A copy of your property deed costs $3 – this SoCal firm will do it for $89 - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-11-12/property-records-deed-letter <comment><USER3> I received about 20 of these scam letters after buying a house. I kept all of them in a folder for my records. One thing that I noticed is that all these scam letters included a no-postage-required, Business Reply Mail envelope. I guess they make so much money off these scams that they can pay the return postage.

I returned all of these envelopes filled to the max with random pieces of junk paper. BUT, I made sure that my name and address (or zip code) did not appear in anything that I sent back. If I understand the USPS rates correctly ([https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm](https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm)), each returned mail costs them $1.38. Maybe if enough people sent these envelopes back (with junk), the low hit rate compared to cost of the returned letters would make this business unprofitable.

<comment><USER4> I did something similar with the Peter Popoff scam letters...I would either fill it with old dead batteries, or just go outside and fill it to the brim with dirt. Nothing really identifiable with that, and it was a was a relatively easy way to cost him money.

<comment><USER5> They pay a flat fee and you're wasting your time. [https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/bank-junk- mail-...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/bank-junk-mail-brick/)

<comment><USER6> My takeaway from that article was they do pay for the postage, but there's cost difference between a heavy item and a piece of paper. However, they are charged.

<comment><USER7> I have been doing this the last 30 years only I return with name and everything, and write a note on the empty external envelope. "please remove me from your mailing list". Worked nicely so far.

<comment><USER8> It would be a far better use of everyone's time if instead of returning this to them or sending dead batteries back, we all put that energy into lobbying to permanently kill these types of industries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Senders of official-looking direct mail get around these restrictions by > including language — often in fine print — declaring that the correspondence > is not in fact official.

Ban fine print. Honestly. Anything that declares the correspondence is not official has to be in the same point size as the body of the text, separated out into it's own paragraph in plain no uncertain terms that the majority of adults could understand.

<comment><USER10> I worked at a title company and owned the escrow and documentation preparation software. At the time they used line printers to print on carbon copy forms. Each page was differently colored so the "original" was always the white top copy. Getting a new copy of the paperwork was of course expensive and only the original was accepted for certain purposes.

We had a very interesting conversation with the doc prep department when I moved everything to using high speed laserjet printers. "Which one is the original, now?" The end result was someone buying a large rubber stamp that read "Original." :-)

<comment><USER11> Put yourself in their shoes. What if one copy says the interest rate is 3.5%, and the other says 3.8%? You SAY they are the same, but are the really?

If you have a strict policy of "one version is the 'original' and the rest are 'copies'", then wording of the 'original' gets legal priority. Legal priority == much lower legal bills.

If you have a policy of "they are all the same", then when they are different, you have a nasty, expensive legal fight.

<comment><USER10> The real issue to me then and now was how do you prove the original is the original? I pointed out then that frankly a good enough photocopy would also be indistinguishable despite a rubber stamp. I no longer remember but I guess the answer to that is red ink. This was prior to color photocopies being readily available. Or maybe they bought themselves a crimper and embossed a stamp.

<comment><USER12> Ink marks on the laler can be chemically analyzed, and I am sure forensics teams learned long ago how to identify a photo copy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Americans simply have no idea how (relatively) straightforward and simple their model of property purchase, sale and ownership are.

In Ireland you get this letter in 8 point font from a company with no phone number demanding 1000 euro for ground rent and threatening you with legal action....AND it turns out to be completely legitimate because The Earl of Blah Blah and the Archbishop of such and such owned your ground rent until 1978 (when the Irish government finally ended the feudal system) and they sold it to some shifty operator who now collects and you're in arrears on your 11 euro per year since then and they've added admin charges...oh and you can buy out your ground rent, but you have to fill out a 12 page form and make sure you don't pay them unless you've confirmed they're the sole rights holder and if you forget to pay and the lease expires (you know because the solicitor forgot to mention the 275 year lease was expiring or something) then they own your house OR you have to pay them 1/8th of the value to claw back the house you bought perfectly legitimately.

Mild hyperbole here.

<comment> kube-system Similar sorts of title issues can happen in the US, but we do a pretty good job of mitigating those before a sale is completed. Do you not have title searches and title insurance in Ireland?

It is standard practice in the US to hire a company to research any potential title problems before sale, and additionally, buy insurance to protect against potential issues that might not have been found.

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

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

<comment><USER13> We do indeed have title search but instead of being a system for the protection of ordinary persons, it is generally a wringer through which one is pushed by the legal profession.

Of course you can sue your solicitor if they failed in their duty during so- called conveyancing (generally a process that takes between 3 and 9 months depending on their level of total incompetence). But then again after 7 years you can no longer sue them...so depends how early these errors are spotted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ugh. This reminds me of the USPS address change scam. Just type "change address" into Google and see how many Ad results for this are thrown in top of your search results. They are all semi official looking, and charge you. I'm ashamed to admit I fell victim to one of these after a very long day of moving and a few beers years back. The USPS offers this for $1(not free, thanks ebg13)! I blame myself, but do wonder why Google allows and even promotes these sites...

<comment><USER15> Oh, it doesn't only cost you $1. It also costs you at minimum a years worth of free spam mail from various "You're moving! Here's a bunch of discount coupons for things you don't need" that USPS sells your new address to.

<comment><USER16> Did you actually look at those coupons? I got 10% off _Amazon_ (up to $200 savings over 90 days which is reasonable to achieve) and 10% off Home Depot (up to $100 saving).

A lot of people can benefit from that Amazon discount regardless of a recent move. Plus Home Depot is super helpful if you moved into a house. There's always something that needs work.

<comment><USER17> When I was renovating my home, I used to "move" to my current address to get those coupons. Lowe's used to take those coupons on top of their 5% discount.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I hold a belief in small government, but the spam mail I've been receiving since building a house cries loudly for regulation.

They make this stuff look so official. They use IRS fonts. They print it on pink paper. They write "final notice" when that's meaningless. They have your PII from the public records and make it look like it's from your mortgage group.

That kind of business should be treated as fraud. Who knows how many elderly or otherwise have lost tons of money from these garbage "companies." They should be ashamed.

<comment><USER19> Regulation exists to protect people, property, the environment, or national interests. It largely comes from a reaction to harms.

That's not to say things evolve and regulation should keep up (or that it's ineffective for its goals), but I don't understand why there's such a fervent backlash against it, particularly from the right. It largely feels fueled by those who wish to profit from its undermining, and one particular party has let it be known they're open for business in that respect.

Did these concerns exist in say, the 1960s? 1910s?

<comment><USER20> > but I don't understand why there's such a fervent backlash against it

Because it's often both overreaching, ineffective, and/or harmful to unrelated things. See: the war on drugs, gay marriage until the last decade, etc, etc.

The more you do at the federal level, the more fallout it's going to have and the harder it's going to be to fix.

> and one particular party has let it be known they're open for business in > that respect.

This is a strawman to help delegitimize people who are against particular regulations for philosophical reasons. I don't recommend repeating it if you want actual discussions. It's like claiming most of the pro-choice movement is driven by the abortion industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I fell for a similar scam recently. I needed a copy of a birth certificate and my county's website was a mess and required showing up in person at the county office. I found a site like this that promised to make the process smoother and paid something like $50 for it and all they did was fill out the forms and mail it to me so that I could go stand in line at the county office.

<comment><USER22> For me the frustration is often the opposite. I show up to places in person because I'd rather talk to human beings and fill out paper forms than use their shitty website. Yet more and more often once I show up I'm told to use one of their computers to access their website. I could have done that from home!

<comment><USER23> Heh, I was at the Apple store in Paris and couldn't understand why people had printed off pieces of paper and marking things off based on their research on the computers there.

Like, how could you not do the research yourself in advance?

I have a hard time someone at the Apple Store doesn't already have access to internet elsewhere to do their research.

<comment><USER24> > I have a hard time someone at the Apple Store doesn't already have access to > internet elsewhere to do their research.

Perhaps someone at the Apple Store is there to purchase a device that will give them access to the Internet which they don't currently have elsewhere?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Another version of the grift is to scrape lists of newly registered businesses and send out an official looking letter charging $80 to send a laminated poster of the kind that some states mandate be posted, e.g. about workers' comp.

