk.

The entire model breaks down in cases of systemic risk, unless that has been accounted for and dealt with. Which is why it's a major element of insurance policies.

<comment> daniel-cussen In Chile the insurance companies have fine print saying they won't cover injuries resulting from paramilitary activities (reasonably sensible, OK) or anything nuclear, right down to a nuclear bomb.

<comment><USER11> Even in the US it is common for home insurance to not cover nuclear war -- mine specifically says it doesn't for example. Although I suspect not getting an insurance settlement would be the least of my concerns in that event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how that insurance company expects to continue business. If they don't pay in case of damage, why would anyone buy insurance from them?

<comment><USER13> The thing you're buying from an insurance company is "Can you pay me in case of a covered claim?" not "Can you pay me if I need money because something bad happened?" If you buy medical insurance and file a claim because your house burned down, expect not to get money. If you file a claim which falls into the policy exclusions which are briefed at excruciating length and which you had your lawyers review because you are a professional risk manager and know this policy's value to you is potentially nine figures, expect to not get money.

The reason companies with very intelligent risk managers keep paying Zurich money is that _Zurich reliably pays out covered claims_ , as you would expect from a highly-regulated entity. HN's incredulity about insurance companies routinely paying out claims staggers the imagination. They're highly regulated publicly traded companies which denominated claims expenses in (in this case) billions of dollars; that isn't code for "Psych we actually just bought _mountains_ of cocaine and would have successfully hoodwinked all counterparties, regulators, and courts but for the diligence of Internet commenters."

<comment><USER5> This seems like an overly snarky and patronizing response which mostly dances around the point at hand. You've effectively sidestepped the discussion to talk down to HN commenters as a whole because you think they're ignorant of The Way Things Work in risk management and insurance. That's likely true; it's also dismissive. Thank you for explaining to us all how insurance works, but to be honest I don't think that resolves whether or not this claim should be paid.

All we're talking about is whether or not they are right to not pay out _this specific claim._ Do you have any justification for this being an act of war? What is your position on that particular issue? Your comment portrays a world in which lawyers don't disagree because they all meticulously defined and agreed to a contract. I think it's very fair to conjecture neither side thought of this particular scenario, and that as a result, there is a legitimate problem about which reasonable people (and lawyers) disagree.

Moreover, I think it's fair to have the orthogonal - but related - <USER2> about whether or not "acts of war" _should_ be covered, even if they ultimately prove not to be in this scenario. I think it's okay if we debate this even if we're not all experts in law, insurance and risk pooling. We're not directing policy here, we're commenting on a message board.

Note that I'm not crusading against insurance, nor am I saying lawyers are dumb or malicious. But I am trying to convey the very even-handed position that people are fallible. Your comment strikes me as more of a lecture than a substantive response to whether or not fallible people could be making a mistake in rejecting a claim. Consider the _spirit_ of the comment to which you replied - yes, this may turn out to be by the book for this insurance firm. But if that's the case, it can still be true that potential customers will not want to purchase coverage from them because "act of war" hacking is a risk they want to (quantifiably) share.

<comment><USER13> As I stated downthread, this claim hitting the exclusion feels very plausible to me. Hostile acts by a foreign government are excluded. The US national security apparatus is so convinced that they have Russia dead to rights on this that they've publicized their accusation and evidence. Their accusation is that Russia destabilized core infrastructure in several countries as cyber aircover for the conventional war in eastern Ukraine that no intellectually serious person disputes is happening.

I think Zurich is very plausibly right by the letter and spirit of the bespoke contract which they struck with a sophisticated counterparty who had competent legal advice.

You should certainly price in the risk that, if you have an uncovered loss that you wish your insurance company would cover, your insurance company will point to the contract and say "Uncovered loss; no."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _" hostile or warlike action in time of peace or war"_

A lot of comments jump on the war and cyber war definitions, but the article states the exclusion is based on a "hostile or warlike action", which is a much looser definition.

Based on the announcement of multiple governments that this attack is from Russian origin this exclusion might very well be justified.

<comment><USER15> Couldn't most hacking attempts be defined as "hostile actions"? And the second part "at a time of peace or war" effectively means all the time. Seems like an extremely broad exclusion.

<comment><USER14> Yea, I thought that too. I imagine either the "or warlike" part or additional text that was not quoted narrows it down to state actors or state-like actors (e.g. terror groups like ISIS or al-Qaida). Would still be a very broad definition.

<comment><USER16> I have no idea how the law would interpret it, but while 'hostile warlike act' might narrow the scope as you suggest, 'hostile _or_ warlike act' would seem to widen the scope to any hostile act, warlike or not. (Are there any non- hostile warlike acts? Accidents such as so-called 'friendly fire' incidents might fit...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Source article from The Register.[1]

[1] [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/11/notpetya_insurance_...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/11/notpetya_insurance_claim/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I would kind of expect the argument about not paying out to be one of negligence on behalf of Mondelez. NotPetya uses the EternalBlue exploit which Microsoft patched in March 2017, NotPetya was late June 2017. Don't install security patches on 1,700 servers and 24,000 laptops for four months? Don't get an insurance payout.

<comment><USER19> I'm sure negligence is covered under insurance, that's why Zurich made a claim of "cyber war", which is harder to prove than negligence. Also if negligence wasn't covered, almost everything can be claimed as negligence. For example, fire started due to electric short circuit: negligence, you should have got everything inspected every x months/years. Theft: negligence, you should have x number of security guards. You see where I'm going?

<comment><USER20> In my mind, the usual handling of negligence is that your insurance contract may specify steps that you're required to take in order for any eventual claim to be valid. For example, a policy insuring your car against theft may specify that you keep your car parked in the garage and not on the street. If your car is stolen off the street in front of your house, you're not going to get anything.

