Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://stallman.org/facebook.html <comment><USER2> If someone can't state their point without warping the very language they use to support their point, it makes it very hard to feel like anything they're saying is credible.

Example 1: someone is trying to convince me to vote Republican. They go through the Republican platform issue by issue, and compare/contrast it to the Democrats' stand. However, every time they use the word "Democrat" they instead say "Democrap" or "Dumbocrat" or "Dumbocrap". That does not make me think they are clever wordsmiths; rather, that makes me think that they think I'm an idiot and that they think they can actually manipulate me with such silliness. It also makes me think they arrived at their own philosophy not by trying to understand opposing views, but by inventing their own strawmen for whatever tribe they imagine they are opposed to. It makes me think they are driven by tribalism rather than ideas.

Example 2: well, here, RMS' insistence on using the word "useds" rather than "users" when referring to people who are on Facebook. Yeah, I get it. Ha ha ha. It doesn't make me think you're clever, it makes me think you literally do not possess the capacity to reason about anything without invoking strawmen. It calls into question every single observation you are making. It makes it sound like you don't respect the people you are supposedly trying to convince, and are instead just enjoying preaching to your choir.

It's not like an isolated incident, it is literally his primary rhetorical device in nearly everything he's written over the last 3 decades. Even the appropriation of generic terms like "free" to mean very, very, very specific and non-intuitive things reeks of intellectual dishonesty. It's so frustrating because he does have some (some) very insightful and constructive ideas about a lot of things, and could be such a positive contributor to the world, but it's like he wants to alienate his non-choir audience right out of the gate. It's like he's terrified of actually engaging with people that are not already 100% (not 99.9%, he demands 100%) on his side. He is right about some (some) things, but so many, many people will never know it because he wants to shoot himself in the foot as soon as possible.

<comment><USER3> I do not use "democrap" or "republicant", as they do not promote the discussion or understanding in any way.

However, I did adopt Stallman's "Copy Restriction" (instead of "Copy Protection") and "Digital Restriction Management" (instead of "Digital Right Management") - because they are a much better description of what the concept actually is for 99% of the people.

I started doing this after I told someone that I will not buy a Depeche Mode CD I wanted and was holding in my hand in the store, because it has copy protection; they looked at me completely puzzled, asking "Why wouldn't you want your copy to be protected?", and a little more inquiry revealed that they believed it was a somehow more robust (by virtue of being "protected") than non-copy protected CDs.

Language is a very potent medium of control. You are, indeed, used by facebook when you interact with it, and introducing it into the language is a way to bring it to the surface. He's not using "useds" to be clever. He's bringing it to the surface. It might look stupid to you, but I assure you that you are not immune to this kind of bias (and neither am I). I know that's why he does that, because I've heard him personally explain that when attending one of his talks.

In fact, if you look at the works of Kahenman & Tversky, you see that equivalent questions worded differently get opposite responses from people who we expect to know better (e.g. doctors, pilots, ...).

Stallman is basically trying to counter the (essentially unlimited) bias that the media has against what he believes, and I don't know of any tool that does that better than the rhetorical device(s) he is using.

<comment><USER4> Still don't understand the problem with the terms in your second paragraph. Copy protection protects CDs from being copied. Digital rights management manages the rights of the IP owner. These are just as valid.

Then you have claiming Win32 is a subliminal message about winning rather than an abbreviation for Windows...

<comment><USER5> Copy protection doesn't protect the customer, nor does digital rights management help manage their rights. They are not benefits for the customer, only negatives.

When my bank charges me a fee, they call it a fee, not a bonus, though it's the latter from their point of view.

<comment><USER6> It does protect the customer though, at the very least it means their money was well spent and other people can't violate that social contract by taking what they want for free.

<comment><USER3> Personally, I don't feel any social contract is violated if someone else gets for free music that I paid money for.

Furthermore, it seems neither do many of the artists - most of them make their music available for free through e.g. YouTube.

And even if such a social contract existed, I suspect I would feel more harmed by the inability to format-shift the music I bought, than by someone else listening to the music without paying.

It is rare for two passengers on an airplane to pay the same rate even for the same seat and service class. Does this violate any social contract in your opinion? Obviously, the money was not wall spent by one of them.

<comment><USER6> Well no it doesn't, but that's generally because they had rewards with the airline or bought it in a deal somewhere. Both are legal ways to reduce the money you pay for things. As is streaming music these days. And I should emphasize I'm not against being able to crack DRM and I think it would be really bad to make uncrackable DRM. In my opinion DRM is not supposed to stop the people who would crack it anyways, it's the people who would try it just for the hell of it if it were easy. It's like why you put a lock on your house: it's not because it makes it impenetrable to burglars, it's because it keeps out 99% of the assholes who would just walk in if there was no door.

<comment><USER3> I still fail to see how I am better served because someone else cannot copy some music without a rights holder permission.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Stallman is my hero.

All social media is terrible, and all of it is impossible to profit from, and I bet all of it will eventually fail. Facebook doesn't make any money from social media, they make money from side businesses that are tacked onto their social media platform.

Anyone who is interested in social blogging should have their own website (wordpress.com is free) with RSS support so people who like what you write can follow your posts. RSS is not controlled by any corporation. That is the internet way of doing social media.

this is slightly off-topic but I read Zuckerberg's accounts got hacked because he used 'dadada' as a password on multiple services. People have called him a genius, he does not appear to be that exactly.

<comment><USER8> > Facebook doesn't make any money from social media, they make money from side > businesses that are tacked onto their social media platform.

Newspapers never made money, they just made money from side businesses that were tacked onto their social media platform.

TV shows don't make money, they just make money from side businesses that are tacked onto their shows.

Just because you don't _like_ a business model doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Advertising has been a successful business model for literally centuries.

<comment><USER9> _> Newspapers never made money_

Sure they did; they sold subscriptions, and if you didn't have a subscription and wanted a copy, you bought one.

 _> TV shows don't make money_

Sure they do; practically nobody gets broadcast TV any more, it's all paid cable or paid satellite or something of that sort. Granted that's a very indirect way of paying for individual shows, but now you can even do that directly with, for example, Netflix.

 _> Advertising has been a successful business model for literally centuries._

I agree that advertising has been around for many centuries, but it hasn't been a business model for most of that time; it's been a cost of doing business. According to Wikipedia[1], the first newspaper to have paid advertising was in 1836. And the first businesses to make money solely from advertising revenue (which is what "advertising as a successful business model" means to me) are much more recent than that.

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

<comment><USER8> Just because advertising isn't their only revenue source doesn't mean that it wasn't intrinsic to maintaining the profitability and viability of numerous media organizations.

> And the first businesses to make money solely from advertising revenue

Strictly speaking, that means Facebook is _also_ not using an advertising business model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'll bet Zuckerberg and countless Facebook employees have used software written by Stallman.

At the risk of being wrong, I'd even go so far as to say they _need_ this software.

But does Stallman ever need to use software written by Zuckerberg or Facebook employees?

Personalities and errors in judgment aside, give respect and credit where it is due.

I have never needed Facebook's software. And I doubt I ever will.

From a purely utilitarian viewpoint, my gratitude goes to Stallman and the people who brought us the internet. I'm not sure what I could thank Facebook for.

If Zuckerberg had failed to be in the right place at the right time, there would always be a substitute.

But if there was no Stallman back in the 70's and 80's, would we still have gcc, gdb and so much free, open source software?

<comment><USER11> Nobody needs GNU software; they can use FreeBSD which is just as good. They can also use clang and lldb instead of gcc and gdb.

You can debate about whether those would have existed in their present form without the leadership of the FSF, but then you'd be making a different argument.

By the way, I'm not sure if you are trying to imply that Stallman brought us the Internet but I can't see how that could possibly be true.

<comment><USER10> "...I'm not sure if you are trying to imply that Stallman brought us the Internet..."

No. The opposite. I'm trying to draw attention to the fact that besides free open source software, improvements in the network allow companies like Facebook to grow as big as they are.

Before clang, FreeBSD used gcc. I'm actually not a GNU/Linux user; I wish BSD did not have to use gcc, but for as long as I've been a user, release engineering has always used gcc. I would personally prefer to use something like pcc as opposed to clang.

Today, lots of companies use GNU software, when they could just as easily use BSD. And many BSD users still need gcc to compile their OS. Not how I expected things to turn out but attacking Stallman makes little sense at this point.

Instead, maybe we should be thanking him.