Except that these materials can typically be printed out for free, and the letter makes every effort to appear to be a mandatory bill coming from a government agency.

<comment><USER26> I once had 3 guys in suits show up to a new office my work had opened. They acted very official, asked to see our labor posters. I told them we don't have any (should've asked for ID right then). They told me I could avoid a fine if I bought some from them on the spot. At that point I caught on, asked for ID - they showed me something official looking that didn't actually say they were government. Once I asked them point blank if they worked for the government they admitted it was a private company and I told them to leave.

It was a total scam, but it did make us be sure to get our labor posters hung up though. (We just asked our payroll provider to send them to us and they were free.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Problem is easy to fix without explicitly outlawing the practices. If business is selling government records, they need to disclose the actual cost in a defined format on a separate insert. Violations are similar to canned spam law and have a statutory damages of $750 per violation.

<comment><USER28> For that to work you'd need to demonstrate the business is actually charging $80 for the deed ... but they're not. Deep in the fine print there'll be something about the cost being $3 for the deed and $86 for the "proof-reading, checking, and validation service to ensure you have included the necessary information for your deed request to be completed promptly". Regulating against services that claim to help people would be _very_ difficult.

<comment><USER29> I think OP meant just for the violation of not properly displaying the base cost of the service if you went to the county/city directly if you phrase it properly it doesn't matter how much they charge as 'proof reading' services if they don't show people that it only costs $3 directly they can get fined for all the purchases made since it was last properly displayed wiping out their profits.

I think also forcing them to link out to either the direct form or at least some page explaining how to submit the form directly to the government would also be a good idea in addition to forcing them to just show the base cost. Force them to provide an actual value add instead of just fleecing people looking for the correct way to do something.

<comment><USER30> > I think also forcing them to link out to either the direct form or at least > some page explaining how to submit the form directly to the government would > also be a good idea

While I agree, I also kind of expect that if you did this they would find the most difficult possible way to submit the form directly to the government that would still work (e.g. "to renew your car registration without using our quick and easy service, call the California DMV at [number] and request form REG 343. Fill in the form with your, vehicle identification number, make, model, year, and [87 more fields]. Fax the form to [fax number] or make an in-person appointment with the DMV").

<comment><USER29> It could, but only if the law allowed them to choose where to point to but it could just as easily allow the agency to dictate the canonical website to point to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Washington state fined Local Records Office more than $3.6 million several > years ago for allegedly violating state law "at least 256,998 times."

How do they still exist and continue making the same thing? What's the point of this fine if it does not change anything?

<comment><USER32> See virtually any fine against any industry ever. It never stops behavior. It just lets the government in on the action

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> There's a similar scam in europe with trademark registrations, funnily enough there are more than one operator trying this so you get 3 or 4 of invoices to register your trademark after you've registered your trademark.

<comment><USER34> This is common not just in SoCal, but across the US, with property deeds, mortgage insurance, lots of shady businesses preying on the ignorance of property owners when public record transactions are updated.

A simple fix would be to dictate, through legislation, that you can't provide a government service such as a copy of your deed at a cost substantially above the cost the government is providing it at.

<comment><USER35> A nonprofit that mails to lists based on the same thing, but with a postcard listing common scams would be pretty cool. I was shocked by how much of this stuff I got when I bought a house.

<comment><USER34> I would be very interested in partnering with local outreach groups and/or Code For America to spin this up with Lob. After a postcard is designed, the only cost should be postage (which, based on Lob's pricing, looks to be between 41 cents and $1 per piece) and some compute time for taking property record data and generating mail pieces with API calls to Lob.

Not a permanent solution, but an effective shim until regulation catches up. "Department of Hotfixes"

<comment><USER35> Let me know if you do it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This reminds me of how San Mateo county uses a third-party petdata.com for licensing dogs.

I made a faux-website complaining about how easy it would be to create an official looking scam website, particularly how the entire county uses .org domain names.

Fake website: [http://sanmateogov.org/](http://sanmateogov.org/)

</comment><comment><USER37> I receive stuff like this all the time because one of my cars will be out of the manufacturer's warranty soon. They masquerade as if they're form the OEM and offering to sell me additional coverage. Even though this has nothing to do with government services they still manage to make them seem "official" and alarming if you don't take any action ("You could be liable for thousands of dollars of damages!").

I'm actually more pissed at the OEM for giving these companies my information.

<comment><USER38> You'll get these calls and mail whether or not you own a car and no matter what the warranty status is.

<comment><USER37> The ones I received were very specific. I can't recall now if they had the actual expiry date of the warranty, but they struck me as clearly having some insight into me or my vehicle.

Perhaps they only stuck with me because they seemed accurate and it was only coincidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> _> The solution, I'll say again, is a law that prohibits nonofficial communications from appearing to be official — with hefty fines for crossing the line._

 _Jail time._ Fines means that the law is simply another part of the business's cost calculations. If the fine is low enough, and it often is, then it can still be "good business" to knowingly break the law, pay the fine, and still pull a profit.

Putting actual law-breaking humans in jail changes the cost-benefit analysis dramatically.

<comment><USER40> Putting people in jail for small scale, non-violent crimes isn't a good idea - it can convert petty thief into real criminal. People who have jail time on their permanent record feel like they have nothing left to lose, and go all-in on their criminal career.

<comment><USER39> If your entire multi-million dollar business hinges on manipulating people into believing you are something you are not so that they send you money without being provided any value in return, you aren't a petty thief. You are a large-scale criminal enterprise and deserve to be treated as such. This dude's a parasite on society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Same scams exist for:

Hotels (when you're booking, are you SURE you're booking with the actual hotel?) They may be collecting money to simply reserve the room under your name, but not pay for it - even if they just charged you the same amount. A $119 charge to call the hotel and put in your name.

Health Insurance (When you enter your phone number/email/name there are companies that simply collect money by re-sending your contact info to about 100 sub-scam companies. You may end up with insurance but through the worst types of people that have resold and resold. Oh and don't forget you'll be on some of the WORST robocalling services.

Pretty much all CC fraud "watch" services - especially if your own credit card company signed you up. Taking out a line of credit, if it was not valid - <USER2> already something you are protected against. If you have someone to "watch" that stuff for you, it's not really protecting you further.

</comment><comment><USER42> I understand that these scammers automatically send their letters whenever something changes about an address. Wouldn't it be a fantastic public service if someone else automatically sent those same people a letter warning them of this scam and directing them towards more honest services?

</comment><comment><USER43> Surely this is just fraud, i.e. obtaining money by deception? Do they really need a new law to ban this, or do they need to enforce the existing laws better?

</comment><comment><USER44> There are so many of these scams out there. The internet allows people to google to check if it's legit, but they'll also find a lot of online firms offering the same service at a markup, which helps convince people that the original letter was legit.

In the UK it's free to change your name, you can just write your name change on a peice of paper, get a couple of friends to sign it and you're done. I've done this, but when I tried to explain to someone else the free process they told me I was wrong, citing scam websites with semi-official names that charged for the process.

<comment><USER23> Same with « will kits » that are a template that you fill out. And the legal jurisprudence in Canada that make them valid is a farmer getting stuck under his tractor scratching in his will in the fender with a rock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The first indication I got that my patent was accepted was a letter offering me a nice "official" plaque with the patent on it.

A few days later, my boss showed up with a thank-you gift.

</comment><comment><USER45> I have a few domains without private registration. I often get an email a few months before they're due to expire from a business that will renew them. It's very strongly worded about how I'm about to "lose them", lots of capital letters and lots of red text. The cost to renew is $90 or so.

I've often wondered how many people fall for it (I assume enough they keep doing it), and whether they actually renew them, or just take some money and run.

<comment><USER46> Through the years I've bought domains for hobby projects and such that ultimately I'll let expire. Usually after receiving tons of emails, such as you've described, it's followed by a "we now own your domain, pay up" threat.

I've even had firms purchase other extensions for my domain (particularly a .org, .net, or .co), then email me asking to buy it from them. I usually respond and tell them I'm selling the .com domain myself and they can purchase it directly from me for half of the price they're offering to sell me the other extensions.