Conceptually, such a clause represents you guaranteeing a particular standard of non-negligence in exchange for lower premiums.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This would be a massively interesting suit, if fought out to conclusion. Looking for a proper definition of war, you might even go back to the Hague Conventions or some historical precedents in common law. Probably the terms and conditions do not further specify 'war', let alone 'cyber war'. But if it would be an easy case, the insurer wouldn't take on Mendelez, unless perhaps as long shot to prevent ruin.

</comment><comment><USER22> And that's the last time anyone buys cyber insurance from Zurich. What's the point of cyber insurance that doesn't cover ransom wear? Just a useless waste of money.

<comment><USER23> They aren't not covering ransomware. I suspect future buyers are going to re- evaluate if they really don't need coverage against being casualties of nation-state attacks though.

<comment><USER24> Insurance against war related damage is called reparations.

<comment><USER23> Not really, no. It's got little to do with the idea of insurance.

<comment><USER24> Property insurance industry works with the security community to develop and enforce standards for security operations, safes, locks, alarm systems, etc. that reduce theft, and employs investigators to recover stolen high-value goods.

Auto insurance industry works with the automakers and regulators to develop and enforce standards for crash safety, airbags, crumple zones, collision avoidance systems, etc. and employs litigators to recover damages from the at- fault party.

Insurance companies aren't just professional gamblers. They are risk managers. You pay them to deal with the nitty gritty of risk mitigation in whatever domain because it's not your speciality.

How are you going to manage the risk of enemy damage in war? You're going to wield more violence than the threat, and seize its assets to make yourself whole. Instead of settlement or recovery, we call it reparations.

<comment><USER23> There are insurance companies that insure war risks, e.g. for facilities in unstable countries, and those companies are not in a position to seize reparations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Insurance companies live in the weird realm of customer service up front, and financial defense when the whistle is blown.

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if you can get insurance against insurance companies not paying out?

<comment><USER21> Yup,that's called legal insurance and is often quite an affordable backstop, at least in the EU. Pro-tip is to get yours at another supplier than your regular insurance to best align incentives. In things like consumer conflicts I've never had to use my legal insurance, just announcing that you'll get them involved usually is met with some kind of compromise.

<comment><USER27> That's not the same. What you are talking about is an 'insurance' where you, when you get into legal trouble, are reimbursed for (some of) your legal costs. That's not what the GP meant.

<comment><USER21> What the GP meant is literally quite strange. You get reimbursed re conditions of the contract, period. If the insurer doesn't pay it's either a legally correct action or not. If legally correct you get what you paid for. If incorrect you need legal recourse. The only type of insurance possible against an insurer not paying is legal insurance. Otherwise you are asking for an insurance for you not understanding the terms and conditions. That's typical.

<comment><USER9> > Otherwise you are asking for an insurance for you not understanding the > terms and conditions.

Is this an unreasonable request? :)

Whenever I get insurances through work I rarely get terms and conditions? If I do, I rarely get something specific, it's very ambiguous.. and contains unqualified conditions.

I find that agents can rarely answer questions I have, how was I suppose to understand things?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> lota-putty Insurance is like a `bottomless wishing-well`, demands regular offerings but return favours during unforeseen emergencies not guaranteed.

</comment><comment><USER28> So what is the standard of evidence for something like this? The fact that say top security outfits did attribution to APT-blah or APT some blahBear and there is some level of confidence that the groups might be state actors is it really enough?

</comment><comment><USER29> Not entirely surprising that insurance company is attributing this to an Act of War.

* Russia is actively pursuing an Active Measures (активные мероприятия [1]) political war against the west

* Russian companies & persons charged by Mueller have actively used the defense in filing that their actions were Acts of War, and so not illegal. These defense claims have not yet been ruled upon, AFAIK.

* The Russian govt, former KGB organization, Oligarchs, Russian Mob, and hacker community have effectively morphed into a single operation entity.

Nevertheless, it is a bit of a stretch to consider a specific hacking event as part of the Active Measures war. Not that it is surprising that the insurance company tries it. They'll st least delay any payments.

This may, interestingly, raise the stakes on any cooperation with such operations (e.g., being a funds conduit, renting out a botnet to deploy the malware) from standard criminal conspiracy charges right up to treason. Not sure if it will play out that way, but I wouldn't want to be the one testing the prosecutors' discretion, or the inclination of the NatSec organizations to get involved. Totally changes the risk profile of getting involved for those inclined to play around the edges.

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

</comment><comment><USER30> If insurance stops paying out then companies will take data security more seriously. Their very existence will depend on it.

Net win for society from my perspective.

<comment><USER31> Some might but many wouldn't though, because the risk of a problem occurring is still relatively low. No insurance just means it's worse if it does happen. The company would fail, resulting in a loss of service for their customers and a loss of jobs for all the staff.

To use a good old car analogy, if car insurance stopped paying out people wouldn't all immediately become better drivers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wonder what the long tail costs are for not paying the claim?

If I had any insurance policies with this company I would cancel and look elsewhere. The insurance company must have modeled both scenarios.

</comment><comment><USER33> If they can't pay out in a case like this, they shouldn't be in business. I hope the affected insureds sue this scumbag insurance company into the bankruptcy it deserves. And if the whole cyber attack insurance industry goes belly up, it sounds like a win for society: maybe these other idiot companies will start to take security seriously rather than just trying to collect money for their insurance companies.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm curious how much the insurance thinking was: if we pay this, more companies will maintain bad security, pay bribes and we'll be left to foot the bill.