Companies like Facebook offer very little while taking all our personal information for their commercial use, while open source projects like BSD and GNU continue to offer a great deal, without requiring so much as an account or password, much less tracking our every move.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was a used a few months ago until I just quit. I enjoy trail running and time-permitting I try to do 5-7 races per year. This year I totally missed 2 races b/c I was not in the loop anymore. Organizers don't even have a website or newsletter anymore, just a FB page. Then I realized this is happening to businesses as well. They seem to ignore the fact that they are giving FB full control over its brand/audience.

Anyway, Stallman is right, again.

<comment><USER13> >Organizers don't even have a website or newsletter anymore, just a FB page

This will only get worse, as long as we let it. If the members of a community refuse to participate in their Facebook "group" or "event" page, then they will have to publish that information somewhere else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Recently my girlfriend discovered the depth of the program FB started to listen to the microphone, even if the app isn't on. She never installed the FB app on her new phone. Multiple times in the last month, some VERY specific topic of conversation IRL has shown up as an ad in her FB stream. Most recently, a coworker told her about a "Custom Martin" guitar he had just bought. Later that day there was an ad for a custom Martin guitar. She's never searched for that, liked anything related, there's absolutely no other reasonable explanation, and facebook has made it clear they were going to start listening. They were serious. We later discovered that new Samsung phones have FB installed as a "system app" that can't be uninstalled, and that app has permission to turn on the microphone whenever, without permission. Her phone listens to everything she says all day. Anyone with the FB app (whether they choose to install it or not in the case of Samsungs) is being listened to at all times. To me, this is worse than every single thing on RMS's list. It's kinda terrifying.

<comment><USER14> Oh, and also - this morning FB suggested I may know the Lyft driver from last night. I wasn't even the one who ordered the Lyft, I just rode in it. I don't have the FB app installed on my phone. WTF?

<comment><USER15> For that, I was under the assumption that the 'People you may know' on facebook was also who had been looking at you on Facebook, so the driver might have been looking you up.

<comment><USER14> How would he look me up? He didn't know my name. Can lyft drivers see the full name of the people who they pick up, or just the first name? If they can see the full name, then MAYBE he looked up my friend, then looked at his friends list and found me. I find that extremely unlikely. I've also seen a lot of very, very strange "you may know" suggestions for people that I've only met in passing, and again without full names.

<comment><USER16> If your and your driver's phone have sent GPS coordinates to facebook it is pretty easy to link you together.

Or you can be linked by the recorded sound.

<comment><USER17> He said he didn't have the FB app installed on his phone, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I couldn't help but cringe every time the word "used" was used for "user" after the first occurence.

<comment><USER19> He's not wrong.

edit: Per emsy's suggestion: I mean that he is just articulating that _if something is free, you are the product_ , except he(stallman) articulates it by changing the noun to reflect his viewpoint.

also, I just deleted facebook.

<comment><USER20> If you are referring to the Lebowsky quote:

I used to believe that to be true about Stallman too. Now I believe he is just right, what makes him so obnoxious is just that his truths are so inconvenient.

<comment><USER19> negative, if I were to refer to the Big Lebowsky quote (and not care about HN guidelines) I would've posted something like:

He's not wrong, but the parent commenter is an asshole.

But that would of course not be in the spirit of HN and I am sure that they must realize whether they cringe or not RMS is still going to have a pretty consistent view of the matter.

edit: It actually is annoying how correct he is. FB was pretty nice, but I deactivated my account because I disagree with FB and this reminded me to have the conviction to actually vote. I voted against LinkedIn, Bank of AMerica, Facebook, some google services and Instagram so far this year. I voted for Gitlabs, Digital Ocean, Simple Bank and the Apple ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As someone who has never used Facebook, I often feel like I am talking to members of some sinister cult when I meet someone who asks me about Facebook and I say I don't use it. The surprise and weird eyes they give me really unnerves me, it's not just a website to some people, it has become a integral part of their life and has seeped into their mind.

It has gotten to the point that I am deliberately rude about it, feigning complete ignorance and saying things like "what's that, one of those stupid social networks?" or "why would anyone want to use that?" \-- in the hope I momentarily shock them out of their brainwashed state into a moment of clarity where they realize not everyone is a member of this virtual cult.

<comment><USER22> Look, people are surprised because Facebook has become an integral way to communicate with someone whether it be via chat with messenger or as a broadcast message via a newsfeed post.

Internalize this: Facebook has become as integral to communication as having a cell phone was in the last decade. If you met someone who didn't have a cell phone today (whether it be a smartphone or otherwise), wouldn't you be surprised? That's the same surprise people are giving you.

That's their perspective and it's not unreasonable.

<comment><USER21> Cell phones didn't introduce a whole new human activity. At the end of the day, you were still just having a phone conversation with someone - it was just easier and more convenient way to do something people were already doing.

Facebook is a whole new activity that never really existed before, it's much more than just "communication". It seems more about following other peoples lives in a rather obsessive and voyeuristic way (and broadcasting your own), and has this "club" or "cult" feeling about it.

If someone told me they didn't have a cellphone, yes I would be surprised, but more like "how do you get by?" rather than "who is this suspicious outsider?".

<comment><USER23> > Cell phones didn't introduce a whole new human activity.

Wherever you are, if you are not at home, look around you and tell me that cellphones didn't introduce a whole new human activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is a great list of links that I can refer to whenever I need to tell someone how bad Facebook as a company really is and what it does. Every time I see an article like this, I feel highly disappointed that there is still no alternative platform to move people into (at least easily).

> Facebook: the most congenitally dishonest company in America.

I've always believed this to be the case for a long time, except that I had "world" in mind instead of a specific country. I don't like Google tracking users either (and avoid/reduce/change how I use it), but Facebook has been at an altogether diferent "super evil" level all along and continues to be so. The "authentic name" policy is one of the worst things about Facebook as a platform and as a company, and it limits speaking out freely for many people (although there are many others who don't care).

I try to limit the damage I'm causing (since I cannot avoid using FB for a few different reasons) by not putting personal information on it (except unavoidable ones like events I create), not using the FB mobile app (and instead using a browser where I have more control), and having diferent user profiles for different purposes (though Facebook doesn't "like" this).

</comment><comment><USER25> One point from the article I found most interesting:

> Pages that contain Facebook "like" buttons enable Facebook to track visitors > to those pages. Facebook tracks Internet users that see "like" buttons, even > users who never visited facebook.com and never click on those buttons.

> The ACLU has a way of enabling users to click a Facebook "like" button, > which avoids this problem. Its pages have a link called "like us on > Facebook" that leads to a Facebook page where it is possible to push a > "like" button for the ACLU. But if you don't follow that link, Facebook gets > no information about your visit to the ACLU page.

I'd love to learn more about these sorts of strategies for subverting the Facebook omniscience.

<comment><USER26> The term for them is two-click like buttons, or privacy friendly like buttons. There are a number of implementations[0][1][2]

Note that Facebook doesn't like having the loading or function of their like button altered (they want the third-party page loads for targetting)[3]

Note also that some of the share button widgets that aggregate the different social networks into one widget (like AddThis and ShareThis) pitch themselves are more privacy friendly but they are much worse - they will track and target you and sell your data to every network they can.

They also use (or used) evercookie techniques such as canvas fingerprinting or cache-based fingerprinting for persistent and privacy-setting resistant tracking[4].

[0] [https://github.com/JonathanMH/privacy-friendly- facebook](https://github.com/JonathanMH/privacy-friendly-facebook)

[1] [http://www.h-online.com/features/Two-clicks-for-more- privacy...](http://www.h-online.com/features/Two-clicks-for-more- privacy-1783256.html)

[2] [https://github.com/panzi/SocialSharePrivacy](https://github.com/panzi/SocialSharePrivacy)

[3] [http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2Fmeldung%2FFacebook- beschwert-sich-ueber-datenschutzfreundlichen-2-Klick-Button-1335658.html)

[4] [https://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/libraries- are-...](https://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/libraries-are-giving- away-user-privacy.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you want to run Facebook but want to be privacy conscious (any more suggestions? - this is what I do):

1\. Create a separate browser profile for accessing Facebook

2\. Run uBlock Origin

3\. Don't install the mobile apps - use the mobile web interface

4\. Turn your Facebook privacy settings up to 11 (the new max privacy settings are actually good/reasonable) - you can set it up so that you can't be found in search[0], can't be tagged in unwanted posts[4][5]

5\. The cookie used to track you via the like buttons is called datr and is set on *.facebook.com if you want to block it in privoxy / squid etc.