No one has ever taken me up on my offer.

<comment><USER47> Be careful making flip counteroffers like that, if you actually do care about the domains at all.

Offering to sell can be twisted into "extortion" in a UDRP proceeding if you're not careful.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute- Re...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute- Resolution_Policy)

<comment><USER46> A fair warning. Wouldn't any engaged legal group understand that if I had registered the .com first, then a company was offering to sell me a .org, etc. after my purchase, that is more extortionist than me trying to recoup the registration fees of a domain name I no longer need?

Agree if I want to keep the domain, I'd be careful not to lead anyone on - scammer or otherwise.

<comment><USER47> I'm no URDP expert; I've been peripherally involved a couple times. By impression of the process is that, like most processes of this sort, outcomes can depend heavily on getting good representation. Even if you think something makes obvious sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I've encountered something very similar, although not in the US.

When you register a business, that is public knowledge and can be acquired by marketers very easily. Then someone calls you up, makes you believe that they are the tax authorities (although very carefully never saying that they are) and get you to pay for a registration, which might make a new entrepreneur confused and think that they need this to be VAT registered.

Those who sign up have actually signed up to be in a shitty business directory made by someone's 14-year-old nephew. They provide nothing of value since no one uses their website and there are free business directories that just add your business as soon as it hits the tax authorities' database. But they will claim that they are providing you with crucial advertising.

If you don't pay up, they will say that you have a valid contract with them and you have to pay, or else. If you wish to hear the contract between you and them, they will say that the recording is purely for judicial action - you're not getting it. So unless you record all of your calls, you have no copy of the contract.

The sums are not massive. Maybe 300 euros. Definitely valuable, but perhaps not so valuable that you want to waste your time fighting it.

</comment><comment><USER49> I've seen this for trademark maintenance fees. They send an official-liking letter saying it is time to file required paperwork and pay fees, which is true, but they charge double to do what you can do yourself in five minutes on the official USPTO website.

Services like this for getting a copy of your birth certificate, too. Basically pay to access the freely available form from state websites.

</comment><comment><USER49> Reminds me of [https://nypost.com/2013/06/30/cab-lost-found- scam/](https://nypost.com/2013/06/30/cab-lost-found-scam/)

Pay shame site to "submit" items lost in NYC taxis. I think all it does is post your submission to the site so it is publicly viewable.

</comment><comment><USER50> I recently had to get personal workers compensation insurance for a contract (bc). Could have gone through a service to do it. Employer would have paid. Would cost them $6000/year, with a ~$2400 tax liability to me. Did it myself for $10/month and ten minutes filling out a form

</comment><comment><USER51> > Section 17200 bans "any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or > practice, and unfair, _deceptive_ , untrue or misleading advertising." > Senders of official-looking direct mail get around these restrictions by > including language — often in _fine print_ — declaring that the > correspondence is not in fact official. Such a disclosure makes it the > consumer's responsibility to figure out what's happening.

How could putting such information in fine-print escape any definition of "deception" when the obscurity of that information is vital to their operation.

On the face of it, it seems more likely they are illegal yet unchallenged. I doubt they would hold up in any reasonable court of law.

</comment><comment><USER52> Even $3 is high for just a copy of the deed.

I always do my own title search when buying property. You go to the courthouse and you just go back one page at a time. Each deed references the previous ones. You copy each on the photocopier there which if you live in a fair and reasonable county costs 10-25 cents a page. Or you can even bring your own scanner in if you like. Go back 100 years or so. Then at your leisure later review each of these for liens and encumbrances. And also whack problems with the boundary descriptions, or questionable issues with right of way.

Doing this is way more valuable than paying hundreds to somebody to hand you off something they are pretending to be a proper title search.

</comment><comment><USER38> If you have a business of any sort, there are companies that look for business licenses, LLC formations, etc, and send official looking forms sometimes with fine print saying they're not the Government and sometimes without, offering to do the same thing you can do for a small fee for a much bigger one. They're not adding any value at all. The form you have to fill out for the government requires the same information as their form.

I probably get at least one of these a month. Everything from trademark renewal to burglar alarm permit renewal.

</comment><comment><USER53> > "When Brusius altered the name on her deed, that may have triggered the > solicitation."

Sorry in Advance, I'm not familiar with this formal process. If the whole exchange is triggered by completing the property deed, what's the service this company claims to provide for $89?

I understand it's a scam, but what is the "alibi-service" they deliver in return for the payment?

</comment><comment><USER54> I fell for this with "First Documents" for a total of almost $93 a year or so ago. Also received a solicitation from "Local Records Office" as stated in this article. When the second of the two arrived I knew I had been had.

I reported it to my Credit Card company as fraud given the official looking nature of everything, and they promptly refunded the purchase.

</comment><comment><USER55> I bought a house last month and received this same exact letter from a similar firm asking for $79 doll hairs. What a trick.

</comment><comment><USER56> I almost wish that there were different kinds of stamps for different kinds of mail. Personal, Government/Official, Commercial. You simply apply the correct kind of stamp for the correct kind of mail and then the recipient can be more aware of the scam.

</comment><comment><USER57> Perhaps the solution is for local governments to not make this data publically available en-masse (or at least anonymize it)?

Genuinely curious -- what valid non-commercial use case does publicly knowing the names, prices, etc. of everyone who bought/sold a house serve?

</comment><comment><USER58> When you form a new business entity the firms that help you do it will charge $50-$100 for an EIN number from the IRS. This is the tax ID for artificial persons, whereas the SSN is the tax ID for natural persons.

You can get an EIN from the IRS online for free in 5 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER59> The business behind this is a Washington State corporation - LA INVESTORS LLC. Is there anyway to find the names of the investors behind this business? The least we can do is expose the scammers responsible for this

<comment><USER60> That company name is listed on [https://ccfs.sos.wa.gov/](https://ccfs.sos.wa.gov/) (the record does not have a unique URL to link to, sorry). There is one officer listed, but it looks like the LLC was dissolved in 2016. I wonder if they're continuing operations anyway, or is somebody else spoofing their name somehow?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> When I bought my house, I very nearly fell for this. They are very official looking, with faux degraded copying artifacts on a 'proof' deed. Even if currently legal, this is absolutely a scam.

</comment><comment><USER62> As the owner of a couple of corporations, I get crap like this all the time; often with implicit threats of legal repercussions.

The letters can look VERY official; sometimes almost clones of official state mailings.

</comment><comment><USER63> Same thing here in Germany. Once you have a registered company you'll receive lots of official looking invoices from scammers for some sort of register.

</comment><comment><USER64> It's not just private companies you have to worry about doing this.

After you buy a property my local government sends you an mandatory looking survey in an attempt to a) rat on the previous owner for un-permitted improvements b) build a case for valuing your house higher for taxes c) preemptively admit to non-compliance with city specific laws you probably don't know about yet.

I was going to write a letter to the local newspaper but I thought better of drawing attention to myself that way.

</comment><comment><USER65> This happens all the time in Florida when you register an LLC or get licensed as a real estate agent. It's a shame.

</comment><comment><USER66> Ever tried travelling to the US? If you look for the ESTA site the official site looks less legit than the scam sites.

<comment> kube-system The ESTA site looks like it uses the US government's standard design system, and it has a .gov domain.

Identifying official US government websites is like the easiest thing on the internet -- the US is the only country in the world with their own TLD dedicated to government websites.

I can't think of a more 'legit' look than that, although I guess if you're not from the US you probably haven't visited US government websites very often and might not have much of a reference point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> [http://archive.is/5hU9H](http://archive.is/5hU9H)

</comment><comment><USER68> Why can't the USPS block mail spam?

</comment><comment><USER69> For every "unnecessary and burdensome regulation" in the books people love complaining about so much, there are people like these who exploit and profit off of loopholes in the system.