In addition to more victims, the second compounding effect of this would be that giving money to hacker groups means they would become bolder. That might even mean they'd potentially blur the line from State-sponsored to something that outgrows even the authority of a (rogue) State.

</comment><comment><USER35> Companies won't take security seriously until there are real costs to losing customer data. Right now, they can just send out an apologetic press release after getting attacked due to their shoddy security and that's it.

</comment><comment><USER36> That's a sleazy insurance company. They use a lame excuse to avoid paying.

</comment><comment><USER37> Good luck proving conclusively in court that russia was behind the software

<comment><USER38> In civil suits, the standard is a preponderance of the evidence. That makes this pretty hard to surmount:

> Zurich American Insurance Company points to the official statements of > national security officials from the UK, Canadian and Australian > governments, all of which blamed Russia for the cyber attack in February > 2018. Even the White House in the United States said the cyber attack was > part of Kremlin efforts to destabilize the Ukrainian government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's interesting that insurance Co didn't point to an absence of proper inclusion clause. They tried to find exclusions that may help them to pull the fast one on a customer.

Which means the policy wording clearly matched the covered event.

<comment><USER13> The insurance company's argument is "When we gave your lawyers a bespoke contract that said 'Irrespective of whether a loss would otherwise be covered or not, we will not pay any claim which...', what precisely did you think we meant?"

They quote the language in the policy and quote the national security apparatus as having made a determination that this was hostile action by a foreign government or their affiliates. Contractual disputes are often substantially less well-grounded in assertable facts than this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Just subpoena the intel agencies? Just because they haven't released the evidence publicly doesn't mean it wouldn't seem reasonable for the intel agencies to assist the case.

</comment><comment><USER41> Was there a declaration of war? Did their policy specifically mention 'cyber war'?

what a steaming load.

insurance companies trying to squirm out of paying something is as certain as the sun rising.

<comment><USER13> I was offered a rider on my last business insurance policy, for about a 5% premium increase. It was labeled the Terrorism Rider but the legal code was war, acts of state-sponsored violence, etc etc. If you don't buy that rider, and someone drops a bomb on your building, your claim falls into an exclusion.

These exclusions were largely inserted into new policies for risk management after 9/11\. If you're negotiating a 9 figure insurance policy, you have lawyers who read the thing and can debate the issue with the insurance company's lawyers if there is a dispute over exactly what the bespoke language you signed meant.

I'm not unsympathetic to the insurance company here. The intent of this language is "We did not sign up to take on Russia. We are willing to do that, but it isn't free." If somebody doesn't negotiate for that, well, you pays your money and you takes your chances.

<comment><USER42> That's fine, except that the insurer has to prove the state-sponsorship beyond reasonable doubt, no? Exceptional claims ...

<comment><USER13> "The US government has publicly claimed this was a hostile act by Russia" wins that argument, trivially, in a US courtroom. And it will be a civil trial; the standard will be "preponderance of evidence."

<comment><USER42> By the way, to get a trial going, you only have to raise reasonable doubt. Getting beyond reasonable doubt is the problem.

<comment><USER13> "Reasonable doubt" is a term of art in law. Your use of the term does not agree with how the legal field understands it. "Preponderance of evidence" is another term of art, which is a strictly lower burden to meet than "beyond a reasonable doubt." Your understanding of which of these two standards the legal system applies in civil cases mispredicts the behavior of the legal system. You can confirm this representation with a lawyer of your choice.

The standard to survive an attempt to dismiss will be approximately "even reading all factual representations as true in the most charitable reasonable way to the suing party, no reasonable finder of fact would see a justiciable controversy here." You're welcome to ask a lawyer on whether the suit would pass that burden.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> It takes two to tango. If a cyber war is ongoing, then I think the insurance company should cite retaliatory action in the war as evidence. From what I can tell western governments do not generally publicize any specifics of effective cyber operations.

So i wonder if this puts insurance companies in a position where they benefit from classified operations are outed to bolster the case that this was indeed an act of war.

<comment><USER44> I thought that retaliatory action would be a good indicator, so I took a look, and I'd say this supports Zurich's decision:

[https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/15/russian-sanctions- treasury...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/15/russian-sanctions-treasury-ira- notpetya/)

Others cited the exclusion to be worded as "hostile or warlike action in time of peace or war", further tilting the scales in the insurance's favor.

<comment><USER43> The sanctions as retaliatory? I'd agree the are but I was thinking more of a cyber counter offensive.</comment></comment></comment>


8 Startup Lessons from Constant Contact - <AUTHOR> http://davidcancel.com/8-startup-lessons-from-constant-contact/ <comment><USER2> Great lessons on how Lean Startup works in the real world.

\- no silver bullet, it's about a million adjustments \- human touch matters: calling prospects had a dramatic profitability effect for Constant Contact \- and also very true on fundraising, you need to be close with the partnership, not just your one VC board member

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks David! If this great article helps me get those extra 374,990 customers I've been after, I'm buying you a nice steak.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great post. Concise, clear take aways, quality content. Great lessons. Look forward to reading more from David.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great post. I especially like points #3, #6, and most of all #5.

</comment><comment><USER6> Good one david! Thanks for sharing..

</comment><comment><USER7> Excellent!</comment>


Encrypted Messaging Apps Face New Scrutiny Over Possible Role in Paris Attacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/europe/encrypted-messaging-apps-face-new-scrutiny-over-possible-role-in-paris-attacks.html <comment><USER2> Every tragedy will be used to further the cause of totalitarianism. The contents of this article, and every identical piece that is written after every new disaster, is less worthy of HN discussion than this broader issue. Encryption is the primary facilitator of privacy in our current times, and privacy is a fundamental human right. Law enforcement doesn't understand this, they only know "getting the baddies". And in times where violence is at an all time low despite recent tragedies, "getting the baddies" is decreasingly important relative to the preservation of rights.