6\. If you access Facebook using the onion website[1] over Tor[2] they won't know your location or network info

7\. Don't like anything and fill in as little information as possible

8\. Don't add people you don't know

9\. Review apps that have permission to access your profile and info regularly[3]

[0] [https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy&section=search...](https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy&section=search&view)

[1] [https://facebookcorewwwi.onion](https://facebookcorewwwi.onion)

[2] [https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en](https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en)

[3] [https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications](https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications)

[4] [https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=timeline&section=expan...](https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=timeline&section=expansion&view)

[5] [https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=timeline&section=sugge...](https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=timeline&section=suggestions&view)

<comment><USER27> Don't add people you know In real life and don't let people you know friend you.

<comment><USER26> I have two family members and one friend who are school teachers.

All use fake names[0] on Facebook because they don't want to be harrassed by parents or students online. Apparently, it is very common (both the harassment and teachers using aliases)

[0] Usually a real first name with an altered/shortened surname

<comment><USER28> Well in fairness Facebook doesn't allow for much harassment. Messages from people outside your friendlist get routed to an other inbox and you can stop people from adding you or even finding you via searches, Not to mention blocking. So yeah, in the extent of stating safe from harassment using a pseudoname is overboard.

<comment><USER26> It's not just harrasement in that sense, but also that you don't want to be bothered. With some parents, if they find you have a Facebook profile, they'll expect to be added. Once you are added, they'll expect you respond to private messages, etc.

I've heard some horror stories about helicopter parents and how they deal with teachers online

<comment><USER29> When my children started nursery and later school the parents were told by the staff that they will not friend you, if the FB account is in their name then consider it a private/personal account. If you want to contact the school look for fooSchool on facebook or similar.

Once it has been made clear at the start of the year then staff need only reiterate if a parent forgets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wonder if even highly computer literate users can grasp the scale of overt and covert information leakage that takes place when we connect a machine to an always on internet connection.

Now with the advent of IoT and other always listening voice activated services the scale of this leakage is only growing bigger.

The typical computer or phone user is ready and willing to give up their privacy to get a small discount or save a few bucks here and there.

I wonder how many of Comcast's customers are aware that Comcast is running public Wifi services through their cable modems in their homes.

In the wake of Snowden's revelations, it makes sense that we pay heed to Stallman's seemingly paranoid utterings.

Facebook is just one among many information gatherers that we are feeding daily either willingly or unwittingly.

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you." ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

<comment><USER31> > I wonder if even highly computer literate users can grasp the scale of overt > and covert information leakage that takes place when we connect a machine to > an always on internet connection.

Nah, not a chance. I mean, maybe if you're running a lightweight Linux distro and don't ever open a browser, then you might be able to grasp it, but what your average consumer device and your average webpages send out, should be well beyond what can be understood by any single human.

That is not least also caused by the fact that at this point, data does not have an expiration date. For all we know, someone might be able to get data about your sleeping schedule in 500 years, still, or I don't know, jail your great-grandson when Hitler then finally does make a return, because you once talked to a Jewish girl.

</comment></comment><comment> manu-chroma Can any one point out when was this article written ? He has some really valid points in there.

<comment><USER32> Looking at the links mentioned in the article, they span from 2011 to 2016 as is evident from the URLs. Seems it's being updated regularly.

<comment><USER33> I've seen it over the years and every time it seems to have grown twice as long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Brexit for Facebook - really? Is that all we learned from this recent referendum?

Yes, it is weird to have this much personal information about so many people in the world in the hands of a corporation. But Facebook serves a real need - to connect. And they do it well. The problem is real - we need to have a non- commercial entity run this. But if Facebook dies tomorrow another company will take its place. How do we solve the need while addressing these issues? Should the government take it over? Which one? Should it become a non-profit? How should it be run? The problem is real but the solution is not to shut it down, but to work together to find the best way to serve all users. So Facebook is now a political issue - an international one. For all the bad things that came out of Facebook, there is also a lot of good - some would argue more. Let's address it by working together instead of shutting off.

<comment><USER35> > How do we solve the need while addressing these issues?

I always hoped that something like diaspora[0] would take off. With blockchain technologies and ipfs style distributed filesystems it might be possible without any central organization.

[0][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_\(social_network\))

<comment><USER36> There's also GNU social. It's a decentralized (a la email/XMPP) social network. Distributed technology is not there yet but decentralized gets us pretty far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> One thing worth noting is that, unfortunately, lacking a Facebook account doesn't truly shield you from it... people can still mention you, tag you in pictures, etc.

<comment><USER3> They can and will, but that's the least of your worries about Facebook.

Every page that has a "like us on facebook" or "share this on facebook" \- estimates are 50% of the web pages - reports your web surfing habits to Facebook. Whether or not you have a facebook account.

uBlock Origin, AdBlockPlus, Disconnect, Ghostery, etc. are your friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> As someone else has said, in theory I am in agreement with Stallman on this, but his obsession with using weird language and trying to coin alt-phrases in every fucking sentence makes me disagree with how he's trying to make his point.

The same goes for terms like Copy protection, DRM, etc.

Stallman is publishing his views with an obviously adult audience in mind, but the way he explains things is as if he were explaining it to children.

If you're talking an adult audience, it's a reasonable expectation that they would understand (once told) the concept that the "rights" in DRM mean the rights of the creator/producer, rather than the rights of the listener/viewer, or that "copy protection" is a method to prevent the creation of copied works.

This whole thing honestly sounds like his approach to software licenses as well. Stallman and his followers have claimed that when software is released under a less restrictive license, it's a terrible loss, because anyone else can then come along and use that software for whatever they want, including for-profit products that include their own improvements that are not released as open source.

Having that view point is a personal choice, and I don't have any issue with you for it, but more often than not any discussed of a permissive vs copyleft licenses ends up in claims that choosing MIT/BSD/etc is "wrong". And suddenly the picture gets clearer:

Stallman's ideas are not just his ideas, they're basically his religion, and if you don't join his religion (i.e. subscribe to his ideas, you're wrong, because you couldn't possibly be as smart as he is. We are but mindless children who cannot possibly have made an informed, educated decision about something, if our opinion on something differs from his.

</comment><comment><USER16> Facebook is also a "legal" spammer and it spams a lot. Had once registered with a fake account just to test some application and since then every day or so facebook sends me messages like "You might know these people" with some random guys or "You have received a notification". I haven't visited facebook maybe for a year but is still sends me messages daily.

Luckily I used a separate email account for registration so I just redirected all emails from facebook to a spam folder.

</comment><comment><USER39> How about using GNU Social instead of Facebook. [https://gnu.io/social/](https://gnu.io/social/)

<comment><USER40> I'd love to, but after I click the link, I get another link to "try" it. Clicking this link still gives me no joy, as now I need to find a server or something? Ok, lets see if there is one for my country, USA. Nothing on the popular list. Guess I should try the complete list. Oh look, no way to search. No suggestions on what I should be doing.

Whatever, I could spend my time and energy figuring the rest of it out, but there is no way I am going to convince my girlfriend this is a good idea.

<comment><USER41> This is why Slack is taking the world by storm - the chat window isn't all that good (in my opinion), but the onboarding process is buttery-smooth and completely frictionless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> EU legislation will push them to stop doing some of this (privacy section). Hopefully, the US will follow.

[http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/01/eu-privacy-rules-may-hit- inte...](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/01/eu-privacy-rules-may-hit-internet- giants-hard.html)

</comment><comment><USER43> Previous discussions: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6816072](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6816072) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9201644](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9201644)

</comment><comment><USER19> I turned off ublock so that I could load the stylesheet. Nope, stallman's site just looks like that. It's actually refreshing, just a radical departure from the status quo. Although, it is RMS so should've expected that...

<comment><USER44> If only the paragraph width was set to something reasonable (say, 33em) it would be great.

<comment><USER45> At first, I thought "hmm, the site (or, actually, its visitors) would probably benefit from some piece of CSS that just does a bit of nicer-looking typography - to be easier for the readers' eyes."

But then I had also thought "nope, I suspect I'm misdirecting my wishes - it's the browsers (and their users) that should benefit from a default stylesheet that looks better than the current not-so-nice defaults."

<comment><USER46> > it's the browsers (and their users) that should benefit from a default > stylesheet that looks better than the current not-so-nice defaults.

I'm sure browser vendors agree, but it would break too many sites. It's the old backwards-compatibility game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> "Putting the photo of someone on Facebook (or Instagram) contributes to surveillance of that person. Please don't post any photos there that include me, and I suggest you avoid posting photos of anyone else too."

I wish Facebook (and G+ etc.) users cared, I really do. I also wish they didn't share their contacts with Facebook (and WhatsApp, LinkedIn, etc.) Of course nobody cares, so you can't really opt out of these social networks.