<comment><USER70> The rate at which exploitation of people (via exploitation of loopholes) occurs does not have a continuous positive linear correlation with the number and complexity of the regulations.</comment></comment>


Fast-key-erasure random-number generators - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cr.yp.to/20170723-random.html <comment><USER2> The design djb talks about of pre-generating batches of random numbers, deleting the cipher key and erasing the numbers as they are extracted is exactly what OpenBSD has done since Markus Friedl switched arc4random() to use ChaCha20 in 2013:

[https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/90c1fad70a3483c2c72c3c...](https://github.com/openbsd/src/commit/90c1fad70a3483c2c72c3c90acf438a5f235c776)

The design was inspired by Nick Mathewson's libottery: [https://github.com/nmathewson/libottery](https://github.com/nmathewson/libottery)

I think he misses the point his criticism of getrandom() - that is intended to be the interface by which the libc PRNG gets its seed; userspace programs should just use the libc PRNG instead of going off to the kernel (i.e. arc4random())

<comment><USER3> He acknowledges this: "This RNG construction certainly isn't new but I don't recall ever hearing a good name for it ..."

However many other kernels don't do this, and I think this article is written to convince non-OpenBSD people to consider this. It's also a "further details of supercop" article, but I'm mostly reading this as a continuing of djb's long-standing criticism of the Linux PRNG (he's unhappy that it uses Intel's RDRAND for example).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The domain name shown is not complete. The well-known domain is cr.yp.to. This is just as bad as only displaying "gov.tld".

<comment><USER5> The domain _is_ yp.to

DNS is hard.

<comment><USER6> In this particular case, yp.to has no A record. HN could in theory be smart enough to show the shortest domain suffix that has an A record. Though I don't know if that would actually help any domain other than cr.yp.to.</comment></comment></comment>


Declassified CIA documents detail how to sabotage employers, annoy bosses - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/declassified-cia-documents-detail-how-to-sabotage-employers-annoy-bosses-a6716961.html <comment><USER2>
        "When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible - never less than five.

        Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.

        Misunderstand orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.

        Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

        Be unreasonable and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

        Don't order new working' materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.

        To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.

        Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.

        Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope."

Seems like items 1-4 are strongly in effect at most places I've been to, unintentionally of course. The statements on committee-forming and pedantic wording ring particularly true, and I fear that these things are what people are learning from each other. You don't need a committee or meeting for most decisions, and the wording seldom matters so long as the spirit is there for internal documents.

<comment><USER3> I like when government "wants" to solve some problem and instantiate a committee... it straight away means that they won't do a thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some points from original PDF:

Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments.

When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.

Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing you from doing your job right.

</comment><comment><USER5> The original of the document seems to be open since 2012: [https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story- archive/...](https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story- archive/2012-featured-story-archive/simple-sabotage.html)

I'm wondering how much it would take to invert every item, and turn the guide document into management best practices.

<comment><USER6> Also it originates on the OSS (the precursor to the CIA)

<comment><USER7> And given that the OSS was infamous for being populated with high social status corporate types, "Oh So Social" was one variant it was called, we can be very sure they learned these methods, one way or another, in the organizations they came from, so it's inherently useful either way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So... Either this is an inside joke or basically every company in America (and very likely everywhere) is a CIA front.

</comment><comment><USER9> My employer has been heavily infiltrated!

<comment><USER10> I wonder how many of us reading this are nodding their heads and saying the same thing! Either there are too many spies in the workforce, or the agency needs to up it's tactics. Perhaps starting with "keep fiddling with your phone in meetings", "put Annoy-a-tron in your boss' room" etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Made a readable version of original document part related to office work: [https://gist.github.com/sigsergv/4ef7760bce859c67e298](https://gist.github.com/sigsergv/4ef7760bce859c67e298)

</comment><comment><USER11> This would explain a few of the places I've worked at :(

</comment><comment><USER12> higher quality version

[http://www.simplesabotage.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/09/Ori...](http://www.simplesabotage.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/09/Original-Manual.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is less of a how to sabotage and more like a list of productivity killing things they acknowledged were killing productivity and a suggestion that they can be applied in the context of sabotage.

While unsurprising, it's mildly amusing.

<comment><USER14> 11.a.5: "Haggle over precise wordings of communications..."

"productivity killing" is exactly what sabotage is, be it cutting railroad track or persuading telephone operators to randomly drop calls. You just said that sabotage is sabotage applied in the context of sabotage :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Dogbert? Is that you?

</comment><comment><USER16> So the CIA invented Change MAnagement back in 1944 then?

<comment><USER17> They seem to have done most of the ITIL 2.0 taxonomy. Service desk, CMDB, service catalog, and it wouldn't take much more for a PPM document.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> cia in 1944 how is that possible ? the agency was founded in 1947...

<comment><USER19> In the first paragraph on the linked page

> In 1944, CIA's precursor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), created > the Simple Sabotage Field Manual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Pay every employee, whether good or bad, 70 thousand a year."</comment>


Advanced Flask Patterns - <AUTHOR> https://speakerdeck.com/u/mitsuhiko/p/advanced-flask-patterns <comment><USER2> I love Flask for simple stuff, but I'm a little concerned that, as someone who considers himself a relatively advanced Python developer, I don't really understand quite a lot of this.

I have no doubt that if I dug into it then it would all make sense, but my first instinct is this: how much of this complexity (proxy objects to thread locals, context stacks etc) results from the fact that doing:

        from flask import request

is just a bad idea?

Perhaps things would be easier if instead of:

        from flask import request

        ...

        @app.route('/'):
        def index():
            return "Hello from %s" % request.args.get('name')

we did:

        @app.route('/'):
        def index(request):
            return "Hello from %s" % request.args.get('name')

I'm probably massively over-simplifying things, but the idea of magically importing state is the one aspect of Flask that always felt a bit odd to me.

<comment><USER3> Thread locals are addressed in the docs:

        Yes it is usually not such a bright idea to use thread locals. They cause
        troubles for servers that are not based on the concept of threads and make
        large applications harder to maintain. However Flask is just not designed
        for large applications or asynchronous servers. Flask wants to make it quick
        and easy to write a traditional web application.

<http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/design/#thread-locals>

<comment> brown9-2 I haven't used Flask for a large application, but I'm curious why it would be bad for a large application - are there not enough features built in?

What would Python developers prefer to use for a large application - Django?

<comment><USER4> Or perhaps Pyramid <http://www.pylonsproject.org/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're interested in this talk, Armin provides the slides and links to video for many of his previous presentations at his website[1]. The talks range from horrific (but useful) Python hackery to an overview of Python web app development.

[1]: <http://lucumr.pocoo.org/talks/>

<comment><USER6> Thank you so much for these. His Flask talks are very intriguing and a good yardstick for measuring your python-fu. The overview of pastebin was enlightening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This presentation, but with notes by Armin:

<http://dev.pocoo.org/~mitsuhiko/FlaskPatterns_notes.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER8> The video is also on YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOvgfbBFZxk&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOvgfbBFZxk&feature=youtube_gdata_player)

Would definitely recommend… I was at the talk yesterday, very clever stuff.

<comment><USER9> This is what I want. I can never get the whole story from just the slide deck. Need the talking too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone who hasn't used Flask before, this makes me not want to try. I'm not even sure what problem is being solved in this presentation.

Anyone care to explain what these advanced patterns are useful for?

<comment><USER11> > Anyone care to explain what these advanced patterns are useful for?

It's not intended to be used by newcomers. It's for people that write Flask extensions that should work in a wide range of environments. The word "advanced" is in there for a good reason.

<comment><USER10> Ahh that makes sense. Maybe it would have been better titled "Advanced patterns for Flask extension developers".

<comment><USER8> It was indeed labelled as an "advanced talk" at EuroPython (I was at it yesterday).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The video for this would be nice, it's a bit hard understanding some of the slides without context.

</comment><comment><USER13> Very disappointed this wasn't a gallery of Thermos tartans.

</comment><comment><USER14> Always happy to see Flask related stuff on HN front page :). Being a novice python wannabe, I am still struggling with thread locals but more than happy to keep working with Flask. Reading the source code is fun.</comment>


Working on The Witness, Part 1 (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0006.html <comment><USER2> It's not an RRT[1] if it doesn't employ a Voronoi bias to sample within the largest Voronoi cell. Since the first paragraph describing the "RRT" implementation admits it didn't explore properly, it really wasn't an RRT. This is a pity, because a _proper_ RRT (or better still, a PRM[2] with the monster walking every edge) would really have been a great way to handle this!