<comment><USER3> There may come a time soon where the violence is widespread enough to actually justify this level of invasion of privacy. The threat of these sorts of attacks is increasing and if countries like Pakistan are any clue, it's simply not possible to ignore it and say everything will be fine because only a small portion of the population is involved. That small portion can wreak havoc and must be managed and surveillance is the right tool to do just that. It's by far better than any other method of dealing with the problem... and it does allow for surgical precision as long as the authorities don't use it instead to go after other crime, which they inadvertently do.

<comment><USER4> It has almost never been a safer time to live in Europe than it is now. Look at crime rates, they are dropping everywhere. Homicide is down, robberies are down. Terrorist attacks happen so rarely that they almost don't count. The number of people killed in traffic accidents in the USA on the same day of the Paris attacks is almost the same as the number of people killed by terrorists. I'm sorry to be so cold, but they didn't even manage to make a dent in the stats graph.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_European_Unio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_European_Union#Trend)

<comment><USER5> And if I was Spock I might care about that kind of argument. As it happens, people care far more about the feeling of safety than safety and believe me that feeling tanked after Paris.

<comment><USER6> There are other ways of addressing feelings of safety that don't involve giving up liberties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "American and French officials say there is still no definitive evidence to back up their presumption that the terrorists who massacred 129 people in Paris used new, difficult-to-crack encryption technologies to organize the plot."

IMO, that is the only part of the article that needs to be understood.

<comment><USER8> > new, difficult-to-crack encryption technologies

Have there been any NEW encryption technologies lately? The only one I can think of is ZRTP. Everything else is based on well understood and well tested theories.

<comment><USER9> Sort of.

[http://sphincs.cr.yp.to](http://sphincs.cr.yp.to)

Not only is this a NEW cryptography technology, it's also the most hilarious academic web page I've ever read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Intelligence agencies seem to operate on a very dubious assumption that if mass consumer products weren't offering end to end encryption, terrorists would just be chattering away in the clear, rather than trivially switching to one of the plethora of alternatives that do allow secure communication (some of them open source and "unbannable").

Are they really that dumb? Or is this a cynical PR exercise?

<comment><USER11> It's not that terrorists with good operational procedures would not be able to find more secure means, but migrating to those means would do two things:

Fewer operatives would have the rigor to operate securely all the time. You just need one to trip up to give the house away, but with ubiquitous encr. anyone and their nona can encrypt without leaking.

Two, switching to alternate means would mean a big slowdown in comms speed and throughput/dissemination and comms can be compromised/altered via interception.

<comment><USER12> One guy managed to get his hands on a freaking _rocket launcher_. Same with one of the Charlie Hebdo attack guys, who sneaked an assault weapon into a country with strict gun laws. Are you telling me that if they are _really committed_ these guys can't get access to an _app_ they can use for encrypted communications?

The problem is _there are too many signals_ , only made _worse_ \- not better - by mass surveillance (making the "hay" in which to find the needle _bigger_ and all that). Here's an excerpt from Schneier in 2005:

 _> Let's look at some numbers. We'll be optimistic -- we'll assume the system has a one in 100 false-positive rate (99 percent accurate), and a one in 1,000 false-negative rate (99.9 percent accurate). Assume 1 trillion possible indicators to sift through: that's about 10 events -- e-mails, phone calls, purchases, web destinations, whatever -- per person in the United States per day. Also assume that 10 of them are actually terrorists plotting.

> This unrealistically accurate system will generate 1 billion false alarms > for every real terrorist plot it uncovers. Every day of every year, the > police will have to investigate 27 million potential plots in order to find > the one real terrorist plot per month. Raise that false-positive accuracy to > an absurd 99.9999 percent and you're still chasing 2,750 false alarms per > day -- but that will inevitably raise your false negatives, and you're going > to miss some of those 10 real plots.

> This isn't anything new. In statistics, it's called the "base rate fallacy," > and it applies in other domains as well. For example, even highly accurate > medical tests are useless as diagnostic tools if the incidence of the > disease is rare in the general population. Terrorist attacks are also rare, > any "test" is going to result in an endless stream of false alarms.

> This is exactly the sort of thing we saw with the NSA's eavesdropping > program: the New York Times reported that the computers spat out _thousands > of tips per month _. Every one of them turned out to be a false alarm_.

99.9% and 99.9999% accuracy and you still get those huge false positive numbers. Even the drone strike program has _much_ lower accuracy than that (yes, they do kill people based on "mostly assumptions" that they are terrorists, if that's news to anyone). I mean, in the US, they start spying on people if they have a >51% of not being an American (an amazingly low threshold - basically flipping a coin). So - maybe it's time to admit that mass surveillance is actually detrimental to catching these guys and that these spy agencies are _hurting_ national security?

[https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2005/03/why_data_mi...](https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2005/03/why_data_mining_wont.html)

<comment><USER11> Countries can demand app stores comply with their laws, if they wanted to. They could demand access to interception or else the app [store] is not allowed. They could further have carriers block jailbroken sets.

With regard to noise, you can make it more manageable by building a graph. As you initially ID terrorists, you follow the graph and calibrate the signal. You don't have to enmesh everyone.

<comment><USER13> > They could demand access to interception or else the app [store] is not > allowed.

Thus forcing terrorists to use Android or a desktop OS? Big whoop.