</comment><comment><USER48> I recently quit Facebook and felt like I'm free(with my time). It is interesting to note that after you order "deletion" your account will remain for 14 days and you could come back. It is like 2 weeks notice period (before quitting the job) which is a standard in united states. I'd still keep using WhatsApp as long as it stays utilitarian and lets me communicate with my people.

</comment><comment><USER49> In total agreement with RMS on this.

</comment><comment><USER50> There really is no point in using Facebook, other than get the stuff other people post on it because they are there. You don't use facebook because your friends aren't there and you don't use facebook because you 'like' it. It's the same with messaging systems, phones, civilization in general: you do it because enough people in your life are there and only there. If all the people I ever wanted to communicate with were outside the city on a farm or something like that, I'd move there. Or if they only use email and IRC, then I'd only need those. But the fact is that many groups are only adressable on one platform, some only on facebook, others only on whatsapp, and others only on IRC. Sure, there is overlap, but that doesn't mean dropping 30% of the people you know from digital communications, just because they use some evilCorp software doesn't work. Migrations do happen from time to time, for example, there used to be MySpace, and in The Netherlands, there was Hyves, and before those, there was MSN and email. All of them, except for email just slowly died, or the critical mass of people you want to communicate with are no longer there. For me, the 'critial mass' of people on Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat etc is never reached. So far, there are maybe 5 or 6 people that are on those systems that I might be remotely interested in, but it's not enough to actually act on. And just like Facebook, those are just 'as bad' (some are Facebook-owned of course). I've also had people move away from WhatsApp to Telegram, and from Telegram to some other messaging system. Still, it's no critical mass on Telegram for me to use it, just like Skype. Doesn't matter if they are 'good' or 'evil'.

So while having an opinion or knowing some service or knowing some company is evil, isolating yourself from the rest of the world (or just the friends and their preferred communications) isn't going to work, at least not for me. Making sure you don't put information there that you don't want to be there is about as good as it gets.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'd give anything to switch social network but I'm not keen on switching to one where my friends aren't. So no matter how much I despise Facebook, today I can't really be without it. I'd literally miss every single social event because it has come to the point where no one even imagines that someone wouldn't use FB.

I wish someone would just set up a free/open network by just stealing users social graph from Facebook outright and having people "migrate" to the new one (and also presenting FB data in the new apps feed during a transition period).

This is of course an attack on everything that Facebook is, so naturally this new social network would have to be decentralized and the creators would have to be pretty low key.

</comment><comment><USER52> Who here has frequently used facebook and then got off the platform? What's been the hardest part without it? Was it hard? Do you feel disconnected or has communication actually been affected with the people who matter to you?

<comment><USER53> Facebook quitter here. 6 years since I got rid of my account.

It wasn't hard at all. I keep in touch with the people that matter to me using email, phone calls, text, IM and Whatsapp (and then they went and got themselves acquired...)

It's arguable my social life might have been even better had I never left (missed invitations, lacking fodder for small talk with mutual acquaintances etc) but I clawed time back in my day for other things. I also don't have to worry about things like FOMO, social media generated envy, pointless social oneupmanship and the like. YMMV

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Everything else aside, the first Guardian article linked to under "Miscellaneous" [1] suggests that it will take more than a well reasoned argument to get people to leave facebook.

[1] ([https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/05/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/05/facebook- deliberately-breaking-android-apps))

</comment><comment><USER55> Facebook is one of the single most creepy things here in the future. I think if you time-travelled back to, say, the '50's and tried to explain FB to people they would just not believe you. They would think that aliens had brain-washed people before they'd believe that millions of people just blithely hand their personal lives to a third-party.

</comment><comment><USER56> Has anyone posted this link on Facebook yet? :-)

</comment><comment><USER57> As much as I dislike Fb (though I am a user and their tracking is disabled through Ublock), Stallman articles are usually "Old man yells at cloud" thing)

So yes, I do use Fb, I do use closed source software and I have better things than to care about my "alleged" freedom. I get more value from those than they get from me, I assure you.

<comment><USER33> I think his point is that you may feel this way now, but in the long term it will become apparent that the balance is not in your favor. If it is in your favor, then all the closed source systems and social networks have miscalculated and are in fact operating at a consistent loss. I am sure you are a smart person, but it doesn't seem likely that everyone has made a mistake in doing business with you and your data.

He is saying that it may seem like a good deal now, but it is likely to become apparent in the future that it hasn't been. It isn't like we need a platform like Facebook to communicate on the internet, and we could avoid all the problems that communicating through them by using existing peer to peer approaches for online communication.

I've run into RMS's page on this several times and it seems to double in length each time. This is to say that maybe things aren't getting better and the future in which even you might accept that it isn't a good thing to give ourselves to these platforms is quickly approaching.

<comment><USER57> You're right that, in general, their business model is providing them a return.

> but in the long term it will become apparent that the balance is not in your > favor. If it is in your favor

It is in my favor because I limit what I put there, and block tracking and ads. Yes, it might change in the future, but I suppose traffic would have moved to other places as well (hopefully not owned by fb - but all companies make a mistake sooner or later)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Every user's looking for something. Some of them want to use Facebook. Some of them want to be used by Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER59> A lot of my friends use FB messages/chat instead of e-mail. If i want to stay in touch with them, FB is the only way.

This used to be OKish, when FB did XMPP and i could use any client. That's since been shut down, and the mobile website no longer lets you read messages...

<comment><USER60> I'm also in the same position. Currently using the Swipe application for Android, which is a wrapper around Facebook mobile with a hack to enable messaging. It works for now, but it's pretty much an uphill battle and I'm worried about the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I don't agree with this post because its tone threatens my ego. There is hope for humanity.

</comment><comment><USER61> Wow, the only thing missing to complete Stallman's persona is a fedora and a Guy Fawkes mask.

</comment><comment><USER62> Not directly related, but Stallman should be supporting/using LetsEncrypt instead of COMODO...

<comment><USER62> By the way, I inquired him on this a few months back and the answer was: "I don't know enough certificates to think about the question. I leave that issue to others." and then, after I tried to explain a bit about it and the licenses in use, "I don't know enough about certificates to take any position about them."

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Facebook should create a "People Control 101" course for aspiring tyrannical Dictators/Regimes. Lectures include:- The Power of Defaults, Quagmire of Conflicting Settings, Constant rule-changes to befuddle the masses etc.

</comment><comment><USER64> From a technical perspective, could a social network be built with acceptable privacy policies and still have all the features users want (assuming no ads and no profit motive necessary)?

</comment><comment><USER65> Can someone please supply Mr Stallman with a better template or some CSS. I know he'll only use FOSS and is stuck with some basic tools, but I'm sure that layout could be improved.

</comment><comment><USER66> Great article, but the amount of HRs made me cringe a little bit.

</comment><comment><USER67> So, what is the solution then?

I imagine something like switching to 'libre/free' social media, the way people switch to Linux instead of Windows?

</comment><comment><USER67> So, what is the solution then?

Switch to open social networking engine, like Elgg, the way people switch to Linux from Windows?

</comment><comment><USER68> I don't know about what he says but i know that his heart is in the right place.

</comment><comment><USER69> Interesting how much outcry this RMS's page causes. It's his personal opinion, you're free to disagree with him but advocating to take down this link is anti-constitutional.

</comment><comment><USER70> great content.. i quit facebook 4 years ago. same reasons rms has

</comment><comment><USER71> So is there a reason these are online? [removed link to photos out of concern that it is unrelated to the OP]

<comment><USER36> What is your point? Criticizing Facebook is not inconsistent with posting a curated list of photos online.

<comment><USER71> What is your point? Pointing out a curated list of photos online does not point to any inconsistency with critizing Facebook. If it does, that is merely coincidental and does not speak to the intent behind my post.

<comment><USER36> Okay, what is the intent of your post?

<comment><USER71> What is the intent of yours? Are you not able to understand a simple interrogatory sentence? That seems unbelievable, given that you clearly know how to write them.

<comment><USER36> Okay... So you just want to know why RMS has posted pictures online? How is that relevant to original post at all?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Uh, yet another lecture on how to live my life by his omniscience

<comment><USER73> You forgot to sign your post:

Written from a computer running a bunch of software written by his omniscience

<comment><USER74> Just because you are using someone's software doesn't mean that you need to agree to that person's political views.</comment></comment></comment>


Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Power Spectrum as a Random Bit Generator - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.02511 <comment><USER2> This is absolutely awesome. We've been discussing this idea for quite some time at out blocckhain devshop.

Combining the CMB Radiation with an accurate measure of redshift you could create an accurate and immutable way of measuring time, essentially a new type of Proof of Work without the work.