[1] Rapidly-Exploring Random Tree. Without the Voronoi bias it's not rapidly- exploring, so it's just a random tree (RT) instead.

[2] Probabilistic RoadMap. Similar to an RRT except that samples are connected to all close samples within some neighbourhood function.

<comment><USER3> narrow corridors and so called "bug traps" are known pathological cases for standard RRTs. The RRT approach was never gonna work, implemented correctly or otherwise. See my other comment for a proper way of doing it with guarantees on coverage.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Because I'm...not visually inclined...I've always had a bias against visualization for debugging/analytical purposes compared to mathematical analysis...that is, a bit of code that calculates standard deviation should tell me something is off in a dataset faster than a bar chart will (this is speaking from the perspective of being the creator/analyzer/thinkerer...obviously, visualizations have a vital and unique role when communicating your findings to others).

But between this article and the one that was posted last week (the Nebraska problem [http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0015.html](http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0015.html))...it's really thought-provoking to see the ways that a visuals-first debugger can at least spark a faster iteration of ideas, if not uniquely identify them...the OP wrote this in another of his Working on the Witness pieces ([http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0013.html](http://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0013.html)):

> _Instead of stepping through the code or even carefully reading it to see > what it was doing, I did what I often do these days and added debug > visualization code right away. I've been through these kinds of problems > enough times that I know, more often than not, if you're going to debug one > thing in a piece of code, you're going to debug a bunch of things, so you > might as well add the debug code early and leverage it throughout the whole > process. Why wait for the really hard bug before adding the debug code? It > takes the same amount of time to write debug code earlier as it does later, > but earlier means you can use it to speed debugging of all those not-as-hard > bugs along the way._

It's not test-driven-development obviously, but am I wrong in assuming that this preemptive custom debugging is rare in game development? What kind of frameworks/scaffolding exist to do such testing? I thought the situation described in the OP was interesting in that it showed how one of the most annoying gamebreaking bugs can slip through...but if consistency of boundaries is dependent on designers/artists meticulously cleaning up their "blocks"...and/or a dev-type who has hacked together a tool to make inconsistencies more noticeable...I'm surprised that games don't have broken surfaces as a _rule_ rather than an exception. Or maybe way more time goes into mundane, repetitive game testing than I had thought.

<comment><USER4> _" Or maybe way more time goes into mundane, repetitive game testing than I had thought."_

You have no idea ( [http://trenchescomic.com/tales/post/9810](http://trenchescomic.com/tales/post/9810) ).

As for visual debugging, these tools are really important because they a) convey information in a much denser form than you'd get from a tool and b) convey information which you can digest without already knowing the answer.

For example, unless you'd seen the oversampling in the picture, you probably wouldn't think to ask "Hey, do we have a lot of overlapping coverage in our walk here?". Similarly, in the case of the Nebraska problem, statistical methods would probably give you the a-okay until you actually _saw_ the results in action, at which point you'd know something was off.

In games and graphics it's pretty much essential that you have some set of visualization debug setup to easily see what's going on--in very complex systems like physics engines it can be almost impossible to tell that something is off without having debug rendering enabled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The post is dated Dec 2012, and the Witness is still to be released. [0].

[0]: [http://the-witness.net/news/](http://the-witness.net/news/)

<comment><USER6> Braid (Jonathan Blow's previous title) was in development for something like 4 years and technically it was significantly less ambitious than The Witness appears to be. In the end it turned out very nicely polished and was one of the best games I've ever played.

Not all years-long development cycles are signs of trouble; generally that only applies when you have task-masters death marching a burned-out team along to various failed deadlines. When you have a single or small team of creators iterating on a core game idea with the means to actually release the title "when its done", good end results often occur.

<comment><USER7> Another game with a long-running dev time that turned out really well is Cave Story. It took five years and is on the same level as Braid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you want your mind totally blown, view the source of this page.

<comment><USER9> WTF?? Anyone have an idea what the system that produces this is called?

<comment><USER10> You can read or listen to a recent (and very explicit / potentially offensive) description of how it works and why it came to be: [https://mollyrocket.com/jacs/jacs_0004_0010.html](https://mollyrocket.com/jacs/jacs_0004_0010.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> should do a lawnmower pattern (uniform coverage) and on each obstacle boundary, spawn a boundary explorer.

The boundary explorer would try to move a small distance forward, if it could, it would back up, and turn right a small amount. Then it would try moving forward again, looking for the most right it could turn whilst still being able to walk forwards. This would trace the boundary clockwise.

If the lawnmower grid resolution pattern was half the smallest diameter of an obstacle. You would be guaranteed to discover the topology of the map (assuming the map walk operator is bidirectional, which it isn't, but should be.)

<comment><USER8> > assuming the map walk operator is bidirectional, which it isn't, but should > be

You shouldn't necessarily be able to walk off a cliff and then turn around and walk back up it.

<comment><USER3> oh true. So there will also be another type of boundary which has a direction associated. And a sorta don't know area when you are mid fall with some limited manoeuvrability (non-holonomic movement). Best not to try and categorise the non-holonomic areas in too much detail as that's a rabbit hole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This was also posted on The Witness blog if you'd like to see more comments.

[http://the-witness.net/news/2012/12/mapping-the-islands-walk...](http://the- witness.net/news/2012/12/mapping-the-islands-walkable-surfaces/)</comment>


Direct the Patent Office to Cease Issuing Software Patents - <AUTHOR> https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/%21/petition/direct-patent-office-cease-issuing-software-patents/vvNslSTq?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl <comment><USER2> Yes, this is a dupe from earlier today. I posted the damned thing by accident while learning the system in a half awake stupor. And, because I was in an half awake stupor, decided it was a good idea to share it with the world after accidentally posting it. I've been trying to get them to take it down to no avail. Failing that I've suggested better language and asked other people to suggest better language. On Monday I plan to call the White House switch board and see if I can beg/bully my way to someone with the power to update the text. The previous thread had my suggestion for better language, but I'll just go ahead and repost it here:

\----

The US Patent system is badly broken with respect to software patents. Patents are being issued to companies for "inventions" that are, in fact, common knowledge included in any introductory software textbook. The result is that the large software corporations are buying up reams of patents and using them to bully small, innovative companies out of business or into paying ridiculous licensing fees.

Quite apart from encouraging innovation, patents are now stifling it. The software industry is one of the few industries still strong in America. Even in a time of recession, there are not enough computer programmers to fill all the available positions. Startup companies are forming and growing readily. But if every line of code written brings with it a potential violation of someone else's intellectual property, this will cease to be the case.

To solve this problem, we petition the Obama Administration to direct the Patent office to cease issuing software patents and to instruct the judicial system to take a long hard look at existing patents for validity. With these two steps, those of us in the software industry can stop worrying about mutually assured patent destruction and get back to doing what we do best.

\----

If anyone else comes up with language the community prefers, I'm game to use it when I call the switchboard on Monday.

<comment><USER3> You shouldn't update the text of a petition people already signed.

<comment><USER2> It basically says the same thing. Just with out the grammatical mess. Most of the signatures of come from either here or reddit and I've posted the suggested update text in both places to similar reactions.

<comment><USER3> I understand, but, still, the language in the first paragraph is contradictory. "The patent office's original interpretation of software as language and therefor patentable" states the original interpretation of the USPTO is that language is patentable. A petition like this should not allow the slightest amount of confusion.

<comment><USER2> This would be one of the reasons why the language needs to be fixed. I don't think there was any doubt in the minds of those who signed what it was asking. And the new language just removes my messy "let's-just-throw-text-in-this- textbox" crap.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, but people already signed the petition. I understand most probably nobody who signed it understood your intentions, but, still, it's now a signed document.

BTW, congratulations on the idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this "petitions" feature on whitehouse.gov brand new? I've heard of a couple of petitions today, and never before.

I see right now that there are only 32 petitions there, and every one of them is either a neutral or leftish cause. The only _completely_ nutty one is the UFO one, and there are no troll ones either (I thought "Stop Animal Homelessness At Its Roots" was a clever troll, but apparently it's talking about abandoned pets rather than wild animals).