<comment><USER11> It's not as if they can't tell Google to put out a 'special' version for their country. Or put out their own infiltrated version and take whatever measures necessary to "own" the OS. They could poison DNS for "favorite terrorist distro".

It's not to make it 100% foolproof, it's to make it so that any misstep would reveal them. In other words, make the whole of their communications system leaky _somewhere_ not necessarily everywhere.

<comment><USER12> The systems _are_ already leaky (like the metadata, for instance, but also the weak end-point security most devices have, poor HTTPS implementations, and so on). This is _not a problem_. The problem is the intelligence agencies _have too many "targets"_. They're only making things harder for themselves putting everyone on "lists". At least one of the terrorists from the recent Paris attack was on such list - an "extremist" list even. Didn't seem to help.

I think it's becoming more clear that intelligence alone is not enough.

I'm also very worried that 10 years from now we'll have an even bigger problem than Daesh in the Middle East, even if Daesh is "wiped out" \- Al Qaeda was wiped out, too, unless we forget. Daesh is much bigger than Al Qaeda was, which means they have many more relatives and children than Al Qaeda had - children that may rise up again in 10 years to avenge their fallen fathers and cousins.

France's reaction feels very much knee-jerk and 20th century thinkining - "Someone attacked us? Let's bomb the hell out of them then!". It kind of reminds me of when the French generals ordered their foot troops into the Germans' machine guns a century ago, because that was their 19th century thinking at the time.

This is a whole other discussion that also needs to happen, and I think a much bigger issue than the encryption one.

<comment><USER11> The problem isn't the volume of data, it's the analysis and graphing. They need to develop better mining technology.

Conversely, if there is too much data and everything is hidden because there is too much, then why bother with the clamor for encryption? I mean, there is so much data, it's unfindable?

I think it was Poland and Russia sending cavalry and barely armed infantry into modern battle, not France during WWII.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It doesn't matter what politicians think, really.

Secure end-to-end encryption is going to happen one way or another. It's a global phenomenon, no single country can stop it.

Sure, our government likes to think it controls the world, but really all it can do is threaten the world with violence. Mathematics knows no such fear.

<comment><USER14> And yet, similar policies have given us "export-grade" encryption and funded projects like the clipper chip.

There's no way a single country can block secure, end-to-end encryption forever, but they can sure make things hard for a while.

<comment><USER15> They don't have to block every user using unlawful encryption -- they just have to have a law that lets the penalty be enough that a few high profile convictions will deter enough law-abiding people that it isn't worth the risk.

At that point, they can simply listen to all traffic and, if there are packets that aren't listenable due to encryption, assume ill intent, then be free to react appropriately.

Assuming high enough signal ratios in detecting encryption, it might actually prove that encoded messages, or steganography proves to be more effective at preventing state-level eavesdropping... they won't prevent a determined state from getting your secret content, but it could be enough that, if the messages looked unencrypted, they would be passed over for the more obviously encrypted messages -- hiding in plain sight, as it were.

Note, this is not an endorsement of any privacy invasions whatsoever, but musings on what a post-4th-amendment-obliteration world might look like for the privacy-minded.

<comment><USER16> Coming soon: 'Strong' encryption is illegal in the UK without a licence. Banks and other institutions will pay for licences for their websites and their behind-the-scenes comms but also be required to use backdoored crypto where the govt and police and govt agencies hold keys.

An inter-country agreement makes us interoperable. All comms are monitored for anything looking encrypted but not decryptable by the state using their keys.

It will be an easy sell because those who want full personal privacy will be seen as suspect. It will also make money from licensing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yeah I believe also trains, cars, food, water and oxygen played a role, something should be done about those too. If that ever happens, open source to the rescue, politicians might as well make that illegal.

<comment><USER11> This is all true, but it's also true "governments" had previously had [court ordered or otherwise, depending on jurisdiction] access to communications, when necessary in order to track individuals or obtain evidence. The claim is that now people can choose technologies which allow them to evade communications interception [easily] which frustrates governments when they want to intercept communications.

I don't think it's far fetched to believe if not the US countries abroad will require technology vendors to provide interception systems ala BlackBerry. Big enough markets, can say, Apple, you can still sell in our country[1] but you must grant access [MITM, whatever] and you know what, Apple will not want to see its growth markets evaporate.

[1] They'd also disallow non-approved apps from country app store and also disallow carriers from allowing jailbroken handsets.

<comment><USER4> Like the saying goes, if you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns.

Seriously. Ever heard of steganography?

Police being able to listen in to communications for selected individuals, based on court orders is of course something that is necessary for safety, nobody is arguing that. The difference is the scale of the ability to survey. You can argue that the scale doesn't matter, but it does. The only difference between uber and your local taxi company with 10 cars is also scale. Being able to scale surveillance trivially is the thing that must be fought against, because it erodes the freedom of people. After all, the freedom of people to live their lives as they wish is what we're protecting after all, isn't it?

<comment><USER18> > _After all, the freedom of people to live their lives as they wish is what > we 're protecting after all, isn't it?_

Is it? I thought it's freedom to live their lives as long as they follow the law?

<comment><USER4> No, it's exactly the reverse in fact! Laws are supposed to be made to make living life better for the majority. Many problems stem from thinking the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow, going for a walk in the woods is also a pretty good way to avoid be spied on by the government. Better burn the forests down, or at least fill them with video-cameras and microphones!

<comment><USER20> Unless you happen to be a govt advisor on Iraq.