<comment><USER3> This sounds interesting, however I don't think I fully understand how those two things would create a way of measuring time.

Could you expand a bit on this?

<comment><USER2> Bitcoin is effectively an oracle service. It creates a random state which is dependent on a previous random state. Generating the state is NP hard, verifying it is P (can be verified in polynomial time). The oracle output state is used for sequencing state (meaning the blocks and who gets to sign off on the latest block). So POW is an independently verifiable method of sequencing state among unknown signing members (i.e. the miners).

The Microwave Background Radiation is a perfect candidate for both NP state as well as universal (really, anywhere in the universe!) time keeping. It is NP hard to "generate" the state which will be observed at a certain time in the future, but immediately verifiable as long as you are online to observe it at that time.

That said, it does not solve the "problem" of deciding on who creates the next block in a truly distributed system, it only makes immutability of state possible.

At our devshop we have come to the conclusion that current "blockchain" implementations are practically useless in the real world. There are several reasons for that, the main one being that it makes zero sense for state transition to happen outside of the state machine which created that piece of information in the first place. An example of such a wrong implementation would be Ripple, where IOUs are being state transitioned by nodes who do not issue the IOUs in the first place. It's like tracking IOUs on a huge Google spreadsheet, it makes no sense. All state should be stored and state transitioned on it's own blockchain because the finality of the transition depends on the issuer anyways, and the blockchains need a common input/output based protocol for reconciling, sequencing, and verifying each other's state.

The future is a bit like adding Git to a database and adding a cryptographic reconciliation protocol so the databases can talk to one another.

<comment><USER3> Very nice explanation. Thanks a lot!

So if I understand correctly this would be somewhat akin to having a "universal clock" that is ever increasing, and that can be read/seen by anyone (like you said, universally). So you only need to know the "time" on the clock, when you do something, so that afterwards you can verify that indeed the "timestamp" happened.

Is this somewhat of a correct analogy? At least that's how I understood it.

In any case, it does seem interesting to be able to have a universally verifiable time keeping "signal". I'm guessing there must be other uses as well.

<comment><USER2> > So if I understand correctly this would be somewhat akin to having a > "universal clock" that is ever increasing, and that can be read/seen by > anyone (like you said, universally). So you only need to know the "time" on > the clock, when you do something, so that afterwards you can verify that > indeed the "timestamp" happened.

As long as you where online during that time, or as long as you trust a third party to record the CMB radiation for you, yes.

The really cool thing is that this wold apply not just anywhere in the universe, but because nothing travels faster than light any communication being done between blockchains between planets would always be in sync. The CMB Radiation simply reaches the other planet at the same time the communication does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Based on Penrose's work there may be non randomness in the CMB, with better imaging tech we may find that this is not a good source of randomness: [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1302.5162v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1302.5162v1.pdf)

<comment><USER5> This is mainly Gurzadyan's work, and it shows such a complete lack of understanding for basic statistical analysis it's not even funny. They basically assume that if you have an i.i.d. random vector x, then a linearly transformed vector z = Q x, with Q some linear map, should also have coeffients without correlations.

For a start look here: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.5051](http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.5051) \-- beyond explaining the fallacies it has references to 3 independent analyses that failed to reproduce the result on the same data set.

The only interesting discussion to be had here is one about journals and peer review practices (i.e., how A&A could let something like this slip through).

That said, the randomness (or nature of randomness) in the CMB is actively researched (such a how close the random signal is to Gaussian). And anything you think is "CMB" run the risk of being foregrounds or systematics which would not be "random" in one sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is along the lines of hotbits [https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Love to read someone analyze the feasibility of satellite based attacks on this rng

<comment><USER8> Why use satellites when you can use Microwave Oven Leaks?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very interesting. Atmospherics might also be useful as an RNG or possibly a trustworthy public randomness beacon.

"There are an average of 45 lightning flashes per second around the world. [...] The radio signature (like a fingerprint) of a lightning strike can be detected around the world [...] [R]eceiving ELF/VLF waves allows us to determine the exact location of most lightning strikes on the whole planet, with just a small number of ELF/VLF receivers [...]"

[http://vlf.stanford.edu/research/introduction- vlf](http://vlf.stanford.edu/research/introduction-vlf)

[http://vlf.stanford.edu/research/global-lightning-geo- locati...](http://vlf.stanford.edu/research/global-lightning-geo-location)

<comment><USER10> There's a great project blitzortung.org that I think uses that technology to create a real time map of lightnings.

<comment><USER9> That's awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What advantage does this technique have over measuring radioactive atoms?

</comment><comment><USER12> What if CMB is not random? Time to break out the idea pad for planning my next science fiction story.

<comment><USER13> It's been done to an extent - a flashed message in the CMB appeared in Three Body Problem, here's the excerpt [http://www.tor.com/2014/09/23/the-three- body-problem-the-uni...](http://www.tor.com/2014/09/23/the-three-body-problem- the-universe-flickers/)

<comment><USER12> On my list!! It's the Nebula winner so I've heard of it but still on hold at the library! Thanks for the mention!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I believe this has been done for decades - am I wrong?

Even Lava lamps have been used for rng ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavarand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavarand)).

</comment><comment><USER15> It's funny to have to think about cosmic variance with regards to an RNG.

</comment><comment><USER16> This time "awesome" really applies.

</comment><comment><USER17> "We're on a mission from God"</comment>


Solving Sudoku with genetic algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://fakeguido.blogspot.com/2010/05/solving-sudoku-with-genetic-algorithms.html

<comment><USER2> While genetic algorithms are useful for solving certain problems, Sudoku puzzles exhibit a strong combinatorial structure that can be exploited by other approaches (Constraint Programming above all, I think).

When modeled as feasibility problems, for instance, their solution can be found very quickly -- it took 0.2 seconds to solve that instance on my laptop.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is the refusal to exploit any specific properties that makes it fun :). Real Sudoku solvers have been around for ages.

<comment><USER2> Genetic algorithms usually do exploit the structure of the problem in order to make crossover/mutation more efficient. This is indeed what the OP says:

 _For more difficult Sudoku puzzles, I would definitely go with the permutation genome_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "I think a Sudoku puzzle that is harder for humans would not be that much harder for optopus to solve, but I have not tested it."

Try it. You may be surprised. Here's a good one: zonkedyak.blogspot.com/2006/11/worlds-hardest-sudoku-puzzle-al.html

Also try a 5-based instance of the same problem (against the standard 3-base of sudoku, that is, a 5x5 matrix of 5x5 matrices containing the numbers 1-25), and compare performance of that problem to a normal solver.

I'm not going to tell you what will happen, because you won't believe me. Somebody seems to have cast a glamor on GP.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, I will try it. And if you had said that it would be almost impossible, because there are too many local minima, I would have believed you.

A serious try with GA would require abandoning Python for a faster fitness function in C, that does not copy dozens of lists back and forth. I estimate that just about anyone could make it more than 100 times as fast. The slow implementation will have to suffice for now.

The interesting part is of course not the absolute times, but if the complexity scales differently. If a real Sudoku solver takes about 50 times as long to solve that problem, I will consider it a victory if the GA does the same.

<comment><USER4> As a quick fix, check out Psyco. I've had success running algorithms in Python up to 6-8x faster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Plus one for posts about Genetic Algorithms. My masters research was on Genetic Algorithms. Btw for those interested in learning more about the field my professor has a free book out on Metaheuristics (Which includes genetic algorithms) at <http://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/book/metaheuristics/>

<comment><USER6> While we're at it: <http://www.gp-field-guide.org.uk/>

<comment><USER7> Cool! PDF version is free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Isn't sudoku bit problematic problem for GA as there is just one correct solution and the rest are just wrong, compared to a problem that has solutions that are better or worse, but potentially no solution is absolutely correct?

<comment><USER9> A fair point (though technically sudoku can have multiple solutions, they are all equally correct; there is no range of correctness, it's just binary). However, I think something like this is useful as a proof of concept for a GA system, because it's easy to judge its solutions. Many textbook examples of GA I've seen involve evolving a best fit line for a given line, and the simple examples use functions like y = x^2+1 because its easy to judge completion.</comment></comment>


Banks won't take Fort Hood shooting suspect's paychecks - <AUTHOR> http://www.statesman.com/news/local/banks-wont-take-fort-hood-shooting-suspects-paychecks-831173.html <comment><USER2> "'I think it's just another example of the prejudice that he's been exposed to,' [his civilian attorney John] Galligan said. 'It's money that he's entitled to, that he has a right to.'"