Have conservative activists not yet got wind of this? Has 4chan not yet got wind of this? Or is the White House carefully curating what petitions it allows to appear on its site?

<comment><USER5> _In addition, a petition must get 150 signatures in order to be publicly searchable on WhiteHouse.gov._

<comment><USER4> One hundred and fifty names (err, anons) should be easy enough to rustle up on 4chan for a petition to... well, whatever the meme of the week on 4chan is.

I googled "white house petitions free republic" to see whether the freepers were planning anything, but so far they haven't got past the "They'll harvest my IP address" paranoia stage.

I'm sure that conservative activists will get wind of this eventually. If there isn't a serious competition for the most-signed petition between "Legalize pot, man" and "Make Ron Paul President" by this time next week then I'll be suspicious that they're deleting things they don't like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dupe from earlier today: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3028999>

Same complaints on that thread. We as a community seem embarrassed to sign something which has such awful grammar.

</comment><comment><USER7> IANAL, but I don't think the executive branch has the authority to do what the petition is asking. The patent office merely interprets what Congress and the courts tell it - while there is some interpretational discretion, I don't think it extends to the point of rejecting all software patents and certainly not to the point of retroactively invalidating all of them.

<comment><USER8> The US Patent Office is part of the Executive Branch, so the President certainly does have the authority to issue orders to them.

<comment><USER7> Yes, the President can issue orders to them. But if those orders countermand the direction and mandate the patent office receives from congress as interpreted by the courts, the executive branch has overstepped its authority. Such an order would be, in my opinion, an order to step outside authority and outside law. Yes, such orders have been given on many occasions, but that doesn't make them right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good lord, can we petition them to write the petition in English first?

</comment><comment><USER10> Grammar aside, I think this should be signed at the very least to show interest in IP law change. You have to admit that any developer with any sense of the litigation battlefield currently represented in the law should jump at the chance to bring more focus to the subject. I would rather fight big business on a competitiveness basis than over the tremendous threat of litigation with the large legal team overlords cutting up every concept and locking it down.

</comment><comment><USER11> Now how to identify what is a "software" patent and what isn't? Legally software already can't be patented -- it has to be a physical something. Read any "software" patent and it doesn't refer to the software, it refers to some sort of programmable machine that does something special with its software.

Is it a machine patent or is it a software patent?

</comment><comment><USER12> Since there are trillions of dollars worth of software patents out there, most owned by US companies, this doesn't seem like a good way to proceed even if it were legal. You might be able to stop future applications for software patents. But really there's no bright line between software and hardware anymore -- you really need to reform the entire patent system.

<comment><USER13> What makes you think software patents are worth trillions of dollar, and how do you define "worth"?

I'd guess that for the economy as a whole, the combined worth of software patents is negative.

<comment><USER12> I agree their economic value is probably negative, but because of the broken patent laws companies currently need them. Since companies like Google and Apple have recently spent billions of dollars to buy relatively small collections of patents, the entire existing pool would probably cost a few trillion to buy. It's really not a good idea to make laws that cause companies to spend this much money, and then declare their value to be zero. It's also probably not legal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a nice idea, but I can't sign a petition where the grammar is that bad.

</comment><comment><USER15> As of this writing, 5029 of the required 5000 signatures have been collected! Now hopefully this actually goes somewhere...

<comment><USER16> I wish I could participate and drive that number higher but I'm not American.

I have linked to this petition from my blog urging Americans to sign it though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just a small thing, but this site completely fails at the back button.

</comment><comment><USER18> Software patents are not bad. Obvious patents are bad.

<comment><USER19> Name a good software patent the world can't live without?

<comment><USER18> I'll quote PG himself: "One thing I do feel pretty certain of is that if you're against software patents, you're against patents in general. Gradually our machines consist more and more of software. Things that used to be done with levers and cams and gears are now done with loops and trees and closures. There's nothing special about physical embodiments of control systems that should make them patentable, and the software equivalent not."

By speaking out against software patents, you are essentially saying that programmers are not capable of inventing, or that they should not be afforded the same protections that other inventors receive.

<comment><USER20> Not at all. The people who are against software patents are simply convinced that they (software patents) stiffling innovation.

<comment><USER4> It's not clear to me where the line between "software patents" and "other patents" exists, or why that should be a bright line.

And even if you _could_ convince me that patents in field X (say, patents for mining machinery) were (at present) holding back rather than encouraging innovation in that field, this might not be a convincing argument anyway. I think government should treat all industries equally unless there's some _very_ compelling reason not to.

<comment><USER21> > And even if you could convince me

What evidence have you heard that patents actually help?

> that patents in field X (say, patents for mining machinery) were (at > present) holding back rather than encouraging innovation in that field, this > might not be a convincing argument anyway.

Wow, that's harsh. "These arbitrary rules against redheads are ruining Ireland but at least we're enforcing the rule evenly across countries."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> good luck with that.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why?

<comment><USER24> There is much debate over whether software patents encourage or discourage innovation. There are a lot of arguably obvious software patents (e.g. "Method to retrieve backups from the internet"). Since the USPTO only started issuing software patents in the late 1990's, some or most of these patents are predated by plenty of examples of prior art. Imagine if a movie screenwriter were suddenly able to patent the romantic comedy, or the buddy-cop movie and then use these patents to sue anyone who tried to make a similar film? How many movies would not be made just because of the fear of litigation?

<comment><USER25> It's not very debatable at all, actually. Plot two curves on the same graph, one showing the rate of fundamental innovations in software and computer science in general and the other showing the number of software patents issued by the USPTO. My _guess_ is that those curves will cross sometime in the 1990s, and never approach each other again.

(The trouble is that the politicians, not knowing any better, will go to the USPTO to get both sets of figures. "See? All of these new software patents must mean that innovation has accelerated at a tremendous rate!"))

<comment><USER4> Now let's plot the same curve "rate of fundamental innovations in software and computer science" against the popularity of the name "Tyler" for young boys.

Correlation, causation, yada yada yada.

<comment><USER25> Yadda, yadda, indeed. The point is, _there is no real correlation to begin with_ , except for what a naive politician will see when he looks at the number of patent grants.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Abnormal String Hashing - <AUTHOR> http://pzemtsov.github.io/2019/10/07/abnormal-string-hashing.html <comment><USER2> If you're curious on how to avoid this in your applications, take a look at universal hashing: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_hashing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_hashing)

<comment><USER3> How does that prevent the result being 0? Seems like an implementation detail easily fixed as the author explains.

<comment><USER2> Well, there's two issues here. One is that zero is both a valid hash and a sentinel, which is a Java implementation problem. The other issue is that an attacker can pick a bunch of things that hash to zero and gum up your application's performance, which is what universal hashing solves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do all of those lookup tables for powers of 31 work once integer overflow happens?

<comment><USER5> What lookup tables for powers of 31 do you mean?

The HashMap implementation internally uses lookup tables (arrays) with sizes that are powers of _2_ , which might be what you mean? The incoming hash code can happily use all 32 bits of the int type, and its calculation is allowed to overflow and wrap. When indexing into the hash bucket array, HashMap masks off the extra bits that would lead to an index out of bounds exception otherwise.

<comment><USER4> Look at the github repository.

He's practically turned the hash code calculations inside out to do memoization, and one of the things he's doing is precalculating the hashes and merging them.

He's making the observation that ((n * 31 + x) * 31 + y) * 31 + z = 31^3 * n + 31^2 * x + 31 * y + z

His code calculates (31^3 * n) + (31^2 * x + 31 * y + z ), memoizing the first and second terms and combining them for each pairing of n, x, y, and z.

That's algebra, and of course it holds for all real numbers... if you have infinite precision arithmetic. We do not. We have 32 bit integers, and overflow behaves oddly in some cases. My question is does the overflow behave _uniformly_ for all combinations of those two terms. I thought the answer was 'no', so I'm wondering if he's missing some matches.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, I missed the point that this was related to the GitHub repository.