The medical report was recently sealed by the govt. for 70 years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_\(weapons_expert\))

<comment><USER21> I am confused, the wikipedia article you link to says "In October 2010, the postmortem—including the pathologist's 14-page report and the six-page toxicology report—was made public, re-iterating the conclusion of the Hutton report." The subtitle to the linked Guardian article is, "Government releases previously secret medical files on death of weapons inspector at centre of BBC's Iraq dossier story." What is it that you want to see?

<comment><USER20> Hmm maybe I have fallen for the headlines accompanying the recent sealing as though it were revelatory when really it is back to normal practice of medical records being private.

<comment><USER21> What is the recent sealing?

<comment><USER20> Part of the Hutton report that is due any day now....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Typical. They blame Snowden, too. 'Hey, look, a chicken!'

[https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions- abou...](https://theintercept.com/2015/11/15/exploiting-emotions-about-paris- to-blame-snowden-distract-from-actual-culprits-who-empowered-isis/)

More people should read that story.

</comment><comment><USER23> Kind of sick of hearing government officials saying encryption is evil. This stance is disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst.

</comment><comment><USER12> Jesus, NYT. Is it even _confirmed_ that they couldn't see what they were doing "because they used encrypted apps", or is that just an _assumption_ of "anonymous officials"?

Upon loading the post and reading the first paragraph:

> _American and French officials say there is still no definitive evidence to > back up their presumption that the terrorists who massacred 129 people in > Paris used new, difficult-to-crack encryption technologies to organize the > plot._

Oh. Well there you go. I really don't see the point of these media entities letting themselves _played_ like this by the authorities to spread their false propaganda then. The bodies weren't even cold yet and they started spreading this anti-encryption message on TV. Because they couldn't have possibly admitted that maybe - just maybe - it's the intelligence agencies that screwed up and they have to take responsibility for it, like it should happen in any democratic country, instead of pointing fingers at others. I wonder what they'll say next if we discover these terrorists _weren 't_ actually using encrypted channels to communicate.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's almost like they were ready and waiting with the talking points... Hmmm...

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150916/15570332276/havin...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150916/15570332276/having- lost-debate-backdooring-encryption-intelligence-community-plans-to-wait-until- next-terrorist-attack.shtml)

</comment><comment><USER25> Personally, I thought this tweet was spot on: [https://twitter.com/marasawr/status/666467808071573504](https://twitter.com/marasawr/status/666467808071573504)

</comment><comment><USER26> Encrypted Messaging isn't the problem.

They should have better boarder control, background check on people before letting them in, communication with other countries, and better integration. Also perhaps programs for more tolerant people, and ease/integrate immigrants in instead of more religious and toward the extreme end of the spectrum.

There are many other solutions without sacrificing freedom and privacy.

<comment><USER27> Indeed. Some of the terrorists were from Molenbeek, a Brussels suburb that has been out of control for the authorities for decades. The same applies to some Parisian suburbs.

Rather than investing in these suburbs and getting human eyes and ears on the ground. We spend many millions more on bombs and anti terror units.

Encryption is an easy scapegoat and convenient for power grabs. Saying 'we mismanaged these suburbs' takes political courage.

<comment><USER8> > Indeed. Some of the terrorists were from Molenbeek, a Brussels suburb that > has been out of control for the authorities for decades. The same applies to > some Parisian suburbs.

Can you explain that a bit? There is not enough political will to impose order there or something else?

<comment><USER27> I am not sure, since I am from a neighbouring country. Some analysts said that in the case of France, Sarkozy pulled resources from local projects and local police to form anti-terror units, etc. Some areas have regressed so much that regular policemen do not want to go there.

In the case of Belgium, one of the problems is that there was never a push towards integrating North-Africans. Traditionally, the left has been in favor of 'multi-culti' \-- you basically allow minorities to form their own community without much outside interference. As far as I understand, this has been strengthened in Belgium by the socialist party, which pretty much maintained this non-interference policy for votes. This leads to problems, because in other cities/countries family and friends would signal radicalisation to the authorities. Here, many people do not even speak Dutch or French and mistrust authority.

<comment><USER28> I like to look at Canada in this respect. They have done arguably a _very_ good job at integrating newcomers. The country has substantially increased its population in the last 40 years and yet I did not meet any individuals that did not think of themselves as 'Canadian' first. And that's in spite of cities like Toronto containing areas labeled little Italy or Chinatown.

Integration of the Muslim community at large in Western Europe is for reasonably large numbers of people a failure. Of course there are also plenty of people that did integrate and that will stand up to defend the values of the countries that they have adopted. But not at the level that Canada has managed to achieve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There's an interesting article on how Telegram is being used here: [http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8828.htm/](http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8828.htm/)

<comment><USER30> Except, other than being a nice chat app, Telegram's encryption is snake oil

[http://unhandledexpression.com/2013/12/17/telegram-stand- bac...](http://unhandledexpression.com/2013/12/17/telegram-stand-back-we-know- maths/)

<comment><USER29> The article mentioned encryption, but I was more interested in their details on how Daesh was using it as an unmoderated platform to spread tutorials on manufacturing weapons and launching cyberattacks, calls for targeted killing and lone-wolf attacks, and Daesh's use of bots on the platform.

<comment><USER31> So he's distributing the Anarchist Cookbook?

<comment><USER29> No. Not 'he', and not just distributing how-tos. Read the link if you'd like to be aware of what's happening though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> We must resist every attempt to treat us like criminals a priori.

</comment><comment><USER33> I was reading an article yesterday about how the attacks in paris were coordinated via the playstation network.

This tells me, unequivocally, that the news outlets can't possibly understand what is secure and usable, vs what isn't.

My girlfriend (whom is not very technical) was saying that PSN should open itself to police, and then I showed her the security record of Sony, and then showed her how messages are sent unencrypted over the wire.. and then showed her the wiki page on Tempora.