"But Hasan shouldn't miss a paycheck. Army regulations allow commanders to grant waivers exempting soldiers from the SURE-PAY direct deposit system. Fort Hood officials said that when a soldier has a pay problem, commanders and finance officials help the soldier fix the issue, and Galligan said he is working with Fort Hood officials on finding a solution."</comment>


The Amstrad Counterpoint Windowing Shell (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/Counterpoint/index.html <comment><USER2> This is really interesting and shows us the long way from a DOS prompt to the Apple OS or Windows 95 GUIs which seem so self-evident, traditional and self- explanatory to many of us. Actually, these GUIs were quite radical and well- done, compared to the Amstrad shell which looks quite crowdy from a today's perspective.

When I look at that Amstrad shell, I also feel some nostalgia for 1990s and 2000s web sites which had similar issues: They did form a GUI in the void, without having any template. Today, you start with some CSS toolkit and immediately craft a website which looks like 10 million others.

<comment><USER3> Interestingly, one thing all these GUIs have in common is that buttons still look like buttons...

<comment><USER4> > _buttons still look like buttons_

Ahh I miss those days. Why were raised buttons considered so offensive? Now we have to tap/click everywhere in the hope that _something_ might happen.

<comment><USER5> Not sure. I thought raised buttons rock!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


bbClear: a Presentation Framework for Health Records - <AUTHOR> http://blue-button.github.io/bbClear/

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like bbClear is basically Bootstrap for health records: "bbClear is an open-source framework for rendering more usable health records. It enables developers of electronic health record systems to output a printed health record that is more helpful for patients, their families, and caregivers."

That's awesome and very needed.

Core contributors: @mjacksonw @blacktm @joshcmandel @rypan @henryweimd @matthewmccall

Now we don't have to keep reinventing how to display health records. This should be hugely valuable to the health hacker community, thanks guys!</comment>


Clojure Conj Slides - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/relevance/clojure-conj/tree/master/2011-slides

<comment><USER2> Are there going to be any videos released of the talks? I would have loved to attend but didn't have time to fly to the US this time.

<comment><USER3> I really hope Byrd and Friedman's talk from thursday night was taped. Highlight of the conference so far for me.

<comment><USER4> Are the slides for that talk available?

<comment><USER3> No slides. It was just a live demo with color commentary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the presentations is in SVG format. How do you open this and how is it made?

<comment><USER6> It was made using SVG and ~200 lines of ClojureScript.

<http://twitter.com/#!/chrishouser/status/135405833818349568> <http://twitter.com/#!/chrishouser/status/135476587956154368></comment></comment>


Show HN: Hello Advocate – a free suite of attorneys for legal workplace disputes - <AUTHOR> http://app-store-download.de/app/1360739843/hello-advocate <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, everyone.

I had to delete my first submission as it was not worded correctly, which triggered the 'Unknown or expired link' exception.

Here's the US App Store link: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hello- advocate/id1360739843?...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hello- advocate/id1360739843?mt=8)

Thanks!

David</comment>


Site to find local or destination dates - <AUTHOR> https://dating.acceleweb.com <comment><USER2> I only see a form to request an email and a password. The "file" section is equal. Without more information you will not get any subscriptions.</comment>


Algorithmic auditors are exposing employee expense fraud - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-14/ai-can-now-catch-lies-on-your-expense-report <comment><USER3> I found out about a worker getting fired because of this at one of the big 4 consulting firms. They used SAP Concur[0] software for travel & expense management and the machine learning algorithm flagged an irregularity in a recent expense reimbursement. But she wasn't actually fired for that one bad expense. What happened was that the SAP Concur raised management's suspicions which prompted the human accountants to go back into the _old archives of T &E submissions from 5 years ago_ before SAP Concur was installed. They _manually_ looked at her past reimbursements and discovered a long history of fraudulent claims. (E.g. incorrect hotel amounts.)

After the investigation, she was promptly fired without severance and also lost her flexible medical benefits (worth at least $10k).

Fraudulent expenses are no joke. Consulting companies are very sensitive about it because many consultants' expenses are included in the invoices and directly passed onto the clients. If you let clients discover a fraudulent expense instead of your internal auditing team finding it first, it is extremely embarrassing and taints all your other invoices. Integrity has to be maintained and you don't want clients questioning all the other billable hours and expenses.

[0] [https://www.concur.com/](https://www.concur.com/)

<comment><USER4> There was the old "raincoat expense report" urban legend back when I was in Big 4.

Consultant left raincoat on subway while traveling for business and ran replacement cost through on expense report. Admin rejected the expense.

Consultant submitted second expense report with exact same total without the raincoat expense line item and the cost just absorbed into the other untraceable per diem and incidental categories. "Find the raincoat now" as a comment.

<comment><USER5> Interesting story. :)

I think businesses can he really hard on fraud without being hard on what constitutes a valid expense.

<comment><USER6> I wonder how expensive that raincoat was that the person thought it needed to be its own line item on the expense. That's normally what the incidental expenses line is for, so this is just a story of someone who filled out his expense report incorrectly, got it rejected, and then filled it out correctly.

<comment><USER7> A good raincoat is pretty expensive. At least $200. So the guy submits an expense report with a $200 line item, gets rejected and splits the $200 into probably 7 or 8 incidentals which usually have a $25 limit, probably on different expense reports.

<comment><USER6> I'd take a double take at a $200 line item for an emergency raincoat to replace one that I lost on a trip. I'm not asking the guy to get a plastic poncho for his business meeting, but he doesn't need to get it at the Gucchi store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> These people seem to have a strange definition of "fraud". In the first two paragraphs, they list three apparent "frauds" and then note that they were detected _by analysing the receipts that the employees submitted_. In other words, the employees freely disclosed what they were expensing, by the article's own admission. There's no explanation given of why the three expenses listed were illegitimate in any way; it seems reasonable to charge for the cost of having a kennel take care of your dog while you travel, and I assume the yoga and strip club were client entertainment for sales or marketing purposes. You can very reasonably disapprove of taking clients to strip clubs, of course, but doing so and then openly disclosing it isn't _dishonest_.

The only example of employees committing fraud - that is, gaining a personal economic benefit through dishonesty - is in the final three paragraphs. In that case, somebody billed steak as food for the office python when really they were taking it home to barbecue for their family. The rest of this article is deranged; these auditors, at least as they are portrayed by Bloomberg, seem to think that submitting an expense claim that they don't approve of, entirely honestly, is somehow magically "fraud". What the hell?

<comment><USER9> Slightly OT, but I wonder if you should be able to claim yoga/gym or even clothes as an expense. If being a consultant means projecting a certain image (fit, well-dressed), shouldn't you be paid for maintaining that image?

<comment><USER10> The IRS in the US has rules that designates things as taxable income or not for many of these questions. Businesses can still reimburse regardless of IRS categorization, but you may be taxed on the reimbursement as income.

To avoid that issue, most businesses will avoid reimbursing for incidentals that should be considered income. Suits or standard office clothing, I believe, are taxable in most circumstances. Uniforms are not. Of course there's lots of grey areas that keep accountants in business. I'd assume yoga would count as an exercise allowance and not be taxable, but that's just a guess.

<comment><USER11> Safety-related clothing is also deductible. When I worked in the oil business I could deduct things like steel-toed boots, overall, gloves, etc. off my taxes (or the company could have provided them for me as a business expense). At the same time, as you say, even if I only wear a suit for work, it's not deductible. Such is the simplicity of our tax code :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >According to Oversight, 30 percent of employee expense claims are risky, wasteful and potentially fraudulent.

Seriously? 30 percent? That seems quite unbelievable unless you're defining your terms to include reimbursements that are within most normal travel policies. EDITED e.g. employees book their preferred airlines, hotel chains, etc. even if they're not the absolute cheapest.

<comment><USER6> If 30% of your employees are committing "fraud" on expense reports you either work for a criminal organization or your expense reporting system is broken in some way.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of what they are counting as fraud is simple errors due to a badly designed expense system. For example, when you reimburse a hotel you have to manually create a second category with an obscure label for the taxes, and anybody who hasn't been told about it never knows, so they put the whole cost of the hotel room in the hotel line and suddenly are both overbilling (the room charge) and underbilling (the taxes).

Another easy way to commit fraud is to forget to include your travel hours in your expenses. So you aren't charging them for the time sitting on the plane, which is a violation of reporting guidelines and expense charging guidelines.

There are tons of ways an ordinary employee can screw up their expense report without realizing it. This is why they are supposed to be checked by a knowledgeable third party before being committed. If the person in the example was blatantly overcharging for hotel rooms for years without being caught then that's a failure of the expense reporting system.