Integer addition and multiplication are associative and commutative, even in the presence of two's complement wraparound. So this transformation is valid. I don't have a source to point you to, though. I'd be interested in one, if anyone has one. (Or just a proof, if it fits here.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> He really didn't understand Java's take on this. Being zero-insensitive obviously is totally insecure. Java knew that. But Java decided to fight those kind of attacks better than most others. Java has a still trivial insecure hash function, which it decided to keep, because of an API blunder. But they convert the collisions from a linked list to a tree on too many collisions which indicate an active attack. Those attacks are rare, the common case is still fast.

Zero-insensitivity would have been fixable trivially, perl fixed that with 5.18, but they couldn't, so they came up with a proper and much better fix. Unlike perl and everyone else.

<comment><USER7> This isn't about hash collisions, it's about unnecessarily recalculating the hash value

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm looking at all of the lookup tables in that code and wondering how much slower it would be to do a depth-first search and calculate as you went.

And then with a trie thrown in.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is fun, but with the test code running 10 million iterations to generate "slower" numbers, is this of practical interest?

<comment><USER9> It's a deterministic attack vector, so significant offline computation prep work is not unusual.

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

[https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/hash-table- attack-8e4371fc...](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/hash-table- attack-8e4371fc5261/)

<comment><USER8> A DAV and a SOV huh? Can you share a practical implication?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Arbitrary length string of null characters also produces zero hash, e.g.: System.out.println("\0\0\0\0\0".hashCode());</comment>


Missing plane lost, Malaysia says - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26716572

<comment><USER2> This whole thing just feels 'off.'

Perhaps I'm jaded by the past few years of disinformation and spying, but I'm starting to believe that there's more to this story than meets the eye and because of that, we may never know what happened.

Wag the Dog comes to mind.

In any case, I find it strange to make this determination having not have found the plane.

<comment><USER3> I think it is more that the media have gone crazy in covering the story. There was so much misinformation being published that had no solid evidence behind it. I think it was pretty clear that something awful happened and that plane was lost after crashing into the ocean. All of the stories of it being hijacked and then flown and landed somewhere were all pretty crazy theories. Possible sure but only a very small possibility. It was far more likely to be some kind of failure in the aircraft and/or pilot error similar to the AirFrance crash a few years ago.

The pilot suicide theory is probably the most likely after a failure/error IMHO.</comment></comment>


Buzz Aldrin says this is the problem with Elon Musk's plans for Mars - happy-go-lucky http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/15/buzz-aldrin-says-this-is-the-problem-with-elon-musks-mars-plan.html <comment><AUTHOR> >He's a transportation person

Exactly! He is going to transport us to Mars. There are other people who build houses and towers</comment>


Google vs. Oracle: The Supreme Court will decide software development's future? - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-supreme-court-will-decide-software-developments-future-in-google-v-oracle/ <comment><USER3> Here's the SCOTUSblog page for the case. It's got all the related Amicus briefs, and oral will be posted there once it happens (usually a day or two after) that will include a transcript and audio. Doesn't look like a date has been set yet, as far as I can tell. Oyez also usually does an awesome mashup with the transcript and audio from oral argument. I encourage everyone to check out that page. A favorite of mine is below.

[https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/google-llc-v- ora...](https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/google-llc-v-oracle- america-inc/)

[https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/13-132](https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/13-132)

</comment><comment><USER4> I really hope they invite plenty of industry leaders to speak. Especially relevant ones like Guido who made Python and his languages API is reused. Theres gotta be others where the API was copied verbatum and the original devs dont mind. Hell OpenJDK was made cause Sun didnt care about API copyright when the GNU peeps made their own libre JDK.

<comment><USER5> I don't think oral arguments at SCOTUS or other high courts ever work like that. Guido et al can submit an amicus curae brief. Many have for this particular case (EFF, Mozilla, Mapbox, Medium, Patreon, Etsy, and Wikimedia e.g.)

<comment><USER6> Oral arguments in front of SCOTUS are surprisingly quick and short. I was able to go and sit in the "audience" one day back in 2013, and it took only about an hour for each case (got to see 2 of them).

The point of the oral arguments (at least for the cases I saw) was for the justices to essentially ask clarifying questions to help make up their minds. They had already thoroughly reviewed the case documents, amicus curae briefs, etc.

<comment><USER7> How do one become an audience of a Supreme Court (or federal courts) trial in the U.S?

<comment><USER8> In addition to standing in line, you need to get up _really_ early. IIRC, you probably want to arrive before 5 AM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am somewhat ignorant, so I would love it if someone could fill me in on what I'm missing.

* APIs are just as novel as implementations. API design is hard, and interesting, and it's code just as much as a library is code.

* While in this case it would be nice for Google to win because it's a case of a Proprietary software being used for Open Source, I see a far more daunting problem. I see massive companies like AWS reimplementing open source projects' APIs with proprietary solutions, and I'm not sure if copyleft licensing would be able to protect them if Google wins. That sounds far more dangerous to me than a company being able to copyright its API.

* People say this would be a disaster. Is it not the case that, if this happened, that _new_ and novel APIs could be copyrighted? Why is that bad? The difference between a free/proprietary API is that you can't use a drop-in replacement, but we already avoid proprietary software, or overly restrictive software, all the time. So wouldn't we just continue doing so?

edit: From another of my posts, to put it this way:

To me, if I write a program under license X, it is strange to me that someone can reimplement my program's API under an incompatible license Y. To me, that violates my license, and software licenses are enforced via copyright protection.

<comment><USER10> > _API design is hard, and interesting,_

OK, fair enough.

But plenty of difficult and interesting things are not patentable.

> _and it 's code just as much as a library is code._

It doesn't execute, so it's not code!

<comment><USER11> If it's text it's code. The fact that it doesn't do anything doesn't enter the argument.

<comment><USER10> 1\. By that logic this post is code;

2\. I just _entered_ it into the argument!

<comment><USER11> All text is copyrightable including source code and the comment you just typed. In fact when you look at TOS for websites you'll notice that you give an indefinite copyright to works by yourself on their platform including images, posts, comments etc etc etc.

The fact that the code is never executed doesn't enter into the argument.

The argument is whether a clean room reimplementation violates their IP rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> EU courts got it right, and declared APIs non copyrightable already. Time for US Supreme Court to do the same, and fix the mess lower courts created.

</comment><comment><USER13> I hope the supreme court understands the significance of this. This decision will change the direct history of the world.

<comment><USER14> While I'm really hoping that Google wins this, I also hope that the Supreme Court applies the law as they see it, without any consideration at all for the social impact. If you want a law change, you should be hoping to see that come out of the legislature, not a branch of government that specifically does not have legislating powers.

<comment><USER15> Something to consider in the case of copyright law is that the copyright is explicitly justified in the Constitution by the potential benefit to society[1]. A large part of this case comes down to the meaning of fair use and whether ownership of API is justified according to the cost/benefit that it presents to society.

[1] US Constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"

<comment><USER14> Copyright is not a constitutional right, which you'd see if you hadn't trimmed the opening phrase of that section out of your quote

> Clause 8. The Congress shall have Power * * * To promote the Progress of > Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and > Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

[https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-1/50-copyrigh...](https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-1/50-copyrights- and-patents.html)

All this does is allow for Congress to pass copyright legislation, without violating the 1st amendment, which it otherwise would.

<comment><USER16> > All this does is allow for Congress to pass copyright legislation, without > violating the 1st amendment, which it otherwise would.

The First Amendment wasn't even drafted, let alone ratified, before the US Constitution and its Copyright Clause came into effect.

The Copyright Clause exists because the Federal government's expansive Commerce Clause powers wouldn't exist for at least another 100 years. Without an express grant, the Federal government wouldn't have had any power to grant and regulate copyrights.

Under modern jurisprudence, the Copyright Clause is unnecessary to grant the Federal government jurisdiction as copyrights are an archetype of a national commercial domain; even the most conservative rollback of Commerce Clause jurisprudence would be unlikely to change this. Instead, many legal scholars, including several justices in uncontended dicta, have opined that the clause effectively _limits_ the Federal government's powers by restricting the scope of Federal copyrights (copyrightable subject matter, defenses to infringement, etc) to what was cognizable under the Common Law in 1789. (Indeed, the majority said exactly that regarding time limits, though AFAIK it's only in dicta have they said the clause implicitly limits copyright powers more generally.)