It's very clear to me that they're going to blame everything and anything- and we should very clearly ask the question to these publishers;

"whats your evidence of any wrongdoing";

"what's your ideal situation?";

"why do you feel that way"

</comment><comment><USER34> I am more afraid of the bs lobying people try to push using terror attacks than i am of actually dying in an attack.

Just by looking at the numbers and the actual risks involved in being effected.

</comment><comment><USER35> If the latest James Bond movie were released 15 years ago, I would not have found the villain's plan convincing at all. Using random terrorist attacks as an incentive for governments to participate in global surveillance? Give me a break.

Now, the Bond villain's agenda so obviously makes sense that it took all the suspension-of-disbelief fun out of the movie. I watched it the day after the Paris attacks. I couldn't help but feel as if _Spectre_ were just a historical piece with some fictional characters added for dramatic effect. Of course that's how surveillance creeps into modern societies. We don't even need cheesy villains to act as masterminds of a convoluted plot. The assholes at Daesh can get the job done just as effectively, thank you very much.

</comment><comment><USER36> >American and French officials say there is still no definitive evidence to back up their presumption that the terrorists who massacred 129 people in Paris used new, difficult-to-crack encryption technologies to organize the plot.

Everything you need to know in the first paragraph.

</comment><comment><USER37> Did you guys know TERRORISTS are also on TWITTER and FACEBOOK! As soon as I heard this my heart sank and I deleted my accounts.

These dangerous tools are being used to recruit jihadists from our own communities!!!!! Can you believe it?

I hope they ban this "cryptography" app, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

/s

How can people be this stupid? Better question: Why are people so uncomfortable deferring their opinions to people who know these things? I don't think you'll find a single person involved in tech who thinks banning cryptography is a good idea, let alone possible.

With that in mind, why does this news article exist? How are our politicians getting away with this populist bullshit?

<comment><USER38> > Why are people so uncomfortable deferring their opinions to people who know > these things?

I think you might find that a non-trivial subset, if not outright majority, do deferring their opinions to people _who know these things_.

They often get information and analysis from the news, their government, and that "one guy who is good at computers". I use pgp and gpg, I use ssh, and I am a programmer. I know very little about how cryptography works, but likely enough to appraise someone else's ability to shepherd such discussion and policy.

So what heuristic would you apply here? I love the EFF but they have not succeeded in any mainstream endeavor. I do not mean to belittle their accomplishments, but what percent of people reading this article know what the EFF is?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think the sensible argument for advocates of strong privacy has been touched upon in the article when they mentioned China. At least that's my "debate tactic". The argument is basically "we need strong crypto because it allows people living in ISIS dominated regions to communicate safely and escape without the danger of having their communication intercepted and having a kill team visit them"

</comment><comment><USER40> the sad part is that this is the only actual quote I could find, all the rest is just speculation and security theater

"The working assumption is that these guys were very security aware, and they assumed they would be under some level of observation, and acted accordingly"

and the ps4 quote about encryption is completely unrelated: [http://www.xpats.com/brussels-weakest-link-europes-fight- aga...](http://www.xpats.com/brussels-weakest-link-europes-fight-against- terrorism)

just think about it: if problem was just the encryption, the logical assumption is that they were aware of the person involved but couldn't read the messages

you have to find the person you need to monitor first, encryption or not. you can't track every message, even if you force the whole word to communicate without encryption, because of the sheer amount of false positives.

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_f...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_for.html)

</comment><comment><USER41> More on this:

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/11/paris_attacks...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/11/paris_attacks_b.html)

</comment><comment><USER42> So if the government is complaining that ISIS now uses technologies that it can't yet crack... and they know this... who exactly are they intending to spying on? Not ISIS, just the rest of us.

</comment><comment><USER43> I fail to see how privacy/crypto apps helped them. They could've as well used DIY "apps" or alternate channels of communication (which could be encrypted).

</comment><comment><USER44> Tech-savvy people often miss the forest for the trees on this one. Once you get past the engrossment in implementation details, the fundamentalist political philosophizing, and the harping on spurious and mostly anecdotal evidence for Western police states, there actually is good reason for government surveillance of W/Obama scale. There is a distinct threat that global terror will increase in scope by orders of magnitude, due to a) gains in message efficacy, b) positive feedback loops for recruitment (i.e., bombing Iraq over and over again), c) weapon availability gains, d) geopolitical posturing, or e) a black swan. Of what has been revealed from Snowden's leaks, the worst intentional (read: potentially malicious) invasion of privacy was NSA employees making fun of tapped conversations. If that and you not being able to torrent 24-bit flacs off of what.cd is the cost we have to pay for security in a future which is less certain than is widely acknowledged, sign me up.

<comment><USER45> The worst thing for me about the Snowden leaks wasn't that. It was the deliberate interference in secure protocols (e.g. the flawed random number generators), combined with the pressure to leave open accidental flaws.

This makes everyone vulnerable to J. Random Cybercriminal when those same flaws are finally discovered by the non-secret services.

Being a victim of an identity thief is a lot less terrifying than being in the middle of a automatic weapon massacre, but it's a lot more likely to happen.

The framing of the debate as "encryption = only used for evil" is not only wrong, but very dangerous from that point-of-view.