<comment><USER11> >For example, when you reimburse a hotel you have to manually create a second category with an obscure label for the taxes

That's a function of your expense system/requirement. I certainly don't take the time to itemize every line item on a multi-day hotel bill. I just put the amount and the number of days.

>Another easy way to commit fraud is to forget to include your travel hours in your expenses.

That assumes you're charging a client by time--including travel time. I must say it was nice the one time I did some legal work to be able to bill for travel and random administrivia related to the case.

<comment><USER6> It's worse than that. I have to do it day by day. Hotel cost night one, hotel taxes night one, hotel costs night two, hotel taxes night two, etc...

I have occasionally run into hotels where the price per night changes while I'm staying there. Las Vegas has hotels that do this for example. It's kind of weird to have to ask for permission to go over your limit for 2 of your 5 nights. Fortunately, every hotel receipt I've ever received has the nights and taxes broken out so it's just copying numbers onto the form.

<comment><USER11> A company tried to do that when they put in a new expense system. People basically rioted and that and some other requirements were dropped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone else feel like the entire system of expensing is kind of bizarre? This is kind of a tangent, but I feel like a few examples of expense fraud are less interesting than the fact that we're all using this deeply ingrained system that incentivizes cheating.

I'm thinking just about travel expenses here, obviously taking out clients is somewhat different. But most companies will have a per diem for travel but you still have to itemize every cost within that range. It's a pain for employees, and they are forced to lend the company sometimes thousands of dollars for a month or two at 0% interest. I think you could also argue that it's a pretty regressive cost as I'd imagine it could be hard in some cases for lower-income employees or people with extenuating circumstances to front the cost of their work travel before getting reimbursed. There's also the constant effort of deciding what should and should not qualify as a valid expense, which isn't always black and white.

Why not just pay the per diem in cash? Even aside from any actual fraud, I'm sure everyone has seen a lot of wastefulness when it comes to work travel, like going to relatively fancy restaurants every night or ordering extra rounds of drinks because you can expense it. Why should it matter to the company whether I'm doing that stuff or eating cheaply and pocketing the money? Why should it matter to the government for tax purposes whether I'm doing one or the other?

I have no idea what a different system would look like, since this is a pretty fundamental part of how individuals and businesses are taxed. But it seems like there should be a better way.

<comment><USER11> >Why not just pay the per diem in cash?

It's sometimes done. But, when there's a system like that, the per diem amount is usually low enough that you'd have to stay at a low-end hotel and eat fast food if you don't want to be out of pocket.

>I'm sure everyone has seen a lot of wastefulness when it comes to work travel, like going to relatively fancy restaurants every night or ordering extra rounds of drinks because you can expense it.

You call it wastefulness. I call it a small compensation for being away from home, dealing with airports, and otherwise living out of a suitcase.

<comment><USER13> FWIW, I used to work for a company that paid cash per-diems on top of accommodation.

Worked out a treat on an extended gig to Thailand, where I was pulling in $70/day while my actual expenses were closer to $5!

<comment><USER14> I had this in China. I could expense the hotel and taxis to and from the office and, per Polish law, company had to pay me 55EUR per diem. Given how cheap China is relatively, it essentially doubled my paycheck for the two months I was there (but then those were two grueling months of 10+h/day Monday-Saturday work).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How expensive (to a corporation) are the low-level-employee expenses, fraudulent or not? I mean, nobody likes to waste money on fraud or strip clubs or extra steaks, but is the cost of AI Oversight more than you'd retrieve?

How about expenses for directors/VP/Executive VP/CxO? Does this AI look over their expense reports, too? I would guess that even legit expenses from that level look a bit odd, but having AI audit employee expenses but not management expenses could contribute to a morale problem.

Another place that this AI oversight could help society as a whole is having corporations/companies get audited for wage theft. Wage theft is supposedly the largest dollar amount of theft in the US, and it probably exists because audits are so seldom done. AI wage theft audits could have a large beneficial effect for employees.

<comment><USER16> To answer the question about the value of "AI," it is a black box of pretexts you can use for leverage.

Expenses policies are usually grey enough that if you want someone out of the company without significant severance, using the expenses policy as a pretext imposes costs on the target they probably won't fight. If a company wants to keep someone, there is no end to the excesses they will tolerate barring any liabilities greater than the value they bring. If they want to get rid of someone, the mechanism and the true reason are usually very different.

Useful rule is to treat any company expense as a vulnerability that will be used against you in a severance negotiation.

Arguably, a more accurate Turing test would be one where instead of being indifferent as to whether we are communicating with a human or machine - <USER2> decide that a machine is sufficiently intelligent if it can provide us with pretexts for political leverage against other people.

<comment><USER11> The example that was so hilariously ludicrous that you had to have real admiration for the PR people keeping a straight face was when Mark Hurd was forced out at HP because he supposedly expensed a business dinner that wasn't actually a business dinner. (Which turned out to have almost certainly been about more than a dinner but nonetheless doubtless a trivial sum of money in the scheme of things.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is one of those areas that I never "got" in that I just filed expense reports for what I spent and didn't see the advantage of getting an extra $10 or $100 from the trip. And I knew people who loved to push it as far to the limit as they could, like a manager who had a private table at a Sunnyvale restaurant and filed a huge reimbursement request for 'team lunches' and a baggie full of receipts. Betting that nobody would actually go and verify the receipts.

So at some point you have to be in a somewhat adversarial relationship with the company right? I suppose if you felt the company was taking advantage of you this would make sense as a way to 'get back', but wouldn't you rather be working somewhere else instead?

<comment><USER18> The only time I've done anything like this is when the company did their best -- using Concur -- to avoid paying legitimate expenses. ie we got into an argument over whether my taxi ride home from SFO was "too expensive". I was like, um, I got in the fucking taxi, told it my address, and paid the bill.

My employer used Concur and stupid rules to argue me into giving up and just paying the taxi ride out-of-pocket. I'm pretty sure that was the point, and many of the stupid expense "fraud" companies would notch that as a win. But I made my $57 back elsewhere, don't worry.

And yeah, the fix was get an employer that wasn't ass.

<comment><USER19> Similar story here.

I work remotely, and my previous employer wanted me to come up to the office for a few days as we did every now and then.

But I didn't really want to go this time, I had other obligations, but ended up going anyway.

Expense report time comes around, and they complain that I don't have the receipt from the rental car company that includes the gas refill information, so they aren't paying that, and they pushed back on the $7-per-day economy parking I had my car in for the week.

So I looked over the handbook and some stuff in Concur, saw that I was entitled to like $10 for a breakfast each morning, and like $20 for dinner each night without a receipt. So I added a couple of those in there, it all added up, and they happily paid it...

And while that alone wasn't a major reason I left the company, stupid penny- pinching stuff like it was a big part of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How about better expense claiming software so employers aren't stealing from employees through unclaimed expenses!

<comment><USER21> I have done a tiny amount of business travel in my career but recently went to a conference in a far off land and had to wrestle with the expensing system. First, I was required to loan my employer $3000 for a month by paying for all the expenses (including the unavoidable very expensive hotel rate) on my personal card. Afterwards I had to fight with the expensing system for several hours to get everything lined up correctly so that I could have the privilege of having my own money returned. I was scrupulously honest with my expenses and still felt like I was being eyed suspiciously by the system.

I never once considered misrepresenting my expenses but I definitely considered pounding my keyboard. :)

<comment><USER11> I frequently say that the only thing I hate more than doing my expenses is not having my money. :-) (I travel a lot so the amounts add up quickly.)

<comment><USER22> I know I'm hopelessly naive but I'm surprised there isn't An App for that™

Instead of filing expenses when you get back home/a month later, you whip out the app while still travelling, take a picture of the receipts/invoice, and then filling in a short form. The app posts the item to the trip (along with photographic evidence) and that's one less thing to do upon your return.

<comment><USER11> There is. Concur is one that's commonly used. You're right of course that if you keep up with things as you go along it's much easier. Some of us aren't always disciplined like that :-) and, in practice, I usually don't want to fuss around with taking pictures of receipts in the restaurant.

For more complicated trips, it's not always completely straightforward though. It's not uncommon for me to mix some pleasure with business so it's often not as simple as just expensing everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My mom got flagged by a system like this a few years ago. The state was in a financial bind, so they hired an algorithmic auditing firm to claw back public funds from medical professionals who billed Medicare/Medicaid. They had been lax about the documentation they accepted so, they were able to claim just about anyone was missing years worth of legally required documents. She did in-home medical evaluations for rural communities and worked long hours. The amount of hours and miles she billed set off red flags, so they sent her a bill for tens of thousands of dollars and threatened her with criminal prosecution. It took her months and who knows how much in legal costs to fight it.