So, for example, Congress could never completely legislate away a Fair Use defense. Likewise for doctrines like the Idea-Expression dichotomy, which Google heavily relied upon in their first trial (less so in their second trial because of appeal court decisions) to argue that APIs weren't copyrightable in the first place.

It's true that the First Amendment is used--and used more often--to restrain the reach of copyright. But that's mostly because the First Amendment has undergone an expansive reinterpretation similar to the evolution of the Commerce Clause. The drafters would have perceived little, if any, tension, between the Copyright Clause and the First Amendment--mostly because of how they understood terms of art like free speech, but also because times were simpler then and the flaws and ambiguity in their legal concepts hadn't yet been revealed by 100+ years of litigation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> We always see the anti-Oracle/FreeAPI's regards this story, but I'm curious who out there is on Oracles side in this? Are there any other major players or even small ones that people know of that would like to see Oracle win this case ?

<comment><USER11> I'm on Google's side professionally because it affects my livelihood directly.

I'm on Oracle's side dogmatically because I think there's nothing in the law that says they can't copyright an API.

I'm on neither side personally because I think this whole case is a massive failing by the law to adapt to new use cases.

<comment><USER18> Copyright is a grant, not a natural right, which generally means you can only copyright what the legislature says you can.

<comment><USER19> Sure. But if I can copyright a screenplay, what's to say I can't copyright an API?

It's not clear to me why one copyright would be legitimate and the other not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> One more reason the rest of the world has to up their game so that a bad decision by a U.S. mega corp or U.S. court don't leave all of us with no alternatives.

<comment><USER21> Unfortunately, almost the entire world signed on to the Berne Convention [0], and it's basically impossible to change it anymore. It predates the internet too, so it has silly things like "minimum copyright term must be 50 years after the death of the author" and makes no allowances for the copyright of technological content.

The entire world has already handcuffed itself to the bad decision of having incredibly restrictive copyright laws, so we already are in a pretty bad spot there.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder who has copyright over the file API (e.g. open(), close(), etc.). Since filesystems are written by implementing this common API, I guess they'd all be infringing someone's copyright. Also language interpreters and standard libraries that wrap those OS facilities to make them available in their language. Linux PAM modules are built by implementing an API defined by PAM. Language wrappers which allow us to use libraries written in different languages would all be violating copyright too, I guess. No more using GTK in a language different from C, for example. How far does this go?

</comment><comment><USER23> If Google wins, does that mean that anyone can make third-party compatible software without permission from the owner? That third-party Teddy Ruxpin tapes, for example, which were sued out of existence, would be protected?

[http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/claw/ch5b.htm](http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/claw/ch5b.htm)

</comment><comment><USER24> i think Oracle has a very weak case, because i think it and especially its predecessor have always presented java as an open software, even going so far as to standardize it so that others could easily implement, resulting in the many implementations of the java platform we have today. claiming copyright after all that should never hold up in front of a judge.

<comment><USER25> Java has always been copyrighted, and Sun has already used that copyright against to shut down an implementation that was not conforming before - <USER2> Microsoft Java (later kept alive for a while as J#).

<comment><USER26> Sun used the Java _trademark_ against Microsoft. The case was settled out of court.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> While fuck Oracle and all that of course, I actually must admit I disagree that interfaces are trivial and, especially, not creative and thus worthy of copyright.

I think interfaces are super creative, way more distilled ideation than implementations which are often bogged down with mundane details. I and work try to write programs very compositionally, and good interfaces are _the_ keystone that makes this possible and productive. Put in a slogan, I must rather be forced to replace and rewrite my favorite implementations than replace and rewrite my favorite interfaces.

Perhaps think a better argument in a better world is a symmetrical fair use one where if you invite people to consume (re provide) and interface, you must also allow people to provide (re consume) it. Unlike e.g. a flu vaccine, the market isn't preexisting but built around the interface. I dunno, I'm still thinking it over.

Of course, given that's copywrite is insane, it might be prudent to pretend otherwise!

(lastly a fun fact: harmony alone isn't copywritable while melody alone is.)

<comment><USER28> The reason I dislike API protection is that an API is a description of a problem, not a solution to the problem. It may be a useful, well thought out description, but that's all. It's the plot, not the story and plots aren't protected by copyright.

In principle the plot is simply a byproduct of writing the story. Yes authors often plan out the plot first, but they don't have to. If you just write a story as it comes to you, it will still have a plot. Likewise with an API.

<comment><USER9> A novel API can totally be a solution to a problem, though. Hence API design being an area that we all spend lots of time thinking and learning about.

<comment><USER28> Sure, but equally prospective authors spend a huge amount of work creating great plots, and a terrible plot can wreck an extremely well written story. They still can't copyright or otherwise protect them though, for good reasons.

Protecting plots would have terrible negative consequences for creative arts, just as protecting APIs would have terrible consequences for the software industry. It's not 100% directly comparable, APIs are often more explicitly stated than plots, but I think the analogy is close enough to be useful.

<comment><USER29> An API is not a 'plot' \- it's a very specific articulation of information.

An API is more like a set of chapter headings and their descriptions.

It doesn't matter that they are 'not a solution' to anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Remember: Congress always has the ability to change the law.

</comment><comment><USER31> For once rooting for Oracle. They may be slimy but Google needs to be dethroned for the tech world to progress.

<comment><USER32> If it's Oracle vs. Google, Oracle is the slime king.

Preventing the reimplementation of APIs is not the way to dethrone Google; this is one instance where we fall on the same side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "While valuable, there's nothing creative about an API."

This quite fundamentally flawed. In many cases, the APIs are the most important and hardest work, and the implementation is arbitrary.

<comment><USER33> > In many cases, the APIs are the most important and hardest work

Importance and hard work aren't the issue. The particular sense of expressive creativity protected by copyright, distinct from the kind of functional invention protected, if at all, by patents, is the issue. APIs are (often not particularly novel, but sometimes quite nov) functional inventions, not works of authorship. Yes, API design is _critically important_ to the functionality, sometimes.the most important and hardest work in building the functional software. That is not an argument for copyrightability, however. It's more of an argument against it.

<comment><USER29> I get that 'hard/creative/important work' isn't the core of the legal issue, I was referring to the statement in the text, which I think is quite wrong.

But APIs are, I think, 'works of authorship'. It seems rational to me that APIs should have the same copyright protections as code, poetry, music, etc..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I can't understand the practical effect of a copywriting an API.

Why would a company publish an API if they didn't want people to use it? Paid APIs exist as well.

Why does copyright stop the example of sharing photos between different services? What's stopping Google from rejecting photos from nonGoogle devices right now?

<comment><USER9> AFAIK the issue is not using the API, it's reimplementing it verbatim.

For example, AWS has done this a lot - many of AWS's services are 'drop in' for open source projects, making it easy to migrate off of, say, RabbitMQ, or Cassandra, or Mongo, and over to SQS or one of their databases.

If Google loses those open source projects could protect themselves against this by copyrighting their APIs.

<comment><USER34> Now I'm even more confused. That sounds completely different from copyrighting an API.

Why shouldn't a company be able to copyright the implementation? That's the work they did.

<comment><USER9> Well perhaps I'm the one that's confused then.

> Why shouldn't a company be able to copyright the implementation?

This is what a software license is - software licenses are, to my knowledge, just a form of copyright.

The question here is if the _API_ is copyrightable, not just the implementation. In my opinion it is, the API is, as you say, part of the work they did.

Honestly I feel like I have to be missing something. Articles like this exclaim that there is a consensus among programmers that I'm wrong, so I feel like I've got to have misunderstood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The only reason why it's gotten this far, instead of being settled, is because the two parties are at an impasse. And the conflicting views resulting in the impasse have been established by their respective boards, as argued by the law teams.

These two companies failed to voluntarily agree to a compromise. No one made them get to this point. They fundamentally disagree with each other. Either they both think they're in the right. Or one side is bluffing, and willing to take a gambit, hoping the Court will go along with it.</comment>