I don't have any easy answers that keeps everyone happy. But neither does anyone else.</comment></comment>


Facebook news threat risks 'big stick' tax hit - <AUTHOR> https://www.afr.com/technology/facebook-threatens-to-ban-news-20200901-p55r7s <comment><AUTHOR> Facebook runs the risk of getting slugged with a general tax on all internet transactions if it goes ahead with its threat to remove all news content from its platforms to avoid sharing revenue with Australian media companies, former competition regulator chairman, Professor Allan Fels, has warned.</comment>


What is Cardinality in a Database? - <AUTHOR> https://www.vividcortex.com/blog/what-is-cardinality-in-a-database <comment><USER2> TL;DR It is the uniqueness of data in a column</comment>


Hawala: transferring money without actually moving it - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala

<comment><USER2> The word is quite common in India. Here's a summary: Hawala transfers are mostly done by the underworld people (read gangsters, mafia, mob etc.) The most common application of hawala is in betting. In India, betting on sports is illegal but there is a huge underground network that takes bets on sporting fixtures(cricket being the fav.). To place a bet you have to know someone who knows a bookie, you speak to the bookie, ask him what the going rates are and place your bets without paying any initial money. If you lose you will be told where to deliver the money, usually it'll be to an agent in your city. After this agent has collected money from all losing parties, he is informed of all the people who won their bets in that city, he then transfers the same money to them, the difference between the two is the profit. This is just one application. Here hawala is mostly organized money laundering, reading the above comments I am surprised to see legal systems of practicing hawala.

</comment><comment><USER3> At least in India, most forms of Hawala are illegal, as the money easily escapes the tax net and can be quite helpful in transferring black money. But that doesn't stop the practice from being quite rampant, and from what I know from a friend, a surprisingly dependable way of transfer, in fact.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm arabic and I can read this word!

In Tunisia, they offer this service in the Mailling System. You deposit money to the nearest office and a fee of 1.5 DT (around $1) and you mention the person to get it (with a code).

The other person also should go to the nearest office and can get the money using his identity card and the code.

It made things easier, as here people can't easily get Credit Cards.

<comment><USER5> Hawala is based on the islamic financial system which does not allow lending with interest, instead the lender must participate in the risk of the business, taking his share of profit or loss. Under a form of hawala it was possible to take a cheque from Morocco and have it cashed in China, long before such a system was available in the West.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know a lot about macroeconomics and this is a little off topic but isn't the honour system principle what nations work with and how trade deficits etc. emerge?

<comment><USER7> This is essentially identical to what happens when I put cash in the ATM at 7-11 with instructions to wire with my local bank to a bank in Tokyo which wires it to a bank in Washington which wires it to Bank of America in St. Louis so that I can move it into my IRA.

The yen doesn't physically get shipped to America, either.

<comment><USER8> "The yen doesn't physically get shipped to America, either."

yeah I don't get the "without moving it" part either. With minor exceptions money doesn't physically move in the mainstream financial system either. There are many things that define hawala but "transfering money without moving it" isn't one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hawala flourishes in India because 85% of Indians do NOT have bank accounts. <http://tinyurl.com/cj25dz>

</comment><comment><USER10> Most of us know this service as Western Union (and their ilk).

Interesting historical basis, though.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's good to know not all banking institutions were destroyed :P

In seriousness, I wonder how much the credit crisis affected Hawala.

<comment><USER12> I don't see how credit crisis affect would affect the system other than that people have less money to send around.

<comment><USER11> exactly. However, I was thinking more that has the credit crisis affected enough individuals for it to affect this system as well. Meaning, do less people use this now than before? It also makes me wonder, do some people trust this system more than the well established one that most people use?

<comment><USER5> The difference is that you gave your money to the banks and expected them to keep it safe. Instead, they took your deposit and lent it to underpaid Americans to buy overpriced houses, in the hope of making lots of money for themselves. With Hawala, the money is quickly picked up at the other end and not lent out to whoever promises to pay the highest interest rate.

<comment><USER13> Many banks did not engage in the foolish investment practices we've been hearing about, and yet their lending rates were substantially affected by the credit crisis due to the ensuing market conditions: higher costs of borrowing, higher perceived risks, less overall liquidity, lower trust in other parties, etc.

No one is completely isolated from the effects of a credit crisis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> India's Prime-Minister-In-Waiting, Advani is accused in Hawala scam. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala_scandal>

<comment><USER14> That must some good crystal you are staring into..

The election started only 2 days back and will go on till may 13.

Advani is a PM aspirant, not a PM-in-waiting.

<comment><USER9> <http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/10advani.htm></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: HN Is Blocking Private Internet Access - <AUTHOR> I use Private Internet Access for my VPN, and I'm sure others here do too. HN is blocking this provider. @HNStaff can we please do something here? <comment><USER2> Please reach us at firstname.lastname@example.com for issues like this.

</comment><comment><USER3> [dupe] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940121](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940121) (Dec 2017)

Looks like the mods noticed this time.

</comment><comment><USER4> I could confirm, it doesn't work behind PIA if you're logged in but it works if you aren't. Try to open in a private/incognito mode.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think it's a cloudflare issue. I use PIA and, in the UK, there are only 3 IP addresses - which is going to be difficult to mitigate?</comment>


GoDaddy Domains for $1.99 only - <AUTHOR> http://promohostingcodes.com/coupons/godaddy-comnetorg-for-only-1-99/ Get GoDaddy Domains, COM/ORG/NET for as few as $1.99 <comment> Tim-Boss I would rather take my 199 cents and throw them at Bob Parsons one by one.

</comment><comment><USER2> Godaddy could give domains away for free and I'd pass.</comment>


Materialize – A modern responsive front-end framework based on Material Design - <AUTHOR> https://materializecss.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's refreshing to do so much with just a CSS framework and no JS (optional JS in this case). And for someone with a bad eye for design like me it's quite handy to use something like this to get a nice looking site up quickly.</comment>