</comment><comment><USER24> What are the chances that they actually have effective AI doing this? I have a very strong suspicion, admittedly based on nothing at all, that they just have some simple rules based algorithms and mostly just hire cheap labor to look over expense reports.

<comment><USER25>
        if (expense_for_flight > 2 * average_expense_for_flight) {
            flag_for_review()
        }

<comment><USER26> "AI"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is unnerving. I don't really have an issue with people who commit fraud being caught in the act. It still bothers me that we're closing out the 2010s and most of what we've achieved as an industry is make it easier for employers to surveil their people.

The story of the 20th century included a moon landing and ubiquitous personal computers. The 21st century's story seems to be about advertisers, health insurers, and employers using technology to get every edge on the common people that they can get.

<comment><USER28> Being able to find reference material, how-tos, self-paced, self-led education seems like a really good thing we've achieved as asiciety. Obvs this carries over from the last years of prev century, but it's now uniquitous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I never really got it why people cheat on expenses. Apart from the fact that theft (at least in this case) is morally repugnant it's a sure fire way to get fired if your employer needs any reason at all.

Expenses, as implied in the name, are meant to reimburse employees for expenses fronted for their employers. It's not an enrichment scheme to pad your salary or to lay off unrelated expenses on your employer.

Bonus for those geniuses, which expense strip club visits. This seems the expense equivalent of surfing porn at work; stupid!

<comment><USER30> It depends on the environment and the employee.

In the cases I personally know of, there was at least an element of the employee believing they had been cheated out of something: perks being removed, legitimate expenses being denied for seemingly arbitrary reasons.

<comment><USER29> _perks being removed, legitimate expenses being denied for seemingly arbitrary reasons_

I think that's fundamentally wrong and should - at least in an ideal world - never happen.

I just don't think that fibbing expenses is a good way to get back at your employer.

I'm aware that this reply has a certain whiff of Euro centrism, where such things are less likely to happen and workers really have better recourse to get back at their employers.

Shit like mandatory arbitration agreements would be laughed out of court herearound.

<comment><USER30> > I think that's fundamentally wrong and should - at least in an ideal world - > never happen.

Agreed. But it does. Some of the perks removed were never perks but a form of negligence. Some of the expenses being denied for seemingly arbitrary reasons were denied because there is no way they can be justified as business expenses, but somebody in the past authorized them.

> I just don't think that fibbing expenses is a good way to get back at your > employer.

We're in agreement on that. Just like theft from employer, it can only realistically have one outcome regarding employment once discovered -- no matter how small.

> I'm aware that this reply has a certain whiff of Euro centrism, where such > things are less likely to happen and workers really have better recourse to > get back at their employers.

My experiences relate to the UK -- albeit during the period where the recourse to get back at employers required _paying_ for an employment tribunal to hear your case. Even after that was reversed, most disgruntled employees don't go to employment tribunals.

> Shit like mandatory arbitration agreements would be laughed out of court > herearound.

Agreed. But you don't need those for injustices to be felt. Most employees don't really consider that expenses have to be a justifiable expense by the employer for tax purposes and that the people authorizing them are possibly over-worked and only distrust few people enough to check every item.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As remote employment grows, I sense a larger and larger amount of office business expenses being invisibly pushed to the remote employees, while the business saves on the expense of less or no office space. The entire area of "expenses" is ripe for an inspection revolution and formalization on all sides.

<comment><USER11> Many companies do have policies with respect to certain home office expenses.

But what's "fair" with respect to expenses generally is a bit tricky. Yes, there are home office expenses--maybe trivial, maybe a lot if you need to set up a room for the purpose. On the other hand, you're reducing or eliminating perhaps substantial commuting expenses.

Even with respect to travel, there are some perks with meals, etc. On the other hand, if you travel a lot you probably have to pay for various home services that you might otherwise not have to.

<comment><USER32> I've audited my home office expenses as a remote worker, and I save way more money by not commuting and not having to take time off for minor illnesses. It turns out that the actual cost of my home office space (dedicated room % of montage) is really not enough for me to even calculate and deduct. At least in my case, I come out ahead.

<comment><USER33> Depends on where the home office is and what you do. It's not hard to break 1,000$ a month including a modest space inside an apartment in an expensive city. People that are 100% remote often live in cheap areas, but that's not always the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> There is a similar project here in Brazil [1]. They analyse public records of government officials and detects discrepancies with their refound requests for their "official" expenses. It's a civil society totally open project.

[1] [https://github.com/okfn-brasil/serenata-de-amor](https://github.com/okfn- brasil/serenata-de-amor)

</comment><comment><USER35> > While the snake could be justified, the employee's purchase of $1,200 worth > of steak as snake food could not. Pythons only consume live prey.

How would AI solve / detect this anomaly? I am curious.

<comment><USER13> Most expense reports don't involve buying $1200 of groceries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I hope it uses Benford's law as a signal.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've used Concur as both a user and expense report approver, and I suspect these "AI" claims are overblown. What actually happens is that Concur can import transactions directly from a corp credit card and identify a lot of them (airlines, hotels, restaurants) automatically. From what I've been told, the auditing bit consists of looking for anomalously high charges in categories ($1000 flight OK, $1000 restaurant bill not so much) and checking against a blacklist of banned establishments (gambling, adult entertainment, etc).

</comment><comment><USER37> this quote:

"The python was a legitimate business purchase," van Drunen says. "But the steak was for his family barbecues."

<comment> crooked-v If the boss is reasonably convinced that having a python in the office will entertain or impress clients when they come in, well, there's your python.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I just got a job with a corporate card, and we have SAP Concur, I assume that everything will be scrutinized by some kind of AI - as it automatically reads the receipts and essentially tells me that it is doing so. One steak dinner is not worth my job...

</comment><comment><USER39> I don't think this is worthwhile. Most of the time employees are getting back their unpaid overtime and other unpaid work in their expense accounts.

<comment><USER40> What? Why? Wtf?

<comment><USER29> I'm also slightly surprised by the first two replies.

Expenses should definitely not be a method to get back at your employer for perceived and real sleighs. Probably, if your employer steals from you this problem should be corrected at source and not via expense claims.

For what it's worth: I think that (as a for example) an Amazon employee stands in the queue for half an hour, in order to get security checked, and is not paid for that that's wage theft. Plain and simple. No matter if the courts disagree.

Nevertheless you shouldn't fib expenses (as if those folks could) to get back at your employer.

<comment><USER41> The GP might be suggesting that it benefits both the employer and the employee here. The employee gets a better tax treatment and the employer can have a permissive approach to expenses when it might be politically difficult to officially give a raise.

<comment><USER29> Ah, OK. Thanks.

For what it's worth: I didn't downvote.

Nevertheless there seems to be an attitude in certain circles that expenses ar a form of free for all.

My assumption is that you have a relationship with your employer, which pays you for work provided. If something stinks in that relationship then it's the stink, which should be removed.

I'm aware that this is an idealized view. Especially in the US where courts seem to be overly employer friendly, or, even worse, where employees are completely shafted by mandatory arbitration clauses.

<comment><USER42> You are assuming the employer - at least the first level manager, but more likely all the way up - isn't _aware_ of this, and approves.

Allowing expenses as pay is very common, widely practiced and normal. From buying books to hotel room stays to letting family travel along for long trips (and providing entertainment for them). Seems to happen all the time.

Hell, isn't the white house an example of it ?

(I would also like to point out that buying meat for a snake might simply be a mistake. I certainly would have tried feeding a python something dead first, wtf)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Canada's software development jobs - <AUTHOR> what website do you use to find software developement jobs in Canada. <comment><USER2> Here are four starter suggestions:

1: MaRS Community Job Board: [https://www.marsdd.com/careers/?type=community_careers](https://www.marsdd.com/careers/?type=community_careers) 2: Betakit Job Board: [https://betakit.com/jobs/](https://betakit.com/jobs/) 3: OneEleven: [https://www.oneeleven.com/careers#s=1](https://www.oneeleven.com/careers#s=1) 4: [https://angel.co/vancouver/jobs](https://angel.co/vancouver/jobs)

Hope this helps.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've used craigslist in Vancouver a lot with good results, both small and large companies.

I'm unsure if other Canadian cities use craigslist as much.

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe [https://app.vanhack.com](https://app.vanhack.com) can help you!

</comment><comment><USER5> linkedin, indeed, stack overflow careers, hacker news who is hiring

</comment><comment><USER6> movnorth.com has some links that can help you get started.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>